Identity

by Shawna Seed

  Familiar emotions stirred in Elizabeth – indignation at the way Brian’s family treated him and sympathy for how much it hurt him. “That must have been so hard,” Elizabeth said. “You looked up to him so much.”

  “It sounds weird, but sometimes I think I did him more harm than good,” Brian said. “I never bring it up, but sometimes he does, and he always says he never asked me to do it, that I decided for myself. And that’s true, I guess. But the guilt has eaten him up anyway. It doesn’t matter what I say – he can’t forgive himself.”

  Elizabeth knew this was her opportunity to tell Brian the rest, but she hesitated. In a lifetime of hard things, what she needed to do next was the hardest.

  Brian was staring at her, wary. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”

  “There’s no good way to tell you this,” Elizabeth began.

  “I’ve heard that more times than you can imagine,” Brian said. “Whatever it is, just tell me. I’ll deal.”

  Elizabeth reached out to take Brian’s hand, and he let her. She took a deep breath.

  “I think Kevin killed Missy.”

  Brian jerked his hand away. “No.” He shook his head. “A cop named Moreno killed Missy. That’s the guy she was seeing behind Cliff’s back.”

  “Her mother doesn’t believe that,” Elizabeth said. “I read an article online where she said Missy wouldn’t have been involved with him.”

  “That’s because he was Hispanic, and Missy’s mom is racist.”

  “Missy was too,” Elizabeth said. “Do you really think Missy would have been involved with him, the way she was?”

  Brian waved her question away. “Why would Kevin hurt Missy? She was his friend.”

  “I think they were more than friends,” Elizabeth said. “The police said that she hinted at work that there was something off-limits about whoever she was seeing on the side. Being married would make Kevin pretty off-limits.”

  “No,” Brian said, not budging. “No. I can see why you’d think Kevin is the worst person in the world. But you’re wrong. What happened to Missy – Kevin couldn’t do that. He wouldn’t do that.”

  Elizabeth tried to keep her voice steady. “I’m pretty sure he did, Brian.”

  Brian leapt up from the bed and whirled to face Elizabeth. She held her ground, even though a part of her wanted to shrink back.

  “The back of her head was bashed in! I saw the pictures. It was horrible!” Brian said. “How can you think Kevin would do that? Missy was his friend!”

  “The story I read said the police still have her underwear and a Three Musketeers T-shirt she was wearing when she died,” Elizabeth said, fighting to stay calm. “Her mom wants it all tested for DNA.”

  “Yeah? So what?”

  “That’s Kevin’s shirt.”

  “It’s Cliff’s! Cliff had a shirt too, remember? Three Musketeers – Kevin, Cliff, me.” Brian thumped his hand against his chest for emphasis.

  Elizabeth pressed ahead. “Remember that last night we saw Cliff and Missy? Missy got sick all over our porch and all over Cliff. He put his shirt in the trash at our house. That was Cliff’s Three Musketeers shirt.”

  “The one she was wearing must be mine, then,” Brian said. “She must have borrowed it, or maybe I wore it to the beach with them and it ended up with their stuff.”

  He was grasping at straws, and Elizabeth’s heart ached for him.

  “Brian, no,” Elizabeth said gently. “I have your shirt. I wrapped the gun in it.”

  “You’re mixed up,” Brian said. “You took a different shirt.”

  “No, Brian. It was your Three Musketeers shirt. It’s in the trunk of my car right now,” Elizabeth said.

  “My Three Musketeers shirt? You’re sure?”

  Elizabeth nodded. “The gun, too – both in my trunk. I think Kevin and Missy slept together, and then Missy got out of bed and put on Kevin’s shirt. It has to be Kevin.”

  Brian dropped back onto the bed – hard – and stared at Elizabeth with such pain that it frightened her.

  Then he buried his head in his hands. “Oh, Kevin,” he whispered. “What did you do?”

  Brian sat for a long time with his head bowed. Elizabeth waited, watching the numbers on the clock next to the bed slowly turn. Five minutes passed, then ten.

  Finally, Brian looked up at her.

