Ashes To Ashes

by Gwen Hunter

  The shivers, which had left me on the kitchen floor, were back. Little tremors along my spine, warning signs of the misery to come, like the specter of pain I could feel stirring in my leg. Numbness and pain, mingling in my icy limb. The surgeon stepped into the room, checked the monitor, patted my leg and left. The pat of his hand was a dull half-pain. Why were people always patting me, as if I needed soothing like a skittish filly or a nervous dog?

  "I thought he was going to hurt me," I whispered. Again, the truth. What was it Macon hadn’t wanted me to tell? "I ran for the office. The gun cabinet. The phone."

  I stopped. Elwyn’s note said the phones were out. Had that meant the office phones as well? What if I had slammed the office door and turned the little latch? It was scant protection, but it might have bought me the time to dial 911. I shook my head, fighting the return of nausea and tears. "He followed me. I . . . I panicked, ran for the barn. But he shot me." Tears rolled down my face. Would there have been time to use the office phone? Had it worked? Had I killed Alan Mathison when I could have called for help instead?

  "I made it up to the loft, but he followed me. He was threatening me. Talking about how he would get what he wanted one way or another."

  My words made it sound like Alan wanted sex, or DavInc, or both. What he had wanted was my files, the soil samples. The scrap of letter Macon had hidden away. Yes. That was what Macon didn’t want me to say. Not until we had a chance to investigate more on our own.

  Tears pooled on my dry lips. Salt and blood merged and melted. Oh God. What had I done? I looked up at Macon. I had to know.

  "Was the office phone dead too? Could I have called for help?"

  "All the lines were dead, Ash, so Wicked could run a complete check. He expected you to stay another night at the beach and come home in the morning. You couldn’t have called for help. Wicked’s blaming himself for the whole mess. So’s Mama Moses." Macon smiled sadly. "I heard her tell him his nickname should be ‘damn fool’, not Wicked. Can’t remember the last time I actually heard her use a four-letter word."

  I lifted my hand to wipe my face. The IV taped there held my fingers stiff. Macon reached behind him for tissues and wiped my cheeks, dabbed my upper lip. The tissue came away bloody.

  "What happened next, Mrs. Davenport?" C.C. asked.

  Mrs. Davenport. Not Ashlee. The sheriff was taking notes, making this official. I needed to blow my nose. I sniffed. The pain was a dull thud in my veins, like the steady beat of a drum in an old Tarzan movie, a warning of danger. "He followed me up the ladder and I used the bailing hook to knock out the light and threw Annie Oakley’s corrective shoes at him."

  "Annie Oakley?"

  "Annie Oakley is one of the horses at the barn. She stepped on something sharp and cut through her sensitive sole, bruising her coffin bone. So she had to wear corrective shoes until the cut and the bruising healed." I looked up at the sheriff. "Horses feet heal slowly, C.C. It took forever, and I had a small collection of shoes to throw, not that they did any good. Alan kept coming. And so I picked up a pitchfork and held it between us. But he kept on coming. I poked him in the abdomen." The words rushed out and stopped. I remembered the feel of steel tines passing through human flesh. Rubbery and soft all at once. Macon patted my cheeks again. My throat was so tight it hurt to speak. I couldn’t swallow back the pain. I killed a man.

  "And I pushed him back away from me. He fell through the hay drop into Mabel’s stall. I thought he was dead," I sobbed once and my teeth started chattering.

  "Ashlee’s had enough, Sheriff. Can’t the rest of this wait?"

  I took Macon’s hand with my taped fingers. The IV line wrapped around his wrist. "Let me finish," I said, through my tears and chattering.

  "I found his gun in the dark and made it back to the Volvo. I got the phone and some supplies to bandage my leg." My words were staccato. Fast and fluid as my tears. "I went to the kitchen and called 911." I stopped again, my breath heaving. The ER was silent. I knew everyone within hearing distance was listening. Even the obnoxious drunk on the next stretcher was silent.

