Ashes to Ashes (37 page)

“I don’t know, yet,” Ashe admitted. “I need
to know more about who was involved. Who was taken?”

“I wasn’t told,” Oscar replied. “We have to
wait until we get there to see. If they even know at this point.
Hard to tell.”

Ashe nodded. He began to watch the outside
world beyond the car’s windows. Everything appeared to be wet and
covered in a gloomy shade of gray, a color that mirrored how he was
feeling inside. It was a cliché, but he didn’t know how else to
describe his mood.

Gray.

Dreary.

“Things are becoming complicated,” Ashe said
aloud. “Aren’t they?”

“I have a feeling they are only getting
started,” Oscar replied. “I’m sorry, Ashe. But Scott might be too
far gone for us to bring back.”

“Yea,” Ashe concurred. “But I have to
try.”

Oscar concurred with a grunt. “Sins of the
father.”

“More than I realize.”

Chapter 44

Scott couldn’t contain his frustration any
longer and instead let it explode across the yellow man’s face. As
his fist struck the yellow man’s cheek, the man was pushed slightly
backward and the wooden chair beneath him groaned with the force of
the blow, sounding as if it might give way. A cut appeared and a
line of blood dribbled down the man’s skin. The yellow man seemed
only temporarily phased by the hit. The smirk never left his lips,
making Scott even angrier.

Scott glared at the yellow man and cursed in
his face. “Did you see that shit coming? Did you know that I was
going to do that? Can you see if I’m going to do that again?” He
paused. “Are you going to tell me what I want to know, now?”

The yellow man laughed from the gut. “I would
if I had any clue what you are talking about?”

Scott squatted down in front of the yellow
man. Using the tip of his thumb, he applied pressure the man’s leg
wound. The yellow man cried out in pain. Scott applied more and
more pressure until his digit was covered in the man’s blood.

“How did that feel?”

The yellow man shrugged his shoulder in
complete indifference.

Scott then revealed the black container with
the gold trim to the yellow man. “I took this from you…from your
pocket. And you know what it is.”

The yellow man didn’t speak.

Night was setting in, turning the dark day
even darker. The room was filling with shadows, cast across the
floor and walls by a single bright lamp. The yellow man’s shadow
loomed large against a far wall, towering over everything else in
the room.

Scott noticed the large shadow and for some
reason it caused him unease. He wanted to break the looming
presence of the man, so he moved to hit the yellow man again, but
was stopped by a cry from behind him. “Scott…stop!” Bam was
instantly at his side, her hand on his shoulder. “That isn’t going
to work. He doesn’t care how much you make him bleed, because he is
the one in charge here and we both know it.”

“
He
is not in charge here,” Scott
replied. “
He
is the one tied to a chair. Not us.”

“Aren’t we,” Bam groaned. “There is more than
one type of chair. We are the ones wanting what he has. And he is
holding it over our heads, tying our hands with it. Hitting him
will not put this situation into our hands. Not as long as they are
tied. Hun? Don’t give him more control over us. Please?”

Scott acted like he was going to turn away,
but swiftly swung and struck the yellow man just below his right
eye. It felt too good not too. “That was the last time,” he lied.
“I got it out of my system.”

“Good to see that you haven’t lost your
diplomatic skills, hun,” the yellow man said. “You always could
make a tense situation…more tense.” The yellow man laughed again
and the sound got underneath both Scott and Bam’s skin. “You are
just like your mother…or at least how she used to be. God rest her
soul.”

Bam slapped him.

Scott felt pride in her outburst, but he also
become aware that she had been right. The man was getting to them,
manipulating their emotions. He would keep them dancing for as long
as he wanted to pull the strings. He would have to find a way to
cut them, to cut them both loose of the yellow man. But how? How
could he do it when he truly needed the information that the yellow
man had?

Leaving the living room, Bam fetched another
wooden chair from the dining area and brought it back. She gently
placed it front of the yellow man, inches from him. She didn’t sit
down on it herself, though, but motioned for Scott to sit.

