“Can you do it tomorrow afternoon? My parents have invited me for dinner on Sunday and asked if you could come. I know they would like to meet you. You’ll be able to tell them how great I was this week when they start asking questions. Besides, my mother makes the best penne and meatballs this side of Italy.”
“Let me think about it. I’ll let you know tomorrow after we find out where this case is going.”
“Great. I’ll give a heads-up to Mom that she might need to set another place at the table. Oh, she wanted me to warn you it will be a full house. My two sisters and their families will be there too.”
Mike headed for his car and as Max watched he wondered if he would be able to accept Mike’s invitation and be with a family again.
*****
After the detectives left, Richard and Stephanie chose a seat in the waiting room which was not too close to Dave. About a half hour later, a man in scrubs strode down the hall and approached Dave. Richard and Stephanie quickly rose from their seats and walked over to hear the doctor’s report.
“Are you Mr. Flanders?” asked the newcomer.
Dave slowly rose and nodded his head.
“I’m Dr. Louden, Mr. Flanders. I just completed the operation on your wife. She’s a very lucky lady. The knife entered her left side and perforated her left ovary. We had to remove it. Although the knife missed any major organs, it did cause quite a bit of internal bleeding. We took care of the bleeders, but her main problem right now is the significant amount of blood she lost. She’s receiving blood transfusions and is still in a coma. She’ll be in Intensive Care until we can stabilize her. Then it will be a waiting game. We won’t know if there was any brain damage until she wakes up. You’ll be able to see her once she’s moved to SICU. The nurse will be able to help you get settled if you would like to stay. ”
Richard introduced himself to Dr. Louden and asked, “Is she going to recover?”
Dr. Louden seemed surprised this inquiry didn’t come from Sandy’s husband. “She’s young and in good health, but the next 24 to 48 hours will determine whether there is any damage from the blood loss.”
The doctor told them he would check in on Sandy tomorrow and left the three of them in the waiting room.
As Dave headed toward the door to the parking garage, Richard grabbed his arm and turned Dave to face him. With barely controlled rage, Richard growled at Dave, “If my daughter dies, you are a dead man.”
Dave blanched, pulled his arm from Richard’s grasp and ran to the parking garage.
CHAPTER 5
When Dave reached the parking garage he ran to his car, unlocked the door with the remote when he got close enough. He pulled the door open, quickly jumped in and slammed the door behind himself. He relocked it and only then looked back to see whether Sandy’s father had followed him. His hands were shaking as he tried to put the key in the ignition, so it took him several tries. He backed out of the space, continuing to check to make sure he wasn’t followed. As he pulled out onto the street, he began to calm down.
This had not been a banner day in his life. He had been laid off, his wife asked for a divorce and now she was in the hospital with stab wounds and could die. He needed to talk to his father. He pressed two on his cell phone and waited for his father to answer.
“Why are you calling so late, Dave?” his father barked.
Typical of his father. No “hello” or “hi, son”, just an abrupt question asked with a snarl. “Hi, Dad. Listen, Sandy is in the hospital and I can’t get back into the house because the police are there.”
“What did you do now?”
Beginning to panic, Dave’s voice rose a little as he answered his father. “Sandy and I had an argument and things got out of hand. Can I come over? I’ll explain everything when I get there.”
“Don’t ring the bell. Your mother is in bed and I don’t want to wake her up. I’ll unlock the side door.”
“Thanks Dad. I’ll see you in about ten minutes.” Dave’s relief as he disconnected the call was immense. His father would know what to do. With relief came anger - anger at Sandy for putting him in such a position. She had been doing it to him for years. Always doing something to make him angry. This was the last straw though. His father would help him get through this and then Sandy would find out no one walked away from Dave Flanders.
When he arrived at his father’s house – it was always his father’s, not his parents’ – he went to the side door. After entering he closed and locked the door then headed toward his father’s office. The closer he got to Jason’s office, the slower his pace. He once again felt like he did when he was ten years old and heading to the elder Flanders’ office to be told about another blunder he had made.
Dave knocked on the door and entered the inner sanctum. Jason Flanders was sitting behind his cherry wood desk. He had a low ball glass with two fingers of his favorite bourbon sitting to the side and he seemed to be engrossed in the papers in front of him. Dave went to the bar on the other side of the room and put several ice cubes into a glass. He took a quick peek to see whether his father was watching him. When he realized his father hadn’t acknowledged his presence he splashed some scotch over the cubes, picked up his glass and headed for the chair on the other side of the massive desk. It resembled a small winged-backed chair, but had none of the padding and comfort that type of chair would have in a living room. He had sat in this chair many times over the years. None of them had been to receive compliments from the elder Flanders
“Well, Dave, what trouble have you gotten yourself into now?” His father didn’t even bother to look up at him when he asked the question.
