Sleep With The Lights On

by Maggie Shayne

  “Probable cause, right? I got permission to get the tire imprint. I saw blood. I had to follow up.” He moved closer, half holding his breath.

  Inside the sink was a hammer, and it was covered in blood, bone and what looked to him like brain matter.

  “Shit, Rachel, what the fuck did you do?”

  He turned, still without touching anything, and walked out of the garage. He was going to have to call this in and get the team back out here to photograph the hammer in situ before bagging it and taking it in.

  A white sedan pulled to a stop in the driveway, bathing him in its headlights, as he headed toward his own car. Rachel got out of the driver’s side, slammed the door and came striding toward him. “What the fuck are you doing in my garage, you fucking lunatic?”

  “Getting a tire impression for evidence.”

  “Yeah, evidence. I don’t think I trust you to be getting any evidence, Detective.” She had a sheet of paper in her hand.

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” And why was she so furious at him? He thought he’d convinced her that he was on her side.

  “What the hell is this supposed to mean?” She waved the paper at him, storming closer.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s your brother’s suicide note. You know, the one confessing to thirteen murders?” She closed the distance between them and backhanded him hard across the face. “You gave me your brother’s eyes knowing he was a fucking lunatic serial killer! What’s wrong with you?” She drew back a fist to punch him in the chest. He just stood there and let her, so she pounded on him over and over, until, sobbing, still clutching the note, crumpled now in her fist, she sank to the ground.

  He sank down beside her.

  She pressed her fingers to her eyes. “I want them out. I want them out of my head!”

  “I know, I know. I’m sorry.”

  “Sorry? You’re sorry? What the fuck were you thinking, hiding this, Mason?”

  He gripped her shoulders, stared hard into her eyes, willing her to look at him and see that he was being honest. “I was thinking about his pregnant wife. His two boys. Hell, Josh is only eleven. How was I supposed to tell them what their father was? It was enough that he was dead, that he couldn’t hurt anyone else.”

  “But he is. Somehow, Mason, he still is. You realize that, don’t you?”

  “No. It has to be something else.”

  She lifted her head, her eyes red-rimmed and wet. “I want these eyes out of my head.”

  “I didn’t know about your brother,” he whispered. “I swear to God I didn’t know.”

  “You knew about yours, though. I don’t want to see what I’m seeing anymore. I can’t handle it.”

  “You have to handle it, Rachel.”

  “Why? Just give me one good reason why!”

  He looked toward the garage, looked at her again. “Because there’s a bloody hammer in your garage. And I’m betting it’s the one that killed your friend.”

  15

  I stood up fast, then felt this whoosh, like everything in my body just sort of rushed down to my feet, and my head was left without anything to hold it up. It couldn’t be true, what he was saying. It couldn’t be.

  He was grabbing my shoulders then, and I jerked away as if his touch was dirty. “Get off me.”

  “You were swaying like a punch-drunk boxer.” But he let go.

  I reached through the hurricane in my mind and grabbed hold of myself, yanked my brain into focus, looked him in the eye. “I want to see it. This hammer.”

  “You can’t. I have to call it in, and the garage needs to be sealed off until then.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I’m sorry, Rachel, this is procedure.”

  “And was it procedure to cover up the fact that your brother was the fucking Wraith?”

  He flinched, looked away. I had him and he knew it, so I pushed my advantage. “Look, Detective, I know for a fact that I didn’t kill Mott. So if the murder weapon is in my garage, it means someone put it there. Someone who’s trying to set me up. Was it you, Mason?”

  His head came up fast. “I wouldn’t try to frame someone else for my brother’s crimes.”

  “Yeah, and I wouldn’t bash someone’s brains in with a hammer. But I can’t expect you to take my word for that.”

  He looked down. “You’ve been connected to every murder since Eric’s death.”

  “Maybe because I have your twisted fuck of a brother’s corneas.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not even a real theory.”

