Imperfect Defense

by Gregg E. Brickman

  "Agreed." Deg got into the driver's seat, waited for Ray to buckle up, then pulled onto the main road. "Did the ME tell you when he's doing the post tomorrow?"

  "Nine. ME said he had two concerns. First, he wants to validate his opinion that the assailant beat her and left her to die. Said the bruising indicates she lived for quite a while. Second, he wants to look for evidence of ongoing abuse, healed fractures, that sort of thing."

  "Which would point to the son." Deg drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.

  "Maybe. But other fractures don't mean someone didn't come in off the street. And based on Sophia's comments about the lady's personality, she didn't take shit from anyone."

  "I've studied abuse." Deg continued tapping a rhythm. "Just because she stood up to the world doesn't mean she stood up to her family."

  CHAPTER 3

  Sophia

  The emergency department at Coral Bay Medical Center was the busiest ED in the northwest section of Broward County. Newly remodeled, the walls burst with glittering monitors, the latest IV pumps, and automatic blood pressure machines. An average of two hundred patients a day came through the place with a quarter of them arriving via ambulance. It was rare when there wasn't at least one ambulance under the entrance canopy.

  Friday, the sixth of June was such an occasion. Sophia's assignment for the shift included the first ambulance admission. Her day began as it always did when not faced with an immediate patient load. She started at one end of the designated rooms for the critical-events section and made sure the equipment and supplies were ready for the busy day, which was certain to erupt. But her mind wasn't focused on work. Instead, she wondered about Millie's murder and grieved for the loss of her friend. Though Ray's partner, Deg, stopped by her house the previous night and asked questions, Ray didn't come. Whether they'd caught Millie's killer was an unknown.

  While sorting, checking, and restocking, Sophia used her personal cell phone to call Connie Kuhn, a good friend and pediatric nurse. Connie enjoyed a predictable schedule, which included working every Friday. "Want to meet for lunch? I need to talk to you about something."

  "What, Sophia?"

  "Remember my elderly friend, Millie Peers?"

  "Sure. You've talked about her quite a bit. Hang on a second." Connie's voice sounded muffled as if she spoke away from the receiver. "I'm back."

  "I found Millie's body yesterday afternoon." Saying it made her death real. Sophia struggled not to cry.

  "Oh. My. God. What happened?"

  The summary took a minute or two. "I called 911, then waited outside for them to come. Ray has the case."

  "That's a good thing, don't you think?"

  "Suppose. He's really busy. Has a lot of cases right now."

  "At least, you'll know what happened."

  Sophia took a deep breath. "She needs to have justice." In truth, Sophia wasn't sure if the death of one little old woman would stay a high priority for long. The community was burdened with crimes creating a bigger overall hazard. Things like drug wars, home invasions—which this might have been—and drive-by shootings.

  "Sweetie, I'm sorry, but I have to go. Things are popping here. We'll talk more at lunch. What time?"

  "I'm not busy now."

  "Idiot." Connie laughed. "It's seven-thirty in the morning."

  Sophia sighed, releasing her sadness. "I'm scheduled for lunch at one."

  "That can work. I'm in charge and haven't made the schedule yet. Call me when you're ready, and I'll either go with you or not. If I can't, let's meet for coffee after work."

  Having completed their usual Friday-connection conversation, Sophia picked up the pace of her work. Intuition and experience suggested sorting and stacking time was limited.

  As she grabbed a pile of excess dressings and binders and headed down the hall, the rescue-to-hospital emergency radio crackled to life. In a heartbeat, the charge nurse for critical events responded to the call.

  "I'll alert Dr. Kalet." Sophia raised her voice to be heard by the charge nurse. "She strolled past a minute ago."

  The department's irregular racetrack design made it easy for visitors to get lost and convenient for staff members to short-cut to where they wanted to be. Doing just that, she cut through the clean utility room, stopping to shove the supplies where they belonged. "Waste not." The door on the other side of the room opened into the parallel hall, allowing her to exit, turn left, and cross to the central nursing station.

  The unit secretary glanced up. Sophia stood on tiptoes and leaned over the counter. "We need Dr. Kalet for an incoming ambulance. The medics are transporting an elderly trauma patient. ETA in seven minutes. Do you know where she went?"

