Let the Guilty Pay Read online

  I could never forget those crime scene photos or the conversation with Detective Jimmy Roland, now retired from the Hinterbach Police Department. But memories deteriorate. I’d seen that evidence, conducted that interview—and dozens of others—and written those words nearly two decades ago. I was barely eighteen and had not yet graduated high school.

  I had one more passage to read, from the third-to-last chapter. Most of the book was in the third person, but I slipped into first-person when the narration included my own experiences. In this passage, I described my participation in the trial that put Butch Heller on Death Row. I was eighteen.

  I had never been on a witness stand. I’d never even made a speech at a podium or been questioned in the principal’s office. Though District Attorney Martin Gamble had asked all the questions before, prepping me for the moment, I was so nervous I nearly forgot my full name.

  I’d gone by my last name only, Beck, for several years. Even my parents had dropped my first and middle names. It was a family tradition. I only heard my full name when my mother was scolding me.

  Remembering that led me to the correct “answer” to the DA’s question: Bartholomew John Beck.

  Much of the early questioning established who I was. We concluded that, at the time of Summer’s murder, I was a sixteen-year-old, soon-to-be junior at Hinterbach High School, where she was the librarian. I was also Summer’s neighbor, and our family had known her since before I was born. I also knew Butch Heller, Summer’s off-and-on live-in boyfriend for years, and I was able to identify him sitting at the defendant’s table. They seemed to have been mostly off leading up to the events of July 4, 1999, but I remembered seeing Heller around for a week or so before that night.

  I had been prepared to give the next answer, but I still took a few deep breaths after being asked, “What do you remember about the night of July 4, during the town’s fireworks celebration?”

  I looked up from the page, my adrenaline making it hard to focus. But I had a feeling someone would question me about Summer’s murder soon. I needed to make sure the memories were fresh.

  “I wasn’t in the mood to celebrate,” I said. “My parents had gone to a twelve-pack party across the street. I’d stayed behind at our house, but I eventually decided I needed to stop being such a shut-in. I wanted to enjoy the fireworks, and maybe go over to Miss Foster’s house to hang out with my friends. They were going to come back after the show to sneak beer. I was watching the fireworks from our front lawn when I saw Mr. Heller drive up. He drove up on Miss Foster’s front lawn and almost hit her fence. Then I noticed Miss Foster smoking a cigarette in the side yard, next to her tool shed. I watched Mr. Heller walk up to her, though it took a while because he was swaying a lot. I could hear Mr. Heller yelling between fireworks going off.

  “I had seen this sort of thing a few times, and I never got in the middle of it. But then I saw Mr. Heller grab her and throw her to the ground. That was new to me, though I’d heard my parents talk about how Mr. Heller would sometimes ‘get physical’ with Miss Foster. I guess I decided that I should go help her. I started walking over and lost them behind the cars parked by her house. When I got past the cars, I saw that he had her by one of her ankles and had dragged her half into the tool shed. I kind of freaked out and froze. I’m not proud of that. Then I saw her leg drop like he’d let it go, but then he came out of the shed and swung down on her with something, like a hammer or a hatchet. It looked like he’d hit her in the head, but she was able to crawl. Mr. Heller stood over her and hit her in the head again a couple more times before she stopped moving.

  “I stayed still, and I guess he couldn’t see me. He went back into the tool shed, and I heard noises like he was throwing stuff around and screaming. Then I saw him come out and kneel beside her. I think he was crying, but I can’t be sure. The fireworks got real loud at the end. I’d finally worked up the courage to walk over when I saw Mr. Heller raise both hands and stab Miss Foster. He stood back up kind of wobbly, then took off running.

  “Once he was gone, I went over to Miss Foster to try and help her. But it was too late. She wasn’t moving, and there was a long screwdriver sticking out of her right eye. I ran inside her house and found a phone to call 911.”

  Before my testimony, the medical examiner said Summer died almost immediately after the sledgehammer’s final impact with her temple, so she probably didn’t feel the screwdriver penetrate her cornea. That made me feel better.

  As I closed the cover, I hoped the same was true of Jillian.

  4

  Site Two was closer to Jorge’s house, so the next morning’s ride should’ve been shorter. But even the quickest route was far from direct, and more than half of it was along a winding trail through hilly ranchland. The gate separating that path from the nearest county road was secured using a rotating contraption with eight padlocks. We’d missed our 6:30 to 6:45 a.m. window, when one of the bosses was posted at the gate to let workers onto the private property.

  Part of me would’ve been fine with missing some work. I hadn’t held regular work hours in years, and the last few months had not converted me into a morning person. But we didn’t want to face the humiliation of showing up late. “So, what do we do?”

  “Relax, bro. It’s not a big deal. Get out so you can hold the gate.” Jorge jumped down and shuffled in his flip flops. I trailed behind but couldn’t see what he did to open the gate, though it looked like he was working a novelty-size combination lock.

  Jorge clapped at me like a football coach trying to encourage his team. “Come on. I’m going to have to haul ass to get there on time.”