  “You want to know what’s real, Detective Brown? Let me just fill you in on what’s real. You call in that bloody hammer, and I’m going to call in this suicide note.” I held it up, realizing belatedly that I’d crumpled it up pretty badly in my fit of temper. I knew, too, that he could take it from me. He had a gun, and I didn’t. “I made a copy in my sister’s office before I came over, so don’t even think about taking it from me. I’m not an idiot.”

  I had made no such copy, of course. I was, in fact, an idiot.

  He surrendered. His stance softened; I felt it as well as saw it. It was in the breath he released, the slight bending of his spine, the movement as his shoulders relaxed a little. I thanked my stars he was too fucked up right now see through my bluff. I had no doubt that normally nothing so transparent would have worked on him. But he was off his game, because I knew his secret.

  “That hammer is evidence,” he said, and it had all the earmarks of a last-ditch effort to convince me. “We cover it up, we lose whatever it might have told us.”

  “Then take it out of my garage and toss it in the weeds, over there where the guy’s car was parked while he carried what was left of Mott up onto my front porch.”

  He looked where I pointed, toward the curve in my driveway. “They could still find your fingerprints, your DNA....”

  “I promise you, they won’t. I don’t think I’ve picked up a hammer in a year—if ever. It’s not a common tool among the blind. I didn’t kill anyone, Mason.”

  He was watching my face like a cat watching a rat hole, waiting for me to give something away, or to reveal my true murderous nature. Then he said, “You drove all the way to Cortland in your sleep. How can you be sure you didn’t kill someone?”

  “And bring the body home in a car I don’t own, and carry it—not drag it but carry it—to my own front door? Mott was a beanpole, but a heavy one. He weighed a solid one-ninety. There were no drag marks in the driveway, were there?”

  “No. Blood trail, but no drag marks.”

  “No. And even in my sleep, I think I’d have brains enough to toss the hammer into the reservoir. I mean, it’s right there, Mason.” I gestured at the dark water just a few dozen yards from my home, out across the narrow dirt road. “And then somehow I drove away and left myself sleeping in the house, and then I got up and called you guys?”

  “You were painting,” he said. “You sure you didn’t use a hammer?”

  “I didn’t use a hammer.”

  “To pull nails or hang pictures?”

  “Haven’t gotten that far yet.”

  “Do you own a hammer?”

  My brows went up. “Yeah. There’s a little girlie toolbox kit my sister got me when I first bought the place. Said everyone should have one. The hammer in it has a pink rubber grip and is about big enough to sink a thumbtack. And that’s the only hammer I own.”

  He seemed to be thinking hard. Then he said, “Okay, we’ll move the hammer.”

  We?

  “And we have to be smart here. Make sure someone on the force finds it. Whoever he is, he knows he put the hammer there. He’ll know we’re onto him if it doesn’t turn up in the evidence room.”

  “How will he know if it did or not?”

  Mason shrugged. “Maybe he won’t, but we can’t take that chance. Like I said, we have to be smart. Stay one step ahead. Figure out why he’s doing this.”

  My lips tremble
d. He’d believed I was innocent, earlier. I’d been sure of it. But now I wasn’t, and I couldn’t ask, because I was afraid of what his answer would be. And since when did it matter to me what this lying cop thought about me, anyway?

  “You should get back to your sister’s. I’ll take care of the hammer.”

  The guilt he felt over that was in his voice, as thick as butter. “I’ll do it. I don’t want you risking your career for me.”

  “My career is already over,” he said. Sad as hell, that tone. “It’ll come out, what I did. It has to.”

  “Yeah, well, on that we’re gonna have to agree to disagree. I don’t think it has to come out. I just think we have to find this killer. I don’t suppose you know a private lab that would run a bloody hammer without asking questions, do you?”

  He made a face.

  “Right, I didn’t think so.” I heaved a sigh and walked into the garage, folding his brother’s suicide note and tucking it into my pocket on the way. “Where is it?” I asked. My pretty car was sitting there like a silent, gorgeous witness.

