Ashes Beneath Her: A Northern Michigan Asylum Novel

by Erickson, J. R.

“Blonde hair?” Abe asked.

  “Black as a bad luck cat.”

  “His hair was black?” Abe asked, incredulous. Eye color was one thing, but black hair to blonde? “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “If I had to describe the older boy in a phrase, I’d call him steps from the grave.”

  “You think he died?”

  “Unless something remarkable happened, I suspect he was dead within a year.”

  “But Spencer’s the name of her son.”

  Rosie shrugged.

  “Women sometimes call on midwives because they have secrets to keep.”

  38

  The Northern Michigan Asylum for the Insane

  Orla

  “Ben,” Orla said.

  Ben looked up from his mop and offered her a half-smile.

  “You’re neglecting your pants.” Unable to lift a hand and point, she nodded in the direction of his jeans.

  He glanced down, and she watched him frown at the tear along the seam of his pants, growing larger every day.

  He shrugged.

  “I’ll fix it sometime,” he said.

  “Like you did on that side?” She saw where he’d crudely sewn black thread into a split on the opposite side of his pants.

  He blushed and shrugged.

  “Bring me a needle and thread, and I’ll have those pants looking good as new,” she told him. “I’m a seamstress. Did you know that?”

  He nodded.

  “I read it in the paper.”

  “You read about me?” she asked, her pulse quickening.

  He nodded, setting his mop down and shuffling over to his bag on the floor.

  She expected him to pull out the newspaper; instead, he drew out an apple.

  “I brought this for you. Are you hungry?” he asked.

  “Yes, please.” The apple was red and smooth. Crow gave her a piece of fruit only when she performed for him. The fruit always tasted overripe, bordering on rotten.

  Ben pulled a chair next to her bed and pulled out a small knife.

  “How does he keep me hidden?” Orla asked. “The hospital is huge. There have to be hundreds of patients and doctors…”

  “There are,” Ben murmured. “But this wing was closed after an outbreak of influenza a few months ago. After they clean it, the hall has to remain empty for three months. It will open in five weeks.”

  “So, he could keep me here for five more weeks?”

  “Yeah,” Ben confessed.

  He cut a slice of apple.

  “Thank you,” Orla whispered, leaning forward and opening her mouth.

  Ben popped the apple into her mouth and cut another piece.

  It tasted crisp and sweet, and she closed her eyes, savoring the fruit.

  When she opened them, she gazed at the knife, but knew even if she managed to free a hand, she could never hurt him. She’d gleaned bits from touching Ben, little glimpses of his past. Somehow, Crow had become his guardian. The man used him as a servant, belittled him constantly.

  “How old are you?” Orla asked, studying his downcast eyes.

  He pursed his lips and shook his head.

  “I’m not sure. In my twenties, I think.”

  “You don’t know?” she asked.

  He fed her another piece of apple.

  “I’ve never celebrated a birthday. I asked Dr. Crow a few times, but he claims not to know either. He took me in. I was an orphan, and he raised me.”

  “He’s a terrible man, Ben. You deserve better.”

  Ben gave her the last bite of apple and returned the core to his bag.

  “I don’t,” he murmured.

  He left before she could ask more.

  39

  Abe

  Abe had been watching the green pickup truck for an hour when Ben Stoops hurried from the asylum. Dark shaggy hair and dark eyes, sickly-looking - all the characteristics the midwife had attributed to Virginia Crow’s older child.

  Abe waited until the man was halfway to his truck.

  “Excuse me,” he said, stepping out from the shadow of trees and holding up a hand.

  The man stumbled and nearly dropped the box he carried. He looked at Abe with wide, startled eyes.

  “Hi.” Abe strode up to him and stuck out his hand. He looked at the guy’s box and laughed. “Maybe a handshake’s not the best plan. Can I open your door? Or help you?” He nodded at the box.

  The man shook his head.

  “No, thanks,” he mumbled, picking up his pace.

