I might have fallen a long way today with the loss of Isabella but I sure had a lot further to fall before I reached these depths.
I checked my sidearm and reloaded it.
Yale Farm was the kind of place you wiped your feet on the way out.
I didn’t want to head in this place without the proper protection.
It was unlikely Martin was dumb enough to attack the sheriff after asking for me specifically, but you never knew what someone would do if they were desperate enough.
I climbed from my cruiser and walked around to the front door.
I knocked with a single rap and decided that if no one answered within the next minute, I would be out of there.
Forty-seven seconds later, a shadow moved inside and unlocked the door.
I expected it to be Martin but it turned out to be his wife.
I didn’t know her name and made a mental note to learn of it soon.
I removed my hat and smiled amiably.
She was rough around the edges, with fiery red hair and a very short skirt.
She had many bruises up her legs and carried a baby on one cocked hip.
“You the cop Martin wanted?” she said in her lilting voice.
“Sheriff Posiek,” I said.
“Martin’s in the kitchen.”
And with that, she left the door open and sauntered into the front room.
She had a nice ass, despite having popped out the sprog recently.
She sat on a sofa with the stuffing coming out.
She didn’t bother to keep her legs shut and was completely unconcerned she flashed her growler at me.
No panties…
Maybe she did it on purpose, maybe not.
Either way, I promised myself to stop by some point in the near future while Martin was out.
I knew an easy lay when I saw one.
I headed through the hallway, the wallpaper brown and curling with damp.
What a shithole.
It didn’t surprise me Martin would end up in a place like this.
It was about as good as he could hope for, given his prospects.
Martin stood at the kitchen sink, his back to me, and stared out the window at something that held him in thrall.
“Martin?”
He spun around fast and accidentally knocked a saucepan off the stove.
It crashed to the floor, spilling a handful of baked beans across the faded linoleum.
Martin was not concerned.
His eyes were wide orbs and it took him a full ten seconds to recognize me.
It was an uncomfortable amount of time with someone staring openly at you.
Immense relief washed over him unlike anything I’d ever seen.
Even criminals who’d narrowly escaped a life term prison sentence didn’t show the same level of relief he did right then.
“It’s you,” he said. “Thank God it’s you! For a moment there I thought…”
He raised a hand to his forehead and shook his head.
I might have paid more attention to his mood if it wasn’t for the kitchen knife he held clenched in a strained fist.
My training took over and I immediately reached for the baton at my waist.
He noticed my reaction and only then noticed the knife.
He tossed it in the sink and it clattered loudly.
Then he stumbled forward and fell into my arms.
He sobbed like a baby.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
To say I was taken aback was an understatement.
Martin was one of the toughest kids on the block growing up.
A five-year stretch could only have hardened him.
He was covered head to foot in tattoos and holes where he’d once been pierced.
And now here he was, a broken man.
If he suddenly had a breakdown and realized his entire life had been a waste, I knew for certain I didn’t want to have to be the one to have to comfort him.
“Martin, calm down. Martin?”
He sniveled as he straightened up.
He ran a finger under his snotty nose and couldn’t bring himself to look me in the eye.
“Tell me what’s going on,” I said. “Why are you acting like this?”
“It happened last night. I was watching TV when I heard a loud roar and then a big thud outside. I waited for the cops to come, for someone to come take it away… But no one did. Not until I called you.”
It was the gibbering of a lunatic.
“I need you to be clearer,” I said. “What are you talking about?”
“The rock,” he wailed. “The rock at the bottom of the garden!”
Why a rock should cause a full-grown man to lose it the way Martin had, I had no idea.
After another ten minutes of trying to piece the story together, I began to understand.
He’d been watching TV last night with his family when there was a tremendous roaring sound.
The baby screamed and he wrapped his arms around both the baby and his wife—whose name turned out to be Cheryl—and told them everything was going to be all right.
The noise grew louder and he thought World War III had finally kicked off.
Then there was a tremendous thud that pulsed through the house and knocked out most of the lights.
After he got the kids to quieten down, he looked out the window and saw a glowing light at the foot of his garden.
“I knew what it was right away,” Martin said. “I thought someone would haul it away but no one did. That’s why I had to call you.”
“Wait. What was it?”
“Do you remember those comic books we used to read in the basement of the school library? The ones someone hid between the pages of the encyclopedia? About aliens and superheroes from outer space? This is how every episode started. With a rock crash landing in someone’s backyard.”
He’d bored me long before he reached the end of his theory.
I was busy thinking about his tasty wife in the front room, her pussy on full show, ready to be pummeled by the first guy that showed up.
Instead, I was stuck in here talking to her loser husband about a close encounter of the loser kind.
“So what happened when you checked it out?” I said.
“What? I didn’t go check it out.”
“Back up. You’re telling me this thing crashed in your backyard and