  “In the utility sink in back.” I flipped on the light switch with my sleeve pulled over my hand. I don’t know why. That switch was probably covered in my fingerprints already, but I did it anyway, then I walked back to the sink. I was such an idiot. I’d locked up the whole place last night but forgotten the garage’s side door, probably because I hardly ever used the thing. Dammit.

  “How did you find the note,” he asked. “You ransack my whole place?”

  “I didn’t even go inside. It was pretty fucking strange, actually.” I walked closer, then stopped, looking down at the disgusting tool in the deep stainless-steel sink.

  “Strange how?” He came up behind me, looking at it over my shoulder.

  I shrugged. “I glanced around the place, saw the truck in the barn, just showing where the door wasn’t shut quite all the way, and I heard this stupid rhyme in my head.”

  “Rhyme?”

  I nodded. “Isn’t this a stroke of luck? Little brother kept the truck.”

  I felt him react. Shock bounced from him like a static charge. He’d gone still, stopped breathing until he had to in order to say, “Where the hell did that come from?”

  I turned to see that same sense of shock reflected in his eyes. “It’s what I heard in my head. I told you, it’s fucked up.”

  He said nothing.

  “Why? Why are you looking at me like that?”

  The man literally gave his head a shake. Like a wet dog shaking off the water. “Get the damned hammer. But don’t touch it barehanded.”

  Frowning, knowing there was more—this guy was a bundle of secrets, but hell, how many could there be?—I looked around the garage and spotted my collection of grocery bags hanging from the wall in their cutesy paisley print holder. Amy’s Christmas gift to me a year ago. I snagged a plastic bag from it. Using it as a glove, I picked up the hammer.

  “Make sure it doesn’t drip,” he instructed.

  “It’s pretty...congealed. God, this is gross.” I tried not to think about there being Mott’s blood and God knew what else all over the hammer. I tried not to think about how scared he must have been, or how much it must have hurt to die like that, and I followed Mason out of the garage, holding the bloody hammer as far from my body as I could. Blood had a smell to it. It was a cross between fresh meat and sulphur. I’d never smelled it quite this strongly before and had to actively suppress the urge to gag.

  Mason walked across the driveway, but I don’t know how he didn’t fall, because he was watching me the whole time. He finally stopped and pointed into the woods off to the right. “Toss it out that way.”

  I tossed it, feeling like it was the most important throw of my life. It landed with a rustling of underbrush. “What do I do with the bag?”

  “Burn it.”

  “And the sink?”

  “Bleach. But for crying out loud, rinse it really, really well afterward. Crime scene guys smell bleach, they get suspicious. Wear rubber gloves to clean it, and then burn the gloves, too.”

  I swallowed hard, thinking the guy knew a little too much about covering up crimes. But no, he was a cop, that was all.

  I got another plastic bag and put the bloody one I’d used for a glove inside it. I’d add whatever rag I used to clean the sink, and the gloves I used.

  He was staring at me. Looking me up and down.

  “I’m not a murderer,” I told him, and I held his eyes when I said it, knowing he had the same ability to sense a lie as I did. He could see the truth in my eyes.

  “I believe you.”

  Good. God, the relief that rushed through me at those words was beyond any kind of reason, especially now that I knew the huge secret he’d been keeping from me. Now to push my luck. “Mason, I think part of your brother is still alive. I think it’s inside me somehow. And I think it was inside Terry Skullbones when he killed that guy, and I think it’s in whoever killed Mott and planted that hammer here.”

  He pressed his lips together. “I think that’s probably the least likely of the half-dozen scenarios that could explain all this.” Then he tipped his head and shrugged. “But let’s play with it a little. Where’s the bleach?”

  I blinked, because the change of subject threw me, but I caught up quickly and walked to the far side of the garage where the washer and dryer were tucked out of the way in a corner. I grabbed the bleach and a pair of rubber gloves from the shelf, and headed back.

