Ashes to Ashes (25 page)

“I am not crazy!”

Ashe sighed. The voice of the man behind the
bars resembled his son and that fact scared the shit out of him.
They were connected. Only he didn’t have the slightest idea how.
And he didn’t have much more time before breakfast was over and the
rest of the inmates would be shuffled back to their cells.

“In their beds,” Ashe blurted. “You murdered
them in their sleep. That isn’t crazy to you?”

“No,” Barrett replied. “They were going to
kill me. It was self-defense.”

Ashe froze.

Self-defense?

How could killing someone in their own beds
be considered self-defense? That was a question that was plaguing
Ashe. It was a variable that needed to be defined. Undefined
variables make problems difficult if not impossible to solve.

“You have never met my son?
Never
?”
Ashe asked.

“No.”

Ashe considered the possibility of the
presence of hallucinations. He also thought about the white powder
at the bottom of the black and gold container. Drugs, especially
heavy substances like cocaine or meth, can cause psychotic
episodes, bringing about hallucinations. Psychotic disorders
brought on by the use of drugs can be severe and dramatic and could
bring about violent actions.

“You like to do drugs, Mr. Barrett?” Ashe
asked.

The killer seemed taken aback by the question
and appeared to be without an answer.

“A wealthy, important man like you,” Ashe
began, “should have no trouble scoring some good substances. Coke.
PCP. Meth. Your checkbook was probably filled with carbon copies of
many drug deals. Isn’t that right?”

Barrett replied, “I don’t do any of that
shit, man.” He began shaking his head. “That will cloud a person’s
mind. While in the shark tank, you must remain clear and focused,
or else another shark will take off your tail for sport. You know
what I am saying? Eat or be eaten. Especially in my family. Eat or
be eaten.”

“Is that right?”

“Why do you think I killed my own wife and
son,” Barrett stated. “Eat or be eaten. Kill or be killed. When it
comes to money and those who covet it, no one is above getting a
knife in the back.”

The statement gave Ashe a cold chill.

Kill or be killed.

Did Scott act in the same fashion?

Kill or be killed?

Ashe wasn’t sure how much he should believe
the denial of Franklin Barrett. He looked like the type of man who
would use drugs of some form, even if it was a simple hit of a
joint now and then. But he doubted that Barrett was free of all
drugs.

He once again pictured the white powder at
the bottom of the black and gold container. Scott had left it
behind for reason. It was a second clue. But he would have to wait
to get the lab results before he would know for sure what the
powder actually was. It could be something harmless. It could be.
However, Ashe had a gut feeling that it was more than a sprinkle of
sugar or a covering of a dust.

Ashe reached another dead end and forced
himself to think about an obvious connection. “Steven Reynolds?”
The name didn’t leap from his tongue, it crawled. “How do you know
him?”

“Old family friend,” the killer replied with
a smirk.

“And you had him over for dinner, the other
day?”

“Yea.”

“And he talked about me,” Ashe said. “Did he
mention my son? Did he mention Scott?”

“I don’t recall,” he replied and then once
again laughed. “He said a lot. That man likes to chit-chat. I can’t
recall everything.”

Ashe asked, “Where is Steven Reynolds? Is he
here in Youngstown?”

Barrett shrugged.

Ashe became frustrated. He didn’t know why
the killer was playing with him, like a cat plays with a mouse. Was
it even real? He wondered. Or was it a game? Had Franklin Barrett
ever even met Steven Reynolds? He wasn’t sure, but he couldn’t deny
the possibility.

He slammed his fist into the cell bars and
the sound echoed off in both directions. Ashe ordered, “I need to
know if Steven Reynolds is messing with my son! Tell me! I need to
know!”

Barrett became momentarily startled,
flinching at the sudden outburst, but quickly recovered. “I don’t
know anything about your son, Doctor. I have never met him. What
Mr. Reynolds does is his own business and I can’t say what he does.
But I can assume what he would like to do. And it isn’t pretty, Dr.
Walters. Whether it is toward you or your son, I can’t say for
sure. Honestly.” He giggled. “I would like to find out myself what
Steven Reynolds has in store for you. It would be amusing.”

