The Man on Little Sweden

by Sam Harding

  Kohl reaches out and puts a hand on my right shoulder, giving it a hard squeeze. “I’ve got your back, and I know you’d have mine. Just like always.” I can see in his eyes there’s a part of him that’s scared, but there’s also a part of him that’s glad to be working on something with me again despite the weird circumstances.

  I pat Kohl’s hand on my shoulder and smile. “Thank you. I don’t have many friends left, Jason, so really, thank you.”

  Kohl removes his hand and his eyes track behind me to the door of 108. “So, why are we here?”

  “What did dispatch relay in the notes?”

  “Just that former detective Micah Donovan called in a suicide here and then hung up.”

  I nod. It’s true, there’s really no point in giving out too much information on the phone with things like this. I could tell the dispatcher everything I found on scene, but Kohl’s job is to go over those things regardless. “The dead guy is Dennis O’Leary. You remember him, right?”

  “Our first suspect almost five years ago. Why do you need him?”

  “I’m just trying to start from as far back as I can, just in case we missed something all those years ago. In any case, O’Leary was a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of violent outbursts. Dr. Shultz told me today that ever since O’Leary went through the police ringer of interrogations, before we ruled him out as a suspect, his mental state declined even further. Every year around this time, he relapses and usually ends up in jail for minor assault. I think this year, he turned that aggression on himself.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “As sure as I can be. The drill is still in his hand and, when I got off the phone with 911, I saw his refrigerator hadn’t been restocked recently, which is a common thing for people who plan to kill themselves ahead of time. Also, I found this in his room after getting off the phone,” I remove a folded piece of paper from my back pocket, careful to only grab it by the tip of a single corner and hand it over to Kohl.

  Kohl unfolds the paper and reads it out loud. “Have to get the voices out of my head. Have to let them go free.” He shakes his head and removes a clear plastic zip lock bag from a pocket on his leg. He drops the note into the bag and then looks back up at me as if he just realized something. “Wait, you said there was a drill in his hand. You mean a gun.”

  “No, I meant a drill. Power drill with a big bit. In and out the side of his head.”

  “Fuck me,” Kohl says, his eyes wide.

  “I know you’ll do it yourself, but I already checked the rest of the house. There’s nothing at all that I can find that ties him to anything I’m working on. As far as I’m concerned, my Dennis O’Leary lead is a bust.”

  “So that’s it then? You’re just going to leave me here to deal with the scene?”

  “I’m not a cop anymore, remember? This is all you.”

  “I have a feeling you’re about to ask me something.”

  I nod. “If you hear anything regarding the investigation into the Butcher, you’ll call me, right?”

  “Now that I know you’re on it, yes.” He says the words without even thinking them over. “This will always be your case, Micah. I don’t care if Blake gets credit for every positive thing that comes out of this, most of us have been around long enough to know that this is and always will be your case. Blake wouldn’t have shit if not for the work you put in before you resigned.”

  “Thanks again, Jason.”

  “You bet,” he says, again looking at 108. “How long as he been in there?”

  “About a week.”

  “Stink?” He asks, wincing.

  “Fuck yeah, he does.”

  “Fun.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Just a Ghost

  It’s well after midnight but I don’t think I could even sleep if I was hit in the head with a rock. My third glass of Makers Mark sits next to the files scattered before me atop my dining room table. Each page represents a fragment of the past, one piece of the puzzle, that when fully formed, makes up my worst memories and brings about my most brutal of nightmares. But at least I have them.

  They come from the one and only box I’d ever saved regarding the Christmas Eve Butcher case. It covers roughly the first year and a half of the investigation, from the first murder in 2016 to well into the investigation of the second murder, reaching up until April of 2018. A good chunk of the documents has to do with the investigation into Dennis O’Leary and Alexander Irving, right up until about the time they were exonerated of the crimes.

  In the upper right corner of the table, far enough so that I can’t reach them from where I’m sitting, are the overview crime scene photos of Simon Shultz and Danny Costello, the ten-year-old son of a county commissioner. Both little boys had been killed in the same horrific fashion, both sets of photos revealing the same display, like the same painting on a different canvas. I might not be able to reach the photos so that I can flip them over, but I can reach the Makers Mark. I take a long swallow and welcome the burn of the liquid as it slides down my throat.

  It dawns on me that perhaps a photo of Dennis O’Leary’s corpse belongs on the table too. Sure, the Butcher didn’t kill him directly, but I believe if not for the Butcher, Dennis would in fact still be alive and progressing in his treatment. It’s a good reminder to myself that it’s not always just the dead that have their lives ruined, everyone else surrounding the madness also gets hit with the blowback. A lesson I especially know all too well.

  I’m about to look at a page regarding what I’d had written up on Alexander Irving, but a knock on my door startles me from my concentration. I spin on my seat to face the front door and find it’s impossible to see through the window in the door due to the fact I hadn’t bothered with turning my porch light on. Instinctively, I grab my sidearm which is still holstered on my left hip and approach the door.

  I feel my heart thumping in my chest, unable to convince myself that people other than criminals knock on doors in the middle of the night. It is not lost on me that I’m far jumpier than I normally am. Ever since my meeting with West, I feel like the walls are closing in and it’s only a matter of time before I meet the Butcher in my home again.

