Unforgiven: A Conspiracy Thriller

by Stacey Fields

  He reached into his pocket to pull out the little slip of paper. As he did, another piece of paper came with it—the one with Lindsey O'Neil's number on it. He turned the paper over in his hand, not sure what to do. If he called her, he'd have to explain things to her. But maybe explaining them to her wouldn't be as bad as dealing with Officer Connolly yet again.

  Reluctantly he picked up his cell phone and dialed her number, pushing call before he had a chance to re-think his decision.

  "Hello?" a groggy voice answered.

  "Lindsey?" he asked.

  "Who is this?" she replied her voice half alert.

  "It's Michael, Michael Kent. From the station earlier."

  "You know, Mr. Kent, when I gave you my number and said we could talk, I meant some time that wasn't in the middle of the night," she said tiredly. He could hear her fall back against something soft—her bed he imagined.

  "No, it's not that," he said quickly. "Look, I need your help."

  "What is it?" she sounded sleepy, but still worried.

  "Do you know a paramedic?" he asked. "You know, one that is good at keeping their mouth shut."

  "Michael, what the hell are you talking about?" He could tell that he had her full attention now.

  "Do you know one or not?"

  "Yes," she answered, "but not one that's going to take care of whatever it is you're dealing with and not report it."

  "Damn it," he said under his breath.

  "Are you okay?" she asked, concerned.

  "I'm fine, forget about it."

  "Look," she started hesitantly. " I had some field training. If it's nothing major, I may be able to help."

  "It's just a few stitches," he said, trying to look at the back of his head in the reflection of the window in the family room.

  "Stitches?" She took a deep breath, "what have you gotten into?"

  "Are you going to help or not?"

  She sighed deeply and waited a moment before answering. "Fine…" she said a little frustrated, "What's the address?"

  It didn’t take her long to show up at his house. He still had the towel and ice pressed to the back of his head when he answered the door. “Thank you for coming,” he said turning to head back down the hallway before she even entered.

  “I’m guessing you’re not going to tell me what this is about?” she asked as she followed him in, pushing the door closed behind her.

  He stopped when he reached the kitchen and turned around to face her as she walked down the hall in his direction. “Would you believe me if I told you I slipped in the shower?”

  When she got close she squinted at the gash on his forehead and his now misshapen nose. “No,” she said firmly.

  “Then no, I’m not going to tell you,” he smiled at her before turning to head for the kitchen sink. When he pulled the towel away from his head it was covered in blood. He let it fall to the sink. “Let’s get this over with,” he said turning back to her.

  He walked across the room and sat down in a chair at the kitchen table. “Here?” she asked, looking a little surprised.

  “Where else would we go?” he responded, waiting.

  “I don’t know, a bathroom maybe?”

  “This will do,” he said turning away from her so she could observe the gash in the back of his head.

  She reached out hesitantly to pull back the hair that was covering it, and leaned in to get a better look. “This would be easier if you didn’t have so much hair,” she said finally, standing up straight and grabbing for her purse.

  “What, you don’t like it?” he said, playfully brushing back the hair from his face and turning to look up at her.

  She rolled her eyes as she threaded the needle. “Let’s just say it doesn’t suit you,” she said walking over to the stove and turning on one of the burners. She sterilized the needle in the flame, and returned to his side. “You’re really not going to tell me what happened?” she asked as she worked. The poking and pulling at the back of his head hurt, but it wasn’t the worst pain he had felt that day.

  He sighed as he thought for a moment about whether or not to answer her question. “Have you ever heard of a man named Mickey Walsh?” he asked her, deciding that he still couldn’t trust her enough to tell her everything.

  “Hmm,” she muttered as she leaned back and snipped the end of the thread. “The name sounds familiar.” She walked around to his side, nudging at his shoulder so that he turned to face her. She knelt down and grabbed his face in her hands, looking closely at the cut on his forehead. “Is he the one that did this to you?” she asked as she once again went to sterilize the needle.

  “Not in so many words,” he shrugged.

  When she returned to begin working on his forehead, he couldn’t help but observe her face, as it was hovering so close to his. Her hair wasn’t pulled back anymore, and it hung loosely around her shoulders. Her eyes were focused, and her skin was perfectly clear, almost porcelain looking.

  When she finished her work, she took a seat at the table next to him, taking in her surroundings. “This place is a little empty,” she observed. “Did you just move in?”

  “About seven months ago,” he answered leaning back in his chair.

  “Seven months?” she asked turning to look at him.

  “It was supposed to be ours—mine and Rachel’s. I guess I haven’t had it in me to fix it up.”

  “You might feel better if you did,” she said bluntly, fixing her gaze to his.

  “You’re going to tell me what I should be doing, now? Why does everyone think they know what I should be doing to ‘feel better’?” His tone carried a hint of frustration in it, but she didn’t let that deter her.

  “No offense, Michael, but maybe you should start taking their advice. I mean,” she took her eyes off of him and scanned the house again. “It’s obvious that you’re not handling all of this very well.”

  “Excuse me?” he was starting to yell. “I’m not ‘handling’ the murder of my fiancée well?” he laughed mockingly at her observation. “How am I supposed to be ‘handling’ it?”

