Six months ago, Old Mike arrived in Albuquerque, New Mexico, by train. Inside the station, he saw his daughter-in-law, Stacey. After her husband Matt died in the line of duty, a grieving Stacey had left Philadelphia with their daughter Kaylee and moved here. Not long after, Old Mike also decided to take early retirement. As Stacey waited at the station entrance, Old Mike secretly slipped into the women’s restroom, inserted a coin to get a sanitary pad, and used it to replace the one on his left shoulder wound—one that was already soaked with blood. Once he had cleaned up, he followed Stacey home as if nothing had happened and spent some time playing with his granddaughter Kaylee.
Matt’s death had always been a knot in Kaylee’s heart. In the period before Matt died, his temperament had changed drastically; he became irritable and restless, as if he were harboring a heavy secret. Two nights before the incident, Stacey was woken up by the sound of a phone call and heard Matt talking in a low voice in the living room. At first, Stacey thought her husband was having an affair. But after hiding on the stairs and eavesdropping for a while, she realized Matt seemed furious, yet dared not raise his voice to rebuke the person on the other end of the line. Old Mike and Matt had worked at the same police station and were close confidants who shared everything. Stacey hoped Old Mike could help her untie this knot and tell her what had really happened to Matt.
Old Mike certainly knew the truth, but he didn’t want to burden Stacey with any more worries. When she heard Old Mike brush her off with a casual reply, Stacey knew she wouldn’t get any more information out of him. Before the atmosphere turned awkward, Old Mike excused himself, walked out, and got into a taxi. Years of experience as a cop had taught him that taxi drivers knew many of the city’s hidden spots—like underground clinics that treated gunshot wounds. At a veterinary clinic, Old Mike had his shoulder wound stitched up, remaining silent the entire time. The doctor who stitched him up admired his toughness and even offered to introduce him to a job with a local gang. Old Mike refused; he had no desire to go back to that kind of life.
Old Mike lived a quiet life for several months—until Saunders from the Philadelphia Police Department knocked on his door. Saunders had come to investigate the murders of Officer Hoffman and Sergeant Fensky, which had happened in Philadelphia six months earlier. After Old Mike was taken to the interrogation room, he pulled Jimmy’s business card out of his pocket and insisted he wouldn’t say a word without a lawyer present.
Jimmy never expected Old Mike to name him as his defense attorney, let alone ask him to bring a cup of coffee. When he arrived at the police station’s interrogation room, Jimmy handed over the coffee and prepared to ask his client for details about the case. To his surprise, Old Mike didn’t want to drink the coffee, nor did he want to talk about the current situation. He only made one request: when this fruitless interrogation ended, Jimmy was to splash the coffee on the young detective who had been taking notes beside Saunders. This would create an opportunity for Old Mike to steal the notebook. Jimmy owed Old Mike a favor over the Kettlemans’ case. Though he was extremely reluctant, he did as he was told, allowing Old Mike to get his hands on the notebook.
As soon as he left the police station, Old Mike eagerly flipped through the notebook to find out why Saunders had tracked him down to Albuquerque. He turned to the last few pages and finally learned the truth: it was Stacey who had called the police. At Stacey’s house, she admitted she had phoned the Philadelphia Police Department because, while sorting through old boxes she had brought from Philadelphia, she had found $6,000 hidden inside. First, Matt had died; three months later, Matt’s partner Hoffman and Sergeant Fensky were killed; and now, this money had turned up. Stacey suspected Matt might have been involved in something shady— that he had taken dirty money, which had ultimately gotten him killed. So she had called Saunders, hoping this new lead would help the Philadelphia police catch the killer. She never imagined Saunders would come to Albuquerque to investigate Old Mike. Old Mike was furious; Matt had been innocent. After thinking it over carefully, Old Mike finally decided to tell Stacey the truth.
Matt had only been a cop for two years, and he had never taken dirty money. The ones who had taken the money were Old Mike and others at the police station. Hoffman and Sergeant Fensky had been collecting protection money from gangs for years. When Matt was assigned to be Hoffman’s new partner, the two men had tried to drag Matt into their scheme. Matt, a man with a strong sense of justice, didn’t know what to do. He struggled with his conscience for weeks, until one late night, when he called his father for help. Old Mike knew corruption had already infected the entire police station—Matt’s refusal to go along with the crowd would only get him into trouble. Over the phone, he had urged Matt to take the money from Hoffman. That was the real content of the phone call Stacey had been so desperate to learn about that night.
But no one could have predicted that even after Matt took the $6,000, Hoffman and Fensky still didn’t trust him. Two days later, while on duty, Hoffman falsely reported a shooting and conspired with Fensky to kill Matt. After Matt’s death, a heartbroken Stacey had taken her daughter Kaylee and moved to New Mexico. Old Mike knew the truth but had no evidence to prove it—so he had hatched a plan for revenge.
One night, three months after Matt’s death, Old Mike went to the front of a bar. Hoffman and Fensky’s patrol car was parked right outside, empty. Old Mike used a string loop to pull open the car door and slipped a revolver under the backseat cushion. He then walked into the bar, drank a few glasses of strong liquor, and stumbled over to Hoffman and Fensky, rambling incoherently about how he “knew everything.” Guilty as sin, Hoffman and Fensky took the bait. When they left the bar, they waited in their patrol car until Old Mike stumbled out, unsteady on his feet. The two men forced Old Mike into the backseat of the car and casually took the handgun out of his pocket.
The patrol car drove to an open field on the north side of the city, where Hoffman and Fensky dragged Old Mike out of the car. Seeing that Old Mike was “dead drunk”—so disoriented he could barely tell which way was up—they left him aside and walked a short distance away to discuss how to handle him. An old man killing himself out of grief over his son’s death—no one would suspect a thing. Hoffman took the handgun he had seized from Old Mike’s pocket, ready to carry out their plan. But when he turned around, he saw Old Mike standing behind them, holding the revolver. Hoffman fired immediately, only to find the handgun had no bullets at all. Old Mike fired several shots in quick succession, avenging his son’s death—but not before taking a bullet to his left shoulder. The next day, Old Mike took a train out of Philadelphia and headed to Albuquerque.
That was the whole truth. Matt had been a good cop; Old Mike, by contrast, had not. When Old Mike told Stacey all this, he knew he was risking being reported to the police and sent to jail. But no matter what the outcome, he was willing to face it. Stacey, however, chose to stay silent. Old Mike had gotten rid of the men who killed Matt—and that was the justice she needed.