Dance of Death (17 page)

Those persons vacationing and living in Myrtle Beach who happened to read about Brent Poole's murder in the newspaper or walk by the crime scene on the beach were perplexed. There was a sense of overwhelming disbelief that someone, especially a young husband and father taking a midnight stroll on the beach with his wife, could end up lying in a pool of blood. What explanation was there to justify killing a young man apparently filled with such life and love for his family? A bright wreath of red, yellow and white flowers, placed at the crime scene by Brent's family, stood like a beacon on stilts in about a foot of yellow sand. A banner emblazoned with
OUR SON WAS MURDERED
sliced across the memorial flowers, reminding the public to call the Myrtle Beach Police Department if they had any information on the killer.

Two young men from Charlotte, North Carolina, on their senior trip after graduation from high school, had been at the beach the night of the murder and remembered seeing Brent and Renee huddled up in the sand dunes around Eighty-second Avenue. Chris Hensley and his friend Tommy Hudnall told police they had also seen the mysterious man dressed in black walking along the public-access path that same night. Thirty minutes later, as they stood talking with a friend, they were told someone had been shot and killed on the beach.

Chris provided a description of the man to Myrtle Beach detective Len Sloan. He said it was dark that night, and had he known it was going to be of great significance, he would have paid closer attention. But one thing that stood out about the man in black was that he had an irritated look on his face. As he walked north along the hurricane fences, he looked back at them like he was ignoring them or he was mad at something. Chris was certain the man in black was Caucasian and had a stocky build, about five feet ten, and thought he had medium-to-long, dark brown hair. There might have been some facial hair, maybe a slight mustache, and when they saw him, it was probably around 10:30 or 11:30
P.M
.

Tommy confirmed Chris's story, but he told Sloan he couldn't tell if the guy was white or black, and if he had short hair, long hair or no hair.

Sloan attempted to generate a computerized composite of the suspect from what information they gave him, but both Hensley and Hudnall were adamant that the picture did not look like the person they had seen on the beach.

A second report from someone having seen the suspect on the beach was called into Myrtle Beach headquarters the day after Brent's murder. Mark and Donna Hobbs were from Bedford County, Virginia, and were staying at the same hotel as the Pooles. Ironically they, too, had also decided to take a walk on the beach that same night to celebrate their anniversary. Sometime around 11:00
P.M
., the Hobbses came out of their hotel and stood near the outdoor pools, where they noticed a man dressed in black about forty to fifty feet away on the other side of the fencing. Not only was the man dressed inappropriately, but he had an odd look in his eyes that frightened them. After seeing him again on the beach, this time at a distance of twenty-five to thirty feet and in bright lights, the couple decided it was not in their best interest to be on the beach with this man around, and called it a night.

The Hobbses assisted police in completing a second computerized composite of the murder suspect, but they, too, were not pleased with the results. It wasn't difficult for them to recollect the face of the individual they had seen, but the real challenge was in looking through all those hundreds of eyes, mouths and noses and trying to put them together to make a face. It didn't matter how many times they adjusted the composite, nothing they saw resembled the individual on the beach.

The Myrtle Beach detectives still believed the answers to all their questions were harbored in Renee Poole. They were all convinced she was holding something back—not telling the truth—and needed to be interviewed again. Perhaps if they pushed her harder on the specific details of the murder and plunged even deeper into her relationship with Frazier, then she might fold. With a little luck, there was a real possibility they could shake her story. If Frazier was involved, they needed to get enough damaging information from her to implicate him and make the charges stick before they went after him.

Detective Altman had driven the Pooles out to the crime scene and conducted another lengthy conversation with them about their daughter-in-law. A complete forensic analysis had already been ordered for room 604 at the Carolina Winds, once Renee and her family vacated. He understood the Pooles to say they were going to meet Renee and her family at the hotel, then drive over to the hospital and view Brent's body.

