Imperfect Daddy Read online

  Imperfect Daddy

  Gregg E. Brickman

  This is a work of fiction. Resemblance to any person, place, or event is entirely coincidental.

  Other Kindle and CreateSpace Works by the Author:

  Tony Conte Mysteries:

  Illegally Dead

  Sophia Burgess and Ray Stone Mysteries:

  Imperfect Contract

  Author Links

  Amazon author page

  Gregg E. Brickman's website

  Cover Design and Art by Victoria Landis

  Copyright © 2012 Gregg E. Brickman

  All rights reserved.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This story is a work of my imagination, though I've made every effort to present accurate, true-to-life details.

  My family and friends continue to put up with me. For that, I am grateful. Special thanks to: My husband Steve, as always, is my first reader. He's critical without being cruel. Our sons Benjamin Bloch and Mark Brickman are encouraging and supportive. My daughter-in-law Laurie Brickman reads and poses with my books for my website. And my BFF Ellen Cavanaugh is proud of my writing and is my BFF.

  My critique group is superb. Thank you to Randy Rawls, Victoria Landis, and Stephanie Levine. They read, and reread, and provide helpful, thoughtful, and usually kind commentary

  Thanks to Jennifer Samuels for reading, editing, and commenting, and to Geraldine Sutton for her comments, compliments, and line edits. It is amazing what an author doesn't see in a manuscript.

  Thanks to Jeremiah Healy for graciously critiquing a portion of the manuscript and giving the relevant input that only a seasoned, long-term published author can provide.

  Lastly, thank you to the members of the Florida chapter of the Mystery Writers of America. The content and resources offered at meetings and at SleuthFest remains an important part of keeping it real. Too numerous to mention authors and experts provided information and answered questions that supported my efforts.

  If I got it wrong, the blame is mine. If I got it right, those mentioned above get much of the credit.

  For Benjamin

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright page and Links

  Acknowledgments

  Dedication

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Imperfect Daddy

  1

  The telltale buzz of a cell phone set on vibrate interrupted the condo closing. Both men patted their pockets, and Kathleen and I reached for our purses. Dick produced the offending device, flipped it open, and grunted a hello.

  "I'm on my way," Dick said after listening in silence for thirty seconds. "Stone's here. We'll come together."

  "What's that about?" Ray asked, rising to his feet.

  Dick glanced at his wife, then at Ray. "Woman and small boy dead. A young girl hurt."

  "Sophi, I'll see you later," Ray said, bending to kiss me good-bye. "Dick, what you drivin'?"

  "The Taurus." It was Dick's department-issue vehicle. It carried equipment they'd need at the scene. "We'll take it."

  Ray tossed me the keys to his Honda S2000. "I'll call you so you can drop the car at the scene later."

  Kathleen and I watched as the two men departed. Dick, whose full name was Richard Reeves Schneider, looked so much like Raymond Robert Stone they could have been brothers. Of the two detectives, my boyfriend, Ray, was slightly taller—six-two compared with six feet—and had blue eyes rather than brown. They sported trimmed dark goatees, short dark brown hair, and muscular builds with broad shoulders. Both used RRS to sign notes and mark belongings. Ray had tiny cramped script, Dick a distinctive scrawl.

  Their similarities were a constant source of confusion on the job. Ray investigated homicides, and Dick specialized in child abuse. Sometimes they worked together when a homicide involved a child. It caused a stir in the Coral Bay Police Department when Dick and his wife decided to purchase Ray's condominium.

  As had happened before, we stayed behind to deal with the routines of life while the two detectives went off to poke at the dirty underside of the world, which, in truth, was an area we dealt with regularly ourselves. We worked as nurses in the Emergency Room of Coral Bay Medical Center.

  Though she still worked limited hours, Kathleen's multiple sclerosis made getting into the S2000 a challenge. I grabbed onto her right arm and supported her weight while she dropped into the car.

  I slipped into the driver's seat and buckled up. Kathleen did likewise. She'd had more than one experience with my driving Ray's little red roadster. I turned the key in its cylinder, pushed the red start button, lowered the ragtop, released the parking brake, and slid the six-speed transmission into first gear. We were off.

  The engine roared, and when I glanced in Kathleen's direction, I saw the wind sweeping through her long blond hair. The temperature was in the high eighties, and the sky was clear. It would have been a perfect Florida summer day except for the hideous crime that had wiped out a family in our community. Trying to force the horror out of my mind, I accelerated onto the Sawgrass Expressway, pushing the powerful VTEC engine to its maximum. We went from zero-to-sixty in six seconds. I timed it.

  Having secured my adrenaline rush from rapid acceleration, I slowed to the posted speed limit. We were at the Mini dealership in less than ten minutes, where my own red car awaited me. I loaded Kathleen into the car and sent her to fetch her four-year-old son, Mikey, from day-care. Then I headed in the direction of the crime scene, having heard Dick tell Ray the name of the development as they hurried out of Quality Title. Kathleen would swing by and pick me up as soon as she could.

