The Man on Little Sweden

by Sam Harding

  “Hello?” I say to the speaker, leaning out my window a bit to be heard over the slight wind.

  “Yes,” a rough voice replies. I don’t recognize it as the doctor’s, it’s too deep and I don’t notice any trace of an accent.

  “I’m here to see Dr. Shultz.”

  “Name?”

  Is he expecting anyone other than me? “Micah Donovan, I’m a private det –” Before I can finish my sentence, the sound of screeching metal splits the air. I look out my windshield and see the large gate swing inward on rusty hinges. “Thanks,” I say to the speaker, doubtful anyone is listening anymore.

  I pull forward and notice the driveway leading into Dr. Shultz’s property has recently been plowed and sanded unlike Little Sweden. If my memory serves me correctly, it’s a long driveway, which is fine with me because I still haven’t quite mentally prepared myself for my arrival.

  On my left side, I see a massive frozen pond surrounded by shrubbery and bare trees. The pond stretches far out, disappearing into the dark canopy of the small section of woods that got caught in the perimeter of the stone wall. Although I’d never been invited, I’ve been told this is the pond Dr. Shultz used to invite his friends to for a yearly duck hunt. Judging by the location and size of the pond, I can imagine the yearly duck turn-out is probably pretty high.

  Just as I start to turn my attention away from the pond, I do a double-take as a large bull elk emerges from the trees on the far end nearly two hundred yards away. Its antlers are absolutely massive, and I estimate they must be four feet above its head, the animal itself is at least seven feet tall. I slow my Bronco to a crawl as I watch the animal, who I see is also watching me.

  Again, I’m reminded of the gray-eyed man in Solace, only this time, I am not afraid. I feel relaxed, the majesty of the beast seems to sooth me in almost the same way Dani’s voice does whenever she visits.

  The bull bows its head and sniffs the snow, and seeing there is nothing to eat, it moves its massive frame over to one of the snow-covered shrubs at the edge of the pond. Then, after using one of its forked antlers to knock snow from the vegetation, the elk takes a chunk of shrub into its mouth and violently rips it free from the rest of the bush. It continues to watch me as it chews, not at all seeming to consider I may be a hunter of some sort.

  The bull suddenly lifts its massive head and looks towards the far end of the property. There must be a sudden sound that I cannot hear and I can’t tell what it’s looking at; the sunny sky has vanished under a blanket of low white clouds that matches the ground, making the distant horizon nearly impossible to see into. And, just like that, the large animal turns towards the trees and bolts for the safety of the forest. I exhale, just now realizing I’ve been holding my breath the entire time.

  *

  “Negative, he was just watching an elk.”

  “Really?” The reply crackled over the radio. “A big elk?”

  “Pretty fucking big – probably the one that almost got Rick fired.”

  The white-clad man lowered his thermal monocular as the gray Bronco passed him on the long driveway. He set the device down on the snow next to him and repositioned the AR-10 rifle against his right shoulder, leaving the weapon on safe as he tracked the vehicle in the non-thermal aperture. He had no intentions of pulling the trigger, he was just a big fan of the new Bronco design and wanted a closer look.

  “Fucking Rick,” the voice crackled back. “Shultz was so pissed, man.”

  “Wouldn’t you be too if someone tried shooting an animal on your property?”

  “Well, yeah. Especially if I was clear about not hunting to begin with.”

  Because of this, the man known as Rick was now permanently assigned to the mansion. It was the only way the rest of the team could keep him from being fired, although he definitely deserved to be fired.

  They were a team of four, and had been a team since serving together at 2nd Ranger Battalion at Fort Lewis over four years ago. Since getting out of the military, the four friends, if they were even that, had put together their own private security company, offering contracts to rich people in search of top-of-the line security services. Since starting their company, they had done low-end contracts in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and even Eastern Europe, nearly tripling the deployment time they’d had while serving with the Army’s famed special operations direct action force. Their most current contract, although far from glamorous or action-packed, was the largest contract they’d yet to snag. It would bring in an extra half-million to their small company’s revenue, helping with the dream of expanding into something much larger and marketable.

