Chapter 4

"Oh, Jesus..." Mike said, looking at the scene in disgust. Dave couldn't help but feel the same disgust. The place was the nastiest they had ever seen. The stench of blood and metal petrified their noses. Mike put a head to his temple. "Oh, God..."

Dave felt sick. The whole case was just awful. Different from any other domestic. The vicious drunk by the name of Gordy that beat his wife weekly...and this time, it wasn't just a beating. Murder. Not a quick and easy one. Her head was crushed with the base of a blender. Her body was hardly recognizable anymore. If they both hadn't seen her as many times as they had, then neither would probably know it was her.

But they knew.

Gordy was nowhere to be seen. He probably didn't get far, maybe haggardly walked a few blocks before collapsing. The paramedics carried the body of his late husband away. She was long dead.

Dave looked away as they took her body away. Mike watched. Dave saw remorse in his eyes, but also anger.

"That son of a bitch..." Mike grumbled, "how could we have let this go on?"

"It isn't your fault or mine." Dave said. "This...it's horrible, but she didn't want to press charges. So there was nothing we could do."

Mike sighed. "Yeah, there was something I could have done." He bit his lip.

"No, there wasn't. Stop beating yourself up, Mike."

"No...two weeks ago, when you were sick with the flu, remember? I...I had him then."

Dave looked at him curiously. "What do you mean, 'had him'?"

"I mean I had him. Instead of throwing him in the drunk tank as usual, I..." Mike paused, swallowing. He stared off past Dave, at nothing. "I put a gun into his mouth and almost shot him."

"What?" Dave was stunned. "Mike..."

"I had him there. Shitting in his pants. Sobbing. And...I could have pulled the trigger. But...I didn't. I let him go."

"Mike...why would you do something that stupid? That's not how we operate. We uphold the law, Mike! We're cops, for Christ's sake! We don't do that to people, even if they're the most wretched scumbags like him!"

"But don't you get it, Dave? If I did pull the trigger, his wife would still be alive. No, she'd be free! She'd be happy! You saw how scared she was of him! She was scared he'd do something like this!"

"That doesn't change anything! You operated outside the law. If you really wanted to do something about it, work within the constraints of the law. But don't threaten him! That didn't solve anything!"

"But it would have, if I had pulled the trigger." Mike kicked at the floor. "I chose a half measure. I should have gone all the way."

Dave inhaled sharply. "You should have done nothing. Mike, I won't report this to the Captain, but you gotta promise me that you won't do something like this again."

Mike was silent for a moment. Then, he spoke. "I promise..." he said. "I won't make the same mistake again."

Dave got the feeling that he and Mike were not talking about the same thing.

Mike walked quickly away from the murder scene. "Come on," he said, "let's catch that son of a bitch."

Catherine Ehrmantraut watched her daughter Kaylee play with her toys from across the room. She was sitting on the floor with a stuffed teddy bear. Mike had given it to her, she remembered. Well, Kaylee's Pop Pop had given her a lot of her toys. He'd given her a lot, that's for sure.

"Ma'am?" said the DEA officer, catching her attention again. Catherine looked back at him. A short, fat, bald man with a very shiny badge hanging down from his neck. Apparently, he was the one that brought down Gustavo Fring. Next to him was his partner, a Hispanic man with a goatee.

"Yes...sorry." Catherine said. She was unfocused. The police had obviously listened in on that call Mike made to Kaylee. Traced it back to some payphone in Santa Fe, where near it they found a car that Mike probably drove out of Albuquerque. They also got reports of a stolen car near the scene, although that had vanished off the face of the Earth.

"Let me ask you again," the DEA agent said, "do you have any idea where Michael Ehrmantraut is?"

Catherine shook her head. "No...I'm sorry..." She was feeling faint. Why did they keep on questioning her like this? Mike never told her anything. Only that money was coming in for them. Well, not for them. For Kaylee.

"Did you know anything about Michael's previous business negotiations?"

"Nothing. Although, I guessed something might have been up." She said honestly.

"Oh? What gave you a hint?"

