“And there are no coincidences in a murder investigation,” Madison smiled.
“Right. Plus she drinks those energy drinks by the case.”
"Well, lucky for you your instincts were dead on,” Madison said as he stood. “Apparently that tire lot was where she did all of her dirty work. We found blood and tissue from all three victims inside the building as well as the teeth and fingers from the two. We also found remnants of every piece of evidence Daily had on his list against you in either the building or the house. And before he could say you were also at both locations we had everything dusted. The only prints belonged to her. You’ll be happy to know he's in the process of closing the investigation.” He took a deep breath. “I guess the only downside to this is Rudy."
Mike looked away.
"It's not your fault Mike.”
Rudy’s words echoes in his head. It didn't alleviate his guilt. Nothing would.
He closed his eyes.
Chapter 60
Suzanne tapped lightly on Mike’s open door the next morning. “May I come in?”
He nodded and watched her as she walked across the room and took the seat earlier occupied by Madison.
“How are you feeling?” She asked.
“Under the circumstances, I feel fantastic. How ‘bout you?”
“Same.” She smoothed her hands across her beige skirt.
“I’m sorry about Molly,” Mike offered.
She sighed. “Thank you. It would have been nice if things turned out differently but I guess that’s the way life goes.”
Silence overtook them as they sat listening to the beeping from Mike’s EKG monitor.
“Mike,” she began. “I’m sorry to have put you through all of this. I had no idea…I didn’t—”
“It’s not your fault,” Mike said and waved a tube infested hand. “The good news is we both made it out alive. You shouldn’t blame yourself for something outside of your control.” The words echoed back to him. “Guilt is a terrible thing,” he added as he looked away. “It blinds you to reality.”
“Yes. You’re right. I spent so many years torturing myself over losing her and I have to remember it was not of my own doing. She was taken from me and they turned her into something else. I didn’t have any control over that.”
“So what now?” He asked.
She shrugged. “I’ve decided to go back to California. There’s no reason for me to stay. Besides I think a change of scenery is the best thing for me right now.”
He nodded. There were no unrealistic expectations they stood any chance of having a real relationship. There were too many secrets, too many deceptions and too much doubt to overcome.
She walked over to his bed, leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you,” she said against his lips. She brushed the side of his face with her hand, smiled then turned and left the room.
He didn’t feel any sense of loss. He just felt relieved it was finally over. They could move on with their lives without the burden of guilt that kept them from living.
He was staring out the window when Kevin walked in.
“Can I come in?” He asked. His right arm in a sling. The right side of his face was bruised and he sported a white, cotton bandage wrapped over the top of his forehead with that stubborn curl hanging over the top. His eye was swollen but he still looked like a teenager. Mike thought the scars might do him some good, butch him up a little.
“You look like shit,” Mike said, as Kevin walked into the room.
“I feel like shit.”
“I guess I owe you a thank you. I hear you saved my life.”
Kevin looked down at his feet.
“I also hear you closed up all the loose ends. I’ve been exonerated as has Suzanne. Looks like you took care of everything.”
Kevin shrugged as he met his eyes.
“So how does it feel to be a hero?” Mike asked.
Kevin smiled like a six-year-old getting his first merit badge. “I wouldn’t say I was a hero.”
“Really? How can you back out of that?”
“I just did what any good cop would do.”
Mike smiled at his response which was exactly what he would have said had the tables been turned. The kid made him proud and although he had obviously grown up because of this ordeal he was sad it came at such a price.
“So,” Mike continued. “Why in the hell did you have bandages and coagulant in your jacket? Were you expecting to get shot?” Kevin was always Johnny-on-the-spot but having those particular items was excessive even for him.
Kevin laughed. “Well, actually I was thinking about Doctor Kelly. She was still a homicidal maniac to me at the time. I know I’m not exactly an NFL player so I thought if we had an altercation I should be prepared. I didn’t really think it might actually be something I would need.”
At the mention of Suzanne’s name Mike remembered his feeling that the two of them knew each other. With all the cards on the table he thought now was as good a time as any to ask.
“Don’t take this the wrong way but I can’t help but feel like you knew Doctor Kelly, long before any of this ever happened. Was I just imagining something between you or did you actually know her?”
Kevin shrugged his shoulders. “She was one of my advisors in college. I recognized her the night she was attacked but I didn’t know if I should make a point of it or just ignore it. It didn’t seem relevant at the time so I never said anything.”
“So even when things got bad you didn’t think to say anything about it to me?”
Kevin shook his head. “Think about it. When you finally decided she was guilty was about the same time we were supposed to meet at the tire lot. Up until then you were fixated on the daughter of that Stanford guy. You never told me Doctor Kelly was actually the daughter of Stanford and the girl was his granddaughter. It was just bad or perfect timing depending on your perspective. It wasn’t like I was trying to hide something from you or anything. I just didn’t think it was relevant at the time. And if you think about it, now that we know all the details, it really wasn’t.”