  The man now prone in the snow behind the AR-10 rifle, could hardly believe his ears when he’d received the first call from Dr. Shultz. All that was required was protection for the entire months of December and January for half a million dollars. More specifically, protection from the infamous killer known as the Christmas Eve Butcher. Apparently, Dr. Shultz was still terrified of the killer after having lost his son to the savage nearly five years ago.

  On the bright side, he and his three partners were making a lot of money for such an easy contract, but on the negative side, the boredom of the contract was getting to them, and Rick nearly poaching a bull elk on the property was a perfect example of that.

  “Who’s this guy supposed to be again?” The radio crackled.

  The sniper rolled his eyes. “Did you not pay attention this morning?”

  “Not really.”

  Jesus. “Shultz says he’s a private detective. Apparently, the guy also got some kind of history with the Butcher and Shultz’s is hopeful he can solve the case before he croaks of cancer.”

  “Oh, yeah. Right.”

  The sniper rolled his eyes again and rested his forehead on the scope of his rifle. He still had three hours left on this shift before he got to rotate inside the mansion for some chow. It was about to be a long and cold three hours. To top it off, a large snowflake landed on the end of his rifle and he knew there was about to be plenty more where that came from.

  “Perfect.”

  *

  There’s a half-smoked cigarette dangling from my lips that I’d started well before making it to the house. I inhale deeply, hoping the nicotine buzz will calm my nerves, which have been getting more and more agitated with every inch I draw closer. I exhale a cloud of the gray toxin, letting it drift out of my car and into the freezing air through the rolled down window, and force myself to look ahead at the massive structure before me.

  It’s like driving up to Wayne Manor from Batman. There is a large, angelic, concrete statue directly in front of the house, encircled by the wide driveway. Because of the time of year, there is no water running from the fountain, but just the design alone sends an unreasonable chill up my spine. Branching off from the right side of the house at a perpendicular angle, running parallel to the driveway, is a large five-door garage. One of the middle doors is rolled open, and inside I can see a silver BMW 8-Series, an Aston Martin DB9 and the newest model of Range Rover with large snow tires. I can only imagine what the rest of the garage contains behind its brick façade. The house, itself, looks more like a brick castle than any home I have ever seen. It’s a three-story Elizabethan-themed country house that seems to span from left to right almost endlessly. At all four corners of the house, there is a tower which adds an additional fourth floor to the structure. From the center of the structure where a courtyard would typically exist, there is an even wider, block-like tower, adding an additional two floors to the impressive design. Large windows from the top of the center tower lead me to believe it’s the home of the master bedroom.

  Although I’ve been here once before, I’d nearly forgotten what a fucking palace this place was. All built on the shoulders of rich European ancestry, and a self-made psychiatric empire.

  I take a final drag from my cigarette and then stub it out in the vehicle’s ashtray as I drive around the large fountain and pull up to the front steps of th
e house. With a heavy sigh, I throw the Bronco into park, pause for a brief moment, and then open the door. I take a half-second to test the icy driveway with my prosthetic foot and am pleased to find my boot grips just fine on the freshly sanded ice. Standing to full height, I then take another calming breath, close my car door, and approach the front steps of the house.

  It takes all the will-power I can muster to not light another cigarette as I climb the stairs. I can feel my heart thumping in my chest and my breath quickens. It’s as if I’m about to knock on the doors separating the real world from the pits of hell.

  I stand in front of the large mahogany double doors for a long time, studying the pattern of the wood as if I’m truly interested in the fucking slab. I’m not, of course. I’m merely delaying the inevitable while simultaneously trying to convince myself to not be such a fucking pussy.

  After another deep breath, I raise my right fist and knock.

  I’m surprised to hear movement on the other side of the door so quickly. There’s the scrape of a lock being disengaged, and then the click of the door mechanism. I swallow hard as one side of the heavy double doors begins to swing inward.