  “This is my fault. You know that, right? If I’d told the police about Kevin right away, he’d have been locked up, and Missy would still be alive.”

  Elizabeth couldn’t let Brian blame himself. “How could you have known? Kevin’s responsible for what he did, not you.”

  “I should have figured it out. Missy always had a thing for him. Kevin slept with her once in high school,” Brian said. “Missy was all set to dump Cliff. I had to tell her that Kevin didn’t want to be her boyfriend. He wasn’t going to say anything.”

  He took off his glasses and rubbed his face. “I didn’t tell Cliff, because he would have been mad at Missy and Kevin, and Missy and Kevin would have been mad at me. I wish to God I’d told. Everybody would have stopped speaking to each other back in high school, and none of this would have happened.”

  “Brian, this isn’t your fault.”

  He put his glasses back on and focused on Elizabeth. “How long have you known?”

  “What’s today? Friday? I’ve known since about 12:45 last night, I guess,” she said. “I saw a website about me, and I got worried the police were looking for me. I was going through old stuff and unwrapped the gun, and saw the shirt, and it all came together.”

  “So you saw my website,” he said. “I wondered whether you would ever… Wait, how long does it take to drive here from Tallahassee?”

  “Eleven hours and 18 minutes, according to the Internet,” Elizabeth said.

  “You drove all that today?”

  “Once I figured it out, I just wanted to find you and tell you,” Elizabeth said. “You know, when you have to do something horrible, you just want to get it over with.”

  “So now you’ve told me,” Brian said. “And you want me to do… what?”

  “Well, I don’t think he should get away with it,” Elizabeth said. “Do you think Kevin would turn himself in?”

  “I haven’t talked to Kevin in three years,” Brian said. “He’s an alcoholic and a drug addict. I had to cut off contact with him. Trying to save him wasn’t helping either of us.”

  Brian grew quiet, and again Elizabeth waited.

  “I always thought it was guilt about me that messed him up, but I guess it was Missy. Jesus.” Brian ran his hands through his hair. “I can’t believe my brother did that, killed her in cold blood like that.”

  “Maybe they argued, she pushed him, he pushed her, she hit her head – something like that,” Elizabeth said. “Maybe he was drunk.”

  Elizabeth realized that she was just trying to make things easier for Brian, but a part of her hoped she was right, that Kevin had acted in the heat of the moment.

  “Maybe she threatened to tell. Missy knew about the drugs, right?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to,” Brian said. “We all agreed we’d leave the girls out of it.” He turned to Elizabeth. “I’m sorry I left you in the dark. I thought I was protecting you.”

  After another long, uncomfortable silence, Elizabeth tried to steer the conversation back to their next step. “Do you think you could talk to Kevin, or…”

  “I have to make up my mind right now?”

  Brian hadn’t raised his voice, but there was no mistaking the edge there.

  “This is a lot to take in, you realize that, right?”

  “I’m sorry,” Elizabeth said. It seemed inadequate, but what else could she say? Brian felt boxed in – of course he was angry. She understood that feeling all too well.

  “You could have just called the police and told them,” Brian said. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I thought I owed it to you to tell you first,” Elizabeth said. “And I’d rather not
deal with the police, obviously. I took $20,000 in drug money – that’s money-laundering. And I’m living under a fake name.”

  When Brian didn’t respond, she stood and picked up her purse. She didn’t blame him for being angry, but she was starting to feel uneasy – he knew too much about her now. “I’ll give you some time to think about it.”

  Brian reached for her arm. “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “I’m tired. I’m going to go find a hotel and something to eat. I have the number for your shop. I’ll call you after you’ve had some time to think.”

  “You just got here,” Brian said. “Don’t go yet. I can fix us something to eat.”

  “Just so you know, the kitchen is the worst room in the house,” Brian said as he led her into the hall.

  Elizabeth hadn’t paid much attention to the house once she was inside, but it was obvious now that Brian was in the middle of renovating. The baseboard was pried off in the hallway, and three different colors had been painted in wide swaths on the wall.

