He loved to read her stories, take her to the park, and buy her ice cream cones. Being with Jenny in some small way was making up for having missed Erin’s childhood. Twice Cole babysat Jenny when Ben and Erin went out. They watched The Little Mermaid and ate a whole bag of pretzels. Jenny sang the songs from the movie while dancing her Ariel doll across the back of the couch. When Cole tucked her into bed, they sang Under the Sea, and then with their own made up lyrics to a hit-and-miss version of the melody. After she said her prayers and drifted to sleep, Cole sat on the edge of the bed for several minutes just looking at the miracle that was his granddaughter.
* * *
One quiet Thursday afternoon in early May, Cole was coming back from the break room after reheating his Mocha for the second time. A group of people were gathered around a TV monitor mounted on the wall. Cole joined the group even though he wasn’t sure what the excitement was all about.
“What’s going on?” Cole asked a woman at the back of the group.
“Phillip Ashton has killed himself.”
Cole pressed closer to the monitor. The picture was of the cells in the county jail. Stock footage, but the voice-over was explaining how Phillip Ashton, the accused murderer of three little girls, used his bed sheet to fashion a noose and the top cross bar on the cell door to hang himself.
“No further details are available at this time. We now return you to our regular...” The voice on the television faded as Cole turned and walked back to his office.
The top of Cole’s desk was covered in sheets of notes, drafts, and outlines neatly arranged in stacks in an effort to maintain some kind of coherent flow to the story he was writing. He looked at the phone and wanted to call someone to find out what the real story on Ashcroft was, but somehow he just didn’t feel comfortable pursuing it. He looked at the monitor on his computer and tried to get back to work, but his head wasn’t in it. The phone rang and the decision of what to do was no longer his.
“Cole, it’s Ben. Have you heard the news? Ashcroft hung himself; it just came over the radio.”
“Yeah, I saw it on TV. Not much info, though. I was thinking of calling your buddy Leonard Chin,” Cole replied.
“No need.” The voice coming through the door startled Cole. Lieutenant Chin was standing at his desk.
“You’re not going to believe this, he’s standing right here.”
“Well, that takes care of that. Let me know what he says, will you? I’m on my way home.” Ben clicked off.
Cole stood and shook hands with the detective.
“I thought you might be interested in this.” Chin handed Cole an envelope. “This was hung on the button of Ashcroft’s shirt. It’s addressed to you.”
Cole indicated for Chin to sit down and then took a seat himself. He flipped open the envelope and slipped out the sheet of paper, unfolded it, and laid it flat on his desk. The handwriting was beautiful. Almost feminine in its flow, yet strong and square—much like the lettering Cole saw on architectural drawings.
The salutation was direct and surprisingly cordial in light of the fact that it was Cole who was so instrumental in Phillip Ashcroft’s arrest.
My Dear Mr. Sage,
I write this letter to you with complete peace and resolve. You see me as a killer, a violator, or worse. The girls I released were saved from a life of spreading bitterness, hatred, and abuse. I saved the men in their lives from misery, yet I am seen as a monster.
You said that I need to let go of my anger. My anger was directed at a world of women that could not see that I was the same as the boy they loved at school. They saw only a balding man who would grow old alone. That was their loss.
You, no doubt, will write one of your famous in-depth articles on me and my so-called crimes. When you do, be sure to include the fact that my blood is on your hands. The ink on the paper they read is stained with my blood.
Yours is the pity, Mr. Sage, because you have killed a loving human being who only wanted the pure love of perfect little angels, and you brought that to an end. I curse you with my loneliness.
With sincere hatred of you and your deeds,
Phillip Wesley Ashcroft
Cole folded the letter and put it back in the envelope. “Did you read this?” Cole said, tapping the envelope against his finger.
“Yeah. I got it from one of our guys at the jail. We go way back. He knew we worked together bringing Ashcroft in. He wasn’t sure what the media would do with it and thought you should have the first shot at it.” Chin looked at Cole and raised his eyebrows.