  I’m about to greet whoever it is that has opened the door, no doubt a butler of some kind, but my voice catches in my throat. The man standing before me is most definitely not a butler. He’s dressed head to toe in a winter white combat uniform with a MP5 submachine gun hanging from a sling against his chest. He has a thick black beard atop an almost equally dark face, his eyes a cool brown as they look me up and down.

  “You’re Mr. Donovan, I take it?” He asks me, his deep voice confirming he’s the one I spoke to on the intercom outside the front gate.

  “I am, and you are?” I raise an eyebrow in confusion, unable to figure out why Dr. Shultz’s door man is a gun-wielding, six-foot-four-inch walking chunk of muscle.

  “My name’s Rick, I’m with Dr. Shultz’s personal protection detail.”

  “I’m sorry, his what?”

  Rick shrugged his bowling ball-sized shoulders. “Dunno how else I can explain it. Details aren’t really for me to discuss, man.” He steps to the side, allowing me access to the house.

  For a brief moment, I forget about Rick as I step into the massive foyer. My boots echo on the polished marble flooring, sending waves up sound into the wide-open area. An impressive chandelier hangs over the center of the room, and two sets of stairs run up the wall on both sides of the open space to the second-floor mezzanine overlooking the foyer. Although the power to the chandelier is off, the room is still well lit with natural light due to the two stories of huge windows above me, illuminating a sight I’ve never wanted to see again, a floor pattern that enters my dreams as often as any murderous wife and child. The marble floor is made of a swirling pattern of black and gray, the swirls each making their way to the center of the room like the rifling of a gun barrel.

  In that brief moment, I am transported back to nearly five years ago.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Living With Your Ghosts

  NEARLY FIVE YEARS Ago

  The sunlight shone through the massive foyer windows, casting beams of yellow light directly onto the display in the center of the room so perfectly, it looked as if it had been just as deliberate as the placement of the body. The wet blood glinted in the rays, like a red ocean at sunset, but at the center of that ocean was a whole different hell entirely.

  I felt sick to my stomach, unable to think about anything other than my own son back home with his mother. The Nikon hanging from my neck felt like it weighed a ton, and I couldn’t help but take it all in before I started snapping pictures. It was by far, the most grotesque scene I had ever witnessed in my eight years on the police force.

  Simon Shultz, the ten-year-old son of famous psychiatrist Heinrich Shultz, lay in the middle of the black and white marble spiral, his entire body was dismembered and deliberately separated on the floor like some sort of sick display of art.

  The boy’s naked torso had been placed directly on the center of the marble design, and his head was placed exactly two feet above the neck. Simon’s green eyes and mouth were open in a display of horror and surprise, as if he’d seen his own death coming before the blow actually came. His wavy blonde hair was neatly combed back, and spots of it had even been gelled in order to keep it in place. The arms and legs had each been cut in to three separate pieces; upper, lower, and then the hands or feet. Each part lay on the floor exactly two feet from the piece it was supposed to connect to. Maybe mostly disturbing of all was the fact Simon’s genitals had been removed as well and were also placed two feet from where they had once been attached.

  “Who the fuck would do something like this?”

  I looked at Detective Kohl who stood on my right and slowly shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “The kid’s entire body is bruised,” Kohl pointed out. “Like he was beat before he was killed.”

  My partner was right. Blotches of black and blue were scattered about the small, dismembered torso, and immediately my theory pointed to the obvious. “Torture.”

  When the last of the crime scene techs moved away from the body, I stepped forward, pointing and shooting with my camera, making sure to get both far and near photos of the gruesome scene, adding to the photos the techs already took. I then squatted down next to the body, careful not to step in any blood. I held my breath as I bent close to one of the severed arms and shined my flashlight on the cuts. They looked like they could have been made only hours ago, which meant Simon had most likely been alive up until this morning. The cuts looked like they were done almost surgically, there were no signs of jerking or slipping, leading me to believe the killer had used an incredibly sharp blade, especially since the bone cuts were just as clean as the cuts into the skin and muscle.

