Nicole was a B student who seemed to frustrate her teachers with a noted lack of motivation. She should have been an A student, according to several summaries. She was well liked, popular, very social, with no record of bad behavior or trouble with the law. She was an active member of the First Baptist Church of Slone. She enjoyed yoga, water-skiing, and country music. She applied to two colleges: Baylor in Waco and Trinity in San Antonio, Texas.
After the divorce, her father, Cliff Yarber, left Slone and moved to Dallas, where he made a fortune in strip malls. As an absentee father, he apparently tried to compensate through expensive gifts. For her sixteenth birthday, Nicole received a bright red convertible BMW Roadster, undoubtedly the nicest car in the parking lot at Slone High. The gifts were a source of friction between the divorced parents. The stepfather, Wallis Pike, ran a feed store and did well financially, but he couldn't compete with Cliff Yarber.
In the year or so before her disappearance, Nicole dated a classmate by the name of Joey Gamble, one of the more popular boys in school. Indeed, in the tenth and eleventh grades, Nicole and Joey were voted most popular and posed together for the school yearbook. Joey was one of three captains of the football team. He later played briefly at a junior college. He would become a key witness at the trial of Donte Drumm.
Since her disappearance, and since the subsequent trial, there has been much speculation about the relationship between Nicole Yarber and Donte Drumm. Nothing definite has been learned or confirmed. Donte has always maintained that the two were nothing more than casual acquaintances, just two kids who'd grown up in the same town and were members of a graduating class of over five hundred. He denied at trial, under oath, and he has denied ever since, that he had a sexual relationship with Nicole. Her friends have always believed this too. Skeptics, however, point out that Donte would be foolish to admit an intimate relationship with a woman he was accused of murdering. Several of his friends allegedly said that the two had just begun an affair when she disappeared. Much speculation centers upon the actions of Joey Gamble. Gamble testified at trial that he saw a green Ford van moving slowly and 'suspiciously' through the parking lot where Nicole's BMW was parked at the time she disappeared. Donte Drumm often drove such a van, one owned by his parents. Gamble's testimony was attacked at trial and should have been discredited. The theory is that Gamble knew of Nicole's affair with Donte, and as the odd man out he became so enraged that he helped the police frame their story against Donte Drumm.
Three years after the trial, a voice analysis expert hired by defense lawyers determined that the anonymous man who called Detective Kerber with the tip that Donte was the killer was, in fact, Joey Gamble. Gamble vehemently denies this. If it is true, then Gamble played a significant role in the arrest, prosecution, and conviction of Donte Drumm.
A voice jolted him from another world. 'Keith, it's Dr. Herzlich,' Dana said through the phone's intercom.
Keith said, 'Thanks,' and paused for a moment to clear his mind. Then he picked up the phone. He began with the usual pleasantries, but knowing the doctor was a busy man, he quickly got down to business. 'Look, Dr. Herzlich, I need a little favor, and if it's too sticky, just say so. We had a guest during the worship service yesterday, a convict in the process of being paroled, spending a few months at a halfway house, and he's really a troubled soul. He stopped by this morning, just left actually, and he claims to have some rather severe medical problems. He's been seen at St. Francis.'
'What's the favor, Keith?' Dr. Herzlich asked, as if he were staring at his wristwatch.
'If you're in a rush, we can talk later.'
'No, go ahead.'
'Anyway, he claims to have been diagnosed with a brain tumor, a bad one, glioblastoma. Says it's fatal, says he'll be dead soon. I'm wondering how much of this you can verify. I'm not asking for confidential info, you understand? I know he's not your patient, and I don't want anyone to violate procedures here. That's not what I'm asking. You know me better than that.'
'Why do you doubt him? Why would anyone claim to have a brain tumor when he really doesn't?'
'He's a career criminal, Doctor. A lifetime behind bars and all that, probably not sure where the truth is. And I'm not saying I doubt him. He had two episodes of severe headaches in my office, and they were painful to watch. I'd just like to confirm what he's already said. That's all.'
A pause, as if the doctor were looking around for eavesdroppers. 'I can't pry too deep, Keith. Any idea who the doc is here?'
'No.'
'All right. Give me a name.'
'Travis Boyette.'
'Got it. Give me a couple of hours.'
'Thanks, Doctor.'
Keith hung up quickly and returned to Texas. He continued with the factual summary:
Nicole disappeared on Friday night, December 4, 1998. She had spent the evening with girlfriends at a cinema in the only mall in Slone. After the movie, the girls-four of them-ate pizza at a restaurant that was also in the mall. Entering the restaurant, the girls chatted briefly with two boys, one of whom was Joey Gamble. Over pizza, the girls decided to meet at the home of Ashley Verica to watch late-night television. As the four girls left the restaurant, Nicole excused herself to use the ladies' room. Her three friends never saw her again. She called her mother and promised to be home by midnight, her curfew. Then she vanished. An hour later, her friends were concerned and were making calls. Two hours later, her red BMW was found where she'd left it in a parking lot at the mall. It was locked. There was no sign of a struggle, no sign of anything wrong, no sign of Nicole. Her family and friends panicked, and the search began.
The police immediately suspected foul play and organized a massive effort to find Nicole. Thousands volunteered, and through the days and weeks that followed, the city and county were scoured as never before. Nothing was found. Surveillance cameras at the mall were too far away, out of focus, and of no benefit. No one reported seeing Nicole leave the mall and walk to her car. Cliff Yarber offered a reward of $100,000 for information, and when this sum proved ineffective, he raised it to $250,000.
The first break in the case came on December 16, twelve days after her disappearance. Two brothers were fishing on a sandbar in the Red River near a landing known as Rush Point, when one of them stepped on a piece of plastic. It was Nicole's gym membership card. They poked through the mud and sand and found another card-her student ID issued by Slone High. One of the brothers recognized the name, and they immediately drove to the police station in Slone.
Rush Point is thirty-eight miles due north of the city limits.
The police investigators, led by Detective Drew Kerber, made the decision to sit on the news about the gym membership and ID cards. They reasoned that the better strategy was to find the body first. They conducted an exhaustive, though futile, search of the river for miles east and west of Rush Point. The state police assisted with teams of divers. Nothing else was found. Authorities as far away as a hundred miles downriver were notified and asked to be on the alert.
While the search of the river was under way, Detective Kerber received an anonymous tip implicating Donte Drumm. He wasted little time. Two days later, he and his partner, Detective Jim Morrissey, approached Donte as he was leaving a health club. Several hours later, two other detectives approached a young man named Torrey Pickett, a close friend of Donte's. Pickett agreed to go to the police station and answer a few questions. He knew nothing about the disappearance of Nicole and was not concerned, though he was nervous about going to the police station.
'Keith, it's the auditor. Line two,' Dana announced through the intercom. Keith glanced at his watch-10:50 a.m.-and shook his head. The last voice he wanted to hear at the moment was that of the church's auditor.
'Is the printer full of paper?' he asked.
'I don't know,' she fired back. 'I'll check.'
'Please load it up.'
'Yes, sir.'
Keith reluctantly hit line two and began a dull but not extended discussion of the church's finances through October 31. As he listened to the numbers, he pecked away at his keyboard. He printed the ten-page factual summary, thirty pages of news articles and editorials, a summary of the death penalty as practiced in Texas, Donte's account of life on death row, and when informed that the printer was out of paper, he clicked on Donte's Photo Gallery and looked at the faces. Donte as a child with parents, two older brothers, one younger sister; Donte