Ashe glared into the eyes of the killer, sure
that he was seeing the true man. He forgot all about the withdrawn
person that had first entered his office. He wasn’t sure if that
first meeting was staged or real, but that didn’t matter. The man
before him was taunting him and Ashe felt his face flush red and
his blood boil.

He took a final step, putting his body at the
barred door. Barrett mirrored the motion and they were nearly nose
to nose. Swiftly, Ashe reached his hand through the gaps of the
bars and grabbed the hair of Franklin Barrett. Pulling, Ashe ground
the face of the killer into the bars. He tightened the muscles in
his arm and just kept pulling. Barrett groaned and tried to
struggle but couldn’t break the psychologist’s grip.

“Is it funny, now?” Ashe asked. “Is it
amusing, now?”

Barrett’s hair felt greasy beneath Ashe’s
fingers, almost slimy. The sensation appalled Ashe and he jerked
his hand away. Barrett tumbled away from the bars, stunned, his
mouth gaping open. And then Barrett began to hysterically
laugh.

“Violence is deep within us all, I guess,”
Barrett managed to say amongst the laughter. “I guess we all have a
knack for it.”

Ashe slammed his fist one more time on the
bars. He began to hear other voices which meant that breakfast has
ended. Before being seen at the sight of his attack, he turned and
rushed off, ashamed of what he had done.

He had assaulted an inmate and a patient.

Chapter 28

Ashe fled swiftly to his cage, quickly to his
chair, and planted himself, with his head low and his eyes closed.
Frustration and regret were becoming familiar emotions. His head
spun and he didn’t know when the world would stop twirling around
him. He couldn’t believe that he had put his hands on not only
another human being but an inmate. That was something that could
pile more problems onto the already existing stack of issues.

He sighed.

How long would it take for Franklin Barrett
to rat him out?

Ashe had physically attacked Barrett and it
could cost him his job and possibly his license. He sat further
back in his chair. He tightened his eyes and tried to focus on what
information he had been given by Barrett. What had he discovered?
Upon considering the talk he had had with the killer, he was
surprised at how little he had discovered that could connect him
with Scott.

What had he discovered? Ashe asked himself.
He opened his eyes, leaned forward in his chair, and wondered. He
would have to treat Barrett as if he was just another inmate and
try to diagnose him using the data gathered through their little
chit-chat.

He thought about opening the Franklin Barrett
file on his computer, but instead reached into a drawer of his desk
and pulled out a notepad with yellow paper. Ashe found that his
brain worked better when he physically wrote down his ideas.
Putting a pen to paper was old fashioned, he knew, especially in
the modern day of Twitter and Facebook. But it worked.

Ashe wrote.

Hallucinations, involving possible visions,
are most likely present and the root cause behind the crimes.
Franklin Barrett believes that a holy presence is behind these
possible visions, giving it a grandiose quality.

These types of hallucinations could be a
symptom of a severe mental illness, most likely a psychotic
disorder. But which disorder? A number of disorders beneath the
heading Psychotic Disorders include symptoms of Hallucinations.

He lifted the pen and thought for a second
before adding:
It must be narrowed down further.

The belief that his wife and son were
plotting to kill him for his life insurance and family money might
not be entirely based in hallucination but might also include
delusions, delusions of betrayal. The presence of delusions might
point toward schizophrenia or possibly delusional disorder.

But which?

Or were the ideas that his wife and son were
plotting against him based in any fact? That would prove against
the presence of delusions. But could that be proven at this point
in time? And why hadn’t the police found any proof during the
investigation?

Ashe thought about Sue Ann and Kennedy
Barrett and for a second considered them devious and deceptive
against their own husband and father. Could it be possible? Could
the death plot actually exist? He remembered the eyes of Barrett
behind the bars of his cell. He pictured them. It was the lizard
behind the man, Ashe knew. It was the look of someone that could
kill for false reasoning.

