Ashes, Ashes

by Charles Atkins

  As she flew through the opening passages she felt a hollowness left by her late-night interview with Jane Saunders. As Barrett had done the prosecution’s expert evaluation of Jane, it was brief. Since her arrest and conviction three years ago Jane had retreated into a thick psychosis. She refused all medications, and with Carla Phelps advocating for her right to do that, there was little treatment that could help. Barrett had asked her if she ever thought about the children she had killed.

  Jane had given her a wide-eyed stare from under her stringy mass of mousy hair. ‘They’re with Jesus. They’re angels.’

  ‘Do you see them?’ Barrett had asked.

  ‘Yes.’ And Jane had giggled.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘The children. They make me laugh,’ Jane had said, her tone conversational. ‘They’re always playing tricks and getting into all sorts of trouble.’

  ‘Are they here now?’ Barrett had asked.

  ‘They’re all around me. They float. They’re angels. They’re with—’ and she’d stared at a spot in the corner of the room and started to sing ‘Jesus loves me! This I know …’ It was a sweet clear soprano, on pitch, and it had sent chills through Barrett. Gooseflesh had prickled and she could almost sense Jane’s children circling the room.

  Barrett had kept the interview short, it was more a formality to get Jane settled and to insure there was some semblance of treatment in place. She’d ordered medications – a tranquilizer for the hallucinations and a sedative to help her sleep at night. She’d refused both. She’d also written for therapy, which in Jane’s current state would be ineffective. Truth was, Barrett reflected, as her fingers dipped into a tone poem by Erik Satie, Jane didn’t want to leave her psychosis. She’d killed her children, and to have to face that truth … too awful, better to stay crazy and believe they’re angels.

  With a start she realized that the piece she was now playing had been one of Ralph’s favorites. She pictured him and the horrible day she’d gone to the morgue to identify him. It had been explained, at first, as a random hit-and-run – struck by a cab as he left a rehearsal. Later she’d learned that the only man she’d ever truly loved had been murdered by Jimmy Martin – her patient. Ralph had betrayed her, been unfaithful and more than once. Yet, even as their marriage was falling apart he could make her tremble with his touch. As angry as she’d been, she had still loved him.

  Her cell phone rang; its musical clang cut through the music. She lifted her hands from the keyboard. It rang again. Before looking at the LED she knew who it would be. ‘Hello, Justine,’ she said.

  ‘Hey sis, where are you?’

  ‘Still at Croton.’

  ‘Can’t you go home?’

  ‘Soon. Where are you?’

  ‘At the hospital. Just finished an appendectomy on a four-year-old and waiting for them to set up the room for a bone-marrow biopsy. But say the word and I can get someone to cover and we can pop you right back over to Pat Harrison’s office. She said she’d squeeze you in anytime.’

  ‘I know … I was just thinking about Ralph. This baby should have been his … ours.’

  ‘I know,’ Justine said, ‘but it’s not, and no amount of wishing is going to change that. Barrett, we’ve got to get past this. You can’t be thinking about having this kid.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So when can you get out of there?’

  ‘Two more evaluations. I did the two women last night. I’ve got the guys today.’

  ‘You know it’s in the paper,’ Justine said.

  ‘No surprise. They’re all high profile and the fact that they’re getting transferred to a forensic hospital is a huge shot over the bow. This could open up the flood gates for every convicted felon to fake their way into a hospital.’

  ‘It’s not my business,’ Justine said, ‘but they seem pretty crazy to me. That one who killed her kids, the other one who drowned Melanie Coo – what’s her name?’

  ‘Allison Tessavian.’

  ‘She thought she was married to Justin Green, right?’

  ‘You know I can’t.’ Although she would have liked to tell Justine about the bizarre late-night evaluation with the platinum-blonde Allison, who was clownishly made-up with blue eye shadow and thick, pancake-size circles of rouge that totally covered her cheeks. Allison had rambled on about Justin Green: ‘We have a mansion bigger than anything you can imagine. I have a white Rolls-Royce Corniche and four dogs – Mandy, Candy, Randy and Butterscotch. Justin just spoils me rotten. He’s always bringing me presents and makeup and my jewelry costs more than you’ll make in your entire life.’ When Barrett had pressed for details about how she had drugged, kidnapped and then drowned Mr Green’s real-life girlfriend – Melanie Coo – she’d refused to answer, merely stating, ‘There’s always trash throwing themselves at my baby. And you know what we Southern girls do with trash … we take it out.’ But Barrett, bound by rules of confidentiality, kept it to herself.

