No Son's Father
by Ryan Hickey

Well I had planed on not adding to the story. But Last night I could not get the idea out of my head...and today this story just flowed out of my hands. I dont know if I like it as much...its darker. Its sadder...but its part of the way life can be. So I hope you all like it.


The detective looks around what was a teen’s bedroom: the computer smashed and on the floor, posters of skateboarders and rock bands ripped from the walls. Along one wall is a shelf that once held trophies from little league but now only holds the shattered remains of those same trophies. The bed is over turned, the desk chair shattered into kindling with red staining some of the pieces. The eyes of the detective take it all in, and then settle on the reason he is here: the large stain of blood drying in the cool night air in the center of the room. His eyes follow the blood to the streaks from when the victim tried to crawl away from his attacker, and then finally to a smaller pool of blood when the victim was unable to get away. The detective closes his eyes.

Everyone always asks him, Why give up a good job at the FBI? You were on track to be the Director of the Bureau? The answer is simple. This is why he left. This is why he turned down offers from New York and LA. He was tired of crimes like this; tired of how they made him feel, or, in the end, how they failed to make him feel. He remembers how great it was to find a small mid-west town in need of a police chief and detective; a town with only petty crimes and no murders in years. Nothing like this.

The young, twenty something, officer that has accompanied him up stairs gasps, "Chief…my God."

Opening his eyes and stepping into the room, the father of three shakes his head, "Tim, God had nothing to do with this. Don’t forget to put on your gloves. Any word on when the state trooper's forensic team will get here?"

The young cop stands unmoving in the door way. "No sir, but it’s likely to be a while, they don’t get much call down this way."

"No need to call me sir, Tim. It's Richard or Rich, Okay? The force is too small for us to keep up the yes sir and no sir stuff."

Tim nods, "Yes sir…I mean Rich. How could some one do this? I thought the stairs were bad…but this…"

Reaching into the pocket of his suit jacket, Richard E. West pulls out a pair of latex rubber gloves. "How…I don’t really know, and I hope I never do. All I know is that there are monsters in this world, and most of them look human."

The detective looks around the room, this time paying closer attention to every detail. The talent that had made him a great investigator was the ability to reconstruct, in his mind, the events after the fact by surveying the scene of the crime. Today, however, this gift feels more like a curse, being able to almost see the terror on the young man's face and the rage on the attacker’s face. There is more then enough physical evidence in the room to easily work out how brutally the boy was beaten. It likely began with nothing more then a drunken smack to the kid's face, then either the boy didn’t back down or began to cry, either would have clearly enraged the attacker more, driving the attack into a savage beating devoid of any compassion or human restraint.

Stepping over the ripped and blood spattered pillow Richard leans down and examines the side of the bed's box spring. "This might be where he hit his head. Tag it, Tim, will you? Also, tell Janet downstairs to bring that camera up here ASAP, I want photos of all of this."

"Yeah, sure boss." The young office pulls his radio off his belt and sends the request. "They're such a respected family, sir. They always seemed so…so…normal, so happy. It just hard to believe some thing like this could happen in our town."

Walking back across the room to the desk and the smashed PC the detective sighs. "It’s typically those kinds of families that this happens in, Tim. Has anyone found any bottles? Any alcohol at all?"

"No sir, nothing. And when we took him off he didn’t seem drunk to me. Just mad…really really mad. He kept saying stuff like, 'Not my son,' and 'I'll fix him, you watch, I'll fix him good.' We tried to get him to shut up but he just wouldn’t."

Looking over the desk, the detective spots a set of disks hidden under what’s left of the hard drive. The detective takes out a small clear evidence bag. "Tim where’s the camera?"

A female voice replies form the door, "Right here chief. OH MY GOD!"

Glancing over his shoulder at the older female sergeant, "Like I told Tim, God has nothing to do with this. Janet, get a shot of these disks and then bag them up."

"Okay, boss, but why?" asks the officer dubiously as she crosses the room carefully, being sure not to step in anything.