  Brian pushed open a door and waved her through. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  The kitchen was square and ugly – peeling yellow linoleum, avocado green stove and refrigerator, cabinets stained a weird brownish-orange. The wall opposite the hall was missing entirely, replaced by a curtain of plastic.

  A card table was marooned in the middle of the room, two metal folding chairs pulled up to it at right angles.

  “The house was trashed when I bought it. It had been a rental and got really run down. It’s been kind of a slow process,” Brian said. He pointed to the plastic sheet. “I took out the wall there. I’m going to do a breakfast bar, but the guy who’s making the cabinets is behind schedule.”

  Brian opened the refrigerator, which was covered with photos and papers held up by magnets. “I was going to grill a steak for dinner. It’s big – we can split it.”

  He seemed determined to switch to small talk, and Elizabeth decided to play along. “Isn’t that a lot of trouble to go to this late?”

  “The stove doesn’t work,” Brian said. “I’ve got the grill or the microwave. Your other choice is a frozen burrito.”

  “In that case,” Elizabeth said, “steak sounds good. Can I do anything?”

  “You could put together a salad while I start the charcoal,” Brian said, opening a door that led to the back yard.

  Elizabeth grasped the refrigerator door and then got distracted by the collection of photos. She recognized Brian’s father in a few. Mitch Lowry’s hair had gone silver, but otherwise, he looked the same. She would have known those eyes anywhere.

  In one photo, his arm was thrown around a teenage girl in a cap and gown. She had startling blue eyes ringed in layers of black eyeliner.

  In another photo, he wore a dark suit and posed with his arm around an African-American woman in a silver cocktail dress. She was nearly as tall as he was. She had gray hair, worn very short, and a warm smile. They appeared to be at some kind of party.

  The same woman popped up in another photo. This time, she and Mitch Lowry were dressed casually. The woman held a girl, maybe a year old, with big hazel eyes and café au lait skin. The girl was reaching out toward Mitch, and all three of them were laughing.

  Elizabeth turned around as Brian came back in. “Your dad looks great. Who’s this?” Elizabeth pointed to the graduation photo.

  “That’s Ashley,” Brian said.

  Elizabeth gave him a blank look.

  “Kevin and Lynn’s daughter,” Brian said. “She was born the night of the hurricane. She’s in college now.”

  “Who’s the woman with your dad in these other photos?” Elizabeth asked.

  “That’s Francine,” Brian said. “My stepmom.”

  “Oh,” Elizabeth said, startled. “I didn’t realize… did your mom pass away?”

  “She lives in Arizona with her third husband,” Brian said. “We don’t really talk much.”

  “Is this Francine’s granddaughter? She’s adorable.”

  “That’s Coco,” Brian said. “She’s Kevin’s, too.” He rummaged in a pile of papers on the counter. “That’s an old photo. I took a bunch down the other day to clean and didn’t put them all back up. Hang on, I’ll show you some new ones.”

  “Here,” Brian said, handing her a photo. Coco devoured a cupcake, smiling wide through the icing smeared on her face.

  Elizabeth laughed. “Oh, she’s cute! How old is she?”

  “She’s three,” Brian said. “And she’s doing great, which is a miracle, considering her mom was using while she was pregnant. She can count to three – not just say the numbers, really count. She can sing the ABC song, and she knows Brian starts with B and Coco starts with C.

  “The one in her Easter dress is here somewhere.” Brian, animated now, pawed through the papers. “She’s in a funny stage. Everything is why, why, why?”

  He found what he was looking for and handed Elizabeth another photo. Coco stood on a sidewalk in a frilly lavender dress. Brian squatted next to her, holding an Easter basket.

  Studying the photo, and the pure joy on Brian’s face, Elizabeth felt a twinge of sadness. “That’s her car seat in your truck?”

  “Yeah, it’s easier than switching one from car to car, you know? Dad and Francine have custody, but I get to spend a lot of time with her,” Brian said.

  Elizabeth handed him the photo. “She’s beautiful, Brian.”