  The unit secretary shook her head, then pushed a button on the paging system and placed the call.

  A few seconds later, Dr. Carol Kalet, a plump, white-haired matron, appeared. Dr. Kalet had worked in the ED since graduating from the school of osteopathic medicine twenty-five years earlier. As a former grade school teacher, she preferred pediatrics, but had trained in general emergency medicine. She was well liked for her mild manner, and staff members dreaded the thought of her retirement. At age sixty-five, she announced almost daily that she could quit any time she wanted.

  Sophia fell in step with Dr. Kalet as she headed toward the critical events area.

  "The day needs to start somewhere." Dr. Kalet glanced around the corridor. "It's real quiet."

  "The peace before the battle, I'd say. It's the first day of no school. I'm sure we'll have a rash of skin irritations and the like as the kids fan out into summer."

  "It should be that way." Dr. Kalet sat on a rolling stool behind the desk, positioning it to have a view of the ambulance entrance. "I'm betting we'll be getting gamer's thumb into the walk-in unit instead of broken arms from falling out of trees."

  Laughing, Sophia went under the canopy to greet the inbound wagon.

  "Hey, Sophia," two paramedics chorused as they swung open the back doors and pulled out the gurney.

  "Mr. Hoffman, you'll feel some jolting again as we move you. I'm sorry," the medic, Stephanie, said.

  "I can handle it." Hoffman said, every word a muffled wheeze. He wore a neck support and an oxygen mask. An intravenous line attached his left arm to a bag on an attached pole.

  Sophia stepped in front of the sliding doors, triggering the automatic open feature, then headed into the treatment room. She pulled the oxygen tubing to the head of the stretcher and used her thumb to adjust the flowmeter. When they rolled the patient into place and transferred him to the hospital stretcher, Sophia attached the oxygen to the mask he wore, then relocated the IV bag to one of the ED poles. "How do you feel, sir?" The poor man looked like he felt miserable.

  "My leg hurts."

  "Do you hurt anywhere else?" She held his hand a moment.

  "No."

  While continuing the questions, Sophia attached the cardiac monitor, the pulse oximeter, and the automatic blood pressure cuff and visually inspected Mr. Hoffman, looking for other signs of acute distress. There were none.

  "How's your breathing feel?"

  "Fine."

  She entered her actions and observations into the patient database using the iPad application.

  Dr. Kalet appeared, surveyed the patient, then eyed the medics. "Report, please."

  "Ralph Hoffman. Eighty-five." The male medic looked at his clipboard and rattled off a set of vital signs. "He was stable on the ride in. There is some external bruising and bleeding." He pointed to several areas on the man's body. "We cleaned and dressed the wounds. He's blind—macular degeneration—the daughter said. The son-in-law said the man fell down a flight of stairs. He thinks Mr. Hoffman got confused and took a wrong step at the top."

  "Mr. Hoffman, I need to examine you. Is that okay?" Dr. Kalet touched his upper arm, making a connection.

  "What did you say?" He fiddled with a hearing aid, sending high-pitched whistles into the air.

  "May I examine you?" When Mr
. Hoffman nodded, she continued in a louder voice. "Tell me what happened."

  "Franco said I fell down the steps."

  "We're out of here." The medic with the clipboard handed the run report to Sophia.

  "Thank you. Come again." She grinned, slipping the sheet into a pocket for later scanning into the electronic record.

  "Oh, we will. Probably within the hour."

  Sophia returned her attention to Dr. Kalet's interview. She leaned close to Mr. Hoffman's ear, and Sophia thought the doctor said, "What do you say, Mr. Hoffman?"

  "If Franco said I fell, then I guess I fell."

  Dr. Kalet grimaced. She continued her examination, poking, prodding, questioning, and moving his extremities.

  Sophia knew what concerned her. Though most of the injuries were consistent with a fall, the man's answers weren't.

  "Let's get some pictures to check for a broken hip." Using the computer bolted to the wall, the physician entered orders, reading them to Sophia while typing.

