Pretty Little Killers (21 page)

On the way, Skylar memories kept playing inside her mind as if on a loop. Carol had been there the day Skylar was born. She had driven Mary and Skylar home when Mary called her, insistent she leave the hospital a day early. Mary, angry at Dave over some spat or another, refused to ask him for a ride. Carol never forgot how the car containing her, Mary, and their two only children spun around on black ice in the middle of a busy road. Carol held it together long enough for her husband Steve to come and rescue them. The minute she got home, though, she burst into tears.

Like Mary, Carol cries easily. She does so even as she relates stories about Skylar: the time Skylar borrowed her earrings to wear to a middle-school dance, all the times Skylar insisted she had to come clean Carol's house when Carol was sick, and every time her favorite niece gave her another teapot.

Carol entered the Neeses' apartment without knocking. In north-central West Virginia, people leave their doors unlocked when they are home—and often when they're not. It's common for relatives and close friends to simply enter, especially if they are expected. Mary was on the couch, her eyes rimmed with red.

“Carol, she's not coming back,” Mary said. “If she was coming back, she'd be back. I'm telling you now.”

“I know. I can feel it, too. Skylar wouldn't do this.” Carol sank onto the couch beside her sister.

“You know what else?” Mary said. “Her period was going to start, and you know how she gets.”

Carol nodded. “Cramps so bad she has to go to bed for the entire first day. And she always has to have Goody with her.” Carol suddenly realized something. “Mary! Where's Goody?”

Mary shook her head. “In Skylar's nightstand, same as always.”

“If Skylar had run away, she'd have taken Goody with her,” Carol insisted. The women were referring to a fuchsia piece of cloth cut from Mary's nightgown that Skylar had kept since she was a toddler. Any time she was sick or in pain, Skylar wanted Goody nearby.

With that shared realization, Mary and Carol cried together, long and hard on the small balcony outside the dining room. They talked and wept for much of the afternoon.

When Dave got home after his shift, Mary and Carol were on the deck.

“What's wrong?” he asked, his brows knitted together with worry.

Mary spoke quietly. “Skylar's gone.”

“What?” He felt suddenly panicked. “How do you know that?”

“We just know.”

Dave didn't want to hear that. The family was just pulling out of a rocky patch. Skylar had sensed the change and was once more becoming the amiable and happy kid she had always been. He couldn't bear to think Skylar was never coming home.

sixteen

Digging a Hole

One week after Officer
Colebank first spoke with Shelia, the Blacksville branch of the Huntington National Bank was robbed. It was just after 10:00
A.M
. on Monday, July 16, when a sturdy man in black wearing a full-face mask entered the branch carrying a backpack. He didn't say a word—the large gun in his right hand said it all. The lone teller triggered the silent alarm. The thief either didn't notice or didn't care. He walked to the counter and handed the backpack to the female teller. Fingers trembling, she filled it with the contents of the cash drawer. The robber fled through the back door. From start to finish, the crime took less than thirty seconds.

Corporal Ronnie Gaskins and Senior Trooper Chris Berry from the WVSP arrived first on the scene. Trooper Berry knew the bank well. He had been transferred to Morgantown to help solve a rash of recent bank robberies. Berry's family was from the Blacksville area, so he was happy to spend time working in his hometown. His grandfather, a Monongalia County deputy sheriff, had been shot in the neck at the same bank Berry was assigned to investigate. Luckily, the shot had grazed him and only required a few stitches.

Senior Trooper Chris Berry. (Photo courtesy Dana Berry.)

Berry immediately liked Gaskins, his new partner, who was also second-generation law enforcement. At one time Gaskins and his father were the only father-son state trooper team working the same West Virginia detachment. While their personalities were like day and night—Berry, talkative and excitable; Gaskins, reserved and thoughtful—both men were driven. Their shared family tradition made for a good working relationship.

This was Gaskins and Berry's second visit to the bank, because it had been robbed over five weeks earlier, one month to the day before Skylar disappeared. Neither trooper yet knew the bank robberies would draw them into the most complex case of their careers.

Colebank sensed they were being watched.

She'd gotten that sensation as soon as she pulled her Star City Police cruiser into the Shoafs' driveway a few moments earlier. Sure
enough, within seconds, a blonde woman appeared at the entrance of the house next door. Once she made eye contact with Colebank, the woman bustled down her walkway.

Still behind the wheel, Colebank grabbed her notebook and motioned to her male passenger. “Let's do this,” she said, opening the car door. FBI Special Agent Morgan Spurlock followed her lead. In a suit and tie, Spurlock looked like a classic FBI agent—until he hoisted his ever-present backpack over his shoulder. Instead of briefcases, today's federal agents carry backpacks.

Once outside the car, Colebank turned toward the blonde woman she thought might be Rachel's mother.

“We're here to see Rachel,” Colebank said.

“Oh, I'm not Patricia,” the woman said. “I'm a neighbor, Kim Keener. Her mom's not here. Can I help you?”

It was July 19, almost two weeks since Colebank had spoken with Rachel at church camp. Colebank was eager to talk to her again, but the teen had never showed up at the station as she'd promised. The officer wondered if her first face-to-face with Rachel would make her as uneasy as when she'd met Shelia.

“Yes, Star City Police.” Kim had already pulled out her cell phone and was talking to someone. “It's about Skylar, I guess. They wanna ask Rachel some questions about her disappearance. You need to talk to them or come home. Okay?” Kim nodded, eyeing the officer and the agent.

She held the phone out to Spurlock. “Patricia wants to talk to you.”

“Thank you, ma'am,” the FBI agent said, taking the phone.

Colebank listened as he introduced himself and gave Rachel's mom the names of their respective agencies. She heard Patricia's reply, too: “Ask her whatever you want. We're trying to help here.”

Patricia was two hours away when her cell phone rang. She couldn't understand why the police wanted to talk to Rachel. She had been at
church camp when Skylar went missing. The police must have their facts wrong. They should be talking to Shelia; those two girls were always together.

Patricia had long ago heard what other teens said about the Eddy girl. She didn't want her daughter with Shelia or Skylar, if the two were together. So she rarely let Rachel spend any time with them.

Liz said Patricia didn't realize how serious the situation was or she would have turned around and come straight home. By the time she reached her destination, Patricia learned the full story: the FBI needed to question her daughter because Rachel was one of the last two people to see Skylar the night she disappeared. Patricia was mortified when she learned hours later Shelia was the other one.

Patricia was stunned by the realization Rachel had snuck out that night, and had been with Skylar before she went missing.

In the back of Colebank's mind was a single nagging doubt: the car has to be Shelia's. She and Spurlock had requested more security video from a couple of Star City businesses. The recordings they had already requested from corporate headquarters wouldn't arrive for at least a few days, but in the meantime they planned to scout the area for any vehicles resembling the one captured on the landlord's surveillance video.

Colebank remembered what it was like to be a teenager; high school girls are usually confused about something, and if they were high, it would be easy for their times to be off. Maybe they picked Skylar up later than they said, but they didn't realize it.

That's why Colebank wanted to talk to Rachel. She also knew the girl was religious and thought she might be easier to get information from than Shelia.

The officer hadn't conducted many interviews so she was eager to pick up a few techniques from Spurlock. He was whip-smart and Colebank hoped to learn a great deal from working with him. Even though Spurlock appeared to be in his early twenties, she knew he had extensive training in criminology and accounting, so he had to
be older. She didn't realize Spurlock had only been out in the field a couple of months.