by Scott Pratt
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
I got back out of bed an hour later and told Grace I was going to visit my mother’s grave. She mumbled something and went right back to sleep. It was a cold Sunday morning, and the sky was bleak. Dark-gray clouds hung low over the mountains. I drove over to Woodlawn Cemetery, which was a place I’d heard my mother say she wanted to be buried many times in the past. There was very little left of her after the blast, so I’d had the remains cremated and the ashes placed in a lacquered mahogany box. The box was buried at Woodlawn in a plot on the west end of the property near a maple tree. Grace had helped me pick out a headstone, and Mom had purchased enough life insurance to cover the expenses and have a little left over.
She’d also been to see a lawyer and had him draft a will that I’d known nothing about. It left her estate to me, and I was also the executor. The estate was going through probate, but when it was all said and done in about three months, I was going to wind up with about $400,000. I’d had no idea she’d stashed that kind of money. Her homeowner’s insurance company, on the advice of their adjuster and their lawyer, had refused to pay the claim I filed for the destruction of her home. They classified the bombing as a “terrorist act,” and there was an exclusion in the contract on which they were relying. I’d considered hiring a lawyer and taking them to court, but had ultimately decided against it. I’d thought about building a house on her property someday, but I knew I’d more than likely just wind up selling it at some point.
I parked my car just a little ways from her grave and walked over. The wind was blowing, and I pulled my coat up tight around my neck. As I stood there in front of the stone, I tried to feel her presence.
“I need to know you’re okay with what I did,” I said. “I killed the men who killed you. I did it in a public place. It was messy and bloody, and I suppose it was awful, but I don’t regret it one single bit. After what they did to you, they deserved what they got.”
I stood there looking at the stone. Tears began to well in my eyes as I thought of the magnitude of both the act I’d committed and the fact that it didn’t change anything. She was still gone, still dead. The stone went out of focus for a minute. I fought the tears back and went on.
“I’ve changed, Mom. Something snapped in me when they killed you, and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same. All I know is that the rules seem to have changed for me. I didn’t deserve what happened to me when Ben Clancy railroaded me into prison. He just went on trial and got acquitted, so once again, he’s managed to dodge justice.
“I didn’t deserve the things that happened to me while I was in prison.
I didn’t deserve losing all that time with you and with Sean. The only good thing that came out of it was my relationship with Grace, and now I’m not so sure where we’re going to wind up. You didn’t deserve to die, and I didn’t deserve losing you. You died because of me, because of something that happened while I was in prison, and I’m so very sorry for that. But I tried to make it right, and I hope I have. From now on, I’m going to rely on myself. I’m not going to rely on the police or the courts for justice. I’ll see to it myself that justice is done.”
I looked up at the dark clouds rolling by like angry monsters. They reflected the way I’d been feeling, full of anger and destructive force and being blown by the winds of destiny to some unknown destination.
“Where are you?” I yelled. “Where are you? Am I standing out here in the cold, talking to a stone? Are you just gone? Give me some kind of sign!”
I looked back at the marker and sighed. I shoved my hands deep into my pockets and tried, once again, to imagine her face. I missed her smile, her laugh, her advice. I missed the feeling of knowing I had someone in my life who shared my blood and knew me better than anyone else in the world. I missed her love.
“I hope you’re not gone, but I’ve never seen any real evidence that there’s life or existence beyond the one we have here,” I said. “Maybe I’m wrong. I want to be wrong, but I don’t think I am. I’m going to go now. I just wanted to tell you that I killed them. I killed the men who killed you. I set things right. I’d do it again tomorrow.”
I walked back to my car and got in. Just before I started the engine, a bolt of lightning ripped across the sky in front of me, earthshaking thunder exploded like a cannon, and the skies opened up.
CHAPTER 21
Grace Alexander awoke to the chirping of her cell phone. She didn’t recognize the number, but the caller ID said “Knoxville Police Department.” She answered the phone.
“Miss Alexander, this is Dawn Rule. I’m a detective with the Knoxville PD, and we’re investigating a homicide. We were at your home earlier and spoke to Darren. Did he tell you we were there?”
Grace was still half-asleep.
“Miss Alexander? Are you there?”
“I’m here,” Grace said. “You woke me up. What did you say about Darren?”
“Is he there right now?”
“No. Why are you asking about Darren?”
“He’s a suspect in a double murder that was committed in Cowen, West Virginia, Friday night. The two men who were killed were our primary suspects in his mother’s murder. Do you have any idea where he was Friday night?”
Grace sat up in bed, suddenly on alert. Darren a suspect in a double murder? Could it be possible? He said he’d gone fishing, but he’d come back so . . . so . . . different. His sexual appetite was suddenly off the charts, and he seemed almost strangely empowered. Could those two phenomena be related to his having killed two men? No, it wasn’t possible. He was getting better, and now the police were, once again, trying to ruin Darren’s life. Hadn’t he been through enough?
“I’m going to hang up now,” Grace said.
“Don’t do that,” Detective Rule said. “You’re not a suspect. All I’m asking is whether you know where Darren was on Friday night.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything about Darren.”
“I’ll subpoena you and put you in front of a grand jury and make you answer under oath,” Rule said.
