The Shadow of Seth Read online

  I’d never seen ChooChoo cut loose and it scared me. I guessed that King George would be dead soon. ChooChoo had committed to the job and he beat George with his hammer hands.

  George stumbled back, out of reach. His arms tried to come up into a boxing pose, but he couldn’t raise them properly. He looked like a big baby crow with two broken wings, struggling to cross a street. Then one of those broken wings reached inside his jacket and came out with something black and angular. The black thing cracked twice. Short, sharp flares lit up George’s bruised and bloody face. His gun hand fell to his side. King George tried to speak—tried to curse, but all that came out of his mouth was a groan. He turned and stumbled up the street.

  Dark stains began to spread across the front of ChooChoo’s white t-shirt. He looked down at himself, then put one of his big hands over the stains. “You alive, Seth?”

  “I think so.”

  “C’n you call an ambulance?”

  I forced my fingers into my pocket and pulled out my phone. I dialed, then told the 911 operator that three of us needed help.

  “Tell ’em ’bout the gun,” said ChooChoo, as he dropped to his knees. “Makes ’em drive faster.”

  Twenty

  We each rode in our own ambulances—Azura, ChooChoo, and me. By the time I was loaded in mine, my body was shaking uncontrollably and my teeth were chattering. The paramedic—a woman with a square jaw and a man’s haircut—covered me in a blanket and told me I was in shock. “Can you tell me what happened?” she asked. My teeth were chattering so hard that I couldn’t speak. She pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and looked over my only ID—an ASB card from the high school I hadn’t been to in a week. “Is there someone you’d like me to call?” she asked. I tried to come up with a name: Mom was dead. ChooChoo was dying. Azura was riding in her own ambulance, two cars back. And Miss Irene had disappeared. I shook my head no. The paramedic gave me the saddest smile I’d ever seen.

  At Tacoma General, the paramedic pulled my gurney out of the ambulance and rolled me into an examination room. A doctor came in and asked me what happened while he shone lights in my eyes and took my blood pressure. I was wheeled into another room, where a skinny, unshaven man with a scar that crinkled his upper lip X-rayed me. I was rolled back into the examination room. Someone jabbed an IV drip into my arm. I grew sleepy, then slept.

  I woke up alone in a shared hospital room. My left arm was in a fiberglass cast from the back of my hand to the middle of my bicep. My ribs were wrapped in a bunch of white tape. I was vaguely dressed in a hospital gown and lying under a couple of nubby white blankets. My mouth was dry. My right hand was still connected to an IV drip.

  I wanted to call for a nurse to ask for a cup of water, but I knew if one came, I’d ask about ChooChoo and the nurse would tell me he was dead. So I licked my chapped lips with my dry tongue while I stared at the white tiles on the ceiling. I wondered if Azura was in the same hospital and how badly she was hurt. It was my fault. I’d let her come from her safe side of town into my violent life, and she had paid for my selfishness.

  I wondered how long I’d been here and where I would go when I left. If I went back home, King George would come after me and finish the job. He’d have to, unless he was going to leave town for good.

  My head slowly cleared. I found the controls to the bed and sat myself up. A nurse came in—a midsized, middle-aged woman named Janey with a matter-of-fact look on her face. Nurse Janey asked if I’d like a drink of water. I nodded. Was I hungry? I nodded again.

  After I sipped a bit of water from a straw, I managed to croak out enough words to ask Janey what time and what day it was. She told me the date then said it was 11 a.m. I’d only been in the hospital overnight.

  “Do you want to know about your friends? Were they your friends?” I nodded my answer to both questions. “I’m not supposed to tell you, but—the girl—Azura? She has a severe concussion and a broken cheekbone, but it appears she’ll be okay. If you’re feeling better in a while, you can go visit her.” Janey set my water cup on a tray next to my head, the straw pointing in my direction, and cleared her throat. “The man—Ernest Baldwin—he’s doing less well.”

  It took my brain a few seconds to realize that Ernest Baldwin must be ChooChoo’s real name. I’d never heard it before and never considered that he’d have a name other than the one I’d always called him.

