Last Look

6

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.”

“Good point.” Dorsey nodded.

He handed her the file he’d had tucked under his arm.

“This can’t be everything.” She frowned.

“Not by a long shot, but this is the file on Edith Chiong. Her statement, notes from the Deptford police regarding the visits she’d made to the station trying to report Shannon ’s disappearance. It’s all in there.”

He moved to the door. “I guess I’m going to turn in.”

She walked to the door and held it open for him. “Thanks for everything today. Especially for letting me go with you to see the body and speak with Doctor Fuller. Up until today, Shannon Randall was just a name out of my past. Now…”

He studied her face for a moment, and she had the feeling there was something right on the tip of his tongue. What he said instead was, “I’m in room 317 if you need me for anything. How about we meet in the lobby around eight in the morning, and we drive into the city together?”

“Great. Thanks. I’ll see you then. And thanks for the reading material. I appreciate it. You didn’t have to do that.”

“You’re welcome. I figured you ought to be up-to-date. Besides, like I said, she might open up to you more than to me.”

Andrew walked through the open door and she closed it behind him, wondering what it was he’d wanted to say.

Dorsey sat on the edge of the bed and read over the room service menu, then called and placed an order for a light supper. She piled the pillows behind her and sat back against them, the manila file on her lap. She opened it and thumbed through the contents.

Edith Chiong’s statement was on the bottom, and there were reports from a number of police officers relating their conversations with her. Notes written on scraps of paper confirmed she’d called the station five times over a two-week period, starting with the morning Shannon had gone missing. The notes skipped a few days, but the statement indicated that Edith had also gone to the station on three separate occasions to inquire about her missing roommate. It didn’t take a genius to see that no effort had been made to locate Shannon Randall. “Missing hooker reported three days ago, still missing” was the extent of the notes one officer had scribbled. Dorsey could only begin to imagine how frustrated Shannon ’s roommate must have been.

Room service was quick and good, and Dorsey sat cross-legged on her bed with her shrimp, which had been served with grits. She pushed the white mound to one side of her plate. Even after six years of living in the south, she had yet to develop a taste for grits.

When she finished eating, she left her tray outside the door, then tried her father’s cell phone. When he didn’t pick up, she left a message asking him to call her, then lay back against the pillows with her eyes closed. She tried to reconcile the sweet face of the young girl she remembered seeing in newspapers and on television all those years ago with that of the woman whose lifeless eyes had stared unseeing at Doctor Fuller’s ceiling. What, Dorsey wondered, had forced her from her home without a trace?

It occurred to her, not for the first time, that perhaps Shannon had been kidnapped. But surely that possibility would have been considered back in 1983, when no trace of her had been found. And if she’d been kidnapped, but alive all these years, why had she not contacted her family? Why, if she’d been free to live and work in Deptford, had she never gone home?

Dorsey recalled several cases where kidnap victims never did contact their loved ones, even though they had many opportunities to do so. The explanations were as varied as the kidnappings themselves. None were ever exactly the same, the human psyche being what it is.

Then again, how could she be certain Shannon had never contacted her family?

She sat straight up in bed. Was it possible that someone in the Randall family could have known that Shannon had been alive all this time?

But who would keep such a secret, and why? And there was the matter of Eric Beale. Surely, if someone knew the girl had not been killed, they would have stepped forward before this, wouldn’t they?

Wouldn’t they…?

A chill ran up her back and into her scalp.

Yes, of course. Of course they would tell. She shook off the obscene possibility that anyone could have had such knowledge yet kept it to themselves. A young boy’s life had been at stake. Surely no one would have watched him go to his death and not said anything.

She closed her eyes again and thought about the role her father had played in this drama, of the irony that she had stood over Shannon Randall’s dead body twenty-four years after the girl had supposedly been murdered. Twenty-four years after her father had arrested Eric Louis Beale for her death.

She thought about the Beale family, and wondered if word had gotten to them yet. As difficult as it must have been for the Randall family to learn that Shannon had been alive all these years, how much more terrible it must be for the family of the young boy who’d been executed for a murder that had never been committed.

Dorsey tried her father again, and was almost relieved when he didn’t pick up. It would be difficult to speak with him tonight. It all weighed too heavily on her heart, Shannon and Eric, their parents, their siblings, along with so many unanswered questions.

