Mariah Stewart - Last Look

“Interesting that it appears she might have stopped for a while, then started again.” She pointed to several long marks on Shannon Randall’s upper thigh.

“Right. These are fresh. And here, on her upper arm, close to her shoulder?” Andrew studied the scars intently. “Almost all of the others are old.”

“I noticed those,” Fuller nodded, “but I don’t recall having had this type of thing before. Read about cutting, but haven’t ever seen it firsthand. We don’t get a whole lot of kids in here, not like this. Most young people have left town, moved on before they reached this age.”

“She cut for a long time, then stopped long enough for all those old scars to heal over and stay healed. Then something happened to make her start cutting again.” Dorsey seemed to mull it over. “So maybe whatever caused her to start cutting in the first place, whatever it was she’d gotten over sufficiently that she didn’t feel she had to hurt herself anymore-somehow, that whatever was back in her life.”

Both men stared at her. She stood up straight and pulled off the gloves.

Andrew did the same, turned to Doctor Fuller. “We really appreciate your time, Doctor Fuller.”

“Anytime, Agent Shields. I’m going to have to release the body to the family soon-thought they’d be wanting it sooner than this, frankly. I suspect there’s some kind of to-do going on right about now, what with the young lady having been a hooker and one of her sisters being a preacher-”

“Her sister?” Dorsey frowned. “I thought her father was the minister.”

“He had been, up until just a couple of years ago. Car accident left him paralyzed. Heard all about it from the director of the funeral home up there in Hatton, where the Randalls are from.” Fuller covered the body with the sheet and slid the shelf back into the refrigerated drawer. “Hit and run. Car ran him off the road, then disappeared. Never even stopped. They figured it must have been a drunk driver. The man never saw it coming, apparently. Hasn’t walked since. It was the youngest daughter who took over the church.”

“I think I remember more than two children in the family,” Dorsey said, trying to think back to her early teens when the story was fresh in her mind.

“There are three sisters. Four daughters altogether. Oldest’s a state senator up in South Carolina now-she’s the one who identified the body. Another sister does something on television. And of course, the minister. Can’t recall the funeral director saying much more than that.”

“Quite an accomplished family,” Andrew remarked as he and Dorsey headed toward the door.

“Yes, so it would seem.” Fuller peeled off his gloves and dropped them into the wastebasket next to his desk. “It’s had me wondering how a girl from a family like that ends up like this girl did.”

“Girls from all kinds of backgrounds end up like Shannon Randall, Doctor Fuller. There’s no easy answer why,” Andrew replied.

“True enough.” Fuller nodded.

“What was the sister’s demeanor when she came to make the identification?”

“Solemn, I’d say,” the doctor replied after pondering the question for a moment. “Sober. Respectful.”

“Emotional?”

“No, wouldn’t have called her emotional.” Fuller shook his head from side to side. “She didn’t cry, just sort of looked at the body for a while. Asked me to raise it on the left side at the shoulder, and I did. She leaned down to take a look, and said something under her breath like, ‘Yes, that’s it.’”

“She was looking for a birthmark,” Andrew said.

“That’s right. On the back of the left shoulder, she has a little mark, sort of looks like a cigar. I’d noted it in my report, but she wanted to see for herself.”

“What did she do, after she saw the mark?” Andrew asked.

“She just sort of nodded and said thanks.”

“And she just left, just like that?”

“Pretty much,” Doctor Fuller told him. “Oh, one thing she did do. After she’d looked and I let the body back down on the gurney, she tucked some hair behind the girl’s ear. Sort of gentle, like. I remember thinking that was nice, her being the older sister and all.”

“Thanks again, Doc.” Andrew waved from the door, and after he and Dorsey passed through, allowed it to close quietly behind them.

The receptionist had left for the day while they’d been with Doctor Fuller, and she’d closed up the office on her way out, but there was sufficient light from the windows for them to find the front door. They walked to the parking lot in silence.

Andrew stopped at the front of Dorsey’s car and looked at his watch.

“How do you read the older sister?” she asked.

“I don’t know. She came alone to make the identification. Why didn’t the mother or two younger ones come with her? And odd, don’t you think, that she was so unemotional about it? You think your sister has been dead for more than twenty years, then you find out she’s been alive all that time, but now she really is dead. Wouldn’t you show more feeling when you see her for the first time after all those years and she’s laying dead on a gurney in the morgue, all carved up? Wouldn’t you cry for her, just a little?”

“At the very least.” Dorsey nodded. “It certainly makes you wonder about the relationships among the sisters. I wonder if the other two stayed away from the morgue because they’re more emotional than the oldest one.”

“Maybe. But maybe there’s more to it than that.” Andrew checked his watch. “Look, it’s almost seven. How about we find you a place to stay tonight, then grab some dinner. There’s no point in trying to see the roommate tonight. Chances are she’s already out on the street.”

Dorsey nodded somewhat absently.

“Where are you staying?” she asked.

“The Deptford Inn, it’s right as you come into town. Want to try there?”

She nodded again. “I’ll follow you.”

He started around the front of his car, then turned back to her.

“You’re thinking that a family like the Randalls-a minister, a state senator, and someone involved in television-wouldn’t be happy to have this story break right about now.”

“Three siblings, all in well-respected professions. And then all of a sudden, Shannon, who was supposed to have been dead all those years, turns up a hooker? You see something wrong with this picture?”

“Oh, yeah. But I think the real question is, when did the long lost sister turn up? Before or after she was killed?”

A knocking sound from someplace far away drew Dorsey from a deep sleep. She opened her eyes and blinked several times until she remembered where she was: in a small third-floor room in the Deptford Inn, and the knocking sound was coming from the door.

“Who’s there?” she asked cautiously.

“Shields.”

She got up slowly and went to the door.

“Sorry.” She covered her yawn with both hands. “I must have conked out.”

“You’ve been doing a lot of traveling these past few days. Travel always makes me tired, too.” He leaned against the door frame.

“Come on in.” She waved him inside and closed the door behind him. “Have a seat.”

“No thanks. I didn’t intend to stay. I just wanted you to have a chance to look over Edith Chiong’s statement along with my notes before we sit down with her tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to try to find her tonight?”

“Waste of time. We stand a better chance of catching her at her apartment in the morning. We’ll have a better shot at getting her to sit down and talk with us during the day, too. Tonight, she’s going to have her eye on the clock, time being money in her business.”