Dance of Death (21 page)

She hesitated to look Altman in the eyes. She was shocked that he had kept pushing her buttons like he had.

“Even with a conspiracy charge into this, you're not going to be up there as much as he is. I just want you to help yourself, so I can help you. Uh, Lieutenant Frontz can tell you, we've got a good rapport with our solicitor's office. When I go to him—and I'm gonna put everything down we've talked about and he's gonna look at it—I'll say, ‘But look over here. Here's where Renee's coming clean on everything. And John's trying to bring her down for it, but he's pushed her to this. He wanted her so bad, he had to get rid of Brent. And he twisted her mind so much that she didn't know what she was doing.' Okay?”

Renee looked up at him sheepishly, shook her head and nodded.

Altman leaned forward and looked her directly in her eyes. “That's what happened, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

Altman and Frontz glanced at each other. Altman took a deep breath, sat back in his chair and gave her some room. “Now I want you to tell me how he did this.”

Renee began slowly. “The last time I went to his house”—she seemed distracted, as if she were looking for something, then began again—“I, uh, I uh—I, uh, you think I could get a cigarette?”

Altman told her she could get one when the interview ended. If he had to run to the store himself, he would get her a whole pack.

Renee apologized profusely and said repeatedly she didn't want to lose her daughter. She had already lost her husband, and was about to lose her freedom. She didn't want to lose her child, too.

“You're not going to lose your daughter,” Altman assured her.

“I know it's not the right thing to do. I know it hasn't been all along, but I just don't want to lose my daughter,” Renee said the third time.

“You're not gonna lose her,” Altman assured her. He cranked her back up and redirected her toward her involvement with Frazier and the murder.

Renee stated John had brought it up at work one day. She thought he was playing and didn't take him seriously. Later on, she found out he had a tape recorder and was taping their conversation. He threatened to use it against her if she ever turned on him.

“But I told him, I said, ‘No, don't do that, don't do it,' you know. I thought he was playing. I just kept on saying, ‘Don't do it. Don't do it.' After that, that was pretty much the end of that conversation . . . but I thought he was playing. I didn't think he was serious about it. . . . One of the last times I talked to him, uh, I didn't know what he was talking about. He said he had gotten me and Brent an anniversary present. I said, ‘Thank you.' Then he said, ‘Where do you want it to happen?' And obviously that's what it was.”

The detectives did not discount what Renee was saying, but they were not dissuaded into thinking she had not known Frazier was going to be in Myrtle Beach. She denied having any contact with him about being there the night of the murder, but Altman kept hammering away at her story until he had reconstructed what he thought was the truth. Then he posed several questions to her for what he believed summarized the entire incident. Wasn't this whole scenario in Myrtle Beach the result of him getting her involved in this conspiracy? Didn't he force her to get Brent to a secluded place so he could get rid of him?

“No, no, no,” she protested. “I did not expect him to be there. Like I said, I felt the conversation was all a joke.”

Still following the interview from behind the glass, Sergeant King perked up like a cat in a bowl of tuna. She had said, “I did not expect him to be there.” He wrote Altman another note, advising him to return to that point, then slipped it under the door.

Seeds of doubt, which had long ago taken root in Altman's mind, now blossomed before him.

“And, lo and behold, when you come to Myrtle Beach, you guys end up in a secluded place—just like John asked you to,” he said with renewed vigor. “You see what I'm saying? I'm just saying I don't want you to find yourself in a bind after what he's telling us. Because I'm telling you, he's saying it's all your idea.”

Renee bit her nails; she had her back to the wall. There was no other way to go, but forward. She could make an easy truce, and began telling them everything they wanted to know. She and John had planned it all. The last time she had seen him was at her house, the Thursday before they left to go to the beach, and they had talked about it then.

“I know that one day he came back over to my house, he was still talking about killing him. And I told him, I said, ‘You know, you don't have the balls to do something like that. Just don't talk about it.' And, uh, my daughter was there and I had to tend to her, so I don't think we ever really finished the conversation. But I do recall telling him, he didn't have the balls to do it, and to stop talking about it. . . . For all I know, he probably recorded that conversation, too.”

Altman's suspicions had been validated; she remembered every detail of the conversation. And like almost every criminal he had known, when their plan faltered and plummeted straight down the earth, they wasted no time in blaming someone else. “And John's purpose for recording these was that when it did happen, you were going to go down with him?” he asked, just to make sure he understood her.

“Right,” she answered calmly. “If it did happen.”

Altman was pumped. He took her back through the wringer again, making certain he had an answer for every single question, then let it all hang out to dry. “Renee, you planned this. I know you did. But he pushed you into it. He pulled you so deep down into this pit, you couldn't get out. He's pushing you. He's threatening you. This is it. He's gotta get rid of Brent. But you had to get him there as bait for that hunter.”