Brent Poole's family had insisted against the detectives and Dr. Duffy's advice that they see their son in the morgue. But the Pooles had to do it for their own peace of mind. To lessen the shock, Duffy had pulled one of the nurses aside and asked her to do the best she could to prepare the victim's body for viewing.

The sorrowful mourners were led through a door into a smaller room, where Brent's body had been relocated. The blinds were closed and the lights turned down low. A stainless-steel gurney sat in the middle of the room. The outline of Brent's body could be seen underneath a white cover sheet. It was just like a scene from some murder mystery on television. The only problem was, this was their own true-to-life show they were watching.

Bill Poole's face grew tighter and redder as he waited with his family to see his son's body. Small white lines appeared at both corners of his mouth. Renee and her mother stood behind them, crying and holding on to each other. Out of the corner of her eye, Renee watched Brent's mother. Her jaw was set in permanent scorn and she was staring at her with a cold, hardened look. It was as if her eyes were saying that Renee was the reason they were all here.

Duffy waited until everyone had entered the dimly lit room, then shut the door behind them. When everyone was still and settled, he took a deep breath, then stepped up to the stainless-steel gurney and slowly uncovered Brent's naked body.

“Oh, my God,” Duffy heard the family members behind him gasp, as if they had all whispered it at the same time.

The body of Brent Poole was lying on its side and on top of sheets covered in blood. He still had the tubes protruding from his mouth and his arm that Duffy and his team of nurses had used during surgery to help sustain him. The greater portions of his head on both the right and left sides were covered in dried and caked blood. Due to internal cranial pressure, his head was swollen and larger than its normal size.

As the family inched closer, they looked at Brent's face. It was titled backward, all swollen and puffy. The muzzle imprint of the gun was easily noticeable underneath his chin. Inside the imprint, there was a hole like a bull's-eye in a shooting target. Traces of black soot were recognizable above the hole in his left ear. Sticky, bright red blood had discharged from his mouth and both his ears.

Bill Poole fought hard to control his emotions. He took a closer look at the ample amount of blood still on Brent's body and the sheets underneath him. He remembered what the police had told him earlier and silently wondered if Brent had bled on the beach, bled on the operating table—and still had all this blood on him and the sheets—then why was there no blood on Renee, who had reached down and picked up his head? If she was that close to Brent and the robber, then why hadn't blood splatter gotten on her, too? For Christ's sake, she was wearing a white T-shirt. He looked at Renee, who was still wearing the same clothes she had on the night before, and felt a cold tremor crawl down his spine like a black widow spider.

Agnes stood limply beside her husband. She felt numb, no longer capable of feeling anything in her body. It was as if someone had suddenly ripped her heart from her chest and all the blood had drained from her body. She stared at Brent's body, reflexively holding her hands out firmly in front of her, wishing she could somehow reach out and take all her son's pain away.

Dee took another look at her baby brother and turned her head. She couldn't stand to look at him in that condition for a second longer.

Renee and Marie stood behind the Pooles, looking at the body from over their shoulders. They held on to each other and continued crying, then slipped out and walked back into an adjoining conference room to wait on the Pooles.

As the Pooles stood silently together, the tears rolling off their cheeks and their gazes locked onto Brent's tattered body, Bill could see the darkness rolling upon them. Finally, in a brusque voice, he announced it was time for them to leave. Bunching the muscles in his neck and rounding his shoulders, he directed Agnes and Dee out of the room and to where Renee and Marie were waiting. As they stepped out of the dark room and into the larger one, the bright lights washed over their faces, but it couldn't penetrate the shuttered look masking their sentiments. Walking toward a corner in the room, they collapsed against each other and pleaded to God for the strength they needed to get through this terrible ordeal.

Renee watched from across the room. She was hurting, too. She had hoped she could have stayed with Brent's body a little longer, wanting so badly to reach out and touch her husband to see if he was as cold as he looked. She still couldn't believe he was dead and thought it would help if she touched his body. But she never got the chance. She believed the Pooles had deliberately stood in front of her and shut her out so she couldn't get a clear view of Brent's body.