She fell asleep with the light on, the possibilities playing free and loose in her head.

“Good morning,” Andrew said when Dorsey walked into the lobby at two minutes past eight the next morning.

“Hi.” She smiled and walked past the front desk to the door. “You driving or am I?”

“I’ll drive, if it’s all the same to you.”

She shrugged and followed him out the door and into the parking lot.

“So. Did you have your eggs and grits this morning?” He unlocked the car with the remote and walked to the driver’s side.

“I don’t do grits.” She opened the passenger door and got in, dropping her bag on the floor with one hand and slamming the door with the other.

Andrew laughed and started the car without comment.

“Do you know where we’re going?” she asked as the car turned left at the exit.

“Got directions from the police department. Seems Shannon and Edith were no strangers to the locals.”

“Their paths had crossed in the past?”

“On more than one occasion. Loitering, mostly. Solicitation a time or two.” Andrew checked his rearview mirror, then pulled into the lane of traffic that was headed downtown. “I thought we’d spend some time with the roommate this morning, then I want to head up to Hatton, talk to the family.”

“Sounds good.”

They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Andrew said, “You read the file last night?”

“Several times.”

“Then you know there’s no love lost between Edith and the cops. She had to have been royally pissed when her friend went missing and she couldn’t get the cops to give her the time of day.”

“Hey, what’s one less hooker in Deptford, right?”

“Exactly. So I was thinking, she sees us coming, she’s going to try to bolt. Our best bet is to wake her out of a sound sleep; at least we’ll know she’s there.”

“Maybe. Or maybe she won’t answer the door at all.”

“In which case, we’ll have to resort to plan B.”

“Which is?”

“I’m still working on it.”

He drove into the city, past block after block of nondescript neighborhoods, some slightly nicer than others, before stopping in front of a tan brick building that might have been a fashionable address in the 1920s. Out front, there was a small patch of grass overdue for a cutting and a single white pot with some dried flowers that might once have been geraniums in cement-hard dirt. Andrew parked in a spot marked Reserved and turned off the engine.

“Agent Shields, you do take me to the nicest places.” Dorsey stared out the window, taking it all in.

“Nothing’s too good for a fellow agent.” He un-buckled his seat belt. “Ready?”

She swung open her door and stepped out onto broken pavement. Candy wrappers and fast food bags lay on the ground close to the steps leading into the building, and chalked squares for hopscotch were barely visible on the sidewalk.

“Do kids still play hopscotch?” Andrew glanced down as he caught up with Dorsey.

“Guess so.” She started up the steps.

“You play when you were a kid, Dorsey?”

“No.” She pushed open the unlocked door. “Did you?”

“My sister played. She loved colored chalk, the brighter the better.”

“We didn’t have sidewalks where I grew up,” she told him as she read the names on the mailboxes.

“No sidewalks?” He frowned.

“ Hathaway Beach, where I was born, had sandy paths. No concrete.”

“I thought you were from around Philly.”

“How would you know that?” It was her turn to frown.

“I know that’s where your father lives. He’s on TV all the time, and he always mentions it. Besides, you have the accent.”

“I do not have an accent.” She tapped on one of the mailboxes. “Second floor, apartment 2G.”

She headed toward the steps and Andrew followed.

“We’ll knock on the door, and when she answers, you tell her you’re here to talk about Shannon,” he said.

“I thought I was supposed to stay in the shadows.”

“Like you did yesterday at the ME’s?”

She glared at him and went past him on the steps.

“Hey, that was the deal,” he reminded her. “You do have a way of getting yourself right in there.”

“Is that a problem for you?”

“Only if it gets you noticed by the wrong people.” He reached the landing first and held the door for her.

The hall was narrow, the carpet old, and the padding bunched in several places. Dorsey tripped twice between the stairwell and the door with 2G painted unevenly in black.

“This must be hell at night after a few drinks,” she muttered, looking down at the uneven floor covering.

Andrew pointed to the door, and Dorsey knocked three times and waited, listening for some movement behind the door. She knocked again, louder, then called, “Miss Chiong, are you in there?”

After a few moments of silence, they heard a shuffle from inside the apartment.

“Miss Chiong, are you there?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is Dorsey Collins. I’m with the FBI. I need to talk to you about Shannon.”

“You got some ID?”

“Yes.”

“Hold it up so’s I can see it.”

