Identity

by Shawna Seed

  “…Category One hurricane, with sustained winds between 74 and 95 miles per hour. Residents are urged to take precautions…”

  The bartender turned the sound back down when the report was over, and the chatter resumed in the restaurant.

  “How was your call with Brian?” Kevin asked. “What did he have to say about talking to the police?”

  “Whenever I bring it up, he says he doesn’t want to talk about it,” Sharlah said. “But I think he’ll come around eventually. He just needs time.”

  By the time the waitress finally came to take their orders, Kevin had downed half of his drink. Sharlah got fried shrimp. Kevin ordered a combo plate, but with a bunch of substitutions. Sharlah felt sorry for the waitress, who kept crossing things out on her order pad.

  Kevin was in a talkative mood. He gave her a long explanation about the difference between bail and bond and how the system worked.

  “Mom and Dad are arguing a lot over the lawyer,” Kevin said. “Mom thinks we need to get a big shot from Houston. She thinks Ingersoll is too casual. But Dad did his homework, and Ingersoll’s supposed to be the best on drug cases.”

  Kevin took a big swig of his drink, and Sharlah thought about suggesting he should slow down. Instead, she changed the subject.

  “How is Lynn? She sounded good when I talked to her the other night.”

  “Big as a house,” Kevin said. “Cranky, weepy. But it’ll all be OK once the baby’s here. We can’t wait to see him!”

  Sharlah was glad to see Kevin excited about the baby. Brian had told her that Kevin freaked out when Lynn got pregnant because he’d wanted to wait a few years and save more money before they started a family.

  Their food arrived, and Kevin asked the waitress for another Long Island Iced Tea. They chatted about the baby while they ate. Kevin had wanted the nursery blue, because he was sure the baby was a boy. Lynn wanted yellow.

  “We ended up with green,” Kevin said, laughing. “I think it looks gross, like a hospital room, but Lynn likes it, and that’s all that matters.”

  Sharlah laughed, too. Then she caught sight of a cop at the hostess stand, picking up takeout food. It was Zuk. He saw her and tipped his hat. She nodded.

  Kevin turned around. “Who’s that?”

  “His name is Zuk,” Sharlah said, taking care to pronounce it right. “He was one of the cops who searched the house, and he’s driven me home from the station a couple times.”

  To Sharlah’s surprise, Zuk strode over to the table.

  “Miss Webb,” he said.

  “Hi,” Sharlah said. “This is Brian’s brother, Kevin Lowry.”

  “Russ Zuk,” the cop said, offering his hand. The men shook.

  “You all set with your hurricane preparations?” Zuk looked down at Sharlah. “You should have your car gassed up, in case there’s an evacuation order.”

  “Is it really supposed to hit us? The girls at work say these things always fizzle out,” Sharlah said. “They say that if you leave, you’ll just sit on the causeway forever and your house will get looted while you’re gone.”

  “Evacuation orders are issued for a reason,” Zuk said. “You should go to the gas station tonight. The lines are already long, and tomorrow’s just going to be worse.”

  Kevin caught Sharlah’s glance and rolled his eyes.

  “That’s good to know,” Sharlah said. “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, thanks for the helpful advice, officer,” Kevin said.

  Zuk ignored Kevin’s sarcasm. “I’ll let you finish your dinner,” he said. “Take care.”

  As soon as Zuk was out of earshot, Kevin said, “Does he think he’s your dad?”

  “He’s been nice to me,” Sharlah said, shrugging. “Weird to run into him here.”

  “You know the cops aren’t your friends, right? They’re trying to screw Brian over,” Kevin said.

  Even though she’d been careful not to say anything that would hurt Brian, Sharlah felt guilty and defensive. “I wouldn’t do anything to hurt Brian,” she said. “But I found Missy, remember? That makes me a witness. If I can help them find out who did that to her, I’m going to.”

  Kevin spotted the waitress and rattled the ice in his empty glass at her. “I’m just saying, you need to be careful with them,” he said. “I know you want the best for Brian.”

