Dance of Death

by Dale Hudson

  Renee nodded. She was beginning to feel that pressure. Suddenly her life had been thrust under a microscope. She told them they would not like it, had it been their life the media had been spotlighting.

  “You might feel like you’ve already been tried and convicted in the news,” Altman sympathized. “But that is by no means true in our investigation. We’re controlling this. It’s just when the news media take things, they bend them way out of proportion.”

  “Uh, we’ve seen that,” Renee said, rolling her eyes.

  “This is probably the biggest thing that has happened around Mocksville in a long, long time. I just want you to know that we’ve been working twenty-four-hours per day on your husband’s case.”

  Renee thanked him.

  Altman then pulled off the kid gloves and got down to business. Brent Poole’s murder, he assured her, had much the same impact on the community in Myrtle Beach as it did in Mocksville. And there were some explanations related to this incident she had given that just didn’t seem possible. He and King were there to ask her a few questions, then they could tie up those loose ends.

  “You probably feel like you’re in an ocean right now, treading water,” Altman began. It was a line the detective had used, over and over, in an attempt to sway her to tell the truth and take responsibility for what had happened. “And your life jacket is pretty much gone. I’m here tonight as if we’re lifeguards in a rowboat and were throwing out a life preserver to you.”

  Renee didn’t take the bait this time. If the detectives were truthful, then that was reassuring. But she’d heard it all before and, at this point, she no longer trusted them.

  Altman reassured her, “All I’m trying to do is create a scenario for you and I don’t want to see you go down for something—”

  “That somebody else did,” Renee mouthed in pursed lips.

  “Yeah, it’s not worth you going down just to help somebody,” the detective said, ignoring her antics. “To protect somebody. It’s not worth it in the long run. Look, this is the most serious crime anyone could ever be involved in. And that’s why this circus is going around here. Because it is a big deal.”

  Altman had Renee go through the events of her husband’s murder, over and over again. They covered much of the same ground—bit by bit and piece by piece—as they had the days before, but Renee was still adamant she had no idea how or why it had happened.

  “Why were you dancing at the Silver Fox?” Altman asked, suddenly taking a nasty turn. “Wasn’t Brent making enough money for you?”

  “Well, we had a lot of bills,” Renee said, giving him a what’s-that-got-to-do-with-you stare. “We just wanted to pay some bills off.”

  Altman was not about to let her off the hook that easily. “What kind of lifestyle did the two of you live?”

  “Uh, an occasional drink. He quit smoking. We didn’t want to go out much. Just kinda so-so, you know.”

  “I mean, you didn’t live the lavish lifestyle of fancy clothes and going out all the time?”

  Renee had no idea where he was going with this line of questioning, but she had nothing to be ashamed of. “We had bought an entertainment center, television and stereo when we lived with his parents. He had put it on his credit card and we were trying to pay that off. We did go out and buy a new car from my brother-in-law, but it was a used car. A Grand Prix. Then we bought a 1984 Dodge Daytona Truck. Something for Brent to drive back and forth to work. And a new 1998 Dodge Dakota truck for me.”

  “Now tell me about Danny Shrewsbury,” Altman asked, thinking he had caught her off-balance.

  Renee rolled her eyes and took a deep breath. She and Danny had once worked together at Home Depot. After talking at work, the two of them had developed a friendship. She would go to his house for lunch sometimes and they would just do things together, as she would with other associates there. She said she had seen him for only a few months. (The truth was that their relationship had lasted almost two years.) Renee explained that she was confused about Brent just getting out of diesel school and then her getting pregnant. And then they had to tell their parents about getting pregnant. She had also enrolled in Forsyth Technical College and was trying to get her GED. There was just a lot going on in her life at the time.

  “But why were you with Danny?” Altman asked. “Didn’t Brent treat you okay?”

  “Yeah, Brent treated me great. Danny was kinda jealous that we were married, but he was married also.”

  “Wasn’t there another individual at the Home Depot, also named Shrewsbury, that you also had an affair with?”

  “Yes, there was,” Renee said like it was no big deal. “He was a friend of mine from school. I saw him about a month. I had broken it off with Danny and started seeing John. I had no intention of seeing him, but we were friends. It just happened.”

  “What happened with you and Danny?”

  “Danny was the jealous type and he wanted me to leave Brent. But you see, I had just gotten married to him and I couldn’t do that.”

  Altman looked over at his partner and tried to keep a straight face. “Did you ever film sex acts with Danny and he sent those to Brent’s house when he was mad at you?”

  “Yes.”

  “How did you feel about this?”

  “It upset me. Brent was told about Danny after he found out about John. He didn’t get upset. He was just disappointed.” Renee said she never had an affair with anybody else after Danny until John Frazier came along.

  “What would Brent have done if he had found out you were having an affair with John?” Renee said Brent would have been disappointed if he knew she was having an affair with John. Disappointed and hurt. But Altman told her the way he had heard it, Brent would have been a little more than hurt. He would have been totally pissed.

  “From all the friends we talked to on Brent’s side,” he told her, “they say that’s not true. That he was very angry that you’d been seeing John.”

