Dance of Death (20 page)

“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 questions. 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.

Renee told the detectives she didn't know how John had found out where they were at the beach. She had told no one but his and her parents and knew no one had called them to find out. She had told a few friends, like Cynthia Hanson, and maybe John could have heard about it from her, then followed them on the beach. But she wasn't sure.

Her theory was that John had probably killed Brent because he felt he couldn't have her. That he needed to get Brent out of the way. But she wanted the detectives to know that she did not conspire with John about coming to the beach, nor had she planned to have Brent at the beach at a certain time for John to kill him.

“It wasn't that I was trying to protect John,” Renee said. “I just . . . I wanted to make sure that I knew that it was him. I mean, in my heart, I knew it was him. But in my mind, I just didn't want to accept the fact that he could have done that.”

Altman was relieved to have heard Renee finally tell the truth. But just to be sure, he asked her, “So, why would you change your mind now after three hours of saying it wasn't?”

“My daughter,” Renee answered solemnly. “I know my daughter loves her daddy. I love her daddy. I still don't want to accept the fact that he's gone. But when I really just start thinking about the fact that she could lose me as well. And the more and more I thought about it, I knew it was him.”

Altman wanted to be sure he was hearing her right. “There's no doubt in your mind, then, that it was John Frazier?”

“It was him,” Renee said firmly.

The detectives had what they'd come for, but they continued the interview until 1:53
P.M
., gathering even more incriminating testimony against Renee and Frazier. As promised, they let Renee go home with her family to sleep in her own bed. This wouldn't, by any means, be the end of their investigation, but it had certainly turned the tide in their favor.

Before Renee left the room, she reached out to hug Detective Altman. This was a new one for him. Nowhere, in all of his police training, had he been instructed on how to respond when a suspect offered affection. He reached out and quickly grabbed Renee by her arms. Police officers weren't allowed to reciprocate.

It was early morning, but Captain Hendrick was standing by at Myrtle Beach police headquarters, waiting on Detective King's phone call. With the new information Renee had given them, warrants were drawn up against her and Frazier, signed by a judge in Myrtle Beach, and then faxed back to King at WSPD. Thinking John Frazier might want to run after having seen news of Renee's police interview on television, King and Altman teamed up with several WSPD officers and drove to John's residence, as well as to Kayle Schettler's residence looking for him. When Frazier was not found at either location, it suddenly dawned on them he was probably at work, but they didn't have that exact location. The arrest would have to wait another day.

The exhausted detectives checked in at the Marriott Courtyard and finally caught up on some well-deserved shut-eye. While they were having the benefit of their first good night's sleep in a week, they hoped John Frazier was enjoying his last night of freedom.

MBPD lieutenant Bill Frontz and Detective Richard Beatty arrived in Winston-Salem the next day, June 13, to assist in the arrest of John Boyd Frazier and Kimberly Renee Poole. Frontz carried a copy of Thursday's
Sun News
with him to show the other detectives. It contained an article about Brent's murder and a quote from Renee about her dead husband.

“We all love him,” she had said to reporter Lauren Leach. “This didn't have to happen to him . . . but we know he's with the Lord. We're still praying for him.”

Detective Altman had made several calls throughout the day trying to alert the Pooles of the upcoming arrests, but had no luck. He finally learned they were with Renee and her family at the Hayworth-Miller Funeral Home in Winston-Salem for the viewing of Brent's body.

In all, much work remained before an arrest of Frazier could be made. He had worked his midnight shift at Champion Products and left that morning, but didn't go home. His whereabouts were still unknown. Working with the Federal Marshal Fugitive Task Force Team, WSPD finally located Frazier that evening at his parents' home. Just as he and his family were sitting down to a steak dinner, they heard a knock on the door. Frazier was served with the warrants and arrested without incident then transported to the WSPD. He was charged with murder and armed robbery and brought to the Investigative Division for an interview.

While Detectives Altman and Frontz were sitting there waiting on him, Frazier made a phone call to his lawyer and one to the Summey house to speak with Renee. Brandy answered the phone and told him Renee was at Brent's wake then hung up on him. She was given explicit explanations that John was not to call their house for any reason.

Twenty-eight-year-old John Boyd Frazier was a tremendous disappointment to Detective Altman. When he sat down to interview Frazier at 8:20
P.M
., he could see there was something about his roly-poly body that would make everyone grin. His face was chubby and he had dark black, thinning hair and dark bug eyes. A real class clown. That is, until someone said something he didn't like and he turned on them. For a moment, the detective stared at him silently. He certainly was not the suave and debonair type he had imagined Renee would have had reason to leave her husband.

