Chapter 13 #2
“I’m Officer Sherwood,” Hope says. She almost says Detective, out of habit, but catches herself. She had gained the rank of detective in Philadelphia. But here, by choice, she is just
a part-time patrol officer.
Brower appears again at her side, so Hope yanks a thumb in her direction. “And this is Officer Brower.
“Can you tell me about what happened today?” Hope asks. They both start answering at the same time. Stacy, the younger one, talks faster and has a higher pitch to her voice, while Martha is lower and slower with her words. Hope holds up a hand and points to Martha. “Why don’t you go first?”
Stacy looks dejected but keeps quiet as Martha continues, detailing how they’d hatched a plan to go get hot dogs over at Burg-Dog
in Shallotte for lunch. Martha admits it was totally against the rules, and they’d talked the young postal clerk, who is now
trapped inside, into staying behind so they could go. Hope can feel the guilt emanating from her as she speaks.
Stacy interrupts Martha. “But have you ever had a Burg Dog?”
Hope has not and says so.
“Best hot dog you’ll ever eat.” Stacy nods to herself like this is justification of their unauthorized errand, but something
about her face tells Hope she doesn’t really believe that.
Hope turns to Martha. “Let’s get to the part where you returned from lunch,” she prompts, an attempt to move the story along.
“Right,” says Martha. “We went around to the back like we’d usually do, but the door was bolted. We thought maybe Nadine got
scared, you know, being there all alone, and locked herself in.” She pauses to light a new cigarette and inhales as she says,
more to herself than to Hope, “She hasn’t been there all that long. We shouldn’t have left her.” She exhales and continues.
“Then we figured we’d just go around to the front.”
Martha looks over at Stacy, then down at the ground. “Stacy had Nadine’s hot dog in her hand and was doing this silly little
dance until . . . until we went in, and, well, we saw all the shi—I mean, the stuff he’d pulled in front of the doors. We
looked through the glass and we could see all of them in there. And they just looked so . . . terrified.”
“How many hostages did you see?” Hope asks.
Martha shakes her head. “Two, maybe three customers? It all went down so fast. And of course Nadine—” Martha’s voice breaks, and she stops speaking long enough to swallow back tears before taking another drag from the cigarette to steady herself.
“Next thing we knew, he had a gun pointed at us. And I ran for my life even though I wanted to stay. I wanted to push through that barricade and wring his ever-loving neck.”
“Who is he?” Hope asks Martha. She’s been told this is likely a domestic situation, but she wants to hear it from an eyewitness.
“Nadine’s ex. Tommy Harrell.”
“And are you familiar with Tommy Harrell, with their situation?” Hope presses.
“I mean, she’s worked here less than a year, so I don’t know a ton,” Martha says. “But yeah. I mean, until they separated
recently, he’d come by to see her sometimes.” Martha looks over at the post office as she says it, a memory likely playing
in her mind. “He used to bring her lunch,” she adds with a wistful tone to her voice. “I thought it was sweet.”
“You said they separated recently. How recent?” Hope asks. This is the information she needs. This is the background that
will aid her in reaching the suspect. The coworker is giving her enough to at least get started. She will learn more about
the situation as she goes, as she talks to Tommy Harrell. She feels her heart hitch upward a notch, but whether that is due
to excitement or fear, she can’t tell.
“A month? Maybe six weeks at most?” Martha shakes her head. “Long enough that she finally decided to file papers and make
it official.” Martha and Stacy both make stricken faces as something dawns on them. “I think maybe that was today.” She looks
at Stacy to clarify. “That he was going to get served the papers.”
Stacy claps her palm to her forehead. “We’re so stupid! Why didn’t she remind us? She should’ve told us not to go. Today of
all days!”
Martha shakes her head grimly as she says, “This is all our fault.”
“The truth is,” Stacy adds, her face beseeching, her need to confess obvious, “we ran by the Walmart too. It’s just across
the street, so it was right there, but we . . . started looking at the clothes and all. Walmart has some real cute things
now.” She pulls a frown. “We shouldn’t have done that. We weren’t thinking.” Stacy’s big blue eyes leave Hope’s face and stray
over to the post office, which looks placid at the moment except for all the emergency personnel clustered around it. “If
we hadn’t gone, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”
Hope pats Stacy on the shoulder. “Or maybe you’d be trapped inside there right now too,” she says, an attempt to assuage some
of her guilt, though it likely won’t work. In situations like this, it’s hard to know what would or would not have changed
the outcome. People can make themselves crazy trying to figure out if they could or should have done something different.
A horn blares, and Hope turns to see what’s happening. Out on the street that runs by the post office, cars are slowing as
curious drivers try to see what’s going on. They will need to get a patrol officer out there soon to keep traffic moving,
maybe even reroute traffic entirely to keep the main road clear in case of emergency. Hope hopes it does not come to that.