Dave had spent years trying to impress this man. No matter what he did it was never good enough for the self-made millionaire. Jason Flanders was a tough businessman, but he was a tougher father and husband. Dave was an only child and his father’s expectations were for his son to take over the business he had built from scratch. The senior Flanders had never been physically abusive, but both Dave and his mother knew certain behaviors were expected, because if Jason’s expectations were not met, he would retaliate. His greatest weapon was withholding his approval and Dave suspected, his father’s affection, from both his wife and son. His mother had become a meek and totally cowed woman. Over the years she had lost all her friends until the only person she spoke to other than his father and him was her sister Grace, who made no bones about her intense dislike for Jason.
Dave felt his father’s disapproval many times. Each time he did, he intensified his efforts to attain the lofty goals his father expected of him. He had achieved a modicum of success with his football career, but that ended with a knee injury in his junior year at Penn State. After graduation he had found a job at a local manufacturing company in their accounting department. He studied for the CPA exam while getting experience in the field. He had dated Sandy the whole time he was in college and when he was settled in his job, he asked her to marry him. She did not accept the first time he asked, but he knew his father liked her and he had not found anyone else who would be a better asset in his life, so he kept asking until she agreed.
Dave insisted on a short engagement, because he was afraid Sandy would change her mind. His father gave them the house on First Street as a wedding present, telling his son it was a good starter house which they should be able to sell and buy a bigger house when they started a family. The one thing his father had not foreseen was the collapse of the housing market and the recession that had engulfed the country in the last five years. And so here he sat once again, a failure in his father’s eyes - and his own. He had tried to make it on his own so he would not have to go to work for his father. Now that option seemed gone. Along with his fear of his current predicament, he was sure his father would use his layoff as the lever to get his son into the business he had built.
As Dave began to tell his story, his father sat rigidly in his cordovan leather desk chair with his hands folded and his index fingers resting on his closed l
ips. He stared at his son intently which made Dave sip his drink several times to try and get moisture into his mouth – not a good idea because the scotch seemed to dry his mouth even more. It took him about twenty minutes to tell his version of events. His father did not once stop him to ask questions. When Dave finished, his glass was as empty as he felt.
Dave had to lean forward to hear his father’s soft voice, a ploy Jason used when he wanted someone’s undivided attention. “Well, Dave, I must say you’ve outdone yourself this time. I’m not going to ask what possessed you to lay a hand on your wife. No man should ever batter a woman. You have been lucky in the last couple of years that she hasn’t gone to the police and pressed charges against you. We’ll have to nip this in the bud before Sandy regains consciousness. I’ll call Tom Wyatt first thing in the morning and tell him what has happened. By the time he gets here, I’ll have everything worked out. In the meantime, go to bed and get some sleep. It’s going to be a busy day for you tomorrow.”
Dave wanted another drink, but thought better of it and left his father’s office meekly as he had done so many times as a kid. He knew whatever his father had planned would once again get him out of trouble. Dave also knew this was his last night of freedom from his father’s total control, because the price for his escaping charges in Sandy’s assault would be total surrender to his father’s wishes. He wasn’t sure the price was worth it.
CHAPTER 6
Five days earlier…
Mike and Max arrived at the hospital at 9:30 the next morning. When they got to the intensive care unit, they saw Sandy’s parents sitting beside the bed. They obviously had been there all night because they were wearing the same clothes. Their faces were drawn and their eyes bloodshot. Both looked up as they saw the detectives approach.
“How is she doing?” Max quietly asked as he entered the room.
Sandy’s father met the older detective’s eyes as he told them Sandy had spent a quiet night. “The doctor just left. He said her vital signs are good and she should be waking up any time. He doesn’t think there will be any brain damage, but she did lose a lot of blood, so she will have to be monitored closely for the next 24 hours.”
Mike had not been in an intensive care room for several years and was amazed at how sophisticated the equipment had become. A cannula fed oxygen into Sandy’s nose. Intravenous lines dripped blood into the back of her right hand, while nutrients and medications entered through her left hand. Pads with lines running to EEG and EKG machines showed the current activity in her brain and heart. Her eyes were closed and she was as pale as the sheets on which she rested. Several minor cuts on her arms had been treated with butterfly bandages. Her right eye was swollen and a large contusion on her cheek was turning black and blue. She looked like she had put up quite a fight before the final blow was inflicted.
As Max talked to Sandy’s parents, Mike once again felt the rage he had when he first saw Sandy last night. He wasn’t sure if the feelings were because a woman had been attacked or because this woman had been attacked. It had been eleven years since graduation and he hadn’t seen Sandy since then because she and Dave had not attended the ten year reunion. Why was his reaction to her attack so visceral? He had been a cop for over eight years and had been called to many homes where a woman had been attacked by her husband or significant other and although he had felt anger, it was nothing like this.
As he looked at Sandy’s battered face, it brought back memories of the first domestic disturbance call he had answered as a rookie. The woman was nineteen and her boyfriend twenty-one. It was an argument that escalated from a few harsh words to several well-placed punches to the woman’s face. By the time they arrived, her face and lips were swollen and it appeared her boyfriend was getting ready for round two.
