Identity

by Shawna Seed

Any thought of taking the coward’s way out vanished when he saw how much trouble she was having negotiating the cafeteria-style line with a stroller. Brian got up and walked to the cash register, where Kristen was trying to retrieve money from her wallet one-handed while she used the other to balance her son on her shoulder.

  “Kristen,” he said. “Hi. Need a hand – or two?”

  She glanced up, startled. “Oh! You surprised me.”

  She seemed pale, and the dark circles under her eyes worried Brian a little. He helped her pay, then guided the stroller to a table. He urged Kristen to sit and went back to pick up the tray with her salad and drink.

  Kristen smiled gratefully as he put the food down in front of her. “Thank you,” she said. “I’m not having the best day. It’s 3:30 and I’m just getting lunch. I had a zillion errands to run.” She boosted the baby higher and tried, one-handed, to pry the lid off her salad dressing. “He’s doing this thing today where he screams when I put him in the stroller.”

  Brian had his coffee in his hand, ready to bolt. He could wait for Ashley on a bench outside the store.

  “Want me to hold him while you eat?”

  Brian couldn’t quite believe he’d said that, and he expected Kristen to say no. But she didn’t hesitate.

  “Would you? My arm’s about to fall off.”

  Brian put down his coffee and reached for the baby. “Come here, buddy,” he said. Kristen’s sister had told him the baby’s name, but Brian had forgotten it.

  “Just make sure you…” Kristen watched Brian nestle the baby against his shoulder. “Never mind. Looks like you know what you’re doing.”

  “I’m used to holding my niece,” Brian said. He eased into the chair opposite Kristen. “But this little guy’s a lot heavier than she is.”

  “How is she? April said she was in and out of the hospital a lot,” Kristen said. She forked up a bite of her salad, which was disappearing fast.

  “She’s doing better,” Brian said. “She’s gaining weight now. She’s really fussy, though, which is normal for babies born with drugs in their systems, so you have to …”

  Brian had been about to tell Kristen about the methods the neonatal nurses taught him for calming Coco, but he stopped. She wouldn’t want to hear all that.

  Kristen seemed not to notice. “How’s Kevin?”

  There had been a time when Brian would shade the truth about his brother, but lately, he had given up the habit. It was pointless to lie to Kristen, anyway. She’d seen enough.

  “He’s pretty bad,” Brian said. “Worse than ever, really.”

  “Oh, Brian. I’m so sorry. That’s so hard.” Kristen looked up at him, her eyes filled with concern, and Brian felt the tug of regret. Kristen had always been a good listener.

  “Thanks.” Brian shifted the baby and patted his back. “I keep thinking that something’s going to happen to turn things around, but it hasn’t happened yet. In the meantime, you know, I just have to keep living my life.”

  “April told me you’re quitting Lowry Marine and starting your guitar shop.” Kristen beamed at him. “That’s so great!”

  Brian allowed himself to feel proud, if only for a minute. “I just signed the lease today, a place in The Heights. I’ll open next month.”

  He told Kristen about the space, and how he’d chosen the location in one of Houston’s older, eclectic neighborhoods.

  “It sounds great,” Kristen said. “But won’t that be a long commute?”

  “I’ll move at some point,” Brian said. “Don’t want to rent from my dad forever.”

  Brian knew he had miles to go before anyone would give him a mortgage. He didn’t have the credit history to get any kind of loan. He was starting his business with his savings and a matching amount – to be paid back ASAP – from Francine and his father.

  “Uncle Brian?”

  Ashley had walked up unnoticed while Brian and Kristen were talking. Brian saw that she didn’t have a shopping bag and sneaked a glance at his watch.

  “Hey, Ash. What’s up?”

  “Hi, Ashley,” Kristen said.

  Ashley tried – mostly successfully, Brian thought – not to seem surprised that he and his former girlfriend were chatting while he held her son. “Hi, Kristen. Uncle Brian, could I borrow a twenty? I found earrings that go with my dress. I can pay you back.”

