DADDY AT THE ALTAR

by Claire St. Rose

  Hammer’s blood instantly went cold, and the smile was leached from his face. “What happened?”

  “Just get here,” she said and was gone.

  ###

  Hammer hauled his bike to a stop with maximum effort braking, the rear tire on his hog skidding as he wrestled the big bike. He’d outpaced the rest of the Souls, but he could hear them coming as he hurried across the grass. There were four squad cars and two detective cars sitting in the drive, their red and blue lights flashing in the cold early afternoon air.

  “Don’t go in there,” Lily said as she stepped into the doorway, blocking his entrance.

  “I have to,” he said, gently muscling her aside.

  He turned to the kitchen, where the bulk of the officers were, and froze.

  Motor.

  He was lying on the floor—the larger part of his head split open—blood and gore everywhere.

  Hammer’s eyes widened as he glanced around the kitchen, taking it all in. There was a shattered pane of glass in the window and opposite it a hole in the wall. He took a step back and looked at the combined living room and kitchen wall. There was a large hole where the bullet had passed through, and then across the room from that, another hole in another wall.

  Lily tugged at Hammer’s arm. “Come with me,” she said, pulling him away from the carnage.

  He was pale as death and seemed to be in shock. She was leading him outside as the rest of the Souls hurried toward the house.

  “What’s going on?” an older brother demanded.

  “Mr. Blasick was shot and killed last night,” Lily said.

  The biker started around her, but she put her hand on his chest. “I can’t let you go in there. It’s a crime scene.”

  Knife jerked her hand down from his chest and started to step around her again, but she moved in front of him and blocked him.

  “Don’t make this worse.” Her voice brooked no argument. “Worry about the living,” she added, glancing at Hammer.

  Knife looked at the nametag on her chest. “You Lily?”

  “Yeah. Officer Lily Donovan. And you are?”

  “Don Griffin. They call me Knife,” he said. “Hammer’s told me about you. What happened?”

  “Still investigating.” She paused and peered around, then jerked her head toward the street.

  When she, Knife and Hammer were standing by the bikes she continued, her tone now softer. “Forensics still needs to go over the place, but it appears there was a single shot fired through the kitchen window. A large caliber bullet struck Mr. Blasick in the head. It was probably fired from a rifle of some kind, and he was killed instantly.” She looked around again. “You didn’t get any of that from me, understand?”

  Knife nodded as he looked at his brothers. “Stilts.”

  “That’s what we’re thinking,” Lily said. “Any idea who would be targeting the Souls?”

  “No. But we’re going to find out.”

  Hammer eyed her. “Why did you call me?” he asked, his voice as soft as she’d ever heard it.

  “Because I knew you’d want to know.”

  He nodded, the muscles in his jaws working. “How’d you find out?”

  She looked around again. “Again, you’re not getting this from me. We got a report of a gunshot last night. We checked it out but didn’t find anything. It happens. About an hour ago we got a call from a neighbor about the broken window. She thought some kids had broken it—throwing rocks or something. An officer was dispatched, and when no one answered the door, he called Canvas to let Mr. Blasick know about the window. When he got no answer there, and with the gunshot report in the area, he looked a little closer. He couldn’t see the body, but he saw the mess. In his estimation, there was a medical emergency, and he entered the residence.”

  “We need to see,” Mike said.

  “I can’t let you go in there.”

  Mike started toward the door, the rest of the Souls following. Lily began to back pedal, moving to get in front of the group of men.

  “Mike!” Hammer ordered. “Don’t. There’s nothing to see. Don’t make this worse.” He gazed at Lily again. “I know you stuck your neck out. Thank you for calling me.”

  She nodded, relieved that things weren’t going to get out of hand. “I’ll stop by your place after my shift ends. If you don’t burn me, I’ll keep you in the loop as much as I can.”

  “Souls!” Hammer shouted as he swung a leg over his bike. “We’re done here.”

  He could tell his brothers didn’t understand why he was siding with the cop, but there was nothing they could do. He had to get away. Seeing Motor on the floor, his ruined head… it was too much. He needed some distance.

  “Let’s ride!” he said as he thumbed the bike to life. He pulled away from the edge of the road, not waiting on his brothers knowing they would follow.

  “What did you tell them?” Hunter asked when Lily returned to the house.

  “Nothing. Only that Mr. Blasick had been killed.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. If I didn’t tell them something they would have all been in here and we would have either had them screwing up the scene or had to arrest them all. That seemed like the easiest way.”

  His eyes narrowed as he watched her. “How’d they find out?”

  She held his gaze. “Someone must have called them.”

  “Yeah. Someone. Be careful there.”

  “I was just trying to defuse a potentially bad situation.”

  Hunter grunted. “As long as that’s all it was.”

  “That’s all it was.”