  “Have time for a few questions, Ben? It is Ben, right? Or Benjamin?”

  The man’s shoulder’s stiffened at the mention of Benjamin.

  “Ben,” he said.

  He hoisted the box into the bed of the truck.

  Abe gazed into the bed and noticed a shovel flecked with fresh dirt.

  “Do you work at the asylum, Ben?” Abe asked.

  Ben shook his head.

  “I work for Dr. Crow.”

  “What kind of work, Ben?” Abe continued, stepping closer to the man. “Do some digging for him?” He gestured at the shovel.

  Ben sidled along the truck toward the door.

  Abe fought the urge to put a hand on the driver’s door to prevent him leaving.

  “Have you seen this woman?”

  Abe thrust a picture of Orla in front of him.

  Ben’s eyes bulged and he turned, smacking into the truck. He fumbled with the door handle.

  “No,” he whispered.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say.”

  “No, I haven’t seen her.”

  Ben swung open the door and practically dove into the truck. He started it up, but Abe noted his trembling hands as he gripped the wheel. He drove off, leaving Abe in a plume of dust.

  * * *

  Hazel

  Hazel gazed at Abe across the table. His cheekbones looked hollowed, his eyes sunken. He’d undoubtedly been overdoing it, though she had the sense Abe operated at maximum capacity for most of his life.

  “What happens after you find resolution? Do you crash?”

  He looked up, eyes distant. When they cleared, he nodded.

  “Something like that. Although resolution is an optimistic word. I’m not even sure what a resolution would look like.”

  “Orla sitting in the chair beside me,” Hazel offered.

  “That’s not much resolution for Liz or the other families.”

  Hazel sighed, glanced at the clock over the kitchen sink. It was after eleven. Her eyes felt crusty and her neck ached. She longed for bed, and yet the feverish gleam in Abe’s eyes, the way he pored over the material, left her unable to drag herself up to bed. She had to fight for Orla. He was fighting for all the women, but Orla needed a voice, an advocate.

  “The midwife said the older child appeared sickly. He looked nothing like Spencer with his blue eyes and blond hair,” Abe continued.

  He’d told her about the adjoining property of Dr. Crow and Virginia Crow, and the mysterious second child.

  “What happened to Virginia’s husband?” Hazel asked.

  Abe rolled his eyes.

  “He reportedly died of natural causes.”

  “And then his brother was at the birth of his son. And that guy is a doctor at the asylum?”

  Abe nodded.

  “A doctor at the asylum would have access to powerful drugs. If her husband did die of mysterious causes…”

  “Exactly. And Hector, her husband, died before her pregnancy showed. Were they trying to hide an affair? And a pregnancy?”

  “So, you think the second son was Dr. Crow’s. And this Ben person lives with Crow. Why can’t he be the second son?”

  “For starters, his last name is Stoops. But the interesting thing is that Ben matches the description of the older son, the sickly son.”

  “Whose name is Spencer?”

  “His name was Spencer.”

  “You think what, they gave his name to the second child?”

  Abe shuffled
some papers, eyes flicking between them.

  “I’m leaning toward that, but I don’t understand why they’d do it. Why not just give the second child his own name? And why would the first child suddenly become Ben Stoops?” he asked.

  Hazel stood and folded in half, allowing her upper body to dangle, hands brushing her feet.

  “My back feels like somebody’s crunched it in a vice.”

  She stood back up, swayed from side to side a few times, and stretched her arms overhead.

  “Coffee?” she asked.

  “Yeah, that’d be great.” He thumbed through his notes from the midwife, brow furrowed.

  Hazel made a pot of coffee, casting another yearning glance toward the stairway. Calvin had gone to bed hours earlier. He had to work early in the morning. Hazel wished she was in bed next to him, listening to the rhythmic sound of his breath. She bent her legs and jogged in place for a moment.

  “Tired?” Abe asked, not looking up.

  “Yes, but I want to see this through.”

  He laughed.