Sounding as if there were no point in wasting any more time or trying to hide it, she finally agreed. “Yeah,” she whispered, looking down at the floor.

“Renee, we've gone round and round. I know you're going to tell me the truth. I'm ready for you to tell me the truth. I know you're ready to get this ton of bricks off your shoulder right now, because it's got to be killing you.”

“Honestly, last night, I felt so much better after I talked to you,” she said. Her words stunned even her. It was the last thing she had expected to say to him.

“Make yourself come clean of all this, Renee.” Altman kept preaching to her. “This is the only thing you can do right now. Because I'm telling you, we've talked to him. We know the whole deal. But we've got to hear it from you. Save yourself. Don't make him come out smelling like a rose. Because he's a piece of shit.”

She agreed. “Yep, he is.”

“He's gonna come out smelling better out of this than you, because you're holding back. Tell me you guys planned this together, because he's saying you planned it together. It takes two people to come up with something like this.”

“Right.”

Renee then proceeded to tell Altman they had planned it, just like he had said. She had told him they were coming to the beach, and she and John had agreed to get Brent out on the beach around two or three o'clock in the morning.

“‘'Cause there's nobody gonna be out on the beach at that time,' John had told her. ‘And you just get him away and I'll do whatever you want me to do.' I was like, you know, ‘You're full of it. What are you going to do? You're full of it.' He said, ‘You just don't worry about it.' That's why I thought he was full of it. 'Cause he wouldn't tell me.”

She was suddenly aware of the humming in the room from the overhead lights.

“And I knew that it was early when we went out. That's why I didn't think that he was gonna be there. I was like, okay, it's early. We're gonna go back to the hotel and he's gonna be fine because he's not going to expect us out this early. Early being when we got to the beach. Which was around midnight. But apparently, he was already in Myrtle Beach. But I did not know he was there until that point where he walked up on us.”

Altman and Frontz took Renee through her story a third and then a fourth time. When they believed it was complete, they asked Renee what she thought was the reason for Frazier killing her husband.

“Because he wanted me,” she blurted out. “He wanted to be with me. And he knew that as long as I was with my husband, that I love my husband. That I was not going to leave him. 'Cause I went back to my husband because I loved him.”

Altman asked a question for which he already had the answer and didn't need her to respond. “And he couldn't deal with that?”

Looking at Altman with an expression that struck him as almost utterly unbelievable, she said, “No. I didn't want my husband to die.”

As if all the questions they had asked her were meaningless or immaterial, Renee would acclaim against all odds that she had not wanted her husband dead.

“If John was there . . . if he was following me . . . if he was watching us . . . he would have seen us making love together. He would have seen I did not want my husband to die. I mean, I was all over him. He was all over me—the time that our child was not between us. I mean, we were all over each other. He could have seen that.”

Altman thought about what she said, but didn't fall for it. It was easy for him to believe John had killed Brent and to visualize everything she told them had happened. It was just hard imagining what Brent thought about it. Surely, he had to have known what was happening and why it was happening.

After spending half the night being incarcerated by the detectives and the other half of the night in a holding cell, Renee was finally allowed to take a shower and put on an orange jumpsuit. She asked the WSPD officers if they were going to allow her to go to Brent's funeral, but was told no.

Thinking about her arrest years later, Renee would say, “Had I not been arrested that night, I would have killed myself. I envisioned myself driving my truck off a bridge on the way home from the funeral home. I don't know that I would have done it sober, but I know there is no doubt that I would have hurt or killed myself under the influence of alcohol. I didn't want to live anymore. I wanted to see that Katie was safe and taken care of and then it was off to do what I felt I needed to do. There have been times over the years since then that I feel that way and I will hurt myself. Not to the point of doing a lot of serious damage, but just enough to feel the pain and try to get some of the emotional torment out. It doesn't always help, but I just don't know what else to do at those times when things get to me. I can't say that I would have gone back to school, dated or remarried eventually, because I didn't want to live anymore. And, more than likely, I would have succeeded in killing myself after Brent's wake.”

While Renee was getting settled into her new accommodations and trying on her less fashionable prison wardrobe, Detective Altman sat alone in the interview room and listened to the stillness around him.

For the first time, he could almost hear Brent talking to him.

Earlier that night, Craig Poole had spoken to the press about his family's feelings after having watched Renee being arrested at the funeral home, where his brother's body lay.

“It's devastating,” Craig said. “It magnifies so much the evilness of the entire situation. She had just got through hugging my sister when the police came and took her away. It has always been in the back of our minds, but we were just hoping it wasn't so. There are no winners in this.”

