by Scott Pratt
“Sometimes we have to bend the rules a little. The sooner you learn that, the better off you’ll be.”
“Oh, I’m learning, all right. So . . . are you going to do anything about what I told you earlier? I told you something must be going on. I know where he’s staying.”
Dawn shook her head. “I told you earlier. It’s the holidays. I’m not working.”
“Can’t you get a warrant or a subpoena and search his room?”
“On what basis? That he told you he doesn’t want to see you for a little while?”
“Make something up.”
Dawn threw her hands in the air. “He’s a lawyer, for goodness’ sake! And a good one, from what everyone says. If I make up a reason to search his hotel room, he’ll find out. He’ll find out, and he’ll sue the hell out of the city and the police department and me.”
“You just said you have to bend the rules sometimes.”
“Bend them, not snap them in half.”
“I’ll do it myself, then,” Katherine said.
“Do what?”
“Search his room, provided he isn’t there. If he is there, I’ll charm my way in and take a look around.”
“What will you be looking for?”
“I don’t know. Anything unusual. Not many places to hide things in a motel room.”
“If he isn’t there,” Dawn said, “how do you propose to get inside?”
“Don’t you remember what one of my dad’s favorite hobbies was? He could pick any lock out there, and he taught his daughter well.”
“You’re crazy,” Dawn said. “If you get caught, I’ll deny all of what we’ve done. I’ll get everyone in line. You’ll be out there on your own.”
“I won’t get caught,” Katherine said. “I’m going to bag you a murderer.”
CHAPTER 52
By the time I got to the Flying J in the cab, I was fighting myself. The night with Katherine had a great deal to do with it, I was sure, but I also just couldn’t find it in myself to drive all the way to West Virginia and execute a man who hadn’t done a thing to me. In fact, he’d allowed me to mete out a violent form of justice to Donnie Frazier and Tommy Beane in his bar, and he’d walked into the bathroom while I shot them. He’d taken his time about calling the cops, and for all I knew, he couldn’t really identify me. I’d been wearing the beard, the glasses, and the hat. We’d spoken for a little while about my mother, so perhaps he could recall my voice, but I knew from my experience in courtrooms that eyewitness identifications were often unreliable, and that voice identifications were even less reliable. After I got out of the cab, I paced around for a while. The December wind was cold, and the sky was foreboding. I immediately saw the car Pappy had left for me—a Dodge—but I didn’t want to get into the car and start driving. Instead, I took out my prepaid cell and dialed Pappy’s number.
“People are going to say we’re in love if you keep calling so often,” Pappy said.
“I’m not going to do it,” I said.
“You’re not going to do what?” he said. There was a chill in his voice I’d never heard.
“I’m not going to West Virginia. I’m not going to kill the bar owner. It’s stupid. They can’t convict me on what they have. They can’t even arrest me, or they would have done it by now. If I go up there and kill the guy, all I do is piss them off and take a chance on leaving some forensic evidence somewhere. He didn’t do anything to me, and I’m not going to kill him.”
“Where are you?” Pappy said.
“I’m at the Flying J, but I’m about to go back to the motel.”
“No. No, you aren’t. Get your ass in the car, drive up there, and do what needs doing.”
“I’m a damned lawyer!” I yelled. “If they were going to arrest me, they would have done it. I know what I’m talking about. They don’t have a case.”
“Don’t grow a fucking conscience on me, Darren,” Pappy said.
“It doesn’t have anything to do with growing a conscience. It has to do with whether they can make a case on me, and they can’t. Just let it be. Go on about your business. This will blow over. It’ll go away.”
“I’m not willing to take that chance. Now, for the last time, take care of what you should have taken care of in the beginning.”
“Or what? You going to come down here and kill me? Bring it on, big boy. I’m not any more afraid of you than I am of anyone else. You know damned good and well I’m not afraid to die.”
