Ashes Beneath Her: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  Lying still, she listened.

  “Never again. Never again,” Crow’s insistent and angry voice repeated.

  She cracked open her eyes and saw a shadow moving to her right. Tilting her head, she watched him.

  He slammed his fist down on a metal table, and glass bottles flew to the floor, shattering.

  “Clean those up,” he barked.

  Orla shifted her head to the other side and saw Ben hovering near the door. He dropped to the floor, and with bare hands brushed the glass and pills and liquid together.

  “Are you a goddamn fool?” Crow shrieked, walking over and kicking Ben’s hand aside. “If you cut your hand and get insulin in your wound, you’re liable to go into insulin shock right here on the floor. Fucking idiots, the lot of you. Get up.” He yanked Ben up by the scruff of his shirt. “Get the broom.”

  Orla trembled.

  She wanted to touch her nose, which felt raw and sore where the towel had crushed it. She’d passed out. The man had suffocated her with the towel until she passed out.

  “Give her a goddamn shower. Never again,” he hissed. “She can rot in her own filth, for all I care. The stink will kill her as quickly as anything else.”

  He ripped his coat off, dropped it on the floor, and stormed from the room.

  19

  Abe

  “Can you run a background check on this guy?” Abe handed Deputy Waller the sheet of paper containing the license plate number from the gold car.

  “Already got a suspect?”

  “Hardly. I saw him at the park where Orla might have gone hiking the day she disappeared. Just chasing a hunch, I guess.”

  “Sure you don’t want to be a cop? You’ve got more fire under your ass than half the guys I work with.”

  Abe slapped his friend on the back.

  “I’m afraid I’d shoot myself in the ass. I like to track ‘em down and leave the hard part to you.”

  Waller grinned.

  “I’ll call you tonight.”

  * * *

  Abe hung up the phone. The man’s name was Spencer Crow with an address at 311 Sapphire in Leelanau County. No prior record, nothing so much as a speeding ticket on his license plate.

  He drew little arrows pointing at the name, wondering why he couldn’t let the guy go. It was wrong to be thinking of him. This was exactly the sort of tunnel vision that screwed up investigations. Too often hunches were proved wrong, and yet cops and journalist could spend months, years, trying to pin the guy they had a bad feeling about for a crime he never committed.

  * * *

  Hazel

  Hazel carried a crate of cucumbers from the back of a pickup truck.

  “Here, let me,” Abe called, hurrying over.

  She shouldered him out of the way and cocked her head back toward the truck.

  “Grab the beets if you want to help.”

  He snatched the wooden crate of beets and hurried to catch up with her.

  At first, they were both silent, pondering the same question - Have you heard anything?

  Hazel spoke. “I talked with her dad last night. He said he met you.”

  “He’s a nice guy. I spoke with Liam, too. Orla’s cousin.”

  “But you haven’t found anything more about Orla?”

  “I don’t know. That’s why I’m here.”

  Hazel dropped the crate of cucumbers on a long wooden table. She put a little cardboard placard on the front that read ‘Cucumbers 5 for $1.’

  She faced Abe, waiting.

  “Do you know a guy named Spencer Crow?”

  Hazel frowned, glanced at the vegetables as if searching for the name, and then shook her head.

  “Doesn’t ring any bells. Did he have something to do with Orla’s disappearance?”

  “I’m not sure. He’s the guy I mentioned who drove the gold sports car. Something about him…”

  “The Devil.”

  “What?”

  “Sorry. I was just thinking back. The day we realized Orla was missing, I pulled the Devil from the tarot. I draw a card for the girls every day.”

  “And the Devil means what?”

  “Someone who’s up to no good. Not always. It’s symbolic, it can mean a lot of things, but that was my first impression. As soon as I saw the card, I sensed it portrayed a man with ill intentions.”

  “And you think Spencer’s the guy?”