  Brian’s animation waned and a wistful note crept into his voice. “Kevin’s made such a total mess of his life, and yet he’s got these two amazing girls. Somehow it seems…”

  “Not fair,” Elizabeth said.

  Brian nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. He tacked the photo up in a prominent position. “The charcoal’s going to need some time. You can sit. I’ll make the salad.”

  He got lettuce from the refrigerator and a tomato from the windowsill over the sink. “You’re going to like this tomato – I remember how much you complained about the ones at the grocery store,” he said. “One of my customers has a huge garden, and if he needs something little done, I let him pay me with food.”

  Brian crossed back to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of Shiner. “Want one?”

  “No thanks.”

  “Something else? There’s white wine from the last time Lynn was over to help me pick paint.”

  “I’ll stick with water,” Elizabeth said. Feeling bolder, she added, “I don’t drink anymore. It seemed like it was starting to be a problem, so I quit.”

  Brian took that in, a little surprised, and moved to put his beer back in the refrigerator.

  “Please don’t put that away on my account,” Elizabeth said.

  “Are you sure? I don’t mind.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Brian fixed her a glass of ice water and opened his beer. “I don’t drink like I did when we were together. One beer is pretty much it,” he said.

  “I guess Kevin’s situation would make anyone think twice.”

  Brian tore lettuce and sliced the tomato, his back to Elizabeth. She’d thought he was starting to relax, but suddenly he seemed tense again.

  “Even before Kevin got so bad we couldn’t ignore it anymore, I had a stretch where I didn’t drink at all,” he said.

  He put the salads on the table and, sighing, pulled out a chair. “You know I was in prison, right? Then I was on medication for a few years, so I couldn’t drink.”

  Elizabeth’s heart began to pound. She wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I was sentenced to four years and did thirteen months,” Brian said. “I took a beating my first month there.”

  He pushed his hair aside, revealing a long scar above his ear. “That took twenty stitches.” He pointed to his left eyebrow, then his nose. “Eight here and six here. I lost some vision in my left eye because my retina detached. I had a really bad concussion, a head injury, really. I had to take anticonvulsants so I wouldn’t have seizures.”

  “Br
ian, that’s awful.”

  “It’s a different world in there. You can’t help anybody, ever. You just have to look the other way. And if somebody wants to fight, you have to fight,” he said. “I knew that going in, but... it’s hard to explain what it’s like.”

  He moved his beer bottle in a slow circle on the table. “I was in pretty rough shape when I got out. I saw a counselor for a couple years. She said I had post-traumatic stress. I took meds for that, too.”

  Elizabeth wasn’t sure what to say. Brian stared at the table.

  “I’d better see if the charcoal is ready,” he said. Before Elizabeth could reply, he got up and walked outside.

  When he came back in, Elizabeth sensed some kind of change in him, as if he’d debated with himself and reached a decision.

  “It’ll be ready in a couple more minutes,” he said, sitting again.

  “There were all these things I swore I was going to tell you if I ever saw you again,” Brian said. “And now I’m losing my nerve.”

  Elizabeth smiled what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I understand if you’re angry. I left you at a really bad time. It’s OK to be mad. I was mad at you for a long time, too.”

  Brian’s face crumpled a little. “I was never mad at you. It’s not like that.” He took a deep breath. “One of the things I always wanted to say was, I’m amazed at how brave you were, telling me what happened when you were 15, about the rape. I’m so glad you told me.”

  Elizabeth tried to keep her face blank, a mask.

  She had tried for more than two decades – sometimes successfully, often not – to keep that memory at bay. She’d never told anyone but Brian, and they’d never spoken of it after that first conversation. She realized that she hoped he’d forgotten it over time, which was ridiculous. Of course he hadn’t. What ever made her think he could?

  “I’m sorry,” Brian said. “I didn’t mean to upset you. Are you OK?”

  She shrugged, feigning more calm than she felt. “It’s an ugly word, that’s all.”

  “But it’s the right word,” Brian said, his eyes never wavering from hers.

  “I’ve never been able to bring myself to say it, not even in my head,” Elizabeth said. “I know that doesn’t make sense.”