Dody began to sob more. “I had to take him somewhere someone would find him. I had to-for his mama. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

“Why did you dump Addie by the river, Dody?”

“I didn’t want her to be with him. I didn’t want them to be alone together.”

“So, you reburied Brian somewhere he could be found?”

Dody nodded, but was sobbing heavily now. Sweat was pouring down his face and running into his eyes and mixing with his tears. I was growing more nervous by the second about that shotgun.

“What about the others? You didn’t want anyone to find Doug Hughes, but you wanted her found?”

Dody shook his head, and through his sobs he said, “I didn’t think anyone would ever find her. I thought the river would get her. I didn’t want to leave her out in the open, but I thought the water would come up and take her.”

“The women who found Doug, they weren’t part of your plan either, were they, Dody?”

“They weren’t supposed to be on private property! What were they doing there anyway? Snooping around-trespassers, that’s what they were! I wanted his bones to rot in the ground till the end of time!” He had become more agitated again and he began to shake more now.

There was moisture all over my face and neck. It was humid there in the warm afternoon air surrounded by all those trees and with no breeze. I looked over at Drew. The man was as dry as a bone. His arms hung loosely by his sides and his hands were open and relaxed. I expected to see his right hand near his service weapon. In my peripheral vision I saw my son begin a slow move toward the weapon inside his jacket. Drew’s arm came up slightly with his palm toward Mike, indicating that he should stop. It was a slow, controlled move. Drew was all about self-control. Mike lowered his hand.

“Dody, it’s all done now. The only way you can make things right with yourself and God is to confess what you’ve done. It’s your only hope.”

Drew Smith was making a sincere plea. He believed what he was saying. He wanted to close the case, but he was also concerned that Dody would condemn himself beyond all hope-the kind of loss of hope that lasts beyond this side of life. He always saw in his work both sides of the tragedy. In Drew’s mind there were always at least two victims in a homicide-the murdered and the murderer. I understood this view and shared it. I saw the deviation of the murderer as an evil that had taken root and then spread to include other innocents as well. Drew once told me he always thought of how each killer had been an innocent child once and somehow it had all gone wrong. It was a fact that disturbed him, but also drove him in the way he did his work.

Dody trembled all over and shook his head vehemently. “No,” he sobbed. “No, I ain’t confessin’ nothin’. I did what I had to do.”

Drew’s calm voice continued, “Dody, no matter what your wife and Doug Hughes did to you, they did not deserve to die. And the young man, Dody, you shot Brian Ferguson to cover up your deeds. He didn’t do anything except appear at the wrong place at the wrong time. That wasn’t ‘what you had to do.’”

Dody was sobbing so hard now that the barrel of the gun lowered just slightly.

Great, I thought. If it goes off, he’ll just get my kneecaps now.

“You took the young man from his mama, Dody. Her only child and you took him. His daddy’s dead and now his mother has cancer. She’s buried her child next to his daddy and soon she’ll join them both. You took everything they had. You have to come clean, Dody-no excuses. No excuses.” Drew was calm, steadfast, his voice almost sympathetic in its litany of guilt.

Dody’s sobbing became hysterical now and he dropped to his knees. The shotgun clattered onto the porch in front of him. He put his hands up over his face and all I could see was the heaving of his chest. Then the wail of his grief and guilt came forth. Birds fluttered frantically from the surrounding trees at the sound of the calamity. Drew was calmly walking up to the porch. He claimed the shotgun as Dody continued to cry aloud. Drew laid the gun off to one side and gently took one of Dody’s arms and cuffed it. As Dody continued crying, Drew carefully helped him to his feet, and as he did so, he clasped Dody’s other arm, cuffing both arms behind him.

In a gentle but firm voice, Drew began, “Dody Waldrep, you’re under arrest for the murders of Adelaide Waldrep, Doug Hughes and Brian Ferguson. You have the right to remain silent. Can you hear me, Dody?”

Dody nodded, his sobbing becoming quieter now.

“You have the right to have an attorney present during questioning…”

Drew continued with the Miranda rights, questioning Dody after each one to make sure that he was listening in his state of mind.

Once Dody was properly Mirandized, Drew led him to the squad car and assisted him into the back seat. Tommy retrieved the gun from the porch and he and Mike got into their car.

Drew climbed behind the wheel of the car and Dody said, “Sheriff?”

Drew looked into the rearview mirror at Dody. “I’m a Texas Ranger, Dody. My name is Lieutenant Drew Smith.”

“Oh,” Dody said with a slightly confused look on his face. There was a brief silence and then he said, “Lieutenant, will you tell the boy’s mama that it was an accident that I shot her son?” Dody looked totally beaten. He sniffled and continued. “Tell her I shot him before I even knew what I done. Tell her I got sick and threw up and I been sick ever since. Will you tell her I didn’t mean to and I’m sorry?”

His declaration was heartfelt, but even still Dody would not admit the fullness of what he had done. He wanted to believe, and to have everyone else believe, that killing Brian was something other than a murder to cover murder.

Drew looked into the rearview mirror at Dody as he spoke. He paused a moment and I could see he was considering what to say. Then he sighed and said, “Yes, Dody, I’ll tell her.”

Drew started the car. Then I noticed something I had never seen before-the slightest bit of moisture just inside the lower lid of Drew’s eyes. He turned the car around and we headed back toward Austin in silence.

Dody was booked into the Travis County Jail pending trial, and within two months he was dead from heart failure. His daughters had buried their mother’s remains in the local cemetery at Viola, but they refused to claim their father’s remains, so he was buried in the county cemetery under a cheap marker. I will always believe that it was the poison of over sixteen years of guilt, and his failure to fully accept that guilt, that killed Dody Waldrep, but even Chris didn’t have the power and authority to list “Guilty Conscience” as a cause of death.

Chapter Nineteen

A few weeks after Dody’s arrest, Sergeant Major Tomlinson called me from CILHI to tell me that CILHI had accepted my findings and had officially declared the remains as those of Theodore P. Nikolaides. I asked him that before they made the official call to Irini they allow me twenty-four hours to tell her myself. The sergeant major agreed that would be acceptable.

I had given her the news weeks before when I had told her the results of my work. Now I could call her and tell her it was official. I made the call. She took it well. The initial shock and pain of the confirmed reality had worn off and adjustment was settling in. The agony of over thirty years was beginning to be assuaged. Total closure would come soon-for all of us.

Irini had told her children and they were flying to Washington, D.C., for the funeral. Arrangements had been made to ship the casket there to Andrews Air Force Base. It would be transported with a military escort to the church in D.C. Reverend Iordani had been requested to officiate at the service and he had obtained the appropriate permission.