  “No.” Hazel shook her head, arranged the beets sideways, and then turned them back straight. “I don’t know who it applies to, but it’s possible. Why was he in the park?”

  “He told me he stopped to pee.”

  “But you didn’t believe him?”

  “No. And I usually have a good sense of people. There was something about him.”

  “I’ll ask our roommates,” Hazel sighed. “Unfortunately, if I didn’t know about him, they probably won’t either.”

  Abe nodded.

  “I’d like you to meet Liz Miner. Susan Miner’s mom. She’s been working with me on this case for a long time. She’s kind of my right hand, or maybe I’m hers.”

  “Sure,” Hazel agreed. “Anything to help find Orla.”

  * * *

  Abe

  Abe pulled his car off on the side of the road. A high iron gate, doors open, stood at the end of the tree-lined driveway for 311 Sapphire Lane in Lake Leelanau. The driveway curved, blocking the house that lay at the end.

  The mailbox did not contain a name, only the numbers 311. He stared at them, a flicker of something trying to surface in his mind. Had he visited the house before? No. He would have remembered.

  “Can I help you?” A woman’s voice startled him.

  He put a hand to his brow, blocking the sun.

  She looked at him from the rolled-down window of a black Cadillac Eldorado. Her dark hair was pulled away from her lined, but pretty face. He saw the sparkle of a diamond earring in one earlobe. In a word, he would have called her elegant.

  “Hi. Is this your home?” he asked.

  She watched him behind dark sunglasses.

  “Yes, and you are?”

  He held up his press badge, always dangling from his neck for moments such as these.

  “Abraham Levett. I work for Up North News.”

  Her expression did not change.

  “And you’re here because…?”

  He glanced at the mailbox, and then at the woman. The man was surely her son, based on the resemblance around the nose and cheekbones.

  “I’m researching historic homes on the peninsula, and I stumbled across yours. I wasn’t going to trespass. I thought I might see it from the road.”

  She took off her glasses. He saw the same startling blue eyes he’d stared at in her son’s face. And like his, they had a coldness, maybe even an emptiness.

  Abe glanced down the deserted road, unease settling in.

  “It’s not a good day for me,” she said finally. “Give me your card. Perhaps I can give you a tour when it suits.”

  “Umm sure, yeah.” He searched his pockets, came up empty, then jogged back to his Rambler, again looking sad and grimy next to the shiny Cadillac she drove. He pulled a coffee-stained card from his cup holder and returned.

  She took it in her manicured hand, nails painted with a clear polish and sharp, as if she filed them to points. She slid the card in the visor, pushed her sunglasses back onto her face, and turned into the driveway without another word.

  * * *

  Abe

  After Abe picked up a printed copy of Spencer Crow’s driver’s license, he drove to Hazel’s house.

  “Hi,” she said when she opened the door to find him on the porch.

  “I’ve got a picture of Spencer Crow. Have a minute?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She stepped onto the porch and took the paper.

  “Never seen him,” she sighed. “311 Sapphire Drive,” she read aloud. She cocked her head to the side and frowned. “3-1-1,” she said again. And then her eyes widened as she looked at hi
m. “Three-eleven.”

  “I’m sorry, what?” But then he stopped. It was the odd time of night they’d both awoken at. Except now, he’d awoken at 3:11 a.m. for the last six nights.

  “It’s happened since that first night,” she said. “And the night I dreamed of Orla, I think I woke up at three-eleven that night too. I didn’t look at the clock until I was back in my room. It said 3:14 then, but I bet you anything.”

  Abe sighed, took the photo back, and folded it in half.

  “Abe,” Hazel said, touching hand. “What can it hurt to open your mind a bit? Hmmm…? Maybe we’re getting clues, and…”

  “From who, Hazel? From what? God? The Devil? You think there’s a God sending us little clues but allowing young women to get snatched from the street, brutalized, murdered? He has the time to wake us up in the middle of the night, but not to stop a homicidal maniac from killing in the first place?”

