Last Look (21 page)

18

“I saw that press conference over at the Randall’s last night, and I don’t mind telling you, I just could not believe my ears. ’Course, there have been rumors flyin’ around town these past few days, but I didn’t pay them any mind. I mean, who would ever have thought…”

Kim Holbrook, the former Kimmie White, held her sleepy two-year-old in her arms, her voice barely above a whisper as she swayed slightly from side to side to lull the baby, whose eyes were all but closed. “Poor Miz Randall, I bet she’d like to die just about now.”

She continued to speak softly as she led her visitor into the living room of her beautifully appointed home.

“I was more or less expecting someone to come over, sooner or later.”

“Why is that?” Dorsey asked.

“Well, I was one of Shannon’s best friends. I testified at the trial.” She shook her head. “I just cannot believe all the things that FBI agent was saying on the news last night. I told Art—my husband—that finding out now, all these years later, it’s like Shannon died all over again.”

She realized what she said, then laughed nervously. “Well, of course, she did. Die, I mean. That just did not come out right.” She rolled her eyes before heading toward the steps. “If you would excuse me for just one minute, I need to put her down in her crib….”

Kim climbed the winding stairs to the second floor before Dorsey could respond, but she didn’t mind. A few minutes alone would give her an opportunity to look around a bit.

The Holbrook home was lovely. There were photos of three towheaded children on the ornate mantel, including the youngest one in her mother’s arms, but to look around the handsome room, one would never suspect a child lived in this house. There were no toys on the floor or behind the chairs that flanked the large fireplace. The sofa and chairs were expensively upholstered, the drapes on the room’s three large windows raw silk. The carpet was oriental, and looked antique. All in all, Dorsey would have to say that Kimmie White had done quite well for herself. So much better than her childhood friend had. Dorsey felt a flush of anger for Shannon’s sake as she looked around at all the dead woman had been denied. The children, the beautiful home, the good life in her home town.

“Sorry,” Kim said as she came down the steps. “I was just about to put her down for her nap when the doorbell rang. Can I get you some coffee? A cold drink, maybe?”

“Nothing, thank you.” Dorsey had returned to her seat when she’d heard her hostess’s footfalls on the stairs. “Your home is lovely.”

“Oh, thank you. We’ve only been here for about six months now, but it seems we’ve been working on it forever.” She took a seat at the opposite end of the sofa from Dorsey. “This was my in-laws’ house, and when my father-in-law passed two years ago, my husband inherited it. We’ve been renovating all that time—Lord, but it needed everything, nothing was up to date….” She stopped and stared at Dorsey for a moment, then said, “But you didn’t come to hear about that. You came to talk about Shannon.”

“I understand you were with Shannon the day before she disappeared.”

“We were at my house working on some project for school. I don’t even remember now what it was we were doing,” Kim told her. “Shannon left to go to the church for choir practice that night, just like any Wednesday. The next day she wasn’t at the bus stop before school, and she wasn’t in homeroom. Me and Heather—she was our other friend—called her house at lunchtime, thinking she was sick? But no one answered the phone. Then later that day, we heard she was missing.”

Kim crossed her arms over her chest. “It was just the worst feeling; the worst thing that had ever happened to any of us, finding out that Eric Beale had killed her.”

She visibly shuddered. “But of course, we know now that wasn’t true….”

“Was there any point over the years, when Shannon might have tried to get in touch with you?” Dorsey asked. “Phone calls, for example?”

“No.” She shook her head adamantly. “No. If she had, I would have told someone. I can’t help but wonder why she didn’t, though, if she’d been alive all that time. We were really close, you know? I just can’t get over how crazy this whole thing is. That FBI agent on the news last night, he was saying how Shannon had been a…a prostitute? Is that true?”

“Yes.”

“Do you know why? When?” Kim floundered. “I’m sorry, I’m just having such a hard time imagining her doing something like that. Shannon was such a goody-goody. She didn’t even have much interest in boys back then.”

