Last Look Page 8

  “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.”

  7

  “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?”

  “Why did she do what?”

  “Cut herself.”

  Dorsey shrugged. “Something in her life was hurting her. She cut herself, bled away the pain.”

  He stopped at the red light at the corner. From the corner of his eye he was watching her face. There was a lot he wanted to know, but wasn’t sure how to ask. He figured he’d just toss it out there and see what he caught.

  “You know, I’ve read about it, but I don’t understand. How does causing pain make pain go away? The cutting hurts more than whatever the other pain is?” he asked.

  “It’s really not quite that simple.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  “Girls who cut themselves-and it’s almost always adolescent girls, by the way-mostly they’re afraid. The fear is real, generally speaking, not imagined, and usually follows some type of trauma. Could be physical, could be emotional.” Her voice was oddly detached. Andrew tried to see her eyes, but she turned her face to the window. “Could be anything from abuse, incest, parental divorce or death, to fear of being inadequate, of being alone, of being a disappointment to her parents in some way.”

  “Sounds like the same things you read about that cause eating disorders,” he noted.

  “Many kids who cut are anorexic or bulimic. Not all, but some.”

  “So how does one of those events-say, the girl’s parents announce they’re getting a divorce-lead to the kid picking up a razor blade and slashing her arms or legs?” The light turned green and he proceeded to make a left turn.

  “It’s a means of seeking relief,” she said flatly. “It allows the cutter to control the pain.
”

  “Is it a prelude to committing suicide?”

  “No, no. Cutting rarely leads to suicide. It’s a temporary solution to a traumatic situation. Suicide is permanent.”

  “But isn’t it a cry for help, like an attempted suicide might be?”

  “No. If you attempt suicide with the intention of failing, you’re hoping someone stops you so that you can get help. A lot of those kids-adults, too-know they need help but don’t know how to ask. Most cutters, on the other hand, go to great lengths to hide it, even from their friends. They hide the scars, they hide whatever implement they use. It isn’t always a razor blade, by the way, though that certainly is a popular choice. They don’t talk about it. Cutters don’t want to be caught. It’s a sort of self-medicating, if you could think of it in those terms.”

  Andrew reflected on this as he drove. He’d already noted that Dorsey had been wearing shirts with sleeves that rolled to the elbow, or T-shirts with elbow-length sleeves, and thick silver bracelets each time he’d seen her. Was she hiding scars of her own?

  The thought of Dorsey slicing into her flesh to relieve some greater pain unexpectedly made his heart hurt. He pushed it aside and turned his focus back where it belonged, on the case.

  “So you think Shannon had some trauma as a child?”

  “I’d bet on it.” Dorsey turned back to him; she, too, all business again. “Something happened to make her need to take control, so she did, years ago. Judging by the number of scars I saw on her arms and legs, I’d guess that she continued this behavior into her late teens, maybe her early twenties, before she was able to come to grips with whatever was behind it, and she was able to stop. Except for the fresh cuts, most of the scars appeared to be at least ten years old or better. Then recently, I suspect something happened that brought it all back, and once again, she coped by cutting.”

  “You think whatever happened that caused her to start cutting in the first place, happened again lately?”

  “I think that whatever had been hurting her as a child, was hurting her again-or threatening to hurt her again. Yes, I do.”

  “Guess that’s a conversation to have with the family.”

  “If they knew.”