Mike did think about it and realized he was right. Had he told him about their connection he probably would have blown it out of proportion. The fact she advised him in college meant nothing in the end but would have been a distraction he wouldn’t have been able to ignore.
“Well, I should probably let you get some rest,” Kevin said as he turned to leave the room.
“Hey,” Mike stopped him.
Kevin turned.
“Thanks again…Kevin.” Mike nodded his head once then closed his eyes and fell into a very deep and overdue sleep.
###
Thanks so much for reading my book! I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. If you did enjoy this book it would be great if you would provide a rating through your favorite site.
Thanks again!
Michiko Katsu
COMING SOON FROM MICHIKO KATSU:
Too Late for Apologies
Hamstrung
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Please enjoy an excerpt from the soon to be released: Too Late for Apologies
Chapter 1
The clock on the microwave showed 4:23 a.m. Another night went by without sleep. This was the fifth in a row. For months his sleep had been sporadic, a few hours here, a few there, never any consecutive and never any deep and restful enough to do the job for which it was intended. He couldn’t go on like this forever. Each night he tried to drink himself into a stupor only to pass out for a few hours and then wake up unable to fall back to sleep.
His cell phone danced precariously closer to the edge of the Formica countertop as the vibrations from the incoming phone call reminded him that out of sight did not mean out of mind. Heath tilted his head towards the annoying sound but otherwise gave no indication he heard it.
Standing in f
ront of the dingy sliding glass door of his apartment, he downed the last of his drink while staying focused on the stoplight morphing from green to yellow to red and back again; the colors bright in contrast to the blackness of the night sky. This was the fifth time the phone had rung in the past ten minutes. He wasn't any more inclined to answer it now than the first time.
Outside the August air was oppressive and smothering; inside it was a bone chilling sixty-five degrees. Air conditioning was a luxury he had missed for so long that he abused its availability whenever possible even to the point of discomfort. Instead of turning up the temperature he would drape the robe his mother made him over his emaciated frame to ward off the chill.
The terry cloth based was adorned with hand-stitched baby clothes like a color by numbers painting. Wearing it always made him feel like Joseph and reminded him of happier times. He rarely took it off. The once fluffy, white base was now stained and wreaked of body odor. He would die in the robe if he had any say in the matter.
The phone vibrated again. He tossed a vodka soaked ice cube into his mouth and headed toward the kitchen desperate for a refill. The robe came open as he walked revealing baggy boxer shorts hanging on to his distended hips like dangling mountain climbers with broken carabineers. The last vestige of dark brown chest hair remained in pathetic patches across his chest mistaking an age far more advanced than his twenty-three years. Even the matching curls on his head seemed aged and worn.
As he passed by the phone on his way to the kitchen he stopped for a moment, rubbed his bloodshot eyes and contemplated picking it up. It only took a split second of cogitation before he slammed the base of the glass onto the phone shattering it into pieces. His haggard form was misleading as the still existing strength within presented itself in a quick and resolute manner ending any possibility of a repeat offense. He jerked one side of the robe across his body and continued on to his original destination.
The excessive brightness of the florescent lights in the kitchen burned his eyes when he flipped the switch and his hand shot up to cover them. Deep, brown eyes that used to dance with boyhood ebullience were now sunken and pursed against the harshness of the light.
He picked up and then quickly replaced the empty bottle of vodka with a half-empty bottle of gin. At this point it didn’t matter what he was drinking. What started out as a vodka/cranberry turned into a gin/cran as the fruit juice mixer went from half the glass to a pink oil slick dissipating into the fermented liquid. Satisfied with the ratio of his refill, he made his way back to the door and resumed his intense scrutiny of the stop light outside.
He had told Dr. Melnick he was having trouble sleeping. She smiled at him and asked questions trying to root out the problem. It was her job, of course, but he had grown tired of answering other people’s questions especially hers. Initially he believed she had his best interests at heart until he realized her true intentions. Now, whenever he saw her face he wanted to smash her head in with a rock.
Apparently therapy wasn’t working.
He assumed a “psychotic, delusional, borderline schizophrenic” was supposed to think about killing people in a violent way. At least those were the words he saw repetitively written down on his weekly evaluations to the court. He didn’t feel delusional—psychotic maybe—but he definitely wasn’t delusional. The verdict was still out on schizophrenic.
“Are you dreaming when you do sleep?” She had asked him.
“Sometimes,” Heath responded.
“Do you remember any of your dreams?”
“Sometimes.”
“What do you remember?”
