32

Kansas City

She'd started trying to reach her father by phone late Saturday, calling him a number of times Sunday afternoon and evening, and then putting it out of her mind Monday, with the pressures of work to contend with. But the fact he'd been out of touch all weekend tugged subliminally, and by late afternoon Monday, Sharon started calling the motel in earnest. No answer. That night she dialed several times again. Nothing.

She tried to read. Listen to music. Paint. She couldn't disengage her mind. How could her father get lost in Bayou City?

At times like this, as she prowled her apartment, feeling the walls closing in on her a bit, she would get quick, uncomfortable flashes of insight into just how much damage had been done to her psyche by the thing at the shelter.

The cop and his ominous warnings about sticking to her story of the shooting ... the cold formalities with the police interviews that left her feeling dirty and confused ... the frightening business of having to get legal counsel and then depose ... stand trial ... terrifying moments after long months of waiting. When she was finally exonerated there was no sense of real relief, only anticlimax. The guilt was still with her, the feelings that a self-defense acquittal could never expunge. At such moments as these she'd realize how far she still had to come to shake loose from it.

At 9:48 P.M., after the fifth call of the evening, letting it ring twenty times or more, she rang the Bayou City motel office, asking the manager to make sure her father was all right. After some discussion, the woman relented and took a passkey, returning after what seemed like ten minutes to the telephone that Sharon insisted she not hang up.

“Hello?"

“I'm still here."

“Well, Mr. Kamen apparently hasn't been back to his room for a day or so."

“Why do you say that?"

“Because our maid didn't show up today and I had to do all the beds and clean the rooms myself. His bed is still made up from the weekend and I don't think he's been back in the room."

She thanked the woman, and as soon as she had a dial tone tried the Bayou City police. A deputy or assistant of some sort answered and she asked for the person in charge, was told he wasn't available, and was given the opportunity of leaving a message. She explained the nature of the emergency, the fact that her father, who was looking into the disappearance of a Bayou City resident, had not returned to his motel room for at least two days. The man on the other end was maddeningly calm and infuriatingly placating in tone.

Think! What should she do first? She phoned her superior at the Coalition and briefly explained the situation. She would have to-leave immediately. Could she please arrange to notify the office? They'd cover her absence and handle everything. She assured her boss she'd call as soon as she knew something, rang off, and dialed the motel again, telling the manager not to worry if the police contacted them. It didn't necessarily mean anything bad. Her dad had been conducting a private investigation and may have simply become too involved to return, and so forth.

Sharon forced herself to breathe deeply, count to ten, and get hold of her emotions. She suddenly felt as if she were coming apart at the seams. It was absurd. Her dad would show up tomorrow with an explanation and tell her she'd been childish to worry. She was behaving idiotically.

She went in and started doing every dirty dish in the place, realizing, as she wiped plates and utensils, she'd been grinding her teeth together. She unclenched her jaw and went into the bedroom and started throwing things into a bag, including the packages and mail she'd picked up from her father's apartment during the noon hour—a whirlwind of movement, churning inside.

By 10:45 P.M. she was on her way to an all-night service station, pulling into the self-service lane, getting out, unlocking the gas cap, so nervous she could hardly disengage the pump, hands shaking.

Sharon chilled at the mental image of her dad saying “I'm on to one of the big boys,” the phrase immediately filling her with the helplessness she always experienced when he talked about the war criminals. “I smell a rat."

“Someone around here?” she'd asked.

“Down in the Bootheel,” he'd told her, referring to the southernmost tip of the state.

But her worst moment was yet to come. Maybe an hour later, driving in a semi-trance, it occurred to Sharon that the first thing the police in Bayou City would do would be to check her out, and they'd discover she'd shot and killed a man.

She played with that one half the way to Bayou City.