  “Sergeant Cullen!” Detective Willard called as he approached. “You and Donovan start a canvas. As soon as Plunkett and Ives are done, I’ll send them to join you.”

  Hunter nodded then turned back to Lily and smiled. “Ready to do some real police work for a change, Rookie?”

  She returned a grin. She’d never done a canvas, but how hard could it be? “Will you be there to hold my hand, Patrol Sergeant Cullen?”

  Hunter snickered and gave her a gentle push on her shoulder. “I think you can handle knocking on a few doors. We’ll start up the block and work our way back. You take the other side.”

  Lily glanced around. Motor’s house was on a street that had a broad, wide, weed-choked drainage ditch that separated the houses, with two one-way roads and a crossover between them every other block.

  “You got it.”

  God help her, she knew she shouldn’t feel this way considering the circumstances, but she was a bit excited to finally get to do something other than ride in a patrol car, pull over speeders, and talk to victims of theft when everyone there knew there was little the police could do. For the first time since she’d joined the force, she felt that she might actually make a difference.

  She and Hunter walked together until they reached the crossover, where Lily peeled off.

  “We know this was the direction the shot came from. Let’s go up one more block,” Hunter said as she began to cross the road.

  She nodded. A canvas was normally only on the block surrounding the scene of the crime, but Hunter’s logic made sense.

  She hurried to the other side of the ditch using the crossover that connected the two roads, then walked up another block. She walked to the first house, squared her shoulders, and rang the bell. It was time to go to work.

  After a moment, the door crept open. “Yes?” an elderly man asked.

  “Good morning, sir. I’m Patrol Officer Donovan. I’d like to ask you a few questions, if that’s alright?”

  He blinked at her. “Ah, yes.”

  “In the past twenty-four hours, have you noticed anything out of the ordinary in the area?”

  The man blinked at her again for a moment, clearly confused why a police officer was standing at his door. “What do you mean?”

  “Any strange cars parked nearby? Did you see anyone you didn’t recognize walking past? Anyone that seemed nervous or out of place. Anyt
hing at all like that?” she asked, keeping her tone non-threatening and pleasant, and then waited for his answer.

  Lily stepped down from the porch. The man had been no help, but that was to be expected. Most of the people she talked to today wouldn’t have seen or heard anything that would be helpful.

  Tightening her mouth, reminding herself that police were all about the grinding details, she walked to the next house, rapped on the door, and waited for it to open.

  ###

  Hammer rode alone. The Souls had returned to the clubhouse only long enough to throw together a plan on who was going to do what, then they had ridden out again to talk to their contacts.

  He hadn’t joined them because he had to gain some distance first. He was on a hair trigger, ready to lash out and kill the first person he even suspected of murdering Motor. The killing of Stilts could have been a one-off, a random targeting of an innocent man, but Motor’s death now made it clear the Souls was being targeted.

  He banked the bike through a turn, his face burning and his hands aching with the cold, but he relished the frigid discomfort. The millions of tiny needle-like stings from the frigid air reaffirming he was alive.

  Motor’s death had been a gut punch unlike any he’d ever received. Whoever had done this had targeted his family. Not the family of brotherhood, like with Stilts, but the kind that went all the way back to his childhood. Motor may not have been his father, but he was more of a dad to him that his own father was. He’d loved that old man—more than his own father and mother—and to lose him in such a way was like someone twisting a knife in his guts.

  He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. The club was in a messy business, but they were small time. They didn’t run drugs or guns, didn’t have to deal with the violence those trades brought. They were muscle. Mostly legal, with a side business that occasionally crossed the line, but he made sure they didn’t use more force or violence than necessary to accomplish their goal. Never in the past had they had to deal with something like this.

  He wondered as he roared along, the throbbing V-Twin singing its road song, if maybe the Filken family had put out a hit on them. They could certainly afford it. William Filken, the father, owned a string of high-end auto dealerships and a race team. Had what they’d done to Randy caught up with them? They had been exceptionally careful with the Filken operation, and there wasn’t even a whiff of evidence that could tie them to Randy’s murder. He didn’t see how it was possible, but it could be that William had put the hit out simply because they were the most likely candidates for the murder of his son.

  If there were a contract out for them, they would eventually find out, and when they did, if it were the Filken family, Hammer wouldn’t rest until they were all dead, their house burned, and the ground surrounding it salted so nothing would ever grow there again.

  He rolled to a stop, waiting for a car to pass so he could make a right and begin his circle back toward Amberton. He shivered once as the sun warmed him, a cascading ripple of muscle spasms passing through him, but the cold couldn’t cool the rage that burned inside of him.

  As the car passed, he pulled onto the road, the wind once again biting at his skin like pin-sharp teeth.

  He was going to find the man, or men, that had done this, and he was going to kill them.