He took a deep breath, apprehensive about revealing the details of his dreams to her. The judge required him to see a psychiatrist stating it would be the best thing for him under the circumstances. It would help him “re-acclimate into civilian life” or so he said. But he didn’t like the idea of talking about his feelings with a complete stranger and initially he wasn’t sure he liked Dr. Melnick. Amy told him he could find another doctor if he wanted but since this wasn’t his idea, the doctor really didn’t matter. At least that was his initial thought.
“Heath?” She prodded. “Are you dreaming about the war?”
“Sometimes.”
“Are you dreaming about all of the people you’ve killed?”
He looked at her.
No. It wasn’t the circumstances. He didn’t like her.
She sat in a white, leather wingback chair staring at him with judgmental brown eyes. He guessed her to be in her early fifties even though she was trying hard to still be twenty. An obvious facelift, cheek implants and lip injections made her look plastic, like some Hollywood wanna-be, so superficial in her vain attempt to stay young forever.
The sad thing was she would have been very attractive if she left herself alone. No, she would never be twenty-five again but what was wrong with being fifty-five? At least she would look human, he thought as he continued to sit there staring at her.
“I would imagine if I were responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people that I would have nightmares too,” she goaded him, writing down some assumed insightful notes on the sheets of paper in her leather-bound notebook. She brushed back her extra long, blond extension and stared back him. Her French-tipped acrylic nails were too long for normal activities forcing her to hold her pen like a three-year-old.
He shook his head as he watched her write. It was her hands that gave her away. No matter what she did to the rest of her body, her hands were still thin sheets of dermis wrinkled and spotted, the underlying blue veins crisscrossing them like a street-level map.
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: that’s what she always called it. He hated that term. Even the acronym made him sick. It was the politically correct way of saying “fucked in the head”. He always thought of that George Carlin bit Max loved and would have preferred she call it “shell shock” and be done with it.
“Heath, this is your session. If you don’t want to talk then maybe I shouldn’t be wasting my time with you. There are other returning soldiers who have problems just like yours who actually want my help. Remember, if you want to stay out of the hospital you have to be an active participant in these sessions and I am the only one who can make that determination. I can be helpful or—“
“I don’t dream about the war in that way,” he snapped. “I don’t feel guilty about anything I did—there.”
He thought she was frowning at him but it was impossible to tell.
“So why are you having such a hard time sleeping?” She asked without looking up.
“I,” he paused. “I don’t know.”
“Of course you do Heath,” she huffed. “You’re just not willing to discuss it. Unfortunately until you come to terms with what is bothering you, your physical body is going to continue to respond the way it has since you’ve been back. Obviously it is revolting against your inability to come to terms with whatever is so upsetting to you. If it isn’t what happened in Iraq than what is it?”
A loud honk from a car below brought him back to the present moment. That was their last session together. He had only seen her one other time but it wasn’t for therapy.
Memories of that evening filled his already cloudy head and he began slamming his empty fist against his forehead. He bent forward as if to wretch and almost lost what little balance he had. Righting himself against the wall he forced himself to stare at the lights again but the colors were now swimming in a kaleidoscope of undulating hues.
“I just want to do the right thing,” he said out loud then started to mumble. “I just want to do the right thing. I should do the right thing. Right? The right thing. The right thing.”
He started to laugh at such a loaded statement. His laughter was cold and cynical, so unlike the almost girlish giggles he would exude when Jane or Betsy would tickle him as a child.
Then he stopped laughing. The chattering of his teeth echoed in his head and he pulled the robe tight against his body, his sh
oulders slumped as he cradled his glass against his chest and looked back out at the light.
His left temple throbbed. Fear made him a coward and it was eating him up inside. Running away once only proved physical distance didn’t change the facts. He was back and the truth was just as real as it was before he left. It needed to end one way or the other. He went to war to find some peace but the war he was fighting inside was worse than the one he was fighting outside and it was killing him.
He had to tell the truth. He had to make things right.
But who would believe him?
Knock. Knock. Knock.
He jumped at the unexpected banging on his front door even though the sound was muted and hollowed out by his current condition. He looked around the room with stilted, claymation movements as his plodding brain tried to determine its origin. His brow furrowed with questions until he saw the pieces of cell phone lying on the floor and he closed his eyes. In reality he knew it wasn’t going to end with the phone calls. The act of destroying the phone didn’t translate to destroying the caller but he was surprised the succession between the two was so quick. He wasn’t ready.
Heath took a deep breath then looked up at the ceiling. He had already set his plan in motion. There was no turning back now. As he closed his eye he prayed she would understand, prayed she would figure out the truth and most importantly forgive him.
He made his way toward the door as the banging got louder and louder.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Burdened By Guilt Page 29
