by Rick Treon
Heller began crying so hard he couldn’t hear or see anything. But now that he’d had his conversation with Summer and could feel the accompanying catharsis, Heller remembered he was holding the hand of a woman who hadn’t died of natural causes. He would go to jail and never get out if anyone saw him like this.
Heller jumped to his feet and thought he might pass out, but he weaved toward the gate and made it to the street.
He wasn’t sure what made him come to, but Heller could hear a woman’s frantic voice. He couldn’t make out words yet, but her face told him enough.
“I need to call the police,” Heller said. He repeated the phrase two more times before his head was clear.
“You stay right here,” she said. “Don’t you dare move.”
“What’s going on? Why won’t you let me call the police? I need to call the police.”
“Oh, the police are on their way. They’ll be here in one minute, so don’t you dare move.”
Heller tried standing, but he was met with resistance. He looked at the hand that was pushing down on his left shoulder, then followed the arm up to Jeremiah Schmidt.
“I didn’t… I didn’t…” the rest of his denial was stuck in his throat. Would it matter if he could eventually spit it out? Would anyone believe him? The answers were no and no. He was guilty.
Heller slumped back against the door, unwilling to fight. He heard the sirens approaching and closed his eyes, hoping they would let him sleep it off on a cot in a cell instead of the drunk tank.
53
Fucking housekeeping. I shook from adrenaline for ten minutes after I heard that knock, though I appreciated the fresh towels and toiletries she’d brought for me.
After walking to a convenience store to pick up some junk food to ease the stress, then trying and failing to distract myself with hotel cable, I decided to surf the internet for hours on end.
Then the hour finally came. I hit the refresh button again and got nothing. Veronica had responded to my email with her Associated Press login so I could see her story as soon as it hit the wire. I’d logged onto newsroom.ap.org at 9:05 and searched for Butch Heller with the filter set for Newest First. I found a rewrite of her Ledger preview story, but not her execution story.
9:20. I refreshed again.
They obviously hadn’t used the headline Veronica suggested. The summary indicated she’d followed the AP rules and written an inverted pyramid. I’d gotten used to her flowery writing, and this wasn’t it. She was probably glad they didn’t give her a byline.
.
* * *
Texas Executes Man convicted in Fourth of July slaying
AP--US--Texas Execution,1st Ld-Writethru
Sept. 13, 2019, 9:18 PM (GMT 02:18) – 583 words
Associated Press
HUNTSVILLE, Texas (AP) — A 63-year-old Texas inmate was executed Thursday evening for the Fourth of July murder of a high school librarian two decades ago.
Butch Heller received a lethal injection for the fatal beating of Summer Foster on July 4, 1999, outside of her home in Hinterbach, a small Central Texas town. Foster, the Hinterbach High School librarian, had been Heller’s live-in girlfriend for at least two years before the slaying that attracted national attention and sparked the bestselling true crime novel, Cold Summer.
In a report filed earlier Thursday by the Lone Star Ledger, an online nonprofit news organization based in Austin, Heller said he wouldn’t be giving any last words prior to his execution. True to his word, Heller shook his head when asked if he’d like to speak, then closed his eyes for the last time.
Bartholomew John Beck, the author of Cold Summer who witnessed the murder when he was 16 and testified in Heller’s trial, said Thursday afternoon he hoped the Hinterbach community could find closure in Heller’s execution.
“Butch Heller caused a lot of pain for a lot of people, including me,” Beck said. “What he did may never be forgiven by those who were close to Summer Foster, but perhaps knowing he was punished to the fullest extent of the law will help bring them some measure of peace.”
Heller’s defense attorney, Jackson McGrady of Austin, was not present at the execution and declined comment earlier Thursday. In past interviews, Jackson has said he didn’t feel authorities properly investigated other suspects.
Heller had been slated for execution once before but received a stay from the United States Supreme Court less than an hour before he was to receive a lethal injection.
* * *
Veronica’s story went on to include some backstory, though I suspected the editors chopped up her prose.
Evaluating this story and being upset at the AP editors had my adrenaline pumping. I hadn’t cared this much about writing in a long time. Was it because another writer had finally shown interest in working with me? Was it because I cared about that person? What did Heller’s execution, and the official end of the Heller case, have to do with how I felt?
I picked up my phone and started a text to Veronica.
Read your AP story. Hack editors, but you did a great job. Thought about what you said earlier. I think
A text from Jorge came in. I stopped typing to read his message.
Hey man, gonna get my truck back on Monday. There’s a test in OKC on Wednesday for a job. $18/hr and $125 per diem, all seven days. You in?
Epilogue
Franklin Jones
September, two years later
Jones hated how loudly Darren slammed the front door. Every day. It was simple carelessness and constantly jolted Jones out of his memories.
“Got everything on your list,” Darren said. “I’ll put it all on the island in the kitchen.”
“What about the book?” Jones asked.
“I said I got everything, didn’t I?”
Jones didn’t like being talked back to. But Darren knew too much to fire, and Jones couldn’t hire Darren to kill himself. “Bring it to me. I need to see it.”