  With my left hand tightly gripping my pistol, I flip on the porch light with my right. At first, I’m confused by who’s looking at me through the window on the other side of the door and I start to wonder if maybe I’ve had a little too much to drink. The porcelain face framed in wavy jet-black hair with intense green eyes is hard to mistake for anyone other than Kathryn Shultz. I open the door and feel a blast of cool wind hit me from outside.

  “Kate, what the hell?”

  “I didn’t want to be alone, not tonight. Not when it’s so close to –”

  “So, you came here?”

  “That’s not really polite,” she says, a sideways grin on her face. She’s wearing the same knee-high boots as before with tight leather pants and a gray turtleneck that’s mostly covered up by a blue ski jacket.

  “Sorry, I didn’t expect you. It’s late.”

  “No, I don’t mean for the attitude, I mean for that,” she points down at the gun in my left hand. “I’ve got to admit, this is a first for me.”

  “Sorry,” I say, holstering the weapon. “Like I said, it’s late.”

  “May I come in?”

  Deciding not to let my confusion freeze me, I nod. “Sure.”

  “It’s warm in here,” she says, stepping passed me and immediately moving to the wood burning stove between the door and the kitchen table.

  Out of habit, I take a long look outside before closing the door, looking for anything out of place in the darkness. All I can make out is a silver BMW parked behind my Bronco in the driveway along with a light snowfall that must have just recently begun. I close the door, turn around to face Kathryn, and then freeze. Even in the warm house, a ice-cold chill races up my spine.

  Oh fuck, Jesus no.

  Kate is standing over my table and, in her hands,
is the photo of her dead brother’s cut up body. I don’t know what to do and I surely don’t know what to say. I should have flipped the photos over before coming to the door, or at least ran back to flip them once I saw it was Kate who had knocked. How could I have forgotten to do that? How could I be so stupid? Somehow, her hands are steady and her face is like stone, but I can see the horror-induced movements in the involuntarily fluttering of her eyelids.

  “Kate,” I say softly, desperately hoping I say the right thing. “Kate, I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  She looks up at me, moisture in her eyes glinting from the light above the table. I expect her to be angry with me, I wait for the barrage of words that I know I deserve. “He didn’t deserve this.”

  “I know.”

  “Simon was a good kid, he didn’t deserve this.” She looked back at the photo. “I’ve never seen it like this before. I mean – I’ve seen photos from the other murders, but not his.”

  “And it should have remained that way. Kate, I’m so sorry.”

  “Make this right, Micah,” she says, placing the photo back down on the table, tapping it with a red fingernail. “Make sure whoever did this suffers from the same fucking fate.”

  Although I’ve only known Kate briefly, seeing her drop her stone-like façade and become so vulnerable catches me off guard. I’m finally seeing the human being that belongs inside the suit of armor.

  “I plan on it. Believe me Kate, if I catch him, he won’t see the inside of a jail cell.”

  She looks at me with an expression in her eyes that does the talking for her. An expression that tell me she knows I of all people would understand her grief, and that I would want the son of a bitch dead just as much, if not more than herself.

  “But, you’re a cop,” she says, testing me.

  “Not anymore. I’m a ghost who’s yet to accept he’s just as dead as his wife.”

  Kate is silent for a moment and I realize she’s looking me over from head to toe with her hawk-like eyes. Again, not knowing what to do or say, I just stand there in silence, allowing her to focus her troubled mind on whatever it is she needs to focus on to drag herself from her personal hell.

  “Do you have any more tattoos other than the one sleeve?” She asks, her eyes still moving, as if searching for something. “I never noticed it before – not with your jacket and plaid shirt on.”

  “Just the sleeve,” I say, pulling up the right sleeve of my gray T shirt to show her the rest of the design.

  She nods, her eyes still scanning until finally they stop at my feet. My boots and socks are off, and my right foot and prosthetic foot are bare, poking out from the bottoms of my jeans. I can tell her eyes are on the prosthetic, a realistic-looking foot slipped over a state-of-the-art springy blade of carbon fiber and metal.

  “Does it slow you down? Are you limited to what you can do now?”

  “I’m not really limited. I’m just a little slower than I once was.”

  “The anonymous donor,” she looks up at me and her sideways smile returns. “It was me.”

  I feel my breath catch in my chest and my eyes narrow. “You? But why? Why didn’t you ever say –”

  “I couldn’t save my baby brother – but I could at least help the man who almost lost everything trying to save everyone else.”

  Kate moves away from the table and approaches me. The heels of her boots click on the laminate floors as she walks, her grace that of a cat. She stops in front of me and I can feel her breath against me now, her hands coming up and touching my chest. She steps even closer and puts her ear against my chest next to her hands and that’s when she begins to tremble. Unsure of what else to do, I put my arms around her lightly, barely holding onto her as she cries.

  But then, I hold her tighter, suddenly finding myself afraid to let go.

  And that’s when I realize, I’m crying too.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Who is Micah Donovan?

