Count and the Confession A True Mystery

CHAPTER I The Last Door on the Left What do you take to prison? Beverly Monroe had no idea. But her attorney had given her a list of some basic items she was supposed to bringwhite underwear, rubber-soled shoesand during the weekend before she was scheduled to surrender, in addition to setting aside money to pay her estimated taxes and signing papers giving her daughter Katie power of attorney, she packed. Each of her three children wanted her to have something personal of theirs to take with her. Her younger daughter, Shannon, gave her a blue thermal Patagonia she'd gotten for Christmas. Katie had Beverly take her plaid flannel L. L. Bean pajamas. Gavin, her oldest child and only son, bought her a necklace, which she wasn't sure she would be allowed to keep. Beverly also packed some of their old socks and a yellow tennis sweater that had been Shannon's in the seventh grade. She added writing paper, her German dictionary, her French phrase book, and a few of her favorite books, including Peter Mayle's A Year in Provence and a volume of poetry by Herman Hesse. Since she wasn't supposed to bring a suitcase, they put everything in a small cardboard box. On November 9, 1992, exactly one week after she had been convicted of murdering Roger de la Burde, her children drove her up to the Powhatan County sheriff's office. The day was dry but cold. They took Beverly's dark blue Mercury Sable, following the Midlothian Turnpike west out of Richmond's suburbs and up to Route 13, a looping, narrow-shouldered road that ran through rolling fields past the Mennonite church and the local farm bureau office before reaching the village. Greg Neal, the Powhatan investigator who had first interviewed Beverly back when everyone thought Roger's death was a suicide, waited for her in the sheriff's office. Neal seemed unwilling to look Beverly in the eye, she thought. He turned her over to one of the uniformed deputies, Tommy Broughton. Carrying her small cardboard box, she followed Broughton and a female secretary out into the parking lot and climbed into the back of an unmarked Chevrolet Caprice. A rack on the dashboard held a shotgun. Broughton headed up to Maidens Road, which wound north through stubbled cornfields and stands of pine. Beverly's children followed close behind in her Mercury. Every minute or so, Beverly looked back and waved to them through the rear window. Throughout the trip, the secretary kept up a stream of polite conversation about the accomplishments of their respective children, as if they were at a church social. They reached the slender bridge that crossed the James River. Beverly looked out at the dark green water. It was low at this time of the year, the muddy banks below the tree line exposed. Roger's estate, Windsor Farm, was three miles downriver, invisible beyond a bend. Just outside Goochland, a small town on the north bank of the James, Brougton turned onto River Road West. Beverly saw the store where Roger had bought the fiberglass canoe he had used only once. Broughton pulled into the Virginia Correctional Center for Women, a cluster of old brick buildings with slate roofs and white casement windows set among magnolia and pecan trees. It was surprisingly pastoral. There was neither a wall nor a fence. Black Angus grazed in a pasture across the road. They passed a guard booth and stopped at an administration building. Beverly looked back at her children. The guard had halted them at the booth. They waved. She waved back and then followed Deputy Broughton inside. The prison's intake room was noisy and chaotic. Guards in navy blue uniforms were bantering with other guards behind a counter as they passed heavy keys back and forth and signed clipboards. One of the women on the jury that had convicted BeverTaylor, John is the author of 'Count and the Confession A True Mystery' with ISBN 9780375505386 and ISBN 0375505385.