Ham

by Dustin Stevens

  Save the woman standing on the front porch with the rifle.

  “Is that...” Amber begins to ask, her voice trailing off. Sliding lower in her seat, she peers over the dash, eyes wide.

  “Stay here,” I reply, moving the Forester around so we are pulled up parallel to the house. Shoving it into park, I leave the engine running and step out, wanting to stave off any further questions I don’t have the foggiest idea how to answer.

  Closing the door behind me, I am careful to leave my hands plainly visible. I move slowly, making sure not to startle or alarm anybody, knowing full well the woman on the porch is not the only weapon currently looking our direction.

  Far from it, most likely.

  “Glenda,” I say, turning to face the woman square.

  Twenty-three years have passed since I first stood in this exact spot and regarded her for the first time. Back then, the house was smaller, the outbuilding wasn’t yet built, the gate wasn’t yet needed.

  But she was exactly the same.

  Twenty-three years, and the only clear changes I can see are a few lines around her mouth and eyes and the gun now gripped in her hands.

  “Ham?” she asks. Her eyes narrow slightly as she takes a half step forward, the toes of her boots even with the edge of the porch.

  “Yeah,” I reply. Motioning with a thumb toward the SUV, I add, “Amy is in the back. She’s been hurt pretty bad.”

  A cleft forms in her chin as she purses her lips, looking past me. “And the girl? Is that—”

  “Her daughter. Amber.”

  The rifle remains in place as her gaze dances from the car to me and back again. A single muscle in her neck twitches as she seems to weigh things, not sure what to make of it all.

  Clearly, Amy didn’t bother giving her a heads-up either.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know, exactly,” I answer, hating the sound of the words as they leave my throat, hating them even more as she cocks an eyebrow my direction.

  “It’s a long story,” I add. “Most of which I don’t have.”

  Glenda takes a step forward, dropping from the porch to the top step. “Her condition?”

  The conversation, the line of questioning, rolls out exactly as I would have expected. At the outset, everything is a situation, an ordeal that needs to be chronicled and assessed.

  Things like personal interaction can wait.

  And people wonder why I am the way I am.

  “Stable,” I reply. “But weak. She had surgery yesterday to repair a punctured kidney.”

  “Yesterday?” she asks, the slightest bit of surprise creeping in to the question.

  “Eighteen hours off the slab.”

  Letting a string of mumbles out, the most I can pick out are the words tough and a couple of expletives.

  “So you’re on the run?”

  Another question I’ve spent most of the night trying to answer, always circling back to the fact that until Amy wakes, I can’t be sure how to answer it.

  “You’ll have to ask her. Tail is clean.”

  Glancing at me again, her visage is unreadable. Her cornflower blue eyes seem to study me before she turns to the side and raises her chin.

  “Get the first-floor room made up. Now.”

  I don’t know who she is speaking to. I can hear movement, know that the room she’s speaking of is reserved for the sick or injured, but other than that, it is still just Glenda and me.

  Turning back my way, she releases her grip on the Winchester. Grasping it mid-barrel in her left hand, she extends it toward the closet support post, leaning the tip against it.

  Moving slowly, she takes one step at a time, her feet echoing against the boards before scraping against the gravel of the drive.

  Closing the gap to just a foot between us, she pauses, examining me again, before reaching up and wrapping an arm around my neck. Pulling me closer in her iron grip, she hugs me firmly against her, her entire form cut from muscle and sinew.

  The smell of baked bread rises from her hair as it brushes past my cheek.

  “Welcome home, honey.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Spiers never made it inside his house. After snatching the envelope from the front door and peeking inside it, he went straight back to his car. Firing it up, he sat in the driveway fuming, placing a single phone call before pulling out and heading in the same direction he’d just come from.

  The message he left was simple. The usual place, as soon as Lance Hendricks could call his partner and get there.

  To some, that decision might seem a bit foolish. He is still dressed in the same clothes as the day before, the black T-shirt and sport coat just barely able to hide the spots of dried blood covering them. The smells of sweat and adrenaline and the hospital waiting room all cling to him.

  His face is swollen and blackened, the protective mask cast aside, sitting on the table beside him.

  So blinded by rage, he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn about the people openly staring as he sits glowering in the corner. Cannot even taste his Grand Slam breakfast as he forces it down, doing so only because it’s been almost a day since he ate and the thought alone of any more ibuprofen or coffee on an empty stomach is enough to make him nauseous.

  On the table beside the mask sits the envelope, the top flap wrinkled from where he’d torn it open. Gapping wide, it openly mocks him, each glance toward it elevating his ire.

  He has enough to deal with right now. He does not need this shit compounding it.

  With both elbows resting on the edge of the table, his shoulders are rolled forward, bunched up around his neck. He sits and stares at the table, idly chewing the last of his toast, using it to mop up the remnants of egg yolk on his plate.

  So lost in thought, it isn’t until a familiar voice says, “Damn, boss, you alright?” that he looks up to see Hendricks standing alongside Alex Stepanovich.

  Both in jeans and sport coats, they stand shoulder to shoulder, neither making a move to sit. Almost fidgety, they glance from each other to him, trying to make sense of what they’re seeing.

