Last Look

The man jerked in his sleep and opened his eyes.

“Jeremy Brinkley?” Andrew asked.

“Yeah.” The one-time police officer ran a hand over his face as if to wipe the sleep away. “Sorry. Must have dozed. Blood pressure medication. Makes me drowsy. You Shields, the guy who called?”

“Yes.”

“You got some ID?” Brinkley was fully awake and standing.

Andrew met him halfway to the hammock and handed over his badge, which Brinkley scrutinized. He handed it back, then looked at Dorsey and said, “Yours?”

She took it from her bag and handed it over. Brinkley gave it a quick glance, then returned it.

“Too hot out here. Come on inside.” He motioned to the two agents to follow him. “Not you, Barney. You stay,” he told the dog, who then lay down in a grassy patch near the back steps.

“Water?” he offered before turning on the spigot in the narrow, dark kitchen.

“No thanks,” Dorsey and Andrew both responded at once.

Brinkley filled a large glass for himself, then gestured toward a closed door. “We’ll talk in there.”

He led them into a small room that smelled of damp wood and cats and was cooled by an ancient air conditioner. There was one armchair and a loveseat in desperate need of a slipcover. He pointed to the loveseat, and the agents sat. Brinkley took the armchair and turned it to face them.

“You said on the phone this had something to do with the Sha

“Officer Brinkley-” Andrew began.

“Not Officer Brinkley anymore,” he corrected. “I’ve been retired for several years now.”

“Once law, always law,” Andrew replied.

“Hey, you’re right on about that.” Brinkley nodded. “In my heart, I’m still wearing the badge. I watch those TV shows-shit, CSI?” He laughed, shaking his head. “Never seen a case worked the way they work theirs. Not in this little town, anyway. Christ, the biggest case we ever had was the Randall case, and we didn’t even have a body. No DNA testing back then, though we could test for blood type. We had to solve every case with good old-fashioned detective work.”

“That’s still the best way,” Andrew said.

“Oh, yeah.” Brinkley nodded his enthusiasm, a broad grin on his face. “Now, Agent Shields, tell me why you’re interested in Sha

“Officer Brinkley-”

“Hey, it’s Jeremy.” Brinkley leaned forward in his chair, his forearms resting on his thighs.

“Jeremy, the story hasn’t broken yet, so I’m going to have to ask for your confidence. We’re trying to learn as much as we can as quickly as we can, before the media grabs on to it.”

Brinkley looked from one agent to the other. “What’s the big mystery? The case was solved twenty-four years ago.”

“Not exactly,” Andrew told him.

“What are you talking about? I was part of it, I was there when we picked up Eric Beale for questioning, I was there when-”

“Whose idea was it to question Beale?” Andrew interrupted.

“Chief Taylor’s,” Brinkley replied without hesitation.

“What put him on to Eric, do you remember?”

“Yeah. He was the last person seen with Sha

“Did anyone else claim to have seen them leaving town?” Dorsey asked.

“No. Just Kimmie. But that was enough. It placed him with her after he said he’d let Sha

“Kimmie was credible?” Dorsey asked.

“Hell, yes. She was one of Sha

Brinkley warily watched them both.

“You want to tell me what this is all about? Why’s the FBI sending two agents down here to talk over an old case?”

“There’s been a bit a development,” Andrew told him.

“What kind of development?” Brinkley frowned.

“This is going to come as a bit of a shock, Jeremy, but Sha

“No shit? After all these years?” Brinkley’s smile returned. “But hey, that’s good, right? Now the family can have some closure, right?”

“When she was found, she’d been dead less than eight hours.”

Brinkley’s smile faded slowly as Andrew’s words began to sink in.

Finally, he said, “That just ain’t possible.”

“It’s not only possible, it’s true. Blood type, fingerprints, dental records, all matched. She’s been positively identified by one of her sisters,” Andrew assured him.

“But how the hell…” Brinkley got up and began to pace the length of the small room. “I don’t understand this. How could she have just died now?”

“The obvious answer is that she wasn’t dead then,” Dorsey stated.

“But how?” He jammed his hands into the pockets of his cutoff khakis. “I just don’t understand…”

“Twenty-four years ago, Sha

“But Eric, he had that shirt with all her blood on it. He had her stuff under the seat of his car…” Brinkley was still trying to come to terms with the fact that things were not as they had seemed.

“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 thi

“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 Sha

“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 Sha

“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.