  “It’s okay to sleep, Hazel. I’ll let myself out. You can stay up all night and you won’t have seen this through.”

  Hazel sighed.

  “I will, but… I’m not ready yet. I’ll go up soon.”

  She poured each of them a cup of coffee and returned to the table.

  “Is there any chance you’re chasing a dead end here?”

  He grabbed his coffee, took a long drink.

  “Yeah, there’s always that possibility. But it’s gotten under my skin. I can’t shake it until I understand why it’s piqued my interest.”

  “Maybe it’s jealousy.”

  He cocked an eyebrow.

  “How so?”

  “Well, you said Spencer is handsome, and drives a nice car. Maybe you want him to be the bad guy. He just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time, taking a pee, just as he claimed.”

  Abe shook his head.

  “I wish it were that simple. It’s not. There was something off about this guy. Did he abduct Orla? That, I don’t know, but there’s something….”

  “And this other child plays a part in that?”

  “You’re asking my own questions back to me. Until we have the whole picture, it’s just a bunch of pieces. Maybe they’re connected, maybe they’re not.”

  “Have you tried talking to Spencer? Questioning him?”

  Abe shook his head.

  “I don’t want him to realize I’m interested in him. He might run, destroy evidence.”

  “Assuming there’s evidence to destroy.”

  “The guy was at the park Orla went missing from, his house is miles from the sightings of Susie, his uncle works at the asylum, and I received a tip about Orla being there. He was also questioned about the murder of a nineteen-year-old girl four years ago in Ann Arbor. He was the last person to see her alive. This other guy, Ben, was at the park where the kid found Orla’s bike. He lives on the same property as Spencer. That’s too many coincidences. One or two, fine, but…”

  Hazel frowned.

  “But why would Orla be at the asylum? I mean, they’d turn her over to the police. Right? They wouldn’t keep her when her face and name are all over the news.”

  Abe frowned, pushed the papers away.

  “I don’t know. That tip makes little sense.”

  “So maybe it’s bogus.”

  Abe closed his eyes.

  “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Which knocks one from your coincidences.”

  “Still leaving far too many to call them coincidences. Connections, not coincidences. I have to look at them that way.”

  “But I still don’t get why they’d lie. Why call the second baby Spencer and change the first baby’s name to Ben? That deception travels back twenty years. The girls have been disappearing for four.”

  Abe took a piece of paper and drew a line down the center. He wrote Spencer’s name on one side and Ben’s on the other, detailing in bullet points what they knew about each man, which was far less on Ben’s side.

  “I’m not concerned about whether Virginia Crow and Byron Crow were involved. I wonder if we have two deeply disturbed men, because of whatever mischief Virginia and Byron were up to twenty years ago.”

  “You think their neglect created murderers?”

  He leveled his gaze at her.

  “What do you think a murderer is, Hazel? A monster who crawls out of the sewer? He’s a man with a family, sometimes with a wife and a white picket fence. Let me tell you what I’ve learned about studying murderers. They don’t grow up in families like the Brady Bunch.

  “A weird, blended family where everyone is smiling and there’s too many kids to keep track of?”

  He didn’t smile.

  “In a happy, balanced, healthy household. They’re often beaten, sometimes sexually abused. Those things might not create killers, but they tip the scales. This backstory on Ben and Spencer reads like the biography of a killer. Their mom is cheating with her husband’s brother who lives on the other side of the woods, and their father dies mysteriously. The kids are neglected, possibly abused.”

  “How do you know the kids were neglected and abused?” Hazel thought of the woman from 311 Sapphire, likely Spencer’s mother. Had she seemed negligent? No, the opposite, actually. She came across as protective, even possessive. She hadn’t mentioned her little trip to Abe, fearing his response.

  “A retired cop and a midwife both told me the older child looked neglected. No one can read people like a cop, and I know less about midwives, but I’m guessing they’re even better judges of character, especially when it concerns mothers and children. They both mentioned a cold mother and a sick, strange child. The midwife called Social Services.”

