Authors: Ruth Ann Hixson
As Sherry got out of her car she heard Elena slam her car door. Just as she opened the back door and leaned in to get her clothes basket, a bullet came through the garage door window and zinged over her head. She ducked down unsure what she should do to protect herself. If she hid in front of the car she could be seen through the side windows. She pushed the clothes basket aside and crouched on the back floor board.
But other eyes saw and other ears heard the gunshot. Mark rapped on the bathroom door as he passed. "Hurry up, old man. Sherry's in trouble!"
"Holy cow! I don't have any clothes on," came Frank's reply but Mark was already on his way down the stairs. Frank pulled on his dirty clothes and headed for the bedroom to slip his bare feet into his sneakers. Then he ran down the stairs and out the front door. Mark had the truck turned around but stopped to wait for him.
"What's going on?" he asked as soon as he was in.
"Elena followed Sherry home again. She pulled right in the driveway behind her. I'm sure I heard a gunshot."
"Why did you ever teach her to shoot?" Frank demanded. The car parked in Sherry's driveway backed up and turned away from them but they could plainly see the vanity plate: ELENA.
From where she was crouched on the floor, Sherry could not see through the garage windows but she could see the light from the Lexus' headlamps. Even though the light disappeared, she was cautious when she slowly got up and stood beside her car. The flash of other headlights made her dive for cover again. She heard two vehicle doors close. Then she heard a male voice calling her name. She couldn't tell if it was Frank or Mark but she was glad they were there. She unlocked the door to the breezeway and ran to unlock the outside door.
"Sherry! Sherry!" Mark rang the door buzzer and pounded on the glass of the locked storm door.
"Don't break the glass!" she yelled back as she unlocked the door.
As soon as he stepped across the threshold, Mark pulled her into his arms and gently held her head against his chest. She could hear his heart pounding.
Now that Mark and Frank were there, Sherry began to recover from her ordeal. "Thank you so much for coming." She pulled back from Mark's arms. "How did you know?"
"I just happened to look out the window," Mark answered. "I heard the gunshot. There was a gunshot, wasn't there?"
"Will you move out of the way so I can come in?" Frank entered the breezeway after his son stepped aside. "Are you all right, Sherry?"
She grinned at him. "No, I'm half left."
Frank laughed. "Are you okay?"
"I was scared spitless but I'm getting over it now. That bullet almost hit me."
"Show me," Frank said. In order to turn on the light she reached inside the garage and pushed the button to the garage door opener. Before the lights went out she showed them the bullet hole in the window and where she was standing. She pulled her clothes basket to her and lifted it out of the car.
"I'll carry that," Mark offered and took the basket of wet clothes while she got her bag with her laundry needs and the other one with the clothespins and two more packs of light bulbs.
"We need to call the cops," Frank said. "I don't have my cell phone."
"There's a phone on the table." She unlocked the door to the kitchen. She handed Mark one of the light bulb packs. "Will you please put one in the back porch light so I can see to hang up these clothes?"
Sherry could hear Frank talking on the phone. He came out the door. "The cops are on the way. Where's Mark?"
"Putting a bulb in the porch light."
Frank opened the back door. "If you're going with me, come on. I want to get to bed so I can get up in the morning."
"I'll stay till the cops get here. Maybe I'll just stay the night."
"Oh, no!" Sherry shot back. "I only have one bed and that's mine. You are not sleeping with me."
Mark followed his father back inside. "If the cop won't bring me home, I'll walk. I'll help Sherry hang up her clothes." He picked up the basket and carried it to the porch.
"They're not sorted," she said as she used a clothespin to fasten the plastic bag of pins to the line. "I just wanted to get out of there."
"Why?"
As she picked up a pair of jeans, she reiterated what had happened at the Laundromat. "I don't know why she is harassing me. There's nothing between us."
"There could be." He picked a pair of pink panties from the basket. "Ooh! Look at that--pink with lace. And a bra to match."
She grabbed her underwear from him. "Hang up something other than my uns."
"Go out with me, Sherry"
"Out where?"