“But you did.”

“Well, yes.” Kim laughed self-consciously. “But we were in high school, after all.”

“Did Shannon ever give you any indication that she was thinking about running away? Leaving home?”

“None. Honestly, no.” Kim shook her head from side to side. “I swear I would have said something back then, if I’d thought she ran away. But no, it just wasn’t something she would do. At least not that any of us had seen. It just all seems so out of character, you know? It makes me feel as if maybe I didn’t know her at all—but I know in my heart I did. It’s all very confusing.”

“Was she having any problems at home that you know of?”

“No. Oh, her little sister used to get on her nerves a lot, but little sisters do that. God knows mine did, too. But no, she was happy as far as I remember. She had a pretty good relationship with her family, especially her mother. They were real close. Miz Randall used to bake cupcakes for school, cookies for the girls when they came home in the afternoon. Pretty birthday cakes. I always thought Shannon had it really good, frankly.” Kim laughed. “I still find it hard to believe she ran away from all that.”

“Did she ever mention that she was being abused by anyone?”

“Abused?” Kim’s eyes went wide. “Oh, uh-uh. No. She never—I don’t think she was ever—oh, no…”

Kim rubbed the back of her neck with her right hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m still having a hard time with all this. This is just all so crazy, you know?”

She got up and paced slowly. “If something bad was happening, she never let it show.”

Kim wrapped her arms around herself and said, “Honest to God, if Shannon was being abused, she never let on. No one would ever have suspected something like that.”

“Just like no one suspected that you were lying when you told Chief Taylor you’d seen Eric’s car heading out to the lake with Shannon in it?” Dorsey asked.

Kim stared at Dorsey.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, a flush creeping from her chest to her face. “I would never have lied about such a thing.”

“Of course you would. You did. I read Shannon’s diary, Kim. I know that you had a ‘powerful bad crush’ on Eric Beale,” Dorsey said calmly, her eyes never leaving Kim’s face. “That’s a quote from Shannon’s diary. I believe she may have been quoting you.”

Kim’s face took on that deer-in-the-headlights look.

“You asked him to the winter formal and he turned you down,” Dorsey went on. “You were plenty pissed off when you heard that someone else had asked him a few days later and he’d said yes.”

Kim shrugged. “It was just a dance.”

“You were one angry little girl, according to Shannon’s diary. ‘Kimmie says she’s going to show him.’ That’s what Shannon wrote, just a day or two before she disappeared.”

“That’s just something you say when you’re angry.” Kim dismissed it with a careless wave of her hand.

Dorsey leaned forward.

“Well, I guess you sure showed Eric, huh? Putting the police onto him, making him out to look like a liar to the cops sure did show him, didn’t it?”

“No, no, I…” Kim froze.

Dorsey stood, her hands in the pockets of her skirt. “Shannon disappears, and you have the perfect opportunity to get even.”

“It wasn’t supposed to…I mean, he’d been with her that afternoon, he never denied that. And there was that shirt they found in his car, with her blood on it.”

“You put him in Chief Taylor’s head, Kim. If you hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t have suspected him of lying. They would have looked for other explanations for her disappearance.”

“That’s not how it was. They would have blamed him anyway. Everyone knew that he had a thing for her. Sooner or later, his name was going to come up. I never thought they were going to arrest him. I thought they’d just question him, scare him a little. Listen, it never occurred to me that Shannon wasn’t going to come back. I thought she’d show up and the whole thing would just go away. Until he said he knew she was dead and that Eric killed her.”

“Who do you mean,
he
?”

“Chief Taylor.” Kim’s eyes were welling and threatening to overflow.

“Chief Taylor told you that?” Dorsey fought to keep her voice even.

Kim nodded. “He said he knew Eric was lying. He said he knew Eric killed her, that Eric had to pay for it. He said if I was any kind of real friend, I’d—” She bit her bottom lip.

“You’d do what?”