  He threw up his hands and stomped down the porch steps, half tempted to kick over the pot of pink flowers near the sidewalk. He resisted.

  “Abe,” Hazel called out. “Wait, okay?”

  She followed him down, her long red skirt swaying. “Come in and have dinner with us. Jayne made chicken salad. Calvin brought over a cherry pie. You need a break. You look exhausted.”

  He bit back his angry words. The words that would imply she should be doing more herself. He had obsessive tendencies, and yeah, he also had his reasons, but people had to go on. That was the truth of life, no matter the trauma, injustice, devastation - people had to go on.

  He brushed his hands back through his messy hair and nodded.

  “Yeah, okay. I could use dinner that’s not from a can.”

  20

  Hazel

  Hazel stepped from Abe’s car. He’d parked in the driveway of a little fifties-style bungalow. The houses on either side burst with summer flowers, neat rows of bushes stood beneath windows. This house held no such color. The drawn shades and closed garage door gave the house an air of abandonment.

  “She lived here? Susan Miner?”

  Abe had explained his relationship with Liz on the drive. Not only had she motivated him to begin the investigation, she’d fielded tips, had a thousand theories, and worked night and day to solve Susan’s disappearance. She was also his way into the families - after all, she was one of them.

  Abe knocked on the door.

  After a moment, a man pulled it open.

  He looked prematurely gray, wore a sweater despite the summer heat, and offered them a strained smile.

  “She’s in the study,” he murmured and wandered back into the living room, returning to his chair where a muted television played.

  Cold churned from a window air conditioner, turning the dark rooms and hallways frigid.

  The study occupied a small room lined with long tables. The tables held stacks of fliers, and a network of corkboards with maps, missing girls’ posters and tips plastered the walls. A telephone sat on one desk.

  A woman stood staring at the map, her hand poised as if she’d been reaching up to adjust something and gotten lost in thought. She’d clearly not heard the knock on the door.

  “Liz?”

  The woman gave a start, dropping her hand.

  “Abe. I didn’t hear you come in.”

  She blinked at him, and then at Hazel. Her short curly hair lay flat in the back, as if she’d recently slept on it. She wore pleated jeans and a loose button-up men’s shirt.

  “I was trying to make sense of the abduction sites. I mean, the probable abduction sites. We can’t know for sure, but….”

  “Liz, I’d like you to meet Hazel. She’s Orla’s roommate and close friend.”

  Liz stared at him for a long moment, as if processing his words took time. She smiled and crossed the room.

  “Yes, of course. Abe said you were coming. Delighted to meet you, Hazel.”

  She turned back to the map, frowned, and then shook her head.

  “I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

  “Maybe it’s time for a break?” Abe asked. “From the room, anyway?”

  Hazel had the sense the woman spent a lot of time in the room, too much time.

  She continued to stare at the map until Abe cleared his throat.

  “Yes, a break. You’re right.”

  They followed Liz to the kitchen. She opened the refrigerator door, and it surprised Hazel to see bare shelves. A half-empty gallon of milk sat on the top shelf.

  “I should have made tea,” she murmured.

  “No. You didn’t need to go to the trouble. Let’s drive into town. Jerry, can we bring you back lunch?”

  Abe stepped into the living room, where Jerry sat watching the still-muted TV.

  He looked up, then craned toward his wife.

  “I’ll have what you’re having, dear.”

  Liz nodded, brushed at the flat curls on the back of her head.

  She picked up a red purse from the counter.

  “This belonged to Susie,” she told Hazel as they left the house.

  The sun shone blindingly bright after the dim interior.

  “It’s nice,” Hazel told her.

  Hazel watched Liz’s eyes drift to the neighbors’ yard, a self-conscious expression flitting across her face. She reached up to her hair, and then touched her shirt, pausing. She looked down.

  “Good grief, I’m still in Jerry’s shirt. Give me five minutes to change?”

  “Take your time,” Abe told her.