  Jorge barely slowed down enough for me to close the gate and jump into the passenger seat. He revved the supercharged engine so hard it sounded like a jet as we climbed over the first of two hills, leaving a sandstorm in our wake. Jorge liked to take advantage of the crisp morning air by driving with his windows down in the morning, but I rolled mine back up when the dust made me cough.

  I tried to grab a few more minutes of shut eye, but as we raced down the hill the truck rocked so hard the side of my head smacked the window. Jorge laughed when I started cursing.

  We crested the second slope about three minutes later. More than twenty trucks were parked in the middle of the patchy pastureland. There were also two large track hoes, black King Kong arms with their fists resting on the ground, flanked on each side by piles of painted pipe fittings—red ones bent ninety degrees while green ones had a forty-five-degree tilt—and similarly colored valves resting on pallets.

  The vehicles were facing a gathering crowd of welders, helpers, labor hands, inspectors, straw bosses, bosses, and supervisors. We stopped near the back of the impromptu parking lot and began walking. Even several rows from the epicenter, we could hear the murmur from dozens of conversations in English and Spanish. The chatter died down as we approached the huddle and Redbeard started speaking.

  “Listen up. By now, I’m sure y’all know that a helper was found dead at Site One yesterday. We don’t know what happened yet, but the police have told us we’re no longer allowed there because it’s a crime scene. So, for now, everyone’s going to report here in the morning.”

  He turned and motioned toward the new yard.

  “The police let us bring all the pipe and fittings we need here. We’ll spend most of the morning getting it all organized. Some of y’all might have to go talk to the cops. I have no idea if or when that’ll happen. But we will do everything we can to help them, understand?”

  The demand was met with a collective nod. Redbeard started sending groups off with new instructions until it was just the welders and helpers left, except for Zak. Jorge and I hurriedly found the clipboard and signed our names.

  “Zak’s not here today,” Redbeard said. “He went straight to Site One to talk with the police. I don’t know if he’ll be back today, so you’re all getting ten hours of ass time while we get things situated.”

  The news was met with a collectiv
e groan, and we meandered as slowly as possible to our respective trucks.

  “I hate days like this,” Jorge said. “They go by so slow.”

  I was thankful I would get to sleep through the morning. I tossed my phone onto the center console, climbed into the cab, and leaned the seat back in preparation for a long nap.

  “Hey asshole, don’t go to sleep. Stay up and keep me company. What movie do you want to watch?” Jorge had unlimited data that was connected to his satellite TV service. Many welders had the same setup specifically for this situation.

  I kept my eyes closed but knew I had to answer. Otherwise, he’d keep screwing with me and keep me awake anyway. “What’re our choices?”

  Jorge rattled off titles as I drifted to sleep. He had what seemed like a hundred movie channels to get through, and I’d already picked one. Sleep had nearly taken hold when I heard Jorge answer a phone.

  “Hello, Beck’s phone.”

  My eyes shot open. I reached toward Jorge, but he pulled away. “Yes, he’s right here. Hold on a second.”

  “Dude, what are you doing?”

  Jorge covered up the bottom half of the cellphone. “It’s a girl. Who’s Veronica Stein? She sounds sexy.”

  I motioned for him to hand me the phone, which he did while nodding and mouthing, Hell yeah.

  “Veronica, hi. It’s Beck.”

  “Did you get a new job or something? I thought I called your cell.”

  “You did. That was… don’t worry about it.” I shot a look at Jorge. He was pulling up the movie and didn’t look at me, but he smiled.

  “I read your story when it was published in July. I liked it,” I said. “Was there something else you needed?”

  Veronica was a reporter for the Lone Star Ledger, a nonprofit journalism website based in Austin. She was young, but a hell of a writer. Just before going to work with Jorge, I was her source for a story about the twentieth anniversary of Summer Foster’s murder.

  “I’m working on another article,” Veronica said. “Last time we spoke, we talked about Butch Heller’s execution date.”

  “I remember.”

  “My editors have asked me for a deeper investigation into the case. It has to run in a week at the latest. I’ve already done most of the interviews, but I’d like to get your voice in there, for obvious reasons.”

  I opened my mouth but stopped short of agreeing to another interview. The rights to Cold Summer had reverted to me long ago, and I’d self-published a second edition. I stood to get a much larger cut of any spike in sales, like the one right after her article ran in July.

  The same was bound to happen with any new stories about the case. People still remembered the murder. And more recently, Butch Heller had been in the national news for being the next to die on Texas’ Death Row. As the presidential election loomed, liberals had decided to make the death penalty a major social issue. The state, as might be expected, was vigorously defending its policy, and national news outlets were feeding on the debate.

  But I suspected Veronica had a different hunger. She’d be trying to prove Heller was innocent, hoping her work would lead to a stay from the governor. A story casting doubt on Heller’s guilt would go viral, and she might get her own book deal, then a documentary if her story was successful. Everyone covering crime these days wanted their own Netflix or HBO docuseries.

  “Mr. Beck?”

  Veronica was trying to prove I was a liar. I had to stall. “You caught me at a bad time. Can I call you back later today? Tomorrow at the latest, I promise.”