  When Dr. Kalet left the room, it was Sophia's turn. She didn't question Ralph—he'd asked to be called Ralph—further about his fall, wanting to develop some rapport first. He looked to be his stated age and aside from the injuries, appeared in good shape, albeit blind and half deaf. His outstanding feature was his full head of pure white hair.

  She sent him for the x-rays and went to meet another ambulance. By the time he was returned to his treatment bay, a man and woman were seated in the area waiting for him.

  Sophia followed the tech into the room and reattached Ralph to the various monitoring devices, rechecked his vital signs, made sure he was comfortable, then directed her attention to the visitors. "I'm Sophia. I'll be with Ralph until he's transferred upstairs or released."

  The staff didn't use last names in the ED unless they had to. There were too many crazies roaming the community who could track them down. While a new employee, it had happened to Sophia.

  The gentleman, a medium-height Hispanic, stood and extended his hand. "I'm Franco Silebi. This is my wife, Melinda, Ralph's daughter."

  "Nice to meet you." The couple were both trim, fit looking, and expensively dressed. Reading the labels wasn't necessary to recognize the designer clothing. Melinda looked familiar in a vague way and wore a diamond tennis bracelet along with several others. One of them was coral, which matched her necklace and the print in her elegant, yet casual, scoop-necked top. He had removed his Armani jacket— Sophia saw the label—revealing a tailored white-on-white shirt that set off his trimmed salt-and-pepper hair and gray mustache to perfection. "Have you talked to anyone about Ralph yet?"

  "We asked for the doctor, but he hasn't come in yet." Mr. Silebi frowned. "I would have thought he'd want to talk with us."

  "Dr. Kalet is the only physician here until ten, so she has her hands full right now." Sophia slipped the iPad mini out of the pocket on her pant leg. "I'm sorry someone didn't tell me you were waiting." A finger swipe brought up the next screen. "He has several cuts and bruises. All of them look minor. The paramedics dressed them on the way in, and we've checked them and applied new dressings. The physician is concerned about a hip fracture, but we'll have to wait for the films to be read to confirm that. Ralph had several scans, including one of the brain, to be sure he hasn't had a stroke."

  Mr. Silebi nodded while his wife seemed lost in some internal space. A single tear appeared in the corner of her left eye.

  "Tell me what happened." Sophia positioned the iPad on the overbed table, slid onto a stool to rest and settle her aching right leg, then looked expectantly at the daughter.

  "My father-in-law got turned around when he left his room to come downstairs. He's never fallen before, and we didn't think to be concerned."

  Sophia typed in his comment and put quotes around it while wondering about neglect. "That's about what the medics said, too. Ralph doesn't have a previous admission on the record. We need some additional history. He has already answered a lot of questions about his general health and has given me permission to discuss his condition with you." She reviewed much of the information on the interview form with the couple, but, again, only the man answered. Sophia was beginning to wonder if the wife was mute. "Has Ralph been confused or disoriented?"

  "I'd say he is forgetful. Sometimes he has different memories of things." Mr. Silebi's forehead wrinkled, and he rubbed his chin.

  Ralph cringed, but he didn't join the conversation.

  "I believe it's because of his blindness and the fact he hears about half of what goes on around him," Mr. Silebi said.

  "Could be." She typed some more. "How long has he been blind? He was a bit vague about that."

  "How long has your father been blind?" Mr. Silebi looked at his wife.

  She shrugged. "Maybe ten years. He has adapted well."

  Mr. Silebi leaned forward an inch or two. "That's why he and Lorraine, that was his wife, came to live with us. When he lost his sight, he couldn't take care of her alone anymore."

  While finishing the interview, Sophia remembered caring for Lorraine Hoffman. Ralph had told Sophia his wife died just after Christmas. She'd come into the ED by ambulance after falling down the steps.

  CHAPTER 4

  Ray

  Later on Friday morning at the Coral Bay Police Department, Ray finished his document, hit print, and shoved his chair away from the desk. He swiveled to face Deg, whose workspace was to Ray's immediate left. Ray had used the report-writing time to gather his thoughts. While he could admit the family wasn't always guilty, he thought Wayne Peers was their best suspect for Millie's murder. "We need to find the son."