  Then he smiled at Sharlah. “The Astros are playing Cincinnati. Want to hang out at the bar and watch a few innings? Lynn’s girlfriends will be there awhile. Might be good to relax, take your mind off things.”

  “I’d better not,” Sharlah said.

  Even if she didn’t have to get up early, she would have said no. Sitting at the bar with a married guy, even if he was Brian’s brother, didn’t seem right. Anyway, she’d been around Kevin when one of his teams was losing, and it wasn’t pretty. She’d seen him throw a beer bottle when a last-minute field goal sailed wide right.

  She wondered, too, whether three Long Island Iced Teas were a bad idea when Kevin still had to drive 45 minutes home. She thought about saying something, but Brian could always handle more drinks than she could, and Kevin was even bigger than Brian.

  She thanked Kevin for dinner and said goodnight. As she left the restaurant, he was headed to the bar with a drink in his hand.

  Driving home, Sharlah wondered whether she should have told Kevin about the money, and she wished, for the millionth time, that she could just ask Brian what to do.

  She turned on the radio and listened as the announcer ran through hurricane preparation tips. She decided that maybe she needed to get serious about the storm.

  She made a mental list of things to do, starting with putting the TV back together so she could watch the news. According to the radio, she’d need to fill containers with drinking water and run the bathtub full so she’d have water to flush.

  Even if they called for an evacuation, she would stay put. Where would she go? And she didn’t want to worry about looters, not with $20,000 hidden in the house. Mostly, though, she didn’t want to be stranded, unable to get back to Brian.

  Fixing the TV the police had taken apart turned out to be a harder project than she expected. Two wires had been pulled loose, and Sharlah had to guess which wire went where. She got it wrong the first time, and, even worse, screwed the back of the TV into place before she checked.

  She did get it right, eventually, and just in time to catch the news.

  The broadcast had all kinds of graphics about the hurricane, but they didn’t really help Sharlah – color-coded maps don’t translate on a black-and-white TV.

  The anchors went on and on about how serious the situation was. Except for the sports guy, who seemed mad that his report got cut short, everybody seemed amped up, like kids about to get ice cream. It made Sharlah wonder how seriously to take the whole thing. How bad could it be, if they were so obviously looking forward to it?

  After the news, Sharlah went to the kitchen to find things to store water in. She pulled out every glass, pitcher and pan. Some of them didn’t get much use and weren’t clean. She filled the sink with hot water and dish soap.

  Sharlah turned on the radio for company, the Top 40 station that Brian hated, and sang along with “Stray Cat Strut.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the trees moving in the back yard. It looked like the wind was starting to pick up.

  When she heard the opening bars of “Every Breath You Take,” she leaned toward the radio to turn it up.

  Just as she reached for the radio, the window exploded.

  Sharlah’s first thought was that the hurricane had hit early, and how could the TV people get it so wrong?

  Her second thought was to wonder how she ended up sitting on the floor.

  Her third thought was that her arm hurt, like she’d burned it.

  That was when she noticed the blood – lots of it.

  She mopped at the blood with a dishtowel until she could figure out the source. On her upper arm was a spot where the flesh had been
gouged away, leaving a divot.

  What the hell? That was her fourth thought.

  Sharlah was sitting on the floor, watching blood soak the dishtowel, when she heard banging on the front door. It could have been two minutes later, or it could have been 20 – she couldn’t say.

  A man called out: “Police officers!”

  He pronounced it “PO-leece,” which for some reason struck Sharlah as funny.

  She followed the squawk and chatter of a police radio as footsteps sounded along the side of the house. Then a familiar face appeared at her shattered kitchen window.

  “Miss Webb? It’s Officer Zuk. Are you injured? Can you get up?”

  Sharlah tried to answer, but the words refused to come.

  “I’m coming in,” Zuk said. He used his flashlight to break a pane in the door, then reached in and flipped the deadbolt. His boots crunched on the glass that littered the floor.

  Sharlah found her voice. “My arm hurts.”

  He knelt next to her. “Let’s take a look.” He peeled away the dishtowel, then pulled a microphone off his shoulder and called for an ambulance. Sharlah thought she heard him say something about a shooting.