"You know what I mean. Dinner and a movie on Friday night."
"I have to work Friday."
"What time do you get off?"
"Nine."
"I'll pick you up there."
"Oh, no! I'm not giving Elena any reason to believe that what she thinks might be true. You pick me up here after I drive home. And just for supper. Some place where she won't show up."
"I know just the place. A little family restaurant that Elena wouldn't be caught dead in."
Sherry was leery but she agreed. "I'll call you when I'm ready."
While they waited for the cops, she had Mark install the other light bulbs where she wanted them. "Outside the breezeway door, in the downstairs hallway and in the upstairs bathroom."
The state trooper who answered the call was one neither Sherry nor Mark knew. He had sandy-colored hair and a humorless look as if he were afraid his face would break if he smiled. "I hear there were shots fired here," he said as Sherry opened the door for him.
She held up one finger. "Just one. She shot through the garage door window. I heard the bullet go zinging past my head. I have never been so scared." While Sherry went with him to the garage to show him the bullet hole in her window, she again told the story about the Laundromat. "Officer Wade handled that. I'm charged with assault for defending myself. I have marks on my face where she dug her nails in."
He shone his flashlight on her face. "What were you fighting about?"
"I was just defending myself. I'm not quite sure what her problem is. She seems to think Mark and I are having an affair."
"Are you?'
"No. I just moved here from New Jersey. I haven't been here a week."
"Show me where you were standing when the shot occurred."
Sherry opened the door to the car and stood beside it. "Just as she shot I leaned in to get my clothes basket. If I hadn't I might be dead."
"What did you do then?"
Sherry dove into the car and hunkered down on the floorboard.
"Did you see her shoot?"
"No."
"Did you see her at all? By the way, who is 'she'?"
"Elena Bayshore. I could see her in her car when she pulled in the garage behind me."
"You're certain it was Miss Bayshore? Could you identify her without question?"
"Yes."
"But you can't actually put the gun in her hand?"
"No. She followed me home. Last night, too."
Mark spoke from the doorway. "I can't put the gun in her hand but I can put her car at the scene. When that car backed out of the driveway we could read the license: a vanity plate--ELENA."
"What kind of car does she drive?"
"2009 silver Lexus."
The trooper shone his flashlight on the bullet hole. "How tall is Miss Bayshore?"
"Five nine," Mark answered.
The trooper took a measuring tape from his jacket pocket to determine the height of the bullet hole from the garage floor. With his flashlight, he scoured the garage's back wall to find the missile. "Here it is." He took out a pocket knife and popped the chunk of lead into a small plastic bag, sealed it and put it in his pants pocket. He returned to Sherry and Mark. "Did she touch anything?"
"Not that I know," Sherry responded. "She didn't come inside."
"That's all," he said. "We'll run the ballistics on the bullet to find out if it came from Miss Bayshore's gun. If we can find the gun."
A call came for the officer to respond to a domestic dispute. "I must go."
"Will you take Mark home?" Sherry asked quickly.
"I'm staying the night," Mark insisted.
"Oh no! I only have one bed and you aren't going to be in it. Officer, will you please get this man out of my house?"
The trooper nodded toward the door. "You heard the lady."
"It's too dangerous for you to be alone," Mark argued with Sherry. "You don't even have curtains on the windows."
She pointed to the door. "Out."
Chapter 5
"Mr. Blakely, will you please come to the office?" The secretary's voice came over the intercom.
"Uh-oh," said Mike Delong, a senior. "You're in trouble now."
Mark pointed a finger at him. "You're in charge until I get back. Don't let it go to your head. The rest of you can continue with your projects." When Mark walked in the office, he found Chad Wertman talking to the principal.
"That fact that you're in uniform tells me you're on duty," Mark commented.
"That's right. Come along with me."
"Just don't get out those cuffs. Where are we going?"
"To the parking lot. I'd like you to unlock your truck."
"Why?"
"Because Elena claims she left her gun there after you two were shooting target back in August."
