Ashes Beneath Her: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

  He opened his eyes and tilted his head.

  Hazel reached a tentative hand to Abe’s and held it.

  He squeezed, and then pulled his hand away, returning it to the steering wheel.

  “That’s my story.”

  “Were there ever any suspects?”

  He shook his head.

  “Never. They had evidence from the scene, a button that may have been ripped from the guy’s shirt. They found scuff marks on the side of the phone booth. Dawn fought back, probably kicked the booth. Nothing that pointed them toward a specific person.”

  “I think I should tell you something as well,” Hazel said. “I’ve seen Susan.” She had not expected to feel so nervous relaying the tale, but found that her hands shook and her nerves seemed frayed. She bunched them in her skirt and gazed at her garden. The flowers soothed her, their tranquil blossoms shivering in the afternoon sun.

  Abe didn’t speak for a long time. When he did, they were not the words Hazel expected.

  “On M-22?”

  “M-22? The road? No, the first time happened the night Orla vanished. I was leaving Leone’s Restaurant with Calvin. I saw her across the street, barely visible in the rain and dark, though now I think more visible than a regular person would have been, almost as if she were lit from within. The second time was a few days ago at Milly’s Bakery. She was standing on a dock in a yellow t-shirt with a big mouth on it, wearing one shoe. When I looked back a second later, she had disappeared.”

  Abe said nothing, but Hazel saw the creases in his forehead as he mulled over her story.

  “Why did you ask about M-22?” she asked.

  Abe hesitated. “I’ve received some bizarre tips the last couple of days.”

  Hazel waited.

  “Three separate people have told me they saw Susie hitchhiking M-22 near Sapphire Lane.”

  “What? Have you told Liz?”

  Abe shook his head.

  “Their stories mirror yours. She’s there, and then she disappears. Yellow t-shirt with the red mouth, and one shoe.”

  “Unreal,” she murmured.

  “Yeah, I wanted to think so, but now…” He waved a hand towards her.

  “Yesterday, I visited someone who…” Hazel searched for the right words. “Who communes with spirits, I guess.”

  Abe pressed a hand to the side of his head, as if it hurt his brain to hear her.

  “She told me Susie is dead. That a man killed her, it was violent, and there were others.”

  “She could have read my article and inferred those things.”

  Hazel shook her head.

  “She doesn’t read or watch the news, Abe. But she said one more thing.”

  “What’s that?”

  “She said Susie kept showing her the number 3-1-1.”

  32

  The Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane

  Orla

  Cold, stiff fingers brushed across Orla’s cheek. She opened her eyes and stared into darkness.

  The drugs blurred the lines between dream and reality. She turned her head to the side, searching for the source of the sensation, but the black room offered no clues.

  “Is someone there?” she whispered hoarsely. The sedative also made her mouth dry. When she woke in the night, she thirsted as if she’d walked in a desert for days.

  She heard the soft rush of a man’s breath, and froze.

  “Ben?” she whispered.

  “Is Ben your lover? Or is it your daddy you call out for in the dark?”

  She bristled at the sound of Dr. Frederic’s voice. The sharp sound of a match striking wood split the silence, and she watched the flame light his awful smile.

  He lit a candle and held it before him, stepping closer to her, sliding the candle along the length of her body, scanning her. She could not see his eyes fixed on her body, but she sensed them. The thin nightgown that covered her breasts and thighs left her exposed, vulnerable.

  “You are luscious, aren’t you?” he murmured.

  The candle tipped, and a bud of hot wax struck Orla’s knee.

  She hissed and bit her teeth together.

  “I’ll tell Crow,” she seethed.

  Frederic laughed, lifting the candle to his face.

  “Do you think he would mind, Orla? You are an experiment, an object for dissection. I could strip you naked, rape you, beat you, and Crow would care only that I didn’t damage your precious hands.” Frederic rubbed his fingers over Orla’s gloved hand.

  She swallowed bile rising into her throat, desperately searching for a way to stop him.

  “Please,” she whispered. “I can help you. Bring me anything. I’ll give you answers.”

  Frederic leaned close to her face, not near enough for her to clamp her teeth upon his cheek, though the thought crossed her mind.

  “I could take you and demand answers, Orla - steal you from this place and keep you forever, my little pet. Look at the color flushing your pale face,” he whispered. He shifted lower, and his mouth brushed her nipple.

  “Stop,” she shrieked.

  He stood abruptly and stuffed a hand over her mouth. He’d left the door open to her room, and he glanced toward it as if concerned someone might come.

  “He’s clearly not giving you enough medicine.”

  Frederic produced a syringe from his coat.

  “Please, no,” she muttered, but he had already slipped the needle into her arm.

  The warmth of the liquid rushed through her bicep, and a moment later, he blew the candle out.

  33

  Abe

  Abe picked up his phone, punching in the number and the extension for Deputy Waller at the Grand Traverse Police.

  “Deputy Waller speaking,” the man said.

  “Jeremy, it’s Abe.”

  “Oh, hey.” His voice dropped, and Abe knew Waller didn’t want anyone to know who he spoke with.

