Page 3 of Shelter for Sharla

Her expression changed to one of total disbelief. “No. No, Tamara would never do that. I don’t believe you. She wouldn’t point a firearm at anybody, not the Tamara I know. Where did she even get a gun? She doesn’t have a gun.”

“Yes, ma’am. She had a gun, and she used it.”

The woman sat quietly, and Carter didn’t know what else to say to her. It was a mess, that was sure. Finally, she asked with a sniffle, “Could Ipleasesee my daughter? Maybe I can find out what happened. I mean, if this is real, if it really happened the way you say it did, I’d like to know what happened too. I’m sure Chelsea had nothing to do with this.”

What the hell could it hurt?Carter thought. “Okay. Let’s go talk to her.” He rose, held the door for the woman, and followed her up the hallway. When they reached the door of the interrogation room, he opened it and swept his arm inward.

“Mom! Oh my god! Mommy!” the girl shrieked and jumped up. In a split second, the woman was embracing the girl, smoothing her hair and hugging her tight.

“Hush, baby. It’s all gonna be okay. I promise. Calm down, Chelsea. I’m here now. Let’s sit down and talk, okay?”

“Mom, I didn’t do anything wrong! I didn’t know Tam was going to do that!”

“I know, honey. Come on. Let’s talk about it.” Carter waited until both women were seated, then nodded to the officer who’d been watching Chelsea. The younger man rose and left the room, closing the door softly behind him, but Carter knew there were at least three officers watching them through the big one-way mirror on the far side of the room.

“Thank you for bringing my mom,” Chelsea said to Carter, her tears starting again.

“You’re welcome. Chelsea, we just want to know what happened. Can you tell us what happened? Why Tamara did this?”

“We’d been at this rally on campus. It was for gay students, you know.”

Carter shot a look at the girl’s mother. “Tamara is openly gay,” she said in explanation.

“What kind of rally was this?” Carter asked.

“It was all about protecting yourself from hate speech. I’m not gay. Lionel and I were just there to support Tam, you know. She gets picked on all the time.”

“I see. So what were they teaching, self-defense and things like that?”

“That’s what I thought they’d be talking about, and they did for a while. But then a couple of guys got up there and started talking about arming themselves, about how it was the only way to stay safe. They were flashing guns around, and Lionel and I wanted to leave, but Tam wouldn’t. That’s when she showed us her gun.”

“She had a gun?” her mother gasped.

“Yeah. We asked her where she got it and she said, ‘From a guy’. She wouldn’t tell us anything else. Then another guy got up and started talking about defending yourself, how people wanted to hurt gay students, and how the police wouldn’t protect them. He even talked about how the police wanted to kill them and get rid of them.”

That got Carter’s attention. “Who was this guy?”

Chelsea shrugged. “I have no idea. I’d never seen him before.”

“Was he a student?”

She shrugged again. “I don’t know, but if he was, he was an upper classman. He was older than us, or at least he looked older.”

“I see.” He thought for a minute. “If you saw a picture of this guy, or of the other two guys, would you recognize them?”

“Yeah. At least I think so.”

“Okay. We may try to get some pictures for you to look at. So how did Tamara come to shoot TrooperPalmer?”

“OfficerPalmer? That was his name? Oh, god. I’m so sorry, officer…”

“SheriffMelton,” Carter corrected.

“Sheriff. I hope he didn’t have little kids or anything like that,” Chelsea said, tears coursing down her cheeks again.

“I don’t know, but regardless, he didn’t deserve to die. Do you know why he tried to stop you?” Chelsea shook her head. “Because you had a taillight out.”

“Oh, god.” The girl looked completely broken, and Carter felt sorry for her. And he believed her too. They’d known there were some radical groups on campus, but this was worse than he’d ever imagined. “But there was something else.”

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