Ashes to Ashes (52 page)

Everyone nodded agreement.

The small group began to disperse, each one
making their way to Ashe for their final condolences, before
returning to their daily lives or a future alcoholic beverage. They
would move on. Some would move on right away, while others would
heal a little slower, but would heal nonetheless. But Ashe never
would move on or heal. He would never be able to.

He shook hands as his friends and family
shuffled to and away from him. Oscar was the last person to
approach him and Ashe hung on to the man’s handshake long after it
was over with. “Give me some news, Oscar.”

“You don’t need this right now, man,” Oscar
insisted, but his conviction instantly wavered and Ashe knew he
would talk. He just had to be silent until Oscar told him what he
wanted to know. “He was officially charged with first degree
murder. We thought that he would confess as soon as someone got a
recorder under lips, letting his psychotic ego do the talking, but
he tightened up his lips. I honestly didn’t think that the arrogant
bastard could help but to brag about his first real kill, but his
mouth sealed up nice and tight. But we don’t really need his
confession to put his ass away. It would only make the process
quicker, smoother. I’m sure that if he had confessed, it would have
been some long-winded fit of ranting and raving.”

“We don’t need his confession?”

“Nope,” Oscar assured him. “Don’t worry, my
man. The odds are stacked against the asshole. The trial may not
prove to be as fast as his brother Franklin’s, but it will still
make your head spin. He will get no less than twenty-five to life,
I’m sure. Especially once your well-spoken, highly professional ass
takes the stand and speaks out against him. He doesn’t have a
chance in hell. I almost feel sorry for the crazy bastard. And,
thankfully, there will be no way that he will get sent to Wilson,
even though you might actually want that to happen…you know…so that
you can get your hands on him, yourself. It won’t happen, my
friend. The court wouldn’t let it happen. He will go somewhere
else, hopefully far away.”

“Only twenty-five to life? Chance of
parole?”

“A chance. Yes. But don’t worry about that,
either,” Oscar assured him. “That was just
one
charge.
Scott’s murder is the jumping off point. The castle that is Lucky
Barrett is crumbling into the ocean. Information is coming to light
left and right, and it is information that should have been exposed
years ago. Take away a man’s power and control so that the people
no longer fear him and they immediately begin to storm the walls
and the gates, with pitchfork and torches.”

“You’re being awfully symbolic today, Oscar,”
Ashe pointed out. “Crumbling castles. Angry medieval mobs. You are
obvious happy with the way that things are unfolding.”

“He will go to prison, Ashe, and never get
out…alive,” Oscar assured him. “I promise you that.”

“But he will still be able to draw air into
his lungs,” Ashe said. “That is more than my son will be able to do
in his current condition. It isn’t fair, Oscar. It isn’t fair at
all.”

“Is it ever?” Oscar asked. “And don’t be so
sure about him being able to draw in air for too long. Lucky has
enemies all over the country. Wherever he goes, there is a chance
someone there will want him dead. And while in prison he will
susceptible to attack.”

“No one wants him dead as much as I do,” Ashe
lied and then sighed. For a brief moment his anguish gave him the
urge to remove Lucky Barrett’s head from his neck, but another
desire had since taken its place. It was a desire for the
honest-to-God truth behind all that happened. Why was the mean for
it? What was the pill, really? Lucky Barrett could still be the
only accessible person to Ashe that may know the truths. He wanted
those truths and the understandings that may come along with it
more than his body wanted air to breathe.

Ashe took a moment to change the subject.

“Can I ask you a question? Is there any
chance that that stupid fucking pill could actually do what Barrett
and Scott believed? Owen and Scott had an issue one night which
resulted in an altercation. Owen had also committed a series
attacks when he had been a teenager. What if Owen was going to
eventually have another one of his violent episodes while in some
kind drug induced haze, killing Scott in the process? It there any
chance that Scott was made aware the attack before it actually took
place?”

“Not a chance,” Oscar instantly blurted.

Ashe tilted his head. “Not at all? But you
believe that the lord had granted John the Apostle visions of
Armageddon, the end of the world as we know it?”

