by Sam Harding
Behind me, people are loud and obnoxious at their tables. Some are drunk and covered in sauce from buffalo chicken wings and the others are well on their way to getting there. Beyond the tables for food are the tables for Billiards, which are also taken up by loud people fueled by alcohol. Occasionally, the loud crack! of the cue ball smacking into another ball overtakes the sounds of voices and clinking glasses. I might be guilty of enjoying too much to drink from time to time, but I’ve never been able to drink in a place as loud as this.
“Fucking believe this fucking bullshit?” Blake growls, lightly backhanding my arm and then gesturing towards the TV. “How hard is it not to get penalized for holding? I mean, fucking shit, if they get paid that much money and can’t even avoid a simple penalty, then they should have their fucking hands cut off – or something.”
Great, I think to myself, realizing Blake is already shit-faced. I just shrug and say, “Or something.”
“Like your jacket,” Blake says looking it over. “Brown leather is always the way to go.”
It’s not lost on me that a man who hates my guts just gave me a compliment. I know he doesn’t know who I am, but I still find it somewhat humorous. “Thanks, dude.”
“You here for the game? It’s actually been a good one so far even though the Hawks can’t do a thing without getting a fucking yellow flag thrown at them.”
I glance up at the TV and see Seattle has a decent 21-3 lead over Los Angeles. That’s a good sign for me because although Blake is drunk, maybe he’ll be a somewhat happy and cooperative drunk.
“I actually came to see you, Bill,” I say, remembering he preferred it to William.
Blake turns to face me, his glassy eyes narrowing. “Do I know you, pal?”
“You did. We used to work together.”
His eyes squint even harder, as if he’s trying to read the fine print on a life-changing contract. After a moment, his squinty eyes widen like an owl and he says, “Fucking Donovan?”
“My first name is actually Micah, but yeah.” I smile, not because I’m happy to see him but because I’m just trying to put him at ease. Three years, hopefully, is a long enough time apart to forget a grudge.
“Micah Fucking Donovan,” he says, still in apparent disbelief.
“Close enough.” My middle name is actually James, but whatever.
“What the hell are you doing here? I thought you moved away or some shit.” The expression on his face is neutral, neither happy nor angry.
“No, I’ve just been doing my own thing. Healing.”
“That’s right, your leg,” he says, looking down at my legs. “Two feet. You’re like a cyborg.”
“Sure.”
“What do you want with me?”
“Hopefully, your help.”
Blake laughs, accidentally burping in the process. “You want my help? I thought you fucking hated my guts.”
“Look, I really don’t give a shit about our bad blood years ago. I’m just concerned with right now. Cop-to-cop.”
“That’s great n’all, but there’s only one problem.” He leans forward, his face inches from mine. “You ain’t a cop no more.”
I smell the booze on his breath and it forces me to recoil a little. “Not officially, no. I’m a private detective now.”
“Oh, fancy,” he says in a mocking tone.
I continue as if I don’t notice his condescending attitude, as if I don’t already know this is not at all going the way I’d hoped and is instead going the way I knew it would. “I’ve been hired to investigate the Christmas Eve Butcher.” Keeping my voice low is hard in a place so loud, but I do my best.
“That sucks, I’ve already got that job.”
“I know, Art told me. That’s why I was hoping you could help me.”
“Oh, Art told you, did he?” He makes a face at me, mocking me like I’m trying to make myself sound important. “Well, Art should know better than to send you my way.”
“I just need some help,” I say, keeping my cool. “All I’m asking is to see my old files –”
“Oh, is that all?” Blake leans forward again. This time, I don’t recoil. “Here’s the deal, this was your case, but it ain’t now. It’s mine. You had your fucking chance and you blew it, remember? Or have you forgotten about your missing leg and your dead wife?”
