Ashes to Ashes

by Nathaniel Fincham

Chapter 47

  After another hour at the crime scene, Ashe and Oscar finally was able to get away, taking with them permission from Detective Philips to speak to Norman Bones. Norman Bones was stable and at the hospital. When the doctors felt that he could survive being moved, he would be transferred to a jail cell. Apparently Bones would not be able to dodge any charges that time, as he had dodged many other charges in the past. He could try to blame Scott and claim that he was acting in self-defense, but Ashe doubted that would hold any water.

  Perhaps it was the break that the Cleveland Police needed against Norman Bones and they could once and for all get the killer off the streets.

  As he sat there next to Oscar, Ashe thought about Norman Bones, a man who often killed for money, and considered the thin line between a contract killer and a serial killer. Serial killers tend to hold an above average intelligence and are most often psychopaths or sociopaths who enjoy manipulating and watching people die. But the same could be true about contract killers. They too tend to be intelligent and void of a conscious or the normal range of emotions. Contract killers do not always enjoy the kill, but a majority seemed to desire it, either because of training or compulsion. Ashe decided that the one honest line between a serial killer and a contract killer was that a contract killer kills for whoever pays them to do so.

  It was a thin and blurry line.

  “How much do you know about Lucky Barrett?” Ashe asked his old friend, his mind a jumble of information, but the information was beginning to find a solid hold in his brain, instead of floating aimless.

  “How much do you know?” Oscar returned the question.

  “Not a lot,” Ashe admitted. “I don’t remember if we ever had a case that dealt with him.”

  Oscar shook his head. “I never brought you in on those ones, because I only wanted to pick your brain on the serial cases, the ones where we didn’t already know who the suspect was or could be. We didn’t need you for the organized crime bullshit. We knew the usual suspects. No questions, only lack of proof. Always lack of proof.” He groaned. “And…Lucky Barrett operated all over this area of the world. Prostitution in Cleveland. Racketeering in Warren. Dead men washing up in the big lake. He wasn’t always a local problem. We didn’t always get the crimes in our little city.”

  Nodding, Ashe replied, “But now he is involved with my son. I need to know what you know. I was leaning toward Franklin Barrett as some kind of pivotal role in this but I was wrong. I think that Lucky is the center of this…or at least Scott believes he is. Why?”

  “The pill,” Oscar added.

  “I have more that I want to know about that pill,” Ashe said. “So much more. You only found it at a small group of crime scenes. I don’t get that. Most drugs are mass produced and spread out over the town or county or state or country. What drug do you know has that little of a user rate? It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Or does it,” Oscar rebutted. It got Ashe’s full attention. “Meth and cocaine and ecstasy have a high user rate and can be found just about everywhere. But those are the ones that anyone with a chemistry set and a textbook could cook up. But that isn’t all the drugs that exist. There are back alley drugs, homemade experiments kept secret from the masses. Most of them are bull and don’t amount to much. But I’m sure there are those that are the opposite, those that turn out way different than intended.”

  “And you think that this pill is one of those drugs?” Ashe asked, turning to him. “A science experiment? A mistake?”

  “Maybe,” Oscar replied, changing lanes to pass a slow car. “It could even have been made by Lucky Barrett himself or someone from his crew, anyway. I don’t know. The only problem with that is I don’t believe that he has ever been linked or rumored to be linked to drug running. Guns, prostitutes, and extortion…but never drugs. Which is strange itself, now that I think about it.”

  “That is a little strange,” Ashe agreed. “Why draw a line at drug running, especially in Northeast Ohio, where pills and crack brings in stacks of money. Crack owns Warren, Youngstown, and all the little places the surround them. Why wouldn’t Lucky want a piece of that action, too?”

  “I don’t know,” Oscar replied.

  “Me either,” Ashe said, before taking the subject in a different direction. “I want to look back at the crimes where the pill or the container was found. The only connection made was organized crime. Right? Let’s add Lucky Barrett as another possible connection. How would that look?”

  “Like paranoid crazy talk,” Oscar blurted and groaned. “But not impossible. All families, gangs, and groups are linked together…somewhere. But I never wanted to put a single face to all that mess. It would be ugly. Ugly as hell. And a stretch.”

  “True,” Ashe said. “But we are just talking…chatting on our way to speak to Norman Bones. We can speculate…we can guess. No big deal.”

  “No big deal,” Oscar mimicked, an unsure tone in his voice. Oscar didn’t like to guess or speculate, but he knew that his job often called for free talk, a time where rumors and stretches have to be taken seriously in order for the true and honest ideas to see the light of day. When evidence fell short, speculation was all that was left.

  “Let’s just say that Lucky has a pill that made people paranoid and violent, prone to lashing out to those they fear,” Ashe began. “What would be the motive for giving them to people like Mathew Windham?”

  “Revenge,” Oscar answered. “Or punishment. Or getting rid of competition. There would be many motives for a crime boss wanting to take those people out. A crime family in Lucky’s way. A crooked cop getting a big head or refusing to listen. A group of gun runners refusing to deal or raising prices. It could be for many, many reasons.”

  “It would make his own hands clean, as well,” Ashe added. “He would be nowhere near the scene of the crime. The blood would be on someone else hands, technically.”

  “But why his own brother?”