  "Agreed." Deg looked up from the pile of papers the crime scene techs retrieved from the Peers' residence. "I placed another BOLO a few minutes ago and added his last known whereabouts."

  "Good. Give me a minute. I'll check with the uniform watching the house again."

  Deg picked up his notebook. "While you're doing that, I'll call both former employers and remind them we're looking for the man."

  A couple minutes later, Ray hung up the telephone and said, "Nothing at the house."

  "Same for the paint shops."

  "Son of a bitch and his mother's car both vanished into thin air. I stopped at the bar last night, hung out, asked questions. No one has a clue—at least not that they admit to—about where Wayne Peers is." Ray rubbed his chin, puzzling over the issue as his eyes roamed the utilitarian office. "He could have left the area."

  "Maybe gone to ground somewhere, knowing we're looking for him."

  "Or he's as clueless as his bosses think, and he'll show up of his own accord." Ray reached for the telephone on his desk and punched numbers. While he waited for an answer, he covered the mouthpiece. "I stopped by the computer lab this morning. Farber said they were nearly done with the victim's electronics. He'll put the files on a thumb drive for us."

  "Did he say if he found anything?"

  "The usual assortment of letters, emails, and personal documents. No red flags saying who beat her to death." He held his hand up to signal Deg to be quiet when Farber answered. "This is Stone."

  Farber said, "I'm on my way upstairs with that drive for you. The cell phone will take a bit longer."

  "We'll take what we can get. Thanks." Ray repeated the information for Deg. "The ME is doing the autopsy at one. I'll take a run at the computer files before then. And we need to hit the neighborhood again and see what someone might tell us."

  Farber, a short and bony techie, hurried into the detectives' office. He made his way past a couple of unoccupied desks and two overflowing bulletin boards, then dropped a drive on Ray's desk.

  "Could they afford the plastic for this thing?" Ray picked up the device, holding it between thumb and forefinger and examining it. "Shit, it's smaller than my thumbnail."

  "That's why they call it a thumb drive."

  "More like a pinky drive, if you ask me."

  Deg laughed. "Farber didn't ask you."

  Farber pointed to th
e device. "Pop it into your unit, wait for the in—"

  "I get that, Farber. I'm computer challenged, but not totally inept."

  Farber smirked and retreated. "Let me know when you have those Marlins tickets. Call me when you have trouble."

  Ray chuckled. He had called for help before, and would, no doubt, need to again.

  He plugged in the drive and waited for it to install. An assortment of files appeared, all organized into folders, and—after clicking on one—subfolders, too. Tidy. Like the lady's house. While Deg returned to the pile of papers taken from Millie's home, Ray began the slow process of reading about the victim's life, as presented in her electronic files.

  Millie had filed her emails according to topic. Ray learned she was widowed the previous year after her husband suffered a long siege with lung cancer. Email correspondence with people he assumed to be close friends or relatives suggested her move to Florida was an attempt to be closer to Wayne.

  As he read, it became apparent the relationship with her son wasn't all positive. In the fall, Millie wrote that Wayne was doing well, working hard, staying sober. Ray continued reading until he decided that Alice Downs, Millie's sister, seemed emotionally closer to the victim than the other correspondents.

  He'd phoned the woman the previous evening and found her too upset to answer questions. A message taped to his desk said Downs was on her way to Florida, was scheduled to arrive Saturday around noon, and would be staying at the local La Quinta Inn. Okay, he thought, the elderly lady was doing what needed to be done.

  He read through more emails, noting questions to ask Downs. It was obvious Wayne resumed his drinking a month or so after Millie arrived in Florida. Millie's comments implied Wayne was demanding and verbally abusive, but contained no details. The emails referenced telephone calls between the sisters during the period as well.

  Moving into the files, Ray sifted through Millie's bank and retirement records—typical retiree stuff. Ray reviewed Millie's downloaded banking records. Deposits included her Social Security check, monthly entries marked pension, and an occasional lump sum marked annuity. He made a note to follow up on the various payments, which would require a review of the actual bank records since Millie hadn't indicated the source of the deposits. He scrolled through the register and noted the frequency of deposits increased after her relocation to Florida.