Imperfect Daddy

by Gregg E. Brickman

  "If something happens to that child, I don't think Kathleen will be able to handle it. How much more can she take?"

  "Someone will need to tell her."

  "I'll do it when Kathleen gets back from the funeral home. At least her parents are here to support her." I stopped and looked down the hall into the playroom. To the delight of a two-year-old, Mikey pushed a block-laden dump truck across the floor. "She thinks she can still take Amber and go back to work. Her parents are pressuring her to move to Orlando."

  After Connie and I finished deciding how Kathleen should manage her life, I excused myself and retrieved Mikey. Connie promised to call when Amber's operation was finished.

  31

  Mikey wanted a hotdog in a bun for lunch. My cupboard was devoid of such things, so I hung a right turn and headed for the 7-Eleven. Once inside the store, we stopped at the lunch counter where a grilling machine was rolling a batch of anemic looking franks.

  By unspoken understanding, the boy and I stood watching the pale tubes of meat turn brown. Mikey had his eye on a particular one that was browning faster than the rest, and I resolved to make sure he got his way. The regular counter man—his nametag read Dilip—was busy serving a line of customers buying cigarettes and gas. We'd wait for Dilip and for the wiener.

  Eric Connor, a young detective in his first year off patrol, approached the counter. Ray had introduced me to Connor at a barbeque a few months prior. I remembered the perfunctory greeting Connor dispensed and suspected he wouldn't recognize me now. He was among the brand of officers who looks through people as if mere civilians weren't important enough to merit individual attention. The nasty thought sent my mind back to my days on the force, and I wondered if the social isolation inherent in the job was to blame.

  Connor went straight to the counter rather than stopping in the isles to make a selection first. I thought maybe coincidence was working in my favor for a change. Leaving Mikey to protect his lunch, I edged a bit closer to the cash register, pretending to study the labels on the various brands of chips displayed next to the hotdog machine.

  Connor was efficient. I'll give him that. He flipped open his badge and held it at Dilip's eye level. Then he produced a picture from the inside pocket of his sport coat. I suppressed a giggle as I watched, it wasn't funny, but his mannerisms suggested he watched too many cop movies. I leaned closer.

  "Know this guy?" Connor asked without preamble.

  "I do," the middle-aged Indian clerk replied in an accent hinting at British schooling, "Detective Stone. He stops here frequently."

  "Were you working last Saturday morning," Connor glanced at his watch, "at about this time?"

  "I was. Detective Stone stopped in, I remember talking with him." Dilip studied the officer with obvious interest.

  "It seems odd you would remember so clearly."

  "It's not. I have an excellent memory."

  "Do you remember every time all of your customers come into your store?" Detective Connor sounded skeptical.

  "No, but I remember this especially because the evening before my son, Kirit, and I rented the movie The Fast and Furious. Kirit was helping me with stock when Detective Stone pulled in. Kirit dropped a box of crackers and ran outside to inspect the detective's Honda S2000."

  "Then what happened?"

  Dilip paused. "They stood out front talking for a long time. Kirit told me he filled Stone in on the S2000 in the movie. Stone even let the boy sit behind the wheel while he came in for a soda."

  "Did you and Stone talk about anything special?"

  "No. Detective Stone asked about the movie. I told him it was lacking in plot, and Kirit enjoyed it immensely."

  "Did Stone mention he was just getting back into town?" Connor asked.

  "No, I don't remember that he did. We talked about the movie. He bought a Coke and left."

  I had the information I wanted. I eased back toward Mikey. His interest in his lunch had peaked, and he pointed excitedly at the well-browned hotdog. I waited a few more seconds for Connor to leave, then flagged Dilip over to help us.

  Armed with two sodas and two tightly wrapped dogs, Mikey and I headed for home. At the house, a message from Connie reported Amber was out of surgery. The surgeon evacuated the abscess, inserted a drain, and put her on high-end antibiotics. The consensus at the hospital was that the child would now recover.