“Sit, love,” Bam told Scott. “Face him. Meet
him eye to eye.” Reluctantly, he listened to her and sat, meeting
the yellow man on equal ground, no one above and no one below the
other. Would it work? Would the yellow man ever view himself as
being on the same level as Scott? He didn’t know? He would have to
find out.

“What is the pill?” Scott asked, putting the
black and gold container to the man’s face.

The yellow man didn’t deny the existence of
the pill, but instead replied, “It’s my anxiety medication. It
keeps my nerves from getting on edge. A light med, to be honest.
Not too much to it.”

“Liar!” Bam cried out. She left the room.

“We know that you are lying,” Scott said as
Bam’s footsteps echoed up the stairs and into her bedroom. His
voice remained calm. “You can sit here and play games. You can sit
here and be funny or smug. But we are going to get around to the
truth. Now. Or later. But you will tell me what I want to
know.”

“No games?” the yellow man asked and
dramatically sighed.

Scott shook his head.

“But I like games,” The yellow man replied.
“Life is one big cosmic game. The only difference is…young Scott…is
that sometimes there are special people that get a glimpse at the
rule book while others have to play blind.”

“And the pill is a cheat,” Scott said. “Is
that what you are saying?”

The yellow man shrugged.

“Where did the cheat come from?” Scott asked.
“And whose rule book are you taking a peak at?”

The yellow man shrugged again. “Young man?
Has it ever occurred to you that you are losing your grip on
reality? That everything you are experiencing is nothing but a
break in sanity? That you have killed and kidnapped for no reason
other than your own craziness? Because what I see in front of me is
a lost young man…going down a dangerous path…a path that leads to
the lions den.”

“And you are that lion?”

The yellow man grinned. “One man’s lion is
another man’s lamb. Some eat and some get eaten.”

“The golden rule?”

“
Mine
,” the yellow man admitted. “And
if I
was
that lion, I have a feeling that I would greatly
enjoy playing with my food before I bite down.” He laughed again.
The laugh was almost unnatural to Scott, as if it was less from
pleasure as it was from cynical knowledge.

What did the man know?

“What makes you the lion?” Scott asked. He
felt like his father, questioning a dangerous man, attempting to
gain insight. It was a rush…but it was also scary as hell.

“Wrong question,” the yellow man replied.
“What makes you the lamb?”

“Lack of knowledge,” Scott told him.

The yellow man perked up. “Yes,” he said.
“Enough knowledge can make a person a god.”

“And you are a god?” Scott was trying to play
into the man’s arrogance. Arrogance was a tall but thin ladder, one
that could tip or shatter under the smallest bit of pressure,
bringing the man down from high.

“No,” the yellow man stated. “Not a god.”

Lions. Lambs. The yellow man was talking in
riddles, but Scott should have expected the jerk around he was
getting. He wanted to poke and prod harder, stab the man for some
more direct answers. He would have to settle for riddles, though,
hoping he could decipher answers within them.

“Does the pill bring you closer to being a
god?” Scott asked. He thought about his own visions, his own brush
with death. If he had been meant to die that day, then what did
avoiding death make him? Closer to god? A god?

The corners of the yellow man’s smirk became
even more pointed. “I’ve said enough. You want more than I am
willing to give. I am not going to pretend that I don’t have what
you want. I am just not going to give it to you.”

“You will,” Scott said confidently, putting
the black and gold container into his pants’ pocket. He then rose
and left the room. Time to regroup. It had been a start but only
the beginning. If it came to it, there will be more blood. But he
hoped that he could get it out of him without the need of spilling
any more.

How did his father do it? How did Dr. Ashe
Walters get a bad guy to sink like a friendly bird? Scott wished he
knew.

Where was his father? He wondered, hoping
that his old man wasn’t too far behind. Ashe Walters versus the
yellow man. A battle for the ages.

Chapter 45

Ashe and Oscar easily found the location of
the scene. It was within a small park not far from Lake Erie. The
park sat a short distance from the downtown area and felt isolated
from the tall buildings and busy streets, like an oasis in the
desert. As they entered the park they immediately noticed bright
light in the immediate distance, lights that were being used to
illuminate whatever ghastly scene awaited them.