Grace needed more time to digest this news. She wasn’t going to be pressured by a cop. Besides, she knew the local cops didn’t use the grand jury as an investigative tool. Only the feds did that. “No, you won’t. You can’t intimidate me.”
“Would you mind coming down to the police station and giving us a written statement to that effect?”
“I’m not going anywhere, and I’m not giving you anything,” Grace said. “You are aware that I’m a defense attorney, correct?”
“Then we’ll come to you. When would be most convenient?”
“I don’t want you here. Leave me alone. Whatever you suspect Darren of doing, he didn’t do it. He’s been falsely accused before, you know. I’m not going to help you frame him again. He was with me Friday. All night.”
“If you aren’t being truthful with me, you’re committing a felony.”
“That’s a load of crap, and you know it,” Grace said. “I know the law, Detective Rule. If I make a false statement to you concerning a material fact in an investigation and it prevents you from apprehending or locating a suspect, then I’ve committed a felony. I’m not preventing you from apprehending or locating anyone. You probably know exactly where Darren is.”
“As a matter of fact, we do. He’s visiting his mother’s grave. Does he do that often?”
“Go piss up a rope,” Grace said, and she hung up the phone.
She went into the kitchen and fixed herself a cup of hot tea. Her hands were shaking. She thought back over everything. Darren had left early Thursday and had come back Saturday afternoon. She had no idea where he’d gone. He said he’d gone fishing, but he hadn’t said where. She remembered asking him whether he caught anything, and he’d said, “Two big ones.” He also said he’d left them where he caught them.
Could Darren possibly have killed two people? Grace didn’t think him capable of such a horrific act, but he’d been under such tremendous mental and emotional strain that perhaps he’d done something she couldn’t imagine. And the sudden change in him after he’d returned—the seemingly brighter outlook, the voracious sexual appetite—made her wonder what had really gone on over those two days. And he’d lied to her earlier about the police showing up at her house. He’d said he was talking to Jehovah’s Witnesses. Something significant had occurred, but murder? Surely not murder.
She picked up her phone and punched in Darren’s number.
“Where are you?” she said when he answered.
“On the way. I stopped and picked us up some breakfast.”
“A detective named Dawn Rule just called me.”
There was silence for ten full seconds. “Okay, what did she want?”
“You know exactly what she wanted since she talked to you earlier this morning. She wanted to know where you were on Friday.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t talk over the phone,” Darren said.
“Maybe not. You’re coming straight here?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”
CHAPTER 22
“I just lied to a police officer,” Grace said as soon as I walked in the door.
I’d never seen her angry, at least not angry with me. Her cheeks were pink, and her eyes were narrow and intense. Her mouth was a tight line.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I told her you were here with me Friday night.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank you? Thank you? Is that all you have to say? Where in the hell were you Friday night?”
“I told you, I went fishing.”
“Where?”
“At Abrams Creek near Cades Cove.”
“Did you stay at the campground?”
“No, I slept on the bank by the creek.”
“It was cold Friday night, Darren.”
“I made a fire and a shelter, and I had a tent and sleeping bag. They’re in my car. Would you like me to go and get them? In fact, I bought quite a bit of gear. It’s all in the trunk if you’d like to come out and take a look.”
“As a matter of fact, I think I would,” she said.
We walked together to the parking lot of her apartment complex, and I popped the trunk on my car. The fishing gear, sleeping bag, small tent, and light I’d purchased were all there. I’d had the foresight to remove the price tags and wrinkle some things. There were even a couple of bags of Outfitter’s Choice dehydrated camping entrées. I patted myself on the back mentally. It was a pretty convincing show.
“Satisfied?” I said as she looked over the gear.
“You’ve never told me you were a camper,” she said, still looking down at the trunk.
“You know I like to fish.”
“So?”
“Fishing and camping go hand in hand. I’ve camped a bunch of times in my life.”
“Why haven’t you ever mentioned it?”
“I guess it’s just never come up. You never talk about camping.”
“I’ve never been camping,” Grace said. “I’ve never spent a night in the woods. A lot of people around San Diego camped, but my parents weren’t among them and neither were any of my friends. The closest I’ve ever come to camping was a sleepover at my girlfriend’s when I was a teenager. We pitched a tent in the backyard, but we went into the house around midnight.”
“I guess I’ll have to take you and introduce you to the wonders of the great outdoors,” I said.
“Swear to me on your mother’s life that you didn’t go anywhere near West Virginia on Friday night.”
My mother was dead. There was no life on which to swear. And I needed Grace on my side. “I swear on my mother’s life that I wasn’t anywhere near West Virginia on Friday night.”
“The police think otherwise.”
“I know. But they have this little problem. It’s called proof.”
We turned and walked back toward her apartment.
“Have they told you that two men suspected of killing your mom were murdered Friday night?” she asked.
“Yes. Do you know what else they told me?”
“What’s that?”
“Last week, they told me they had a suspect in Mom’s murder. They told me his name and where he was from.”
“Why would they do that?” Grace said.
“I think they were just trying to make me feel better, letting me know they were working the case and that they had what they thought was a solid suspect.”
“Cops don’t usually do that, do they?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never been the son of a murder victim before. You would think they’d keep that kind of information to themselves, though, unless, at some level, they wanted me to go up there and do something about it.”