Pretty Little Killers (36 page)

When Berry and Gaskins heard what happened, they suspected Rachel's actions were those of someone with a guilty conscience.
They began making calls and looking at all the places they thought she might be. They desperately wanted to go after her and were trying to determine if she met the status of a runaway.

Colebank told Berry that Tara was coming to see her after work to get Shelia's electronics back, so she wouldn't be able to sit in on Rachel's polygraph exam at the detachment like she planned.

Instead Colebank went home to get her son from the bus after her shift ended at four, and then returned to the station to wait for Tara. She didn't learn until Berry showed up that Rachel skipped out on her polygraph.

“Yeah, Rachel didn't show,” Berry said when he dropped by. “Maybe Tara can tell us where she is.”

“Good, let's see what Tara knows,” Colebank said.

The city officer had all of Shelia's electronics ready when Tara arrived, but she was determined to get as much information as she could before she released them. “By the way, you know Rachel's missing, right?”

“No she's not. Rachel's down in the car with Shelia,” Tara said.

“What's she doing with her?” Colebank said. Her eyes met Berry's. “She's supposed to take her polygraph.”

“Well, she's hanging out with Shelia now.”

“We need to take her over to the State Police detachment before they list her as a runaway.”

“Her dad knows she's with me.”

Colebank was pissed. So was Berry. They both believed the more the two teens were together, the less chance they had of finding Skylar. They also knew they couldn't question either girl without their attorney present.

That's when Colebank realized:
Tara doesn't have an attorney. I can question her
.

“Tara, why are you helping them lie?”

“I have nothing to do with what these girls are doing,” Tara said.

“Christmas is coming up. How would you feel if your child was missing at Christmas? You need to end this.”

“Me? I told you they don't know anything.”

“You need to try and appeal to them as a mother. Step up and if they did something, we can deal with it.” As a mother herself, Colebank thought this approach was worth a try. “I want Skylar brought home. So does everybody else.”

“We do too!” Tara said. Colebank believed her distress was genuine. The strain showed on her face as it increasingly had for the last few months. She wasn't yet sure why Tara was so worn down. Was it from the pressure to learn something—or to hide something?

“How can you do this?” Tara continued. “You guys are ruining their lives. They're getting harassed and picked on at school. All their friends are accusing them. The whole town's accusing them. They don't know anything.”

That's when Colebank snapped. She was tired of how Tara coddled Shelia. She had seen enough of Shelia's arrogance and Tara's constant defensiveness and accusations. Whenever she or Spurlock got close to something, either Tara or Benninger would shut down the interview.

“You are her tool and she is using you to hide from us,” Colebank said. “These girls know
exactly
where Skylar is. You are an idiot if you have not seen that by now, after all the evidence you know we have.”

While Colebank was dealing with Tara, Berry texted Gaskins, asking if they could hold Rachel and take her to the detachment. He was waiting for a reply when the confrontation occurred.

As Shelia's parent, Tara had been present for many of the interviews and had spoken to Colebank and Spurlock. They pointed out inconsistencies and small changes in the story. Tara refused to listen, refused to see the obvious.

“I just can't believe it,” Tara said.

“Well, you need to open your eyes and
believe it
because those girls did something to her and know
exactly
where she is. She is
dead
,” Colebank said. “Wherever she is, she is dead, and they know where she's at. You need to end this for Dave and Mary's family.”

Tara began crying and left the building.

“Like daughter, like mother,” Colebank said to Berry.

They wanted nothing more than to follow Tara out and yank Rachel from the car. Make the truant teen wait there until her parents showed up to take her home. But they couldn't. The minute Tara told Colebank and Berry that Rusty knew Rachel was with her, they couldn't do a thing. It didn't take Colebank long to figure out her heated discussion with Tara had made her the first law enforcement casualty of the investigation. She realized it the next time she called Gaskins and Berry to ask what their day's agenda included—and no one called her back.

Whoever Josie Snyder was, she had very good sources. Even the police thought so. They followed Josie's online harassment of Rachel and Shelia. Trooper Berry felt certain she knew something about the case. He tried unsuccessfully to get a warrant to learn her identity, prompting Josie to go dark for a while.

Then after nothing but stony silence since November 21, Josie came alive the evening of December 16 with a series of colorful tweets. They were addressed to Mia Barr, but everyone familiar with the case knew they were
really
subtweets for Shelia and Rachel.

At 6:31 that evening Josie tweeted:
failed lie detector. no shit no one gonna come out and say the truth how ya purposely od ur bff
.

Josie clearly believed Shelia and Rachel had killed Skylar by causing her to overdose.

Josie tweeted again at 6:59:
oooh no no! Hiding from po po
.

Nine minutes later, at 7:08, possibly in reply to a text message from Mia Barr, Josie's third tweet was nothing if not ominous:
no but one failed, one hiding out so the one that failed doesnt take care of business like she has witnessed #bffscaredofbff
.

There was no mistaking what Josie meant: she thought Rachel was in hiding so Shelia wouldn't kill her. Of course that really meant Josie had no clue that Rachel had run
to
Shelia, not away from her.

thirty-two

About a Girl's Car

On a regular basis
all four officers—Colebank, Spurlock, Gaskins, and Berry—would gather around and watch the surveillance video again and again. After Colebank was “excommunicated,” as she jokingly calls it, the male officers continued the practice. One day they blocked out half a shift and huddled around a large-screen computer monitor. Over and over, they watched the surveillance video that showed Skylar sneaking out her bedroom window. They played it from the beginning, in slow motion. They played it backward just as slowly. They looked at every single frame, trying to figure out what they had missed. Because surely there was something there—something so obvious they couldn't see it.

Over the course of the next several weeks, the officers continued watching the video, looking for that tiny clue that would tell them whose car Skylar got into that night. One morning, Spurlock, Gaskins, and Berry turned on the video at 8:00
A.M
. when their shift began and then studied different car makes and models for hours online.

“We were so burned out, we actually went to the sergeant's office where he has a bigger screen, to blow up a screen shot,” Berry said. “The coffee didn't taste good anymore.”

The three men were so specific in their search for details, they looked at the gas caps, the back glass in the cars—everything they could think of to try to find a match to the car in the video. By ten that night, the men began to argue over their theories and the minor differences in vehicle models they found online.

“Let's stop right here,” Spurlock said. “Let's go home, take a night, sleep on it, and start out fresh tomorrow.”

“Okay, sounds good to me,” Berry said. Gaskins agreed and the three men headed home.

Chris and Alexis Berry had been married for four years when he was reassigned to the Morgantown Detachment. Alexis had given up her dream of going to medical school to become Chris' wife, because she was crazy about him. But his work on Skylar's case began to take a huge toll on their marriage.

Berry spent more hours at the office than he ever had before. That wouldn't have been as hard on Alexis if Berry hadn't also brought his work home with him. Many times, he wouldn't get home until midnight—and yet she'd still wake up to find him texting. Again. It was the same thing every night. At first she didn't believe him when he told her who he was texting.

“Who are you texting at two
A.M
.?” Alexis asked.

“Gaskins,” Berry said.

“Sure you are.”

But then he'd show her his phone, and Alexis saw he was telling the truth. She couldn't stop worrying, though. He looked horrible. She knew Spurlock and Gaskins were equally rundown, because she'd become acquainted with the women in their lives, too.

That's how Alexis knew she wasn't the only worried wife. The men were exhausted—and it showed. They had dark circles under their eyes. They were eating on the fly, when they bothered to eat at all, so they all lost weight.

“When we work, we work,” Berry would often tell her.