Frazier reacted as if he had nothing to hide. “I have an attorney,” he said void of all emotion.

“Okay.” Altman accepted that. “Do you want to make a statement at this time?”

“Not without an attorney,” Frazier said, clasping his short beefy fingers together. Suddenly he became hostile and unruly. “I left a voice mail message for you that I had an attorney. I left his name and number on your voice mail. Then my attorney called and left it on your voice mail that he was representing me. When the SBI came to my house, I gave them his name and phone number several times. And they still refused to try and call him. They still insisted on trying to question me in my driveway.”

Frazier was red in the face and breathing heavily. The detectives attempted to settle him and apologized for the inconvenience.

“I'm not trying to be rude or anything,” Frazier growled, “but everybody's been rude to me.” He made it clear he wouldn't be talking to anybody until he talked with his parents and his lawyer. A few minutes later, Robert Probst, his attorney, called the police station and talked with Altman. Probst wanted to know if Altman could share any information related to the arrest over the phone, but he declined. Probst then stated his client would not be cooperating with them in any way and was prepared to fight extradition back to South Carolina.

In the meantime, the combined forces of police officers from the MBPD, SBI and WSPD were all in place and headed toward the funeral home to arrest the witness who had identified Frazier as her husband's killer and put him in this precarious spot.

Even though three full days had passed since Brent had been murdered, that was still not enough time for many of his friends and relatives to at least grasp he had been murdered. Some shivered at the thought of an open casket, given that they had heard his head had been blown off. And the growing divide between the Summeys and the Pooles had already heightened the somber ceremony.

Renee arrived early at the funeral home that Saturday evening, believing she would have some time alone with her husband. Brent's family had picked out the casket and she had asked that two dozen white roses be placed on the top. The funeral home had done its best to make Brent look normal, but his face was still sunken and had that gray pallor look to it. Renee had selected for him a white dress shirt with a blue design down the front, black dress pants, a black leather belt with a silver buckle, Tommy Hilfiger underwear and socks and his black leather dress shoes. Just so he'd look more like himself, she had given the funeral home hair gel to put in his hair.

Earlier in the week, Renee had noticed a memory board of Brent at the Pooles' home, but it didn't have any pictures of her and Brent. Thinking that surely must have been an oversight, she stopped by her house and got some pictures for Dee to include in the collage. She had wanted everyone at the funeral to remember how happy she and Brent had been, and Dee had promised her she would bring the memory board with those of her on it to the viewing. But she didn't see any.

For the wake, Renee wore a dress her mother had purchased. It was a very conservative, ankle-length, dark blue dress with short sleeves and a white square neckline trimmed in blue-and-white buttons down the front.

As is customary in the South, Brent's body lay fully exposed in the open casket. Renee stood by the casket for nearly two hours with her head bowed and attempted to greet those who had come to express their condolences. There were a few friends of her and her relatives, but mostly people from the Pooles' church, many of whom were reluctant to embrace her. She stood by and watched as her in-laws, dazed and unbelieving at what had happened, fell into the arms of those who were trying to comfort them by saying Brent was safe and happy with Jesus now. The Pooles would nod, and then break down again after being asked if anything could be done for them.

When the crowds slowed near the end of the service, Renee told Dee she was holding Brent's wedding ring and wanted him to be buried with it. She asked Dee if she would help put it back on his finger. While Agnes and Marie admired the flowers and decided which ones would be appropriate for the grave site, Dee positioned Brent's finger and Renee slid the gold band over it. Renee and Dee then embraced each other and cried again.

Just as Renee stepped outside to smoke a cigarette, several police cars drove up in the parking lot. She couldn't believe it. Couldn't they at least let her grieve in private? Did they have no heart? As Detective King and a group of officers got out and headed toward the front door, Marie walked over to them and asked, “You're not here to arrest my daughter, are you?”

Detective King had seen Renee standing outside the funeral home and noticed she had stepped back inside. His main objective was to speak with Brent's family and let them know what was going on. After taking the Pooles into a separate room, he informed them Frazier had been arrested and they were there to arrest Renee. He then spoke with Renee's parents and advised them Renee was being taken to the sheriff's department for the purpose of obtaining another statement about Frazier.

Thinking Renee was being transported to the police station for additional information, Marie volunteered to the police, “Sometimes, in order to get Renee to tell the truth, you have to get down on her pretty hard. When she was a child, that was the only way I could get her to tell me the truth.”

The Summeys did not know their daughter was being charged with obstruction of justice. They jumped in their car and followed the police to the large, three-story building. As soon as they got there, a warrant of obstruction of justice was sworn against Renee and she was entered in the system as a fugitive of justice from South Carolina.