  “Sorry, you guys are probably under a lot of heat.”

  Jeremy laughed.

  “You could say that.”

  “Any prints lifted off the bike?”

  “Yeah, nothing in the system, but we’ve got four sets of prints.”

  “Good, that’s good,” Abe murmured. “I’m looking for another favor.”

  Jeremy sighed.

  “You know, Detective Moore would chew my ass if he knew about all these favors.”

  “I know, man. I do, but that same detective will be eating humble pie when we nail this guy.”

  “With a side of shit soup, I hope,” Jeremy mumbled.

  Abe laughed.

  “Remember the guy I asked you to run the background check on?”

  “Yep.”

  “He’s been going to school in Ann Arbor for the last four years. I’m hoping you could call the local cops down there and see if they’ve ever picked him up for anything.”

  “Good grief, man. Can’t you find someone else to do your grunt work?”

  “I only want the best, Waller. You know that.”

  “Yeah, okay. But you owe me, man,” Waller told him.

  “Since I owe you, I need one more thing.”

  Waller sputtered.

  “Just a quick license plate check.” Abe rattled off the license plate of the green pickup from Elder Park.

  “You’d best tell your dad the next time he’s trout fishing, the biggest one goes to his favorite deputy.”

  “A fish fry is in you near future, Wallace. I swear it,” Abe promised, hanging up the phone.

  * * *

  That evening, Abe played his phone messages.

  “Abe, it’s Jeremy. It took a bit of digging, but Spencer Crow was questioned four years ago about a young woman found murdered in Ypsilanti. Apparently, he was the last person to see her alive. Looks mighty suspicious. The officer who questioned him told me he wanted the guy for this girl’s murder, but his mother provided him with an alibi. He also had a lawyer within hours of getting picked up. The license plate you asked about connects to Be
njamin Stoops. Address is 12 Misty Lane, Lake Leelanau.”

  “Another guy from Leelanau,” Abe muttered, listening to the message a second time to make sure he’d gotten the address right.

  * * *

  “Hey, Dad.” Abe pushed into his father’s house, a pizza balanced on one hand.

  His father reclined in his easy chair watching a baseball game. Several beer cans lay haphazardly on his TV tray.

  “’Bout time you showed your face around here,” his dad called out. “Your mom has phoned me three times this week. She seems to think you’re ignoring her.”

  Abe sat the pizza on the kitchen table and pulled plates from the cupboard. The kitchen was clean except for a few dishes stacked in the sink. His dad’s cat, Flea, stood on the counter, paws on the window ledge over the sink, watching birds picking at the feeder on the back porch.

  Abe scratched Flea’s head. The cat leaned into him but kept his gaze fixed on the birds.

  “I’ll call her soon. I’ve been busy.”

  “I noticed.” His dad gestured to the newspaper next to his chair. The girls’ faces peered out from the black-and-white pages.

  Abe felt a little tug in his gut. He hadn’t taken a break from the case since he learned of Orla’s disappearance. He usually took dinner to his dad twice a week and called his mother every other day. He’d neglected both of his parents.

  “Your mom wants to come for a visit,” his dad said, taking his plate and settling it on his lap.

  He muted the television.

  “Really?” Abe asked, surprised. His mother hadn’t been back to Michigan in a decade. Once her mother had died, she had insisted Michigan held nothing for her but bad memories. A divorce, dead parents, why go back?

  Abe and his younger sister had moved with his mother after the divorce to Spokane, Washington. When his girlfriend vanished, he adopted an attitude not unlike his mother’s. He wanted to escape the bad memories. He stayed for a few years, finished school, and searched for Dawn, but eventually he moved back to Michigan to live with his dad.

  “She figures if she ever wants to see her only son again, she has to come back.”

  Abe took a bite of pizza, forced it down. He wasn’t hungry, only aided by an additional helping of guilt. He’d promised his mother he’d visit her that summer, yet August was fast approaching and he hadn’t set a date, asked for a week off work, or called about flights.

  “I know you’re busy, son. And it’s important work you’re doing, but take it from a man who’s learned the hard way - you have to put time into the people you love. It’s hard to believe at the moment, but someday you’ll realize there was never anything more important.”

  “Yeah, I know, Dad,” Abe sighed.

  “No, you don’t. Unfortunately, you’ve got a lot of your old man in you. But listen to me, anyhow. Call your mom tonight. And not to beat a dead horse, but she also mentioned her nonexistent grandchildren and daughter-in-law.”

  “Okay, now I need a beer,” Abe grumbled, standing and shuffling back to the kitchen.

  “Make it two,” his dad said.

  They drank their beer, and each ate two pieces of pizza. Abe barely tasted his but didn’t want the ‘you need to eat’ lecture. His dad put the leftover pizza in the fridge and returned to the living room.

  “Tell me what you’ve got,” he said, sitting on his chair, but not reclining.

  Abe’s father had been a prosecutor for thirty years. Two years earlier, he’d retired to pursue fishing and getting reacquainted with American sports. He also jokingly referred to himself as Abe’s private counsel.

