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.
About an hour after I got back to the room, there was a loud knock on the door. I went and looked through the peephole. Detectives Dawn Rule and Lawrence Kingman were standing outside.