The Hunter

Liam is unsettled and bratty, kicking things and climbing on furniture, demanding every ten seconds to know where his daddy is. Neither Lena nor Sheila has attention to spare for him; Sheila has enough to do with Alanna, who refuses to let go of her T-shirt, and Lena, while she empathizes fully with Liam’s mood, is having difficulty not telling him to shut the fuck up. In the end it’s Maeve who takes him in hand, asking Lena for the dogs’ brushes and herding him off to groom them. Neither of them has much of a clue what they’re at, but the dogs are patient, and gradually Liam settles to the rhythm of the job. Lena, passing with towels, sees him asking Maeve something in an undertone, and Maeve shushing him.

When her phone finally rings, Lena almost knocks over a chair getting out the back door. “Cal,” she says, shutting the door behind her.

“We’re at my place. Me and Trey.”

Lena’s knees go loose and she sits down hard on her back step. “That’s great,” she says. Her voice comes out calm and steady. “Any damage done?”

“She twisted her ankle and picked up a few little burns. Nothing to write home about.”

His voice is carefully steady too. Whatever happened up there, it was bad. “That’ll all heal,” Lena says. “Is she eating?”

“We just got home this minute. But yeah, she’s already bitching about how she’s starving. I said I’d fix her something after I called you.”

“Well,” Lena says, “there you go. As long as she’s hungry, I’d say she’s grand, give or take.”

She hears Cal draw a long breath. “She wanted to come here,” he says. “I’ll keep her awhile, if that’s all right with Sheila.”

“You’d better,” Lena says. She takes a deep breath of her own and leans back against the wall. “I’ve nowhere to put her; she’d be sleeping in the bathtub.”

“Their house is good and gone. I don’t know how much besides.”

Lena says, “Sheila reckons Johnny musta dropped a smoke.”

There’s a second of silence. “Johnny was down at the foot of the mountain,” Cal says. “When the fire started.”

Lena hears the layers in his voice, and remembers Mart Lavin saying he’d see to Johnny. “Probably it smoldered away for a while,” she says. “Before it caught.”

Another second’s silence, while Cal takes his turn listening to the unsaid things, and Lena sits in the darkness and the smell of smoke, listening to him listen. “Probably did,” he says. “By the time it’s out, they’re not gonna be able to tell one way or the other.”

“Where’s Johnny now?”

“He’s skipped town. I gave him a little cash, help him get clear. I can’t swear he made it off the mountain, and it’d probably be good if people get the idea he might not have. But from what I could see, he should’ve been OK.”

Lena finds herself relieved, not for Johnny but for Trey, who won’t have to live with the thought that she had a hand in her dad’s death. “About fucking time,” she says.

“Just in time, more like,” Cal says. “Guy was deep in the shit.”

“I know, yeah.”

“With more shit headed his way. The kid told me you and her went to see Nealon.”

Lena can’t tell what he thinks about that. “I was hoping she’d say it to you,” she says. “I wasn’t sure. She was afraid you’d be pissed off with her.”

“Goddamn teenagers,” Cal says, with feeling. “I got so many things to be pissed off about, I can’t even make a start, or I’ll be there all year. What’s bothering me is she won’t tell me what changed her mind. That’s her business, but if anyone gave her any hassle, I’d like to know.”

“No hassle,” Lena says. “She got sense, is all.”

Cal doesn’t ask, which Lena is glad of. The answers could be a burden to him, or a complication, neither of which he needs right now. After a minute he says, “I don’t reckon Johnny killed that guy.”

“Me neither,” Lena says. “But he might as well come in useful, for once in his life.”

They’re looking for each other in the silences, feeling their way. Lena doesn’t want Cal in blank air over the phone. She wants him where she can touch him.

“There’s that,” Cal says. “Not my problem, either way. All I give a damn about is that he’s gone.”

In her mind Lena sees Nealon, the naked triumph swelling in his face. “Back when you were a detective,” she says. “When you knew you were about to get your man. What did it feel like?”

There’s a silence. For a minute she thinks Cal’s going to ask her where the hell that came from. Instead he says, “A relief, mostly. Like I got something fixed that was all messed up. When it stopped feeling that way, that’s when I quit.”

Lena finds herself smiling. She reckons, although she feels no need to share this, that Cal wouldn’t have enjoyed working with Nealon as much as he thinks. “Good call,” she says. “Now Rushborough’s not your problem.”

“Thank Christ,” Cal says. “I gotta go feed the kid. I just wanted to check in first.”

“I’ll be over to you in a bit,” Lena says. “I’ll see this lot settled in bed and show Sheila where to find everything, and I’ll be there.”

“Yeah,” Cal says, on a sudden long breath. “That’d be great.”