  “Who got shot?”

  “Is there anyone else in the house, Miss Webb?”

  “No,” she said. “Who got shot? Wait... did I get shot? Someone shot me?”

  Zuk got up. “Ambulance is on the way. Please stay where you are.”

  It hadn’t occurred to Sharlah to get up.

  Zuk was back moments later with another cop. He seemed familiar to Sharlah, a handsome guy with dark eyes and a mustache, but she couldn’t place him.

  Sharlah peered up at Zuk. “You’re always around when something bad happens.”

  “We got an anonymous 911 call reporting a gunshot.” Zuk pulled a notebook from his shirt pocket. “Can you tell us what happened?”

  “I don’t know,” Sharlah said. “I didn’t even know I was shot.”

  “I’m going to check the alley,” the other officer said.

  Zuk knelt next to Sharlah again. “You’re in shock, Miss Webb, but it would really help us if you could tell us what happened. Walk me through it.”

  Sharlah closed her eyes and tried to concentrate. “I was washing dishes, to have stuff to put water in, for the hurricane. And then the window broke.”

  A siren wailed in the distance.

  “Did you see or hear anything beforehand?”

  “I didn’t hear anything. I was listening to the radio. I was just leaning over to turn it up, because ‘Every Breath You Take’ was on, and that’s when it happened.”

  The siren grew louder and then stopped. Sharlah heard doors slam.

  “And you didn’t see anything?”

  “Just the trees moving in the back yard. I thought it was the wind,” Sharlah said. “Can I ask you something?”

  Zuk stopped writing and looked at her. “What?”

  “How much does the ambulance cost?”

  The doctor in the ER was a woman, which threw Sharlah for a loop. She’d never seen a woman doctor before.

  The doctor said the bullet “grazed” her, like it was no big deal. She cleaned and bandaged the arm. She gave Sharlah antibiotics and Tylenol 3 and told her she could go as soon as they finished her paperwork. A gunshot always involved a lot of paperwork, she said.

  Sharlah lay back on the bed and tried not to think about how much blood there would have been if she’d been something more serious than “grazed.”

  There was a knock at the door, and then it opened.

  Sharlah was expecting a doctor or nurse, but it was the detective, Downs, trailed by Zuk.

  “Hello,” Downs said. “Are you up to answering a few more questions?”

  “Sure.” Sharlah sat up, even though it made her woozy.

  Downs went through a bunch of questions she’d already answered: what she’d been doing beforehand, what she’d seen, what she’d heard.

  After 10 minutes or so, he asked Zuk to go find him a cup of coffee.

  “I just want to make sure I’ve got the timeline right,” Downs said, pulling up a chair to the edge of the bed. “Did you turn the TV off right after the news?”

  “Yes,” Sharlah said. “I went to the kitchen and got things out of the cupboard.”

  “How long did that take?”

  “I don’t know. Less than five minutes?”

  “And then you started washing dishes? How long were you washing the dishes before the shot was fired?”

  “Not very long,” Sharlah said. “I think I only heard one song on the radio.”

  “And after the window shattered, then what happened?”

  Sharlah was starting to feel a little fuzzy, but she tried hard to focus. “I guess I fell down or sat down on the kitchen floor. Then you guys were knocking on my door.”

  “Right. OK. I’ve got it all now.” Downs put away his notebook.

  “Was someone trying to kill me?”

  “That’s a good question,” Downs said. “Do you think someone was trying to kill you?”

  “I don’t know why anyone would want to,” Sharlah said.

  “No?” Downs raised an eyebrow. “Well, moving to turn up the radio may have saved your life.”

  Downs yawned elaborately. “I wonder where Zuk is? He’s usually quicker than this. Was he first on the scene tonight? Or was that Moreno?”

  “Zuk,” Sharlah said. Then she reconsidered. “Actually, I don’t know. I didn’t answer the door, and then Zuk came around back. Is somebody in trouble for not getting there faster?”

  Downs laughed. “No, nobody’s in trouble.” He glanced up at the little window in the door. “Here’s Zuk with my coffee. We’ll have him drive you wherever you want to go.”