"I don't know...just some of his mannerisms I suppose. I didn't realize it was as big as meth distribution, otherwise, I would have told the police. I swear, that's the truth."

"Mannerisms?" The agent said. "Like..." he looked at his notebook for a transcript of the conversation, "...'shut the fuck up and put her on the line'?"

"He never was very nice to me. I admit it. But I didn't know of anything illegal, I swear."

"Okay, just one last question, Mrs. Ehrmantraut. Did you know he was feeding millions of dollars in drug money to your daughter?"

Yes. She did. But she didn't say so. She instead shook her head. "I'm sorry I couldn't have been more help to you."

"It's okay," the agent said. "Thanks anyway." The two agents smiled, and then Catherine showed them out the door.

As the door slammed, she shuddered. She wondered for a moment why she hadn't told anyone. That she knew Mike was in the drug trade. That he was feeding Kaylee millions of dollars. That he killed.

But she knew why. It was because she was afraid. Of what Mike would do to her if she did rat out on him. And Catherine did not want to see what would happen if she did, even if he was probably many miles away now.

And one thing kept haunting her. One tiny little detail. At the end of the call, Mike's final promise to Kaylee: "But, I promise, I'll be back sweetheart. I'll be back soon." And if there was one thing that that corrupt man still cared about in this world, it was her. Mike would be back. She was sure of that.

And Catherine didn't want to be around to see that.

"Mommy, who were those men?" Kaylee asked innocently. Catherine walked to her and hugged her.

"They were just asking some questions," she replied, "you don't have to worry about them."

"Asking questions about Pop Pop?" Kaylee said. She was getting older. Still too young to understand, but she knew something was wrong with Mike. "Is he okay?"

Catherine considered the question carefully, and realized that Mike had probably not been okay for many years. In the end, she didn't answer her question. "I'm sure you'll see him again."

Kaylee smiled, and went back to playing with her teddy bear. Catherine watched her wearily.

"Well, what do you think?" Steven Gomez asked his partner as they walked away from the house. "The mother have anything?"

"Nah," ASAC Hank Schrader responded. "I highly doubt it. She might have known about the money, but that seems like about it. I don't think she knows where he is, but you never know. We should keep an eye on her, just in case Ehrmantraut gets touchy-feely and decides to call her again."

"Got it, but that seems to put us at a dead end." Gomez entered their car. "You checked with his old police station in Philly and they don't know anything about this, or anyone he'd hide out with from the force. We've got all known big-time associates of Fring in jail, including that lawyer that was helping him earlier. That doesn't leave many other people that we know of."

"Yeah, I know." Hank said, a troubled look on his face. "I have a feeling that the other lawyer, Goodman, he's in on something. But it would be tricky to go after a lawyer, even if he looks more like a clown."

"Besides, we're already tracking his moves. That's the best we can do right now until we can find some incriminating evidence."

"Yeah..." Hank said. "Any more information on that partner of his, what was his name..."

"Dave Holder? Nothing new, if that's what you mean. Disappeared about twenty years ago after he got into a bit of hot water, never heard of again. There's a very good chance he was killed once his second line of work found out he had been caught. Afterwards, Ehrmantraut left almost immediately to Albuquerque. Denied knowing anything about both Holder's criminal activities or disappearance."

"I think that's a pile of bullshit," Hank said. "And I think Holder's out there. And Mike knows where he is."

"Maybe he is, and maybe he does. But this guy has been off the map for over two decades. Nothing. You might as well be trying to find Heisenberg."

"Hmm. Well, I'm just saying we should keep an eye out. He might be contacting him or something." Despite this, for once, it seemed to Hank like he was at a dead end. Months of chasing this Heisenberg, and finally they had gotten a lead. But the dirt bag got away before they could have done anything about it.

Hank heard his cell phone buzz in his pants pocket. Hank pulled it out and opened it. "Yeah?"

"You better come over here quick." It was one of his DEA agents. "I'm at the prison."

"Which prison?"

"The one closest to where you are now. You're at that Ehrmantraut lady's, right?"

"We were just about to leave, yeah. Why?"

"We've got something here one hundred times more interesting. One of Fring's men is ready to talk."