Jones was in his study, where he spent most evenings either reading or ruminating on the past. He hadn’t left his property in more than twenty-one years, so Jones knew how to keep himself stimulated without losing his sanity.
Being a hermit was more habit than necessity at this point. The statute of limitations for any of his financial crimes had expired more than a decade ago. While there is no such limit for prosecuting murder cases—not that he’d ever committed such an evil act—Jones knew he remained a suspect in Summer’s death. But even that had become a moot point two years ago with Butch Heller’s execution. He’d confessed in the days leading up to the state-sanctioned murder, a practice that had been stopped by the Legislature less than a year later.
Jones was free to leave if he wanted. But to what end? After Summer’s death, there was simply no reason. Darren was there at least once a day, and Patty visited once a week to make a special meal. She also gave Jones a haircut once a month. He used to have Darren bring girls on the weekends, but that had all but stopped the last few years.
Jones might want one in a few hours, though, depending on how stimulating the book was.
Darren slapped the hardcover on Jones’ desk. “The Ultimate Alibi,” Darren said. “What’s it about?”
“My past—and our future.”
Darren didn’t react to Jones’ cryptic response. Jones paid him handsomely to do his bidding and keep his mouth shut, so Darren had stopped asking questions decades ago.
Before opening the book, Jones turned it over and read about its authors on the back of the dust jacket.
He started with the girl. He’d already seen her photo in the e-book, but Jones still got a thrill from holding her portrait in print. Though she’d changed her name, Jones had recognized her almost instantly as the young woman who’d shown up at his house more than a dozen years ago, the hooker who asked questions about the night Summer died. She probably didn’t remember the encounter, but Jones also remembered her as the little girl standing beside Ethel McDonough in her house at the end of Cou
nty Road K.
Veronica Stein is a longtime investigative journalist who went undercover with an oil pipeline crew to cover the brutal murder of a young woman. The Ultimate Alibi is the true story of that murder, Stein’s own brush with death at the hands of the violent son of a U.S. congressman, and how those events connect to an infamous murder more than two decades earlier.
Next up was the boy who ruined Jones’ life.
John Beck has been an author since the age of 18. After writing the true-crime bestseller Cold Summer, documenting the 1999 murder of Summer Foster in the small Central Texas town of Hinterbach, Beck wrote four true crime books before co-writing The Ultimate Alibi with investigative journalist Veronica Stein. His first mystery novel is set for release this spring.
Jones had searched for his name in the electronic version earlier that day. Since he was free from any prosecution and no longer a suspect in Summer’s murder, he’d provided a statement for the book—through a lawyer, of course.
“I had absolutely nothing to do with the tragic death of Summer Foster. I loved her, from our days on the track team at Hinterbach High School to the day she died. She was an angel on earth long before she was taken to heaven. My only regret in life is that I was not there that night to protect her, to take her away from that place and out of the path of the monster who took her life.”
The rest of the book was likely a terrific blend of fact and fiction, a real page-turner. It had just debuted at number one on the New York Times, USA Today and Amazon Washington Post bestseller lists for hardcover nonfiction.
The lives of Beck and Stein were a whirlwind right now. They were busy with media interviews and book events. And both were soon-to-be millionaires with literary reputations to protect.
He summoned Darren. “Leave word for Congressman Schuhmacher. We have something urgent to discuss.”
Jones smiled. The time was finally right to get even with Bartholomew Fucking Beck.
Acknowledgments
You wouldn’t be reading this novel without the amazing folks at Fawkes Press. Publisher Jodi Thompson understood my vision from the beginning and was more enthusiastic after a second read. Her support for this story and these characters—and for me as an author—has been outstanding.
Fawkes Press Editor TwylaBeth Lambert grew up in the Texas Panhandle and was intimately familiar with the setting. I couldn’t have asked for this story to be in better hands. Leaving a project with anyone else can be inherently scary, but I was never anything other than excited to know she would be making this story its best. And did she ever.
Add in the rest of the team at Fawkes Press, and the insanely talented Fresh Design, and I couldn’t be more ecstatic with this work.
You also wouldn’t be reading this novel if I hadn’t gotten an incredible amount of support from a community of oil pipeliners. The ideas for Summer Foster, her murder in 1999, and Butch Heller’s incarceration on Death Row came to me early in the summer of 2018—before the final edits were done on my first novel. But Bartholomew Beck and the oil pipeline setting was a different matter altogether. My original main character was boring with a boring job in a boring place until my best friend Jesús (who I consider my brother) talked me into joining him on a job in Oklahoma for inspiration.
We met with Jaime on our way to a test in Oklahoma City. And from the moment Jesús and Jaime struck their arcs, I realized I’d found a setting and culture infinitely more interesting than what I’d been struggling to write. Beck and Veronica came to life quickly after that.
There are dozens of welders, helpers, labor hands, and operators peppering the pipelines of Texas, Oklahoma, and the rest of the country who I will forever call my friends. I could try and name them all, but I’d be forgetting many.