“Tell him ‘thanks’.”
“I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we found a direct link between Ashcroft and that guy that locked you in the cellar. Seems Ashcroft was a regular customer. There are emails between the two of them. They were hatching up a plan to video girls that Ashcroft was going to grab.
“If you hadn’t put two and two together...” Chin cleared his throat. “There are a lot of people you saved from going through hell, Cole. I don’t care what that piece of shit said in the letter, you’re a hero in my book. The curse is on him.”
Cole smiled at Chin and leaned forward. “I was thinking the other day. Ashcroft wanted to be remembered as some kind of “Angel of Salvation” for his victims. That whole thing of the three-name serial killer really meant a lot to him. The best thing we could do is not be party to his fantasy. Like when Rolling Stone magazine pledged to never publish the name of the guy who killed John Lennon. He thought he would live forever. By robbing him of his name we sentence him to obscurity. I think we should just forget the name Phillip Wesley Ashcroft.”
“Kind of a curse of loneliness all its own.” Chin nodded.
Cole stood and walked over to the shredder, hit the button, and dropped the envelope into the revolving metallic teeth.
COLE SAGE WILL RETURN IN HELIX OF COLE
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Micheal Maxwell was taught the beauty and majesty of the English language by Bob Dylan, Robertson Davies, Charles Dickens and Leonard Cohen.
Mr. Maxwell has traveled the globe, dined with politicians, rock stars and beggars. He has rubbed shoulders with priests and murderers, surgeons and drug dealers, each one giving him a part of themselves that will live again in the pages of his books.
The Cole Sage series brings to life a new kind of hero. Short on vices, long on compassion and dedication to a strong sense of making things right. As a journalist he writes with conviction and purpose. As a friend he is not afraid to bend the law a bit to help and protect those he loves.
Micheal Maxwell writes from a life of love, music, film, and literature. He lives in California with his lovely wife of thirty seven years.
Sign up for Micheal’s newsletter and receive a free ebook.
Follow Micheal on Twitter: @MicLeeMaxAuthor
Become a fan of Micheal on Facebook.
PLEASE CONSIDER THIS
If you have enjoyed Cellar Full of Cole take a moment and leave a review. Readers like you are the best advertisement in the world!
CONTINUING READING FOR AN EXCERPT OF THE NEXT COLE SAGE MYSTERY, HELIX OF COLE
Cole was sunk down in his overstuffed leather chair, feet up on the ottoman and a half-gallon carton of Breyer’s Brownie Mud Pie ice cream in his lap. It was time for his annual viewing of Woodstock. With an eight-foot screen, 5.1 Surround Sound, and 500 watts of power putting him in the center of the Festival, he was missing only the rain, mud, and marijuana to make it just like the real thing. Cole was finally at home in his new house. He had found a kid at the Chronicle who was an electronics whiz and, with his help, Cole had his home theater system fine-tuned—looking and sounding 10 times better than it ever did in Chicago.
It had been more than a year since he moved to San Francisco. He never realized how much he hated the cold Chicago weather until he spent a winter in the City by the Bay. It had been a smart move. The Sentinel had gone through too many changes after Mick Brennan died. A couple people had kept him
up to date by e-mail, but as the months passed, the e-mails became few and far between. Now he seldom heard from the “Chicago Mob.” The only one to stay in touch was Olajean. She e-mailed a couple times a week and had even sent care packages of her oatmeal raisin cookies and a quart jar of barbeque sauce just in case, as she put it, “California barbeque isn’t up to our standards.”
Olajean was about the only person he really missed in Chicago. There was Frank Harris, too, but theirs was a different kind of relationship. During Cole’s lowest times, Frank was always there with a “stop feeling sorry for yourself” or a swift kick to put Cole right. Cole had called Harris several times in the past year, twice just to get the legal angle on a story he was working on, the rest of the time just to say “hello.” Frank’s wife had sent Cole a gift certificate for movie rentals at Christmas and a nice card on his birthday.