“I’d help him get Eric to confess.”

“By lying about having seen Shannon in Eric’s car where and when you did?”

“I told Chief Taylor that I’d seen Shannon in Eric’s car that afternoon. And I did. I walked Carrie and Heather partway home, to Fifth Street, then I turned around and started walking home. That’s when I saw them. Eric and Shannon. They passed me out near where Fifth Street runs into the park.”

“And that’s what you told Chief Taylor?”

Kim nodded. “Yes, but he kept saying, ‘Well, they could have been going through the park to the lake, couldn’t they?’” She shrugged. “Sure, you can get to the lake by going through the park. So, I said, ‘Sure, I guess.’ Then the next thing I knew, he was saying that I saw them on the road that leads out to the lake. Which isn’t really what I said.”

“I’m confused. Tell me what the difference is?”

“The road you generally would take if you were going to the lake is Lakeview. It only goes to the lake. You can get to the lake by driving through the park, and that’s what I said. But that’s not what the chief ended up telling people. He was saying I saw them on Lakeview.” She began to cry. “Before I knew it, everyone was saying Eric took her out to the lake and killed her and hid her body somewhere out there. Everyone was making such a big deal out of it, that I was the one who saw them last. That I was going to be the one who helped the police get Shannon’s killer.”

“You helped set him up, Kim.”

“For God’s sake, I was fourteen years old. I didn’t understand that it would make a difference. It was like, once Chief Taylor said that, it seemed like it could have been true.”

“And eight years later, when they were about to execute Eric? You were twenty-two.” Dorsey stared at her with contempt. “What was your excuse then?”

“It never occurred to me that it would make any difference. Everyone believed Eric had killed her. Everyone said it was true….” Kim’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Honest to God, I believed he killed her. Chief Taylor told me I had a chance to help catch her killer. Shannon was my friend, and I believed he’d killed her. I didn’t think it mattered.”

“The truth always matters,” Dorsey replied.

“What”—Kim licked her lips nervously—“what’s going to happen to me?”

“I’d like to see you prosecuted for perjury, but realistically—and unfortunately—something tells me that isn’t likely to happen after all these years. Though you never know what the D.A. is likely to do in an election year. This case being as big as it is, he might come after you to prove he’s really tough on crime, regardless of how old that crime might be. He might want to make an example out of you, Kimmie.” Dorsey started toward the door, then turned and asked, “Did you know what was going on between Jeff Feeney and the Beale brothers?”

“I know they hated each other, but I never knew what it was all about.” Kim’s bottom lip was trembling, her eyes brimming with tears again. “All I know is that Jeff gave them a hard time whenever he saw them.”

“Jeff gave
them
a hard time, not the other way around?”

Kim nodded her head. “I don’t know about Tim, but I always had the feeling Eric went out of his way to avoid Jeff, but I never knew why.”

“Thanks,” Dorsey said curtly as she turned the doorknob to leave.

“Agent Collins?” Kim still stood in the center of the room, crying softly. “I’m really, really sorry. I can’t tell you how sorry I am.”

“Tell that to Eric Beale’s family.”

Dorsey let herself out without looking back.

19

Dorsey did her best to hold fast to the reins of her temper. That Kim had been blithely getting on with her perfect life while Shannon had been working the streets and Eric lay dead stung her in the way that injustice always did. She would have loved to have been able to tell Kim she could expect the chief of police to show up any day to arrest her for perjury, but she knew that was unlikely. She’d be lucky if she could get Chief Bowden to go to the D.A., especially when Chief Taylor was long gone and the new version of Kim’s story could not be verified.

On her way back to the motel, she made one more swing past the Randalls’, but Andrew’s car still wasn’t there. Where the hell was he? His silence seemed like just one more good reason to be pissed off.

She wasn’t going to call him again. She’d left messages, he knew she needed to talk to him. She had Shannon’s diary, and though it contained no smoking gun, it had put her on to Kimmie’s lie. And it could serve another purpose. No one knew what was in it, and if they let it be known it was in their possession, would someone step up to try to find out what was in it?