“Listen to yourself,” Pappy said. “We’ve been through a lot together, you and me. You helped me out a bunch, and I’ve helped you out a bunch. But this is serious shit, Darren. This could be the difference between staying out of prison and going back in for life. Fairchild will be dead in the next three to four hours. That rat in Cowen will be dead within a week. I expect the bartender to be dead, too. If you don’t take care of it, I’ll do it myself, but there will be consequences.”
“I appreciate everything you’ve done,” I said. “I owe you money, and I owe you my gratitude. But I’m not killing him. You’re wrong about him needing to die. And if you kill Fairchild in the next three or four hours, don’t you think the cops will be all over Sammy? They’ll have his place staked out. I’ll walk right into a buzz saw.”
“Figure something out,” Pappy said.
“No. I’m staying here. I’m not killing him.”
“I hate to hear that,” Pappy said. “I guess I’ll be seeing you before long.”
The call disconnected, and I called a different cab company to come and pick me up. While I was waiting, I tried to figure out what I should do. Somebody would be coming to pick up Pappy’s car soon, I was certain of that. I could wait and find out who the person was, maybe take a photo, but I didn’t think it would do me any good. I could call the cops anonymously and tell them the car was about to be used in a murder, but the prison code was still ingrained in me. I just couldn’t turn myself into a rat. Then something dawned on me, and I started searching on my phone for a number for Sammy’s in Cowen, West Virginia. I had a phone number in just a couple of minutes. I went back to the hotel, waited until ten o’clock, and dialed the number.
“Sammy’s,” said a voice on the other end. I knew it was him.
“Do you recognize my voice?” I said.
“What?”
“Do you recognize my voice?”
“No.”
“Good. I was at your place a while back. I asked you if you loved your mother. Took care of some business.”
He was silent for several seconds, and then he said, “What do you want?”
“There’s a man that wants to kill you. He’s headed that way. He’ll probably try when you walk out to your car at closing time.”
“What? Why? Why would anyone want to kill me? I ain’t done nothing to nobody.”
“A state trooper up there named Grimes has told some people you’re going to testify against me if they arrest me, that you can identify me. Is that true?”
“I ain’t told him nothing.”
“You’re lying, but it doesn’t matter. There was another man involved in this with me, and he doesn’t want to go to jail. He’s willing to kill people to stay out, and you’re one of the people he’s after. I tried to talk him out of it, but he’s on his way up there right now. You need to do whatever you need to do to stay out of his way.”
“But . . . but . . . what do I do? Oh Lord, mister. I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.”
“Either wait for him with that sawed-off shotgun you were telling me about or call your buddy Grimes. I could’ve just let him kill you, but you did me a favor. I wish you’d kept your mouth shut, but you didn’t. So now we have to deal with the situation as it is. I’m giving you fair warning about what’s coming. Up to you to figure out what to do. And I’d appreciate it if you’d tell Grimes you’ve changed your mind about being able to identify me.”
I hung up the phone, and a pang of guilt hit my stomach. I hadn’t exactly ratted Pappy out
, but I’d warned his victim that he was coming. I had no doubt Sammy would call Grimes, and that something bad would happen at Sammy’s bar later that night.
I had no idea how it would turn out. All I could do was wait.
CHAPTER 53
Pappy was still fuming as he rolled the Ford Focus off the interstate into Charleston, West Virginia. He had been a shot caller on federal maximum security prison yards for years, and he wasn’t used to people refusing to do what he told them to do. So when Darren refused, Pappy took it as a slap in the face. Darren had disrespected him, and being disrespected was the ultimate insult in the eyes of an inmate. Pappy was no longer an inmate, but as far as he was concerned, the rules still applied: you disrespect him, you pay the price.