Cole’s house was in the Marina District and was costing a small fortune. Chris Ramos, the life-partner of Cole’s new boss, had made good on his promise to find just the right place for him. The neighborhood was beautiful and pure San Francisco. From his front window, he could see San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. All the furniture Cole had moved from Chicago fit perfectly in the new place, and Chris was rather put out that his services as an interior decorator were not needed. Cole had taken Chris and Chuck to a Moroccan restaurant for dinner, and that seemed to smooth things over.
To his amazement, Cole bought a bicycle and had taken to riding around Crissy Field. He loved to see the sailboats on the bay and often stopped to watch people fly their kites. Last May, he got so enthused at the Festival of the Winds that he actually bought a kite and took part in the festivities. Every couple of weeks—weather permitting, which was almost always—Cole brought his granddaughter Jenny out to the spacious grassy field and flew the kite with her.
Most of all, he loved riding across the Golden Gate Bridge. Coming and going, Cole would stop in the middle of the bridge and watch the sailboats and windsurfers below. Once he was lucky enough to be on the bridge when a gigantic barge came under, headed for the Port of Oakland. Surrounded by tugboats and a Coast Guard escort, it was a magnificent sight. Coast Guard helicopters flew under the bridge, their blades painted with black and white stripes so that the whirling of the blades made an amazing circular pattern against the red orange of the helicopter’s body.
Cole had found a friendly market on Laguna not far from his house. He struck up a conversation one day with Carnell the butcher, and they had since become “baseball buddies.” At least once a week, they’d go see the Giants play. Carnell always made sandwiches that they carried in. Filet mignon, Italian ham, and the best corned beef Cole ever tasted. Every game, Carnell brought the sandwiches, and Cole bought Carnell a couple of beers. Sometimes Cole picked up burritos from a Mexican place at 20th and Folsom, but most of the time he let Carnell do his magic. They sat in the cheap seats, and Carnell watched the game and Cole watched the people. They talked of politics, movies, and music. Both left rested and refreshed. Carnell Thomas was just the kind of friend who made Cole happy to be alive on a sunny day.
Work was going well, too. The fresh start had produced a new vibrancy to Cole’s writing. The articles he had written in the last year were met with praise from the editorial staff and, as Chuck Waddell had promised, Cole was booked for appearances on several local morning television shows as well as interviews on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News. The series he did on the dying fish industry brought attention to the plight of the disappearing generations-old industry in the San Francisco Bay. Cole had written about street gangs in Chinatown, the proposed needle exchange program in the Tenderloin, and the alarming increase in the suicide rate among Hispanic youth. But the article that had gotten the most attention was “The Path of the Pedophile.” Granted, Cole’s brush with death at the hands of his subject, Terry Kosciuszko, brought a bit more publicity than Cole would have preferred. The reaction in hate mail was far stronger than anyone had imagined. Because of the articles, the Cardoza-Worthington bill in the State Senate had brought new laws to protect children, mandating much heavier sentences in California for those producing child pornography. Overall, the reaction and renewed awareness of heinous sex crimes on children in the production of “kiddy porn” had made Cole’s bumps and bruises seem trivial.
The new job had also brought several new friends into Cole’s life and, for the first time in a long time, he actually had a social life. Thursday was poker night. The eight or so regulars rotated the game from home to home. Cole had even hosted a couple of times and pulled it off, to the compliments of all. Thanks to Carnell, he had prize-winning meat trays. Lucy at the Righteous Vegan Bakery recommended two different crunchy sandwich rolls, one with poppy seeds and the other with jalapeños and olives. She would’ve had a seizure had she known what was going into the rolls. A couple of jars of mayo, horseradish, mustard, and a head of lettuce, and “sandwiches at Cole’s” were becoming legendary. Each week, five or six guys and three women bought in for 20 bucks and played poker like it was for a million dollars. It was BYOB, and the B was for beer, and there was no smoking allowed. They laughed, argued, and bluffed until 11 o’clock when win, lose, or draw, the game stopped and everybody went home.
