Burdened By Guilt

by Michiko Katsu

  Kevin responded calmly. “Mike. Didn’t you listen to anything I said when I walked in the room?”

  “What?” Mike seethed. The hairs on his arms stood with his rising blood pressure.

  “What I said when I walked in, did you hear a single word?”

  Mike looked at him.

  “I said…I went to talk to Lt. Daily since I knew you missed your meeting with him. You said you wanted to jot down some more notes and go over the interview and I just assumed it would be a nice thing to do for my partner to clear away any roadblocks that might get in the way of him doing that. Like…oh I don’t know…talking to Daily before he came running down here. I never even saw Smythe until just now.”

  Mike continued to look at him. He heard what he said but it wasn’t fully registering. From the minute Smythe told him he was getting a partner and Rudy planting the stooge seed, Mike never gave Kevin the benefit of the doubt. His mind wasn’t ready to let go of the person it created.

  “Look,” Kevin started back in. “If you want to clear the air then there is something I should tell you.”

  “I knew it,” Mike growled.

  Kevin took a few tentative steps into the room. “Smythe did mention he would like to know what was going on with you. He didn’t say it like he wanted me to spy on you. He told me you were having some problems since your wife was killed and he was just…concerned about you. I thought I was supposed to be helping you…considering…”

  Mike turned away and sat down. This wasn’t making him feel any better.

  Kevin kept talking. “Look, what was I supposed to do? He brought me in and he’s the lieutenant. I thought he was helping me by telling me about you and your history. Helping me be a better partner to you. I realized right off he sandbagged me but that was after my little speech when we first met. After that I just tried to stay out of the way but you make it practically impossible to still be a part of the investigation. You constantly excluded me, stuck me with all the paperwork and gave me whatever other menial task possible to keep me out of the way. I guess now I understand why.”

  Upon hearing Smythe used Carolyn’s death as a way to manipulate Kevin, Mike was ready to flush his career down the toilet if that’s what it took to shut him down…for good. But as Kevin continued to talk another seed planted in Mike’s mind. One that might solve his problem without losing his career in the process.

  “Look, I haven’t been reporting anything back to Smythe. In fact I haven’t had a one-on-one conversation with him since I started. He’s been calling me and I’ve used the case as an excuse. Actually I’m not sure what to tell him at this point.”

  Mike took a deep breath. Kevin’s story seemed plausible enough. “I need to know you’re on my side,” Mike finally said. “I can’t afford to be distracted from this case by worrying you’re scrutinizing everything I do solely for the sake of reporting back and trying to look good for Smythe.”

  Kevin took a deep breath. ”I am on your side,” he said slowly. “The question for me is: are you on mine?”

  Mike stared at the childlike expectation on his face but did not respond. Trusting Kevin would make his life easier. Or it could take from him more than he would ever know.

  Chapter 31

  Agreeing to move forward, Mike and Kevin refocused on their case. He felt better about their conversation but a jaded perception kept him wary if not blatantly suspicious.

  Mike’s phone rang. “Anderson.”

  “Mike. It’s Jill.”

  “Hey Jill. Please tell me you found something I can use?”

  “Well, I know it isn’t Christmas yet but I was able to identify the other two victims.”

  “What?” He couldn’t believe it.

  “Yep. Nothing like a little diligence eventually paying off.”

  “Well? Don’t keep me hanging.”

  “Victim number one is Dale Ingerstahl. He is, or was, a sanitation worker for the city or at least he was for the past six months. He’s had a multitude of odd jobs throughout the years. The longest was for three years with a landscaping business, Treetop Landscaping. He was fifty-five years old, never been married and no children. There are a slew of misdemeanor charges and one felony conviction for drug possession and attempt to sell. He served five years at the state prison and got out about three years ago.”

  Mike furiously wrote down the details as she talked.