  "Alan came through the door, carrying the pitchfork. I could see the holes where I’d stabbed him. And Mabel had kicked him pretty badly. He said he’d had enough and was going to kill me. I put down the phone and I shot him. And he’s dead." I broke down. The pain in my leg was a livid, living, breathing entity, alive and devouring me whole. Shivers quaked through my body. I squeezed shut my eyes and sank my teeth into my lip. It was sore, and there was actually a tooth shaped hole in it that I could feel with my tongue. When had I bitten it?

  "What the hell are you doing to my patient, Sheriff?" Wallace’s voice. His timing always had been slow. "Anything you don’t have now, you get some other time, some other place. She’s too doped to be coherent, or hadn’t you noticed? Anything she’s said is—"

  "Perfectly fine," Macon interrupted. The lopsided smile was in his voice. "She gave a complete statement. Remembered everything. In fact, I think the sheriff here could just type up her statement and get her to sign it like it is."

  "Not quite. There is the matter of Emory Beck and his involvement in all this." I could hear the determination in C.C. Gaskin’s voice. Like a bulldog with his teeth in a bone.

  "I didn’t know," I whispered. "I had no idea he was involved. If he wanted to buy the development, he could have just asked. I was thinking about sellin’ anyway."

  "Out," Wallace said. "Both of you. Out. I don’t care who you are, my patient needs rest."

  I opened my eyes, surprised to see Wallace pushing Macon with one arm and gesturing to the sheriff with the other. Neither man resisted, preceding my doctor from the room. My hero. I smiled through the tears and the pain.

  "Ready for a little more painkiller?"

  I nodded. "I don’t know what you’re giving me, but it’s pretty good stuff. I see why people get hooked on it."

  "Well enjoy it. It’s your last shot."

  "Torturer."

  "I’ve been called worse. By you as I recall. Lynnie Bee? Anytime now."

  "Got it, Dr. Chadwick," Lynnie Bee said.

  "How do you like Macon’s plan?" Wallace asked, his voice low, mouth close to my ear.

  I opened my eyes, not even aware that I had closed them. "Which plan is that?" I whispered back. Macon was full of plans. Always had been. Like the time with the rock in the big pond. The time he beaned a redneck. I smiled at the memory.

  "The plan to get you out of this core soil sample mess. He told Nana about it earlier, in case she had to handle it for you."

  Earlier? Had I slept through something? And why would Macon tell Nana? Then I remembered. I had told Macon to talk to Nana in case her investment in Davenport Hills was involved. Lynnie Bee pushed clear fluid through my IV line. Almost before she finished, the mirage that was my demon pain began to fade. "How?" I asked, my voice going dreamy.

  "Sell Davenport Hills and DavInc to Senator Waldrop’s daughter." Wallace was grinning a smile full of devilment.

  I had seen photographs of Elizabeth Anne Waldrop Cummings, an elegant woman, older than I, with upswept silver hair and lots of diamonds. Her husband was a blue blood. His ancestors had come over on the Mayflower or the Santa Maria or something. Some lineage my mother likely knew by heart. "Why would she want it?" I asked. The pain in my lip where I had bitten through the flesh was gone. My lips were numb, and my words came out slurred and slow.

  "She doesn’t. But the senator does. When he was in town last, he asked Bret McDermott to make inquiries about the matter. Called him from the dentist’s chair from what I gather; something about chocolate chips and a damaged upper plate."

  Aunt Mosetta would be pleased to discover that her cookies had helped to save the day. I sighed as the last of my pain floated out the door into the hallway. I knew it hadn’t gone far and would return with a vengeance, but for now, I was pain free. I took a deep breath and let it go.

  "Bret’s been pouring his heart out to Macon and Wicked in the
waiting room, between conversations with the sheriff and various police officials and running back to hold your hand. Speaking of which, I understand you did great with the sheriff."

  I closed my eyes, blocking out the lights, which had a curious halo of glare around them. I hadn’t noticed before that the light hurt my eyes. "What good would selling the company do me?" I asked Macon as Wallace stepped to my left side.