Right now, though, he needed to deal with Rex Fairchild. Pappy didn’t know whether Fairchild had ratted him out to the cops or whether he’d done what he said and told the cops to go to hell, but Fairchild had simply become too much of a liability. One of the first rules of dealing drugs was to stay out of your own product. It was a rule to which Pappy had adhered strictly throughout his adult life. He’d never used any drug, not even marijuana. He drank a little beer once in a while, but never to excess. He didn’t smoke cigarettes, but he’d made about three million selling them in prison over the twelve years he was inside. Pappy chuckled to himself. Were it not for the fact that he was a drug-dealing criminal, a sociopath, maybe a psychopath, and a killer, he’d be a stand-up citizen. But Fairchild? He’d crossed the line. Not only had he hidden his drug addiction from Pappy, but he’d kept using after Pappy told him to quit, and then he’d gotten busted with an ounce of powder coke on him. Pappy knew an ounce of powder wasn’t that big of a deal as far as being a serious crime, but he was worried that Fairchild’s addiction to the drug would eventually loosen his lips.
It was the day after Christmas, a Wednesday, and Pappy thought Fairchild’s car lot might be open for business. He’d just been busted and would need money to pay his bondsman and a lawyer. Pappy knew Fairchild’s old man helped him out a lot, but he didn’t think Daddy would be in a very generous mood after the latest cocaine bust. Pappy drove by the car lot and saw that it was, indeed, open.
It was ten thirty in the morning, and a cold, steady drizzle was falling. Pappy didn’t see any customers on the lot. He’d done his Google Maps reconnaissance back in Cincinnati and turned onto Thirty-Sixth Street SE and parked in a corner of the Kanawha Elementary School lot. School was out, and Pappy didn’t believe there would be security cameras that covered that part of the lot. Even if a camera covered the area, he was wearing a disguise and had a long overcoat with a hood and a stocking cap in the back seat. The tag on his car couldn’t be traced back to him. He reached into the back and grabbed the overcoat and the stocking cap.
He pulled the stocking cap down over his head, donned the coat, and got out of the car. He opened the trunk, retrieved his weapons, stuck them into the pocket of his coat, closed the trunk, and started walking toward the car lot with his shoulders hunched and his hands shoved into his pockets.
As he came up on MacCorkle Avenue SE where the lot was located, cars whooshed by him, tossing plumes of water from their tires. The car lot was in the middle of a block, and Pappy scanned the area around it. He didn’t see a soul other than the people flying by in their cars. He cut off the sidewalk and headed straight up to the trailer that served as Fairchild’s office. He opened the door and stepped into a paneled room with a desk to his right. There were nondescript prints of different models of cars on the walls. There was a chair behind the desk, two more in front of it, and a laptop computer sitting on top, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. Pappy stood inside the door and listened. Within a minute, he heard a toilet flush. He took two steps, removed a silenced Smith & Wesson nine-millimeter, semiautomatic pistol from his pocket, and aimed the pistol at the door. The door opened, and a man Pappy had never seen before started to emerge from the bathroom before freezing in horror.
The man, who was of medium height, maybe thirty, with a receding hairline, raised both of his hands.
“There’s no money here,” he said.
“Where’s Fairchild?” Pappy said.
“He isn’t working today.”
“That isn’t what I asked you. Where is he?”
“He’s at home, I think. He told me he had a bad weekend and asked me to cover for him today.”
“The Internet says he lives on Upper Falcon Road. Is that right?”
“Yeah, yeah, that’s where he lives.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Dave, Dave Van Fleet. I’m his brother-in-law. Please don’t hurt me. If you have a problem with Rex because of the drugs, if he owes you money, just go away. I won’t say a word to anybody about you being here. Like I said, there’s no money.”
“Can’t do that, Dave,” Pappy said.
“What are you going to do? Kill me? Please, I have a wife and two kids. I haven’t done anything to you.”
“Are you a good person?” Pappy said.
“What?”
“Are you a good person? Did I stutter? Are you a decent fucking human being?”
“I don’t know. I mean . . . yes, I think so. I try to be a good person.”
“You know that saying that sometimes bad things happen to good people?”