I’d done a really good job keeping my cool up until this point, but the second he says “dead wife,” my eyes see nothing but red. My right elbow comes up, catching Blake under the chin and snapping his head back with such force, I can hear his teeth snap on each other as he flips off the back of his barstool. As soon as his back hits the ground, I’m already up on my feet and closing in. His hands go to his bloody mouth as I stand over top of him and drop a knee into his ribs. Blake groans and, on impulse, reaches for my leg, leaving his mouth exposed. Using the underside of my right hand like a hammer, I pound Blake in the face twice before feeling the cartilage in his nose break beneath my hand. Within seconds, he’s asleep on the floor of the bar.
It’s not lost on me that I’d just committed third degree assault on a police officer, but at this point I really don’t give a shit. I quickly get to my feet and spin around, immediately noticing the bar has gotten a lot quieter. Every eye in the place is on me and I feel very out numbered.
To my right, I hear an old man’s voice and realize it’s the bartender. “Son, I don’t know what in the hell Bill did to deserve that, but you need to go before I call the cops.”
“Bill’s an asshole,” I say, not taking my eyes off of the crowd. The man closest to me is a lumberjack of a man who had been sitting to my left at the bar, and I hope to God he’s not in a fighting mood. Truth is, had Blake not of been shit-faced and had I not have taken him by surprise, I don’t think the fight would have turned out in my favor.
“Bill has always been an asshole,” the bartender says. “But that doesn’t mean you can just beat the shit out of him in my bar. Don’t make me ask you to leave again.”
“Yes, sir,” I say respectfully.
Not daring to let my guard down in case someone wants to take a beer bottle to my skull, I head straight for the exit. I’m walking fairly quickly, but I feel like it’s taking me forever to reach the door under the neon exit sign. When I do, I breathe an audible sigh of relief and step out into the cold just as the commentator on the TV announces another Seahawks touchdown. The sound of the game fades to the far more welcoming sound of the door clicking shut behind me.
“Fuck,” I say out loud as I head to my Bronco. I hadn’t expected my conversation with Blake to be sunshine and rainbows, but I hadn’t at all expected I’d be leaving the scene of an assault.
I hop behind the wheel of my Ford and start the engine. Oh well, I think to myself. If I get in trouble, I get in trouble. The asshole disrespected Dani and fucking deserved more than what he got.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
A Dark Bloody Hole
THE PLEASANT VALLEY Apartments are low income apartments located in town across the road from a Les Schwab’s tire shop. I find that the low prices, usually around $750 a month, likely have something to do with the sound of drills and clinking coming from across the street, but that’s really just a theory. Either way, it apparently was a suitable enough place for Dennis O’Leary, former primary suspect of the Christmas Eve Butcher case, to hang his hat.
From the open window of my Bronco, I smell marijuana smoke the second I pull into the parking lot of the apartment complex, no doubt coming from the few open windows I see from my vehicle. Other than pot and regular cigarettes, I see no reason to have an open window when it’s twenty-six degrees outside. Apparently low rent also meant low standards. Even I don’t smoke cigarettes in my own house.
I put the Bronco in park and feel a slight ache in my right hand when I grab the gearshift. It’s been a couple of hours since I knocked Blake’s lights out at Flannigan’s, and although I know the discomfort in my hand will most likely get worse, I’m happy Art hasn
’t called me to ask why I assaulted his detective. My theory—and hope—is that Blake will be far too proud to ever admit he got his ass kicked for disrespecting the dead wife of an ex-cop.
I take a long pull from my own cigarette as I get out of my vehicle. Locking the Bronco behind me, I approach the white painted apartments, my eyes scanning the first-floor doors for room 108. To be expected, it’s the eighth door from the left. Glad to see my detective skills are still razor sharp, I approach 108 and stand to the right side of the door out of habit, take another drag, and then knock on the door. I’ve learned long ago that there’s an art to door knocking. Cops tend to knock a certain way, more of a pound than a knock really. People on the other side of the door tend to pick up on that, and often times bad guys won’t answer the door just based on the knock alone. Because of this, my knock is a light rap with my knuckles, barely loud enough to be heard from the far reaches of the apartment.