  "First off, it would get you back here at the hospital where you belong instead of out tending to golf courses and business meetings," Wallace said. "Your replacement needs written instructions and cue cards to apply a Band-Aid."

  "Second," Macon picked up the narrative, "the wetlands rulings have undergone some changes in the last ten years. You turn over the core soil samples and all the paperwork to the senator, and he has it reevaluated by today’s standards. A few string pulling sessions later, and his daughter’s a landholder. Simple."

  I shook my head in self-imposed darkness. "If it was so simple, why didn’t Jack do it?"

  His voice gentle, Macon said, "Jack could have been waiting for the right moment to have the property reevaluated. Or he could have held onto the evidence and the profits both. I don’t know what he was planning."

  There were questions I had been dreading all evening, the only questions that really mattered to Jasmine’s future. Could I protect my daughter from discovering that her father had been party to a murder? Could I protect our Jazzy Baby? I wanted to keep the truth from her. But what about Charles Whitmore’s murderer? I looked from Macon to Wallace. What truth did I owe the world? What sacrifice to justice? "Did Jack kelp kill Charles Whitmore?" I asked. "Or was he innocent of murder?"

  "We don’t know. We may never know. But I’ll handle it, Ash."

  "No. Let me handle it." Wicked’s voice from the doorway. Subdued. Angry. I focused on his wicked smile. Wicked Owens knew a secret. "The cops all know Dixon was holding back on them. He knew more than he told." Wicked’s voice changed. "He didn’t mention Whitmore’s murder, but he did tell all he knew about Alan Mathison and Emory Beck." There was delight in his voice, a sound like bliss. Wicked was enjoying himself.

  "Are you telling me that the sheriff knew about Alan and the danger he posed to Ashlee, and yet he did nothing?" Wallace asked, his voice almost as derisive as Wicked’s.

  "The senior elected law enforcement official of Dawkins County allowed a dangerous man continued freedom, refusing to act quickly enough to protect Ashlee Davenport, a prominent citizen." Wicked placed a hand over his heart as he spoke.

  "Oh, my," I murmured, closing my eyes. I was wrapped in a warm drugged space, cocooned all around with Chadwicks. Family. "Connie Carol is in trouble now." I remembered a recent fear that had enveloped me. Fear of being alone. Fear of isolation. Fear of the unknown once Jasmine left home for college. Foolish fears. I was a Chadwick; Chadwicks are never alone.

  "Exactly," Wicked said. I could almost see his grin, lopsided and mischievous. "And believe me, Nana was pissed."

  "Shame on you, Wicked Owens," I said. With my numb lips it came out as "Sham yu, Wick Ow." Wicked laughed. "Wash yu mou out wi’ soap."

  "Mama Moses already gave me absolution. She said—and I quote—‘Wicked, chile, you fix this, you hear? You fix this and it all be fine fo’ you. You mess this up and you deal wit’ me.’ So. I can say Nana’s pissed with no fear of an oral cavity laundering," Wicked laughed. Wallace and Macon joined in.

  "In fact Nana’s so pissed, she cornered Sheriff Gaskin and reamed him out from both ends for putting you in danger. In front of God and everybody, including a reporter from the Dawkins Herald, who just happened to be standing there."

  I smiled my drugged smile. "How convenient," I murmured. "And isn’t it surprising that Wicked just happened to be around."

  The men laughed knowingly.

  This was my family. The Chadwicks. With them, I would never be alone.

  EPILOGUE

  It is now weeks later, and I can finally pass through the kitchen without averting my head from the place where Alan lay, dead, a bullet in his heart. I can finally enter the barn and climb into the hayloft without my pulse racing and my breath coming short. I can finally open a newspaper and read the front page without seeing my name and the Beck’s prominently displayed in a story titled, SCANDAL. I can finally pick up the pieces and regain my life.

  It isn’t the life I had planned for myself, when, as a child, I looked to the future, a life with a loving husband and at least four rambunctious children. It isn’t the life Jack and I had envisioned for ourselves when we first married, when we were caught in the throes of new passion. It is instead a life forever changed by the death of two men.

