Shadows of Ashland

by Austin,Robin

  It probably won’t be in the news more than a day or two at the most, I’ll say, and it will never make the national news. Kaufman was in his late sixties. There’s no story where his heart attack is concerned.

  Detective Carter actually did me a favor. I have a police report to back up my alibi, concrete testimony to law enforcement that I was just doing my job. It wasn’t my fault that a “dying man’s confession” uncovered another story.

  When I call Palmer, I’m on hold for five minutes before she comes on the line. As expected, she’s talked to Rodham who she describes as devastated. I doubt the man has ever been devastated a day in his entire life. I figure she’s lying.

  “What the hell were you doing talking to Kaufman? What the hell were you thinking by searching for a grave in the goddamn woods? Why are you digging up that man’s past? That wasn’t what I agreed to pay for. You’re totally unprofessional. You’ve wasted my time and Matrix’s money.”

  I take a deep breath and cut off her tirade. I regurgitate my defense then tell her I have the article she asked for.

  “You didn’t get the story I agreed to. My advertisers are furious. What if the story about the damn dead kid doesn’t blow over? What if it gets even bigger? The story I hired you to write was as simple as it gets. You screwed it up big time. You completely blew this assignment.”

  “Oh really? Despite the fact that there’s at least one grave behind Ashland and more skeletons in the closets than residents in the rooms, I wrote the damn story you wanted. I didn’t blow any assignment. I pulled a fuzzy rabbit out of a hat and turned the story into something other than the butchered beached whale it really is.

  “You knew Ashland’s history when you picked the place. You knew Kaufman and Eunice and Matilda were part of that history. I warned you about Matilda, asked you to use a different patient. What did you expect? Lollipops and rainbows? Sorry, but a good journalist always finds the truth. Sounds like Matrix Media is only interested in printing fiction and that’s the real story your advertisers should be furious over.”

  There’s a long pause and I wonder if I’ve just given a hell of a good speech to dead air.

  “You have the article?” Palmer’s voice is low and calm and slightly less hostile, but I can tell she’s gritting her teeth.

  “I have the draft as agreed. I want payment now then I’ll email it to you.”

  “Email it, then I’ll make a partial payment.”

  “Fifty percent now, fifty percent after the final edition.”

  Another long pause and Palmer agrees to my terms. She slams the phone down; a delightful tradition lost forever with the advent of mobile phones.

  I finish the draft, check my bank account for Palmer’s deposit, and email my article. It’s good. I know it’s what Palmer wants. I also know it’s as good a cover-up story as there ever could be. I recommended that she not name Ashland in the article, not name anyone despite any agreements she made with Rodham. He’ll likely not protest anyway.

  In a few weeks, the article will serve its purpose. Pro-institutionalization will take center stage at the hands of those who will profit. And Palmer and Matrix will have me to thank, but they won’t and I won’t care. This one I don’t want credit for.

  I’ll never know who taught Matilda everything she knows, how she became the woman with the Southern accent and high society attitude. I suspect it was a combination of a lot of things and people, even Ruby’s father. Despite the mystery of an alter named Matilda, this latter unknown will soon be known.

  Ruby’s DNA has been sent out for testing. Detective Martin said he expects the results back in two weeks. Davenport willingly turned over his DNA. Of course, Kaufman’s is already in the national database.

  In what seemed like an afterthought, Martin said he wasn’t sure about the burial. “Maybe one of the other churches will get involved.”

  I turn off my laptop, remove the handwritten pages from my notebook for filing, and see the number to the Methodist Church in Alabaster, Alabama. For a moment, I consider calling. I remember how anxious Shirley was to tell me something, how secretive she’d been. It takes a minute to convince the reporter in me to let it go, let this one, whatever it is, stay buried.

  Rick calls at six to say he’s working late. I thank him for calling, though I’m sure my voice doesn’t convey this. I want to hang up but he’s stalling.