  “He’s alive then?”

  “He is. He has a punctured lung and lost a great deal of blood. He’s still in our critical care unit and not taking visitors.”

  “Is he going to—I mean—will he—is he going to make it?”

  “It’s too early to tell. I probably shouldn’t be sharing this information with you. You’ll have to ask his doctor if you want to know more. Sorry.” She put her hands on her hips and frowned at me. “Whatever the three of you ran into—I don’t know. Bad news. Now you try to relax and I’m going to go find you something to eat.”

  I turned on the TV to hear voices other than the ones in my head.

  Nurse Janey returned with a tray of hospital food. I ate every bit of it—a mysterious piece of meat, vanilla pudding, and a pretty decent rice dish. While I was scraping out the pudding bowl with my spoon, Carlyle walked in.

  “I should be saying I told you so, but I’m going to resist.”

  “So kind of you, Carlyle.”

  “What happened? And don’t BS me. I’ll know if you’re lying.”

  “I barely know what happened. I was with a girl—”

  “Who?”

  “Azura Lear.”

  “And you know her how?”

  “I met her while picking up a clock for Nadel. But she goes to my high school.”

  “The one you’ve been skipping?”

  “Whatever. I was walking her out to her car in front of ChooChoo’s gym when this big guy jumped us.”

  “You recognize him?”

  I should have told Carlyle it was King George. But I didn’t. Part of me still didn’t trust Carlyle, because he was a cop. Part of me thought that if the cops picked up George, I’d never find out what happened to my mom. I said, “He had a ski mask on. He sent Azura flying and probably would have killed me if ChooChoo hadn’t shown up.” I went on to tell Carlyle how ChooChoo fought the guy off and how ChooChoo ended up getting shot.

  When I finished, Carlyle said, “Are you saying you don’t think any of this is connected to your mom’s murder?”

  “No. I think it is connected. And I think it’s proof that Miss Irene is innocent.”

  Carlyle shook his head at me, told me to go back to school, and left. Nurse Janey came back, disconnected me from my IV, and said I could walk around if I wanted to. I asked where Azura’s room was. It was only four doors away from mine. I raised myself slowly out of bed and walked across my room on unsteady feet. Without smiling, Janey said I might want to close the back of my hospital gown before I visited any girls. She handed me a robe to wear. It was made of the same white, nubby material as the blankets on the bed. Hospitals must get a bulk discount on that nubby material. I wrapped the robe around me and headed toward Azura’s room. I knocked. A male voice said, “Come in.” I opened the door.

  Azura’s father looked at me, his sleepy eyes briefly opening wide, then narrowing into cold slits. He stood, squaring off against me like Kobe Bryant against a Boston Celtic. He had a pretty good stance. I bet he was a ballplayer in his prep school days. I almost smiled.

  “You will not come in here,” he said, spitting out the words like pieces of bad meat.

  “I get it.” And I did. If I were him, I wouldn’t want me there, either. I practically got his daughter killed. I realized then that he’d been right all along. I was bad for Azura. His sending high school thugs my way to beat me up and chase me off—that was protection for what mattered to him. Maybe it was even love. “I just wanted to see how she
was doing,” I said.

  “It’s none of your damn business how she’s doing. Just leave her alone.”

  I could see Azura in the far end of her room, lying asleep or unconscious on the hospital bed. Her head was wrapped in all sorts of bandages, her dark hair spilling out against the white cloth. A tube went in her nose. Another in her arm. Her only sign of life was the slow, slight rise and fall of her chest. I looked silently at her wounded form, then nodded and left.

  Twenty-one

  I checked out a few hours later and walked unsteadily for the five blocks that separated the hospital from ChooChoo’s gym. I grabbed some clothes and picked up Mom’s jeep. I drove the Jeep to Shotgun Shack, where I slowly circled the block to see if King George’s black BMX bike was out front. When I didn’t see it, I parked and went inside.

  It was lunchtime and busy, but the only diner I recognized was Stanley Chang—exactly the person I wanted to see. I sat myself in his booth without asking.