  2

  I turned left into Pine Run, a single street lined on both sides with identical-looking townhouses. The home containing the crime scene was obvious. Yellow plastic tape cordoned off the driveway and front yard. Four patrol cars and one gray Ford Taurus clogged the street.

  After parking the car and raising the top, I approached two uniformed officers.

  "Hey, Jeff," I said to the taller.

  "Sophia Burgess. I didn't expect to see you here." He glanced into the open door of the town house. "Oh, yeah. Stone."

  "Right, Stone. I don't see any medics. Have they taken the child to the hospital?"

  "Should have, but all the rescue units are tied up with an accident on University. Dispatch is diverting number three from downtown. They had to make a run to the hospital first."

  I raised an eyebrow, questioning the decision dispatch made.

  Jeff shrugged. "The girl isn't bleeding or anything, but she was crying and resisting every man who came near her."

  "Dick Schneider's good with kids," I said. "He'll calm her down."

>   Dick was almost too nice to be a detective. I imagined that was why he handled child abuse cases. He had a gentle way. The tykes would talk to him and tell him what happened.

  Jeff said, "The little girl didn't want anything to do with Schneider either. He carried her, yelling and screaming, to the downstairs bedroom. He had to get her out of the room with the bodies. That's why dispatch decided to wait on Unit Three. Schneider thinks the child needs a female medic."

  "I almost qualify," I said as I walked past them to the yellow tape.

  I dug out my telephone and pushed Ray's speed dial code. When he answered, I offered to sit with the child.

  "Sophi, it's pretty bad in here."

  "I've seen bad before," I said.

  I stepped into the living room of the townhouse, trying not to look at the bodies of the woman and her small son, but a powerful mixture of curiosity, horror, and compassion pulled my eyes in their direction. The appalling image seared into my consciousness. The woman lay on her left side, and I saw an indentation in the side of her head. It appeared she fell as the result of a single blow. The toddler's body curled in the fetal position about two feet away. I guessed the girl had lain between the two bodies.

  Ray put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from barging into the child's room. "Rescue's on the way. Meanwhile, see what you can do to help her."

  I nodded and stepped into the room, closing the door behind me. "My name is Sophia. I'm a nurse. Can I sit with you a while?"

  "Yes." There was a nasty bruise on the right side of her face and several cuts. Though smudges of tear-streaked blood stained her face, she sat on the bed, not crying. "Where's Miss Naomi?"

  "Who's that?"

  "She lives next door. She came over, then she called the policemen, then one of the policemen made her leave."

  I sat on the bed about three feet away from her wondering why they hadn't sent the child to the neighbor's house. "What's your name?"

  "Amber."

  "Is that your whole name?"

  "No, it's Amber Lillian Pyle."

  "That's a pretty name."

  Without another word, Amber crawled to me and climbed onto my lap. The bedspread where she had sat was shiny with her blood, and I felt dampness soaking through my jeans. I stood with her in my arms, shielding her eyes in the crook of my neck, and carried her out of the room.

  I found Ray standing near the front door talking in muffled tones to a young, female crime scene tech. I touched his arm. "Ray, she has to go to the hospital now. She's bleeding."

  "You'd better take her then." He hurried out the door ahead of me.

  I stepped outside and transferred Amber to the waiting arms of a paramedic who had just arrived. The ride to the hospital took only minutes.

  There was no doubt the child was the victim of a brutal rape. The doctor sedated Amber for suturing and used the rape kit, avoiding further emotional trauma. He used swabs to collect what appeared to be semen and found fabric fibers and several adult pubic hairs. The exam also revealed that the child suffered severe internal lacerations.

  Ray came to pick me up. Amber didn't seem concerned about my leaving, but I told her I'd see her in the morning anyway. My heart ached for her. She'd need all the support she could get.

  On the way home, I filled Ray in on the examination and the repair.

  When we stopped at a traffic light, he put his hand against my cheek. "Sophi, I appreciate what you did. I know it was hard for you to go into that house."

  "It was necessary." I shuddered at the thought. "I'll never get what I saw out of my head."

  "It will dim with time. Always does." After a few more kind words, Ray said he needed to go back to work after dinner. He didn't say anything more about the case, and I didn't ask.

  3

  The phone was ringing when we walked in the door of my house—our house. Ray hurried to answer while I freed my pooch, Sunshine, from his crate.

  Ray answered in a business-like manner. "Detective Stone."

  I'd prefer a simple hello. Answering as a cop tends to put a damper on the conversation, but it takes care of scam artists.

  "When did she call?" he said. The concern in his voice was obvious. "Okay, thanks for tracking me down. I'll call her back from here."

  I'd followed him into the kitchen with Sunshine in my arms. "What's that about?" I rubbed the dog behind his long, silky ears. He's a black and tan Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

  "Elaine," he said.

  I could tell he was worried. "As in your ex-wife?"