  WE’RE BOTH SEATED across from each other at the table now, a glass of Makers Mark in our hands and the remainder of the bottle in between us. The files once cluttering the table are boxed up again, the box tucked away into the recesses of the guest room closet. I don’t know how long we’d cried for, or how long we’d held each other, but we did it until the tears could no longer come. I’ve cried since losing Dani, but I have never cried like that. Never had I taken the time to just let it all out, much less do it in the arms of a woman who I barely know.

  A woman who I barely know and, yet, I feel like I’ve known my whole life.

  I haven’t felt like that with anybody since – since Dani.

  I suddenly feel guilty, like I’m cheating on my wife with Kathryn and that I’m a traitor and a piece of shit. Just like Duane Klimek was a traitor to his wife. But even though I feel guilty, I notice I’m absent a feeling that I’ve felt for the past three years: loneliness. For the first time since that nightmare of a day, I no longer feel alone and I can’t help but think that Dani would understand.

  “You loved her very much, didn’t you?” Kathryn asks, looking me in the eye, as if through my pupils, she can access my thoughts.

  “Yeah – I still do. I always will. She was my best friend – it’s been hard without her.” I take a drink, but realize I don’t mind the question.

  “How long were you two married?”

  “Seven years. This year would have been our tenth.”

  “What did she do for a living?”

  “Elementary teacher, fourth grade. She was always good with kids.” I smile, allowing room for the better memories. Something I haven’t done in a while.

  “She sounds like a wonderful woman.” Kate’s smile is genuine and again, its strange to see her without her armor on.

  “She was. Smart, ambitious, beautiful. I was definitely out of my league, to say the least.” We both share a light laugh and then I say, “I miss her.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “So, what about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “You’re in my house, drinking my booze and making me cry, and yet I don’t know hardly anything about you. Who is Kathryn Shultz?”

  She laughs, displaying a radiant smile that leaves me momentarily breathless. I once again feel like a freshman in the presence of the cheer captain.

  “Well, to know me, you need to first understand my father.” Now she takes a drink and says, “In 1957, when he was eleven years old, dad immigrated from Germany to the United States not long after the death of his father, who was a very wealthy business man in Berlin. His mother, my grandmother, had sent him with a much older family friend in order to make sure he made it safely. My grandmother figured there was nothing Germany had to offer, especially having lost two major wars in the recent past. There was also the issue that my grandfather was rich due to hiding away money during the war, and my grandmother didn’t want my father to be hurt because of it.”

  “Are you saying your grandfather was a Nazi?”

  Kate shrugs. “I’ve yet to see proof of it – but dad tells me his mom was, at the very least, worried people would think so. Not many Germans got rich who weren’t friendly with the Third Reich.”

  “Fair enough,” I say, deciding not to interrupt any further.

  “Anyway, dad and the family friend lived in New York City up until dad was eighteen. Dad tells me the family friend was killed in a car accident and dad then left New York to come study psychology in the west. He said he’d always been fascinated with the pacific northwest since high school, and so, he settled on Washington.

  “After college, he used the family fortune to open his own practice, at first, in Spokane, and then after achieving great success, as well as writing more than a few books and making a few TV appearances, he brought his work home to Solace. That’s when he became The Man on Little Sweden.

  “During all this time he married, had me, and then my brother quite a bit later. Mom left us when Simon was just a baby and so
it was just the three of us until I left for a few years for college. I tried to copy my dad’s motives and decided to go to school in New York – but I only got as far as a bachelors in psychology before returning back to Solace. I started running a couple fashion houses in Spokane for a few years, trying to escape psychology related things, but got bored of it. Now, I spend my time taking care of dad and hoping there’s more to my life than just this.

  “They say money doesn’t buy happiness, which is bullshit. What they mean to say is that it doesn’t buy meaningfulness. That’s what truly matters. It’s the greatest lie that happiness is the purpose of life. The true purpose is meaning– without meaning, life has no purpose.”

  I nod, and am reminded of a famous Canadian psychologist named Jordan Peterson who said something along those same lines. The purpose of life is meaning and individual responsibility. Happiness, although is nice to have when it’s there, is not the purpose. I’m glad Kathryn has reminded me of that.

  “How did your grandfather die?”

  “Dad wouldn’t talk about it much, but it sounds like he got sick with something. It’s the official story, anyway. My grandmother died long before I was born of some sort of a lung disease most likely due to cigarette abuse.”

  “Not in the house,” I say, seeing the look in her eyes after mentioning the cursed word. “He’s not here now, but I live with my son. I promised him I’d never smoke in the house. By me, I mean everyone else too.”

  “Well,” Kathryn holds up her glass. “At least there’s Makers Mark.”

  After taking a few moments to enjoy her drink and then top off her glass with the bottle on the table, Kathryn says, “What about you, Micah? What’s your story?”

  I hesitate. “You don’t want to hear my story.”

  “Try me. I’m a big girl.”

  I sit there for a moment without saying anything. I want to tell her my story but I don’t know if I should. What happened to Dani, although it’s the worst moment of my life, is not the only horrific moment of my life. It seems my entire life has been a form of hell, and I’m worried if Kathryn finds out just how messed up I am, I’ll scare her away forever.