Maggie Shayne - Sleep with the Lights On

He couldn’t.

He told himself he’d done the right thing.

And then the cavalry arrived, ambulance first, cops on its bumper.

He just pointed at the stairs. “My brother shot himself.”

The medics reacted, raced up the stairs. Rosie arrived and hunkered down beside him. “Lemme see your phone, partner.”

Nodding, Mason handed it over.

Rosie looked for Eric’s text message, found it, nodded. “You should’a taken me with you.”

“I didn’t think he meant that. Hell, maybe I did, but I didn’t think he’d really do it.”

A burst of activity on the stairs. Urgent shouts that seemed uncalled for, given that his brother was obviously dead. Mason looked up fast. Had he missed something? Did they know? And am I going to be wondering that every day for the rest of my life? God, what the hell did I do here?

And then a gurney came bumping down the stairs, Eric strapped to it, mask on his face, someone pumping a rubber balloon.

“He still has a pulse!”

Lightning jolted Mason to his feet. “How can he...how can that...his head...”

“Hold on, partner,” Rosie said, grabbing his shoulders when he started to go to his brother.

Mason honestly didn’t know in that moment, whether he meant to go help Eric or yank the bag away and let him suffocate.

Two EMTs jostled Eric into the back of the ambulance. In seconds it went screaming away and left Mason staring after it with his guts tied up in knots.

“You’d better go,” Rosie said. “Go on now. Be with your brother. Call your family. I’ve got this.”

Nodding, Mason looked Rosie square in the eye, knowing he had to initiate the lies now, before he lost his resolve. It was the only thing to do. “I can give you the gist first, though. You need to know. He showed up last night, asking to sleep over. About 3:00 a.m., give or take. I was half-asleep, and we didn’t talk. This morning I left before he got up. Then I got that text. When I opened the apartment door he was sitting on the couch with the gun to his head.” He had to stop and swallow hard to get his throat to open up again.

“Damn,” Rosie said softly. “You don’t have to do this now, partner.”

“It was a .44 Magnum. Never saw it before. Have no idea where he got it, or if it’s legal. He had the barrel here.” He put a finger on his skull. “His right. My left. I yelled and sort of jumped toward him. He pulled the trigger at the same time. I landed short, knocked over the coffee table. Then I called 911 on my cell, came down here and waited. I couldn’t look at him like that. That’s all. That’s everything.”

“Good enough. Good enough for now, Mason. Maybe I’d better drive you. They don’t need me here.”

Mason looked at his partner; he hated lying to him. “I’d feel better if you’d stay here while they process the place, see they do it right, respectfully, you know? I mean, it’s my place. I don’t want it all torn up.” He shook his head. “Shit, that sounds shallow.”

“Sounds like someone who’s seen what happens when a home becomes a crime scene. Don’t you worry.”

“I still need the Hummer, Rosie.”

“I’ll pick it up at the hospital once we finish here.”

“The station. I’ll leave it at the station.” Mason looked down at his hands. “I need to change...before the hospital.”

“Go to the station, then. You got a change of clothes in your locker?” Mason nodded. “You can park the Hummer there, then. Your wheels are already back in the lot. The blind writer didn’t so much as ding it. It’s all good.”

But it wasn’t all good. And Mason pretty much figured it was never going to be all good again. He wanted to crawl into a dark corner and stay there for a while. A long while. But he had to keep moving, and somehow he did.

He headed to the station. As Rosie had promised, his beloved black ’74 Monte Carlo was in the lot in back. And also just as promised, the blind chick hadn’t even put a dent in the bumper. They didn’t make cars the way they used to. A new one would have crumpled. He tossed his brother’s duffel into the trunk and made damn sure no one had seen him do it.

He locked Rosie’s Hummer, took the keys inside and left them in his partner’s locker, avoiding everyone he saw on the way. No one stopped him. Easy. Then he took a quick shower and changed into the spare clothes he kept on hand, a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved pullover in two-tone gray. Then he went back out to his own car and drove to the hospital, racking his brain on the way. Had he missed anything?

He undoubtedly had some of Eric’s blood on his clothes. He’d crawled across that plastic, after all. That was fine. He wouldn’t even wash them until he was sure his colleagues didn’t want to run them through the lab. They would count on his cooperation. He had to give them exactly what they expected an innocent cop to offer. Full cooperation.

He might have left microscopic traces of blood on the steering wheel and driver’s door of Rosie’s Hummer. But that would be expected, too. If he cleaned that up, it would look as if he had something to hide. If anyone even bothered to check, which they had no reason to do. Looking as if he had something to hide would be the quickest way to revealing the truth, though, so he hadn’t cleaned off the steering wheel or front seat.

Traces of blood in the cargo areas in the back of the Hummer, or on the cargo hatch door, however, would be unexpected. They would be out of place. But no one was going to look for traces of blood in the back of Rosie’s Hummer. No one had any reason to. Unless Eric somehow pulled through, of course. Or said something in a state of delirium. If that happened, he would deal with it. He couldn’t do anything about it now.

As Mason pulled into the parking lot behind Binghamton General and looked for an empty spot, the shaking set in.

My brother’s dead. But not quite. No, dead. He’s dead. No one could live like that. It’s a glitch in the works, some reflex trying to hold on. But he’s gone. I saw it, felt it. I know.

My brother was a murderer. All those guys. How many licenses? Gonna have to go through them later. And that bag. God, I don’t want to go through that bag. Got to, though. And then hide it. Where it’ll never ever be found.

I need to find the bodies. What the hell did he do with the bodies? Those families...

Gotta call Mom. And ohmyfuckinggod, Marie. I gotta call Marie. How do I break this to the boys? It’s gonna destroy them.

Yeah. I did the right thing. This is bad enough without...that note. That bag. Those IDs. Those faces. It’s bad enough. I did the right thing, God forgive me.

But what if he lives?

“Sir? Sir, can I help you?”

He’d managed to walk into the E.R. without even realizing it, that was how far gone he was. He needed to pull it together here. He focused on the woman—a nurse wearing scrubs with big pink flowers all over them. She was behind a curved desk looking at him through an open glass partition. “Detective Mason Brown, Binghamton P.D. I’m here for my brother.”

“I can help you with that. His name?” she was already tapping keys.

“Eric Conroy Brown.”

“Eric.” Tap-tap-tap. “Brown.” Taptaptaptap-big tap. She actually backed up from the computer screen a little, and the bright smile vanished. “He’s in the ICU. That’s up—”

“I know where it is.” He was a cop. He knew his way around Binghamton General. He was gone while she was still talking. Wishing him luck or something equally useless. Elevators, buttons to push. Autopilot.

What if he lives?

He still had all the evidence. If his brother lived and was anything more than a bedridden vegetable, Mason was going to have to turn it in and take the consequences for removing it from the scene. It would be the end of his job. Which was nothing compared to the possibility of his brother going on killing.