When I left Lexington the next morning, I drove to Marty Henley’s leased property near Petros and built a huge fire from deadfall that I found not far from their shooting range. I burned the clothing I was wearing when I shot Frazier and Beane, along with the beard and the glasses. The spirit gum glue I used to secure the beard and the fake ID also went into the fire. I’d tossed one of the burner phones off a bridge near the interstate in Lexington; the others I put back in the backpack in the trunk, along with $10,000 in cash. I’d spent only a few hundred of the $20,000 Pappy had given me, and I kept around $9,000, just in case I needed cash for anything I hadn’t thought about. I didn’t think Pappy would mind.
I parked the car at the Flying J in Knoxville around two in the afternoon, went inside the truck stop, and used a pay phone to call a cab. The truck stops were one of the few places that still had pay phones. The cab picked me up ten minutes later, and I had the driver take me to the storage facility where I’d picked up the Monte Carlo and left my car. I got the car out and headed to Grace’s.
She wasn’t home, so I picked up my cell phone that I’d left in the kitchen and called her. She was surprised that I was back so soon and said she was at the grocery store and would be home in about half an hour.
She walked in a little while later, carrying several plastic bags in each hand. She was wearing black jeans and a tight red sweater and was suddenly the sexiest woman I’d ever seen in my life. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her. I reached down and took the bags from her, set them on the kitchen table, and lifted her off the floor. I carried her into the bedroom and laid her on the bed.
She looked up at me seductively and smiled. “I take it you got some things worked out.”
I pulled my shirt over my head and got into bed next to her. “I did.” I kissed her on the lips. The touch of her sparked an animalistic lust, and we spent the next twenty minutes making love as though it would be the last time.
“Wow,” Grace said when we were finished. “Did you spend the night eating oysters?”
“Not exactly.”
“Where did you go?”
“Fishing.”
“Fishing? Really? Did you catch anything?”
“I caught a couple of big ones.”
“Did you bring them home?”
“No, I left them where I caught them.”
“You look different,” she said. “You look like you’ve managed to lift this tremendous burden you’ve been carrying around. There’s some light in your eyes.” She reached out and ran her fingers down my cheek. “I’m proud of you, Darren. You’re so strong.”
“I don’t know about that,” I said, “but I think you’re right about one thing: I got rid of a burden.”
CHAPTER 19
They came at seven o’clock the very next morning. The two Knoxville detectives, Dawn Rule and Lawrence Kingman, started beating on Grace’s door. I was already awake, sitting at the counter in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee. Grace was sound asleep. I’d kept her awake most of the night. I would never have guessed that cold-blooded murder would stimulate hot-blooded virility so intensely.
I knew it was them before I went to the door. Only cops come banging at that time of the day. I walked down the hall, grabbed my robe from the door in Grace’s bedroom, and closed the door so Grace wouldn’t hear what was being said. Then I walked to the entrance and opened the door.
“Good morning,” I said to Rule and Kingman.
“We’d like to ask you some questions,” Rule said. “Mind taking a ride?”
“Am I under arrest? Do you have a warrant?”
“No, you’re not under arrest,” she said.
“Then I’m not going anywhere. What’s this about?”
“The man we told you about, Donnie Frazier? Somebody murdered him along with a friend of his named Tommy Beane.”
“Really? What a shame.”
“Mind telling us where you were on Friday?”
“So I’m a suspect in a double murder?” I asked her.
“Where were you on Friday?”
“You know damned good and well that I’ve been a criminal defense lawyer for ten years,” I said. “I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Seems to me you’d like to have yourself eliminated as a suspect as quickly as possible,” Kingman pointed out.
“If you want to suspect me, then go ahead and suspect me. Do that thing you do. Investigate. You’re going to wind up chasing your tails if you think it was me.”
“Did you kill them?” Rule pressed. “They were shot to pieces at close range. Whoever did it was angry.”
“If Frazier was anything like his brother, then he had plenty of enemies.” I shrugged. “He probably pushed one of them too far.”
“You didn’t answer my question,” Rule said. “Did you kill them?”
“I didn’t kill them,” I said. Lying was becoming easy for me. The words rolled off my tongue smoothly and evenly. “But I can’t say I’m sorry they’re dead if they really killed my mom.”
“We’ll never know for sure now, will we?” Rule said.
“I suppose not.”
“You might as well talk to us, give us a statement, so we can check it out,” Kingman said. “Otherwise we’re going to look up your ass with a spotlight. If you did it, we’ll nail you for it.”
I smiled. Talking about looking up my ass made me think of the dozens of times I’d had to spread my cheeks for guards in jails all over the country when Ben Clancy put me through an experience called diesel therapy. The feds had put me on a bus in tight handcuffs and shackles and rode me all over the country. I spent roughly eighteen hours a day on a bus for three months, and then, each night, I’d be herded into some county or city jail or some state pen, and the guards at each stop would strip-search me and make me spread my cheeks.
“You think this is funny?” Kingman said. I was making him angry, which gave me a sense of satisfaction.
“Do you think I haven’t had cops look up my ass before?” I said. “Go ahead. Look as far up there as you want. You won’t find a thing.”
And with that, I shut the door in their faces.
As I turned and started back into the house, I saw Grace moving slowly toward me in the hallway. She was sleepy-eyed and wearing a sheer, red-silk negligee.
“Who was that?” she mumbled. “I heard you talking to someone.”
“A couple of Jehovah’s Witnesses,” I said. “Nice kids. C’mon. Let’s go back to bed.”
“Again?” she said, almost bewildered.
“I want you.”
I did. I wasn’t sure why, but I wanted her desperately. Maybe it was plunging myself inside of her the same way the bullets plunged into Frazier and Beane. Maybe bringing her to orgasm gave me a warped sense of dominance that paralleled in some small way what I’d felt when I ended Frazier’s and Beane’s lives. Maybe it was simply the act of letting myself go that made me so insistent.
“Please?” I said, yearning for that feeling of power.
“Let me brush my teeth,” she said. “I’ll be right there.”
CHAPTER 20