“Without a doubt.”

“You are a complicated man, Oscar,” Ashe
stated.

“Not really,” Oscar explained. “I hunt down
bad men and I either get the chance to arrest them or I end up
killing them. Sometimes they get away. Sometimes they do not get
away. It’s pretty simple.”

“
It
just
might
be
,” Ashe admitted. “Did you ever find a black and gold
container in Amber Barrett’s house?”

“Yea,” Oscar replied. “We found it in the
upstairs bedroom. It was empty, though.”

The psychologist was taken aback, his eyes
becoming wide. “You think Scott took the pill after all? That he
knew he was about to die? That he died believing that he could
change it again somehow, like he had changed it the first time? He
may have even died believing that
I
would find a way to save
him?”

“I don’t know what your son went to the grave
believing,” Oscar clarified. “However, I do not think he saw his
own death. I don’t think that at all. And whether he took the pill
before dying or not, I can’t say for certainty. Toxicology hasn’t
come back, yet. I will have Ginger pay extra attention for signs of
that god damned pill. If you want.”

Ashe did.

“You need to quit beating yourself up with
these ideas,” Oscar demanded. “It will only drive you crazy, my
friend. When Susanne died…you retreated from everything…and dove
into that prison…further than I ever thought possible. I don’t want
to see that happen again. I don’t. I don’t want to lose my friend
again. You hear me? Are you hearing me?”

“I hear you,” he lied. “I will do my best. I
am not going anywhere Oscar. I swear. I may not even go back to my
job at all. Not sure there is a point any longer.”

“Your job is important, my friend,” Oscar
insisted.

“How so? What difference do I make in the
end? What point is any of it?”

“Keep your head,” the detective said. “It
won’t be easy, or even close to bearable for a long time. It is
also natural to have crisis of conscious. You are going to
question…everything you know and think you know.”

“Why don’t you just take my job,” Ashe
replied. “You sound more like a psychologist than I do right
now.”

“I could never be you, Ashe,” Oscar
admitted.

“I don’t know if I can still be me either,”
the psychologist stated. “But I won’t disappear either. I
promise.”

“Good.” Oscar put his hand on Ashe’s
shoulder, the same way he had that night in Oak Hill. “I’ve got to
head back to the station. The wicked never rest…so neither can I.
Call me. If you need anything. Anything at all. Okay?”

“Yes,” Ashe said. “I will.”

“Take care, Ashe,” Oscar stated and turned
away.

“You too.”

Oscar gave Ashe one last glance over his
shoulder. Ashe watched his friend pull away before marching toward
his own vehicle. Waiting at his Mazda was Katherine. He instantly
felt a low tingle at the sight of her. At that moment he realized
that she had not come to him like the rest of those who had
attended the funeral. She had stayed back.

“You got any place in particular to go, Doc?”
she asked.

“Not really,” he answered.

“Want to come home with me? Forget about
everything for a while?”

Ashe forced a grin. The grin wasn’t hard to
force because he did want to go with her. He really, really did.
And no more thought was needed. He simply did.

Chapter 65

While Katherine snored deeply, Ashe slid from
her bed. It was daylight, but he still felt like he was sneaking
out of a casual lover’s bedroom in the middle of the night. But he
knew that he was not sneaking away from a one night stand, or a one
day stand for that matter. There would be many other nights and
days with Katherine. Why wouldn’t there be? Katherine was not a
casual lover. Or maybe she was. All Ashe knew was that when he was
with her, in bed, nothing else mattered, nothing else even
existed.

Everyone needed that in their lives.

Didn’t they?

Didn’t
they
?

Ashe didn’t dress in the bedroom. He took his
clothing with him and put them on once he was in a different room.
Katherine’s parents had a quant house, like his own, like the one
where Scott had died. The living room was about the same size. He
shook the thoughts away and finished getting dressed.