  Slowly.

  Painfully.

  Without mercy.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Hammer rose from his chair and moved carefully toward the door. He wasn’t as shit-faced as he had been after Stilts’ death, but it was only four in the afternoon. There was still time. He opened the door and, good to her word, Lily was standing there, still dressed in her uniform. He stepped back to allow her to enter.

  She saw the nearly full bottle of Jack sitting on the floor beside his chair. If he was working on a new bottle, he must have already polished off the Beam.

  “You’ve had enough,” she said as she picked up the bottle, screwing the lid back on before setting it down on the bar.

  “I’ll decide when I’ve had enough,” he said as he moved toward the bar.

  “Stop it!” she snapped, stepping in front of him, and meeting the fire in his eyes with some of her own. “Getting drunk accomplishes nothing. Nothing ! All it does is makes you feel like shit the next day.”

  “Who the fuck do you think you are?” He stepped past her and reached for the bottle, but she grabbed it instead, sliding it toward her and out of his reach.

  “I’m your friend, you stupid son-of-a-bitch, and I’m trying to help you!”

  He blinked at her for a moment, her heated words managing to penetrate the fog of liquor. “Share one more with me then, to Motor’s memory?”

  She nodded. “One.” She stepped around him and into the kitchen, pulling a glass from the cabinet and pouring a splash of liquor into it, then refilled his shot. “To Morgan Blasick,” she said, holding her glass up.

  “To Motor,” Hammer repeated and tossed the drink back. He started to reach for the bottle, but she was already pulling it out of his reach again.

  “I said one,” she repeated as she screwed the lid back on. “When was the last time you ate something?”

  He thought about it. “Breakfast, I think.”

  “That’s what I thought.” She picked up the bottle and carried it with her into the kitchen. She slid the bottle into the cabinet and then started pawing through the refrigerator. “Jesus, all you eat are frozen dinners and sandwiches?”

  He leaned against the bar and watched her. He wasn’t hungry, but he supposed she was right and he should eat, if only to help with the hangover in the morning.

  She found a package of hamburger meat, then with a bit more digging, elbow macaroni noodles and bottled spaghetti sauce. She scavenged through the cabinets until she found a pan, and then set the meat to browning.

  “I suppose this is a stupid question, but how’re you holding up?” she asked as she began to throw together something that would resemble spaghetti.

  He shook his head. “I can’t believe he’s gone. I can’t figure it out. Who would want to kill him?” His words were soft and rounded.

  “Do you think it has something to do with the Immortal Souls?”

  He watched her, blinking. He needed to be careful with what he said. In his current state, he might say something that would come back and bite them in the ass. “Maybe, but he hasn’t been an active member in five years.”

  “Why would the Souls be targeted?” she asked as she gave the ground beef a stir, avoiding his gaze. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer to that question.

  “I don’t know.” When she looked at him, he could see the disbelief in her eyes. “I swear to God, Lily, I don’t know. There’s no reason for anyone to target us. But even if they were, why Motor? It makes no sense.”

  “Maybe something before your time?”

  “From more than five years ago? Why now?”

  “I don’t know, Hammer, but don’t you think it’s an awfully big coincidence that some kind of ninja assassin shows up in town, and the first two people he kills are members of the same motorcycle club?”

  “What do you want me to say, Lily?”

  She gave the meat another stir. “I don’t know. This is Amberton, South Carolina, we’re talking about here. Not LA or New York. Stuff like this doesn’t happen here.”

  “I give you my word, I don’t know what’s going on. We’ve been trying to find out.”

  “I know. You’ve been tearing the city apart. If you’d found something, would you tell me?”

  “If I thought you could find this fucker, you bet your ass I would tell you. But we don’t know shit. Do you know anything?”

  “No. We’ve got nothing.”

  “Would you tell me if you did?”

  “I would tell you what I could, yes, so long as it didn’t jeopardize our investigation. But like I said, we’ve got nothing. Less than nothing. We’re missing something,” Lily said as she drained the
meat and poured it into the sauce she had been warming in another pot. She tasted it, made a face, and began adding spices to punch up the flavor.

  “Okay. What?”

  She gave him a grim smile as she shook her head. “If we knew that, we wouldn’t be missing it, would we?”

  He grunted. It was so hard to think, his mind was too dulled by the alcohol. Maybe he was a stupid son-of-a-bitch.

  They chatted as she moved around the kitchen, Lily carrying the bulk of the conversation. She drained the noodles and divided them between two plates, spooning the meat sauce over the top. She sat the plates on the table then poured two glasses of water. Hammer didn’t have any wine that she saw, and even if he had, he’d had enough to drink already. Growing up she’d heard her dad speak plenty of times about officers that had gone to the bottle when the job became too much. None of the stories ended well.