  Liz disappeared back into the dark interior.

  Hazel watched her. “It’s like her life was-”

  “Frozen,” Abe finished. “Pretty much. Everyone handles it differently. Liz abandoned the person she used to be. She told me that once, she felt like she’d stepped out of that woman’s skin and left it in a pile on the floor.”

  Hazel grimaced at the analogy.

  “Do you think she’ll ever…?” Hazel trailed off. She didn’t know how to finish the question: get over it - move on - be normal again?

  He gazed down the roadway, where freshly washed cars gleamed in driveways.

  “I don’t know. When she gets answers, when she is freed from the purgatory of not knowing, that’s when she might be able to rebuild again. Figure out who she is on the other side of all this.”

  Hazel imagined years down the road, walking through town and glimpsing a streak of long black hair, wondering if it was Orla - never knowing what had become of her friend.

  She took an uneasy breath, chased the image away. She wouldn’t forsake her friend by giving up.

  “Do you guys get tips? Is that what her phone is for?”

  “We advise people to send tips to the police, but every flier also contains her phone number or mine. We both take calls.”

  Liz bustled out several minutes later in a clean blouse and less wrinkled jeans. She’d pulled her short curls into a tiny ponytail at the base of her neck.

  “Much better,” she announced.

  * * *

  The restaurant had a fifties theme, and Hazel followed Abe and Liz’s lead by ordering a chocolate milkshake. It arrived in a tall, old-fashioned glass smothered in whipped cream and dotted with a red cherry.

  “This has become our little ritual,” Liz said, plucking her cherry from the white froth and gazing at it. “Susie loved this place, the milkshakes in particular. Jerry and I always gave her our cherries.” Liz put it in her mouth, rolled it around. “I eat it now. For her. I used to order it without one, but now…” She stopped, and her eyes welled with tears.

  Abe took her hand and squeezed.

  “Here’s to Susie,” he said, clinking his milkshake against each of theirs.

  “And to finding the son of a bitch who took her,” Liz added, renewed strength in her voice.

  “The story will hit the stands Sunday,” Abe said. “We have to be ready to field calls, they’ll be pouring in. And Liz, expect the cranks again. If people call your home line, let the machine pick u
p.”

  “Let ‘em call,” she said. “A few words from me and they’ll never do it again.”

  Abe chuckled.

  “Has anything of the women’s ever been found?” Hazel asked. “A purse? Or a wallet? Anything?”

  “Susie’s shoe is the only physical evidence the police have ever found in connection with any of the girls,” Liz offered. “The other missing girls left nothing behind. But what it tells us is that someone abducted her in the woods.”

  Abe spread out a map that labeled the state forest area where someone had discovered Susie’s shoe. “There’s a series of marked trails maintained by volunteers. Then there’s a dozen other trails formed by deer and mountain bikers. They found her shoe on one of those. There are three marked parking lots for this forest. Based on where her shoe was, our guy was parked here.” Abe pointed to a darker square. “This location is also important because it’s shielded from the road. You can easily park there and conceal your car.”

  “On a Sunday afternoon? Why wasn’t he worried about hikers?”

  “A few reasons. One, by Sunday afternoon most of the tourists are heading out of town, families are getting ready for the work week. And for those not doing that, it was hot out. People went to the beach, not hiking. But this guy is careful. He can abandon his plan at any time. He nabbed her close to the trailhead near his car. I’d say he could see his car and the lot. The coast was clear, so he grabbed her. We assume there was a struggle, and that’s how she lost her shoe. He carried her to the car.”

  “Orla would not have been easy to carry,” Hazel interrupted.

  “I agree, but if we assume she vanished from Birch Park, he didn’t have to worry about other hikers. That place is empty most of the time. So he didn’t have to move as fast. If she was hard to carry, he could take breaks. And she might have gotten in his car willingly.”

  Hazel frowned.

  She wanted to disagree, but Orla was not a suspicious person by nature.