Dorsey pulled her badge from her pocket and opened it while a dead bolt was released on the other side of the door. A chain kept the door from opening more than three inches.

“Hold it closer,” Edith demanded.

Dorsey did as she was told.

“What is it you want to know?” Edith asked.

“I want to talk about Shannon.”

The chain came off and the door swung open.

“Better late than never, I suppose.” The woman stepped back to let Dorsey enter, then began to close the door when she saw Andrew. “Wait a minute, who’s he? I thought you were alone.”

“Special Agent Andrew Shields, Miss Chiong. We spoke on the phone the other day,” he reminded her. “I’m in charge of the investigation into Shannon ’s death.”

“What got the FBI all fired up? That sister of Shannon ’s being a senator? Is that what it took to get someone’s attention? Couldn’t be bothered looking for her when y’all thought she was just a hooker. But ooh-wee, once it started getting out that her family was big shots, yeah, now you’re interested.”

Edith Chiong drew her pale yellow robe tighter around her, and tied it snugly. She was short and slender, with straight dark hair to her shoulders, and dark, uneasy Asian eyes that smoldered in a pretty face. Dorsey guessed she was in her mid-thirties.

“I understand how upset you must have been when you reported Shannon missing and the local police blew you off,” Andrew said. “I’m sorry for the way you were treated.”

Edith looked from Andrew to Dorsey and back again.

“Come in.” She closed the door behind them and relocked the door.

They followed her into a small living room that was surprisingly neat and girly. The sofa was covered with quilts, and there was a worn hooked rug on the floor. On the top of a chest that had been painted white sat a small television, and a glass topped trunk served as a coffee table. On the table was a blue vase filled with daisies and a bottle of dark pink nail polish.

Edith gestured to the sofa and both agents sat.

“Miss Chiong-may I call you Edith?” Dorsey asked, and the woman nodded.

“Is it like I said, the FBI is interested because of that sister being a senator?”

“Actually, no,” Andrew said carefully. “We were called in because there’s a relationship between this case and an old case the Bureau handled a long time ago.”

“What case was that?” She leaned against the doorway with one hand on her hip.

“How long had you known Shannon, Edith?” Dorsey asked.

“Six, seven years.”

Dorsey stole a quick glance at Andrew. She knew he was supposed to lead, but they had agreed Edith would most likely respond better to her questioning, and now was as good a time as any to test that. Andrew sat back against the sofa cushions, and Dorsey took that as a green light.

“Where did you meet? Here in Deptford?” she continued.

“ Savannah. We were both working Savannah at the time.” Her voice softened and she seemed to debate with herself for a moment before walking into the small kitchen area. She returned with a wooden folding chair and placed it next to the coffee table, opposite Dorsey. “Both of us were on the street for the same guy.”

“You worked for the same pimp?”

Edith nodded. “His name was Bass. He was one mean son of a bitch. There was just no pleasing that man. No matter how hard you worked, how much you made, it was never enough, you know?”

Dorsey nodded, but Edith appeared not to notice.

“Me and Shannon got to be friends. We were always talking about moving on, moving out. Getting a place of our own, saving some money so that someday we could do something else. Something better. But we knew there was no chance of that while we worked for scum like him.”

“How did you get involved with him?”

Edith snorted. “The same way any girl gets into it. It’s such a…what you call it, a cliché? You come to town thinking you’re gonna get a nice job, and you get off that bus and realize those few dollars you got in your pocket aren’t going to be near enough. Guys hang around the station, just waiting-you know that. You know the story.” She looked directly into Dorsey’s eyes. “You know you do.”

“Young girl, no place to go. Nice looking guy promises you a job, he tells you he can get you a place to stay with a friend of his…” Dorsey nodded. Edith was right. She’d heard it a hundred times before with minor variations.

“Yada, yada, yada.” Edith finished Dorsey’s sentence. “What can I say? I was stupid but I thought I was so grown-up, you know? I thought I was leaving something bad for something better. Thought I could handle the city, thought I could handle anything.” She bit her bottom lip. “Well, I guess Bass showed me.”

“And Shannon?”

“Same story.” Edith nodded. “Way back when, some guy picked her out at the bus station, same as me. Same promises. Same job. Same yada yada. Then she comes to Savannah, same thing all over again.”

“She arrived in Savannah before you? How much before?”

“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.”