  “Do you have any assignments lined up?”

  It’s both curious and annoying that he asks. We split the bills up long ago. We run our marriage like a corporation. Separate accounts, separate deductions, limited liability.

  “Pharmaceutical story,” I say, though I’m not sure I have it yet. “It’s an exposé on the over- prescription of opioids by medical doctors.”

  I don’t know why I’m explaining. I’m talking more to myself. It’s an assignment I need; a truth at any cost kind of story. The editor I’m talking to knows Palmer. I think my odds of getting the job aren’t as good as they were a couple of days ago.

  “Sounds interesting,” Rick says.

  I doubt he thinks this. “Should be,” I say.

  “I’ll be home at seven, okay?”

  I don’t recognize this person who sounds like he’s asking for permission. “Whenever you get finished. I’ll leave something in the oven for you.”

  I hear a faint click on his phone. The other caller. He must not think I can hear it because he lingers or maybe he just doesn’t care.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  He doesn’t tell me if he is or isn’t. Doesn’t ask why I wonder. He just reminds me that he’ll be home at seven, like somehow that makes a difference.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  §

  The ringing phone wakes me but I’m so deeply asleep it goes to voice mail before I answer. I’m glad I missed it. The message is from Detective Martin. It’s late and Rick is long gone. I’m disoriented and my head is banging at the temples.

  I go downstairs and something trips my brain about a dream I was having just before Martin’s call woke me.

  In the dream, I was running through the woods, running from someone or something. The ground was muddy, the air cold. I had on just my underwear and flip flops that I don’t even own. I was in danger and my life depended entirely on how fast and far I could run. I don’t need Freud’s help to figure out this one.

  First thing I do is pour a cup of coffee and add sugar and milk because the pot’s set too long on the burner. In his message, Martin said it was important that he speak with me as soon as possible.

  Is it ever not urgent when the police want to talk to someone? Problem is, no matter what he has to say, it isn’t important to me. So I delay, enough to get my bearings, to stop running in my underwear through those woods.

  An hour after Martin’s call, I get a call from Rick. So far, I’ve only managed to shower and dress. I have no plans today beyond those two tasks. Rick wants to know why the police are calling him at work, and my plans are changed. He’s clearly concerned and for a moment, I’m touched. Then he tells me he doesn’t need this. He wants to know if I’ve done anything illegal, but then quickly tells me he doesn’t want to know.

  “Don’t tell me anything,” he demands, despite the fact that he’s the only one who’s been doing any talking. I’ve been too busy wondering how Martin got Rick’s work number so my husband could join the conversation.

  If I have done something, Rick wants me to call a lawyer immediately. “Why do you always have to complicate things? Just because you’ve screwed up your career, doesn’t mean you get to screw up mine.”

  I’m squeezing my phone, feeling the edges of the case pressing into my palm. I’m thinking what a poor design it is, that it should have been better tested using a variety of hand sizes.

  There’s a lot of things I want to say to my husband of thirty plus years, some of it good, some of it bad, some of it totally irrelevant and gravely indifferent. Instead, I tell him the police are at the door, threatening
to knock it down and I have to go. I don’t wait for him to respond before disconnecting, then I call my mother.

  “How’s Dad doing today?”

  “He’s fine, dear. How are you?”

  “Maybe in trouble with one or more people.” I laugh at this and it feels good. Thankfully, she laughs a little too.

  My mother sounds tired; the life she knows, the man she knows is slipping away. My heart bleeds for her. Sadly, selfishly, it makes me feel better to know that I’m not alone. Not yet anyway, not that I know.

  “Can I come over?” I ask, and the silence is unbearable. She finally agrees to let me come, and to my offer to bring lunch from the deli– their favorite deli, my shameless lure.

  She insists on ordering. “New diet,” she says. I guess hers, but she doesn’t say.

