Deadlocked

more comfortable than it looked. They sat for a moment, Mason picking out stars. He turned to Sandra.

'You remember the first case we worked on together?' he asked her.

'Hard to forget,' she said. 'Both of us almost got killed.'

'Because we didn't trust each other,' he reminded her. 'Let's not make the same mistake again.'

Sandra pivoted toward him, tucking one leg under the other. 'I do trust you,' she said, her mouth opening wide at the same instant he felt something sharp and hot pierce the back of his shirt. Her scream was swallowed by his as a jolt of electricity fired a paralyzing spasm through his body.

Mason tried to turn but couldn't make his muscles respond. He was suddenly aware of someone standing behind him, feeling a hand on his shoulder, smelling something familiar, his brain not processing the odor. Seconds unfolded in slow motion.

Sandra raised her hands in front of her face. An earsplitting crack from a gun rocked him as her hands flew away and her face exploded in a spray of blood and bone. Her body splayed across the bench. The shooter grabbed Mason's right hand, wrapped it around the gun, and laced Mason's finger against the trigger with his own, firing the gun again, another burst of blood flowering from Sandra's chest.

Sensation oozed back into his limbs, his movements slow, like he was swimming in molasses. He struggled against the gun that now inched upward across his chest, the hot barrel searing his neck, pressing hard beneath his chin. His hand was more jelly than muscle. His finger was still looped around the trigger, pulling it back against his will, about to leave him a dead puppet when his hand and the gun suddenly dropped in his lap and a hard shove put him on the ground in a heap.

He opened his eyes, rolling over on his back, staring up at Sandra's body. He heard footsteps, someone running toward him. He tried to cry out but couldn't make a sound. He tried to get up, collapsing when his legs refused to move, thrashing his head against the next assault.

Strong hands slipped beneath his shoulders, scooping him up, framing his face, holding him until he stopped shaking.

'I've got you, man,' Blues said.

Chapter 28

Mason sat in a patrol car in the parking lot less than a hundred feet from where Sandra Connelly's body lay draped across the park bench. The center of her face was a bloody, pulpy mush, the bullet ripping through her hands, barely slowing. Her neck lay at an uneasy angle across the top edge of the bench, her head dangling off the back, blank eyes turned to heaven. Her arms were spread, one leg still tucked beneath the other; the blood pooling from her chest wound dripped onto her lap.

A cop sat next to him, another in the front seat, neither of them talking. His shirt was splattered with Sandra's blood. He reached over his shoulder to a sore spot above his left shoulder blade, the skin irritated, his shirt torn. Petty wounds. He'd regained his coordination within minutes of Blues's arrival. He tried to explain what had happened, but Blues told him to save it.

Mason understood why. Blues had been a cop long enough to size up a murder scene and this one looked simple. Sandra was dead, shot to death with a gun that Blues found next to Mason. Mason was the obvious suspect and Blues didn't want to be forced to testify to anything Mason told him.

'Let the cops figure it out for now,' Blues had told him. 'You'll have plenty of time to tell me about it. Get your head straight and keep your mouth shut.'

Samantha Greer and her partner, Al Kolatch, were running the scene. Samantha gave him one look, the pain in her eyes like another gunshot. He was standing in the parking lot surrounded by three cops when she arrived while two others interviewed Blues.

'You want to tell me about this?' she asked him.

'Later,' he said.

She bit the inside of her cheek, pointing to two of the cops. 'Put him in a car and keep him there. And no visitors, especially that one,' she said, pointing at Blues who was talking to Kolatch.

Forensic cops searched the area under the glare of bright lights set up to illuminate the scene. They shot video, took still photographs, scraped blood, tissue, and bone from the bench and the ground. They scoured the area for bullets, fingerprints, and footprints. They measured distances and angles, building a case against Sandra's killer. The coroner arrived, examined Sandra's body, giving a silent signal when he was finished. An ambulance crew slipped her body into a black zippered bag, then quietly left the scene.

Samantha motioned to the cop in the backseat to trade places with her. 'You want a lawyer or do you want to talk to me?'

Mason didn't blame her for treating him like a suspect, but he was innocent. Blues had given him the same advice he would have given any client, even though he knew that silence could be as incriminating as any confession. He had a lot to explain, but nothing to hide.

'I don't need a lawyer and I know my rights. You can put that thing away,' he said as she took her Miranda card from her purse.

'You're covered with the victim's blood. You know I've got to read it to you, Lou,' she answered, putting the card away when she finished. 'Still want to talk?' Mason nodded. 'Okay, what were you and Sandra doing here?' she asked him.

'We were supposed to meet Whitney King. His office is in that building,' Mason answered, pointing across the parking lot.

'What were you going to talk about?'

'The murders of Graham and Elizabeth Byrnes. The shooting of Nick Byrnes and the disappearance of Mary Kowalczyk,' he answered.

'I got your message and a copy of the missing persons report you filed. Whose idea was the meeting with King?' she asked.

'Mine. I told Sandra I wanted to talk to Whitney alone. At first she told me no, then she talked to Whitney and he said he'd do it. Whitney set the meeting for tonight.'

'Where was Whitney?'

'He called Sandra just as we got here and said he'd be late and asked us to wait. He was taking his mother back to the nursing home.'

'So you just decided to pass the time on the park bench?'

'That was Sandra's suggestion.'

'Tell me what happened,' she said.

'Someone came at us from behind the bench, probably from the other side of the trees. I never saw his face. He must have used a stun gun on me. I couldn't move. He shot Sandra in the face, then put the gun in my hand and pulled the trigger again. Then he tried to make me shoot myself with the gun. I guess he wanted it to look like a murder-suicide. He had the gun jammed under my chin when he just let go and knocked me to the ground. Blues must have scared him away.'

'Is that it?' Samantha asked.

'That's it.'

She reached across to Mason, holding his right hand close to the dome light inside the car.

'Powder burns,' she said, letting go.

'I told you,' Mason said. 'The guy put the gun in my hand and made me pull the trigger. That was the second shot, the one in her chest. I'm sure the first one killed her. The second one was to set me up.'

Samantha scratched the side of her face, brushing her hair out of the way, looking at him, then out the back window of the car. 'Where'd he get you with the stun gun?'

'Back here,' Mason said, pointing to his left shoulder.

'Let me have a look,' she said.

Mason was wearing a polo shirt. He hiked it up around his neck, letting Samantha run her fingers across his skin.

'Looks like a couple of red marks, could be a rash. Could be pimples. I don't know.'