  Grinning, Brian pulled out his wallet and handed it to Ashley. “Tell you what – I’ll buy, and then I don’t have to figure out what to get you for making honor society.”

  Ashley opened the wallet, and Brian immediately regretted handing it to her. He could tell by Kristen’s face that she’d noticed the photo opposite his driver’s license.

  Ashley took out a twenty, handed Brian his wallet and paused to stroke the baby’s foot. “He’s cute,” she said. “I’ll be back in, like, five minutes.”

  Kristen watched Ashley walk away. “Wow. She’s grown up since I saw her last.”

  “Yeah,” Brian said. “Just one more year of high school.”

  Maybe he was wrong. Maybe Kristen hadn’t seen the photo.

  “How is she about having a baby sister?”

  “Furious,” Brian said. “She really hates her dad right now. Not that you can blame her.”

  “She’s lucky to have such a great uncle.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” Brian said.

  “I do,” Kristen said. Then she took her purse from the bottom of the stroller and fished out her car keys. “Well, I’d better get the munchkin home before he decides to do his screaming trick again,” she said. “Thanks for holding him. I seriously needed a hand.”

  “Sure,” Brian said. “It was good seeing you.”

  “You too,” she said. “Good luck with the business. I’m really excited for you.”

  Brian handed Kristen the baby. She hesitated, obviously debating something.

  “Has there been anything new? About Sharlah?”

  Brian was embarrassed, though he couldn’t really say why. Kristen knew he had Sharlah’s first-grade photo; he’d kept it in his dresser drawer while they were together. Kristen had always been generous when it came to Sharlah.

  “Nothing new,” Brian said. He thought about the meeting at 4:30. “But I hope…” He stopped himself. Better not to talk about it.

  Kristen shifted the baby on her shoulder. “You hope… what?”

  “Nothing,” Brian said. “I just hope. That’s all.”

  Coco was asleep when Brian dropped Ashley off at her grandparents’ house. He knew this was a good thing – Coco was getting needed rest and Francine was having a few minutes of peace – but he couldn’t help feeling a little disappointed.

  He got home earlier than he’d planned, which left him time to get nervous about the meeting.

  When Brian first had the idea to hire a private detective, he pictured a gruff middle-aged guy.

  He called his old lawyer for advice. Brian had no problem believing George when he said Susan Davila was the best, but he was taken aback the first time he met her. She was tiny – maybe 5 feet tall. George said she was ex-military, and it was true that she looked strong and wiry. Her dark hair always seemed to be in a ponytail, and the times Brian had seen her, she was dressed more like a college kid than somebody with a concealed weapon permit.

  Brian had developed a bit of a crush on her, which he had absolutely no intention of pursuing.

  At 4:25, Susan strode up his walk wearing running shoes, jeans and a black T-shirt. She was balancing two thick three-ring binders in one arm.

  Brian opened the door and moved to take the binders from her, because they looked heavy. “Hi, Susan.”

  “Hello, Brian.” Susan let him take the binders and stepped inside.

  “You want coffee or anything?” Brian asked.

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Susan said. “I know you said you didn’t need a written report, but I put those together just in case you wanted to refer to something later.”

  Her
cell phone buzzed on her hip, and she checked the phone’s display.

  “I need to step out on the porch and take this,” she said. “I apologize. Should only be a couple minutes.”

  Brian put the binders on the coffee table and eyed them warily. He couldn’t imagine trying to get through them – at the rate he read, it would take him a year, at least.

  George had told him that Susan would take every scrap of information he gave her and pursue it as far as she could.

  After a lot of soul-searching, Brian told her some of the things he’d always held back – about the briefcase and its contents and that he wasn’t sure whether Sharlah had found it, despite his hints.

  Of course, Susan wanted to know right away what the name was on Sharlah’s ID, and Brian confessed the truth that had tormented him for years: He’d never even looked.