  “Okay.” Renee shrugged, as if to say so what?

  “His family said that he worshiped the ground you walked on. And his friends are saying that he worshiped the ground you walked on.”

  Renee shook her head, then admitted, “He . . . he did.”

  “And I think he wanted to be with you so much that he didn’t want you to be with anybody else. I think that kinda tightened you up a little bit. Like I said, when you start dating somebody when you’re fourteen years old and that’s the only person you have been with, you’re gonna experiment. And obviously, that’s what you did.”

  Renee didn’t respond.

  “But you were still with Brent. You still had a link with him.” Altman let it all sink in, then asked her, “Do you consider Brent to be the possessive type?”

  “No . . . no,” she protested. “He’d let me do basically what I wanted to do—if I wanted to go out with my friends.”

  “I understand going out with your friends, but seeing another guy is not part of what he wanted you to do.” Altman admonished her like a schoolgirl and got her to admit that she had hidden her relationship with Frazier from her husband.

  Renee said although John hadn’t completely talked her into leaving, he did have a lot of influence on her. “John would say, well, you know. If it’s not going well, then maybe you need to get away from him.”

  That was the door Altman had been looking for. He leaned in toward her and asked, “And what did you do about that?”

  “Uh, I said, well, I don’t have anywhere to go. My parents have enough people staying with them. And I didn’t really want to burden them with it. And, uh, I told him I couldn’t afford to leave. To move out. And he offered to let me stay with him.”

  “You’re saying you didn’t move out just so you could be with him?”

  “No, no. I had told him I would eventually leave. As soon as I could afford to move out. I would get my own place.”

  Altman didn’t believe her. “But you moved everything from your house out that belonged to you. Even
though this was not going to be a permanent relationship with John?”

  “Right.”

  “Now, that seems a little strange. I want you to be honest with me. Were you leaving Brent for John?”

  Renee leaned backward. “No. No,” she answered bluntly.

  “You just decided to move in with him?”

  “Right. I thought if I left anything at home, then I would not be allowed to go back in and get it.”

  “How come?”

  “If he were to get a divorce. If it would go to that, custody and things like that. I was afraid I would not be allowed to go back in and get my things.”

  “How do you think Brent felt when he came home from work that night and all your stuff was gone?”

  “Devastated. Devastated.”

  “But you told us in the first interview that he was okay with it.”

  “After I talked with him. After he knew where I was, he was okay with it.”

  Altman paused, then stared hard at her. “That isn’t what his friends and family are saying now.”

  “But he was okay with it,” Renee said, trying to convince him of that. “Uh, he knew who I was staying with. He knew where I was at. Uh, I didn’t tell him the address. But I did give him a phone number. I had a pager and I told him anytime he needed me he could page me. That Katie was safe.” She locked eyes with him again. “I told him that I was with a friend. And he asked who and I told him and he said, ‘Well, is he a friend?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he is a friend.’ And at that time, he was okay with that.”

  “You’re saying he just . . . He went along with that?”

  “Right. ’Cause I talked to him every single day.”

  “The love of his life [and he] doesn’t care if you’re with somebody else and sleeping with ’em?” he asked incredulously.

  “Well, at the time, he didn’t know I was sleeping with him.”

  “But dealing with your past track record, with Danny and the other Shrewsbury, I find that hard to believe. That you would wait until you moved in with this guy to sleep with him? And you only slept with him twice in a week period?”

  “No. No. I didn’t sleep with him only twice.”

  Altman was confused. “But that’s what you told us before?”

  “I don’t recall saying that.”

  “Well, you told us that you had slept with him twice. We’ve got that on tape-recorded statements. Somebody that gets married and starts an affair a couple of days later, it leads me to believe that you were sleeping with him a little more than just twice in a week’s time.”

  She nodded her head, acknowledging she had said that. “But I wasn’t there as much as it seems that I was there.”

  Altman continued to question Renee about her affair with John and the last time she had seen him. He also asked her about the confrontation John had had with Brent at the Silver Fox.

  Renee grew bored with Altman’s line of questions. To her, they were just a rehash of the same old things they had talked about last week. She was tired of this humdrum and said in an exasperated voice, when Detective King started in on her, “I thought I already answered these questions.”

  “You answered his questions,” King corrected her, “but I’m asking the questions now and you’re still not giving the answers to my satisfaction.”

  “The answers you’re looking for,” Renee said, befuddled.

  “I’m looking for the logical answers,” he responded.

  Renee looked away, then blew out the breath she had been holding. “Look, I’ve been through a lot. I’m sure you both know that and I’m doing the best that I can to help you. Because I want to know who did this to my husband as well. And I’m willing to cooperate with you one hundred percent. I apologize if it’s not to your satisfaction.” She looked at Altman when she said it, then back at King. “Or yours. But I’m doing the best that I can.”

  Just as it appeared the investigators were not going to get what they were looking for from Renee, her lawyer, Leckowitz, began asking questions.