  ‘OK,’ Justine said, ‘so you can’t talk about that. Shall we say I tell Dr Harrison we’ll be there at four tomorrow for your … procedure?’

  Barrett sighed; Justine was not going to let up.

  ‘Come on, Barrett. If we don’t get this done Mom will soon suspect. You don’t want that, do you?’

  ‘No.’ Barrett pictured her mother, and wondered what she’d say if she knew. ‘OK, tell Pat four. I’ll be there … Justine?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Weird question … if this were Mom, what would she do?’

  ‘That’s a tough one,’ Justine said. Their childhood escape from rural Georgia was a family legend. ‘And why are you asking?’

  ‘I don’t know. I just think how important we were – are – to her. She gave up everything, packed us in the car and just drove away. Do you ever think how our lives might have been if we’d stayed in Georgia?’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Justine admitted. ‘But what little I remember of our father, it wouldn’t have been good. Someone might have wound up dead – probably Mom. You remember the night he came and tried to take us back?’

  ‘I have nightmares about it,’ Barrett said, ‘where he’s banging on the door. Sophie and Max downstairs screaming up.’

  Justine chuckled and imitated Sophie’s Polish accent: ‘Go away! Leave them alone. I call police. I call police!’

  ‘Thank God she did,’ Barrett added.

  ‘That’s about the only clear memory I have of him,’ Justine said. ‘You were older – do you remember anything good about him?’

  ‘Not much, except being frightened all the time. Hiding in my bedroom, hearing him shouting … knowing that he was hitting her. She was so young. She got married at sixteen. He was thirty-one. And she did just what her own mother had done: married young to a man who beat her and … why am I thinking about all of this?’

  ‘I don’t know, Barrett. But I’m worried. Some part of you wants to keep this baby. And I don’t believe in coincidences. You had an appointment yesterday and you decided not to keep it.’

  ‘I couldn’t,’ Barrett said, but part of her knew that Justine had a point.

  ‘Uh-uh … so we’ll keep it tomorrow?’

  ‘Four o’clock.’

  ‘Barrett, this is totally the right thing. I’ll see you then. Love you.’

  ‘I love you too.’

  Barrett stared down at the keyboard as she felt a surge of panic rise. She put her hands to her face to slow her breathing.

  It almost worked.

  A siren blared. Barrett’s head shot up. She glanced at the LED readout on her cell. Two minutes after eight. Two minutes after Richard Glash was scheduled to arrive.

  She sprinted toward the front entrance, and pushed her shoulder into the heavy double door. She blinked against the hazy early morning sun and scanned the couple hundred yards to the squat brick Croton facility. Just outside its perimeter she spotted the Correction Department’s transport van directly in front of her. Her heart jumped when she saw the downed guard a
t the back of the van and the open door. ‘Shit!’ She looked toward the Croton entrance and saw a massing of security guards in their state-issue blue uniforms. But they weren’t moving. She followed the general direction of their gaze and turned to the visitors’ parking lot off to her right. There was a commotion by a black pickup truck. She saw the shock of Glash’s dark hair, and then Carla Phelps with Glash’s hand – presumably holding a gun – in the small of her back and a second revolver to the head of a longhaired woman. He was forcing them into the vehicle.

  ‘Why aren’t they doing anything?’ she muttered, but knew that the Croton guards weren’t really cops, just entrenched state employees who measured their lives by how many more years they had to go before collecting their pension. And the van had stopped just outside Croton – she could almost hear them saying, ‘Not our job.’