The boyfriend was angry when they showed up and went on a tirade about “those nosy neighbors who should stay out of his business”. The other officer took him outside to cool off and Mike had tried to convince the woman to go to the hospital. She refused. She also refused any suggestion that she leave and find shelter elsewhere or she file charges for assault. Mike could not believe it when she said to him “I love him. He didn’t mean to do it. It was my fault for making him so angry.” He had become a policeman because he wanted to help people, especially women and children who were in abusive situations. Although he had been trained to expect this reaction, he still found it hard to hear this battered woman take the blame for her abuse.
It might have been the first time he answered a domestic violence call, but it wasn’t his last. As the number of women mounted, he talked to other officers about how they were able to walk away and leave these people in their abusive situations. They all said the same thing: If they won’t leave, you can’t force them to go. Do what you can, but don’t drive yourself crazy about what you can’t change.
So, each time he tried to get the women to leave, but only a few had had the strength to walk away. Sandy’s attack had broken down the wall he had carefully built to keep his emotions under control when it came to spousal abuse.
Now here he stood, looking at a woman who almost lost her life because she waited too long to leave. She was the first victim he knew personally. Maybe that’s why he reacted the way he did. It couldn’t be because he had some buried feelings for her, could it? He was so deep in thought he actually jumped when his cell phone vibrated in his pocket. He excused himself and went to the visitor’s lounge to take the call.
Several minutes later he returned to Sandy’s room and motioned Max into the hallway.
“You’re not going to believe this one Max.”
As usual, Max just waited quietly for Mike to get to the point.
“I just got a call from Dave Flanders. He’s at his father’s house and wants to talk to us about what happened last night. I told him we would meet him there at 10:30.”
For the first time since they had worked together, Mike saw Max unable to cover his surprise. His eyes widened a little and his eyebrows arched. His surprise changed to confusion as he tried to process the information. He looked at Mike and falling back into character said, “Well I guess we’d better not keep him waiting.”
They told Sandy’s parents they had to leave, but would be back as soon as possible. Max gave them his card again and asked them to call him as soon as Sandy regained consciousness.
Max rode with Mike to a wealthy subdivision north of Lancaster. The houses started at $500,000 and went up from there. Each house was a statement of the personalities of the people living within. The Flanders’ house was the largest in the development. There was nothing cutesy about the exterior. The two-story Federalist style building was all red brick broken only by a white portico over the front door and the white molding surrounding the windows. The landscaping was minimal, but the grounds were immaculately maintained. Every blade of grass was the same length and there was not even a hint of a weed. The bushes had been recently trimmed and mulched and the driveway edged. Mike had always been impressed with this area, and had always disliked this particular house. He wasn’t surprised to realize it belonged to Jason Flanders. Remembering what the inside of Dave’s house looked like, it appeared Dave had his father’s taste in decorating.
Max whistled softly as they approached the front door. “Not afraid of showing off his wealth is he?”
Mike agreed and told Max Dave’s father had several car dealerships which were the base of his growing empire. “When we were in high school, Jason Flanders branched out into real estate and started a holding company which manages his rental properties. He has become a bit of a mover and shaker in politics in Lancaster. He supports whoever can help his businesses, regardless of whether they are Democrat or Republican. And since his support is usually pretty hefty, he is courted by both sides. He’s a man who is used to getting his own way.”
They reached the front door and Max rang the bell. Dave answered the door and unlike his belligerent attitude of the night before, calmly thanked them bot
h for coming. He led them back to his father’s office and introduced the elder Flanders to both detectives. After shaking hands, a third man stepped forward and introduced himself as Tom Wyatt, Dave’s attorney.
“I have advised my client he can tell you what occurred last night inside his house. He is still upset by what happened, but realizes he needs to be honest with you. After he gives you his account of the evening, if you have questions, I will determine what he should respond to.”
Max once again took the lead. “I would like to read Mr. Dave Flanders his Miranda rights if it’s all right with you Mr. Wyatt.”
“Yes, that’s fine.”
“Is it also okay if we record this interview?” Max asked as he brought a small digital recorder out of his pocket and turned it on.
“Yes. We are also recording it. Not that we don’t trust the police” Wyatt stated with a smirk.
After being read his rights, Dave acknowledged he understood them, had his attorney present and was willing to answer questions.
Max got the ball rolling by asking Dave to explain what had happened the previous evening.
Taking a deep breath, Dave began his recitation the way he had been coached by both his father and Tom, trying not to make it sound rehearsed.
“Sandy and I have had a tough year. The company I work for lost several large contracts due to the downturn in the economy. Sandy is a first grade teacher with the Lancaster school district and their budget problems are ongoing. The school she works in is on the list of those that have lost students and could be closed. Whether she would be placed somewhere else is debatable. The school districts use a LIFO policy for retention.”
Max asked Dave to explain what he meant by LIFO.
“It’s an accounting term for ‘last in, first out’, which means the last hired is the first laid off. Then a couple of months ago, the rumors started about a layoff where I work. All this worrying about whether or not we would have jobs caused some problems between Sandy and me. I’ve been stopping for a couple of drinks after work to try and unwind, and she was nagging me about it every day.
Splintered (Mike Campbell Series Book 1) Page 3