"She put it in the glove box but she took it out when I took her home. It wasn't there last night when I put Mom's blood pressure meds in there." Mark pushed the button on his key ring and the door to the Suburban unlocked with a toot of the horn.
Chad stepped ahead of Mark to open the door, leaning in to open the glove box. With a pen from his shirt pocket, he reached inside and brought out the .357 magnum revolver with the pen through the trigger guard.
Mark stared in disbelief. "I do not know how she got that in there. Chad, you've known me since we were kids. You know I wouldn't lie to you."
"Elena claims you and Sherry are conspiring to make her seem crazy. You tell me how she got this gun into your locked truck."
"I don't know. We don't need to make her seem crazy. She does that well enough herself. I swear to God, Chad, I do not know how she put that in there unless..."
"Unless what?"
Mark drew a deep breath. "Unless she got her hands on my spare set of keys. They hung up there in the kitchen. You know Dad never locks the doors when he's out working." He took his cell phone from his shirt pocket. "I'll call him."
"Don't!" Chad said sharply. "I'll go talk to him myself."
****
Sherry lay looking at the ceiling. Though she'd been awake at least a half hour, she was reluctant to leave her nice warm bed. There was no heat because the oil tank in the basement was empty
She thought back over all that had happened last night. Had Elena really meant to kill her or just trying to scare her? If she was trying to scare her, she succeeded. Sherry hadn't even been so scared the night that gang leader had tried to rape her or when five members of the gang came into the restaurant where she worked. Maybe it was because she expected that sort of thing in Newark. She didn't think it could happen there in rural Pennsylvania. But it did happen and she would have to deal with it.
A full bladder forced her from her bed. She was in the bathroom when she heard the buzzer to the breezeway door. As she crossed the kitchen, she could see Frank through the curtainless window with a travel mug in each hand. He greeted her with a grin. "Take these. I'll be right back." He went to his truck and returned with a small iron skillet with a brown egg in it and a pint jar full of milk.
"Oh, thank you! Jan's going to smack you for stealing one of her pans," she warned.
"She won't hit me. She loves me." He set the pan and jar of milk on the counter before taking his mug of coffee and sitting at the table. "I came over to see how you're doing. What did you do or say to make Mark mad? I heard his shoes hit the wall last night."
"Does he always throw things when he's angry?"
"No. Only when he's really mad."
"I told him he couldn't stay overnight. When he argued I told the cop to get him out of my house. I like Mark. He's so handsome you'd think he'd be fighting women off with a stick. I just don't want him in my bed. I have enough problems with his ex. I don't want to complicate those problems with a relationship with Mark or any other man. I just want to get on with my life."
She flipped over her egg and continued, "Do you think I need a keeper that you come to see about me?"
He grinned. "I've been thinking about adopting you."
"Mom would never allow it."
He shrugged. "She's in New Jersey. What she don't know won't hurt her."
"She's here in Mifflin County. At Uncle Roy's. He told me when he brought the key to my house in. Now all the keys are accounted for." She scooped the egg from the frying pan and onto her yellow saucer.
"As far as we know."
"Sooner or later Mom's going to show up on my doorstep wanting me to take her in. I just don't want her to walk in when I'm not here. Once she's in I won't be able to get her out. And now she doesn't have a job and I'd have to support her. Let Uncle Roy keep her for a while."
Frank looked out the window when he heard a car. "Uh-oh. We got company. State police cruiser just pulled in the driveway."
"Anyone we know?" Sherry took a bite of bread dipped in egg yolk.
"Chad."
"You answer the door. I'm eating."
Frank leaned over the table and rapped on the window. When Chad looked his way, he motioned him in.
"I saw your truck and stopped," Chad began.
"Is this about last night?"
"It is. May I sit where you are so I can lay my tablet on the table?" Frank moved and Chad sat down.
"Tell me what happened."
"Are you talking to me or Sherry?"
"You. I want everything from the moment you knew Sherry had a problem until you crawled into bed."
"The first was just after I stepped out of the shower. Mark knocked on the bathroom door and said Sherry was in trouble, that Elena had followed her home and he'd heard a gunshot. That got my attention real quick."