Chapter 5 #2
I ignore her idiotic remark about my age while I take a few deep breaths in and then say, “Call 9-1-1! The man I was hiking with on the trail that heads west shot himself. Call now!”
She hurries to do as I demand while I consider what I should do. Should I go back to where Bryan is no doubt lying on the ground in utter agony, or should I stay here and wait for the paramedics so I can show them exactly where he is?
The girl finishes with the dispatcher and hangs up. “They said they’ll be here in a few minutes. Are you okay, sir? Do you want me to get you some water or something?” she asks, wide-eyed like she’s as terrified as I was a few minutes ago back in the clearing.
I wave off her suggestions and shake my head. “I’m fine. I just needed to catch my breath. Why aren’t they here yet? Don’t we have a dedicated ambulance corps for this community? They should be here by now, shouldn’t they?”
She doesn’t answer but simply nods. A lot of good she is in a crisis. And these are the people we supposedly pay to help us? Thank God I’m not bleeding profusely or something equally as terrible. God knows if I’d be alive by the time the paramedics arrived.
Instead of waiting with her, I walk outside and begin pacing back and forth in front of the entrance to the building. Jesus Christ, what is taking these people so long? Do they answer all emergency calls like this? The guy could be dead up there by now.
I stop as that thought fills my head. I barely know Bryan, and what I do know about him isn’t great, especially the part about him being my boss’s new favorite for some reason no one knows but the two of them. That aside, I don’t want to see him die.
Finally, I hear the sirens and see the flashing lights as the ambulance pulls into the parking lot. The driver and his partner jump out and run toward me as I try to remember everything that happened.
“Who called for an ambulance?” the woman from the passenger side asks.
I point toward the trail and say, “I did. Follow me. He’s up on the hill. He was waving a gun around and…”
The driver looks over at his partner and then at me as I try to find the right words to explain what happened. “And what?”
“He shot himself.”
For some reason, they look around the parking lot. Are they waiting for someone else? Why aren’t we hurrying up the path to help Bryan?
“Are you saying someone brought a gun on the hiking path? Did he shoot it? This is a pretty residential area, sir.”
Already tired of these two, I try to keep my cool as I say, “Yes, he shot it. He was trying to kill some animal. Then he was waving it around, and it went off. Just follow me, okay? You’ll see.”
As they hurry to keep up with me while I race along the trail, the woman calls out, “Perhaps we should get the police involved?”
I turn around and glare at the two of them. “There’s a person up here hurt. Call whoever you want, but he needs you two now!”
My anger soars inside me, and I swear at the next community board meeting, I’m going to bring up how ineffective these people are. We pay for this community to be safe. Clearly, we aren’t getting our money’s worth with these two.
The three of us reach the clearing, and I stop dead at the sight of Bryan all bloody lying on the ground. He isn’t moving, and when I zero in on his chest, he’s still.
Oh my God! He can’t be dead. I still can’t figure out how he shot himself. What kind of moron doesn’t understand to keep guns away from your damn body?
The two paramedics quickly jump into action, and as they hover over Bryan trying to save his life, it’s obvious it’s a useless cause. He’s gone.
But none of this makes sense.
For the next ten minutes, I stand there in shock as the man and woman do their job. I hear him make a call to the police, but they don’t speak to me again. I try to understand what’s happened. Nothing works. This is crazy.
When the police arrive, two uniformed officers look down at Bryan’s dead body for a few moments before walking around the clearing searching for something.
After five minutes of walking around, they make their way to where I’m standing off to the side so I’m not in the way.
My eyes are drawn to their nametags just above their chest pockets.
Ramon and Raintree. Sounds like a sitcom someone in Hollywood would dream up.
Two cops from different backgrounds get together and fight crime in a suburban Maryland town where on many days the most exciting thing to happen is someone left their garbage cans out at the curb too long and the HOA has to send a threatening letter saying they’re going to levy a fine if the receptacles aren’t put away properly.
I wouldn’t watch it, but I bet lots of people would.
“What is your name, sir?” Officer Ramon asks, and I lift my gaze to look at his face.
He reminds me of that actor my wife thinks is handsome.
Actually, what she says is he’s hot. He’s Hispanic, and she claims there’s something about the way he smiles that does it for her.
The man in front of me looks a little more weathered than the guy Jamie drools over, but I bet she’d like him.
She has a type. Why she wanted to date me makes no sense when I think of that.
“Connor,” I answer in a flat voice, still not understanding how any of this happened. “Connor Jennings.”
“Okay, Mr. Jennings. And your address?”
I give him my address and then he asks, “You were the person who called this in?” the officer asks as he fishes out a notebook and pen from his shirt pocket.
“Yes. I mean no. I was with Bryan when it happened, but I wasn’t the person who called 9-1-1. That was the girl at the community center. I ran down there to get help.”
