Pretty Little Killers (22 page)

By the time Spurlock returned Kim's cell phone, she had already grabbed Patricia's hidden house key. Kim unlocked the front door of the Shoaf home and yelled up the stairs. “Hey, Rach! Star City Police are here to see you!”

In the dim light, Colebank could just make out the figures of two other people who hung back, watching as Rachel walked over to the officer and the agent. Colebank didn't know Kelly Kerns, but learned Patricia had left Kelly in charge of Rachel for the weekend. Colebank immediately recognized the guy's name. He was Mikinzy Boggs, Rachel's boyfriend.

Rachel and Mikinzy had recently started dating—again. The two had first gotten together at the end of the previous October, drawn together by a mutual love of the stage. Rachel sang, played guitar, and was a rising star in UHS drama circles. Mikinzy wrote songs, played guitar, and sang lead in a band christened “Call Us Next Tuesday,” a name presumably chosen for its shocking acronym.

His band mostly played house parties. Slender, with a prominent nose and teeth, some people say Mikinzy looks like Napoleon Dynamite. Even so, he was the front man in a band, and as anyone who's attended high school in America knows: That. Trumps. Everything.

Their school friends knew Rachel and Mikinzy's relationship was rocky. They were always on again, off again. Some students said it was because Rachel used weed; Mikinzy was said to be an outspoken critic of drugs. Others said it was because he tried to control Rachel. Either way, by the time they were firmly committed to the relationship, Mikinzy's stance on drugs had softened considerably. Perhaps
it was because Rachel frequently enjoyed getting high with Shelia and Skylar.

The day the FBI dropped in to see Rachel, she and Mikinzy were newly reunited and their bond seemed stronger, almost unbreakable. Almost.

Several minutes into the interview, Colebank felt she was getting nowhere. “So when you dropped her off—I'm sorry, Rachel, I just want to make sure we have this right. Tell me again, where did you drop her off?”

The three of them, Rachel, Colebank, and Spurlock, were talking in the upstairs living room of the Shoafs' split-level house. Rachel and Colebank faced each other on the couch. Spurlock sat alone in a chair. Kim, Kelly, and Mikinzy were downstairs in the family room.

“I told you, at the end there,” Rachel whined, as if she was annoyed at having to answer the same questions again. She would glance away or doodle with her pencil on a nearby notepad. “University Avenue. Skylar got angry and told us she didn't want us to take her all the way to her apartment.”

“You dropped her off,” Spurlock asked, “after riding around smoking marijuana?”

Colebank broke in. “Look, Rachel, we don't care about the weed. We care about where Skylar's at. Where did you guys drive around?”

Rachel looked thoughtful, and then shrugged nonchalantly. “I'm not really sure where we drove around exactly. I was pretty messed up. I think we drove down Patteson Drive.”

Patteson was the main artery leading up to the WVU Coliseum, where it formed a T intersection with Beechurst Avenue at the top of the hill. A right takes one past the State Police Detachment to Star City and a left leads along the river, into downtown Morgantown.

“Thanks.” Colebank looked over at Spurlock, nodding her head. “There should be cameras.”

Many businesses along Patteson had video cameras, but most focused inside the establishments, on the doors, and on parts of the parking lots. None really showed a clear view of traffic but Colebank suspected Rachel wouldn't know that.

“Yes, check the cameras,” Rachel said, “but I don't know if you'll see much. We stayed on side streets as much as we could.”

“Do you know the names of any of the side streets?” Colebank asked, masking a grin. She knew it was impossible to drive along Patteson
and
the side streets at the same time. She also knew people who are lying often stall by repeating the question.

“The names of the streets? How am I supposed to know that?” Rachel sighed. “They were just streets. With houses. Like a regular neighborhood. I wasn't driving. Ask Shelia.”

“We have.” Colebank let the silence draw out as she intently focused on Rachel. At the same time, Rachel's neighbor Kim was pacing—visiting the kitchen, perching on the steps, going up and down the stairs—as if unsure of what to do with herself. Colebank fought an urge to tell Kim to take a seat and stay there.

Eventually, Kim went downstairs with Mikinzy and Kelly. “I want to help find her, I really do,” Rachel said, “but I was really loaded.”

Colebank felt herself getting frustrated, but she managed to keep her voice calm. “You can't drive on Patteson Drive
and
stay on side streets, Rachel.”