Before he knew it, he was in his car pulling
away from the side of the narrow street. Ashe watched in the
rearview mirrors as Katherine’s house fell away. Sadness briefly
tickled his chest. He immediately stuffed it back down. The sadness
had been born from a confliction that existed inside of him. Part
of him wanted to turn the car around and return to Katherine’s warm
bed. And that particular part of his mind wanted nothing more than
to be oblivious for a little while longer. But Ashe knew that it
wasn’t possible. It wasn’t possible because the other part of his
mind was stronger, more dedicated and it refused to waver from the
intended course. It would insist that he continued to drive the
Mazda forward down the road. And Ashe would obey, focusing his
energy on the destination ahead.

Making his way out of town, Ashe pointed the
car toward the highways. He understood that he was giving into what
could be a stupid and dangerous compulsion, one that had been
holding sway over his mind for the past couple of days. But he
didn’t care one bit. Since he had decided to proceed, for good or
for bad, he would not stop until he followed the path from start to
finish, no matter where it led him.

Ashe took nearly an hour of nonstop driving
to reach the large house. He didn’t park in the front, by the metal
gate, but drove slowly past, to the far side of the massive brick
wall that surrounded the grounds. As he crept by in his car, he
noticed that a word had been bent and formed into the brown steel
bars of the gate’s curved top. He read it aloud, venom dripping
from each syllable.

“Barrett.”

Ashe parked his Mazda on the side of the tall
wall, out of sight of the front of the structure.

It was smaller than a true mansion, but
bigger than most houses in Ashe’s neck of the woods. He was
actually impressed by it. He would have been more impressed by the
structure if it didn’t appear to be deserted. Appear? It
was
deserted. And had been for some time. Even though it was indeed
deserted, the property appeared to be professionally maintained.
The grass was cut and the bushes were trimmed. Someone was
obviously being compensated to provide consistent upkeep to the
abandoned residence, perhaps based on a lingering notion that
someone, perhaps another family member would eventually want to
live there.

Too much pain had been wrought within the
walls of the large house. Ashe knew the history all too well. The
building was a monument to it. And with the specters that must
certainly be roaming the halls and haunting the rooms, he couldn’t
picture anyone coming around to make their family home from the
bones of the well-known tragedy. No one in the right frame of mind,
that was. But Ashe had to at once surrender to the fact that there
were many, many people who lacked a stable frame of mind. There
were also many people confident and whole enough to peer past the
exterior, look beyond the history. That type of human being might
hold the ability to see nothing but the houses potential, insisting
that they could wash away the blood, shoo away the ghost, and make
it new again.

Ashe opened up his mind and wiped away
everything that he had been told about the house. He attempted to
view it through fresh eyes. And he could, in fact, picture how the
place could be reborn.

It would take a far more passionate man then
himself, Ashe figured. But it could be done.

The psychologist then considered the future
that was more than likely in store for the house. It would sit
dismissed for many years until one day a member of the Barrett clan
decided to swat away the cobwebs and make it their own. They would
build a family. And their history would become imprinted, giving
the ongoing cycle another rotation. Only the total destruction of
fire could end it, because the smoking remains would prove almost
impossible to save.

Only a phoenix could rise from the ashes.

Ashe went up to the side of the red brick
wall that surrounded and enclosed the property. There had to be a
way over. The only way through would be by entering by way of the
metal gate, but that was not an option. After scanning the area for
nearly a minute, he found what was searching for. In the back
corner of the wall, a tree growing out the outside of the grounds
had been allowed to extend a limb overtop of the wall. It hung out
over the boundaries of the property.

Oversight?

Maybe.

Franklin Barrett had not been ruled by the
all-encompassing paranoia that had plagued his brother, because
Franklin had not constantly consumed the white pill over a course
of years. And he must not have been afraid of any of his enemies
trespassing from the trees, Ashe assumed. More proof that Franklin
was not as deranged as his older brother, Lucky. Ashe was also more
than sure that Lucky Barrett would have never let a single break in
his parameter go unnoticed, whether from above or below. He would
have cut down every tree if he thought they might have provided
unwanted entry.