Name: Malcolm "Colm" Davies
Appearance:
Gender: Male
Age: 34
Occupation: Plainclothes detective, Seattle PD
Place of Residence: Seattle, Washington
Bio: Malcolm Davies, born to a respectable middle-class family, knew early on that he wanted to be a police officer. He possessed a strong protective instinct, even as a child he would try to fight bullies who picked on other kids or feed strays. Close to his family, they encouraged him to follow his passion. Though his talent for baseball did briefly cause him to consider pursuing a career in professional athletics, ultimately he stuck to the path he had chosen for himself, graduating from UW Bothell with honors and a degree in criminal justice in 2002.
Clean-cut, sincere, and well-educated, Davies was able to find work for the perpetually understaffed Seattle Police Department. At first, serving as a uniformed patrol officer in a quiet suburb, he approached his job with relish. He took the time to get to know the people on his patrol, becoming friends with many of them, for which he was lauded.
However, after four years of cushy suburban detail, Davies tired of small marijuana busts and breaking up teen parties. He didn't feel like he was making enough of a difference. So, he sat the detective's exam, passed without much difficulty, and requested a transfer to a higher-crime district.
There, working for Narcotics, Colm Davies saw the ugly truth of Seattle's seedy underbelly. In working various cases, Davies saw the aftermath of horrific and pointless violence, the ravages of drugs on communities and the human body, the vicious cruelty of men. Some nights, tired or depressed or drunk, Davies felt like he wasn't making any difference at all, that he was putting Band-Aids on a corpse. His optimism slowly seeped away, But still, he soldiered on, trying to make things just a little bit better.
In 2010, eight years on the job, he met Maureen Costello at his local coffeeshop. The two started a casual relationship that soon turned into something more serious. Suddenly, Colm felt like his work meant something again, that it was important to play by the rules, that every arrest, every bust, helped even a little bit. Colm and Maureen eventually moved in together (although her family didn't care for the idea of her moving in with an African-American cop). His ambitions were simple: take the Sergeant's exam, request a transfer to a slightly safer district (though one where he could still make meaningful cases), then ask Maureen to marry him. Davies would have been a happy man indeed if that had worked out.
Complications came in winter of 2013.
Davies first saw it while staking out a meth distributor's home in the middle of the night. Due to the way it was dressed, he first assumed it was an officer on the beat, and mentally cursed the man for making his job more difficult. But it kept coming, and then bent to peer inside Colm's car. He recoiled, horrified, at the sight that greeted him, shut his eyes like a child as he slowly slid his hand towards his service pistol.
But on opening his eyes, there was nothing there.
He sat in the car, trying to calm his racing heart, coming up with a dozen different rationalizations. He was tired, overworked, had eaten nothing but greasy fast food throughout this entire stakeout. Most likely he had dozed off for a couple seconds, long enough to have a short but vivid dream. Nodding to himself, he decided not to mention this to anyone.
The incident slipped out of his mind until a week later, when he spied it again standing atop a moving Central Link train.
And then again, peering from behind the front window of a locked pawnshop.
And once more, standing out in his apartment building's parking lot as he took out the trash.
Davies kept the sightings to himself at first, secretly fearing for his mental health but not wanting to tarnish his professional reputation by mentioning it. It only ever seemed to be when he was alone that he saw the thing he sarcastically dubbed "the Great Mouse Detective". Maybe, he reasoned, if he just got a little rest, decreased his workload, he might stop seeing it.
On the first day of his vacation, Maureen shook him awake at three in the morning, sobbing hysterically that someone was looking through the window. Davies sleepily looked up to see his old friend peering through their third floor window. It was gone by the time he was fully awake, but he now had a thoroughly spooked girlfriend to contend with. Colm spent most of the night trying to calm her and explain what this thing was (not that he really knew himself).
Maureen took the news poorly. The two of them were visited on a more and more regular basis, even on the patio of their favorite cafe. She insisted that Colm do something, without going so far as to actually blame him for the haunting. They moved to a new apartment, had their home blessed by a priest, adjusted the feng shui, hung up garlic, took photos of the stalker. Nothing worked.
Finally, just a week ago, Maureen had had enough. She couldn't stand to live in fear any longer. Davies arrived home from another late shift to find all of her things gone and a note stained with drops of what may have been tears. Not to mention that thing, standing quietly in a corner.
Heartbroken, Davies drank most of a bottle of Evan Williams. Drunk and maudlin, he began looking at engagement rings online. Something in him just snapped, and his melancholy turned to rage. Snatching up his issued Glock, Davies emptied the magazine at the thing, to no effect.
Luckily, no one in the building was harmed by the wild shooting. Even so, Colm landed in serious trouble as a result. Unlawful discharge of a firearm, conduct unbecoming of an officer, dereliction of duty- even if he beat the criminal charges, his career had pretty much stopped cold. Davies' superior officers were sympathetic when they learned of his long-time girlfriend suddenly leaving him, and cancelled most of the charges. Colm was suspended with pay for four months.
Unsure of what to do now with Maureen gone from his life, Colm got in his car and drove blindly east, with a vague idea of going to New York City, but mostly just wanting to clear his head. He was disappointed to see the Great Mouse Detective sitting calmly in his backseat, but just sighed and moved on, driving in no real set plan, just away from Seattle.
Eventually he found himself in Rainey.
