Motion to Kill

CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX

Camaya wheezed from the round that caught him in the right side of his chest, pressing a towel Mason gave him against the wound, slowing the bleeding.

“Hey, Mason,” he whispered in a feathery voice. “Why’d you shoot me, man?”

“Gee, Jimmie, I don’t know. Seemed like a better idea than letting you shoot me.”

“Aw, man! I was gonna shoot Scott-I hadn’t made up my mind about you.”

“Yeah, how come?”

“Friend of mine wants to talk to you-besides, you was gettin’ to be good company.”

“Who’s your friend, Jimmie?”

“Man-you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me.”

“No way-it’s all I got to deal with-”

He started to gag and cough blood just as the paramedics arrived. Mason went to look for Scott when they started talking about establishing an airway.

Camaya’s shot had grazed Scott’s shoulder. One of the paramedics was cleaning a crimson furrow along his upper back when Mason found him sitting mannequin-like on a bench, expressionless as an EMT tended him.

“Scott,” Mason said.

“Forget it, buddy,” the EMT said. “The guy is zoned out.”

“What do you mean? Is he in shock?”

“Way past that. The shrinks got a name for it. I call it ‘zoned.’ Sometimes they come back. Sometimes they don’t.”

He finished bandaging Scott and unfolded him onto a stretcher. Scott never blinked as they rolled him out to the elevator.

Harry Ryman questioned Mason in one corner of the locker room while another detective quizzed Blues in a different corner. A forensics team methodically gathered evidence, taking photographs and measurements to preserve the scene. An hour later, they were ushered downstairs through a gauntlet of reporters. Their police scanners had picked up the report of the “Mid-America Club Shoot-out,” as one overheated journalist dubbed it. Mason managed a tight-lipped “no comment” before their squad car pulled away.

The homicide squad room was a collection of grimy steel desks, gunmetal gray chairs, and matching filing cabinets overstuffed with the statistical residue of the city’s violence. Mason sat in a chair next to Harry Ryman’s desk while Ryman banged away on his keyboard.

“You leave out any details you want me to know about, Lou?” Harry asked him when he finished typing.

Mason had told Harry almost everything. He didn’t tell Harry that he’d killed one of Camaya’s henchmen with a toilet. That was too twisted a road to go down.

“I hit the high points, Harry. When can I get out of here?”

“Pretty soon. It’ll be up to the prosecutor to decide whether to charge you with anything, but I don’t think he will. It’s a pretty clear case of self-defense. You might get some heat for carrying a weapon without a license, but that won’t play too good. You’ll come out of this a hero.”

Mason shook his head. “That I don’t need.”

“There is one other thing. Couple of nights ago, we got a call about a dead body in a warehouse down in the West Bottoms. Only thing was, there was no dead body. We found some blood on the floor at the front of the warehouse and some more in a bathroom in the back. Turns out the warehouse is owned by this Victor O’Malley you been telling me so much about. You got any clues for me on this situation?”

“Sorry, Harry. I can’t help you with that.”

Harry studied him closely. “Your aunt Claire and me got something nice going. She cares a lot for you. Talks about you all the time. Don’t do anything that might mess that up for any of the three of us. Are we clear?”

Mason nodded. “We’re clear, Harry.”

“Try that sofa over there. They’ll be done with Bluestone pretty soon.”

Mason moved to the faded, dust-soaked couch and closed his eyes while he waited for Blues. He didn’t expect to sleep. He just wanted to hide for a few minutes.

The hardened footsteps of cops and perps played an uneven cadence on the linoleum floor. Tired questions and angry answers swirled around him in a haze of faded aftershave and street smells. A door slammed but Mason didn’t peek until he heard a familiar feminine voice.

“No-good pencil-necked son of a bitch!”

Sandra Connelly tripped over Mason’s outstretched legs, unable to catch herself before falling onto the sofa next to him.

“Bad day?” he asked.

“Are you the victim or the suspect?” she asked. “Never mind, I don’t care.” She started to get up, but he grabbed her arm.

“Hold on. What the hell are you doing here?”

She yanked her arm free and stood up. “Touch me again, Louis, and I’ll perform your second circumcision.”

“Just a little off the sides, please.” Mason was scrambling, but she hadn’t left yet. It was progress. “I plead temporary insanity. I don’t blame you for walking out. I won’t blame you for leaving again. And I’m sorry and I’m glad you’re all right. Sullivan’s illegitimate kid was born in Rogersville, Kansas. The mother was named Meredith Phillips. She’s not in the phone book but her relatives might be. I’m here because I shot Camaya. What are you in for?”

“Depends. Burn any of your friends at the stake today?”

“Close. Camaya made Scott Daniels watch Julio kill Harlan. Scott got the message and gave me up. How was your day?”

“Lousy. Angela is dead,” she said, and she sat down next to him.

Mason couldn’t respond. For a minute, he thought he would join Scott in his twilight zone.

“The cops think she committed suicide, but I don’t buy it,” she continued.

Images of Angela flashed in Mason’s mind; lover to Sullivan and Scott, amateur spy, embezzler, manipulator. Whatever she was, she was a risk taker, not a quitter. He couldn’t picture her taking her own life.

“How did she die?”

“Some kind of overdose. They won’t know for certain until they do the autopsy. It just happened tonight.”

“Who told you?”

“Nobody. I was the one that found her.”