  “No problem at all. If you could make it today, even if it’s late, that would be best.”

  Jorge barely let me end the call before bombarding me with questions. Who was she? Was she hot? Had I slept with her? Did she have any hot friends? Why didn’t I keep talking to her? Was she hot?

  I deflected and told him to start the movie from the beginning. He let my conversation with Veronica go undiscussed for the moment, but we both knew he’d interrogate me later.

  As we sat watching an aging rock star and a future pop icon fall in love, I weighed the pros and cons of calling Veronica back.

  We pulled up to Jorge’s house at 5:25 p.m. after spending all ten hours at Site Two and grabbing a twelve-pack—and two cheladas—from a convenience store on the way. I followed Jorge into his cozy home. He needed every square inch, especially with me on his sofa. Jorge and his wife had three girls, all under five years old and as hyperactive as he still was. Each girl had her own dog, and the family shared a cat and a potbelly pig named Hambone. I called him Hammy, which always caused a playful argument with Jorge’s middle daughter.

  Hammy was relegated to an addition Jorge was building in the back of the three-bedroom, two-bathroom house. Some part of the house had been under construction for more than two years, but he swore this addition would be the last. We both knew he was lying.

  I flopped down on my side of the leather sectional while he took up his post on the matching loveseat. He cracked open one of his cheladas and handed me a beer as all three daughters dogpiled him.

  I took the beer out of courtesy, but I was already staring at my phone. I’d pulled up the story Veronica had written a couple months ago. It was published on the third of July, one day shy of twenty years. I needed to read the story again, to get a feel for the type of reporter Veronica was, before calling her back.

  Even on the mobile version of the Ledger’s website, the design was slick. The headline—Murder on the Fourth of July: Summer Foster, Butch Heller and the death that turned Hinterbach into a cultural lightning rod—was superimposed on the same AP photo that adorned my cover.

  That photo remained the background as I scrolled to read the opening paragraph.

  Hinterbach was still a quiet town during the first week of July 1999. City Hall had no sanctioned fireworks show planned for Independence Day, but the volunteer fire department and city council had a long tradition of teaming up to produce a short program just after dusk. Like every other year, it would take place near the banks of the large creek that runs through town. Those who hadn’t traveled to Kerrville for its larger show often gathered outside to watch during their private celebrations. Summer Foster, the town’s beloved high school librarian, was doing just that on July Fourth. But as the rockets’ red glare streaked across the Hill Country sky, Foster was brutally killed by her live-in boyfriend outside their trailer near the heart of Hinterbach. The murder landed Butch Heller on Death Row and thrust the sleepy municipality into the national spotlight, sparking changes to both that are still felt two decades later.

  I was jealous. Though she had more hindsight, and an education from The University of Texas, I liked Veronica’s introduction better than mine. I still think I had the better title, even if it was derivative.

  The rest of her first section laid out the events of that night as given by police, prosecutors, and me. They were essentially the same as in Cold Summer. Some of the paragraphs were lifted from my book, properly credited and used with my permission. I also provided a couple of fresh quotes, though they were purposefully dull.

  Scrolling down to the second section revealed a new background: the most recent AP mugshot of Butch Heller, supersized and given a black-and-white filter, with the subhead ‘It wasn’t me’ superimposed below his doughy, mustachioed face.

  Heller admitted to being nearly blackout drunk that night, breaking a brief brush with sobriety, but said he drove up to Summer’s trailer and found her already dead. He said he stumbled to a neighbor’s house and incoherently asked to call the police. It was a version of events he’d been repeating for twenty years. But with me—a solid eyewitness—and the physical evidence he left at the scene, it never held much weight.

  Next, Heller’s defense attorney laid out a plausible alternative suspect. The lawyer, boisterous Austin attorney “Action” Jackson McGrady, was much more convincing. He provided “evidence” that Summer’s ex-boyfriend, Franklin Jones, had been the jealous man who
bashed in her skull and left a screwdriver in her eye. First, McGrady pointed out that Summer had taken out a restraining order against Jones two years prior. It expired the day of her murder. A photo of the court document was embedded next to that paragraph. McGrady then claimed to have dug up a purchase order from a body shop in Kerrville, where Jones had been living, showing the prominent banker had taken his new BMW coupe there for fender work and new upholstery. The order was expedited for a hefty fee, according to another document that was also embedded next to the text. I used my index finger and thumb to zoom in on the image. The name of the body shop didn’t sound familiar.

  McGrady argued that Jones had lost control of his Beamer as he sped away after killing Summer, then got the interior redone to get rid of physical evidence. Finally, Action Jackson pointed out that Heller is right-handed, while Jones is left-handed. Summer’s fatal injuries were to the right side of her head and face, indicating the killer was a southpaw.

  None of it could be used in court, but it was compelling circumstantial evidence. Veronica followed McGrady’s comments with a line stating neither Jones nor any member of local, county, or state law enforcement commented when she asked whether Jones was ever a suspect. The FBI offered a one-liner saying all evidence gathered during the investigation had been turned over to the district attorney’s office, which would have to provide any further information.