  Hazel sighed. She didn’t want to feel sympathy for the man or men who abducted Orla, but as she studied the two mens’ names, she imagined babies, small children raised in a home of fear and lies. Did their mother hug them? Tell them she loved them? Hazel’s own mother had doted on her, adored her. Hazel knew nothing except love and safety in the presence of her mother. Who would she have become if her mother was cruel and withheld affection?

  “Where do we go from here?” Hazel asked.

  Abe tugged on his beard and tapped his foot beneath the table.

  “It’s time to talk to Spencer.”

  40

  Abe

  “Spencer? Hey, wait up,” Abe called, hurrying to catch up with Spencer as he left his job at Dr. Marlou’s office, blazer slung over one shoulder and smiling as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  He faltered when he spotted Abe and stopped, covering his momentary disquiet with indifference.

  “Do I know you?” he asked.

  “Not in the flesh, but you might have seen me in the paper. I write for Up North News.” Abe stuck out his hand.

  Spencer eyed it for several seconds before offering his in return.

  Abe shook Spencer’s hand, squeezing harder than necessary. The man pulled his hand away and fished in his pocket for his keys.

  “Did you need something?” Spencer asked when Abe followed him to his car.

  “Just following up on a tip about a gold sports car.”

  Spencer halted, glancing at his gold Corvette but not walking over to it.

  “What kind of tip?” he asked.

  “Well, to give you some context, I’ve been investigating a series of disappearances in northern Michigan. Six young women have vanished in the last four years.”

  Spencer gazed at him, face hard, eyes expressionless.

  “Have you heard about them?”

  Spencer shook his head.

  “Nope, but I make it a point only to read The Detroit Free Press. Most of these northern papers are a bunch of stories about farm disputes and prized heifers.”

  Abe grinned and nodded.

  “Prefer your news a little edgier? Violent, even?”

  Spencer’s face darkened.

&
nbsp; “I’ve gotta jet. Was that all, or…?”

  “Oh sure, sure. I just wondered if the police had talked to you yet? What with your driving that beauty over there, and multiple sightings of a gold sports car in the vicinity where the women disappeared.”

  Spencer’s eyes flicked a second time to his car.

  “No, they haven’t. And I’m sure they’d be wasting their time.”

  Spencer didn’t wait to see more. He walked briskly away and climbed into his car.

  * * *

  Abe shifted in bed, kicking the covers off, squirming in the heat. The fan whirred lazily overhead, doing little to circulate the muggy air. He flipped onto his belly, and then his side. He needed to sleep. Gazing between and beyond his legs, he squinted toward the clock over the microwave but couldn’t make out the neon green numbers. Near the foot of the bed, his comforter shifted as if someone had brushed it aside.

  Abe stared at the crumpled blanket and the white sheet beneath it. As he watched, something slid over the edge of the bed. It moved toward his foot, and as he puzzled at the thing, it came into focus: a hand. A hand streaked with mud, fingernails torn and bloody, reached toward his leg.

  Abe sat up abruptly, kicking out his legs and scrambling off the bed. He stood next to the mattress, heaving for breath, awake now. It had been a dream: the insomnia, the hand - a nightmare too real, except the heat of the dream had been replaced by bitter cold. He shivered, standing naked, gooseflesh covering his body.

  Across the room, the clock blinked 3:11 a.m.

  Bleary-eyed, he lurched into the kitchenette, filled a glass of water, and gulped it down. He drank a second before pulling on a sweatshirt and pants and brewing a pot of coffee. He filled a mug, slipped on sandals, and left the apartment.

  Traverse City slept. In the halo of streetlights, he walked. The veil of fog gradually lifted from his mind, chased away by the coffee, his breath, and the starry sky overhead. Far off, an ambulance siren wailed. Abe listened to it and wondered at the source. A homicide, a fight outside a bar, an old man falling from a bed. Every second, another tragedy befell someone. No one escaped the ravenous clutches of death.