I will single out Jaime (Jesús’ brother-in-law for the entirety of my time researching out on the pipeline) and Edgar (Jaime’s helper), who were particularly helpful, in terms of doing the job and answering my questions and providing inspiration.
After learning as much as I could in the field, I had to begrudgingly call my research complete and start writing the novel. When the first draft was finished, I relied on some fantastic beta readers and critique partners.
My first beta reader is always my mother, Julie. Though she’s legally obligated to tell me my novels are good, I trust her to tell me what works and what doesn’t. She’s read and forgotten more novels than I will ever get around to thumbing through, so she’s a walking library. My sister, Nikki Martindale, and my good friend Amber Guffey are two other beta readers I will trust with everything I write.
For this novel, I also sought out the expertise of Crystal Phares, a member of the Texas High Plains Writers. She provided detailed notes on the first draft and really helped me decide what to expand upon, what to keep, and what to cut. I also had the pleasure of working long-distance with Farhaanah Fawmie, a critique partner I found in Sri Lanka. She was instrumental in showing me places where my plot needed tightening.
The most substantial changes in this story came after a critique session with Tex Thompson, M.D. (Manuscript Doctor). Her notes on the story’s structure and characters—including one big ah-ha moment—are what took this story from a strong work-in-progress to a story worthy of a top-quality publisher.
I also owe a ton of gratitude to everyone involved in the production of Lore. To say their podcast and television show was inspirational to this thriller writer would be an understatement of epic proportion. My fiction can never be as creepy as the truth behind the Hinterkaifeck episodes, but without listening and watching them, Hinterbach and its history would never have made it onto the page.
Book club discussion guide
Let the Guilty Pay
Rick Treon
This book club discussion guide for Let The Guilty Pay includes discussion questions and other ideas for getting the most out of your reading group’s experience with the novel. The questions are aimed at helping your book club approach the text from fresh angles, and we hope they enhance your experience discussing the story.
When he was sixteen, Bartholomew Beck’s thirtysomething neighbor, Summer Foster, was brutally murdered in a small Texas town. He told police he saw the murder, testified for the prosecution, and later wrote a bestseller on the case. He tried to turn that book into a true-crime writing career. But twenty years after the murder, his career has stalled and he’s making ends meet on a Texas Panhandle oil pipeline.
Beck is adjusting to his new life when he finds the body of an enigmatic female coworker stuffed in a pipe—and staged to look like Summer Foster. That, plus a public falling out with the victim, puts Beck at the top of the Texas Rangers’ list of suspects.
Meanwhile, Austin-based journalist Veronica Stein is working on an exposé aimed at exonerating Butch Heller, the man Beck helped put on Death Row for Summer’s murder. That’s a problem for the man whose name has become synonymous with Heller’s guilt for two decades.
In exchange for dropping her investigation, Beck gets Veronica a job on the pipeline so she can write an undercover piece about Jillian’s murder and help prove his innocence. But as facts are revealed about both murders, Beck learns the power of truth and the price of redemption.
Questions and discussion topics
What does the first chapter tell you about Bartholomew Beck? How did his encounters with Jillian and the deer shape your initial impressions about him? How did those impressions change throughout the novel?
How would you describe Beck’s relationship with Jorge? He calls his boss/host his best friend, but how do you think Beck’s solitary writing life has impacted the development of their friendship since they were in college?
How about Beck’s relationship with reporter Veronica Stein? How did you react to Beck’s attempts at manipulating her to his advantage? How did you feel when you learned their dynamic was not as simple as it appeared?
What are your thoughts about the structure of the novel? Did you enjoy getting to see the day o
f Summer Foster’s murder unfold? Did the characters’ points of view and the excerpts from Beck’s true-crime book, Cold Summer, enhance Hinterbach as a setting?
Look back at how Hinterbach was portrayed by Beck in Cold Summer, in particular comments by the local men of faith. What does Beck’s description of the town and the possible “role” of its residents in Summer Foster’s death say about Beck’s interpretation of the events surrounding the murder? In light of what you learn toward the end of the novel, do you think that was done on purpose, or did Beck include those passages subconsciously?
Discuss how the facts portrayed in the excerpts of Cold Summer were sometimes at odds with how the characters behaved and some corresponding scenes played out in reality. Did that disconnect provide any hints to Beck’s and Veronica’s deceit in the present timeline?
Throughout the novel, Summer is a victim of a series of sexist, violent men. What are your thoughts on her reactions to those attacks? Do these attacks add to the tragedy of her story?
Summer’s alleged killer, Butch Heller, is seen by most as an alcoholic and petty criminal. He is those things, but did being in Heller’s head add any complexity to his character? Did you sympathize with him by the end of the novel?
What was your reaction to Summer’s abusive ex-boyfriend, Franklin Jones, as a suspect when he was discussed in Veronica’s news story early in the novel? How did that change once you got inside his head?
Did you enjoy learning about how things operate on Texas oil pipelines through the narrative? Could you have done with less of that knowledge? Did you want to know more? How about the overall pipeline culture (trash talking, drinking, level of knowledge required to do the job, etc.)?