Right, that’ll happen,
she snorted. Only on TV and in murder mysteries did the guilty party try to steal such potential evidence. In her experience, it just never happened the way it did on TV. Still, when it came to the Randall family, they might want to call her bluff. Who knew how they might react?

She pulled into the parking lot just as her phone began to ring.

Her father’s home number appeared in the caller ID, and she answered with a demanding, “Where the hell have you been, Pop?”

“Ummmm…is this Dorsey?” a woman’s voice inquired.

“Yes. Who is this?”

“My name is Diane Coleman, I’m a friend of your father’s.”

Diane of the “last weekend was fun” message on her father’s answering machine?

“Yes, Diane. How are you? What can I do for you?” She immediately regretted how impatient she must have sounded, but at that moment, she was in no mood for small talk.

“Well, frankly, I’m a little concerned. About your father.”

So much for idle chitchat.

“What about my father?” Dorsey asked cautiously.

“Well, he left here yesterday morning and I haven’t heard from him since. Normally I wouldn’t think twice about it, but he promised to call as soon as he got there because he knew I was worried—about where he was going and how he’d be received, you know?”

“Actually, I don’t know. Where was he going?”

“To meet with a man named Timothy Beale. He said it had to do with a case he’d handled a long time ago, and—”

“Wait, stop.” Dorsey couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. “Pop went to see Tim Beale?”

“Yes. And he gave me a number to call, in case I didn’t hear from him by midnight. Well, when I hadn’t, I called the number—”

“Whose number did he give you? Who did he tell you to call?”

“Someone he said he knew when he was with the FBI. John Mancini. I’m sorry to bother you, but I’m getting worried and I thought maybe he’d called you.”

“I haven’t heard from him. But you’re saying he’s in South Carolina?”

“Yes.”

“And he told you to call John Mancini if you hadn’t spoken with him by midnight last night?”

“Right. And I even waited a little, I waited till almost one this morning before I called. I know I’m probably being silly, but I just feel really uneasy. I hope you don’t mind that I called you. Your number was on Matt’s phone, so I thought I’d take a chance.”

“I’m glad you did. You did exactly the right thing.” Dorsey’s mind was racing. “Did you speak with John?”

“Yes. He thanked me for calling and told me not to worry. He said he’d take care of everything.”

Dorsey had a feeling she knew how John had taken care of it.

“Diane, thanks for letting me know. I’ll check into this, and as soon as I talk to Pop, I’ll have him give you a call. Are you going to stay there at the house?”

“I hadn’t planned on it. Let me give you my cell, just in case.” Diane rattled off the number and Dorsey scribbled it on the back of a card she found in the bottom of her purse.

“Got it,” Dorsey told her. “I’ll have him get back to you.”

“Thanks, Dorsey.” She paused. “I hope we get a chance to meet sometime soon.”

“I’d like that too. Soon, I hope,” Dorsey said sincerely. Any woman who would look out for her Pop was okay in Dorsey’s book. “Look, let me see if I can catch up with Pop.”

“Right. Talk to you soon.”

Dorsey hung up, her gratitude toward Diane instantly replaced with an anger so strong she could barely see straight.

Bastard.

Shields, you bastard.

“It’s nothing,” he’d told her calmly when his phone rang just after one that morning. “Just something John wants me to check into.”

He lied to her face and never blinked. Son of a bitch.

He’d known her father had been at Tim Beale’s all this time.

It was noon, almost twelve hours later. What the hell was going on? And why was Andrew called into it? And why did she have to hear about it from her father’s…

What was Diane to Matt, anyway?

Dorsey dialed her father’s cell phone but got no answer. In spite of her earlier resolve not to, she tried Andrew again, but wasn’t at all surprised when he didn’t pick up.