  I pondered how to tell Ray I had butted into his business. While I waited and Mikey napped, I packed a prim navy blue dress and a couple pairs of jeans into my weekender bag. As an afterthought, I dropped my digital camera in my purse.

  Despite the traumatic events of the last 48 hours, I was smiling.

  32

  Ray returned about midnight. He knew Kathleen had scheduled Dick's funeral for Thursday morning. He wanted to leave for Virginia following the burial so we would be there in time for Elaine's services on Friday. He didn't ask me to go. Apparently, he assumed I would.

  "Ray," I said as I grated sharp cheddar onto a huge, fluffy omelet, "won't Ervin arrest you the minute you set foot in Parkview?"

  "No, he'll need to change his tune." Ray smiled. He reached over my shoulder and grabbed the pepper grinder, adding a liberal amount to his eggs. "After you butted in and called García—thanks by the way, I'd forgotten about stopping there—Connor came back to the station around six and called Mac. The upshot is Mac had the report from Shell showing I bought gas a hundred-fifty miles south of Parkview at midnight. Mac said a couple of kids spotted Elaine speeding up Mountain Road alone at about eleven-thirty. I couldn't have been there. Mac said the medical examiner put Elaine's time of death as sometime early Saturday morning. I was halfway to Florida."

  "Did Mac give you any clue what Chief Ervin's response was?"

  "No. He hadn't told Ervin yet. He said the chief hadn't been around much, but Mac was hoping to see him. Mac said I was welcome in Parkview anytime I wanted with nothing to worry about. He'd see to it."

  "Thank the Lord." I slid the omelet out of the pan onto a heavy pottery plate, adding two over-toasted pieces of wheat bread before setting it in front of Ray.

  "Mac did say something interesting though."

  "What was that?"

  "He couldn't understand why Ervin was hot to haul me in. The Wilsons, the neighbors across the street, saw Elaine and me leave in separate cars about thirty minutes apart. They even heard her tell me to have a safe trip and to give you her regards. The chief interviewed the Wilsons himself and should have known I had nothing to do with Elaine's murder."

  33

  The Westside Baptist Church overflowed with mourners for Dick's funeral. Uniformed officers, numbering at least four hundred, stood two-deep around the perimeter of the sanctuary, leaving the pews for the thousand civilians also in attendance. In the front of the church, friends from the hospital and the PD clustered around Kathleen and her small family, Ray and I among them.

  We rode in the family limo to the cemetery where Ray carried Kathleen to the gravesite, sitting her in the row of chairs nearest the coffin. As the minister intoned his words of consolation, I watched Kathleen's face. Her spirit, it seemed, was buried with that of her husband. The huge crowd gasped in unison as Kathleen stumbled to the casket and placed a single rose on top. She collapsed in sobs, saying her final good-bye. I glanced at Ray, his eyes were wet with tears, and his jaw was set in determination.

  After the funeral, we drove north at a rate of speed sure to break Ray's southbound, 13-hour record. I had suggested we fly and rent a car, but Ray, always the hesitant airline passenger, insisted on driving. I glanced at the speedometer and felt at a loss to explain the difference between flying and Ray's piloting of the roadster. I was secure in the knowledge that once we crossed the Georgia line, he'd slow down. The noise of the wind and the road blocked conversation, a good thing given Ray's dark mood.

  I didn't blame him. Someone, in all likelihood the same person, murdered his best friend and his ex-wife within days of each other. He had reason
to believe he was the target in one case, and he had been the accused in the other. It was too much to be pure coincidence. Ray said the connection was Pyle—mean, vengeful, and psychopathic.

  The problem was it didn't add up for me, and he didn't explain why Pyle would be hellbent on revenge. After all, Pyle committed a crime and was apprehended, convicted, sentenced, imprisoned, and released. It was more than ten years ago, and Pyle had reestablished his life, however demented. Why the sudden resurgence of hate? Ray said it was because the same detective caught Pyle in another, even more heinous crime. I agreed the sight of Ray chasing him would incite Pyle, but I was unsettled. As we careened over the blacktop, I leaned back in the leather seat, closed my eyes, and plotted my fact-finding mission.

