John Grisham - 2010 The Confession by John Grisham

Author:John Grisham [Grisham, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Legal, Fiction, General, Thrillers
ISBN: 0385528043
Google: whdtOuA58e0C
Amazon: B0042XA37Q
Publisher: Dell
Published: 2010-10-26T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 22

Donté’s first helicopter ride was intended to be his last. Courtesy of the Texas Department of Public Safety, he was moving through the air at ninety miles per hour, three thousand feet above the rolling hills, and he could see nothing below. He was wedged between two guards, thick young men scowling out the windows as if Operation Detour might have a surface-to-air missile or two in its arsenal. Up front were the two pilots, grim-faced boys thrilled with the excitement of their mission. The rocky, noisy ride made Donté nauseous, so he closed his eyes, leaned his head back against hard plastic, and tried to think of something pleasant. He could not.

He practiced his last statement, mouthing the words, though with the racket in the helicopter he could have barked them out and no one would have noticed. He thought of other inmates—some friends, some enemies, almost all guilty, but a few who claimed innocence—and how they faced their deaths.

The ride lasted twenty minutes, and when the helicopter landed at the old rodeo grounds inside Huntsville prison, a small army awaited the prisoner. Donté, laden with chains and shackles, was practically carried by his guards to a van. Minutes later, the van pulled into an alley lined with chain-link fencing covered by a thick windscreen and topped with glistening razor wire. Donté was escorted from the van, through a gate, along a short sidewalk to a small, flat, redbrick building where Texas does its killing.

Inside, he squinted and tried to focus on his new surroundings. There were eight cells to his right, each emptying onto a short hallway. On a table, there were several Bibles, including one in Spanish. A dozen guards milled about, some chatting about the weather as if the weather were important at that moment. Donté was positioned in front of a camera and photographed. The handcuffs were removed, and a technician informed him they would now fingerprint him.

“Why?” Donté asked.

“Routine,” came the response. He took a finger and rolled it on the ink pad.

“I don’t understand why you need to fingerprint a man before you kill him.”

The technician did not respond.

“I get it,” Donté said. “You wanna make sure you got the right man, right?”

The technician rolled another finger.

“Well, you got the wrong man this time; I can assure you of that.”

When the fingerprinting was over, he was led to the holding cell, one of the eight. The other seven were not used. Donté sat on the edge of the bunk. He noticed how shiny the floors were, how clean the sheets were, how pleasant the temperature. On the other side of the bars, in the hallway, were several prison officials. One stepped to the bars and said, “Donté, I’m Ben Jeter, the warden here at Huntsville.”

Donté nodded but did not stand. He stared at the floor.

“Our chaplain is Tommy Powell. He’s here and he’ll stay here all afternoon.”

Without looking up, Donté said, “Don’t need a chaplain.”

“It’s your call. Now listen to me because I want to tell you how things happen around here.

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