“Does it matter?”
“I guess not, but it doesn’t seem like heavy stuff to me. I feel like I’ve had a huge weight lifted from me. I feel free.”
The feeling I was experiencing was something I hadn’t expected. I thought I would feel some pangs of guilt or remorse, maybe some horror over the realization that I was capable of committing such a violent act, but I felt none of those things. I felt empowered, relieved, and, like I told Pappy, free of the burden I’d been carrying around, knowing the men who murdered my mother were still breathing.
“So we’re sticking to the plan going forward?”
“I’ll have the car at the Flying J by noon tomorrow. I’ll leave the gun and the ID in the trunk. I’m trusting you to take care of those things. I have the clothes I was wearing, and the disguise, in a gym bag here in the room. I’m going to stop at this piece of property where I’ve been shooting and burn everything. It’s so far in the boonies nobody will ever think to look there.”
“What are you going to do when you get back to town?”
“After I drop the car off, I’ll take a cab to the storage place where I left mine. Then I’ll go to Grace’s. I’ve been neglecting her, and I plan to set that right.”
“Neglecting her how?”
“Lots of ways, but I’m going to fix everything.”
“What about your law practice? Going back to work?”
“I’m going to act like nothing has happened. Business as usual.”
“Congratulations, brother,” Pappy said.
“On what?”
“On becoming a member of the fraternity. Not everybody has what it takes to do what you did tonight.”
He disconnected the call, and I thought about what he’d said. He’d actually congratulated me for becoming a killer. I shrugged my shoulders and muttered to myself, “Thanks, I guess.”
CHAPTER 16
Will Grimes pulled into Donnie Frazier’s girlfriend’s driveway on Williams River Road a little before midnight. Neither Frazier nor Beane had had identification on them, but Sammy Raft had known them and knew where they lived. He’d also known about Frazier’s girlfriend, and had told Grimes about her. As soon as Grimes parked the department-issued Ford Edge in front of a run-down trailer, the car was surrounded by four snarling, barking Dobermans. Grimes began to blow the car’s horn. A woman finally came out, wrapped in a thick robe to protect herself from the chilly night air. He flashed his blue lights, lowered the window a little, and yelled at the woman to get control of the dogs. It took her several minutes, but eventually the dogs were herded into a chain-link-fenced pen between her and the trailer to Grimes’s right.
As soon as Grimes saw the woman shut the door on the gate, he got out of the car and walked toward her.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“Are you Emma Newland?”
“Who wants to know?”
Grimes produced his shield. “Name’s Will Grimes. I’m a special agent with the Criminal Bureau of Investigation. Can we talk inside for a minute?”
On the way over, Grimes had asked for a criminal history on Emma Newland and found only a ten-year-old shoplifting case and some traffic tickets.
“Let’s talk right here,” Newland said.
“Fine,” Grimes said. “I’m sorry to tell you that your boyfriend, Donnie Frazier, and his friend Tommy Beane were killed earlier tonight. They were shot to death at Sammy’s.”
The woman seemed to stagger backward, and Grimes reached for her arm. “Are you all right?”
“I don’t . . . it’s just . . . I’m gonna need a minute.”
Grimes knew Emma Newland was thirty-two, but she looked twenty years older. Her hair was a dull brown and her face was puffy and pale. Her teeth were ravaged, probably by meth abuse, and her shoulders sagged.
“Can we talk inside, please, Miss Newland?” Grimes said.
She turned toward the trailer without saying a word and climbed the rickety stoop. Grimes walked into a small box of filth and stench that nearly made him gag. The sink was piled high with dirty dishes and cups and silverware, the one trash can he could see was overflowing, the stove top was filthy, and the place smelled like a honky-tonk toilet at two in the morning. The only light that was on was in the kitchen, which was just to the right of the entrance. Emma Newland trudged to a small table and sat down heavily. She looked up at Grimes with sad brown eyes, lit a cigarette, and said, “Any idea who did it?” She wasn’t crying, and Grimes wondered whether, at this point in her life, she was even capable of tears. She looked like she’d had it rough.
“I was hoping you could help me with that,” he said. “Anything unusual happen lately? Anything that might have brought this on? I don’t mean to be cruel to you, Miss Newland, but they were each shot several times. They were ambushed in the bar. Apparently, someone just walked in and started shooting. The owner says he was in the bathroom and didn’t get a look at the shooter, but whoever it was, we think he was very angry about something.”
“People get angry,” Emma pointed out.
“I agree, but it isn’t often they get angry enough to do what was done in that bar. Donnie and Tommy didn’t have a chance.” Grimes watched closely as Emma took a drag off the cigarette and looked down at her shoes. He was looking for something, anything that might give him an in, a way to find out whether this woman knew anything that would help him. “I won’t arrest you.”
She raised her tired eyes. “For what?”
“For anything. I need to know why this happened, and if you can help me, even if you may have had something to do with a crime they committed, I won’t hold you accountable. I’m after the person who committed two vicious murders tonight.”
“I didn’t have nothing to do with what they did,” Emma said.
“Who is they, and what did they do?”
“Donnie and Tommy. I knew they shouldn’t a done it,” she said.
“Done what?”
“Blew up that house.”
“They blew up a house? Where?”
Emma snuffed the cigarette out in an ashtray already filled with butts and folded her arms across her chest. “Knoxville. Belonged to some lawyer’s momma. I don’t know the whole story, but I heard them talking about it. A little over a month ago, Donnie and Tommy stole a bunch of dynamite, went down to Knoxville, and blew up this lawyer’s momma’s house. The lawyer was supposed to be there, only he wasn’t. They killed his momma, but they missed him. I’m guessing that could be the man you’re looking for.”
Grimes had heard of the bombing in Knoxville. It had been all over the news for a couple of days. “So you knew all about this dynamite thing in Tennessee before it happened and didn’t tell anybody?”
“I heard them talking about it, but I wasn’t sure they would actually do it,” she said. “They were always talking crazy shit. Besides, I wasn’t looking to wind up at the bottom of one of these old coal-mining shafts around here with my head blown off. That’s exactly what would’ve happened if I’d told anybody.”