  Spiers is in no mood for it.

  “Sit,” he says, jabbing a finger toward the opposite side of the table.

  As they do so, he shoves the plate to the edge of the table, signaling to the next waitress that walks by that he is done. Wiping his hands on a napkin, he leans back in his seat, his body letting out several pops and moans in protests.

  It has been a hell of a week.

  And there’s still a lot left to do.

  “What the hell happened?” Stepanovich asks, coming to a stop on the outside of the booth and staring across. His mouth gapes as he asks the question, one of two more people openly assessing the damage to his face.

  Dour expression in place, Spiers looks across at him.

  Yesterday, after things happened, he had made the decision to keep it off the airwaves. A few people like Captain Lucille and the crime-scene crew and no doubt many of the people downtown knew, but Spiers hadn’t wanted it to go out.

  He hadn’t wanted Lucas’s wife and son to be bombarded with people stopping by. Hadn’t wanted the extra scrutiny of thousands of people suddenly getting very curious about exactly what went down the day before.

  That had included Hendricks and Stepanovich.

  While they might have been fully informed on what was going on with the SID and were completely aware of how things operated, they were just kids. Both were barely out of the uniform, still so new that words like pension were just something they heard the old-timers talking about in the locker room.

  They didn’t need this shit. This one was on Spiers and Lucas, the guys that had put things together and had allowed them to get so messed up.

  If there was any way to protect them, he would.

  At least, that was his thinking before getting home and finding the envelope wedged into the corner of his front door.

  Lacing his hands before him, Spiers scans the s
cene around them.

  Sitting just off the freeway in Monterey Park, the Denny’s is the very definition of standard, one of ten thousand exactly like it dotting every state in the country. Yellow and orange dominate the color scheme, everything prefabricated and wiped down so many times the wood underneath is showing in spots.

  Even more common than the décor are the people filling it, truckers and tourists and tired parents with screaming children at almost every table.

  The perfect place for the three of them to be having this conversation, virtually hidden in plain view.

  “I got a call from T-Boy yesterday,” Spiers begins, slowly shifting his gaze to stare at the two men across from him. Starting with the meeting at McDonald’s, he walks them through the tip and going to grab Lucas before heading to the Sundowner. He leaves out nothing as he describes the scene there and its aftermath, telling them of running an alert on the car that has thus far turned up nothing and meeting with Lucy at the crime scene the evening before.

  Of sitting at the hospital all night with his partner.

  When he is done, both men are pressed shoulder to shoulder. Both lean forward, hugging their elbows, closing the distance between them and Spiers to no more than a foot.

  Wearing matching expressions, concern lines cross their foreheads, their mouths turned down into frowns.

  “Jesus, boss, why the hell didn’t you call us?” Stepanovich asks.

  Of everything, it should have been well on down the list of things to be asked. Given all that was just shared, wanting to know why they were kept on the sidelines shouldn’t have been the first thing that popped to mind.

  But Spiers isn’t surprised. Self-interest is human nature, especially for cops.

  Even more so for those dabbling in some of things he and his crew are.

  “Didn’t seem warranted at the time,” Spiers confessed. “Was a sideways tip from a known hood. Hell, I felt bad about pulling Lucas away from his family on a Sunday.”

  Allowing the contrition, the self-loathing he is feeling, to show, he adds, “If I’d known, I’d have brought a whole damn team in there.”

  “Where is he now?” Hendricks asks.

  Pausing, Spiers waits as a frazzled waitress at least two decades too old for such works shuffles by, snatching up his plate. Pretending not to notice his empty coffee cup, she is there and gone before he can say a word, watching her waddle off in the opposite direction.

  “Bitch,” he mutters, shaking his head slightly, before responding, “West Covina General. Both shots were clean, no major organ damage.”

  “So he’ll be okay?” Hendricks presses.

  “Eventually,” Spiers says. “But it’s going to be a bitch. Months of rehab. We’ll be lucky to have him back by the new year.”

  He pauses there, pulling up short of stating the obvious. Any assistance they might have been hoping to get from the fourth member of their crew was now effectively gone.

  And given their unique situation, requesting any extra assistance wasn’t exactly an option. Nor is calling on the third team assigned to their unit, the pair so new they haven’t even assembled their rolling desk chairs yet.

  Reaching out, Spiers presses the pads of all five fingers on his right hand down atop the manila envelope. He holds it there a moment, before sliding it across the table, adding, “There’s more.”

  Lifting his hand, the two men glance from him to the envelope before Stepanovich takes it up. Pinching the sides inward, he shakes out the contents, a series of photos sliding out onto the table.

  Leaving them there, both men fan them into a haphazard spread, looking over the dozen or so images before them.

  “Is this the hotel room?” Hendricks asks, his brows brought together. “Looks like a house.”

  “A nice house,” Stepanovich adds.

  “Two houses, actually,” Spiers replies, the words tasting sour, threatening to force up every bit of the food he’s just consumed. “Lucas’s, and mine.”