  I have an hour before I need to leave to go to my parent’s house. I don’t want to risk being here if Rick makes a frantic trip home. A trip to pacify the neighbors and fight off the press as they film the police dragging me kicking and screaming from my home; destroying Rick’s career all the way to my jail cell.

  In the kitchen, I grab a half loaf of bread and drive to the park by my parents’ home that overlooks the ocean.

  The seagulls rush me as soon as I step out of the car, and I have to fight their mob mentality to get to a bench by the cliff. The sun is shining and the air has that crispness that signals summer really is over, but winter is still millions of seconds away. There’s still that gentle pause to savor between sweaty nights and icy mornings, between sun burnt faces and frostbit hands. I need each one of those seconds not to slip by unnoticed.

  I punch the Ruston Police number on my phone and listen to the distant rings, the official answer, the polite transfer to Martin. He thanks me for returning his call, but his tone is laced with annoyance. He doesn’t mention contacting Rick and for a moment, I wonder if it was even Martin who did. For all I know there are posses after me, perhaps even the FBI. Me, the tarnished journalist with the stone cold, killer heart.

  “I understand you spoke with Detective Carter while I was out on a call.”

  “You understand correctly, Detective. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, you can start by explaining to me what you were doing talking to Patricia Ann Fowler on Sunday afternoon.”

  There are a lot of things I thought Martin might be calling about including why I went to the Methodist Church before my meeting with Carter, and more questions about my conversation with Kaufman. Anything about my time in Ruston and at Ashland, my one-way discussions with Eunice, or what Matilda may have said about Davenport or Kaufman would have made perfect sense, but Fowler?

  It’s hard to believe the woman would call the police after I contacted her, but then she probably has good reason to keep me at a distance. Cripes, is he calling me about a harassment charge? About Fowler’s call to an attorney to warn me to stay away? Too late for that. She had her chance, I’m done with her, ready to reveal her crime, almost.

  “Ms. Abbott? You there?”

  “I am Detective. Have you tapped my phone?” This I say as if prepared to be outraged.

  He answers, “No ma’am,” country-style.

  “I’m a journalist. You know my sources are confidential.”

  “Well, this here source is dead. According to her phone records at least, you were the last person she talked to. Confidentiality or not, I need to know what caused a woman to get off the phone with you at 1:37 in the afternoon, take the time to write a note, then put a gun to her head and end her life.”

  A seagull snatches a piece of bread from my fingers and I scream and drop my phone. Not quite the depiction of innocence I’d prefer. I dab blood from my finger and retrieve my phone. “Sorry, I’m at the park. I was just attacked by a hungry and impatient seagull.”

  “Where are you exactly, Ms. Abbott?”

  “I’m in Stratton exactly, Detective.”

  “Well maybe you should make a trip back to Ruston.”

  “What did the note say?”

  “Victim confidentiality. Why’d you contact the woman? I’m going to find out anyway. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be on either one of us.”

  “Victim? Perhaps you should spend more time on your investigation and less time on your accusations. I learned Ms. Fowler was a nurse at Ashland at the time Dr. Kaufman was the facility’s director. I was tying up loose ends. That’s how investigations are done.”

  Martin is silent a moment. When he speaks, his tone is softer. “You talked to Kaufman about the woman? Ms. Abbott?”

  “I’m here. The seagulls are getting restless.”

  “So am I.”

  “Detective, don’t make this more convoluted than it is, and do not try to intimidate me because you’ll fail. I was contracted to do an article. That contract required a careful, fact-finding investigation. The article and its findings are the property of my client. I’m not at liberty to discuss this matter further without approval from that client. I’m sure you can understand the position I’m in. If not, I suggest you have your town’s legal counsel explain it to you.”

  “Ms. Abbott, I don’t think you get the seriousness of this situation. Two people are dead in less than two days of one another. They were both associated with Ashland, and you were the last known person they both encountered. I don’t need a damn attorney to tell me it’s no coincidence that both turned up dead right around the time you found a thirty year old grave.