Oscar got his car as close as he could before
eventually pulling behind a blue and red flashing squad car. The
lights were whirling, reflecting off of the nearby trees, as if
they were jumping or dancing around the wooded area. Other squad
cars were present, parked chaotically along and around the road.
Their lights joined in the graceful romp. It would have been
beautiful if Ashe didn’t know precisely why the blue and red lights
existed, why they were dancing. They were not dancing for love or
peace but for other more morbid reasons. They danced for death.

Exiting the car, Oscar went to the trunk. He
pulled out two blue windbreakers, both having the letters YPD
scrolled across the back. Oscar tossed a windbreaker over to Ashe.
“In case it starts to rain, again,” he insisted. But Ashe knew that
there was another reason for him to wear it. It would help the
psychologist to blend with the rest of the officers, at least those
that didn’t personally know him.

Slipping on the jacket, Ashe didn’t get a
chance to turn away before Oscar called to him. He turned in time
to catch an object before it hit him in the face. Ashe knew what it
was instantly. It was a laminated badge. On the badge were the
words CONSULTANT. Using the clip on the end, he hooked it to the
neck of the windbreaker.

“I want as little questions as possible,”
Oscar told him.

“One can dream,” Ashe replied.

They had to shift through a small group of
reporters in order to get to the crime scene tape. The crowd of
media was sparse but sure to grow over the next couple hours, even
if the day had gone and night had taken over. It made sense because
most hard crimes, like murder, happened mostly during the night
time hours, Ashe knew, because criminals used the night to conceal
their atrocities from the judging eye of the sun. Midday or
midnight, the media would show up at a crime scene ready to smell
blood, because reporters could be like soldiers, never sleeping or
resting whenever there was a good story…or a good war taking
place.

Among the crowd gathering at the borders of
the crimes scene, Ashe didn’t notice any gawkers, the kind of folks
that tend to flock toward the chance to witness violence or pain.
They were the same type of people that slowed down their vehicles
so they could get a better look at a tragic car accident in hopes
of viewing a dismembered body.

Ashe hated those types of people.

Several of the reporters attempted to get a
quote from Oscar, but the detective shrugged them off without a
word. He gave them the kind of cold shoulder that only a seasoned
homicide detective could. When he felt like speaking, he would make
sure that it was done his way…or no way.

Upon arriving at the yellow banner, marking
the boundaries of the crime scene, Oscar flashed his badge to the
uniform that was guarding the parameter. Lifting the flimsy
barricade, Oscar made his way over the border. Ashe moved to follow
but was stopped by the uniform, who put his hand up, giving the
psychologist a good look at his palm.

He didn’t recognize the man’s face, but he
recognized the smug expression that often held sway over most of
the early recruits. They joined the police force to fight crime, be
the tough guy, but a few more years would knock the smugness from
the young cop’s face. They would become as jaded as the next. That
is unless the officer was just a deep down arrogant asshole, like
Detective Geiring.
That
man’s smugness would never leave him
until someone put a bullet between his lips. Maybe not even
then.

“Oscar!” Ashe called out to his old
friend.

Oscar paused mid stride and came back to the
parameter limit. “What is the problem, officer?” he asked. “He is
with me. I am pretty sure that that is clear by the badge on his
windbreaker.”

“
You
have been cleared to enter the
scene, Detective Harrison,” the uniform declared, “but I was not
aware of any consultant coming with you. You are going to have to
clear this dude with Phillips. Phillips is making the calls.”

“I know that Phillips is making the calls,”
Oscar bit back. “He is the one that called my captain who in turn
called me. Hence…me being here.”

“I see that you are here, Detective,” the
uniform replied. “Your presence is duly noted. But in order for him
to come through, you will have to speak with Phillips. No way
around that. Not for you or for me.”

Oscar nodded and rushed away, leaving Ashe
alone. The detective was gone a few minutes, giving Ashe those
minutes to imagine what he was going to see. How bad would it be?
Who had been taken? Who had been shot? He tried to glance around
the uniform and into the scene, but he could not make out much. He
saw what appeared to be a parking area for the park, which was
where the bright police lights seemed to be focused. He could see
the outlines of vehicles and other figures standing around.