But even as he pictured the cold stare, Ashe
considered the idea of searching for a truth behind the rants and
raves of a man who felt himself betrayed by his wife and son.
Discovering a death plot could be crucial.

The words of Franklin Barrett echoed,
“Violence is deep within us…we all have a knack for it.”

Ashe knew it to be true. However, violence
rarely came from nowhere. It always involved something deeper. He
had a tight grasp on why Franklin Barrett had acted in violence. He
even had a better understanding of what lied beneath the man’s
eyes, which was different from what he had experienced that first
session.

Had he been fooled?

Not entirely.

Gripping his pen tighter, Ashe began a line
just beneath the section of notes he had taken about Franklin
Barrett. He stretched the line a few inches before ending it with
an arrow. Below the arrow he wrote…
Scott
.

The behavior of Scott Walters mirrors that of
Franklin Barrett. The crimes were similar, involving murder while
the victims slept, and similar language was used to describe the
reasoning behind them.

MY EYES WERE OPENED.

What is the likelihood that the exact same
phrasing was used in two crimes that appear in no way
connected?

At this point the only concrete connection
would be…me.

However, I had no connection to Franklin
Barrett prior to him entering my office recently, which obviously
happened long after the crimes against his wife and son were
committed. My presence as a possible connection has to be a
coincidence. How could it not be?

Steven Reynolds.
The name has come
up during sessions between Franklin Barrett and myself, whether it
was for real or used as a personal attack by a man desperate for
what little power he can still have. There is however a
well-documented connection between Steven Reynolds and myself,
connecting him to Scott.

But how could two people with limited
connection to each other show similar symptoms of a possible mental
disorder?

Drugs?

The same drugs taken by different people can
show similar results, especially if it had been laced or tainted
with a specific substance, like embalming fluid. But the exact same
results in two separate people? What are the odds?

Ashe considered it but couldn’t wrap his mind
around it. And before he would get the chance to jot down further
thoughts, a voice came from his open doorway.

“Dr. Walters?”

The voice was feminine and familiar. It came
from Warden Chase. Ashe tensed.

“Am I interrupting something?” she asked.

“Not at all,” he managed to say. “Please come
in.”

As her petite form entered his office, Ashe
stood to greet her.

“What brings you down to my cage?” Ashe
asked. He was certain that he already knew the answer.

“I came down to hear it from you,” Warden
Chase told him. “I wanted to hear it from
your
mouth.”

That didn’t take long, he thought. Barrett
must have told the first guard that came by. Damn him. “I’m sorry,
ma’am,” Ashe insisted. “I don’t know what to say for myself.”

“It is just a shame,” she said. “I had to see
it on the news first.”

“The news?” he asked. “I don’t
understand.”

“The news conference…about your son,” Warden
Chase told him. “The one that is going on right now?” She looked at
Ashe’s face and then began to visually search the walls of his
cage. “You still don’t have a television down here?” Digging into
the pockets of her khaki pants, she pulled out her cell phone.
After pushing several commands on the screen, she handed it to
Ashe. Her phone was small and thin and void of any physical
buttons, unlike
his
phone which flipped open and was nothing
but buttons. The screen was dark and he wasn’t sure whether or not
he had to push something on the screen. He was about to ask when
the screen lit up.

Dead center of the screen was Oscar Harrison,
standing in front of what appeared to a thin group of reporters. He
leaned closer to a cluster of microphones that were attached to the
podium behind which he stood. As he opened his mouth, Oscar broke
his word and began to speak about Scott. At the bottom right corner
of the screen, a photograph of Scott appeared, just above the words
Channel 5 News and LIVE.

“I repeat,” Oscar began, “the suspect is
still at large and may still be in the city of Youngstown or the
surrounding areas. He may or may not be armed, but I want everyone
to consider him dangerous. I will only be taking a couple
questions.” The detective scanned the handful of reporters.
“Sasha?”

A Latino woman began to speak, “Sasha Cohen,
Channel 5 news. Do you believe that this Scott Walters is connected
to all three of the murders? In the apartment complex
and
the park?”