Mariah Stewart - Last Look

“She’d been working for Bass for maybe a year by the time I got there.”

“Where had she been before Savannah, do you know?”

“Bunch of places.” Edith shrugged. “I remember her talking about being in Tennessee for a while. Nashville. Knoxville. Memphis. She said how she used to go to Graceland and stand outside the gates with the tourists.”

“Where’d you come from, Edith?” Dorsey asked.

“What difference does it make?” Edith snapped, then softened and told Dorsey, “ Virginia. But that was a long time ago.”

“You have family there?”

“I guess they’re still around. Most likely.” Edith licked her lips. “Let’s stick to Shannon.”

“Did she ever talk about why she left home?”

Edith shook her head. “Shannon didn’t talk much about where she was from, except that it was called Hatton and it was in South Carolina. She talked some about her family-she said she had sisters-but she never said why she left.”

“And you didn’t ask?”

“She’d have told me if she wanted me to know.”

“She have any contact with her family that you know of?” Andrew asked.

“No. None.”

“So how do you know one of her sisters is a senator?”

“The cops said.”

“When?”

“When they came to get her stuff. Day before yesterday.”

“What stuff?” Andrew stopped writing and looked up.

“Just some stuff of hers they wanted,” Edith told him. “They said her family was coming into town and that they wanted her things. That’s when they said her sister was a senator. I heard them talking in her room.”

“What did you give them?”

“Stuff.” Edith’s mouth curved in a half smile.

“Everything?” Dorsey asked.

“Sure,” Edith replied flatly.

“So tell us how you got from Savannah to Deptford,” Andrew said, changing the subject. There was no question in his mind that Edith had not handed over all of her roommate’s possessions willingly.

“No way was Bass gonna let us go, just walk out, so we planned it. Went out one night like we always did, worked our way uptown a bit. Turned what we had to, had the johns drop us off at the bus station. Got on the first bus that was leaving, took us into Charleston. From there we took the first bus out, that took us to Raleigh. We thought maybe we’d try to cover our tracks some, in case Bass sent someone after us. We worked Raleigh for a while, then worked our way down here to Deptford.”

“Why Deptford?” Dorsey asked.

“ Shannon liked that it wasn’t far from the ocean. She liked the beach. We thought if we lived here, we’d go to the beach.” Edith’s eyes grew haunted. “We did go sometimes. Not as much as we planned, but we did go a time or two.”

She got up and walked into the kitchen and ran water in the sink. When she came back into the living room, she held a glass of water in one hand. She did not ask the agents if they were thirsty.

“It’s weird, don’t you think? We moved here ’cause she wanted to be near water, and that’s where she died. Out there someplace near the water.”

“Well, we’re not really sure where she died,” Andrew told her.

“She wasn’t killed out there on that island where they found her?” Edith looked surprised.

“It doesn’t look like it. We’re pretty sure she was killed someplace else and taken there by car,” Dorsey explained.

“Damn cops tell me nothing.” She was angry again. “Like I don’t have the right to know what happened. Every thing I ask, they say, ‘We’re only releasing information to the family .’” She spit out the word. “I tried to tell them, I’m her family. I’m the one who cared about her. Where has her family been all these years, she’s missing and they don’t come looking for her?”

“I’d be happy to keep you informed of the arrangements, as soon as we find out when and where,” Dorsey promised, noting that Edith didn’t seem to be aware Shannon was supposed to have been dead for years.

“Like I’m really going to go?” Edith got up and began to pace. “I said my good-byes there in the morgue. I don’t need to say good-bye again.”

“You identified the body?”

“Well, yeah. It isn’t like there was anybody else to do it.” Edith sat back down again. “The cops called and said they’d found a body and I needed to come see if it was Shannon. And it was.”

“What identification did she have?” Dorsey asked. Edith looked up at her curiously.

“Driver’s license, what?” Dorsey probed.

“She didn’t have a driver’s license.”

“What did she have that proved her name was Shannon Randall?”

Edith frowned. “What kinda stupid question is that? She said who she was. I never asked for an ID. She told me who she was and where she was from, and that’s what I told the cops.”

“Did Shannon keep a journal?” Dorsey changed the subject.

“A what?”

“A journal. Or a diary.”

The answer came just a beat too quickly.

“No.”

“Did she ever receive any letters while she was here?” Dorsey continued. “Or e-mail? Did she have a cell phone?”

“We don’t have a computer. And the only thing the mail guy brought us was the electric bill. Mostly she used pay phones. Once in a while she’d pick up one of those disposable phones.”

“Did Shannon ever talk about her past?”

“Not really. Like I said, she never seemed to want to talk about it, and I never pushed it.”

Dorsey looked at Andrew as if to ask, Did we miss anything?

“Edith, we really appreciate your time. I know this has been really hard for you.” Andrew stood, signaling the interview was over. He closed the notebook and tucked it under his arm.

Edith stared at the floor.

“What are you going to do now?” Dorsey asked as she, too, stood.

“Not sure.” Edith shrugged.

“This might be a good time for you to think about…” Dorsey searched for a way to put it that would not offend. “About maybe moving on with your life.”

Still staring at the floor, Edith nodded.

Dorsey opened her bag and took out a card.

“Look, if you remember anything you think might be important, or if you have any questions, you call me, okay?” Dorsey handed the woman the card.

Edith took it and folded it into the palm of her left hand.

They walked to the door and waited while Edith unlocked it and released the chain. Dorsey was into the hall when she remembered one thing she’d forgotten to ask.

“When did she start cutting herself?”

Edith looked out from behind the partially closed door, clearly surprised.

“We saw the marks on her arms and legs,” Dorsey said softly.

“Just a few months ago. I came home one morning and Shannon was in the bathroom, leaning over the sink, cutting herself.” Edith pointed to the upper part of her left arm. “I said, ‘Jesus, Shannon, stop! You’re going to hurt yourself.’”

Edith hugged herself, her arms over her chest, her face reflecting confusion.

“She say why she did it?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah, but it didn’t make any sense. She said it was the only way to make the pain go away.” Edith shook her head. “Crazy, huh? Like, what kind of person does that to themselves?”

“One more thing,” Andrew said. “You said sometimes she picked up a disposable phone.”

“Yeah. She used those prepaid things sometimes.”

“Who’d she call?”

Edith stared at him, then shook her head from side to side.

“She never said.”

“So what’s your take on Shannon?” Andrew asked after they’d returned to his car and headed toward the highway. “Why do you suppose she did it?”