Mariah Stewart - Last Look

“That’s right, he did.” Andrew nodded. “Do you recall how he explained that?”

“He said she was beaten up when he picked her up and he gave her the shirt to clean herself up with.”

“Looks like he was telling the truth.”

“I can’t believe this, man.” Brinkley ran a shaking hand through thinning hair. “Eric Beale…he was charged with her murder. He was fucking executed! ”

“We’re trying to understand how that happened, Jeremy. Obviously, your recollections will be crucial to helping us figure it out,” Dorsey told him.

“Shit. Yeah, yeah, sure. Whatever I can tell you.” Brinkley sat back down, still dazed, still visibly shaking.

“After Kimmie White said she’d seen Eric and Shannon driving out of town, Chief Taylor brought Eric in for questioning.” Andrew started the ball rolling.

“Yeah. Right after the chief talked to Kimmie, we went straight on down to the gas station where Eric worked, picked him up, brought him in. Chief questioned him himself.”

“You weren’t in the room with them?”

“No. After we brought him in, the chief took him into a small room off the lunchroom in the old station. Closed the door, they were in there most of the afternoon. When the chief came out, he said Eric had all but confessed.”

“Then why call in the FBI?” Dorsey asked. “If you already had a confession, or close to one, why call in the Bureau?”

Brinkley shrugged. “I asked Chief Taylor that very thing. He said since it was a murder case, and Shannon being so young and all, and us being such a small department and none of us having much experience with homicide, we’d best let the Feds take over, ’specially since there was no body. I never did understand it myself, no offense to either of you, but it just seemed unnecessary to bring the FBI in. But Chief Taylor, he was pretty firm on wanting the Feds in.”

“When did he tell you that, do you remember?” Andrew asked.

“Must have been pretty soon after he talked to Kimmie and brought Eric in, since it seems like the FBI agents were there the next day. Couple of ’em.”

“That soon, Taylor had decided it was a homicide and Eric Beale was the killer?”

“Best I recall, yeah.”

“Did that seem odd to you at the time?” Dorsey couldn’t help but ask.

“At the time, no, not really. I mean, since Kimmie saw them together and him having that bloody shirt in his car and all, it didn’t seem odd.” Brinkley crossed his legs, one foot pumping nervously.

“And now?” Andrew prodded him.

“Now…I don’t know, man.” He uncrossed his legs, then recrossed them.

“We were told that sometime before Shannon disappeared, there’d been some sort of bad blood between Eric and the chief’s nephew,” Andrew said.

“Oh, Jeff Feeney.” Brinkley nodded. “Yeah, they did get into it a few times. Last time might have been sometime before Shannon was kill…disappeared.”

He exhaled loudly.

“Where’s she been all this time?”

“She’s been around. Here and there,” Andrew told him. “She had a hard time of it.”

“She been on the streets all that time?” Brinkley searched Andrew’s face.

“It’s all going to come out soon enough.” Andrew nodded. “Yeah, she’s been on the streets since she left Hatton.”

“Son of a bitch.” Brinkley shook his head. “Son of a bitch.”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully for a moment. “How’d she die?”

“Shot through the heart at close range,” Andrew replied.

“Someone wanted to make damn sure she was dead.”

“It appears that way, yes.”

“Wow.” Brinkley got up and paced, his hands in his pockets. “Wow. All this time, she’s been…wherever she was. And Eric…Jesus, man, that poor son of a bitch.”

“You can understand why we want to get a handle on what went on back then.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Brinkley continued pacing.

“So if you can think of any reason why Chief Taylor might not have considered anyone else for Shannon ’s murder…”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “Maybe that thing with Jeff…I don’t know.”

“You know what that was all about?” Dorsey asked.

“I don’t. All I know is that there was no love lost between the two of them, but what was at the bottom of that?” He shrugged.

“Could the chief have been influenced against Eric because of bad blood between Eric and the nephew?” Dorsey pressed.

“I want to say no”-Brinkley dropped back onto his chair-“but truthfully, I don’t know. I don’t know what it was about, but whatever it was, it had been going on for a while.”

“Is Jeff Feeney still around?” Dorsey asked.

“Yeah. I saw him a few weeks ago at the Little League field, coaching one of his boys.”

“You got an address for him?”

“No, but he’s usually down at the hardware store, Feeney’s, right on Main Street. He took over from his father. And the chief’s widow is still around. Jeff is her nephew, her brother Jed’s oldest boy. She’s still pretty active around town, still living in that big house she and the chief bought and fixed up after her old man died and left her all that money.”

Brinkley stared at the floor for a while as if lost in thought, trying to comprehend it all. Finally, he looked up and said, “That agent they sent down here back then to head up the investigation…”

“Agent Ranieri.” Andrew tensed.

“Yeah. I see him on TV sometimes. Seems like he made a big career for himself after this case was over.” Brinkley scratched the side of his face. “Anyone tell him about Shannon?”

“He’s been told.”

“What’s he got to say?”

“He was as surprised as you are,” Andrew said simply.

“I’ll just bet he was. Ranieri. Yeah, I remember him.” Brinkley nodded. “Seemed like a decent guy. Course, I didn’t have much contact with him, but he seemed like a nice guy. Guess we won’t be seeing him much anymore.”

“What do you mean?” Dorsey frowned.

“On the TV. After this, who’s going to want to have him come on and talk about how the cops should investigate a case?”

“Jeremy, do you know what happened to the police file?” Andrew changed the subject swiftly.

“Is it missing?”

“Chief Bowden can’t locate it.”

“Miz Taylor might know. I think for a time they kept some stuff in the garage, back when the department was being moved.” He shrugged and averted his eyes.

“To the best of your knowledge, was there ever another suspect?” Dorsey asked. “Anyone else who maybe should have been a suspect, anyone who might have had something to do with Shannon disappearing that night?”

“Not as far as I know, uh-uh.” Jeremy paused, as if reflecting. “You know, everyone thought Eric did it, just accepted it. Looking back, I’m thinking maybe because his family was such trouble, people expected him to be trouble too. Funny thing, though, Eric always seemed to be different from the rest of the Beales, you know what I mean? Smarter. But maybe people didn’t know that. Maybe that’s why no one really questioned that it was him. It was just, Eric did this. Eric killed her.”

“And the case was built from there,” Dorsey said.

“Pretty much, yeah. Everyone was talking about how Eric used to follow Shannon around, but she was just a freshman, you know? All her friends said how he had a thing for her but she was only interested in him as a friend. So it wasn’t a secret, you know, that he had the hots for her.” Jeremy got up and took a sip from the glass of water. “Then, when Kimmie swore she saw them heading out of town and no one ever saw her again, well, that pretty much sealed it.”

“There was a break-in at the church the night Shannon disappeared.” Andrew changed the subject.