Early Sunday morning, Bill Poole phoned Jack Summey and asked if he wanted the funeral home to send the family limousine to his house for them. It was a nice gesture and Jack appreciated the fact they were still considered part of Brent's family, but he declined the offer. He and Marie had been up all night worried sick over Renee's arrest and would not be attending. What family he had that were planning on attending would be driving their own cars.

Of course, Katie would not be among those attending her father's funeral.

At 2:00
P.M
., more than five hundred people assembled together at the Pooles' home church, the Calvary Baptist Church, to celebrate the assurance of Brent's eternal life. The arrest of Renee and Frazier gave some semblance of peace to the ceremony. Ordinarily, it would have taken place on Friday or Saturday, but the church was holding a statewide conference then. With the timing of the arrests, the family was glad the funeral had been delayed.

The afternoon was cloudy and crisp. Way before the services began, people were already crowded into the pews. Restrained sobs broke the quiet as the family members filed inside the church and sat in a special area. The sobbing returned when the preacher stood up to address the congregation.

Senior pastor Mark Corts emphasized the positive things in Brent's life.

“I've been Brent's minister since he was born,” Corts said from the pulpit. “He was an eternal optimist, a happy-go-lucky guy who just loved life. He had a deep love for his family and a very forgiving nature. God had begun to do new things in Brent's life in the days before he was killed. He was going through a real spiritual renewal. It's all a very tragic thing.”

In his brief remarks, Corts talked of hope beyond the grave. Virtually everyone was in tears when he ended by admitting that they all would greatly miss Brent. At this time, Brent was with the Lord. “[God's] with him, he's safe and there's no more pain and sorrow for him.”

The mournful silence seemed prolonged as the six pallbearers followed the casket out of the church and lifted it into the hearse. The Pooles gripped each other's hands and wept, slowly walking down the long aisle and behind the casket. Just as they reached the door, Agnes Poole collapsed into her family's arms. A cameraman from News Channel 12 was standing outside the church and purposefully captured the moment. They also filmed Brandy Summey stopping at the family vehicle to express her deep-felt sorrow and the Poole's all filing out to embrace her. Both were very gut-wrenching moments.

“The service reflected the goodness in Brent Poole,” Craig Poole said afterward. “It was great. It honored Brent and talked about the many great things in his life. He was a neat, giving person. He was filled with hope and continued on when other people would have given up.”

Now the Pooles were the ones who had to struggle not to give up. The funeral was hard—knowing all that had gone on. Everyone talked about Renee at the funeral and how could she have been involved in this. Everyone felt better about the arrests that were made, but no one could ever feel any better about what had happened. While coping with their loss, the family was still pondering how to tell Katie about their father's murder. Most upsetting was the fact that Katie would have to grow up without a mom or a dad—the way things were looking. And that wasn't fair to her.

“That is going to be a tough, tough thing,” Craig admitted. “He was a very, very devoted father. His daughter is missing him. She has gone to the door several times looking for him and thinks he is in his shop or has gone to get pizza.”

Craig held up a picture of Brent and Katie taken on the beach by Renee, five hours before the shooting. “This [photo] brings to light what was really going on in his mind. It shows in his face. It makes you reevaluate the whole last day and the farce of the trip.”

Katie had been dividing her time between the Pooles and the Summeys. Craig said his father was keeping in touch with Renee's family.

“Dad is very gracious in reaching out to them,” Craig said. “They're pretty devastated.”

Television stations throughout the North Carolina Piedmont area broadcast film clips of the funeral and press that day, along with the older one of Renee dancing around the brass pole at the Silver Fox in a very seductive, black, skintight halter top and slacks.

That Sunday evening, the Pooles called the Summeys and asked if Katie could come over to their house for her cousin's sleep-over and birthday party. When Dee came and got her, she and Marie talked about the awkward situation.

“She's wanting both her mommy and her daddy,” Marie said. “But I think we have enough people between all of us we can take care of her.”

Dee agreed. Everyone should be looking after Katie's best interest from now on.

The next day, the flags at Mack Trucks in Charlotte were lowered to half-mast, in memory of Brent. Craig and Dee scheduled a news conference at their parents' home in Clemmons that evening and spoke to reporters about their brother's death.

Dee held up the photograph Renee had given her the minute before she had been arrested. Pointing at the picture of Brent and Katie on the bench, she said, “This is how I want everybody to remember Brent; he's kneeling down on her level.... Please remember Katie in your prayers. She is the real victim in all of this.” Before the news conference started, Katie had been filmed in her bathing suit, running in the yard, blowing and chasing bubbles along with her cousins.

Craig said that Katie had been told of her father's death and taken to his grave site. At first, she thought that he had gone to get a pizza, but now she was saying that he was in heaven and was with Jesus. “Brent loved Renee and Katie very much and would have died for them,” he added. “And obviously did.”