  Renee had no idea what had happened, but felt suddenly as if she were fighting everyone. Leckowitz continued throughout the rest of the interview, interrupting the detectives’ questioning at critical intervals with questions of his own.

  As the detectives probed deeper into Renee and Brent’s relationship, they insisted she knew very well who had killed her husband. They went, over and over, the details of the night Brent was murdered, constantly picking at her story like vultures would pick at a dead carcass. Leckowitz sat next to his client and seemingly continued to feed off their questions.

  Finally, when Altman thought they had stripped Renee down to the bone, he went after her again: “You know, this is the time to come clean on this, Renee. Let’s stop this circus that’s going on.”

  “I’m telling you what I know,” she pleaded.

  “You know who murdered Brent.” He pushed Renee.

  In a weak voice, she answered, “No. No, I don’t.”

  “The last time I asked you that question, you didn’t have an answer for it.”

  “I—I don’t know who did it,” Renee said in desperation.

  Altman sat back in his seat, then asked accusingly, “Was John on the beach that night?”

  “No. Not that I know of. No.”

  “Well, the last time you answered that question, you said it could’ve been him.”

  Renee hesitated. “It—it very well could have been. But I don’t know.”

  “That does not make sense. Don’t sink with him.”

  She nodded. “I understand that.”

  Altman gestured toward Leckowitz, then said to her, “This man’s an attorney. When somebody says it could have been . . .” He let her chew on that for a while before adding, “Like I said, don’t go under with John. Don’t try to protect him.”

  She assured him she wasn’t protecting John.

  “Because this is your lifeline right now, to catch on and get out of this ocean that keeps getting deep around you. You remember answering that question to that effect, though, the last time we talked to you?”

  “Uh, I think I said it could have been John.”

  This time, it was Leckowitz who sat up in his seat. “What did you say?”

  “Ah, that . . . It could have been,” Renee answered softly.

  After another round or two of questioning transpired about what Renee meant by her answer of “It could have been,” Leckowitz requested a bathroom break. When they returned, the detectives posed a slightly different question to her, “Would it surprise you if it turns out to be John?”

  As if Renee had a change of heart, she responded, “Not totally, no.”

  “Not totally?” Altman asked.

  “No. I don’t think that John would do something like that. But from the size of the person I saw, it wouldn’t surprise me [if] it turned out to be him.”

  “Okay, I ask you again,” Altman said slowly. “Why would it not surprise you?”

  Leckowitz could see that his client was stepping out into deeper water and asked her to step outside. He wanted to talk with the detectives off the record. When Renee stepped outside, he verified that Renee would be free to go home tonight, then asked the detectives if the balance of their investigation would result in the drawing of a criminal warrant charging a homicide or something else in addition to that. Would they postpone any criminal process against Renee for ten days until he returned from his vacation in Europe? He was told that decision would be out of the detectives’ hands and passed on to higher authorities above.

  It was a little before 1:00 A.M. when Leckowitz moved out into the hall for a conversation with Renee and her parents. Her parents had been sitting outside the door and had heard some of what had been said during the interview. Renee’s father advised her, “If you think it was John Frazier that shot Brent, then go ahead and tell them.”

  When they returned to the interview room, Leckowitz informed the detectives he had his own agenda and a new set of qu
estions. He then turned to Renee.

  “You were asked before if you know who pulled the trigger that killed your husband,” he began. “And you said you didn’t know. Is that correct?”

  “Right.”

  “Do you have any further information or do you want to change the story as to who you believe pulled the trigger that killed your husband?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  The detectives relaxed in their chairs. They had finally gotten the break they were looking for. With the help of Renee’s attorney, the interview had shifted dramatically toward their side. They hoped the next development in the interview was as promising for their case as the last.

  “Well, who is it, if you know?” Leckowitz continued.

  Renee looked straight ahead, then admitted for the first time, it was John who had murdered her husband. John Frazier.

  Leckowitz then led Renee through a series of questions that required her to corroborate her identification of Frazier as Brent’s killer. She said it was his voice she had heard that night and the size and shape of the man that had convinced her. There was no doubt whatsoever it was John. She said she had told the detectives previously she didn’t know who it was because she really didn’t believe that John could have done it.

  Renee also substantiated John had at least one gun in his house when she lived there and believed it to be a 9mm Glock. Her account of the murder was that she didn’t know it was John at first, but the more he spoke, the more it sounded like him. From then on, she had thought it was him and had never changed her mind to believe it was somebody else. That night, she assumed—particularly when she heard the click-click of the gun—John had been joking. Renee admitted further that she had never said anything to her husband that night, nor had she said anything to John. She had not screamed at John not to kill Brent, nor had she begged him to stop. She just prayed that he wouldn’t shoot him.

  The air hung heavy in the interview room as Renee provided the missing pieces to the puzzle.

  “I don’t know why Brent didn’t run after the first, second and third misfires,” she added. “I don’t know if John was holding him down or what. I was watching, but thinking about how it couldn’t be happening. That he couldn’t be doing this.” The reason she gave for not screaming for help after her husband was shot and mortally wounded was because she was in shock.