I wait a few seconds and then knock again, this time a little bit louder. Unfortunately, the only window looking into the apartment is blocked with curtains, so I can’t tell if someone’s home or not. On top of that, I’m not sure if O’Leary even drives so I have no way of knowing if his car is one of the few in the parking lot. That’s one of the things I miss about being a cop and having access to a database that can run license plates.
When O’Leary fails to answer for the second time, my impatience gets the best of me and I try his doorknob. Surprisingly, the door is unlocked, and so I open it just a crack so that I can try yelling for O’Leary instead of knocking a third time. I’m about to call his name when the smell hits me, filling my nostrils with the all-to recognizable smell of a decaying dead body.
On instinct, I draw my pistol and brace my body against the right side of the doorframe. Using my right hand, I push the door the rest of the way open, letting it lightly bang against the wall inside. With my weapon up, I aim it inside the apartment and peer inside with my left eye,
Most of the apartment is dark, but I can see a dim light on deep inside, probably where the living room is located. From where I’m standing, I can’t see any signs of forced entry; no damage to the door or doorframe and no signs of a mess inside the home to indicate a fight or struggle had taken place. At this point, I know I should just call 911 and wait outside for the real police to show up. It’s just after seven P.M. which means my buddy Jason is on shift and would most likely be one of the first officers on scene.
Bearing that in mind and knowing it’s the right thing to do, I choose the other option. Keeping my weapon high, I enter the apartment. Already, my adrenaline is high and I feel my heart thumping in my chest. It’s been three years since I’ve cleared a house with my weapon drawn, and I’d forgotten how much I’ve missed it.
A short hallway in the entryway opens to a small kitchen to the right, which is where I check first, the barrel of my pistol leading the way. Due to the low-light conditions, I click on the Streamlight tactical flashlight mounted on the rail underneath my handgun’s barrel. The high-powered white light illuminates the entire kitchen, revealing everything typically belonging in a kitchen and not a person waiting to ambush me in the darkness.
I sweep the pistol back to the left and continue forward towards the dim light further inside. I pass through another short hallway before stepping foot into the beginnings of the living room. At this point, the smell is extremely powerful and I can make out a new smell, distinguishable from any other smell in the world: brain matter.
I turn right at the end of the hallway, and that’s when I see it. Dennis O’Leary is slumped on a green sofa against the left wall facing a turned off TV mounted to the wall on my right. A lamp on a small table next to the couch illuminates the scene before me, and even though I can clearly see what’s going on, I have to give it a little extra long of a look in order to convince myself that I’m actually seeing what I’m seeing.
There’s a dark bloody hole, about the circumference of my thumb, in the right side of O’Leary’s skull. The entire right side of his face, including his blonde hair and neck is stained with thick blood. His sweatshirt is caked with even more blood as well as brain and bone fragments that had fallen and drained from the hole. His eyes are wide and rolled back into his head with dried blood oozing from the sockets around them as well as from his nostrils. Strangest of all, is that in his right hand there is a power drill fit with an impressively large drill bit. As I move forward, I can see the bit is stained red and its grooves contain chunks of brain and ground up bone matter.
I think back to my meeting with Dr. Shultz and remember him warning me O’Leary usually has psychotic episodes this time of year due to the trauma put upon him from being a suspect in the beginnings of the investigation. It looks to me like this year, instead of hurting someone else, O’Leary had settled for himself. Judging by the condition of the body and the smell, I estimate he’s been dead for maybe a week.
I curse to myself, click off my tactical light and lower my pistol. Deciding it’s now time to do the sensible thing, I pull my iPhone from my jacket pocket and dial 911.
*
It takes fifteen minutes for an officer to arrive on scene, and as I’d hoped, it’s Jason Kohl. He probably jumped on the call as soon as he saw on his mobile data terminal that I was the complainant. My luck runs out though, when another cruiser pulls into the parking lot a few seconds behind him. There’s a young Hispanic male behind the wheel who I’ve never seen before, and already I’m trying to think of the best way to get rid of him.