  She turned back to look at him, not intimidated by his anger. “Better than this,” she said motioning around the room. “What you’re going through is hard. Believe me, I know that it’s hard. But you can’t let it keep you frozen in that time like this. As cliché as it sounds, it’s not what she would have wanted. You’re still here, and she’s not, and that sucks. But now it’s up to you to continue living for both of you.”

  She said the words bluntly, almost aggressively. The look in her eyes let Michael know that she truly felt what she was saying. “You know, do you?” he asked, but not aggressively.

  “About a year ago, my partner was killed on the job,” she explained slowly. The expression on her face shifted to one of sadness and hurt. As she continued speaking, she shifted her gaze to the floor. “I was there,” she said. “I was with him. I saw it happen. I tried to save him, but I couldn’t. By the time the medics showed up, it was too late.”

  “What happened?” he asked, although he wasn’t sure if he should have.

  “We were looking into a lead on a case we were working. There was this new drug on the streets, and we thought we had found one of the main distributors. When we showed up in front of the house, warrant in hand, the suspect just opened fire. He didn’t say a word to either of us, just started shooting. Then he took off running. I couldn’t catch him. I tried. God knows I tried, but I couldn’t.”

  “Did you get the guy eventually?”

  “Does that really matter?” she asked him seriously.

  “What do you mean? Of course it does!” Michael sat up quickly, leaning forward.

  “Well, we did. We got the guy.” She shrugged. “But it didn’t get the drug off the streets; it didn’t bring my partner back. It didn’t make it easier to accept that he was gone. It didn’t stop the nightmares and the almost debilitating pain that spread through my chest when I thought of him.”

  “What
did?”

  “Living. I eventually got to a place that I realized that I had to keep on living. It wasn’t easy, but every day it got a little better. It’s not that I don’t miss him anymore; it’s just that missing him has become a part of who I am. It’s what motivates me to keep going. I owe it to him, and I owe it to myself.”

  Chapter 6: … New Questions…

  When he woke up the next morning, the first thing Michael thought of was the slip of paper—the little, almost completely insignificant slip of paper that he had found stuck to the bottom of the backpack in Rachel’s apartment. Something about it was important enough that a man was sent to retrieve it. Sitting up in bed he grabbed it off the nightstand where he had left it the night before. He held it up to his face, studying it.

  He didn’t know why he even bothered. He had spent at least two hours after Lindsey left searching through the phonebook for a number that matched what he could read of the one scribbled on the little piece of paper. After going through only a quarter of the numbers listed, he had found at least 50 possible options. Given the area code, he knew that it was a local number, but the last two numbers were missing. “(815) 336-98XX” he said as he read the number out loud. He didn’t need to read it though, he had it memorized.

  What he knew for sure was that the note was written on the law firm’s stationary, that much was clear. Something about this little piece of paper was the key to everything, but without the rest of the number, it only led to more questions than answers.

  He rolled onto his side and peered at the digital clock on his nightstand—11:12. He had slept later than he planned on. He slowly forced himself to his feet. Every time he moved, the pain in the back of his head radiated with more force. Reaching for the antibiotic cream that Lindsey had left for him, he applied a fair amount to the wounds on his face and head. The gel left a greasy trail running through his hair, but he didn’t mind; he barely noticed.

  He had contemplated going back to Hamilton & Lewis, but he knew that would just end up with him back in the police station. And ending up in the police station would lead to questions about his condition, and questions about his condition could risk not only his private investigations, but also Lindsey’s job. She didn’t have to help him; he knew that. The simple act of asking her to help him put her career at risk.

  As Michael showered, careful not to let the water burn his injuries, he decided that his interactions with Lindsey O’Neil would have to end. It seemed like that would be difficult, however, when his phone, sitting on the edge of the sink, began to vibrate and light up. Wrapping a towel around his waist he answered it quickly.

  “Lindsey?” he asked into the receiver.

  “Michael.” Her voice sounded worried.

  “What’s going on? Why are you calling?” He didn’t mean his questions to sound as unfriendly as they did. “Are you okay?” he added quickly.

  “I’m fine,” she said. She lowered her voice to a whisper before she continued speaking. “It’s you I’m worried about.”

  “Me?” he laughed a little. “Why?”

  “That Mickey Walsh person you were asking about. He’s a dangerous man, Michael.”

  “I figured that much,” he said, moving from the bathroom towards the kitchen, the towel still wrapped around his waist.

  “No, I mean he’s a very dangerous man.”

  “Are you going to tell me what that means? Or just leave me to figure it out on my own?” he asked as he rummaged through his almost completely empty cabinets looking for something to eat.

  “I have a break in five minutes,” she said quietly. “Will you be home?”

  “Look, Ms. O’Neil, if you want to see me again, just say the word,” he said playfully.

  “Michael,” she replied, her voice harsh. “Will you be home?”

  “Yes,” he said with a sigh. “I’ll be home.”

  It only took her 15 minutes to show up on his front step. “It’s open!” he yelled down the hall after she knocked. She pushed the door open slowly, and peered inside. “Come in,” he urged.