“What the hell is going on, Andrew?” She all but spit her words out. “Did you really think I wasn’t going to find out my father is meeting with Tim Beale? You son of a bitch.”

She hung up the phone and dropped it into her bag, wishing she hadn’t disconnected quite so quickly. She had a few more curses left for Andrew.

She drummed impatient fingers on the steering wheel, then forced a few deep breaths to calm herself. She could scream and curse all she wanted later. Right now, she had to find her father and if she held on too tightly to her anger, she would be distracted from that task. Focus, she reminded herself. Find Tim Beale, and she’d find her pop.

Chief Bowden had said Tim Beale was living someplace not too far from Hatton. Had she been smart enough to make a note of it? She rummaged in her bag for her small notebook, and went back through the last entries.
Naylor’s M.
was noted next to Tim’s name. What the hell did the
M
stand for? She didn’t want to call Bowden; he’d want to know why she was asking.

She’d have to stop and ask someone, maybe at that convenience store on the way out of town, the one with the gas station attached. Surely there’d be somebody there who knew of a place called Naylor’s
Something-that-began-with-M.

She hoped to God someone did, and could tell her how to get there. She wasn’t really sure what she was going to do once she arrived, but she knew she wasn’t about to sit home waiting for film at eleven.

“I’m not kidding, you assholes.” The voice from the trailer sounded shrill and short-tempered. “I told you to keep your distance. Ain’t no one coming in or going out until my momma gets here. Unfortunately for y’all, she’s driving from Kentucky so it’s going to be a while. I told you that when y’all got here. This ain’t no party, and you ain’t been invited anyway. This here’s between me and old Matt and my momma. The rest of you can all go to hell or you can hang out, but keep back from the door or I swear, I’ll put a bullet right between his eyes and be happy as shit to do it. Any questions?”

“None,” Andrew called back.

“Good. Now y’all just be quiet for a while, and no one’s going to be hurt. Just…be quiet.”

“Gotcha’,” Andrew replied in a voice too low to be heard from the trailer. He turned to John Mancini and asked, “You okay with us waiting for Jeanette Beale to arrive?”

“We don’t have much choice.” John checked his watch. “She should be here soon. We waited this long, we might as well wait it out. Not much we can do anyway, with Matt in there.”

“You think he’s armed?”

“Matt? If he was, Beale’s got whatever Matt had with him by now.”

Andrew’s phone rang and he checked the number. It was Dorsey again. He shoved the phone back into his pocket. He felt like a heel, not telling her what was going on, but John had been very specific in his instructions not to let on to Dorsey what was happening. He’d repeated it twice, as if he wasn’t sure that once had been sufficient. “You’re not to tell her anything, understand? I want as few people as possible out here. And I specifically do not want her here.”

Yeah, right. That worked. Andrew eyed the gathering crowd.

A deputy from the county sheriff’s department had been driving past and stopped to find out what was going on with all the cars out here by the trailer that sat alone on a wide vacant lot. The deputy, a hunting buddy of Tim Beale’s, was curious. Once he found out what the FBI was doing, he’d called back in to the sheriff—and anyone with a police-band radio, including the local press, heard about the FBI’s presence out at Naylor’s Marsh. From the looks of it, most of them had headed on out to take a look. John kept the locals busy by having them keep back everyone else who’d stopped by to see the show. Andrew had twice suggested to John that they let Dorsey know what was going on, and got rebuffed both times.

“I think she ought to know,” Andrew had argued.

“Not until we see what’s going down,” John said. “I don’t want Matt’s daughter here if Beale is going to put a gun to his head and pull the trigger. I promised Matt I’d keep Dorsey out of it. I’ll not go back on that.”

Andrew has shoved his hands in his pockets and started to walk away.

“You disagree,” John said. It wasn’t a question.

“For the record, yeah, I disagree. I don’t think she should be treated like a child, and that’s what you and Matt are doing. She’s a pro, John. She’s as good as anyone we have on our team. She shouldn’t be cut out of this.”