  “’Sup Stanley?”

  “Hey, Seth. Good to see you, little brother. What happened to your arm?”

  “King George broke it. He’s gonna kill me if he can find me. I need a place to stay, Stanley, and I want to crash at your house.”

  Stanley stared at me, his mouth open. He finally closed it, then said, “Oh. Wow. Man, I’d love to help you, Seth, but see, my house is being fumigated right now.”

  “Fumigated, my ass, Stanley. I know Miss Irene is staying with you. Either you let me stay there, too, or I’m turning you both in to the cops.”

  Stanley glanced around the restaurant, his eyes wide. “What are you trying to do, Seth?”

  “I’m trying to stay alive, cuz. So whaddaya say?”

  Stanley put down a twenty and we hurried out the door. We jumped in the Jeep and I drove according to his directions. I was growing tired by then and even that short drive was a struggle. He made me park a few blocks away and we walked to his house, a little red bungalow with a half dozen broken-down cars hiding among the weeds in his front yard. He knocked on the door then turned a key in the lock. He stuck his head in and said, “It’s me,” then pulled me inside and shut the door quickly behind us.

  The inside of the house was all shadows. The lights were off. Closed blinds let in a few horizontal cracks of day. A swinging door opened from what must have been the kitchen, because food smells came out of it along with a warm, yellow glow.

  Miss Irene stepped from the light and joined me in the shadows.

  Twenty-two

  “Seth? Is that really you?” Miss Irene rushed forward and wrapped me up in her arms. I groaned when she hugged me. She pulled back and looked at me. “You’re hurt. Slugger, what happened to you?”

  “King George happened to me, Miss Eye.” Miss Irene squinted one eye closed and stared at me from the other, then turned her gaze on Stanley.

  “I don’t know nothing about it,” said Stanley. “Seth said he’d go to the cops if I didn’t bring him here.”

  “That true, Seth?”

  “It is. Two things, Miss Eye: One, I need a place to hide from King George. I’m in his crosshairs. He already tried to kill me once and he nearly killed ChooChoo.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “And two, you need to tell me what the hell you had to do with my mom’s murder.”

  “So it was murder?”

  “You saying you didn’t know?”

  “I wasn’t sure.”

  “That’s a strange thing for the prime suspect to say.”

  “Seth, I loved her like my own sister. Maybe more. That’s why I couldn’t stay away from her funeral. I would never do a thing to harm your mom. ”

  “Then why’d you run?”

  “I’m not proud of it. I ran because of nothing about your mom. I ran because of me—of my past. Stanley, get Seth an iced tea. You want a sandwich or something? This story’s gonna take a while.”

  I followed Miss Irene into the kitchen and sat down heavily on a rickety stool. She pulled out of loaf of brown, unsliced bread, a pink ham, a head of lettuce, a block of cheddar cheese, and jars of mayonnaise and mustard. While she started slicing and spreading, she began telling me about growing up in Spokane and about a young girl named Eve who lived across the street from her.

  “She was ten years younger than me, but we were still friends, you know? In that big sister-little sister sort of way. I taught her how to do her hair and wear makeup without putting too much on. She loved getting pretty. And she was something to look at, from the day I first met her to the day she died. But when she was a teenager, oh Lord. She was a piece of candy. Boys and men just about couldn’t help themselves around her.” Miss Irene cut my sandwich along the diagonal and set it on a brown pottery plate. She handed it to me and wiped the mustard off her knife with a wet rag.

  “I grew up and went to community college. Worked my way through school as a fry cook at a handful of Spokane restaurants. Took a bunch of accounting classes and got a job at a big real estate office, swearing to myself I’d never work in a restaurant again. Accounts receivable and accounts payable. Nice office and I didn’t have to work a fryer, but the pay was lousy. I was still there in my late twenties and still living with my mom, because I couldn’t afford to move out.” She stopped talking and glared at me. “You gonna eat that sandwich? If you are, I’ll make myself one. But if you’re just gonna let it sit there, I’ll eat it.”