  He took everything from me, turned on the water, pulled on the gloves and began cleaning the sink. I’d expected him to let me do that, but I wasn’t going to argue.

  “So you think Mott’s killer is also an organ recipient?” he asked.

  “That would make sense.”

  He nodded. “I agree with you that my brother’s organs seem to be the connection between these crimes. I don’t believe it’s because he’s somehow still killing from beyond the grave, but I do think he’s the connection. Either way, the next step is the same.”

  “And what is the next step, Mason?”

  “We find the recipients.”

  “All of them?”

  “The ones local enough to be involved.”

  “How do we do that? The list is confidential. Can you get a court order or something?”

  “I don’t have anything solid to base one on. But I do have other resources. I hope to have the list before the weekend is out, and then I can start ruling them out one by one.”

  “I can help you do that.” He started to say no, but I held up a hand. “This guy took my brother and my best friend. And my life is on the line here. You know I can read people just as well as you can, maybe better.”

  He didn’t even argue with me as he rinsed and rinsed and rinsed the sink. I took the bleach back to its shelf, and returned to see him dropping the used gloves into the plastic bag. “Make sure it burns. Every trace of it.”

  The idea of burning plastic in my fireplace didn’t appeal, but then I remembered the barbecue pit out back and thought that might be a better option. “I will.”

  “It’ll be daylight soon.”

  “And my poor dog is still in the car. Do you have to sit here until morning?”

  “I’m not supposed to leave the house until my relief gets here in the morning—to keep you from removing evidence until we have a search warrant.” He said it with an ironic look at the bag in my hand.

  “When will you have that?”

  “After they compare the tire tread I took from your car with the one taken from your driveway last night, and the judge has time to review the rest of the case. And that’ll happen in the morning, when I can get back to the station.”

  I heaved a sigh. “Well, if you’re staying, then I’m staying. You want to come in?”

  “We’re not supposed to be in the house.”

  “So we’ll get out before anyone knows the difference.”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m tired. My dog i
s tired. We’ve already broken every freaking rule in your cop-shop handbook. And I’ve got a serial fucking killer after me. I’m going inside. You wanna come, then come. Because my feeling is that this sicko is watching my every move, and I would like to be out of his sight. Or do you disagree that he’s after me?”

  “He’s after you. I just don’t know if he wants to kill you or frame you for his crimes.”

  “Well, I’d just as soon not be alone when I find out.” I went to the car and let Myrt jump out. As we headed to my front door, I picked up the bag full of evidence. “Besides, you can help me burn this stuff.”

  * * *

  He made me burn it in the fireplace. Said the bastard might be watching and would catch on if we burned it outside. No shit, and he might have seen us plant that hammer just now too, I thought, but didn’t say it. He was the cop. I was just the killer’s latest victim.

  So I sat staring into the flames of my gas fireplace as he wrapped the plastic up in newspaper and tossed it on top of the fake logs to burn. Some of the plastic residue dripped, but soon enough it burned, too.

  “I hate this,” I said, after a long time.

  “Feeling watched, set up, all that?”

  “Having your brother’s corneas. I keep thinking, they saw my brother die. These eyes in my head saw my brother die.”

  He sighed, lowered his head. “It’s just tissue. It hasn’t got a mind or a soul.”

  “I had the first nightmare the first night after I got home. I saw him—me, only I knew it wasn’t really me—standing over the body of a man who’d been bludgeoned to death with a hammer.”

  He handed me a glass of wine, and sank onto the sofa beside me. “Good wine,” he said after a sip.

  “I only buy good wine.”

  “So do you remember details? Of the dream?”

  I took a sip, too, and tried to think back. “It was like I was a passenger in his head, looking out through his eyes. I could see his arms, his hands, a little bit of the front of him if he looked down. He wore overalls, you know, like a uniform, with a patch on the left side, his left, the kind that usually has a name on it, but I wasn’t looking at it dead on, so I couldn’t read the name.”