Detective Altman and Lieutenant Frontz were waiting to interview Renee on the first floor, inside a small eight-by-nine cubicle in the detective's division. A long, narrow table and chairs on either side of the table were the only furniture in the room. Just before the interview, Renee had been asked and received a Mountain Dew.

The detectives explained why she had been arrested. She was told this time it would be just only the three of them in the room. When they attempted to Mirandize her, she asked if she could consult her parents. Altman said she couldn't do that; rules at the WSPD prohibited it. Besides, she was her own person now. She'd have to decide what was best to do. Renee signed a waiver of her rights and agreed to make a statement without the presence of her lawyer.

“I know you went over the incident several times with me and Detective King last night,” Altman started in on her, “and we did get the truth of exactly what happened. In fact, that was the reason for John Frazier being arrested today.”

Renee shifted in her chair. Her eyes were more rounded than usual. She looked scattered and distraught.

“But one of the things we were having a problem with last night is still a concern today,” Altman continued. “And that's how John knew you were staying in Myrtle Beach. Okay, uh, I know Detective King and I were telling you that the door was closing on you last night though I think you pushed that door open pretty good to save yourself last night, but there's still that concern of how John knew where you and Brent were staying. Do you still maintain the stance that you don't know how he got down there?”

Renee shifted in her seat, then answered, “I don't know how he got there.” Frazier may have followed her, but she didn't know that for a fact.

Altman's words surprised her when he accused Frazier of asking her to lure Brent to a secluded place so he could kill him.

Her mouth and eyes were wide open. “No,” she insisted, “he's never done that. No, never.” She was 100 percent positive the murderer was John, but she didn't have anything to do with killing Brent.

Altman threw the names of Cynthia Hanson and Thomas Pedersen at Renee. He told her what they had said about her and Frazier, that she had left her husband for him.

“You know we've arrested John,” Altman said smugly. “And the lieutenant and I have talked with him. And what do you think he's telling us?”

“I don't know,” she said, his words scaring her like a numbing explosion. “I don't know what he's saying.”

“Okay, I want you to think about this real hard. I think you were about ninety-nine percent honest with us last night. There's still one percent left for you to tell us about how he knew you and Brent were at the beach. I'm telling you that this was preconceived or planned; right now, this is your only chance. Because once we leave Winston-Salem tonight, that's it. The solicitors are not gonna be willing to listen anymore. And remember when I told you that we threw that lifeline out to you last night and that big ocean was engulfing you?”

Renee began to panic. A sense of total helplessness swept over her as she tried to explain how John could have known where they were staying at the beach. There were many possibilities.

“So, why would John go to all the trouble to follow you to Myrtle Beach?” Altman asked. “Do you think he planned to kill Brent the whole time?”

“I can't say,” she answered.

“Had he ever said to you, he wanted to kill Brent?”

“No. I know that he wasn't very happy with him. That maybe he wanted to physically get in a fight with him. But I'm not sure if he meant to kill him.”

“So, he never told you to try and get him someplace where he could try and kill him?”

“No,” Renee stated without a need to explain.

As the interview continued, Sergeant King, who was monitoring it from the other side of the two-way glass, saw Renee was wound tighter than a drum. It was a long and tedious interview, but she remained steady in answering questions designed to trip her up. He remembered the advice Renee's mother had given him back at the funeral home and believed Altman could use it against her. He wrote the information on a piece of paper and slid it under the door.

The remainder of the interview took on a new dimension.

“Renee, you need to think real hard about what he said to you. At any time, has he told you, or did you guys plan in any way, even if you weren't taking it serious, about coming to Myrtle Beach or a secluded area, and getting you and Brent away from the public so he could kill him?”

She could feel the heat of Altman's rage. He kept needling her, telling her she and Frazier had conspired to murder Brent.

“Like I said, you need to be totally honest with us now.” Altman came down hard on her. “Don't let him turn this around on you and you go down for the fall. If you planned it, it's a lot better to say it now than letting the solicitor get a hold of this whole package. Because let me tell you. They are pretty ruthless there. They don't care who's going up for the murder charge.”

Then Altman's questions touched on what he had come to know as a very vulnerable area in her life.

“Okay, I want you to be totally honest on this,” he said in a low voice. “If you conspired in any way to do this, I need you to tell me. So when I go to the solicitor and say, ‘Look, Renee's done wrong. It took her a little bit to come clean with us, but she values her life, she's got a daughter she's gotta raise. You know, I want to help her out as much as I can.' I know I can't bring your husband back, but I don't want to see you go to jail for life or possibly the death penalty. Because that's what John is looking at right now. He's looking at the death penalty, okay? I don't want to see you go down for that. You're too pretty of a girl for that.”