Page 41 of Hunt

He exhaled deeply and combed his fingers through his black hair, showing distress again. His mother had a habit of stressing out Kaiser men, including me. “Danny took me to the house, and we went over the scene to see if I remembered anything else that occurred that day. I thought he would take me back to the airport, but instead, he turned right.”

“Sorry, bro, it must’ve been devastating to see your mom after all this time,” I joked to get a rise out of him.

“The club looks good, though,” he told me.

“As good as Savile?” I asked curiously. Sylvie ran a tight ship, and we learnt a lot from her, but I was happier the further away she was from me and my club.

“No way,” he snorted.

“Did you discover anything different when you returned to the house?” I asked curiously.

“Nah,” he grunted. “The neighbor who witnessed the van is now dead. Her daughter still won’t speak to him even with a cash bribe.”

“Yeah, I know. Fuck it. It’s one dead end after another,” I took another sip of my whiskey as I could feel my body tensing up at the thought of how the police scrubbed clean everything that would lead back to the real killer.

“Pretty sure Annika couldn’t see the murder,” he said quietly.

“Pretty sure?”

“A hundred percent sure,” he corrected. “You know it was kinda like I was back then and heard the voices outside, followed by the gunshot. And I ran out of my room and met her in the hallway coming out of her room, so there was no way she could see the murder and pin you.”

“You’re not telling me anything new,” I leveled with him. “And don’t obsess over it, Gunner. More importantly, don’t obsess over her, the snitch.”

“I told them in court that she couldn’t have been a witness because she would’ve had to look out my window, but she wasn’t there. She was in her room when it happened.” His temperature was rising, and he was getting more agitated.

“Gunner-”

“They didn’t believe me and started asking questions that made me doubt myself, you know,” he started picking at the skin around his nails, chewing like a man who hadn’t eaten in a while.

“Bro, you were fucking sixteen years old. You were a kid. Stop doing this to yourself,” I hammered home because I was sick of him wearing the guilt of this.

“Yeah, but…”

“Just stop it, Gunner. It is not your fucking fault,” I slapped my hand down on the table. “Enough is enough. We’ll find out who did this, alright.”

He shook his head, still ripping at the skin around his nails.

“What? You think we won’t? Seriously?” I challenged his pessimism.

“They want you back in prison, Mikky. Don’t you see,” he argued, downing his whiskey and grabbing the neck of the bottle to pour another.

“You think I don’t know that?” I stated angrily. I wasn’t angry at him but furious at the sullen mess he’d become. “Look,” I pointed my finger at his face. “All you have to do is focus on schooling. That’s all. Get a nice girlfriend. Not the one who works here that you think is Annika. Not her because she’s staff and a suspect.”

“Riley,” he needed to remind me what her name was.

“Whatever. Call your mom sometimes. Everything else is my problem. Got it?” I assured him, but I knew it wouldn’t work because he was naturally compulsive and would keep digging until he found the truth.

Those black slug eyebrows dropped so low over his eyes, they almost attached to his eyeballs. “No.”

“What do you mean no? It wasn’t a fucking suggestion, Gunner. It was a demand. I’m the boss around here. You answer to me.” It was my turn to become unreasonable.

A strain appeared on his face, and it looked like he was in pain. “Don’t you see, Mikky? We’ve got nothing. They trashed every piece of evidence because they want you back in prison. I mean...the rats are part of your demise.”

“C’mon, Gunner,” I argued, knowing he was right. “I’m not giving up; they’ve got nothing on me.” I took a pull of my cigar. “See, this is what visiting your mother does to you. It makes you all morose and depressed. It’s like she sucks the happiness out of you.”

“Nah, it’s going back to the house in Larsson.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes with his fingers. “It felt numb. Nothing changed, yet everything had changed.”

“Yeah, I don’t have the stomach to return there, and I don’t want to give the Larsson police a reason to arrest me. It’s safer here. They don’t have the jurisdiction, but they might pass my file on to the Gothenburg police.”

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