  Barrett quickly plotted out the shortest distance to the pickup. Glash wouldn’t know she was here, and sticking to the shrubs in front of the admin building she sprinted toward the lot. Moving fast on rubber-soled shoes, she couldn’t ignore the incredible danger of confronting Glash. She thought about one of Hobbs’s truisms: ‘A dead hero is no hero at all.’ She had no doubt that those two women might soon be murdered – someone had to do something. As she cleared the edge of the parking lot she heard the truck roar to life. It must belong to Carla, she thought, although didn’t she drive an Audi?

  Still three cars away she wasn’t prepared for the roar of the engine and the gravel spewing at her. He pulled out fast, throwing the vehicle into reverse; the tailgate was inches from her hiding spot; there was no time for thought. Barrett’s reflexes, honed from her martial arts training, took over. In the split second it took for Glash to get the vehicle into drive, Barrett grabbed hold of the cold metal tailgate and vaulted into the bed of the truck. Using her arms and legs like springs she cushioned her fall, trying to make no noise. Her upper right arm landed hard on a steel bolt, ripping the flesh.

  She stifled a scream. The truck’s tires spun up gravel and then the vehicle shot forward and picked up speed. Barrett braced herself in the corner behind the driver and listened. She could hear the siren from Croton, but it was other sirens she was praying for. Where the hell are the cops? If she could have risked it she’d have looked back at Croton, to see if they were doing anything. Once Felicia knew of the escape the place would be swarming with cops – FBI, too, now that a kidnapping was involved. Help is on the way, she tried to tell herself. She thought of Hobbs, pulled out her cell and pressed the speed dial.

  ‘Thank God,’ she whispered as he picked up.

  ‘Hello? Barrett?’

  ‘Hobbs, I’m in deep trouble.’

  ‘I can’t hear you, speak up.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said, risking a raise in her voice. ‘Listen, Richard Glash has escaped and taken two hostages. I’m in the back of his getaway vehicle, a late model black Ford four-by-four pickup truck. He’s heading north.’

  ‘What the hell are you doing in there? Get out!’

  ‘I can’t,’ she said. ‘The guards here just stood by and let it happen. No one did anything. Tell the cops to use my cell as a GPS. They’ve got to catch this guy. You have no idea the damage he’ll cause. People are going to die.’

  ‘Barrett,’ Hobbs pleaded, ‘get the hell out of there. At the first opportunity, leave your damn cell in the truck and jump.’

  ‘Shit! Why didn’t I think of that!’ she said, now noticing a large, locked black toolbox, an array of neatly-tied bungee cords and three coils of blue nylon rope. Why would Carla have all of this in her truck?

  ‘Think of it now. Does he know you’re there?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She tried to hear through the steel wall that separated the bed of the truck from the cabin. ‘I hope not.’

  ‘I’m calling this in now. I’ll be there as fast as I can.’ He paused. ‘I love you, please take care of yourself.’

  Barrett strained to hear. ‘What did you say?’

  ‘No more risks.’

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘And Barrett …’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Stop playing Rambo.’

  Her teeth chattered. ‘I’m so frightened, Hobbs.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  The line clicked dead. Careful to not set off the ringer, she switched the audio to vibrate, curled into a ball and prayed that help would come fast.

  Six

  A heady feeling coursed through Richard Glash, his body tingled and he wondered if it was what they called happiness. He felt light-headed and the two women next to him, the longhaired one who kept sobbing – pretty Lucinda – and the redheaded lawyer, reeked of fear and blood.

  ‘Richard,’ Carla half-screeched, ‘you need to let us go. They’ll come after us. You need to stop the truck and let us out.’

  ‘Shut up,’ he said, determined not to split his attention. ‘I have two hostages. I only need one,’ he lied, knowing that two hostages were perfect, an ‘A’ and a ‘B’.

  Lucinda was shaking, ‘Oh God, oh God.’

  Glash slammed his elbow into the side of her head. ‘Shut up.’ His bare flesh registered the feel of her silky hair, just like … his head whipped around.

  Lucinda recoiled. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whimpered.