  Hendricks is the first to look up. His mouth formed into a circle, Spiers can see the information connecting in his mind, one thing at a time falling into place.

  Beside him, Stepanovich keeps his head down, checking over the photos once more before lifting his gaze. “The woman?”

  Spiers grunts in the negative, shaking his head slightly. “Lima. Those were waiting on my front door when I got home this morning.”

  This time, Stepanovich is the first to respond, his eyebrows rising. “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope,” Spiers replies, the vitriol he felt standing on his front walk still as strong now as the moment he first opened the envelope.

  Hector Lima had already made his presence felt. He had crossed a line, following him to the bar the night before and accosting him as he stepped outside.

  This was taking things much, much further.

  “He went into your house?” Stepanovich asks, his tone and his expression both a mixture of shock and incredulity.

  Bitterness roils through Spiers as he bobs his head. “Both our houses.”

  Silence falls between the three men, the background din of an early lunch crowd the sole sound. Each processes things in their own way, their faces barely containing the myriad emotions between them.

  Calling them wasn’t ideal, but there was no way around it. Too many plates are spinning for Spiers to begin to keep them all going, especially with Lucas on the sidelines.

  And going anywhere else for help isn’t an option.

  Lima needs to be dealt with. That has to be the first thing on his list, telling that bastard that no matter how he likes to view himself, he is no better than every other lowlife walking the street.

  Regardless what their relationship might be, if he ever comes near him or his partner’s home or family again, that would be it.

  And he doesn’t mean jail.

  Beyond that, there still exists the other problem, the thing that has jump-started this all to begin with.

  “Damn,” Stepanovich whispers.

  “So no hit on the woman?” Hendricks follows up.

  “Not on her,” Spiers says, “but Lucas tagged the girl before they got away.”

  It takes them a moment to put together what he’s referring to.

  “Tagged?” Stepanovich asks. “You mean…?”

  “I mean we have a location,” Spiers says. “Which is why I asked you guys here.”

  The explanation is a slight perversion of the truth, but there is no need to go into all that now.

  “Local?” Hendricks asks.

  “Not exactly,” Spiers replies, sliding his phone from his pocket. Already up on-screen is the tracking program, the one he’s been checking every few minutes all morning long.

  As best he can tell, their target has finally stopped moving.

  Sliding it across the table, he looks to each of them in turn and asks, “Either of you guys ever been to Idaho?”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  I can feel the texture of the rough-hewn wood pressing into my shoulder as I lean against it. Arms folded, I watch as the closest thing to a mother I’ve ever had finishes tucking the woman I’ve always thought of as my sister into bed.

  Careful to make sure she is propped up on pillows and blankets, her injured kidney free of any direct pressure, Glenda presses a hand to Amy’s forehead. Holding it there a moment, she looks my direction, a host of thoughts and feelings etched into her expression.

  “I always knew that if you ever found your way here again, she’d be the one to drag you back,” she says. “But I never imagined it would be like this.”

  The perfect summation of the situation, of so many of the thoughts I had on the drive up, I have nothing to say in response. Pushing myself away from the door, I walk forward, my boots echoing against the hardwood floors.

  “How’s she doing?”

  “She’s okay,” Glenda replies. “The post-op sedation had about worn off, which is why she was beginning to fidget. Much longer and
she would have been awake.”

  Judging by the way she looks now, her features serene, pressed back into the overstuffed pillows, I can guess that Glenda has given her something to put her back under for a while longer.

  As bad as I want her to be awake so I can begin pumping her for answers, the move is probably the right one at the moment. The surgery yesterday lasted longer than five hours. The drive up was another twelve.

  Amy is tough, but even she has her bounds.

  Coming to a stop on the opposite side of the bed, I rest my gaze on Glenda. “You’ve been busy around here.”

  “We have,” Glenda replies. “I’m sure you noticed the new bunkhouse out back and the expansion here to the main house.”

  She smiles, a hint of embarrassment rising to the surface. “That’s what we call this place now, pretentious as it sounds.”

  To that I can’t help but smile as well. In the twenty-plus years I’ve known the woman, a hell of a lot of different adjectives have come to mind to describe her. Pretentious has never been one of them.

  “How many now?”

  “Now?” Glenda asks, the smile fading. “Seven. Ages two to sixteen.”

  “Two?” I ask, the word snapping out quicker, angrier than I had intended.

  “Yeah,” she replies, her expression letting me know she feels the same way. Glancing to the side, she juts her chin toward Amy, adding, “You think this one was bad when she got here?”

  “She was.”

  Glenda’s gaze moves back to me. “But not the worst. Not anymore.”

  Clamping my mouth closed, I squeeze tight. I can feel muscles and tendons standing out along my neck, sinewy fibers visible the full expanse from my jaw to my collarbones.

  My hands curl into rigid fists, fingernails digging into my palms.

  “Do I even want to know?”

  “Probably best you don’t,” Glenda replies. Returning her attention to Amy, she asks, “Do I want to know what happened here?”

  My muscles still clenched, I give one final squeeze before slowly releasing. Little by little, the tension ebbs away, leaving behind a veneer of sweat and my heart pounding.