The Killing Kind by M. William Phelps Page A

fixture over at Nick’s these days. He had dated Stella Funderburk, Heather and Nicole’s mother, and had known Stella “since [we] was kids growing up.” Sommer didn’t know it, but Danny was dating Heather’s sister, Nicole. Sommer had heard of Danny Hembree, but this was the first time she had met him.
    The backcountry, simple way Danny once explained how he had gone from dating a mother to her daughter sounded as though he was doing them both a favor by gracing each with his presence: “I had promised Stella some things that I was now giving to Nicole.”
    As they drove, he took a different route from what Sommer knew would take them to Nick’s. She looked over at her boyfriend, wondering what was going on, and then asked Danny, where was he headed?
    “Momma’s house. To see my daughter,” he said. Danny had that hard, weathered prison look about him: a somewhat-crater face, at times a ragged gray-and-brown mustache (which he dyed tar black on occasion), dark (almost black) beady eyes, greasy dark grayish brown and black hair (with streaks of gray and white), and a strange, cocky smile off to the side of his face, indicating how his mind was always cooking up something that was probably illegal. His criminal record was longer than a college transcript. The guy had spent more time in prison than he had out of prison. He fashioned himself a badass, someone to be feared. He believed—and there can be no doubt about this fact—that he was better than anyone within his circle of friends and family.
    The Hembrees lived in an area of Gastonia known as Chapel Grove, named after the main road in town. It is a section of town where bursts of well-populated Southern-style neighborhoods blossom around acreage of thickly settled woods. At the corner of Camp Rotary and Chapel Grove Roads is the Chapel Grove Baptist Church. Beyond that is the church’s day care center. It’s quiet here. People keep to themselves and generally take care of one another. The word “serial killer,” or even “killer,” is not something locals think about. Those types of evil things, as they say, happen somewhere else. God is a driving force in this community. People fear Him. They worship regularly.
    As they pulled up to Danny Hembree’s mother’s house, Sommer and her boyfriend saw a rather pleasant home, all considering. The house was small, one of those redbrick, ranch-style box homes with black shutters. The yard and outside of the home (in the front) were kept up rather well. The backyard showed some suburban decay: fence that needed painting and repair, porch stairs that needed replacing, an empty in-ground pool, its liner ripped and cut, various brush and leaves scattered about. Danny lived here, too. He had a bedroom and den area to himself down the hall from where his mother slept.
    Danny told Sommer and her boyfriend to wait in the car. He said he wouldn’t be long. “Just running in to get some money and see my daughter.”
    They waited about thirty minutes. While alone with her boyfriend, Sommer said, “He’s weird, huh?”
    “Sure is,” George replied, staring at the house.
    (“You know how you can just tell when people are strange?” Sommer later commented. “ That was Danny Hembree.”)
    Sommer wasn’t the only one who later described a suspicious, peculiar vibe emanating from Danny Hembree. Women, mainly, felt an odd sense of unkindness and nastiness when they were around the guy. Many said it was hard to explain, but think about someone you’ve met for the first time and there was a wisp of immorality in the air hovering over them—a gut response that there’s something wrong with them.
    Danny returned to the car, said nothing, and proceeded to Nick’s house.
    “With their upbringing, the Catterton sisters were doomed, essentially,” said one law enforcement official. Heather had tried time and again, but the pipe had gotten hold of her at that young age and would not let go. According to Sommer, Heather