  “Victim number two is Herbert Stanford. I wasn’t able to find any work record on him for the past fifteen years. The last time he filed a tax return was almost forty years ago. He was sixty-three, married to a Jennifer Ingerstahl back in the day but it looks like she died thirty-three years ago. One daughter. Also a handful of misdemeanor charges but no felony convictions.”

  “Ingerstahl? So Dale Ingerstahl was related to Jennifer Ingerstahl?”

  “Brother and sister.”

  “Wait, did you say Stanford?” Mike asked flipping through his notes.

  “Yes. As in Kathryn Stanford,” Jill confirmed.

  “Do you know if they’re related?”

  “No idea,” she answered.

  He sighed. “Well, this is great. Just out of curiosity, how were you able to find out who they were?”

  “Oh…let’s just say it’s all about who you know,” Jill replied.

  “True,” Mike confirmed. “Hey, thanks Jill. This really is great.”

  Now that he knew the identities of all the victims he should be able to narrow down some possibilities. Add in the family connection and he hoped it would be that much easier to find out their connection to the third victim.

  “Well, I think we just had the biggest break in the entire case?” Mike said to Kevin who waited patiently. “Jill was able to find out the identities of the first two victims and that they were brothers-in-law. Now we know all three of them. This is huge.”

  He went to the whiteboard and filled in the blanks.

  “I think we’ve got a chance here,” Mike said.

  “What do you mean?” Kevin asked.

  “I mean I think if we can tie Mr. Ortiz to the Brothers-in-law Grimm quickly enough we might be able to prevent a number four.”

  Mike turned and scribbled the names on a piece of paper. “Find out everything you can about both of them. I think we should start with the Treetop Landscaping Company. Mr. Ingerstahl spent the longest amount of time there so maybe someone still works there who remembers him.”

  “Don’t forget about later,” Kevin reminded him.

  “What’s going on later?” Mike was so focused on the ID’s he forgot about his I.A. interview.

  “Lt. Daily?” Kevin reminded him.

  “Oh, right.” The timing couldn’t be worse. Given they finally had the names of all three victims they could go any number of directions for information.

  “You don’t want a repeat of this morning,” Kevin warned.

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m going.” Mike pinched the bridge of his nose then took a deep breath. Once he got through this interview he could focus on his real priority. Besides, he’d been down this road before.

  How bad could it be?

  Chapter 32

  Initially intoxicated by the idea of solving the case before the next murder reality sobered him quickly. The bodies fell like dominoes and if their killer was consistent, he expected the next one to be found either today or tomorrow which meant their victim was either already dead or close to it. It was not enough time for him to don his red cape.

  The idea of another body and another note increased his irritation at the interruption of the interview and it was counterproductive to dwell. He couldn’t afford to give it any more importance than choosing paper or plastic lest it take up valuable brain matter which was needed elsewhere.

  Thoughts of Suzanne lingered. The gentleman in him lashed his rogue behavior from that morning. Resolution caused him to take out his phone multiple times but shame kept him from dialing. She was an unofficial suspect in a multiple homicide and he had slept
with her. The litany of prosecutable transgression ran through his mind but dedication to the job peppered with self-preservation kept him silent.

  She entranced him. Like an imposter perfume she masked herself with the emotions evoked by memories of the original but she was a derivative, a counterfeit whose allure would quickly dissipate along with her scent. They had nowhere to go. Regardless of the outcome, doubt and suspicion tainted their relationship, for what it was worth.

  Mike walked into the conference room. The inopportune timing of the interview was a distraction he could not afford but the consequences of his neglect would be catastrophic to his career, Smythe would see to that. He allocated the conversation into the smoke break column of his day – that was if he still smoked – and resigned himself to the unavoidable noise that comes with any job.

  “Mike Anderson. It’s been a while. How are you?” Lt. Daily said waving to an open chair. The converted conference room, decorated with the affectations of stacked file boxes and strewn papers, was now I.A.’s central location for the duration of the investigation. Butcher paper lined the glass wall preventing full view to snoops and gossipers while whiteboards hung heavily on the other three like oversized necklaces on department store mannequins. Intent tainted the artificial, recycled office air.