  Although I have still not found the courage to contact Robyn, my one-time friend and Jack’s lover, I have returned to church, and to teaching my Sunday School class of third graders. And I have even returned to prayer and the solace of my Bible, the Bible with an unmarked envelope containing a single strand of Jack’s silver hair.

  Reverend Perry has visited me. Together, we have walked in the pasture and watched the yearlings play, Big Dog loping his three-legged run before us. We have talked of forgiveness, and of my mother, and of my life on the farm. A life I have begun to plan for, to look forward to.

  I am healing, both physically and emotionally. I am finding joy in the rising of the sun and the falling of summer rains and the song of birds outside my window. I have discovered a pleasure in Jack’s horses, and a particular attachment to Jack’s Resurrection, Mabel’s colt. My life, so damaged by the deceit and infidelity of my husband, has found a new resurrection, a new beginning.

  Senator Waldrop—or rather the senator’s daughter’s financial advisor—began negotiations to purchase DavInc and Davenport Hills the day after I shot Alan. Macon and Elizabeth Waldrop Cummings’ lawyer are still playing coy with one another about details and specifics of the sale, but I figure it will go through. If so, I will retain silent partner status, but the headaches and worries of DavInc will not be mine. The relief I feel at giving up control is so great that I know there will be no regrets over the decision to sell. DavInc was Jack’s love, not mine, and Jack was no longer here to give the company meaning or importance.

  The Senator was also heading up a quiet investigation into the death of Charles Whitmore, the investigator who died just days after taking soil samples from Davenport Hills. The soil samples in the safe had been turned over to the senator’s handpicked investigator, along with the scrap of letter and a transcript of Stinky Dixon’s jailhouse interviews. Stinky himself has disappeared. Considering the length of time since Whitmore died, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to determine if his death was due to natural causes or was murder. With the death of Alan and Jack, it might be impossible to point a finger at the killer.

  Macon and Wicked, however, had privately informed me of their conclusion that Alan and Stinky killed the investigator. I would never know how involved Jack had been in the cover-up. Jack’s death had ripped away the veneer of gentility with which he had clothed himself. Yet, to the world, and to his daughter, he would always be innocent of murder. I had seen to that.

  I am having supper with Nana and Aunt Mosetta tonight, just us three. An evening when Nana and I will talk of crops and the weather and practical things, and Aunt Mosetta will fill me with wonderful food and tales of Chadwick history. They have stood by me, these two strong women, as people talked and the press camped out on my lawn and the story of the widow with a gun made headlines on the evening news. Perhaps it took the horrible events of the last weeks for me to recognize the strength my Nana had proclaimed in me, to discover myself and the person I might someday become.

  I don’t know where I‘ll go from this point, I don’t know what changes I might make in my life. I only know that the future is a wide-open space filled with possibilities and opportunities, and that nothing I might want to do or be is beyond me. I have a life to live.

  Not as part of another person, wif
e, hostess, partner to a husband, but as myself. Ashlee Davenport. A Chadwick.

  ~The End~

  About the Author

  Under the pen names, Gary Hunter, Gwen Hunter, and Faith Hunter, the author writes action adventure, mysteries, thrillers, fantasy and urban fantasy. She currently has 21 books in print in 26 countries.

  Along with eight other writers, Hunter participates in a writing forum called www.magicalwords.net, geared to helping writers of fantasy and other genres.

  Hunter was born in Louisiana and was raised all over the south. She fell in love with reading in fifth grade, and loved SiFi, fantasy, thrillers, and gothic mystery, with a secret passion for romance novels. She decided to become a writer in high school, when a teacher told her she had talent. Now, she writes full-time and works in a hospital lab, (for the benefits) tries to keep house, and is a workaholic with a passion for travel, jewelry making, whitewater kayaking, and writing. She and her husband love to travel with their dogs in their RV to rivers all over the Southeast.

  For more information please visit:

  www.gwenhunter.com

  www.faithhunter.net

  www.magicalwords.net