"Because the kid took the effort to hide them, and hid them well. My gut tells me there is something more going on here. Tim said that he found no alcohol at the scene. And we haven’t found any drugs, have we?"

Tim shakes his head, "No sir no drugs either. So if it wasn’t because he was drunk or high…then what could have made a father do this to his own son?"

"I don’t know yet, there are a few things I can think of but I don’t want to come to any conclusions until I have more to go on. Some times people just snap for no reason."

An hour passes as the detective carefully goes over the room, building a detailed re-creation of what happened, taking photos of everything, even the insignificant. At the end of the hour, he stands near the wall under the room’s one window.

"I know what happened, almost step by step…but why? The house has been searched top to bottom right?"

The other two officers nod in unison.

"Yes boss," replies Janet. "No open bottles. I don’t think he drank much. No drugs, no nothing. We're still trying to get ahold of the wife, but her office told us she’s away on business, some place back East."

The detective stiffens and his eyes narrow, when turning his head to look at the office he caught a glimpse of something that set off his warning bells, something important…but where is it? He can’t see it. Slowly turning his head back he stops as his eyes catch a glimpse of something under the ripped back pack and jumble of school books.

He slowly moves over to the pile of rubble, saying, "Bring the camera here."

After the spot is marked, numbered and photographed, the detective moves two of the books to reveal a crumpled up piece of paper. A few more photos later he picks it up and smoothes it out trying not to smear the few drops of blood on the paper.

The sergeant asks the detective, "What is it sir? You said this was about where the attack started."

Gripping the rumpled page in his hands and shaking with rage, the detective grates, "It’s a letter form the principal of the local high school, to the Witchers. It appears their son Matt was suspended today because he was caught 'in an inappropriate sexual situation with a fellow male student,' whatever that means."

"The kid's a fag?" Blurts out the young officer.

Spinning around to face him, the detective levels a piercing gaze at the young man, forcing him to look away.

"What if he is Tim?" The older man demanded. "Do you somehow think that justifies anything…anything that was done to him?"

Shifting uneasily under his superior's gaze, and unable to even look up to meet that gaze, the officer replied, "Well no, not really…but now I understand why this happened. I mean, all he was trying to do was straighten his kid out. Yeah, he got out of control, he never should have gone as far as he did but…"

The officer stops as he sees a hand grip the front of his uniform, looking up in surprise he sees the chief's rage filled eye's glaring down on him.

"Get out. Get out of here, Tim. And you better take a long good look at what you were saying. You may not have known it but you were just about to condone to justify what that bastard of a father did to his son. And if you can do that, then you have no place on my police force. Now get OUT!"

The officer is shoved from the room nearly tripping over himself and slamming against the wall in the hallway. The Sergeant moves across the room and puts a light restraining hand on the detectives arm.

"Rich, calm down. Tim didn’t mean it like that. It’s just a surprise is all. It's just that some people in this town will want to condone what was done. They will say 'It's his boy he has a right to stop him from being a sinner.' and 'Better to beat it out of the boy then to let him continue doing what he was doing.' You know they will boss."

West turns to face Janet, "You too?"

She holds up her hands and shakes her head. "No. And you know me better then that Rich. My sister is gay, but you also know how conservative this town is.Some of them are going to want to let the guy off. They're going to say all the kid got was a beating and…"

The officer is cut off by the beeping of a cellular phone. The detective fishes in his pocket for his phone and snaps it open.

"Chief West...Yes Doctor…When? Yes I understand. Send the full report to my office once you’re done. And Doc, thanks for letting me know."

Richard West, formerly of the FBI's violent crime division, closes his phone and looks at his sergeant. Placing the phone back in his pocket he feels a single tear roll down his cheek, "Well, Janet, all they will need to say now is 'He only got killed.'"

Copyright Notice - Copyright ©2004 by Ryan Hickey
This story is copyrighted by the author and the author retains all rights. This work may not be duplicated in any form, physical, electronic, audio, or any other form known or unknown without the author’s express written permission. All applicable copyright laws apply and will be enforced.