  “Instead of worrying so much about your client, you better start worrying about yourself. Right now, you’re the common denominator here and dismissing me with a bunch of nonsense about a contract or my country bumpkin investigative skills ain’t going to work out well for you. Now why don’t you just tell me what you and Patricia Ann Fowler were talking about right before she shot herself?”

  “If she didn’t put that information in the note, I can’t say. I had nothing to do with her decision to pull the trigger. Like it or not, I still need time to talk to my client. You can play the school yard bully all you want, but you’re wasting your time and mine.”

  “Fine. I’ll give you today to get square with your client. If I don’t hear back from you by tomorrow about this here time, I’m taking a drive to Stratton and there’s a good chance I’m bringing you back to Ruston with me. Understood?”

  I told Martin I understood. I could have but didn’t tell him to be prepared for a long, silent drive back because I have no intension of talking to Palmer. Plus, at this point, I didn’t know how much of my fabricated story I could keep straight, especially while being interrogated by an irate, small town cop.

  I sit in my car feeling angry at Martin, and at myself for not getting Fowler’s story to begin with. The fact that two people are dead isn’t making me feel too good either, although Kaufman wasn’t a big loss to the human race. They were two people who couldn’t live with the truth I’d uncovered. I don’t feel guilty or even bad about my part, not that much anyway.

  After stopping at the deli, I drive to my parents’ house. My father looks drowsy and disoriented, my mother is as hyperactive as a five year old on a sugar buzz. They’re just the distraction I need.

  “How are you doing, Dad?” I ask, while my mother busies herself with setting the table.

  “Not as sharp as I used to be, honey. Sit down. I want you to promise me something.”

  “Anything,” I say.

  “Take care of your mother—”

  “Dad—”

  “No, now listen. I’m seventy six years old. I’ve worked my brain hard all my life, and I think I’ve worn it out. We have to face the facts here, kiddo. That’s what we do, you and me. I know your mother is a pain in the rump sometimes, but she loves you and she loves me. I need to make sure you’ll return that love for the both of us.”

  Tears stream down my cheeks as I bury my face in my father’s embrace. I’m holding on tight to the time we have left together, the time he has left knowing his only child
, and my other problems fade away.

  Chapter Twenty Seven

  §

  It’s late when I leave my parents’ house. I have three messages from Rick, one more since I checked after lunch. In the first one, he said he spoke with Katy, our next door neighbor, who told him I’d waved to her when I left the house around eleven. He guesses the police at the door comment was a joke; Rick doesn’t do sarcasm well.

  I wonder why he didn’t call my mother but then again, he’s probably talked to her more times in the last week than in the last six months. I don’t blame him for not calling.

  I spent the rest of the day running errands. It’s evening when I get home and see the upstairs light before I pull into the garage. The kitchen reeks of microwave chicken. The counters are clean, the dishes neatly stacked in the dishwasher. I go to my office to check my email and avoid my husband, but my latter ruse fails.

  Rick and I no longer fight. We did over the years. Back when fighting was all about fighting for us, our shared lives. Then we just stopped and went about living as two, sharing not much more than space. We settled neatly into two separate lanes, moving at our own pace, passing comfortably without collisions. Now there’s a tension in the house that can’t be denied. A tension that can’t be logically explained by my possible legal problems.

  My stomach takes a dive with the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. I didn’t shut my study door completely and fear it is too late to do so without causing more tension; without staying respectful in the way we share this house. Just a week ago, that’s the way we were. Respectful.

  “Couldn’t you have found a little time in your busy day to return my call?”

  “You sound just like my mother.”

  Rick isn’t a hostile man. But even in the room lit only by my computer screen, I know his fists are clenched. He doesn’t respond, and I’m too tired to fling another childish arrow. Instead, I go straight for the grenade that I keep stored in the left ventricle of my heart.