  “Michael!” she exclaimed when she made her way into the kitchen. He was still in his towel, sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of stale cereal without milk. Her face turned a soft shade of red and she covered her eyes and turned away.

  “What?” he asked taking his bowl and moving across the kitchen to the sink. “Oh, this,” he said looking down at himself. “Well, what do you expect when you just show up at someone’s house in the middle of the morning.”

  “It’s noon!” she replied emphatically, her back still to him.

  “Exactly. The middle of the morning,” he said as he dropped the bowl in the sink and made his way towards his room.

  “Maybe I should come back later,” she replied nervously.

  “You’re the one who made it sound like you had to speak to me right away,” he pointed out as he pushed the door closed behind him, letting it stay open just a crack. “So, what is it?” he yelled out as he began to change his clothes.

  He heard her move closer to the door, leaning against the wall just outside of his room as she spoke. “This Mickey guy,” she began. “He’s a high-profile criminal. But we haven’t been able to actually bring up charges against him. He’s good, Michael. He keeps his head down, and his nose clean. But we know that he has his hands in a lot of nasty stuff.”

  “What kind of nasty stuff?” Michael yelled out from the room.

  “We can link him to a few murders that took place about a year and a half back, but all the evidence is just circumstantial,” she explained

  “So why don’t you bring him in for questioning?” Michael said, pulling the door open. “Better?” he asked, motioning to his jeans and T-shirt.

  “Much,” she said, turning to walk back towards the kitchen. She waited until they were both seated at the table to continue. “We have tried to bring him in, multiple times, but each time something goes wrong. In one case, one of the homicides, a man came forward and confessed to the crime before we could finish the paper-work on Walsh.”

  “That’s good, right?”

  “No,” she said quickly. “That’s the problem. We had him! The man killed was a known enemy of Walsh’s. We had found threatening messages and endless phone calls made by Mickey to the victim. But it didn’t matter; we couldn’t place him at the scene. That’s not how he works. He somehow organizes everything, plans it all, but he never lays a hand on anyone, not personally at least.”

  “So, even though you know that, you couldn’t charge him with the murder?”

  “We found the weapon used in the fall man’s apartment. It had his fingerprints on it, and between that and his confession, the court saw it as an open and shut case.”

  Something about the circumstances around the case she was outlining seemed eerily similar to what happened in Rachel’s. He didn’t mention that, however. He wanted to hear more about Mickey Walsh. “So, Mickey is just some low-life criminal who seems to have some kind of respect on the street,” he observed.

  “That’s the thing,” she said leaning forward. “He’s not a low-life. He’s a very sophisticated, put-together businessman. He’s professional about everything he does, and he never gets involved in something he can’t have complete control over.” She looked Michael squarely in the eye, making sure that he was following.

  “Where does he live?” Michael asked firmly.

  “Were you listening to anything I said? Michael, he’s dangerous! You shouldn’t go messing around with him.”

  “He started it,” Michael said jokingly, hoping to ease the tension he could sense coming off of her. She didn’t laugh.

  “If he’s done anything, you need to let me bring this in to my superior,” she said.

  “No!” Michael said quickly. “Look, Lindsey, no one down at the station believes me. No one will listen to me, or help me. That’s not going to change just because I know a name.”

  “You don’t know that,” she trie
d to object.

  “Don’t make me regret calling you last night,” he said slowly. She looked at him intently and sighed deeply. He saw that she was beginning to soften slightly. “Please,” he continued. “Where can I find Mickey Walsh?”

  With an air of annoyance she reached into her pocket and produced a folded piece of paper. She handed it to him without a word, and when he opened it he saw an address written on it. “Is this his home or work address?” he asked looking down at it.

  “Both. They’re one and the same. He rarely leaves his residence. He has people working for him, a lot of people. They come and go, but he always stays right there,” she said pointing to the paper in his hands. “Just because we haven’t been able to nail him with any charges doesn’t mean he hasn’t done things. He’s good, Michael.”

  “That’s the problem with the law,” Michael said standing and shoving the address down into his pocket. “They have their hands tied too tightly. They can’t actually do anything.”

  She stood up and placed her hand on his shoulder. “That doesn’t mean that you have to go out and search for justice, putting yourself in danger, and potentially getting yourself killed.”

  “Now, come on Ms. O’Neil,” he said smiling at her slyly, “what makes you think I would ever do a thing like that?”

  Chapter 7: … New Enemies

  Lindsey was right. Mickey was definitely a high-profile type of guy. His house was just outside of the city, and the largest in the surrounding area. It was surrounded by large, brick walls, and there was only one entrance, which was through a large metal gate that was under constant video surveillance. Michael parked his car about four blocks down from the massive residence, and proceeded the rest of the way on foot.

  He had waited to venture out to find Mickey until it had grown dark, so as to keep his presence hidden easier. He made his way closer to the house, hiding in the shadows and ducking behind bushes. When he reached as close as he dared to let himself get, he paused and observed. There was no one moving around in the house, at least not as far as he could see. The lights were off, and the place appeared quiet.