“Yeah, but—”
Pappy squeezed the trigger twice. Both bullets stuck Dave Van Fleet in the head, and he fell back into the bathroom.
“It’s true,” Pappy said as he stood over the body. “Sometimes bad things happen to good people.”
CHAPTER 54
From the conversations Pappy had had with Fairchild over the phone, he knew Fairchild had a live-in girlfriend named Rita. He didn’t know whether Rita would be at Fairchild’s trailer when he went looking for him there, but he didn’t really care. The murder of Dave Van Fleet at the car lot had kindled a bloodlust in Pappy. If someone got in the way, they were going to die. If someone saw his face and could ultimately testify against him, he’d hunt them down and kill them.
The drizzle had intensified into a downpour by the time Pappy made his way to the outskirts of Charleston onto Upper Falcon Road, which was narrow and lined with mobile homes. Fairchild’s trailer sat in a curve with no neighbors in sight or across the street. As Pappy approached, he saw two cars in the gravel driveway. He passed by once, drove a half mile or so down the road, turned around at an intersection, and headed back. He pulled into the driveway, got out of his car, and hurried up to the trailer’s small front porch. He ascended the stairs, pulled the nine-millimeter from his overcoat pocket, and turned the doorknob. It wasn’t locked. He walked in to find Fairchild sitting on his couch. He was shirtless, the television was on, and there was a round mirror on a table in front of him. On the mirror was a razor blade, a short straw, and a small pile of white powder.
“Moron,” Pappy said as he raised the silenced pistol. It burped twice. Both shots struck Fairchild in the chest and he slumped back on the couch. Pappy walked up close to him and shot him again in the forehead. He saw a flash of movement to his left, heard a low growl, and was immediately knocked off balance by a hundred-pound Rottweiler that had come out of one of the bedrooms. He felt teeth sink into his left forearm as he tried to push the dog down onto its back. The dog was strong, however, and began shaking its head. Pappy could feel flesh tearing from bone in his arm. Pain shot through the limb like a lightning bolt, and he cursed loudly. He wanted to shoot the dog in the head, but he was afraid he’d shoot himself in the arm at the same time. He finally slipped the pistol barrel against the dog’s chest and pulled the trigger. The dog howled, rolled over, and began crawling away. At about the same time, Pappy looked up and saw a small blonde woman standing in the hallway ten feet away, pointing a shotgun at him. The shotgun belched fire and smoke, and Pappy felt a searing burn in his right ear. He aimed the pistol at the woman and fired twice. Both shots struck her in the chest. She fell back into
the hallway, and the shotgun clattered against the wall and landed on the floor.
Pappy straightened up and walked over to her. He shot her once more in the forehead. The dog was still whining as he hurried out the front door. He reached up and felt his right ear, which was still burning as though it was on fire. Part of it was gone.
His blood was all over that trailer. He knew it wouldn’t be long before the cops came, gathered the blood samples, extracted DNA, and ran the DNA samples against the DNA he’d given them when he was in the system.
The DNA would match. It was over for him, and he knew it. They’d be coming soon. He’d kill as many of them as he could before they ultimately took him down, but before that happened, he had one more place to visit.
Knoxville, Tennessee.
CHAPTER 55
I took a cab from the Flying J back to my hotel, got in my car, and started looking around for furnished apartments. I didn’t want to have to go out and find and buy and haul and arrange furniture. I finally found one that I thought I could stomach around one o’clock, called the rental agency that was managing the building, and learned they wouldn’t be back in the office until Monday. I thought seriously about texting or calling Katherine and telling her I’d had a change of heart, but instead, I went to a bar a couple of miles from the hotel, had three drinks, and watched part of a lousy bowl game that was on television. I still had some decent bourbon back at the room, so I decided to go back there and watch the rest of the game. During the day, I’d wondered several times whether Pappy had found Fairchild and what had happened. I wondered whether he was on his way to Cowen to kill Sammy. If he was, I knew I probably wouldn’t have to deal with Pappy again.