“That sounds more like an emotional reaction on your part than a professional one,” John had observed. “Not a good sign, in my opinion.”

“I’ve been working with her for the past week. At your insistence, if you need a reminder. You’re the one who sold me on her, you’re the one who wanted her here in the first place. It’s not fair to cut her out now.”

“Fair isn’t the issue,” John had reminded him stonily.

“I’m just saying.” An angry Andrew bit his tongue before he was tempted to say something to his boss he might regret later.

“Noted,” John had said as he’d watched Andrew walk away.

They both turned to look when an old, pale blue Oldsmobile pulled up and was stopped by the sheriff’s deputy who’d stationed himself nearest the action. After a few words, he waved her through. As the agents watched, a woman who appeared to be in her mid-fifties got out from behind the wheel. She wore white Capri pants, a purple tank top, and huge round sunglasses. Strawberry blond hair was piled atop her head and held there by a large black clip. She surveyed the area around the trailer, her gaze stopping when it reached the small cluster of FBI agents standing halfway between the cars and the trailer.

“That would be Mrs. Beale,” John told the two agents who’d accompanied him on the plane from Virginia. He started toward her as she started toward him.

“Mrs. Beale, I’m John Mancini, FBI.” He approached her with his hand out.

She met his eyes and ignored the hand.

“I figured the FBI would be here. You smell blood again, Mr. Mancini?” Her face was hard-lined and angry. “You here to take another son from me?”

“Mrs. Beale, there is nothing I or anyone else can say that can make right what happened twenty-four years ago,” John said. “Sorry doesn’t even come close to what I wish I could say. What happened was a total travesty, the most tragic—”

“Save it. Or better still, write it down for me. So that I can take it into court when I sue your sorry asses.” She started to push past him just as another car pulled over to the side of the road, twenty-five feet from where they stood.

Dorsey got out of her car and started across what passed for lawn. She was stopped by the same sheriff’s deputy who minutes before had flagged down Tim Beale’s mother. The small group gathered around him parted to make way for the latest arrival.

“Miss, I’m sorry, but I can’t permit you to—” the deputy began.

Dorsey waved her badge in his face. “FBI.”

He stopped her long enough to look over her credentials, then said, “Go on over, Agent Collins. The others are straight ahead there.”

“I see them, thank you.” She tucked her badge back into her bag.

“Agent Collins?” someone called her from behind. “Are you Dorsey Collins?”

She turned to face a short, slender man wearing glasses and a Carolina Panthers cap turned brim backward. “Who are you?”

“Robert Kerlin. I’m with Channel Seventeen out of Charleston. I was at the press conference last night.” He stepped closer. “I was wondering why Agent Shields said he was the only agent assigned to the Shannon Randall case, since Chief Bowden was pretty adamant that you were working the case as well.”

Dorsey stared at him for a moment before muttering “I don’t have time for this” as she pushed past him.

Robert Kerlin took a digital camera from his pocket and took a few shots of her back as she walked away.

“Dorsey.” Andrew was standing a few feet away from John Mancini and Jeanette Beale when he saw her.

She ignored him and continued on toward the trailer.

“Dorsey, don’t,” he called to her. When she refused to acknowledge him, he started after her. “Dorsey, you can’t go there. Beale has a gun. He’s threatened to shoot your father if anyone gets too close.”

She spun around to face him. “You knew about this. You knew he was here. You looked me straight in the face and lied through your teeth.”

“I understand how you must feel,” he said, hoping to reason with her.

“Oh, do you? You think you do?” Her anger was palpable in the thick summer air. “Is that your father in there?”

“I know what you must think….” Andrew pushed a hand through his hair. He’d been hoping to have this conversation later, away from everyone.

“Then you know I hope to God I never have to see you again after today.” Her hands were shaking with anger and she crossed her arms over her chest in the hopes of steadying them. “This is the ‘nothing’ John called you about, right?”