Don’t see why not, I wrote. Let me take a quick shower and I’ll call you.
Need someone to scrub your back? was the reply.
You’re killing me, I wrote. I’ll call you as soon as I’m ready to go.
I drove to the motel and took a shower. As soon as I got out, my burner phone, which was lying on the nightstand next to my regular cell, began to ring.
“What’s up, Pappy?” I asked.
“We’re going to have to step it up in West Virginia,” he said. “I just got a call from my guy Fairchild. He got popped Christmas Eve with an ounce of coke on him. That state trooper, Grimes, set him up. Then Grimes came into his cell yesterday and tried to get him to roll on us again. He said he didn’t tell the cop anything, so the cop said he was going to put the word out that Fairchild had ratted us out and made a deal. He figured Fairchild would be so scared of us that he’d roll, but Fairchild says he didn’t. He says if I hear he’s ratted us out, it’s a lie. He’s going to eat the charge and go back to prison if he has to.”
“Was he out? He didn’t call you from a phone at the jail, did he?”
“No, a magistrate set him a bond after Grimes left and his dad paid the bondsman. He said it took them until after midnight to process him out and he called me first thing this morning.”
“Do you believe what he said about eating the charge and going back to prison?” I said.
“Doesn’t matter. He’s too much of a risk either way now. He might have been recording the call, but I didn’t say anything they could use against me. The fact that the magistrate set a bond on Christmas makes me suspicious, though. We need to go up there now.”
“Today?” I said. I wondered to myself what day it was. Wednesday. It was the day after Christmas, and murder was in the air.
“No sense in putting it off. You know your guy will be at his bar tonight. People get out and drink at Christmas. They get their fill of being around their families, and they head out to the bars. Catch him when he comes out to his car at closing and take him out. Do you have a clean gun?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I have something.”
“Good. I’ll take care of my end.”
“You don’t need to kill anybody,” I said. “If I take out their only eyewitness, it’s over. All they’d have left to use in court is three rednecks: your boy Fairchild, who’s a drug addict, the guy Skidmore, and his stepson. The informant won’t be able to testify because he didn’t see or hear anything from either of us. All of his information is hearsay, stuff he heard from Baker. The only thing the state could prove is that Baker asked around about Frazier, found out about Beane, and then passed the information along to Skidmore. Skidmore could say he passed it along to Fairchild, and Fairchild could say he passed it to you. You didn’t tell him I was going to go up there and kill those guys, did you?”
“I didn’t tell him shit. I just asked him to find out if Frazier was bragging about doing a bombing in Tennessee.”
“So they can’t prove anything. Just let me go up there and take care of my guy and that should be the end of it.”
“I’m doing Fairchild and I’m doing the informant. I hate rats, Darren. Do you know how many guys I ran off the yard in prison because I found out they’d ratted people out to the feds or the cops? Dozens of them. They’re the scum of the earth. And Fairchild is a loose cannon, man. I can’t have him walking around anymore. The rat in Cowen? Lester Routh? I’m going to kill him just on principle. I might wait awhile, but he has to go. The other two rednecks, Skidmore and Baker, I’ll let them be if it makes you feel better.”
“I just think you’re taking an unnecessary risk,” I said.
“Then we’re going to agree to disagree,” he said. “How soon can you get up there?”
“Probably be best if I leave as soon as possible. Can you get me a car so I can leave mine here at the motel? They check every night and list the license plate numbers of the cars in the lot. I want mine to be here.”
“I can have a car waiting for you at the Flying J in an hour,” Big Pappy said. “Same ID as last time?”
“You can get that done, too? That fast?”
“If you have money and contacts, you can get anything done. I have both.”
“When are you planning to go to Charleston?” I said.
“I’ll be there by ten.”
“Okay, make arrangements for the car. I’ll get on it now.”
I disconnected the call and immediately sent Katherine a text message: I need a couple of days to sort this out. It’s going too fast. Besides that, I’m representing you in a criminal case and becoming romantically involved with a client is a conflict of interest and a stupid thing to do. Last night was probably the best night of my life, but I need a little time. I hope you’ll understand.
I sent the text. A couple of minutes later, my phone started ringing. It was Katherine. I ignored it. As soon as it quit ringing, I got a text from her that said, I understand. I’ll be waiting when you’re ready. I looked at the text and smiled. She was too good to be true.
I dressed, retrieved my pistol and silencer from where I’d hidden them inside an air vent in the bathroom, put them in backpack, and called a cab on my burner phone. I walked two blocks to where I told the driver to pick me up, and told him to take me to the Flying J.
CHAPTER 50
Mike “Big Pappy” Donovan tossed his prepaid cell onto the seat beside him and turned the eighteen-wheeler he was driving into the lot of a large warehouse he rented on the outskirts of Cincinnati, Ohio. He hit the button of a remote control he’d pulled out of the console and watched the door slowly raise. Once it was up, he pulled the truck and fifty-foot trailer inside, shut down the engine, hit the remote to close the door, and climbed out of the cab. He walked over and turned on the warehouse lights, then headed toward the small office. Once there, he turned on the coffee maker and sat down behind a metal desk. He needed to think for a minute.
Darren Street thought he knew some things about Big Pappy Donovan, but pretty much everything Big Pappy had told Street about himself was a lie. Big Pappy had wanted to gain Street’s favor while they were in prison because he wanted Street to work on his appeal and get him out. It had worked, too. Street had done some brilliant work, and the result was that Big Pappy had walked out of federal prison after serving twelve years instead of the thirty-five the government had intended him to serve. But in the meantime, Pappy had told Street some things about himself that weren’t true.