  “The cops have formed a task force. They’re finally communicating between jurisdictions. But they still don’t have a suspect.”

  “They don’t, but you do?” his dad asked, a knowing look on his face.

  “Maybe. I saw a guy at the park where Orla Sullivan vanished. I did a background check based on a hunch and came up empty. Then Deputy Waller dug deeper. The guy attends University of Michigan. Four years ago, Ann Arbor police questioned him about the murder of a young woman. He was the last to see her alive.”

  His dad nodded, swept the crumbs from his TV tray and dropped them in the waste basket next to his chair.

  “Have the police questioned him in connection with any of these girls?”

  “Not that I’m aware of. I’ve asked every officer who’s still speaking to me, and none of them have ever heard of him.”

  “So, he’s either very clever, or innocent.”

  “He’s not innocent,” Abe grumbled. “He may not be guilty of these murders, but he’s not innocent. There was something…”

  “Off about him?”

  “Yeah.

  “You gotta trust your gut. In all my years of practicing law, it never steered me wrong. When I was in the room with a murderer, my body sensed it, even if my mind tried to remain unbiased. The hair on my arms would stand on end. I’d release adrenaline like I might have to fight for my life. What tips have come out of this?” He picked up the article.

  Abe sighed. He told his father about the sightings of a girl who looked like Susie hitchhiking late at night on the Leelanau Peninsula before vanishing without a trace.

  His dad pulled a toothpick from his pocket and balanced it on his lips.

  “Now that is a strange tale, if there ever was one. What makes you link those stories to this perp?”

  “He lives a few miles from that stretch of road.”

  His dad frowned, poked at his teeth with the toothpick.

  “You don’t think it’s bogus?” Abe asked.

  His dad pulled the toothpick out and gazed at it thoughtfully.

  “Your mom believed in ghosts. She told me she lived in a haunted house when she was a little girl.”

  “A haunted house?” Abe couldn’t hide his skepticism.

  “She said they used to hear a woman singing in the night. Her own mother had a priest come out and bless the house, but it didn’t matter. They moved when your mom was eight, but the memories of that house stuck with her. In her twenties, your mom went back to that town and spoke with the sheriff. You can see where you picked up your journalistic leanings.” He winked at Abe. “The sheriff told her someone had murdered a woman in that house five years before your mom’s family moved in. The local police thought the husband killed her, but they never proved it.”

  “Are you saying I should believe this girl is haunting that stretch of road?”

  Abe’s father leaned back and steepled his fingers on his belly.

  “Your mother was convinced the woman from her childhood home had a story to tell. She believes ghosts have unfinished business. If this girl is dead, but is showing up out there, maybe there’s a reason. Tell me about this young man’s family. Does he have parents?”

  “I met the mother. Not a warm woman, by any means.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Virginia Crow.”

  Abe’s father stood, brushed the crumbs from his pants. He ambled over to his phone.

  “Jack, it’s Martin Levett. Retirement’s good. Catching up on all the sleep I missed over the last few decades. Yeah, yeah. Listen, I’m calling about a woman.” Martin laughed. “Hardly, Jack. My days of womanizing are long gone. Her name’s Virginia Crow. Sure, yeah. Divorced? She’s widowed, okay.”

  Abe watched his father scribble onto a little note pad next to his phone. He talked for several more minutes.

  “Have time to chat with my son this week?” Martin continued. He mouthed ‘tomorrow’ at Abe, and Abe nodded. “Yep, tomorrow works.”

  “Jack Miller’s been on the Board of the Leelanau Historical Society for years. He’s a long-time resident of Glen Arbor, and he’s also a cartographer. He’s a man in the know, so to speak.”

  “And he knows Virginia?”

  “According to Jack, she’s not an easy woman to know. Widowed over twenty years ago, never remarried, though rumors flew about the dead husband’s brother, also named Crow. He
’s a doctor at the sanitarium.”

  “The asylum?”

  “Yep. Virginia has one son, Spencer. The whole family puts on airs, according to Jack. Her kid was homeschooled, has attended the University of Michigan for the last four years, and works summers for Dr. Marlou in Suttons Bay. The husband died in his sleep, a young man under thirty years old at the time, strange circumstances according to Jack, but that’s just talk.”

  “Man, that guy is in the know.”

  Martin ripped the sheet of paper from the notepad and handed it to Abe.

  Abe looked at the neat, bulleted list of points written in perfect block writing. His father had perfected note-taking during his previous life as an attorney.

  “Jack’s number is there at the bottom. He’s at the Historical Museum tomorrow from noon to four. If he doesn’t have the answer, he’ll know who does,” Martin explained.

  “Does he know how to talk to ghosts?”

  Martin smiled and nodded.

  “Wouldn’t put it past him.”

  34

  Abe

  “Jack?” Abe asked, approaching the souvenir counter at the Leelanau Historical Museum.

  “Jack’s my name, history’s my game,” the man said sticking out his hand. “You must be Martin’s boy. You’ve got that fierce, lawyerly look in your eye, though I hear you’re a newsman.”

  “Yeah, I would have opted for a profession raising hairless rats before I spent half a decade in law school.”