  "I need to get back to her." He dialed. She didn't call often, but when she did, it was because something needed Ray's attention. At the first ring, he punched the speaker button. He knew the speakerphone annoyed me, so he obviously wanted me to hear the conversation. "She left a message saying it was urgent, something about Branden."

  Branden, Ray's fourteen-year-old son and sprouting juvenile delinquent, lived with his mother and sister in Parkview, a small Virginia town in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Ray and Elaine split when Branden was about one-year-old. Ray exceeded his child support obligations, continued to make the mortgage payments, and spent almost every vacation in Parkview—staying with his parents and visiting with his kids. Still, he lived over nine hundred miles away—a long way for parenting.

  Elaine's soft southern voice came on the line amplified and slightly distorted.

  After their initial greetings, she said, "Raymond, when are you planning to come here?"

  "Don't know exactly. Why? What's happenin'?"

  It always amazed me how his accent became thick when he talked to someone from his hometown. He wasn't aware of the change in his speech pattern. I found it amusing and often mimicked him. The trouble was he didn't notice that either.

  "Branden's gittin' out of control. The cops caught him smokin' grass behind the paper plant. Jake didn't book him or anything, just brought him home."

  Jake Ervin was the long-established chief of police in Parkview.

  She continued, "Jake wants you to call him. Branden's runnin' with an older crowd of troublemakers and won't pay any attention to me."

  Ray asked for more details. It wasn't the first time Chief Ervin picked Branden up for smoking pot. In my opinion, he'd exhausted the freebies allotted to the son of a former local police officer who happened to have worked with the current police chief.

  "Okay, Elaine. Give me some time. I'll call Ervin, see what he has to say, and then I'll call you back. Is there any reason I need to jump on an airplane right now?"

  "I don't believe so. It's just that Branden didn't come home by his curfew last night, and then Jake called and said he was bringing him home. That's the second time this month. Jake had a long talk with him and made it clear he'd used all his chances. The boy's doin' a lot more than he's being caught at. I'm at my wits end."

  "What's Kerri doing?" Ray said, asking about his daughter.

  "She has a good case of soon-to-be-senioritis, nothing serious. She announced yesterday she wants to go to the University of Virginia next year, and she's working at the Country Café. I talked to the new owner at church on Sunday. Kerri's doing a good job, learning fast."

  "I was hoping she'd come here for a couple of years." A wave of disappointment crossed Ray's face, but he kept it out of his voice. I knew he regretted moving so far away from his children. When he had a couple of drinks, he talked about it a lot.

  "Ray, you know that's not going to happen. You're still the enemy in her opinion."

  "She seemed glad to see me when I was there in April."

  "Seemed being the key word."

  I continued to eavesdrop as their conversation turned to general news from Ray's hometown. He was born and raised in Parkview. His parents lived around the corner and up the hill from Elaine. They maintained a close relationship. Ray said it was because of the grandchildren, but I'd watched them together and knew Ray's folks loved the woman. In truth, she was a likable person, an attentive mother, and—a
ccording to Ray's mother—a bright and capable bank vice-president.

  Ray never talked much about his divorce. I knew Elaine had an affair with her former high school sweetheart, and Ray was unable to get past the damage done to their marriage. Now they were cordial on the telephone, discussed the children, and chatted about people they had known during their time together. I also knew she pled for reconciliation a few years back and suspected she still wanted a new life with Ray.

  Ray left a message for Ervin at the police department and a second one on the answering machine at his home number.

  When he finished, I asked, "Don't you have to go back to work?"

  "Yup, I do. The techs are finishing at the scene, and a few uniforms are canvassing the neighborhood for witnesses." Ray glanced at his watch. "Dick's meeting me at the station in an hour."

  I started dinner, and Ray logged onto the computer to see if his son was on Facebook. Ray was fidgety and seemed worried, so I began a list of the things to pack—if he invited me to go.

  When we had our first relationship many years ago, sometimes Ray would invite me when he went to see his children, and other times he made it clear he wanted to go alone. A time or two I'd had cause to wonder if he still had strong feelings for Elaine. Ray and I were starting over, and I didn't know how he felt about including me in his former family life. What I did know was if I wasn't welcome, maybe we hadn't crossed the huge divide after all.

  As I took the potatoes off the stove to drain and whip, the phone rang. I heard Ray's voice drifting my way from our home office, but I couldn't understand the words. The conversation dragged on, and I knew he was either talking to his partner, Deglin Lewis, or to Jake Ervin. He wasn't talking to Branden. That conversation would have been over in two minutes. They did much better maintaining a dialogue online. I suspected the absence of voice tones helped them both be more tolerant of the other's opinion.

  Ray returned to the kitchen, hugged me from behind, and nuzzled the back of my neck. He smelled good, manly, with a hint of my favorite male cologne, Nautica, still lingering from the early morning application. I could tell he was annoyed because his cheek muscles pulled at the edges of his goatee, causing it to quiver.