  “Work is work,” Mike answered as he took the offered chair.

  “Right. Well, let’s get to it then,” Daily said as dismissive of the required pleasantries as Mike. “Do you know why we’re here?”

  “Something about missing drugs.”

  “Right. Missing drugs. Heroin to be exact and among other things,” he paused. “For the past nine months there’ve been specific items disappearing from the evidence lock-up both here and at the forensics lab. Obviously given the location of the missing items and some other newly discovered facts, we believe it’s someone with open access.”

  Daily paused again and looked at Mike who mimicked his questioning eyes but didn’t respond. “How long have you been with the department Mike?” Daily asked.

  “Twenty-two years.”

  “And you made detective sixteen years ago. Is that correct?”

  “Almost seventeen.”

  “And you’re doing well, health-wise, I mean?”

  “Fit as a fiddle.”

  Daily scribbled down notes on his yellow pad. “Anyone new in your life? Personal life going well? Stable?”

  The creases at the corners of Mike’s eyes deepened. He was willing to play along for the purpose at hand but this was going into areas he didn’t talk about with his closest friends and Daily was far from a friend. “Fine,” he responded noncommittally.

  Daily continued to write. “I hear you’ve just been assigned a new partner.”

  “Yes.”

  “And how is that going for you?”

  “Fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “Just fine.”

  Daily gave him a tight smile then looked back at his notes.

  Mike pushed. “What do you want Daily?”

  He continued to write, ignoring Mike’s question.

  Mike reached out and jerked the notebook away from him. “Are you here to find out about stolen drugs or are you writing a book?” He pushed the notebook back. “Why don’t you just ask me what you want to ask me so we can get this over with? I have a very important case I’m working on and I don’t have time to waste sitting here while you draft your novel.”

  Daily nodded as he looked at him. “Ohh riiight. The big case. Triple homicide. Serial killer. Must be nice to have something so juicy to sink your teeth into? Convenient. When they’re all connected like that.”

  Mike’s face tightened with Daily’s peculiar choice of words. “It’s never nice when three people are brutally murdered. As far as convenient – ”

  “I hear two of the guys were drugged,” Daily said cutting him off. He sifted through the sheets of his notebook running his fingers up and down the pages as if written in Braille. He looked back to Mike with a big smile, licked his finger and molested the pages again until he found what he was looking for. “Propoxyphene, diazepam, oxycodone.” He looked back up at Mike. “D’I get that right?”

  A dry brush of red paint flashed across Mike's cheeks as the evolution of his emotions reached disdain. The loathing he reserved for Smythe found an unexpected companion in Daily and Mike suspected the affiliation exceeded his own personal assessment. The details of their case were as fresh as the tension now suffocating him.

  Mike chose his words carefully. "We’re guessing it was used to restrain them.”

  “And you said you now know all of their identities.”

  "No.” Mike's calm response belied the roiling emotions kept tightly in check. Coiled in his gut, Mike's rage waited impatiently for the opportune moment to strike. “I never said that.”

  “Any of them drug users that you know of?” Daily asked.

  When he ignored his comments again, he realized Daily was going down a predetermined path that would not allow any deviations regardless of the possible tangents. “Maybe.”

  “Do you remember the D’Enrico case? About three years ago? Husband kills his wife with knives from the kitchen after tying her to his truck?”

  The creases around Mike’s eyes were now fissures of tectonic plates shifting in preparation for the subsequent explosion. He watched and listened but did not respond.

  “What about the Latham case also about three years ago? Hunting trip gone bad. One guy slices three of his friends into fish bait?”

  The walls of the conference room expanded and contracted as it breathed a lurid life into Mike’s consciousness. The seemingly incongruous questions now painted a sobering picture for which Mike was unprepared.