Renee had been so careful in studying her mother-in-law's face while she looked for the sympathy that eluded her, but there was none. True, Agnes had lost her son. But did she not realize that Renee had lost her husband? Had it not dawned on her that she would be the one who would sleep alone tonight? Had she once asked Renee how she was holding up?

Ten minutes passed and the Pooles were still huddled in the corner. When Marie realized she and her daughter were not going to be invited, she told Renee it was time for them to leave.

“We don't have to put up with this,” Marie had said crisply, suddenly beginning to feel out of place. She motioned for Renee to follow her. Didn't their feelings matter at all? Did anyone ever think they needed prayers, too? On the way out of the hospital, she told Renee she had seen how the Pooles had acted toward her and they had no clue as to what really had happened with Brent on the beach. The only thing they knew was what the police had told them and what they had told the police.

Jack Summey had wisely chosen to remain outside the hospital and stay with Katie. When the two families emerged from the emergency room a few minutes later, he could tell there had been words. It was disheartening for him to see how much pain everyone was in and their relationships had become so strained that they couldn't comfort each other.

The sky overhead was beginning to darken and turn black. The ambiance outside reflected the emotions of the two families as they stood and stared accusingly at each other in the parking lot. All their best-laid plans for Brent and Renee's marriage had now crumbled before their very eyes—whether they were victims of circumstance, fate, poor decisions or malicious evil remained to be seen. All that could be said and proven at this point and time was that the battle lines had been drawn by an unfortunate incident that would separate the two families and change their lives forever.

Renee Poole had wanted to get herself and Katie back to Mocksville as soon as possible, back to their lives, to feel the safety of her home and their own beds. But the thought of returning to her home—once filled with such life and love—was too much for her. Besides, she was still in shock and in no shape to be caring for anyone. She and Katie would live in Clemmons with her parents until she was able to recover.

Renee knew how well-liked Brent was at his job and how much his friends cared for him. Like any thoughtful wife, as soon as she arrived home that day, she called Brent's employer and contacted many of his coworkers and friends just to let them know what had happened and to ask for their prayers and support.

If there had been some strains in the Pooles' marriage, Brent Poole had never let if affect his job as a diesel mechanic at Mack Trucks in Charlotte, North Carolina. Brent repaired tractor-trailer engines and electronics systems from 2:30
P.M
. to 1:00
A.M
., four days a week.

One of Brent's coworkers, who identified himself as Ronnie, told reporter Lauren Leach of the
Sun News
that whatever happened at the beach, Brent didn't deserve it. “The shooting has stunned us all,” he said. “He was a supernice guy who would do anything in the world for you. He loved his child and he loved his wife.”

Dealership owner Pat McMahon was saddened to hear the news about Brent, whom he called a “superior” employee. McMahon said when he had received the phone call from Renee, she had seemed like a grieving wife.

Renee may have been acting like the prototypical grieving widow, but Brent Poole's family was not buying it. From the first moment they spoke with the police about Brent's murder, they had begun doubting her story and feared she was somehow involved. When they tried to talk with her about what had happened, they said Renee wouldn't even look them in their eyes. They were hoping that it wasn't so, but they were afraid it was. They alerted the Myrtle Beach detectives, who had already found her statements full of inconsistencies and were way beyond suspicions.

That Wednesday afternoon, Renee had remembered the photos from their Myrtle Beach vacation were still in her bag. There were several good photos of Brent in the bunch and she thought the Pooles would appreciate her furnishing them with copies of those. When two friends of Brent's, Vincent Moore and Tony White, stopped by her mother's house to pay their respect, Renee asked if she could ride over with them and visit the Pooles.

Vincent and Tony were struggling with the same issues as the Pooles. “I just don't want to believe she could have something to do with this,” Vincent confided to his friend. “I'm really trying not to think about it, but it keeps going through my mind.”