  On the other side of the body, Detective Kohl had noticed the same thing. “Looks like it was done with some kind of saw,” he said. “Like a really sharp chop saw or something like that.”

  I only nodded, not wanting to speak and get even more of my DNA on the body than I was already doing. I slowly moved up to the head and forced myself to ignore my sinking heart as I looked into Simon’s lifeless eyes.

  I noticed that around the young boy’s skull, there was a red mark, about the width of a belt, that wrapped around the circumference of his head. Before I pointed it out to Kohl, he asked me having already seen it, “What’s the red mark on his forehead?”

  I thought about it for a second before I came up with an answer. The thought nearly made me sick to my stomach, but I swallowed my urge to puke and responded in a low voice, “It’s from a strap. Jesus, Jason, his head was strapped down to something while it was cut off.”

  Kohl’s normally dark complexion turned pale, and when I saw his eyes avert to the small piece of spinal column protruding from the severed head, I thought for sure he was going to throw up. But no, Detective Jason Kohl managed to keep his lunch down.

  “This –” Kohl said, pausing to swallow. “This is the start to something big. No way this is a one and done.”

  “The media is going to have a field day,” I said, looking up from the severed body and at all the uniformed patrolmen in the large room. I could see one of the patrol sergeants conversing with one of his officers who had just come in from another part of the house having interviewed the boy’s father. I appreciated the effort on their part, but I fully intended to interview Dr. Shultz myself as soon as I was finished looking over the scene.

  “We’d better find the son of a bitch who did this soon,” Jason said, rising from his squat.

  I stood up too and looked my partner in the eye. “All I know is, we can’t let this happen to another kid.”

  At the time, I had no idea this would only mark the beginning of my nightmare.

  *

  Present Day

  “I’m going to need to search you, sir.”

  “Excuse me?” I say, looking to the armed guard as I’m torn from a
memory I wish I could forget.

  “I need to search you,” Rick says again. “For weapons.”

  “I’ll help you out,” I say, pulling my leather jacket and plaid shirt aside to reveal the Heckler & Koch on my left hip. “I’m armed.”

  “I’m going to need to take that,” Rick says, taking a step forward.

  I take a step back. “Like hell you are.”

  Rick stops and suddenly his friendly demeanor changes, his training—whatever training he has—has put him in defensive mode. “Sir, Dr. Shultz is very clear he doesn’t want anyone on the premises with a firearm of any –"

  “If Dr. Shultz has a problem with me carrying a gun, then Dr. Shultz can find a new fucking P.I. That’s entirely up to him. And what’s entirely up to you, Rick, is whether or not you want to have a problem with me.” Judging by Rick’s size, and by the fact he’s probably former Special Forces, I know my odds aren’t exactly high that I can beat him in a one-on-one fight. That said, the last thing I’m about to do is give this rent-a-Rambo my fucking weapon. If he takes it after kicking my ass, then so be it, I guess.

  “Oh, so it’s gunna be like that, huh?” Rick steps forward and his hands start to come up.

  I put my hands up too, knowing fully well this fight will not turn out like my last one with Duane Klimek. This one, win or lose, is going to hurt. A lot. I see Rick step forward with his left foot just as his right hand starts to move towards me. I’m just about to get ready for the attack when –

  “Hey!”

  The female voice stops Rick and I cold, as if someone pushed the pause button on a remote control. We both look up to the mezzanine where the voice had come from and my jaw nearly falls to the floor.

  Standing there with her hands on the wooden railing, looking down at us, is none other than Kathryn Shultz. Although her angry expression is capable of scaring any man to his core, the daughter of Dr. Heinrich Shultz is probably one of the most beautiful women I have ever laid eyes on with the exception of my Dani. Her long, raven black hair flows down past her shoulders, framing her porcelain-like face in a perfect picture. With her tight sweater and even tighter kaki paints with knee-high black boots, it baffles me how the princess of the Shultz family has remained single for all her twenty-nine years. The first time I’d ever laid eyes on her had been during a brief interview not long after her little brother’s murder, and even in her state of grief, I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she’d looked.