Burdened By Guilt

by Michiko Katsu

  Kevin looked at him. “You’re kidding, right?” His expression was more disoriented than confused but lack of sleep made him more flexible and he did little more to protest his instructions.

  Mike walked over and lifted him out of his chair. “Trust me kid. You’ll feel like you just rolled out of bed after ten hours of solid sleep.” Mike walked him toward the door.

  Kevin scratched his head and turned to ask him a question only to find the door closing behind him as Mike pointed to the “Exit” sign at the end of the hall.

  Mike flipped through Kevin’s notes hoping to make some sense out of them but found his frustration level increasing as the content, as well as Kevin’s interpretations, were equally confusing. He tossed the notepad onto the desk. There was no way they would be able to make any determinations on the note card. Not without expert assistance.

  Kevin walked back into the office twenty minutes later, his eyes clearer and more focused than when he left.

  “See, told you you’d feel better.”

  Kevin smiled noncommittally. “Well, I didn’t actually run around the building,” he looked at Mike with some defiance. “But…I will admit…the fresh air did clear my head. At least I’m starting to feel human again.”

  “Good. That’s what I wanted to hear. Now, get your coffee to go kid. We’re headed out to that convenience store to talk to some of Mr. Ortiz’ co-workers. We gotta’ get some information about this guy and see if we can start making any links between them aside from those stupid notes.”

  “Speaking of notes. You’re going to need to talk to someone more education on this stuff than I am,” Kevin said. “Reading it doesn’t make me an expert. Unless you want to take the Cliffs Notes version as expert analysis?”

  Hearing his own thoughts confirmed made certain inevitabilities more glaring but he wasn’t ready to concede anything yet. “Bring it along. You can read it to me on the drive.”

  Kevin grabbed his travel mug and scooped together the assorted collection of books and notes he accumulated for homework. He plopped a large carrying case onto the desk and re-stocked it with assorted office supplies checking off a small list he neatly returned to one of the pockets upon completion.

  Mike smiled to himself as an understanding of Kevin’s madness continued to form a clearer picture the more time they spent together.

  “So why don’t you just start with the short version and go from there,” Mike asked as they drove away.

  Kevin removed his paperwork from the case and created a pile on his lap. “Well, I definitely think he was intentionally starved. There’s a character, Kurtz, who is emaciated. He’s also kinda’ the bad guy. Not really the bad guy but kinda’ the bad guy.”

  “What does the book say?” Mikes asked. Kevin’s non-specific and non-committal review did not bode well for their collective thinking.

  “It says Kurtz is hollow and without any integrity. He starts out with good intentions but is corrupted because he wants some big promotion and he’s even treated like some kind of god by the locals.”

  “Interesting,” Mike noted.

  “What I did find interesting is there aren’t too many characters with names in the book. There’s Marlow and Kurtz but everyone else is referred to as ‘the’ something, The Manager, The Brickmaker, The Russian. I don’t know if that has anything to do with anything but it seemed strange. Like no one around them had any identity except from what they did in the context of the two main characters.”

  It sounded impressive but Mike had no idea if it was actually intuitive or guesswork and he wasn’t scholarly enough to either confirm or point Kevin down a different path. He thought back to his conversation with Suzanne and the relevance of the stories she outlined. She told him everything meant something in literature and if that was true the book was written that way for a reason. If their murder was consistent, he chose the book and the passage for a specific reason as well.

  “Maybe the killer’s trying to say that this guy is Kurtz,” Mike threw his hat into the ring. “A hollow, corrupt man who treated people around him like objects. He only had them in his life for what they did for him. And maybe the passage was saying how much he hated his victim because he was a liar. Didn’t the specific passage say something about hating or detesting liars?”

  Kevin flipped through his notes. “It says, ‘You know I hate, detest and can’t bear a lie.’ I don’t think there’s much interpretation necessary for that one.”

  “Okay, so what do we have?” Mike started. “We have one guy who’s been chopped into piece like the Poe story. One guy’s been stabbed multiple times like Caesar and now we have the third guy who’s been starved to death similar to this Kurtz guy.”

  “Well Kurtz wasn’t really starved to death. Apparently he had some disease that made him so emaciated,” Kevin corrected.

  “Fair enough,” Mike gave Kevin credit. “We don’t know if that matters at this point or not but you should make a note at the distinction. Just in case.”

  Kevin wrote as Mike continued.

  “If we exchange the victims in the story with our victims then we can say Ortiz probably pissed off his killer by being a liar and treating people around him like insignificant objects. And the first victim was killed because the killer wanted him to pay for something he saw and didn’t do anything about and number two may have been getting too cocky and was killed because of the arrogance.”

  It sounded good to Mike although he remained skeptical. “Now, Suzanne said the first two victims were probably killed by someone they knew. So there’s no reason to think that isn’t the case with Ortiz as well. Maybe they all knew each other.”

  Kevin let out a huff as if he wanted to laugh but wasn’t ready to commit.

  “What?” Mike asked interested in what could possibly so funny to him right now.

  “Oh nothing I was just thinking,” he replied.

  “About?”

  Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know, just about how much a person can hate another person to do something like this. It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “That’s good. It shouldn’t make sense to you. These kinds of things don’t make sense to sane people and if they start to you need to step back. You never wanna’ let it inside like that. Don’t let it get to the point where you start understanding why they do what they do. It’ll eat you up kid.”

  “I know,” Kevin said solemnly. “I guess I just thought part of being good at this job would be understanding what goes through their heads. Then maybe you can stop them from hurting other people.”

  Mike smiled at his genuine naïveté as he remembered how he used to mirror those sentiments. He envied him. At least Kevin still had hope.

  Chapter 29

  Their destination loomed as the red and white emblem of the aging convenience store came into view. The unlined, asphalt parking lot provided no refuge from the inevitable damage to the undercarriage of any vehicle desperate enough to traverse the terrain. Perfectly positioned for convenient but overpriced gas, beer runs and last chance bathroom breaks, the patrons of the tidy store ran the gamut filtering in and out of the swinging doors like scavengers on a primitive hunt.

  Inside they found Kelvin Roman, the assistant manager. A ZZ Top cover band reject in a ridiculously over-sized red, customer service, bowling shirt with his name hand-written in black marker on the reusable plastic badge. His body odor told Mike he missed bath day for the past month and he wondered if he was any relation to Chris, the campus security guard.

  They stepped outside so he could smoke while they talked and he did so, one right after the other.

  “So how well did you know James Ortiz,” Mike asked him preferring the cigarette smoke for the first time.

  “As well as anyone I guess,” Kelvin lisped. His broken, top front teeth were cragged stalactites and provided no shield against exiting debris. His tongue protruded through the shards pushing his upper lip out in constant snake-like movements.

 
; “Try to be a little more specific. Did you ever talk about his personal life, meet any of his family or friends or socialize together?”

  “He ain’t never talked about no family and I ain’t never seen him with nobody neither. He pretty much kept to hisself.”

  “So he never mentioned any names or places or anything to you while he was working here?”

  “Nope, not that I can think of. Well there was this one chick but I know’d he made her up. Had to of.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “He kept going on and on about her. Kept callin’ her Demi. You know, like the actress. Said how hot she was and how she was so good in bed. That she like to—”

  “I get the point,” Mike cut him off unwilling to hear any details. “Did he ever mention her real name or say why he called her Demi?”

  “Said she had long, dark hair like her and how she used to like to take her hair and—”

  “And no name or anything about her that might help us track her down?” Mike interrupted again.

  “Nope. I axed him to bring her by one night so’s we could see her. Prove he hadn’t just blow’d her up or something like’at but he never did. That’s why I know’d he made her up. You know Jose used to hang out with him off and on sometimes. Maybe he might know somethin’ more.” He gestured to the clerk inside helping the customers.

  “Okay,” Mike nodded and waved him away.

  He finished his cigarette and went inside changing places with Jose.

  Jose was the polar opposite of Kelvin, small stature, clean, quiet and self-conscious. He stood teetering back and forth between his feet seemingly unsure if he should stand, lean or run away.

  “Jose I’m Detective Anderson and this is Detective McKay. We need to ask you a few questions about James Ortiz.”

  “What did he do this time?” He asked quietly.

  “What do you mean? Has he gotten in trouble before?”

  “Once or twice at least that’s what he said. He talked a lot but I never saw him get arrested or anything. Is he okay?”

  “He’s dead actually.”

  Jose stopped teetering and looked straight at Mike. “Overdose?”

  “No. Why, did he have a drug problem?”

  “Problem? Problems,” he accentuated the “s”. “He smoked dope all the time. I don’t think he had a waking moment when he wasn’t stoned. He also liked heroin. I knew it would kill him someday. That shit…I mean stuff…always does. I went with him on a buy one time. Scared the shit…I mean stuff…out of me. I never went with him again. He called me a puss…pansy but I was really scared, you know. I hate going down in that area during the day not to mention at night.”

  “What area?”

  Jose hesitated.

  “I’m not narco. I’m homicide. I don’t care about the drugs except what they mean to my victim. I’m just trying to find out who killed your friend.”

  Jose stood looking off into the distance.

  “Jose?” Mike prodded.

  After a couple more seconds he responded. “Off Central down by Southern.”

  Kevin stepped up a bit and Mike put his hand down to keep him from getting any closer.

  “Would you happen to know who he was meeting when you went with him? Did he mention a name or anything?”

  “No. He just called her Demi. You know? Like the actress.”

  “Yeah, like the actress. But you don’t know anything else about her. What she looks like, the kind of car she drives, where she might hang out?”

  “No. That was the first and last time I ever went or talked about it. I might smoke a joint every now and then but I don’t get near that shit…I mean stuff. You can test me if you don’t believe me,” he said defensively.

  “That won’t be necessary. I told you. I’m here about Jimmy not you. Okay, is that it? Any more on his friends, acquaintances, family, anyone who we might be able to contact to let know he’s dead?”

  “No,” he shook his head. “He talked a lot but it was usually bullshit, I mean—”

  “Yeah,” Mike sighed. “I know what you mean.”

