The Second Coming (38 page)

This isn’t what Mike thought he would be doing when he was 36 years old. The sweet taste of the coke coated his throat as a momentary wave of remorse flashed through his skewed mind. Why did he keep doing this to himself?

The truth was he couldn’t stop himself. The better he felt, the more he wanted. The more he consumed, the better he felt. He told himself not to do it and he knew he would be much better off if he didn’t, yet he couldn’t help himself from wanting more. He had felt so confidently supreme during his few days of sobriety. Why couldn’t he just enjoy that feeling? Why was it that every time he got clean, he felt the sudden urge to go back to the drugs and alcohol?

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he thought as he snorted the other line of blow. “You hold down a good job and are respected in your profession,” he assured himself as he sat back and waited for the euphoric adrenaline rush of the coke to set in. As he sipped on his drink, negative thoughts began to flutter in his head like so many nagging regrets.

Did his peers really respect him? No one would tell him if they didn’t. Most people were intimidated by his overwhelming presence. He wondered uneasily what other people thought of him. What did they say about him when he wasn’t around? What did they see when they looked at him? More importantly, what did he see when he looked at himself? Did he like who he was?

At that moment he wasn’t happy with his life and he wished he was mentally stronger. When he was younger he imagined that one day he would be a starting quarterback in the NFL or an espionage agent for the US, bringing down the Soviet empire, but he fell short of those dreams and now realized that life was slipping by unmercifully as he lived out his mundane existence. There was no use in trying to change his life now. It was too late. The only thing he could change was how he lived his life, but he knew deep in his soul that even though it caused him guilt, he enjoyed the feeling of superiority he felt when he was high. It was his escape from his routine life and it made him feel free even though in the back of his mind he knew he was a slave.

The problem was the partying was starting to control him and take effect on his life and job. Mike took a large swallow of Jack Daniels. “Look at yourself,” he chastised himself. “You should be going to bed and getting
some sleep so you are well rested and prepared to catch the Sterling Killer, but you can’t stop yourself.” Why couldn’t he just get up, walk into his room and go to sleep? He knew it was what he needed yet he refused to do it.

He shamefully took another hard swallow of Jack. It was true. Once he got started drinking and doing drugs he got to feeling so good that he couldn’t stop until he was barely conscious. He wanted to be a better person and live a cleaner, more productive life, but he didn’t know how to do it. Hell, he knew he should get up and go to bed, but he couldn’t convince himself to walk away from the drugs and alcohol and the music he was morosely enjoying.

If he didn’t party so much he would be able to do his job better and perhaps he would have found a clue, any clue, that would have given him the evidence he needed to arrest Father John, but without that evidence, he didn’t have shit. Unfortunately the only way he could envision catching the Sterling Killer at this late, inebriated part of the night was to wait for him to slip up and hope that they caught him in the act of abducting another young lady. If for some reason they were unable to catch him while he committed the crime, there was nothing else to go on. Young women would keep dying and he would keep drinking. He felt like he was letting everyone down, including himself.

Maybe he was making too big of a deal out of the whole thing. He took off his beanie and rubbed his hand over his shaved head. It wasn’t like he was a junky. He wasn’t hurting anyone but himself…or was he? “To hell with everyone else,” he thought resentfully. If he couldn’t live his life on his own terms, then he would just as soon be dead.

Maybe that’s what his dad thought when he committed suicide. Maybe all of the demands and pressure of his father’s life made it not worth living any more. Is that what he was thinking when he put the gun in his mouth? Mike’s thoughts turned to the gun his father used to shoot himself that hung menacingly in his closet. He wondered what it felt like when his dad pulled the trigger. Did it hurt or was it a painless death? Mike got up and staggered over and opened his closet door. On the side of the closet, his father’s nickel plated Colt .45 hung from a brass hook in a leather shoulder holster. He stared at it frozen as if it was a barking Pit-bull. The gun had been taunting him since he brought it home after his father’s death. His stomach soured as he reached out and removed the heavy pistol from its harness.

As he held the pistol in his hand like a led weight, he gazed down at it in a haze. Pulling the slide back he checked the chamber to make sure there wasn’t a round loaded and then ejected the magazine from the handle into his large, worn hand. Through the slit in the magazine he could see the copper cased bullets so he jammed it back into the handle with a firm click as he walked over to the couch and laid the gun perilously before him next to his drink and humidor.

Mike stared incoherently at the shiny gun and wondered how his dad worked up the nerve to put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Would Mike have the intestinal fortitude to do such a thing? Big Pete had tried to console Mike after his dad’s suicide by telling him that at least he died a painless death, but Mike didn’t believe that. He knew that in the instant it took for his dad to pull the trigger to when the bullet exploded out the back of his head was the most intense, searing pain that his father ever experienced. Mike also knew now, as he stared ominously at the gun, that the pain from the bullet was nothing in comparison to the anguish he must have experienced the minutes he took to convince himself to pull the trigger.

Mike leaned forward on the edge of the couch with his forearms resting on his knees, his face close enough that he could smell the metallic workings of the pistol.

He picked up the gun and examined its gleaming sheen as he turned it over in his hand. The gunshot itself wouldn’t be so bad if he could just work up the nerve to pull the trigger. He found himself oddly admiring the mental strength it must have taken his dad as he carefully pulled the slide back, loading a casing into the chamber.

It would be so easy to end it all. All he had to do was put the gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. It would end all of the pain and suffering that played in a continual loop in his mind when he put his head down at night to go to sleep. No more screams of agony and dead faces haunting his thoughts. No more drinking and using drugs just to be able to get to sleep. The vicious cycle would all be over.