  Susan wasn’t very encouraging, but Brian told her it was OK, he didn’t expect miracles. All he wanted was for someone to take a hard look and give him straight answers to the questions that kept him up at night.

  He’d never really understood why the police seemed to give up after the body in New Mexico wasn’t Sharlah’s.

  Brian knew some of it was his fault. He’d been seriously depressed in those first years after prison, and there had been a long stretch when it was all he could do to get out of bed and go to work. Badgering the police required energy he simply didn’t have.

  It was more than that, though. He’d not asked questions because he was afraid of the answers. And he’d spent years avoiding decisions, because every time he’d tried to make something happen, the results had been disastrous – for him, for Sharlah, for his family. It seemed safer not to do anything at all.

  Brian wasn’t sure what made him decide to change. Maybe it was his 40th birthday on the horizon; maybe it was seeing his father take a risk and end up happy.

  Whatever the reason, Brian was ready for something different.

  Once she finished her phone call, Susan Davila came inside, took a seat and got right down to business.

  “When you signed me up, Brian, I told you I didn’t think I could do much with a 17-year-old case,” she said. “I’m afraid that’s pretty much proved true.”

  Brian reminded himself that he had been prepared for this outcome and that he shouldn’t be disappointed. He smiled ruefully. “I guess I was hoping there was some new technique now that they didn’t have back in the ’80s.”

  A wisp of hair had escaped her ponytail, and Susan pushed it back behind her ear, which struck Brian as a strangely girl-like gesture.

  “Well, a lot has changed. It was weird looking at the case and thinking about how different things would be now,” she said. “We could ping her cell phone and track her debit card. And it’s hard to believe a pretty white girl went missing and it wasn’t a big deal. Now cable news would be all over it, and you’d have a website that would get a million hits the first week.”

  “So there’s nothing new that can help us?” Brian asked.

  “Detective Zuk has tried everything I can think of,” Susan said. “Sharlah’s in the national database. He’s got dental records and even DNA – he got a sample from the brother in the Navy, all the way over in the Persian Gulf, because the dad and the brother in prison turned him down. Given the case he inherited, he’s done the best he could, I think.”

  One of the things that had always bothered Brian was the idea that critical information was lost early on because the police didn’t think Sharlah was important, and the reason they didn’t think she was important was that her boyfriend was a drug dealer.

  “Did they blow it off in the beginning? I’ve always been afraid they ignored her because of me,” Brian said.

  Susan picked up one of the binders and leafed through it until she found a spot marked with a blue tab. She placed her palm over the page.

  “I know your father got the impression they weren’t doing anything,” she said, “but I think there was more action on the case than he realized. The big mistake early on, in my opinion, was that they got very focused on a suspect and pursued him to the exclusion of other ideas.”

  “A suspect? No one ever told me that!”

  Susan slid the binder over to him. “Recognize this guy?”

  The binder was open to a mug shot of a man with long gray hair and a beard. He held a card that gave the date – July 10, 1983 – and his name: Percival Wellington.

  Brian suddenly had a vivid memory of having his own mug shot taken – at the police department, and again when he was processed at prison. He took a deep breath, trying to dispel the anxiety bubbling inside him, and focused on the photo.

  The man looked vaguely familiar, but Brian couldn’t place him. He looked up at Susan and shook his head. “Percival Wellington? Never heard of him.”

  “He was your neighbor,” Susan said.

  Brian looked again. “Well? The hippie across the street? How come we never knew about this?”

  “I think in the beginning the police didn’t tell you because they didn’t trust you,” Susan said. “They thought you were covering something up.” She looked up at Brian, her eyes frank. “Which you were, of course.”

  It seemed more a statement of fact than an accusation, so Brian let it go.

  “They got interested in him because he had this Peeping Tom arrest” – Susan patted the binder – “and they found his thumbprint inside Sharlah’s trunk. He was seen skulking around your house the night she was shot; he admitted he was there later, to board up the broken window. But he went to a hurricane party the day she disappeared, and they eventually decided he didn’t have quite enough time to do anything to Sharlah and dispose of a body.”

