Ashes to Ashes

by Nathaniel Fincham

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.

  Leave no tree to grow, Lucky might have proclaimed in a manic tone. Leave no underground passageway undiscovered, either.

  Ashe inspected the tree thoroughly. Tucked in the back pocket his pants were a pair of thick gloves. He removed the gloves from the pocket and slipped them on. He began to scale the trunk of the tree. It was hard going and almost took two minutes before he was able to reach the bottom limb. From that point on the climb was a piece of cake, even for an old, tired man.

  Keeping a relaxed eye out for nosy neighbors, he ascended several feet further. He didn’t worry too much about being observed by onlookers because there were no homes near enough to witness his attempted intrusion. And Ashe wouldn’t have cared if there had been a mob of concerned citizens below him, yelling and screaming and trying to force him back to the ground. Let them try and stop him. They would not succeed. not when he had obsession on his side. The remaining questions, those left in the wake Scott’s death, had full claim over his attention and his focus. An answer might still remain over the fence inside the former home of Franklin Barrett. Nothing would deter him from getting to it, not even a crowd of viscous neighbors.

  Arriving at the long limb that stretched out onto the property, Ashe began to scoot himself along it. Muscles in his forearms and calves burned and ached. They quivered more and more the further out he crawled. When his body was beyond the limits of the wall, he looked down and considered leaping to the grass. But didn’t. Instead Ashe decided to hang himself from the bottom of the tree limb, closing the gap between himself and the hard earth.

  He went for a one…two…three count but barely made it to the first number before his arms gave out. The drop hurt Ashe’s knees, but the ache dissipated as he made his way across the short stretch of green yard. As he jogged, he kept his eyes out for any caregivers that might have been lurking around the premises. He didn’t want to have to react if he became spotted. He didn’t want to hurt them. They were just doing their jobs… serving the needs of the Barrett family.

  The front of the house consisted of a massive porch that was constructed from stone. It was a prefect shade of off white. And it appeared flawless. Not a single crack to be seen. Money could often buy what appeared to be perfection, but that type of perfection never went any further than the immediate exterior. Inside, b
elow the illusion of flawlessness, was where the blemishes were concealed, hidden away from the naked eye. Cracks and fissures could go unnoticed, spreading and growing, until what was once thought to be flawless became broken and fractured.

  Bounding up the rock steps, Ashe found the front door, which was actually a pair of thick wooden doors, enormous in girth and finely stained. Expensive did not quit cover the impression the massive doors gave off. He could almost hear the vibrations of power and prestige pulsating through them.

  Ashe looked closer at entrance to the house.

  The two doors could not have been made from any of the trees found in Ohio. Lumber from a larger, denser woodlands had to have been brought in from another state or even another country. Or maybe the doors themselves had been crafted somewhere else and then transported their current home.

  Staring at the doors, he wondered how he was going to get through them and into the house. Kicking them down would prove to be a pointless effort. Ashe though it over before trying one of the knobs. Unlocked. Oscar’s lord must finally be on the psychologist’s side.

  He pushed the door open and entered.

  Even though the sun was still bright outside, as it had been ever since the rain had finally cleared a day ago, it was difficult to see in the dingy building. Ashe could see dust everywhere, a fine layer of the substance had settled over nearly everything. He would have to watch where he touched, so that the age of the house didn’t rub off and onto his own person. How could a cared for home be in such bad shape? He figured that, for some reason, the workers seemed to have been neglecting the interior of the house, for favor of the lawn and shrubbery.

  Was it out of discomfort? Did the house bother the caregivers like it was bothering Ashe? It was giving the psychologist a sense of unease. He couldn’t put his finger on a singular cause, meaning that it had to be a mixture of factors, a combination of history and the atmosphere, both of the past horror and the current disdain.

  He needed to find what he sought and then get back at quickly, Ashe told himself.

  Sunlight seemed to regard the area within the walls of the Barrett-owned structure as off limits, because little of it pierced the dusty glass of the windows. And even though there was a lot of space to move about, the house still felt stuffy, claustrophobic. Ashe’s temperature rose and his breathing became tight. He tried to flee the uncomfortable sensations by quickly moving forward, toward a nearby staircase. He was worried about how much dust he might have been inhaling. The thought of it being sucked into his lungs caused the pressure of the claustrophobia upon him to increase.