Colebank and Spurlock decided to focus on the contradictions in Rachel's story. With her missteps as leverage, Rachel might be convinced to explain what had really happened. From the start, Colebank had been certain something bad had gone down—an accident, an overdose, something. She was equally sure Shelia and Rachel knew what it was.

“Just tell us exactly what happened and we'll take it from there,” Spurlock said. He pulled a map of Star City from his backpack and opened it up. “Maybe this will help. After you dropped your friend Skylar off—at eleven-thirty, right?—after that . . .”

Downstairs, Kim was talking to Mikinzy.

He was lying on the carpet, hands over his eyes. “The story was always she was home by 11:45,” he kept repeating.

“Let me tell you something, Mikinzy Boggs,” Kim's voice was so loud snatches of her conversation carried up the stairwell. “You don't sneak out and get back home at 11:45. Okay? I snuck out plenty. You don't sneak home at 11:45. You sneak
out
at 11:45.”

“She told me she didn't,” Mikinzy kept repeating. He seemed confused.

Kim and Kelly exchanged a long glance. “You know what, I'm—that doesn't even make sense on any level.” Kim stomped back up the steps.

To observers, it seemed like Mikinzy
²²
was doubting his girlfriend for the first time.

seventeen

Business in Blacksville

The same day Colebank
was interviewing Rachel, Gaskins and Berry were paying their first visit to the Conaway place. It was one of many homes in Blacksville they were visiting in their search to find out more about the bank robberies. When they pulled up to the house, they saw a man digging in the backyard. As they walked toward the front door, the man came around the corner carrying a shovel. The officers recognized him from his police mug shot.

Darek Conaway held the shovel out from his body by the tip of the handle, the muddy blade waist high. Bare-chested, Darek was clean-shaven, his hair sweat-caked to his skull. The man was ripped, all corded muscle. He glared at the two troopers. Neither trooper was easily spooked, but they tensed when they saw Darek.

“Hello, Darek,” Gaskins said. “I'm Corporal Gaskins and this is Trooper Berry. We're here to chat with you a few minutes.”

Darek's shovel blade lowered a little and he shrugged. “Okay.”

Neither trooper wanted to square off against an angry man with a shovel, so Gaskins and Berry tried to defuse the tension.

“What are you digging back there, Darek?” Gaskins asked lightly.

“Oh, I ain't digging anything,” Darek said.

“You ain't digging? You trying to hide a dead body or something?” Gaskins meant it as a joke, but that's not how Darek took it. He drew himself up, his eyes large, and Berry and Gaskins could see his heart hammering inside his chest.

The two troopers exchanged a look.

“I'm just joking with you, Darek,” Gaskins said.

Just then an elderly woman poked her head around the open front door. She stepped slowly out of the shadows and onto the porch.

“Hey Grandma, it's okay,” Darek said.

She walked down the steps to the front yard, clearly suspicious. “What do you want?”

Gaskins spoke up. “We're just out talking to people about those robberies. If people saw anything, heard anything. . . . We'd like to come in to talk with you all for a few minutes.”

“I guess that would be okay,” she said, turning toward the house.

Berry didn't move. “Before we go inside, ma'am, just to make me feel safe, I need to ask you a question. There any guns here at the house?”

Grandma chuckled. “Heh, this is Blacksville. There's guns in all the houses around here.”

“Yeah, I know,” Berry said. “I grew up over on Jake's Run. I just like to ask. I'm not saying you're going to blow me away or anything, but where's the closest one you got?”

“In my daughter's bedroom.”

Berry grinned. “Oh, really. What kind you got?”

“Revolver,” she said, heading back up the steps.

“I love revolvers!” Berry glanced at Gaskins like a kid with a new toy. The gun used in the bank robbery was a revolver, a type of gun that was increasingly rare. “Can I see it?”

“Sure, come on in.”

Berry went inside with Grandma while Gaskins waited in the yard with Darek. A few moments later, Berry came back holding a black revolver. The weapon looked just like the one from the bank security video.

Within a few hours, Gaskins and Berry returned to the Conaways with a search warrant. They wanted to confiscate the gun before Darek had a chance to ditch it. They brought along a State Police Special Response Team, a tactical team, in case Darek got squirrelly. He didn't.

Hours later, the thirty-member team had confiscated not only the revolver but several other firearms and items of clothing they believed matched those worn by the bank robber. Even if the search turned up nothing more, Gaskins and Berry were convinced they had unfinished business with Darek Conaway.

eighteen