Craig said his family was not angry with Renee's parents. “They are hurting. They are grieving. They personally loved Brent a lot and now they are dealing with the separation of their daughter.” When asked who would keep Katie now that Renee had been arrested, he stated his parents planned on adopting Katie.

The Summeys learned of the Pooles' plans to adopt their granddaughter the Monday night of the broadcast. The next day, they received a letter in the mail that the Pooles' attorneys were filing a custody complaint and petitioning the court to make Bill the executor of Brent's estate. Brent had named Renee as his beneficiary. The Summeys protested both petitions, but the courts eventually upheld the Pooles' requests.

The public got their first look at the suspects in an extradition hearing on Tuesday, June 16, 1998. It had been a full week after Brent had been murdered. Poole and Frazier walked into the hearing room in the Forsyth County Jail wearing matching orange jumpsuits and rubber sandals. They both spoke to the judge via a closed-circuit video link to the courthouse. Frazier came in first, ignoring a horde of television cameras banked within feet of him. He answered several questions posed to him.

“I have my own lawyer,” he said, unblinking, as he stared at the face of magistrate judge Nancy Phelps on the video screen. She asked him whether he knew what the warrant was and he replied rather nonchalantly, “Sorta, yeah.” He also informed the judge that he planned to fight against extradition every step of the way.

Renee looked very worried and nervous when she walked in and sat down in front of the video screen. She told Phelps she also wished to hire her own lawyer, but agreed to extradition.

When the MBPD came to transport Renee to South Carolina the following Wednesday afternoon, she had a lot more on her mind than celebrating a return trip to the beach. She never raised her head as police officers walked her to the squad car, with her hands cuffed behind her back. Dressed in the same ankle-length blue-and-white dress she had worn at her husband's wake, she never looked up and never spoke to anyone.

Chris Horne from News Channel 12 was there waiting and tried to get her to talk with him. He walked alongside her, pushing a microphone in her face, asking her a series of questions he knew would remain unanswered in front of the camera. “Renee, what really happened to Brent? Are you sorry your husband is dead? Did you arrange to have your husband killed?”

Renee kept her head down and lumbered toward the police car, where Detective Altman stood waiting at the open rear door of the passenger side to help her in the backseat.

After the vehicle had pulled away, Forsyth County sheriff Ron Barker told reporters the words “crying and staring” best described Renee's demeanor while in jail. “She has run the gamut somewhere between crying and staring,” he said.

That night, Channel 12 profiled Renee's arrest with the catchy lead-in:

“Renee Poole is on her way back to Horry County for the first time since someone killed her husband, but this time she is making the trip in handcuffs.”

The feature followed with an update on the investigation and an exclusive interview with Dee and Craig. Dee said her family was still numb from her brother's death and Renee's arrest; they were just getting by, day to day.

“I was just over with my dad, and he's struggling very much, knowing what Brent was doing now a week ago. He was happy, he was at the beach and he thought his life was everything he wanted it to be. He was with his wife and his two-and-a-half-year-old, and to think this was basically his last few days has been very difficult.”

Dee said the only positive thing about all of this was knowing that Brent had rededicated his life to God about a month before he died.

“He was back in church, and like the pastor said at his funeral, it was like God was preparing his heart to be in His presence again. Knowing that my brother is in heaven, is about the only thing that has gotten us through it.”

Craig talked about Katie and how she was a daddy's girl. He said Brent had loved every minute of it.

When the reporter asked how Katie was handling all that had happened, Dee said she believed Katie had no impression whatsoever of what was going on.

“The phone rings and she asks, ‘Is that my daddy?' We went downstairs to where we had some of my brother's belongings and she asked, ‘Are those my daddy's shoes? I want my daddy to put those on.' And I say to her, ‘So do I, Katie. I really wish he could.' ”

A little eight-year-old girl from Yadkinville, North Carolina, had watched Brent's story unfold on television and told her mother her heart was breaking for his little girl. She wanted to know if she could do something for Katie, and together they picked out a white teddy bear with angel wings. They sent this to the Pooles, along with a bag of guardian angel pins.

“All your life you watch TV and hear these stories and you say, ‘Oh, how sad,' and turn it off and go to bed. Now it's my life, my parents' life, and it's Katie's life. It's like I am in a dream. This is a movie script—it's really not happening to us.”

Dee choked back her tears, then talked about what lay ahead for her family.

“As bad as this weekend began, we are already prepared that this is the very beginning in terms of how bad it is going to be . . . because people will be fighting for their lives and we understand that. We feel like truth and justice will prevail, but it's going to be a long process.”

The first week of Renee's arrest, she told her parents she was being treated like a common criminal. “Everyone's looking at me and whispering, ‘That's her, she killed her husband,' and things of that nature. I am being treated worse than I would, had I been a mange animal.”