  Ashe grew overly anxious, causing his flight impulse to kick in. He would not take flight from the house, however. He refused. Closing his eyes, he fought for control over his own body. He relaxed his breathing and gathered his thoughts. Memories of the crime scene photos tried appear to him, but Ashe turned his mind away from them. The gory pictures would stay away from his mind’s eye. In the span of a couple minutes, he calmly regained enough composure to concentrate. Something told him that the master bedroom would be somewhere on the second floor, which was why Ashe was making his way toward the stairs. He would have to go up.

  Ashe had learned his lesson from when he had snuck into Scott’s apartment, both times. Reaching into the pocket of his black slacks, he retrieved a narrow blue flashlight. He had stored it in the trunk of his Mazda in case of a break down or any other emergency. He had forgotten that it existed until that morning. For some reason it came back to him, coincidently at the same instant that he decided to break into Franklin Barrett’s former home.

  Pushing a soft and circular spot at the tail of the thin flashlight, Ashe brought it to life. The way ahead became instantly visible. For such a small device, the beam that was created was more than sufficient. Dust floated into and out of the beam, up and down, around and around. They danced like little pixies upon the air, fully visible only by way of a beam of light.

  The sight of the dancing dust gave Ashe a melancholic feeling. Susanne’s poem returned to his thoughts. Dust of the dead. Ashes to ashes. The path that living things must in time take. From ashes to ashes. From dust to dust. It was more than just the path forced upon human beings, he realized. It was the path for everything. Everything sprung from the ashes only to return there once their lives ended. Experiences. Knowledge. Families. Life and all that was included in that word. It all returned in time to dust, to ashes.

  He would one day be dust, inhaled by those that loved him, Ashe believed.

  While climbing the tall stairs, he thought about the word ash. He thought about his own name. When he was a young boy, he had occasionally asked his mother and father why they had named him Ashe. They had sometimes laughed to themselves before changing the subject. Or they had occasionally replied with an off the wall reason, like how the stork had dropped him down their chimney and he was covered in the soot of burnt wood the first time they had laid their eyes on him. They had never uttered a real answer. It had sometimes irritated Ashe. But he had eventually grown to appreciate his name and the uniqueness of it.

  He was one of a kind, at least in one specific way.

  As he reached the top of the stairs and viewed the long hallway in front of him, Ashe began to view his name as one big inside joke his parents shared. They had understood the inevitable end that Ashe, like every other person, would have to face. Ashes to ashes. And with the knowledge and understanding of the looming end, his parents had labeled him as such.

  Ashe.

  Thinking about it for another couple of seconds, he altered his conclusion a small degree to the left. His parents, Hannah and Bert Walters, had understood and perhaps even obliged the end of their and every other living thing’s life. But they had also chosen to pucker up and spit in the face of that fate. They had named their child Ashe, telling death that they knew him and knew his purpose. But…so what? What did it matter? Their one and only son would meet the reaper head on, staring strongly at the symbolic cowl and scythe, with the label of his destiny proudly displayed.

  He was Ashe. And he would go to ashes with his head held high.

  At the end of the hall was an open door, beckoning him to enter. He listened to the call and headed straight for it. Along the way he thought more about his parents. His mother was long dead, having met her ashes a couple decades years before. His father was still hanging on, even though his memory and sense of self had been replaced by agitation, senility, and fantastic thoughts and ideas that were far from reality. He was alive but lost. And it appeared as if he would remain lost until the day that he finally met his own ashes.

  One of the reasons Ashe had initially begun to study psychology was to better understand the disease that was taking his father away. The symptoms had showed themselves early and rapidly took the mind of Bert Walters. Ashe had wanted to find a cure…a way to help his old man. Befuddlement had taken the place of clear thought. But psychology wasn’t the avenue he should have taken, because he only learned how to understand and identify the disease, but not treat it. Only actual medical doctors could do that for his father.

  Before being able to switch his studies to medicine, Ashe found himself seduced by forensic psychology, understanding the place where psychology and the legal system collided, appreciating the minds and methods of convicted criminals. Once hooked, he had been unable and unwilling to alter his course.

  Pushing the memories to the back of his skull, Ashe cautiously entered what he immediately concluded to be the master bedroom. He had been correct about the far opened door, after all. And yet he was surprised that he had found the room so quickly in the large house. Somehow, his gut and instincts had led him directly to the only room in the house he had sought. It was too easy, too simple. Ashe wondered when the ball would drop. Because the ball always dropped, it was the universe’s way of balancing things out.

  Good was at once
met with the bad. It was nature at its cruelest.