  “Nothing? Okay, what about a drug bust at a pharmacist’s house? The Androgovich case? He was selling high-end pain killers to high schoolers? Any of these ringing any bells?” Daily’s questions devolved from conversational to accusatory.

  The teeth of Mike’s thought mechanism finally caught full gear tearing through the murky cloud of confusion revealing the clarity of Daily’s intent. The multitude of distractions he allowed free rein in his mind obscured the potential implications of the I.A. investigation causing him to sit mute, unwilling to say anything until Daily’s cards were fully revealed.

  “Let me lay it out for you,” Daily said as he put down his pen and sat back in his chair meeting Mike’s scrutinizing gaze directly. “We’ve been working on this case for about six months and we haven’t been able to string together anything substantial…until now. The stolen items are arbitrary on their own but when you put them all together they’re painting quite a picture…or should I say…portrait.”

  He waited for Mike to respond. When he didn’t, Daily cut the civilities and vagaries. “You’re erratic. You have constant run-ins with your Lieutenant. You’ve got no family, no friends, no life outside of the job. Nothing. You define the type of cop easily swayed by money, power and all the excuses used to break the law.”

  “Sounds like a lot of P.C. double-talk to me,” Mike goaded. “I didn’t realize English was your second language.”

  “Fine. Alright. The missing items can be tied to you, Mike. You’re the only consistent link that ties these things together. I’m asking if you can explain yourself and your behavior. Maybe save your career.”

  “See,” Mike grinned, his eyes granite orbs boring holes into Daily. “Don’t you feel better?”

  Daily eyes clouded with doubt at Mike’s reaction. An unchecked look of concern tainted his otherwise stoic face briefly then returned its ruddy surface to controlled scrutiny.

  There it was, Mike thought. This was about him. They were here because they thought he was involved in the theft of these items. “What makes you think I had anything to do with stealing the missing items?”

  “Because all the missing items are from your cases.”

  “Is that it?” Mike asked.

  “Is that it?”
Daily asked incredulously. His calm eroded as the imbalance of power he tried to create shifted with Mike’s indifference. “That’s a lot. Aren’t you even going to try and defend yourself?”

  “I don’t have anything to defend. If you had anything more than that you’d have arrested me already.” Mike paused. “I want to know everything that’s missing and which cases they’re tied to.”

  Adam pushed a piece of paper in his direction.

  Mike took the list and reviewed the catalogue of items used to implicate him:

  D’Enrico

  1 – 9” standard kitchen knife, black handle

  1 – 4” standard kitchen paring knife, black handle

  1 – 3” standard kitchen butter knife, stainless steel

  10 ft – polypropylene, three strand rope, white

  100 ft – 304 stainless cable, linked

  10 – stainless jaw turnbuckles

  Latham

  1 – Victorinox, standard red pocket knife

  1 – 7.5” Valor combat knife

  1 – 2.88” S&W Cuttin’ Horse Hawkbill

  1 – 10.5” Jungle Master hunting knife (serrated)

  1 – 3.75” SOG Trident (serrated)

  Androgovich

  20 tabs – 10 mg. propoxyphene (Darvocet)

  10 tabs – 10 mg. diazepam (Valium)

  15 tabs – 5 mg. oxycodone (OxyContin)

  Houghton

  5 – 1 ounce bags Heroin

  1 – Sig Sauer P226 Elite

  1 – Desert Eagle .44 Mark II

  2 – 9-round .357 magazine

  11 – 15-round 9mm magazine

  The details of each case were as fresh in his mind as their current conversation but unlike the clarity of those cases the cloak of subterfuge and duplicity obscured every word Daily said. The additional layer of relevance destroyed Mike’s moment of calm. Stroke by stroke, he saw the portrait to which Daily referred. The items themselves meant nothing to him. Their relevance to his triple homicide did.

  “Mike,” Daily said stopping him before he walked out of the room. “You’ve got twenty-four hours.”

  Chapter 33