At least one Sunday a month, Cole went with Carnell, his wife Lisa, and their twin boys Darnell and Arnell to one of the largest black churches in the city, True Hope Church of God in Christ. Cole got a healthy dose of gospel music and enough Hellfire and Damnation to at least keep him thinking about the straight and narrow until his next visit. After service, there was always a big potluck lunch. The spread was amazing, and after at least two plates, Cole would slip out the side door and catch a cab home. Lisa would always scold Cole on his next visit and tell him he should have stayed for the evening services and got “the baptism.” Cole would smile, nod, and look at his shoes while Carnell winked behind Lisa’s back and gave Cole a thumbs up and big grin.
The best thing about his move to California, though, was being close to Erin. They were now truly father and daughter. They seldom spoke of the past, living in the here and now, and were very happy. They frequently spoke on the phone, and Erin loved to pop in unexpectedly at Cole’s house with a homemade casserole or a plate of enchiladas. They often met for lunch when Erin drove into the city, and Cole had joined her and Ben at several concerts, movies, and plays during the year. Cole used his press credentials shamelessly to get backstage so Erin could meet some of her favorite singers, and once he and Ben even bluffed their way into a speech by the president at the Commonwealth Club.
Cole was quite proud of his son-in-law the doctor and bragged about him frequently. Erin had stopped working and was dedicating herself to homeschooling Jenny. They had joined a co-operative of families who, like Erin and Ben, wanted to make sure their children received the best possible education but still wanted them to develop social skills.
The co-op provided social interaction through group outings to parks, museums, the aquarium, and the zoo. The parents came up with all kinds of fieldtrips to businesses, farms, and factories. One of the favorite activities was to go where the parents worked. The parents were a diverse socioeconomic group, so the trips included everything from the sweet warm smell of sourdough at one family’s bakery to the noisy clatter of a machine shop where one of the mothers worked. Jenny still talked about the day they rode on the cable car. The father of twins in the group was the conductor and let all the kids climb up on a box and clang the bell. In April, Ben gave a tour of the hospital with a goal of making it less frightening to the kids. They all went home in surgical masks and blue slip-on shoe covers. Jenny was thriving, and even though Cole was terribly prejudiced, he could see that his granddaughter was a very bright little girl. Cole had held her hand proudly as the co-op group toured the Chronicle one afternoon.
“I’m a farmer. I don’t know how to speak to 20 people at one time, let alone a crowd like this.” The crowd roared with approval and Cole thought
he heard a ringing noise. He hit the mute button, and a moment later the phone rang again. Cole jumped to his feet and picked up the phone from the kitchen counter just as the answering machine kicked on: “Hi, you’ve reached the other Cole Sage. Please leave his messages after the beep.” He let the message finish, and then said, “Hello, hello?”
“Mr. Sage?”
“Speaking.”
“This is Gerald Fonseca. I’m communications director with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I’m sorry to disturb you on a Sunday afternoon.”
“Not at all,” Cole said with little conviction. He was getting a little weary that every organization on the planet was contacting him to speak at their meetings—for free, of course—or to endorse them or, worse yet, serve as honorary chairman of this or that.
“Well, maybe this will take the sting out of my interrupting your nap.”
“Woodstock,” Cole interrupted.
“Pardon?”
“Nothing, sorry, what were you saying?”
“On behalf of the NCMEC, it is my honor to inform you that you are the recipient of this year’s Hope Award. The Hope Award is given to a person who has done an outstanding job of raising the awareness of the tragedy of missing and exploited children. We’d like to invite you to our annual awards ceremony so that the president can give you the award personally.”
Cellar Full of Cole: A Cole Sage Mystery #2 Page 19