Cut to the Bone(30)
He winced at the burn in his chest, back, and legs, and realized his breathing had speeded up. He forced himself to relax.
The burns cooled.
His thoughts ran double-time as he analyzed what happened, and what he’d do about it. Same conclusion as yesterday. It all depended on what happened to Danny. It’s not like he could ask someone. Was his brother home, eating cornflakes? Gritting his teeth in agony down the hall here? Absorbing the bad breath and rubber hoses of a police interrogation, an altogether different agony? Or laying, chilled and hairless, in the county morgue?
Earl sighed. Two days, and the only thing he knew for sure was that the detectives would come soon. Wouldn’t be pretty when they-
“Damn,” he whispered.
“Hi, Earl,” Danny said.
“Well, that answers one question, anyway,” Earl said.
“What’s that?”
“If you’re alive enough for me to break your neck.”
Danny dragged a chair next to his brother.
“I’m sorry.”
“Sorry don’t cut fish with detectives, boy,” Earl snapped.
“I know. I didn’t mean to get you involved.”
“Good to hear. Hate to see what involving me feels like,” he said, pointing to his gauze patches. “These aren’t good-luck charms.”
“I know.”
They fell silent.
“Well, anyway,” Earl said, finding it impossible to stay mad at little bro. His heart was in the right place with those grenades. Even if his brain was out to lunch. “I’m glad you made it.”
“Wish you had, too,” Danny said. “Honest to God, Earl, I had no idea you’d be at the motel. None at all.” His eyes were wide open, his mouth a downward U. “I can’t explain why I did it. When I was at the garage that day, I overheard the Brendan Stone deal. Something just clicked inside me. I already had the grenades, so I put on that janitor disguise and took him out.”
“Why?”
“‘Cause you’re my brother, goddammit,” Danny said, flaring. “Why the hell else would I do something so insane?”
Earl heard the distinctive footsteps, put a finger to his lips. “Hush down. Cop’s coming back. Don’t want him hearing this conversation or there’ll be two Monroes on Death Row.”
“Death . . . Row?”
“What you think they do to cop-killers, man?” Earl said. “Throw flowers?”
Danny’s face crumpled in on itself. “I wasn’t thinking that far ahead.”
“Clearly,” Earl said.
The cop froze in the doorway, then stomped inside. “You’re supposed to clear visitors with me, Monroe,” he grafted, all suspicious. “Who the hell’s this?”
“My brother Daniel,” Earl said. “Came to see me all the way from Purdue, where he’s getting his master’s degree in engineering. You weren’t at your post when he arrived” - he nodded at the steaming coffee - “so I told him to wait till you returned.”
The cop considered it.
“OK,” he told Danny. “You can have twenty minutes. Go lean against that wall.”
Danny took the frisk, and the cop left.
“You weren’t thinking that far ahead?” Earl prompted.
Danny nodded. “My brain just flooded. I wanted to save you from Covington. I couldn’t think of any way but the grenades. That’s why I did it, and why I’d do it again.” He patted Earl’s arm.
“No contact with the prisoner,” the cop growled from his chair.
“Sorry, sir,” Danny said, pulling back.
The cop grunted, went back to his Field & Stream.
“It’s all academic anyway,” Danny said.
“Meaning?”
“You’re going to be fine, Earl. I’m going to the police and confess that I did it.”
“Nope.”
“What do you mean, nope?”
“I mean you aren’t confessing, little bro,” Earl said. “I am.”
Danny’s eyebrows jumped.
“Not much to do here but think,” Earl said, shifting the few inches the shackles allowed. “So I did. Here’s how it’s going to go. Wayne Covington saw me slaughter those cops. He knows it like the devil knows pitchforks, and he’ll be so convincing on the stand that a jury of Quakers would draw straws to pull the switch on me. I’ve decided to let it happen.”
Danny stared, jaw slack.
“That’s right, it’s gonna be me that dies in that chair,” Earl said. “I’m keeping you out of it.”
“You’re crazy!”
“Not crazy enough to ace a load of coppers in broad daylight, pally buck,” Earl said. “But since I clearly did, I gotta take my punishment.”