Mike turned the gun on himself and peered down the dark hole of the barrel. “Just do it,” he coaxed himself. “Don’t be a pussy.”

As he closed his eyes, he opened his mouth wide and stuck the gun inside, the stinging metal of the barrel resting on his tongue as he closed his mouth and clenched his face tightly preparing himself for the force of the
blast. “Last chance,” he thought desperately. “Get it over with.” Gripping the pistol with both hands, he placed his thumb on the trigger, closed his eyes and in a momentary lapse of reason he pushed down on the trigger.

The trigger didn’t budge and Mike opened his eyes and exhaled a sigh of relief as he removed the gun from his mouth and saw that the safety was on. What the fuck was he thinking? Even a tormented life is better than no life at all. He had too much to live for to take his own life. “How did that just happened?” he asked himself with confused amazement.

He carefully set the gun down on the table with an amused knowing grin. “Thank God the safety was on,” he said astonished. “I really dodged a bullet that time.”

Mike picked up his glass and sat back on the couch as he reevaluated his life. Things were not near as bad as he made them out to be. There was plenty to live for and he needed to learn not to overanalyze everything and to stop being so hard on himself. After all, he was a human being with faults and weaknesses like anyone else. As he sipped on his drink he shook his head with wonderment. He almost made the ultimate mistake and took his own life. How could he have been so damn foolish to even consider such a selfish act? Man, was he glad the safety was on. He felt like someone must have been watching over him like a guardian angel. “Divine Intervention,” he repeated the words Kate used earlier that night.

If the safety wasn’t on he never would have seen Kate’s wide smile and gleaming eyes again. What a shame that would have been. They could be so good together if he could just pull his shit together. They would have beautiful, talented kids and Kate would be a great mom. She was the one who could inspire him to be a better person. He wanted to prove to her that he was worthy of her love; that he could be the stand up type of man that she would want to marry and be the father of her children. He wanted to fulfill her every need and give her the life she always dreamed of and he almost threw that opportunity away.

He realized that he just came about as close to death as he ever wanted to come and it gave him a whole new perspective on life. This was the greatest thing that ever happened to him. For the first time in a long while, he appreciated his life. If his father could have experienced the overwhelming joy he did for this second chance at life, he was sure he would have changed his mind and not committed suicide. How lucky he was to be alive!

Mike vowed to apply himself vigorously in everything he did from that moment on. He was going to make the most of this second chance and that meant no more drinking and doing drugs, at least until he solved the Sterling Killer case. He stood up and grabbed his father’s gun and the humidor full of drugs and walked them out to the side of the house and dumped them into the trash with the full knowledge that if he felt different in the morning, he could retrieve them.

chapter
60

T
HE NEXT MORNING
Mike blazed in through the swinging doors of Homicide dressed in faded jeans, cowboy boots and a newly pressed, striped, button down shirt with a renewed vigor. He was just returning from having the stitches removed from his head. His dark hair was stubbly and starting to grow in around the scar making it look as though he was branded in the back of his head.

“What’s up homey G?” He said enthusiastically to Big Pete who was plopped down at his desk working fastidiously on his computer.

Mike sat down at his desk and turned on his computer.

“You got your stitches out,” Big Pete bellowed in a congratulatory tone. “How’s your head feel?”

“Better than it has in a long time. Thanks for asking.”

Big Pete shot Mike a questioning glance. “You’re in a good mood. How’d your date go last night?”

“It was good,” Mike affirmed nodding with approval. “She’s great and really smart. She gave me the name and number of a former professor of hers,” Mike told him as he checked the text message on his cell phone. “She said if anyone knows what the symbol means, it’ll be him.” He reached for the receiver of the black telephone on the corner of his desk.

“Before you make that call, take a look at this,” Big Pete said as he rose from his chair, ambled over to Mike and dropped a worn black and white photo on his desk. “I found it in Father John’s room at the abbey.”

Mike picked up the photo of a distinguished looking gentleman and five kids standing on a front porch dressed in their Sunday finest.

“What is this?” Mike asked as he carefully dissected the picture.

“It’s Father John with his dad and his brothers.”

“I figured that part out. Why are you showing it to me?”

“Take a close look at the building. Do you recognize anything?”

Mike held the photo closer to his face as he squinted intensely at the large ornate wood doors behind Father John’s family. “Holy shit,” he said under his breath. “That’s the Oakland Children’s Orphanage.” He looked at Big Pete with wide eyes of amazement. “That’s where the first victim’s body was found.”

“That’s right Captain,” Big Pete replied in a congratulatory tone.

“What the fuck is Father John’s family doing there?”

“Beats me. Maybe we should give him a call and find out?”

Mike stared at Big Pete in awe. “What do you think about my split personality theory now?”

“I don’t know what to think any more.”

Mike’s cell phone rang in his shirt pocket. When he pulled it out he recognized the number as Father John’s. “Speak of the devil,” Mike said as he flipped his phone open.

“I had another dream. There’s been another murder,” Father John said repentantly.

“Is that right?” Mike replied skeptically. “Where’s the body?”

“She’s in a church somewhere…I don’t know where.”

Mike let out a deep breath as he leaned back in his chair. “I’m growing tired of your vague predictions Nostradamus.”

“I assure you that this is not a vague prediction. It is a prophecy.”

“You’ll have to excuse me if I have a hard time believing you, but maybe you can tell me this,” Mike said like someone setting a trap. “What is your family’s connection to the Oakland Children’s Orphanage?”