Right after Brandy and her gossiping friend left the office Skyler taped on the door and poked his head inside. " You done?"
" Yeah, come on in and tell me what you found out."
He sauntered on over and planted his ass in the chair in front of my desk making himself comfortable.
Pulling out a sheet of folded paper from his pocket he glanced back up at me and grinned. "I took a few notes and started a file on the case, this guy sounds pretty interesting. First of all, he is human. His full name is Doctor Charles David Tucker." I raised a brow with this bit of information. And Skyler stopped talking.
"A human doctor?" I asked, bewildered on how Felisha could have met a human doctor. Werewolves usually see pack doctors unless they are referred to a specialist and even then the specialist is usually a werewolf.
Skyler glanced up from his notes and nodded, " Yeah, surprised me too.He's a heart surgeon in Portland Oregon, forty five years old. I even googled him to confirm what Penny told me." Skyler murmured, pulling his phone from his back pocket to show me the professional profile of Doctor Charles Tucker a cardiologist in Portland Oregon. Which included a thumb size photo ,his office address, years of experience,and a brief summary of his education.
" He's from Portland? How the hell did Felisha meet a human doctor from Portland?" I ask confused, Skyler was right this is kinda interesting.
Skyler shook his damn head again " No, He lives in Portland, in the upscale neighborhood of Ashcreek ,close to his office but he's actually from Juneau. His dad was a commercial fisherman,but both his parents died when he was in his freshman year of college. After Charles went off to college, his mom started going out on the boat with his dad and they both died when their boat sank in a storm. Felisha met Charles through her brother in law. Felisha's older sister lives in Juneau with her mate. You know him ,Mark Hardy, the guy with the commercial fishing boat that we get seafood from, for events here at the pack house."
" Yeah, I remember him, I talked to him last week when he delivered the seafood for my ceremony. And now that you mentioned it, I remember Penny calling him uncle Mark that day.
Yeah, Penny's pretty close to her Aunt Shelly and Uncle Mark. " Skyler said, with a wave of his hand, going back to the topic of how Felisha met Doctor Charles "Anyway, Felisha was staying with her sister for the summer, Felisha was seventeen at the time. She met Charles Tucker a twenty year old college student at a birthday party for Mark. Charles was home on summer break and working with Mark on a fishing boat for a summer job at the time. Felisha and Charles dated all that summer and that's when Felisha got pregnant with Penny. But she didn't know she was pregnant until they both left Juneau. He returned to Oregon and she came back
here to start her senior year of high school. They kept in touch with each other by phone and about two weeks later Felisha found out she was pregnant. Long story short, she told Charles and he freaked out a little. He ask Felisha if she wanted to get an abortion. But of course,Felisha refused and broke up with him over the phone. But he kept calling Felisha and sweet talked her back into his life. Then in October Felisha turned eighteen and met Jacob at the harvest festival. They're true soulmates and he didn't care if Felisha was already pregnant. And that's how the shit show started." Skyler explained a bit breathlessly.
" Okay, that explains how Felisha met Doctor Charles so what else do you know about this guy?" I ask thankful that, Skyler had already written all this down. It seems I was right, Penny was a lot more relaxed talking to Skyler then she had been with me, and didn't mind sharing details of her personal life with him.
Skyler grinned " A lot, I know he's been married and divorced twice .But he doesn't have any other kids besides Penny. His first wife, he married about ten years ago when Penny was fourteen. A lady named Avery Mullens, she's a nurse that worked at one of the hospitals there in Portland. They were married for two years and never had any children together."
After thinking about it for a few minutes I realized there wasn't anything useful in that bit of information.Nothing that screamed the guy was a nut case unless the marriage ended because he was violent or something.
" Did Penny say, why their marriage ended?" I ask just to make certain, that this guy wasn't a real psychopath.
" I ask, but Penny said she really didn't know much about it. She said something about them both been busy people, and when her step mother would ask her dad to take time off for a vacation he would refuse the idea. But other than that she didn't know the details of the situation."
"Well, I guess that's not so unusual giving his profession.It takes a long time to become a heart surgeon. This is just a guess, but I assume he had just got his career on track at the time. A lot of young doctors have marital problems. The long hours they work and coping with the stress sometimes puts a stain on their home life ." I shrugged prompting Skyler to continue "So what else do you know, did you ask Penny if the guy who attacked her spoke to her?"
" I did, and Penny said he didn't say anything to her. And as far as Doctor Tucker's second marriage, I really don't think there's much there either. It sounds pretty par for the course."