  We took turns, alternating sleeping and driving, not talking. Ray decided to pull off the road for a late dinner in a small town off I-77 in North Carolina. The smell of late-night country cooking lightened my spirits and loosened my tongue.

  I slid into the ancient booth, the cracked plastic catching on the legs of my jeans. "I'm still having a problem understanding Pyle's motivation for going after both Elaine and you. Why now, does he hate you so much?"

  "We're making an assumption Pyle was going after me. Dick was trying to nab Pyle for what he did to his wife and son. I can't fathom his way of thinkin', but he may have been after Dick. Or, in both cases, perhaps it was someone other than Pyle."

  "You think?" I scanned the menu and decided on a breakfast of scrambled egg substitute, turkey bacon, and a biscuit. I craved pancakes, but knew the high carbohydrate load would make it harder to stay awake for the remainder of the ride. We still had about three hours to go.

  When the waitress finished noting my order, she looked at Ray. He pointed to the biscuits and gravy—something he doesn't get at home—and added a side of fried ham. Pyle wouldn't have to kill him, his diet would.

  I waited until we had cups of coffee in front of us, then continued. "You're the one who suggested Pyle was after you and shot Dick by mistake. You're also the one who suggested Pyle killed Elaine. I need to understand the dynamics."

  Perhaps my late-night judgment was faulty, but when Ray didn't reply, I decided to plunge ahead anyway. "The way I see it, maybe Pyle holds you responsible for putting him in jail. Didn't Jake Ervin imply that you helped get Pyle out of jail? Why did you do that? You never did answer me."

  He touched my hand. "The situation with Pyle happened before you were in my life. I'm sorry, but it isn't any of your concern. The incident was part of Elaine's and my hopelessly screwed up marriage. It was the final brick on the wagon before the wheel broke. I helped convict him of something he may not have done. That's reason enough for him to be angry. Please, sweetheart, mind your own business. I don't want you to become a target, too."

  Ray was being gentle enough, and I was tired, but the whole explanation didn't feel right. "Raymond Robert Stone, you are my own damned business." I pushed away my coffee and stood, prepared to storm out. Then I remembered I was dependent on Ray for transportation. I sat, glaring at him.

  "Why can't you let me handle it? I can take care of things."

  "I see that." Somewhere during the conversation, my food appeared in front of me. I dove in, ignoring him and the tastelessness of my meal.

  It was my turn to drive. I floored it and accelerated to warp speed by the time we left the Interstate's entrance ramp. We usually went west over the mountains and connected to I-81, heading north to Roanoke. Ray dozed off, and feeling the need to compose myself, I exited onto the Blue Ridge Parkway instead. The evening was cool and dry and the stars sparkled overhead. I kept my speed reasonable, not overdriving the headlamps, and settled in to enjoy the drive.

  Ray awakened about one hour into my detour, raised a questioning brow, and settled back to gawk at the shadowy scenery. Roadside vistas dropped off into either black nothingness or into twinkling lights marking a valley town. I found it soothing, and apparently, Ray did too, because he initiated our first cordial conversation of the trip.

  "Sophi," he said, his soft bass voice barely audible over the sound of the engine and the wind, "this was a good idea, relaxing."

  "I needed to slow things down a bit," I said as I downshifted from fifth gear to fourth to negotiate a series of curves.

  "When I was a kid we used to come this way to hike and fish sometimes. There's a public park down the road a piece with decent camping facilities and several good fishing streams. It's where I caught my first big trout." He held his hands about two feet apart and laughed.

  "Your dad brought you?"

  "Yup. Mom would come too. She wasn't much into the fishing and hiking part, but she liked to tag along for the ride. She experimented with outdoor cooking, baked apple pies in a pit, and cooked stew over an open fire."

  "We baked pies that way when I was a Girl Scout. We'd take a big iron Dutch oven, put the pie inside, and cover it with hot coals and dirt. Sometimes it would be burnt around the edges, but we didn't care."

