Ashes, Ashes

by Charles Atkins

  Her sobs grew louder and convulsive, like she was hyperventilating. They heard the phone drop to the floor and then Mary Fleming screamed.

  Twenty-Five

  Houssman felt his breath warm and damp against the gauzy fabric of the white mask that covered his lower face. The right lens of his glasses had shattered and the side of his head pounded where he’d been struck. He shivered, naked under the blue plastic tarp; he wrapped it tight around his shoulders. He didn’t know how long he’d been unconscious; it must have been hours based on the changes that were already visible in Cosway. His physical pain and discomfort were nothing compared to the tortured thoughts of how close they were to his family.

  He watched as Richard Glash adjusted a digital camcorder on a tripod. He saw it trained on a six-by-eight-by-four-foot steel dog kennel. Inside, illuminated by bright fluorescents, Martin Cosway, bruised, dirty and naked, lay curled on a bare mattress. The agent hugged his knees, and despite the beads of sweat that dotted his body, he shivered. ‘What have you done to me?’ he shouted, as tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. He then tried to stand and pressed his back against the metal bars in an attempt to break out. Houssman could see the man was ill, the exhaustion, the beads of sweat despite the dry cool of their cellar prison. Something bad was happening here.

  Glash peered at the camera’s screen and pressed the button to zoom in. ‘You’re not a smart man,’ he commented. ‘I told you that seven and a half hours ago you were inoculated with a resistant strain of Yersinia pesti, also known as the bubonic plague or the black death. It killed one third of all people in Europe during the middle ages.’

  ‘Let me out of here, you sick fuck!’

  ‘No,’ Glash replied, and he glanced back at Houssman – chained to a cot, and wearing only the blue plastic tarp – to insure that everything said was being recorded. ‘You understand what I’m doing,’ he commented to Houssman.

  ‘Yes,’ Houssman said, his naked arms exposed and with pen in hand he dutifully wrote down all that was being said and done on a legal-sized yellow pad.

  ‘Then tell me,’ Glash demanded, as though administering a pop quiz, ‘what am I doing now?’

  ‘You’re testing the bacteria,’ Houssman said. The words rang horribly in his mind. ‘He’s your guinea pig.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  Houssman, who’d spent his career studying criminals and the workings of their minds, found Glash’s actions sickeningly interesting. He wanted what many wanted – fame, recognition … even a family, it seemed. It made a kind of sense, but it had all been twisted inside a brain that couldn’t really feel human emotion.

  ‘It has to be perfect,’ Glash said, as the camcorder’s light flicked red to show that it was recording. ‘Sometimes things don’t go as planned. That’s why you have to have a backup plan. There’s an “A” and there’s a “B”; you have to be able to switch when the probability of success with either one goes up or down. Sometimes you can do both the “A” and the “B”; sometimes you have to switch.’

  ‘Like taking two hostages.’ In spite of his paralyzing fear, George couldn’t help but fall into the practice that had been such a part of his life for the past fifty years. He desperately wanted to know why Glash was doing these things. But then he pictured Stephanie – his oldest – a leading Manhattan interior designer just blocks away in SoHo with her husband, Mark, their two teenage daughters and Faye, just ten years old … he would never say it out loud, but she was his favorite; the child that Stephanie and Mark hadn’t planned, the one with Delia’s eyes and that quirky turn of expression as though she’d been born in the body of a child with the mind of an adult. If only Ed had gone ahead and shot Glash when he’d had the chance, even if it had meant his getting injured … or even killed. He had no death wish, but he would gladly give his own life to end this nightmare. He glanced at Cosway, who’d now sunk back, exhausted, on the mattress. He was sobbing, the vertebrae of his spine seemed oddly sharp, as if they might poke through his pale white skin.

  ‘Yes, two hostages provides both an “A” and a “B”,’ Glash said.

  ‘How did you know to get the bacteria?’

  ‘That is a good question,’ Glash replied, hooking the camcorder to a flat-screen monitor. ‘Dr Albert is a brilliant man. I admire him greatly. Do you think he’s a genius?’