  Chapter 30

  Mike missed his scheduled I.A. interview that afternoon while he and Kevin continued their conversation with James Ortiz’s coworkers. He didn’t forget. The message was passed to him the day before and he was well aware of the time but his priority was not I.A. He rationalized his triple homicide was of higher importance than some internal witch hunt. No doubt Smythe would be seething right about now and that was enough of an incentive for Mike on its own.

  A small, yellow note was attached to the receiver of his phone when they returned to the station.

  It read: “Call me as soon as you are in. Lieutenant Ed Smythe.”

  He always signed everything with “lieutenant" spelled out and his entire name. As if there was any other lieutenant who would leave that note or any other Smythe for that matter. It was just another of those little things Mike let drive him crazy.

  At least he was expecting it. Smythe was nothing if not predictable. Of course Mike wasn’t about to drop everything and go running into his office either. He wanted to jot a few notes down on the board and go over the interviews again just to make sure there weren’t any other questions he should have asked. And, of course, he wasn’t about to give Smythe any satisfaction knowing he could be summoned.

  Fifteen minutes later Smythe came to him. Mike wasn’t sure how he knew he was back until he looked around at Kevin’s conspicuous absence.

  “So, I hear you missed your appointment with Lt. Daily,” Smythe started.

  “Yeah, I guess I did.”

  “You were there at the all hands meeting,” he stated.

  “You know I was.”

  Smythe’s calm façade faded and he put both hands on his hips as he filled the open doorway. “And you remember how both Captain Madison and Lt. Daily specifically mentioned not to miss any of the requests for time.”

  “Yeah.”

  Smythe paused. “So, I guess I don’t understand how you might have gotten confused.”

  “I wasn’t confused.”

  “So why did you miss your appointment?” He stepped into the office, his arms now folded.

  “I had something more important to take care of. Something called a multiple-murder investigation, a serial killer. I would think both of you would understand that without me explaining it.” Mike’s tone was light but condescending.

  “You don’t think it might have been a good idea to tell him you weren’t going to be able to make it instead of just not showing up? Maybe giving him a modicum of courtesy for his time?”

  “His time isn’t any more important than mine. If everyone is supposed to be so courteous of other people’s time than he should have asked if I was available rather than just leaving me a message.”

  “He doesn’t have to care about your schedule…Detective. He tells you when to be available and then you make yourself available. Are you telling me that whatever it was you were doing either couldn’t be done prior to or after your meeting?”

  Mike got up and slammed his hands on his desk. “I run my investigations the way I run them. I don’t need you or anyone else telling me how to do my job. I’m also not going to rearrange my schedule to accommodate some ridiculous investigation that has nothing to do with me.”

  Smythe dropped his arms and took another step forward. The two men stood facing each other with only Mike’s desk separating them. “Actually I can tell you how to do your job since I’m your lieutenant. And until that is no longer the case I will tell you when and how to spend your time when something like this becomes a priority. And when I tell you make sure and be available you better well be fucking available.”

  “You worthless piece of—”

  “Gentlemen,” Kevin yelled from the doorway. Anyone within earshot could hear every word exchanged. “I’m not sure this is solving anything. Mike, I went and talked to Lt. Daily and rescheduled for later today if that works for yo
u.” He turned to Smythe. “Lt. Daily really wasn’t upset with Mike. He said he knew Mike was in the middle of a triple homicide so he understood. He was able to fill the time so it wasn’t a complete waste.”

  Mike stared daggers at Kevin then back at Smythe. He was about to make a career limiting mistake and he hated the fact Kevin might have just saved him. Prepared to tear into Smythe regardless of the consequences, he held back as the retribution would be catastrophic. Smythe wielded too much power and had too many connections. He would destroy Mike’s career, at minimum.

  Smythe looked at Kevin, turned and walked out of the room.

  “Shut the door,” Mike growled at Kevin. This went on long enough. He needed to get Kevin’s allegiances in order and while this probably wasn’t the best time to talk about it, he couldn’t make it another minute without knowing who pulled his strings.

  “Who do you work for?” Mike grilled Kevin who stood by the door, his eyes wide with confusion. Mike knew his excessive irritation with Kevin was just a side effect of his relationship with Smythe and the case but he had to know he could trust him. He would crack if he kept second guessing. Besides, he had enough people saying they’re one thing then turning out to be something else. He couldn’t afford for his partner to be one of those people.

  “What?” Kevin asked.

  “Who…do you work for?” Mike reiterated, his tone steely.

  “I don’t understand what you’re asking me.”

  “I want to know who’s pulling your strings. I want to hear you say you’re reporting back to Smythe every little thing that’s going on in this case as well as everything I’m doing. I want to hear you say it?”

  “Mike, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Kevin looked stunned.

  “Ever since I got stuck with you Smythe just so happens to know every little thing that’s going on. Where I am, when I’m back in the office, when I’m out of the office. Everything. And today, just now, you disappear right after we get back and all of a sudden in walks Smythe to chew me out. How the hell did he know I was even back if you didn’t tell him?”