  "We should go camping, you and I," Ray said.

  "We can. I'd like that."

  Thanks to my detour, we pulled into the motel at two in the morning. I'd extended the ride a couple of hours, but I felt less pushed and more in control. Ray was maintaining his agreeable demeanor, and I thought we might survive the adventure before making decisions about our life together. My business or not, if I was going to trust Ray to be my future, I had to understand his past. Solving the murders of both Elaine and Dick constituted a big part of that understanding. I wasn't sure what the connection was, but I planned to take advantage of the resources available in Parkview to investigate.

  34

  Ray nudged me awake a few minutes after seven on Friday morning. A long shower and a tall coffee cleared the mustiness from my mind. Even then, I had difficulty understanding why Ray awakened me.

  "The funeral isn't until two, and my kids won't be awake until noon. I thought we'd take a ride up the mountain."

  "Sounds like fun. Drive almost a thousand miles in 13 hours, then go for a ride to pass the time instead of sleeping late like normal folks." I glared at him over my almost gone, watered down coffee.

  "Lighten up. I want to look at where the old man found Elaine's car. Maybe I'll spot something. Mac told me where it was, and I'm familiar with the road. Her body was there, too."

  "I'm game." I reached for my make-up but had second thoughts. We'd have to come back to the hotel to change clothes anyway.

  We zipped through town and onto a narrow two-lane paved road. Given the amount of space oncoming vehicles claimed, I was thankful the Honda didn't require a full lane. Soon we fell into a pattern of serpentine curves interspersed with horseshoe turns. I heard the gentle rush of a mountain waterfall just before Ray took a sharp left onto a rutted dirt and gravel road.

  "Aren't you concerned about the undercarriage?" I asked, pointing to the high ridge running between two parallel footpaths.

  He shifted into first gear, slowing to the speed of a possum with a dozen young in her pouch. He stopped the car and set the emergency break. "I'll walk the rest of the way. You can stay here if you'd rather not take the hike."

  "I'll come." I opened my door, pushing it into the encroaching greenery, and squeezed out. After inspecting the paint to be sure I hadn't done any damage, I hurried to catch Ray.

  The morning was cool and the trail level, however, we had over a mile to trudge. Ray was lost in thought, ignoring my existence. I searched the scenery for anything out of the ordinary.

  To the right, a narrow stream tumbled over fallen trees and small rocks. A large wet boulder filled the space between the path and the brook. Trees stretched upward creating a living tent with their bushy crowns while their narrow, naked trunks demarcated an overgrown walkway. Spots of morning light broke through the canopy, changing clumps of ferns and termite eaten logs into star performers, inviting us to explore the clearing beyond the trail.

  "What's there?" I asked, pointing in
to the distance.

  "There's a small cabin behind the trees. It's been there for years. I don't know who owns it now, but the Halsey family who lived out by the main road built it years ago to stash their shine. Then one of their kids lived in it a while before joining the Army."

  "Let's have a look."

  From the edge of the clearing, I saw remnants of crime scene tape. We'd arrived at the site where Elaine died. "Did Mac tell you about the scene investigation?"

  "Single gunshot wound to the head. Exit wound on the other side. No bullet was recovered."

  "What kind of gun?"

  "Not sure. The wounds suggested a small caliber weapon fired from a distance of several feet."

  "If it was a handgun, the shooter would need some expertise."

  "We're in the country. Experience with guns is a given."

  "Pyle was raised in Montgomery, Alabama. He's a city boy." I paused.

  "Still the South. He had plenty of opportunity to become proficient with a firearm."

  "How is Ervin going to find the killer—no murder weapon, no idea about the ammo?"

  "Beats me. Wait for someone to screw up or get a guilty conscience, maybe. He doesn't have much to work with."

  "Whoever did the deed planned it that way, I believe."

  We circled the small clearing, inching closer to the spot demarcated by yellow tape. A light burial with underbrush had delayed discovery of the body.

  "Did they find her purse and keys?"

  "Mac said they were with the body."

  "Her sweater?"