Skyler sighed and pressed on with the details of the second marriage."About two years ago, he married a waitress named Hailey Backer, a real dandy. She was about fifteen years younger than him and already had two little kids from a previous marriage. He caught her fucking her personal trainer six months into the marriage but there was no violence. He didn't lose his shit and try to kill the personal trainer or the slut. So their divorce was quick and easy, because she broke the prenup."
"Hum, did Penny tell you anything about Doctor Charles that raised any red flags.Other then the fact that he's a human. So far he sounds like a normal human guy who knocked up a girl when he was young. I mean,it seems like he continued living his own life. He finished college, started a career, and even got married. I know it's a little different from the way we do things,but as far as humans go,the guy seems above average."
Skyler grinned wickedly rubbing his hands together " Ah, that's what I thought too. Now this is the interesting part. " Penny said when she was born Jacob signed her birth certificate as the father ,which is illegal, Actually the legal term for it is paternity fraud. Now remember the good doctor is already pissed off because Felisha dropped him like a hot potato when she met her soulmate (AKA Jacob). Then he finds out Jacob signed Penny's birth certificate. Now instead of being a little pissed off about Jacob stealing his girlfriend. Doctor Charles is furious and demands a DNA test and his prenatal rights. Well, there's no way in hell Felisha is going to consent to a DNA test on herself or Penny. So she struck a deal with Doctor Charles. The terms were simple at first ,after all he was still a student. They agreed that Penny would stay with him during the summer when he comes home on break.He also got to keep Penny during his spring break and Christmas break.Everything was going along fine with this arrangement until Doctor Charles graduated from Medical School and started his general surgery residency in Oakland California. Now he no longer had to live in a dorm room, frat house or share an apartment with a bunch of college students. He also didn't have any reason to come back home to work on a fishing dock to cover his expenses. Doctor Charles bought himself a two bedroom condo in Oakland close to the hospital. By now little Penny was six years old, so the good Doctor requested that Penny come spend her visitation time in Oakland at his condo. Well, as you can imagine,this didn't go off very well with a werewolf mom. It was one thing for Penny to stay with him in Juneau because Charles always worked on the docks on his time off from school and Felisha's sister would babysit Penny. But there was no way in hell Felisha was comfortable with Penny being over two thousand miles away from her. Anyway, Doctor Charles played the DNA card again and Felisha had to let Penny go to Oakland. After that, anytime Charles wanted Penny to go with him, he would threaten to take Felisha to court if she didn't comply. And that's how the feud got started."
I rubbed my chin and Hummed as I thought about this from a humans point of view. And again I couldn't find anything unusual about the situation. That's exactly how humans usually share custody of a child. If one parent lives out of state the child will usually visit them when ever there school schedule allows. Again nothing really crazy going on with the good doctor there "Hum,Did you ask Penny if Doctor Charles knows what she is?"
" I did, Penny said Felisha told her not to tell him and never shift in front of him.But she also said he dose know something is different about her. But he's never ask her directly for an explanation about some of the things that's happened through the years." Skyler murmured, capturing my attention.
" Things that's happened? I raised a brow waiting for an explanation.
" Yeah, mostly things that happened the first time Penny went to visit him in Oakland. Remember she was only six years old at the time. Well even with her weak wolf ,Penny still heals about four times faster than a human. And of course, with him being a doctor he noticed this right away. Apparently there was a playground close to his condo, and like any other cub, Penny liked to play outside. Which resulted in skinned elbows and knees. Now remember this guys not only human but also a doctor . So he takes little Penny home and applied some human medicine to her skinned knee then checked it out again when she got up in the morning. Well, after checking her skinned knee and finding nothing but completely healed skin underneath the bandage. He knew immediately that something wasn't right. She also said there was a few more times during that first visit when things happened,that she didn't realize at the time would reviled she was different from any other six year old. Once was at the gym in the condo when she went with him to work out. She had took her Barbie doll to play with and set on the mat while he work out with some free weights. Well, he had promised to get her an ice cream cone if she was a good girl while they were at the gym. Being a good girl, little forty five pound Penny helped her daddy tidy up after his work out. By putting some forty pound dumbbells back on the rack. Thankfully there was no one else in the gym at the time. However Doctor Charles conducted a little experiment with his daughter afterwards.Making it seem like a game they were playing together. She said, he took her around to every piece of gym equipment that was in there. Starting with the treadmill and ask if she wanted to try it out . And of course what six year old wouldn't. I'm sure Penny had never seen any gym equipment at the time.So Little Penny gets on the treadmill and Doctor Charles started out with the lowest speed gradually increasing it while cheering her on until Penny was running fast as she could . After a couple of minutes he turned the treadmill off and checked Penny's vitals repeating the process with the rest of the machines.Then he told her thoes were for big people and made her promise not to tell anyone they had been playing on them."