  By the time Sharlah walked through the muggy night and got into the police car, she was feeling light-headed.

  “Uh-oh,” she said. “I think I’m kind of f…” Sharlah caught herself. Was this the cop she wasn’t supposed to swear in front of? She couldn’t remember.

  Zuk turned to her. “Where am I taking you? Have you called your folks?”

  “You wouldn’t ask that if you knew my folks.”

  “Brothers? Sisters?”

  “Rod joined the Navy. Wayne’s in Huntsville. He took a bat to a guy in a fight and killed him.” She glanced over to see Zuk’s reaction, but he didn’t seem fazed at all.

  “What about Brian Lowry’s family?”

  “They hate me,” Sharlah said. “Well, his mom does. And she calls the shots.”

  “There’s got to be someone,” Zuk said. “A friend? Someone you work with?”

  Sharlah thought, briefly, about calling Joan. But then she remembered Joan’s lecture about not letting Brian ruin her life, and she shelved the idea.

  “I’ll be fine. Just take me home,” Sharlah said.

  Zuk didn’t seem happy, but he didn’t argue.

  “I used to wait on you at the diner. Did you know that?” They rolled by the bank, and Sharlah did a double take at the sign. “Is it really 2:30?”

  “Yes,” Zuk said. Sharlah wasn’t sure which question he was answering

  “I can’t believe I have to get up in two hours,” Sharlah said. She leaned back against the seat and watched as the car slid past the darkened downtown.

  She didn’t remember closing her eyes. But then the car stopped moving, and she opened her eyes, and they were in front of her house.

  Zuk shut off the engine. “I’ll just walk you in and take a look around.”

  Sharlah had trouble operating the door handle; Zuk had to open it for her.

  The house was a mess, like a lot of people had been in and out. The rug was crooked, and Sharlah bent to straighten it but thought better of it when she nearly lost her balance.

  Zuk caught her elbow. “Why don’t you have a seat while I take a walk around?”

  Sharlah shook him off. “I have stuff to do,” she said, trailing Zuk into the kitchen.

  Th
e broken glass from the window had been swept up, and plywood was nailed over it and the broken pane in the door. She could see blood on the linoleum, though. She was going to have to get out the mop and clean that up.

  “Thanks for fixing the window,” Sharlah said.

  “That wasn’t us.”

  The sink was still full of water. Sharlah plunged her hand in and pulled the plug. She needed to wash all the dishes, she knew that, though she couldn’t remember why.

  “Miss Webb.” Zuk said her name quietly, then louder. “Miss Webb, if I could…”

  Suddenly the answer came to Sharlah. “There’s supposed to be a hurricane.”

  “Miss Webb, they gave you a narcotic painkiller at the hospital. You need to sleep.”

  Sharlah realized that she still had the drain plug in her hand and felt a little bit stupid. “I guess maybe you’re right,” she said.

  “Are you sure I can’t take you somewhere else to stay?”

  Sharlah shook her head.

  “Walk to the front door with me,” Zuk said.

  She followed him to the door, noticing again that the rug was askew. Sharlah knew this was bad, but the reason eluded her.

  Zuk opened the door. “You need to lock this after me. I’m going to stand on the porch until I hear the lock. Do you understand?”

  “Duh,” Sharlah said. “I’m not stupid.” But even as she spoke, she realized she was slurring.

  He stepped outside and closed the door. Sharlah locked the doorknob and turned the deadbolt. Then she leaned her forehead against the door and listened as his footsteps echoed away from the house.

  SIX

  The phone woke Sharlah up.

  It took awhile for her to realize what it was, and even longer for her to crawl out of bed and stumble to the kitchen to answer it.

  “Hello?”

  “Sharlah? It’s Joan. Where are you?”

  This struck Sharlah as a stupid question. She was home, wasn’t she, if she was answering her phone? And why was Joan calling her in the middle of the night?

  “Sharlah? Hello? It’s 5:20. You’re late. You’re never late. What’s going on?”

  Sharlah glanced at the clock. Joan was right. It was 5:20.