I’m standing in an empty parking spot in front of the apartment complex with a smoke in my hand. My original hope was that the smoke from the cigarette and the secondhand marijuana fumes from nearby open windows would be enough to override the smell of Dennis O’Leary’s decaying body, but it doesn’t seem to be working. His smell has seeped into nostrils and has decided to hang around for a while whether I like it or not.
Both officers approach me and I can see the Hispanic’s name is Ruiz by the stitching on his tactical vest. Both men are wearing black beanies to combat the cold, both sets of headgear embroidered with a black and white American flag with a blue line running diagonally through the center.
“I thought your job was all about taking pictures of cheating husbands,” Kohl says, shaking my hand. “Micah this is Officer Ruiz, one of our newest and brightest.”
I shake Ruiz’s hand and say, “Pleasure to meet you, but you can clear.”
Ruiz’s once pleasant expression turns sour. “Excuse me?”
“I said you can clear. This is a DOA suicide, Kohl can do these in his sleep. Thanks for coming, though.”
“Look man, that’s not up to you –”
Kohl puts up a hand, silencing Ruiz in mid-sentence. Looking at me with a confused expression he says, “You sure about that?”
I nod. “I’m sure.”
Kohl shrugs and looks at the junior officer. “Clear out kid. I’ve got this.”
“Wait, what?” Ruiz clearly can’t believe what he’s hearing. “Who the hell is he to –”
“I said clear out,” Kohl says again, this time with a sharp edge to his voice. “Just before pulling in, I remember seeing a burg on the board. Go take that, it’s been holding since dayshift got off.”
Knowing he was clearly outranked, Ruiz simply shakes his head, mutters something in Spanish that neither Kohl or I can comprehend and heads back to his patrol car. I don’t say another word until he’s put the vehicle in drive and is on his way out of the parking lot.
“I like him.”
“He’s a good one,” Kohl says. “Which is why I hope you’ve got a good explanation for why you put me in charge of a DOA and not the new guy.”
“Before we go in there,” I say, pointing to the closed door of apartment 108. “There’s something I need to let you know first. But I need you to promise you won’t go into too much detail about it when you write your report. I also don’t want this to be the topic of some conversation
between you and a buddy at a door-to-door dinner tonight.”
“Okay, yeah man. What’s going on?”
Not wanting to dance around the issue, I cut right to the chase. “Earlier this morning I took a job to close the case of the Christmas Eve Butcher. The man who hired me was Dr. Heinrich Shultz.”
“Are you for real?” Kohl takes a step closer to me and drops his voice to a whisper. “Micah – Micah I thought you once told me you’d never go down this road again – I thought –”
“I thought so too, but don’t you think it’s finally time I stop being such a fucking coward and actually get justice for my family? For all the other families that have also been hurt by this? You knew Dani, Jason and she adored you and your ex-wife – don’t you think I owe it to her to get the fucker who murdered her?” I feel my eyes mist over and I blink hard, fighting like hell to prevent the tears from spilling over my bottom eyelids.
Kohl takes a deep breath. “I hear you, I do. It’s just that – man, I left detectives because of what that case did to me. I can’t even imagine what it did to you. Besides, Blake is on the case now and there’s no way he’s going to help you out no matter how personal this is for you.”
“I know he won’t, I already asked him.” I decide to keep vague on that part. “But Art says he’ll help me as much as he can whether Blake likes it or not, so there’s that.”
“I thought the Man on Little Sweden was in hiding, or something. So, what, he just calls you out of the blue?”
“More or less, yeah. He actually used West to get to me, but that’s not relevant. Look Jason, this is why I needed your partner to go. The more people that know about what I’m up to, the more I put Thomas in danger – more than I already am right now. I can’t stress this enough, man.”