  I took a bite of my sandwich. It was good. Basic food done right was Miss Irene’s specialty.

  Miss Irene continued: “It was about then that your mom ran away from home. Her mother—your grandma, I guess—came over a few days later to see if I’d heard from Eve. I lied and said I hadn’t, even though she’d already called me two or three times from Tacoma. She was there with a boy—a college student she’d met over the summer. She followed him back to his college in Tacoma and was staying with him in his apartment. Maybe I should have told her parents, but Eve seemed happy and I thought she’d come home in a few days. She didn’t. She eventually called her parents to tell them she was staying in Tacoma for good.

  “Honestly, I was jealous of your mom. She went independent while she was still in high school. Probably a bad move, but definitely a brave one. Meanwhile, I was twenty-seven and still sleeping every night in my childhood bedroom. Maybe that’s part of why I did what I did.”

  Miss Irene paused and stared across the kitchen at nothing. I looked at her face. Her brown skin was clean and smooth. Her hair was pulled back—mostly black with a few light streaks of gray. Her brown eyes had a sad shine to them.

  “Spokane was in the middle of a real estate boom about then, and that real estate office was making all sorts of money. Buying houses at auction for cash, then selling them for twice the amount. Meanwhile, the owner, John J. Jarvis, was still paying me jack. But then he started getting real friendly with me. Giving me hugs. Standing behind me while I worked with his hands on my shoulders. He started hinting to me that he’d pay me more if I’d—you know—be his girlfriend and such. Honestly, it could have been so nice, except he was married. Wife, kids, and that whole perfect thing.

  “I guess I was stupid. I thought maybe he loved me. But he just wanted whatever he could get. He sure got me, at least for a time. Then I became pregnant. Believe me, it sure wasn’t part of my plan. But I guess I still thought maybe that would change things. All it did was freak him out. He offered to pay me off. Two thousand dollars if I’d leave town and keep the baby to myself. Two thousand. I thought my heart would break. I was so sad and so mad and so damn dumb for ever thinking there was a chance. I almost drove to his house and told his wife the whole thing. But then the baby—my baby boy—died. Never even got born. Never heard him cry.”

  Miss Eye looked at me and smiled. Sometimes people smile at the strangest times. She wiped a tear from her cheek and then dried her finger on the hem of her dress.
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  “I told John what had happened. I was so sad, but he was just relieved. He told me how lucky we were and how it meant we could go back to the way things were before. And that did it for me. The next day, I set up a separate bank account for his business, but with my name as primary. Then I transferred all the available money from Mr. John J. Jarvis’ business account—almost ninety thousand dollars—into that new account—the one with my name on it.

  “That was on a Monday. On Friday, I withdrew all that money in cash. Sometimes we used cash at auctions, so the bank people never blinked. Then I packed up a small overnight bag and told my mom I was spending the weekend with a girlfriend. I got in my car and drove out of town before John came after me. Or before the police did. I’ve only talked to Mom a couple of times since then, afraid I’d get caught. Part of the price I paid.

  “I went straight to Tacoma. Eve was one of the few people I knew outside of Spokane and she’d been telling me for the last couple of years how much she liked it here. So I came over, me with no baby. Her with you. First thing Eve did was cut my hair real short, like it is now. I used to have the most lovely hair, but I’ve still never grown it back. Your mom knew some shady characters who helped me get a fake ID, which I used to rent an apartment. The name on the fake ID was Irene Dunlop. I didn’t even choose the name, but I kind of liked it.

  “What was your name before?”

  “Wanda Knight.” Miss Eye stared across the room again, then repeated the name. “Wanda Knight. I haven’t said that out loud in at least ten years. It was a nice name. When I was a little girl, I used to pretend I’d grow up to be a famous singer. I’d stage awful little shows for my mom and she would introduce me as ‘The Wanderful Wanda Knight.’ Anyway, I took a job at Shotgun Shack as a cook—for the old owner, whose name was Edna Jenkins. It was a crummy little restaurant in those days.”