Officer Ramon nods and hums as he jots down the highlights of what I’ve said so far and then lifts his head to look at me again. “You and the victim, Bryan Corsei, were just out for a hike this afternoon when he was shot? Is that what happened?”
I nod before answering, “Yeah, but he wasn’t shot. He shot himself.”
That sounds ridiculous, but I don’t know how else to say it.
“Did he say he wanted to kill himself?”
I shake my head, unsure how to answer that. Did he? I don’t know. I wasn’t exactly listening that closely to what he was saying.
“No. At least I don’t think so. It’s hard to say.”
More humming and nodding happen before he looks me right in the eyes and asks, “Why didn’t you just call the ambulance from your cell phone?”
I sheepishly pat the pockets in my pants for some reason, even though I know my phone isn’t on me. “I…I guess I don’t have it. To be honest, I’m not sure why I didn’t realize it before when I was leaving the house, but I don’t have my phone.”
That’s not completely honest, but I’m not really in the mood to explain about how little care my wife takes with my clothes. That information doesn’t seem necessary for these two to know.
His gaze trails down my body to where my hands were feeling around for my phone a few seconds ago and then back up to my face. I see immediately he doesn’t believe me.
“So I’m guessing you routinely leave your phone at home when you come out here hiking?”
For a split second, I consider lying. It certainly would make things go better at this moment.
I should just say I always leave my phone at home when I go out hiking on these trails, but something tells me Officer Ramon wouldn’t believe that.
I’m a pretty good liar, but I’m not sure I could lie about something right now, and even worse, all he’d have to do is talk to my wife and he’d find out the truth.
“Um, no. Actually, I usually have my phone on me.”
Officer Raintree finally speaks up and from behind his fellow policeman, he asks far less politely than his partner, “So then why didn’t you have it on you today? That seems odd, doesn’t it?”
I scramble to think of an answer that will sound plausible. I don’t know why I didn’t bring my phone with me when I came to meet Bryan. It’s completely unlike me. I always have my phone with me.
Shaking my head, I answer the best I can.
“I don’t know. I did run into some problems when I was trying to find a pair of pants to wear today.
My wife had stuffed them into the back of the closet, and they were wrinkly when I found them.
I was pretty angry about that. Maybe that made me forget my phone.
I don’t know. I imagine it’s sitting on the bed where I must have left it before I walked out of the house to come here. ”
I know how that sounds. Like I’m some idiot. That’s why I didn’t want to mention it.
“Okay, onto what happened here. So you said he was waving a gun around and then he shot himself?”
Again, I nod. “Yes. Well, there may have been some more conversation between those two things. I don’t know. It all happened so fast. We stopped here in the clearing and were talking, and then the next thing I knew, the gun went off and he was lying on the ground.”
As Officer Ramon writes down my comments, Officer Raintree stares at me like he thinks I’m the one who shot Bryan. I want to say I would never hurt a soul, but I know I couldn’t pull off that lie.
Considering my past, that is.
I watch as the paramedics wheel Bryan away on a stretcher, his entire body and face covered by a white sheet. When I turn my attention back to the two officers standing in front of me, I see them staring at me.
“Can I go now? This has been incredibly upsetting.”
“We have a few more questions,” Raintree snaps. “Like for example, did you and the victim routinely come out on these trails hiking? Was this a regular thing you two did together?”
“No. In fact, today is the first time we’ve ever done anything outside of work together.”
That seems to interest Officer Ramon, and once he jots down that detail, he asks, “So you two were coworkers? Where?”
“Chesapeake Siding and Garage Doors. We’re both salesmen.”
“Okay. So while you didn’t routinely go hiking together, you two were friends?” Ramon stops for a moment before adding, “Work friends, I mean.”
“I guess you could say that. We both work in the siding division of the company. Bryan was newer at the company than I was.”
My answers appear to frustrate Officer Raintree, who pipes up with, “So you were coworkers but not friends? Because you two don’t sound very close to me.
I mean, I work with Officer Ramon here all the time, and we’re friends too because we do things outside of work.
That doesn’t sound like what was going on between you and Mr. Corsei. ”
Already irritated by these local cops who probably have dreams of being much bigger than they are, I level my gaze on him and say, “There was nothing going on between me and Bryan. We worked at the same company. I had his number in my phone, and when I needed to get away from my house today since my wife and my two daughters have six preteen girls over for a party, I called him and he asked if I wanted to go hiking. That’s it. Now I need to go.”
I turn to leave and feel a hand squeeze down on my forearm. Looking back at the two officers, I see it’s Officer Raintree who thinks he’s going to detain me.
“Do you have something else you want to ask me?” I ask, lifting my gaze to meet his.
“We aren’t done yet.”
“Well, I am. Unless you’re going to arrest me for something, although I can’t imagine what crime you think I committed, but unless you have cause to arrest me, I’m going home. Goodbye.”
He doesn’t let go of my arm, so I yank it away from his hold and walk away. If they want to talk to me again, they’re going to need to make a damn appointment.