  The room was clearly cleaner than the other places of the house, the ones that Ashe had been able to see, anyway. A little dust was present but the layer was vaguely visible and far from extensive. The queen sized bed was neatly made. Ashe couldn’t stop himself from picturing Sue Ann Barrett, covered in blood, her throat slit from ear to ear, dying in the same bed that she had shared with the man who had killed her. But whatever blood that had been spilt that day had long been removed. Or had it.

  Ashe wondered what realities a black light would reveal. How deep did the cleansing actually go? If he waved a florescent wand over top of the bed, would it turn back into a scene of slaughter?

  Putting himself at the center of the room, he began to look around. Like the rest of structure, the master bedroom had become a sealed tomb, one that would always contain the deeds and sins of Franklin Barrett.

  Ashe contemplating on how Franklin might have received the pill, but it could have been through a number of different avenues. It could have been given to him in the place of aspirin for a headache. Anything was possible. The how or why no longer bothered Ashe. He only wanted to know where Franklin might have kept any possible remaining pills. Ashe was working on the theory that Franklin had been given more than one. But he might have only been given a single pill. That was a very real possibility.

  Most rich people, especially those who were on the level of wealth that Franklin Barrett had once been, often used hiding spots to hold personal items, whether safety deposit boxes or false boards in the floor. The more money that the person had acquired, the further they would go to keep their secrets from prying eyes. The desire to hide things came from the distrust that normally accompanied large amounts of wealth. Everything became private, off limits, and in one of those hiding spots Ashe might find the remaining pills, if there was in fact more than one pill.

  There had to have been more than one pill put into the hands of Franklin Barrett. Please let it be true. Ashe desperately pleaded with the fates.

  Wide pictures still hung on the walls. All of the portraits were oil paintings depicting images from nature, from a quiet green meadow to a roaring thunderstorm, its lighting spreading out across the sky like a violent spider’s web. Directly above the bed, hung on the wall, he found the one painting in the room that did not depict a scene from nature. It was much bigger than the others, as well. The painting showed Franklin, his wife, and their son, smiling broadly for the artist who was transferring their likeness onto the canvass. The psychologist preferred the image before him over the pictures held in Oscar’s investigation folder. In the family portrait, they were alive and appeared loving. It was apparent that they were enjoying each other’s company.

  How true was it, though? It could all have been an act for the sake appearing happy. He just couldn’t be sure if the emotions being shared between the family members on the surface of the painting were genuine? If so, how swiftly did it they alter? How quickly did it all change? Ashe couldn’t know. He would never know.

  He moved closer the family portrait but stopped before making more than a couple of steps. He could envision Franklin Barrett burying his personal items beneath the noses of his own family, but behind their family portrait was not deep enough. It was also cliché.

  Beneath Ashe’s heels was a woven rug that covered the floor at the middle of the room. It was made with tightly woven stitches that formed abstract shapes and patterns. It reminded him of a colorful Rorschach Test. Getting to his knees, Ashe put himself closer to the rug. He knocked on the floor in several places before hearing a solid steel thump. He wondered if Franklin’s wife and son had known about the floor safe. They must have, but they certainly didn’t have access to the contents inside. That would defeat the purpose of trying to keep his secrets from them.

  Going to the edge of the rug, Ashe pulled it away to reveal an average sized floor safe. The door was a plain gray, having only one thing protruding from its face, a simple handle and a black keypad covered in numbers.

  What was the combination?

  Ashe gave the family portrait a long examination, while still remaining perched over the floor safe. The feelings were real, at one point in time. Possibly. They might have actually existed. He wanted it to be true. He needed it to be true. And with that desire he pulled out his cell phone and dialed Oscar’s number.

  It rang twice before the detective was on the other end. “Ashe? I did not expect to hear from you so soon. What is going on?”

  “What are the birth dates for Sue Ann and Kennedy Barrett?”

  “Don’t do this to yourself, Ashe,” Oscar begged. “Let it go. You need time to heal.”

  “I need those birth dates,” the psychologist insisted. “You said you would do anything to help me. Anything I asked. I am asking for these birth dates. Are you going to help me or not?”

  “Where are you?”

  “Nowhere.”

  Oscar grunted. “Damn it, Ashe. I hope you know what you are doing. Hold on.” He was away from the phone for what seemed to Ashe like an eternity. When Oscar returned, he spouted off a series of numbers. “I really hope you know what you are doing.”

  “I do.”

  “Ashe?” Oscar added before his friend hung up. “Franklin Barrett is dead.”

  “What?” he exclaimed. “How?”