  Brian realized then that the police must have thought from the very beginning that Sharlah was dead.

  “Here’s the basic problem: It doesn’t matter how hard you work a case if you don’t have leads,” Susan said. “From the very beginning, there just wasn’t much to work with. And on a case this old, there’s usually only two ways to get new information: Somebody who’s always known something decides to clear his conscience, or somebody suddenly realizes the importance of something he’s known all along.”

  She flipped to another page in the binder, this one marked by a yellow tab. “There’s only been one new piece of evidence since the first few weeks of the investigation.”

  Susan handed him the binder, which was open to an evidence photo of a book. Brian looked up at her, confused. A book?

  “I don’t know if you knew this, but Sharlah had this book checked out of the library when she went missing. It’s Sophie’s Choice.”

  Brian didn’t know, but it didn’t surprise him. Sharlah always had a book out.

  “Where did they find it?”

  “Seven years ago, it was mailed to the library in a plain manila envelope. No note.”

  “Seven years ago?” Brian was on his feet, sending the binder clattering to the floor. “Why didn’t anyone…”

  Susan retrieved the binder and held up a hand to calm him. “The librarian remembered Sharlah and called the police right away, which was lucky. But it was another dead end. They didn’t pick up any usable prints or DNA. They traced it to a mailbox at a strip mall in suburban Mobile. The trail ended there.”

  Brian’s mind was racing. He couldn’t believe no one had told him about the book.

  “It might have been mailed by someone who found it, saw the library nameplate and thought they were being a good citizen,” Susan said.

  Brian stared at her, incredulous. “That’s what the police think?”

  “They don’t know. Now, the fact that Mobile is on I-10, is that a coincidence? It arrived 10 years after she disappeared. There’s some thought it could be a taunt.”

  “From Sharlah? Why would she do that?”

  “From the perpetrator,” Susan said quietly. “That would fit the serial killer angle.”

  Brian sat down hard on the couch. He’d been so sure that Zuk’s I-
10 theory was wrong.

  “So they just decided to keep it from me? I don’t get it,” Brian said.

  Susan leaned toward him. “At the time you were asked to identify the pink T-shirt, Zuk had a conversation with your father in which he asked that the police not contact you again unless they had something definitive.”

  “My dad what?”

  “He told Zuk he didn’t want your hopes or fears raised about leads that might not pan out. He was worried about your emotional state. He’s apparently very persuasive.”

  “I can’t believe he would do that,” Brian said. “All I wanted was to know what happened to Sharlah. Why would he shut that down?”

  But even as he said the words, Brian knew exactly why his father had done it. It was the same reason he’d bailed Kevin out of jam after jam. He felt guilty about the father he’d been when they were kids, and even though they were adults now, he wanted to shield them as much as he could.

  “People make all kinds of misguided decisions trying to protect loved ones,” Susan said with a shrug. “I see it all the time.”

  Brian only half-heard her – suddenly the last place he wanted to be was in this room with Susan Davila. “I need a minute,” he said, heading for the kitchen. “Excuse me.”

  “Sure. Take your time,” Susan called after him.

  In the kitchen, he drank cold water straight from the tap and splashed some on his face.

  He felt like an idiot, the way he’d been looking forward to this meeting. Hadn’t he known there wouldn’t be anything new? All he’d learned was that his father had kept him in the dark, which actually made perfect sense by Lowry family logic.

  He stopped by his desk to grab his checkbook. Susan was standing when he returned to the living room.

  “Are you OK?”

  “I’m fine,” Brian said. He slowly wrote a check for the balance he owed, triple-checked that he had the numbers right, and tore it off, handing it to Susan.

  “I’m really sorry. I wish I could have done more,” she said. “As hard as it is to accept, you’re probably never going to know what happened.”

  Brian thought about the amount on the check and all the overtime at Lowry Marine it represented. He wanted more to show for it.