  “I looked at your file,” Ashe said, “and I noticed that Franklin and Lucky were glued to the hip when it came to business. No. That’s not right. It was more like Franklin was riding his brother’s choices for his own gain. What if Franklin Barrett became greedy? No. Not greed. I’ve met with Franklin Barrett. The man thinks himself to be a shark, just like other members of his family, but what I saw was far from a shark. I could see weakness. A frailty. He wanted to be a shark but the power was fake, pretend, something that Franklin wanted everyone to see but was never completely there. It is possible that that weakness worried Lucky and he had to do something before Franklin did something stupid.”

  “He bit a little close to home that time, though,” Oscar stated.

  “Yep,” Ashe replied. “But it could have backfired. I just don’t understand why Franklin didn’t fear his own brother, but instead acted out against his wife and son.”

  “He trusted Lucky, for some reason,” Oscar said. “He trusted his brother more than his wife and son.”

  Ashe became silent, considering the idea. Money can do some crazy things to people’s minds, just as crazy as any street drug. He was not hurting for money but never considered himself rich by any means. Would that change him? Having money? Would that make him paranoid of the people he loved most in the world?

  “They must have put that fear in his mind somehow,” Ashe told Oscar. “I can’t see that kind of aggressive behavior coming from nowhere. Even Scott didn’t act out of the clear blue. He was afraid of Owen when Owen was doped beyond any reasoning. The pill just amplified it beyond any rational thought.”

  “But that doesn’t mean that any actual murder plot existed,” Oscar rationalized.

  “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t,” Ashe replied. “We may never know.”

  Oscar nodded.

  “We don’t even know whether or not the pill came from Lucky to begin with,” he said. “Lucky Barrett could just be
another victim. Remember…we are just speculating.”

  “I know,” Ashe said. “But it fits. If Lucky did have a weapon to make his enemies turn on one another, how could he not use it?”

  Oscar groaned.

  Something suddenly occurred to Ashe, like the metaphorical light bulb going off above his head. “Do you remember how Lucky got his nickname all those years ago? I mean…even I know that story…and those similar ones that followed.”

  Oscar glanced at the psychologist. “You’re talking about his wife?”

  A shiver caressed Ashe’s neck. He thought about his own wife. “Yes. And what happened to her many years ago. It’s a little peculiar, now that I think about it. Anyway, I don’t think that Lucky was big time enough to have drivers then…or always insisted that he would drive himself places. I’m not sure and it doesn’t matter. On that day, for some reason, he let his wife drive and he lied down in the back seat.”

  “I heard that he was sick,” Oscar said.

  “Sick,” Ashe continued, “or something. The point was that Lucky never let anyone drive his cars…not even his wife. Never. But that day he did. On the way to the airport a motorcycle pulls up next to the car and unloads with an automatic machinegun. The shooter doesn’t even look to see who is driving, because he had no doubt that Lucky would be behind the wheel.”

  “Mrs. Barrett is wiped out of the world while her husband is safe in backseat,” Oscar said. “Luck. Those bullets were meant for Lucky and he sidestepped them because of a sick stomach or headache.”

  “It was luck,” Ashe concurred. “It became like a myth. Other similar incidents have occurred, as far as I know. I can’t emphasize that enough. I can’t say that I am an expert in all things Lucky Barrett.”

  “Luck,” Oscar repeated. “Barrett seems to be full of it. He has dodged his own death a few times over the last decade, give or take. You said peculiar? Peculiar, how?”

  “It’s like he knew that the attacks or accidents or whatever were coming,” Ashe replied.

  “Knew they were coming? ESP?”

  “No,” Ashe quickly blurted. “Not at all.” He became silent for a few seconds. “Visions of the future don’t exist.” He didn’t want to take the time to consider extraordinary possibilities. He needed to focus on what he could touch and taste, namely the fact that the mystery pill created delusions and hallucinations that caused people to imagine their fears played out in their minds. With Scott, it played out as a vision of his own death. But the vision wasn’t real.

  “I agree,” Oscar said. “I’m glad that we got that covered.”

  “Absolutely agreed,” Ashe replied. “But don’t you believe in God?”

  “Jesus is my lord and savior,” Oscar told him matter-of-fact. “He is in my heart…always.”

  “But you don’t believe that Lucky could have seen the future?” Ashe asked.

  “No,” Oscar answered.

  “Okay…then.”

  “None of this speculation answers the connection with Scott,” Oscar pointed out. Ashe was well aware of that fact, he just didn’t know any solutions to the problem. “Why would Lucky Barrett want to get at your son? Is Scott secretly a gun runner?” He laughed at his own joke.

  “I don’t think so,” Ashe replied.

  “Could it be his girlfriend?”

  “Possibly,” Ashe said and grew silent. ESP. Extrasensory Perception. The psychologist always considered himself grounded in science but at the same time open minded to the possibilities of the human brain. Abnormal abilities, like a memory ability that almost appeared to be paranormal, could exist inside a special mind. Studies have shown it to be true. These abilities could either begin at birth or be accomplished by way of training or mutation or through unexpected results from damage. The brain was still beyond full understanding and appreciation, any scientific mind had to admit.

  Could a plain-Jane pill affect the mind in a way that caused in an abnormal ability to see the future? Could that be possible? He kept his thoughts to himself.

  The psychologist noticed the lights of the Cleveland Clinic Hospital appearing up ahead. Oscar signaled their turn and swerved into the entrance. He entered the visitor’s lot and found the first available spot to park. The car jerked to a stop as Oscar slammed on the breaks and threw it into park. Once parked, both of the men leapt from the vehicle and began their march toward the nearest pair of automatic doors, ones that would lead them inside and to Norman Bones.