  “Someone inside Wilson had slid a shank between his ribs during lunch…five times,” Oscar explained. “It was broken up and Barrett was rushed to the infirmary but he died too quickly for them to do anything. I can’t say whether it was beef or a hit. I can’t be sure, right now. Do you think Lucky had his own brother taken out? Clear up any loose ends? Would Franklin be considered a loose end? Buddy? You still there?”

  Ashe didn’t reply. He merely hung up. And then turned his cell completely off.

  He had planned on having words with Franklin Barrett somewhere down the line, once the fallout had settled. During the sessions in his office and the conversation held on D Block, Ashe had acquired a hunch that Franklin remained loyal to his brother, even loved and admired him. Ashe would have used that, along with his own knowledge about Lucky Barrett, to get Franklin to turn on his brother. He would show Franklin that his brother was to blame for what had happened to him, that he was a victim the same as his wife and son. They were all victim of Lucky. Ashe would make him believe the truth.

  But that opportunity had been taken away.

  He only had what was inside the safe at his feet.

  Ashe entered the birth date of Sue Ann Barrett. He punched the numbers quickly and groaned when nothing happened. He tried to turn the silver handle but it refused to budge. “Fuck!” He had one more chance, though. He entered the numbers of Kennedy Barrett’s birth date, doing it slower than he had entered his mother’s. He cautiously pushed in the last digit. He then turned the silver handle and prepared himself for another failure. But the handle turned and Ashe heard the door of the safe release itself.

  Ashe pulled on the door and watched as it swung upward and held. It was open. His wife or son had to have been able to figure out the simple number combination. They must not have ever tried. Out of devotion? Or obedience? He would most likely never find any more pieces to that puzzle either, even if he regained the stamina to search for them. It would remain incomplete, annoyingly so.

  There was more empty space than Ashe had anticipated. It looked almost bare. But it did make it easier for him to scan over and identify what was present. Inside of the safe, from what he could tell, were a few random things. There were stacks of papers and sealed documents, most likely dealing with business endeavors. He considered opening and leafing through the documents for anything concerning any possible life insurance Franklin may have had. It was one the central theme that had been at root of the murderers. But Ashe chose against it. There were a
lso old photos of what might have been family members, maybe even kid pictures of Kennedy. At the far bottom were three tall stacks of twenty dollar bills. He didn’t reach for any of those items, not even the money. Instead he jolted his hand toward the small cluster of black and gold containers that were grouped together at the bottom corner of the safe.

  Score.

  The score almost dwindled away as Ashe began to open the containers. They were empty. One by one he found them that way. Cleaned out. It wasn’t until he opened the last container did he expose a single white pill. It looked harmless. But he knew otherwise.

  After tucking away the container into his pocket, Ashe closed the safe. He then returned the rug before rushing off. He continued the rush until he was outside and covered with the rays of the sun. The light of day greeted him by falling over his shoulders. He felt the chill of the abandoned house washing from him.

  He ran back over to the wall and the tree but realized that he would have to find another way out. He never considered that he would not be able to leave along the same route that he had used to enter the grounds. Distraught, he began to survey his surroundings, searching for a way out. He saw motion, what might have been movement on the far corner of the long house.

  Attempting to sneak, Ashe moved carefully, circling behind the possible movement. A well-aged gentleman wearing dirty coveralls was standing there, lost in thought. The old man’s eyes didn’t look at anything particular because his mind had taken over. He didn’t even notice as Ashe came up behind to put the smaller tip of the flashlight against his back.

  The man yelped in surprise.

  “Don’t move,” Ashe said in a deeper than usual voice. “I will shoot you right in the spine if you try anything. You understand?”

  The gentleman understood.

  The psychologist led the caretaker to the front gate, each man remaining silent. The gate was built to keep out unwanted vehicles and Ashe assumed that it opened and closed electronically, possibly controlled by a device inside what appeared to be a guard station. It would take too long and be too complex to guide the caretaker to the station and have him release the large gate. Instead, he looked to a smaller door built into the massive wall and positioned near to the gate. It looked like a normal door. He could use a normal door. But it would obviously be locked.

  When the psychologist had alarmed the caretaker, he had noticed a plastic badge hanging from the man’s belt by a black cord.

  “The door,” Ashe whispered. “Go to it. Open it.”

  Once the badge was swiped and the door was unlocked, Ashe clubbed the old caretaker on the back of the head with the flashlight. He then bolted through the door. He wanted to get far away from that damned building. He may never be fully able to wash the dust of the house from his skin, but he would scrub and scrub anyway. The dust may one day come clean from his flesh, but he honestly doubted it.