Although Renee denied the incident ever occurred, Bill Poole told police that same day he had cornered his daughter-in-law in the bedroom and just asked her to tell him what happened. She told him the same story she had told the police, and when she got through, he asked her whether it was possible that anybody could have followed them to the beach.

Bill said he was trying to keep an open mind. Although he hadn't told Renee, he was thinking if somehow the evidence proved she wasn't involved in Brent's murder, then maybe some of her friends were. Maybe it was some of those men she had been having affairs with. That was why he asked her, “Is it possible anybody followed you guys to the beach?”

Renee chose her words carefully. “Well, on the way down, Katie got kinda irritable and we had to stop two or three times. But I never saw anything that would lead me to believe that.”

“Do you think that John could have anything to do with this?” Bill asked candidly.

Renee shook her head. She didn't think so.

“Do you understand why I'm asking you these questions?”

She said she did.

Bill wanted to let her know that he was concerned that some of the parties she had had an affair with could have been a part of this. “You know, Renee, when people get into relationships and in lust, all of this comes into play. They do crazy things.”

“Yeah, I understand that,” Renee answered.

Bill Poole didn't think she did. His family was suspicious and saw the worst-possible scenario. The way he saw it, Renee's behavior from the beginning was disturbingly out of kilter with someone who claimed to have loved her husband. Bill could look at Renee and see it in her face and in her fractured emotions. To him, there hadn't been much change in her emotions from when he had seen her the day before. Maybe a few tears had misted in her eyes and trickled down her cheeks, but it still appeared the motivation was the same. The only thing he saw in her was pure fear.

Renee would say later that she didn't remember any conversation with Bill. But she did recall the moment when his preacher asked everybody to sit in a circle that evening and asked them to say something about Brent.

“Nobody really knew what to say,” she would comment afterward. “Everybody was just hurting so bad.”

But that wasn't the way Bill perceived it. He said when they went around the circle, he looked at Renee and she reminded him of Susan Smith, that lady from Union, South Carolina, who had let her car slip into a murky lake with her two kids still inside.

“Everybody around my house, you know, was crying and hugging each other. But she never looked up. Her eyes were down the entire time. Not once would she look you in the eye.”

When asked if Renee cried at all, he replied, “She had brought over some pictures for us of her, Brent and Katie that they had taken at the beach. She cried some then, in the hall. But when my preacher asked her to say something, she said very calmly, ‘I hope you know that—that we did love him, that Katie loved him, and I just hope that he knows that.'”

While Renee stood outside and smoked a cigarette, Vincent and Tony stood near the back porch and talked with Craig Poole. Craig was giving them the lowdown on Renee and John's affair and what he thought had happened in Myrtle Beach.

“I don't believe a word Renee's said about what happened,” he said.

“She's the one who set this whole trip up. She called in the reservations, got the baby-sitter, and did everything she needed to get my brother there. At the same time, John had already asked for time off at work.”

It was all a shock to Brent's friends. Brent had told them all about Renee's affairs, but they never imagined she would play a part in his murder.

“I don't even want to be in the same room as her,” Craig said disgusted, glancing toward Renee. “I have no doubt that John did murder Brent and she had something to do with it.”

After Renee finished her cigarette, she stepped back inside the Pooles' home and started looking for her two friends. She and Brent's parents had discussed what clothing they wanted him to be buried in. She asked Tony and Vincent if they would drive her to her house on Blue Bonnet Court to pick up his burial clothes.

As the Pooles became even more suspicious of Renee and her involvement in Brent's murder, their relationship with her and her parents, Jack and Marie, began to sour. At a time when families needed to make peace and draw strength from one another, the growing rift between the Pooles and the Summeys placed an even darker cloud over an already tragic and difficult situation.

Detective Terry Altman talked with Renee later that day. She told him she remembered the man's voice sounded black and that he used slang words that resembled a black man's speech.

Here we go again,
Altman thought. In 1994, the description Susan Smith had used to describe the man who had supposedly kidnapped her children was a black man in a toboggan-type hat. It sounded as if Renee had taken a page right out of that crime story.