Fairchild felt a sense of relief. Was he going to be arraigned by a magistrate—maybe by video—and get a bond set? He hadn’t expected to be arraigned since it was Christmas, but he figured stranger things had happened. If the magistrate set him a reasonable bond, his dad would have him out in a few hours.
The guards led him down three separate hallways of concrete floors and block walls, through two steel doors, to a small room. Inside the room was a steel table.
“Sit,” one of the guards demanded.
Fairchild sat. There was no television, no computer. It didn’t appear there would be a video arraignment. Maybe the magistrate would come in and arraign him face-to-face. After a few minutes, the door opened again, and Fairchild felt sick to his stomach. It was the state cop, Grimes.
“Merry Christmas, Rex,” Grimes said cheerfully. “I hear you had a little problem last night.”
Fairchild stared at the table, determined to keep his mouth shut.
“Remember the last time we spoke and you told me to fuck off?” Grimes said. “Well, sir, I did it. I fucked off right to the Charleston Police Department’s narcotics squad and asked them if they’d keep an eye on you for me. I don’t know whether you’re aware or not, but it’s real obvious you’ve got a drug problem. I figured it would be cocaine or meth. Turns out it’s cocaine. That’s a bad drug, Rex. Ruins your teeth. Makes you skinny. Just breaks you down physically over time. So I figured it wouldn’t be long at all before you went to see your dealer, and I was right. Drug addicts are so easy to predict. They’re just so damned stupid. My friends in the Charleston PD followed you, and now here you sit with a felony resale charge against you and a prior federal conviction. I have friends at the DEA, too, and I’m going to be talking to them about you. See if I can’t get you back in the federal system. You have the right to remain silent, by the way. But I think it’s time you talk to me before this gets away from you to the point where nobody will be able to help you.”
“It was an ounce,” Fairchild said. “The feds won’t touch it.”
“I think maybe they will after I tell them about your involvement in two murders. With your prior, you’ll get at least five years in the federal system plus whatever I can manage to get you on the conspiracy charge.”
“You don’t have a conspiracy charge against me,” Fairchild said. “If you did, you would have arrested me.”
“You asked Rocky Skidmore to gather information for you about Donnie Frazier. You didn’t know it, but Rocky Skidmore is too feeble to get out and do much of anything, so he put his stepson, Jimmy Baker, on it. Baker got what you wanted and passed it on to Skidmore, who passed it on to you. You passed it on to Big Pappy Donovan, and he passed it on to Darren Street. As a result, two men were murdered in a bar in Cowen. That’s a conspiracy if ever there was one.”
Fairchild’s stomach knotted even tighter. He’d received a call from Rocky Skidmore and was told that there was a paid informant named Lester Routh in Cowen who had told Grimes everything because Skidmore’s loose-lipped, drunken stepson had bragged about his involvement to Routh.
“Let’s say you know what you’re talking about, and I’m not admitting for one second that you do,” Fairchild said. “You still can’t prove I knew anything about the murders before they happened.”
“You go ahead and try that on in front of a jury if you like,” Grimes said. “You go ahead and admit you gathered information for Pappy, but you didn’t have any idea what he was going to do with the information. Good luck with that.”
“I’m not ratting anybody out,” Fairchild said. “You can forget it. Go ahead and put me back inside. I know how it works. I’ll do the time standing on my head.”
“There’s another way I can play this,” Grimes said. “It’d be real easy for me to get the word out that you got popped on a felony drug case and started flapping your jaws to make a deal. How about I make sure you get released on bond and then put out the word that you’ve agreed to testify against Big Pappy and Skidmore and Jimmy Baker? How long do you think you’ll last?”
“You can’t do that!” Fairchild yelled. “That’d be the same as killing me yourself. It would make you a murderer.”
“I don’t see it that way at all,” Grimes said. “You’ve done what you’ve done, and you’re going to have to face the consequences one way or another. Either you talk to me, agree to testify, and I’ll protect you and make sure you don’t go back to prison, or you get put back out on the street with a big ole bull’s-eye on your back. It’s up to you.”
“You can’t do this, man,” Fairchild said. “It ain’t fair. It ain’t legal!”
“I don’t think you’re really one to be talking about what’s legal,” Grimes said. “But you’re right about one thing. Life isn’t fair sometimes. You’re about to experience it firsthand.”
CHAPTER 47
I got through Christmas morning by not acknowledging to myself that it was Christmas morning. I was getting better and better at that kind of thing—not allowing certain emotions to be a part of my life. The gesture at Julius Antone’s house on Christmas Eve may have been emotional to some extent, but I looked at it as simply fulfilling a promise I’d made to myself before my mom was murdered. I’d also felt some closeness to Katherine during our brief time together on Christmas Eve, but for the most part, my intention of protecting myself from emotional trauma by not allowing myself to become emotionally involved with anyone or anything seemed to be working.
I was driving through the deserted streets of Knoxville, looking for a suitable apartment, when my burner phone started ringing around 1:00 p.m. on Christmas day. It was Pappy, of course. Nobody else called me on that phone.
“We’ve got a mess to clean up in West Virginia,” he said. “There’s a cop up there that won’t let this thing go. He’s pushing people, and I’m afraid somebody will crack. If somebody cracks, the whole thing will come crashing down on you and me, and we’ll wind up spending the rest of our lives in some shithole West Virginia state penitentiary.”
I sighed and felt my stomach tighten just a bit. What had Pappy done? How many people had he involved in gathering information for me in West Virginia? Were they typical criminals, too damned dumb to live?
“I’m not going back to jail, Pap,” I said. “I’ve always told you that. They’ll have to kill me before they get me back inside.”
“To each his own,” Pappy said. “Me? I’m not interested in either. I’m not ready to die, and I’m not ready to go back to prison.”