  ‘Blonde.’ He turned back to the road and scanned everything, the smells of the women, the newly cleaned upholstery of the truck. Blue skies up ahead, the lurch of the road beneath the speeding vehicle. His brain ticked off the seconds and the miles that separated him from Croton. He wondered briefly about the other three prisoners who were to have been transferred, and ran through the names, addresses and phone numbers of everyone connected to their cases. They were all famous – Jane Saunders, Dr Clarence Albert and Allison Tessavian – high-profile killers who’d been on television shows. Entire books had been written on Jane, the most recent the bestseller by her husband that Richard had discussed with Dr Conyors.

  Glash knew that the only reason books had not been devoted to him was that his career had been cut short, almost before it had begun. That would not happen again.

  A cell phone rang; it played the tune Take Me Out to the Ball Game. It was Lucinda’s.

  ‘Give it!’ Glash ordered.

  The tearful young woman fished it from her pocketbook.

  Glash ripped it from her hand, his finger snagging briefly on her diamond. ‘That’s an engagement ring,’ he said, as he hurled the cell out of his window. He looked at Carla. ‘Give me your phone.’

  ‘I don’t have one,’ the attorney said.

  ‘Give it, or I shoot her in the head.’ He put guard A’s sidearm to Lucinda’s temple; he cocked the trigger. And then, still holding the gun, he began to stroke her hair with the back of his hand. ‘It’s pretty,’ he said. ‘Soft.’

  ‘Don’t! Leave her alone,’ Carla shouted. ‘Here.’ She gave over her cell.

  That too went out the window. ‘They trace those,’ Glash said. ‘I can’t be caught … yet.’ He pictured the quickest route to the first address on his list. He calculated the travel time – twenty-two minutes. He had to focus, but other locations and other possibilities flashed to mind. He pictured his last visit from Mary. She wore a long blonde wig, not far from the color of the woman next to him’s hair. It was pretty and soft. He’d once asked Mary to take off the wig to let him see. She’d done that for him. He knew she didn’t want to, and yet she had. That had been four years, two months and three days ago, and he’d thought about it daily. It gave him a squishy feeling in his stomach, and made his cock get hard. He wanted to touch the scars, to …

  Another cell rang. His eyes darted to the glove compartment, but that wasn’t where it had come from. His ears strained for the source; not from inside the cab, but from outside, from the back. He stared into the rear-view mirror. He could see nothing, just the top of the locked tool chest.

  He searched the road up ahead – no cars in sight. He was not being followed and took a s
harp left that jolted the truck off the road and on to a dirt path that led into a dense wood.

  Barrett froze. She couldn’t believe her cell had rung; she’d turned off the ringer. She prayed it had not been heard as she pried open the plastic cover on the back and ripped out the battery. She knew her prayer had gone unanswered as the truck bounced off the road and headed into the woods. Braced in the corner, her immediate thought was to get out fast. Hurt all over, the gash in her upper right arm had soaked through her shirt.

  Hobbs was right. She was insane for doing this. If she survived she’d go into therapy and do whatever it took to stop taking these crazy risks. But that would be another day. Right now she had to get away. As the truck bounced over the dirt road she sidled on her belly toward the tailgate. She reached up, knowing that she’d be visible through the rear-view mirror, and unlatched the gate. She tried to push it down with her hand; it wouldn’t budge. Quickly, she turned over and kicked at it with both feet. It popped down, and trying not to think about the danger, she tucked and rolled out, landing hard on the rocky ground. The breath was knocked out of her, and searing pains shot to her brain from her right shoulder, her right hip and something bad with her knee. A wave of nausea rose from her belly. At least you didn’t hit your head. She listened for the truck and when she couldn’t hear it a sickening realization dawned. She glanced up and saw it had stopped not thirty feet away.

  Glash was moving fast, but not toward her. He’d dragged Lucinda Peters out of the cab by her hair and was ordering Carla to follow them. Lucinda started to scream and Glash cuffed her violently.

  Barrett struggled to her feet, trying to get her bearings and to push past the pain. She turned to run.

  ‘Don’t, Dr Conyors. I’ll shoot her in the head right now.’

  His flat voice cut through her; the slim chance that she’d been undetected was gone. She also knew he wasn’t making hollow threats. She stopped, and turned on her throbbing knee, every ounce of her being telling her to run.

  ‘Throw me your cell phone, Dr Conyors.’