  ‘Yes,’ Houssman replied.

  ‘Am I a genius?’

  Houssman paused, knowing he had to find the right tone, to stroke Glash’s ego without being obvious. ‘You know that your IQ is well in the genius range.’

  ‘But not in all areas,’ Glash replied.

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘I’ve read my chart from when I was at Albomar. I’ve read everything, even Dr Conyors’ recent evaluations. She’s a genius, too.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Do you think her IQ is higher than yours?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ George replied, thinking of Barrett – like a third daughter, it caused his breath to catch. He wondered at this line of interest … Glad to be here in her place. At least she was OK … at least for now. He thought of Hobbs, too, so obviously in love with her … would any of that matter?

  ‘Is it higher than mine?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ George said, deliberately keeping his answers and questions as clear as possible. ‘Why are you asking?’

  ‘It’s just that the probability of her stopping me goes up if she’s smarter than I am. She doesn’t seem so smart in some ways, although she did help me pick out clothing. I’m not smart that way.’ He turned on the monitor.

  Houssman watched as the screen lit up.

  ‘She’s pregnant,’ Glash said.

  ‘Yes,’ Houssman answered. ‘She told you?’

  ‘I asked her; she throws up in the mornings. I asked her why a pregnant woman would risk her life; that doesn’t seem intelligent.’

  Houssman found it difficult to breathe. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘She wouldn’t answer. I asked her if it was Jimmy Martin’s baby. I wanted to meet him. He’s at the hospital where they were taking me – it was my plan B, in case I didn’t escape. Dr Conyors said the baby is her dead husband’s. A trombonist, he played with the Philharmonic. He was killed by Jimmy Martin. Do you think she’s telling the truth?’ He looked directly at Houssman.

  George paused. ‘Yes, that’s true.’ He wondered at Barrett’s lie. Then again, what business of Glash’s was it to know that she was carrying the fetus of a criminally insane killer?

  ‘Jimmy Martin and his sister wanted a baby,’ Glash started to speak, his tone bland, like a third-grader giving a book report to the class. ‘It was in all of the papers. They kidnapped Dr Conyors and her sister, Justine Conyors. See, an “A” and a “B”. Dr Conyors’ husband was killed and she killed Ellen Martin. Now she’s pregnant and her husband is dead. I believe that there’s a probability that the baby is Jimmy Martin’s. But she said “no”. There’s a high probability that she lied. Her sister is a surgeon. Her name is Justine Conyors,’ he continued to lecture on the topic of Barrett and her family. ‘She is a fellow at University Hospital. That is the same hospital where I was taken, after I had first tried to scalp Mary Sullivan, who got married and changed her name to Fleming; she didn’t change it back after she got divorced.’

  ‘Yes,’ Houssman whispered, sick to his stomach at all of the details Glash knew about Barrett and her family. This wasn’t a coincidence; he had done a great deal of study, and Houssman knew it was with reason.

  ‘Do you remember that day?’ Glash asked.

  ‘Of course I do.’

  ‘You were supposed to be my father and to protect me and to love me.’

  Houssman said nothing, as a wave of gooseflesh spread across his naked arms.

  ‘They locked me up. You visited me for a total of three times after that. You never answered my letters. You lied to me. Dr Conyors lies. My mother lied to my father. She was having sex with Mr Barker. He killed her wi
th a seven-pound hammer. That was the right thing to do. Do you agree?’

  ‘No,’ Houssman said, ‘killing was too much. He could have divorced her.’

  ‘No. You’re wrong,’ Richard spat back. ‘Even the Bible says so. A woman must be faithful to her husband. If I survive, my wife will be faithful to me. She will love me. We might have children. If Dr Conyors is having Jimmy Martin’s baby, then she was unfaithful to her husband. It’s backwards that she’s alive and he’s dead. He should have killed her.’

  ‘I wanted to know, and it’s important for your story,’ Houssman said, trying to shift Glash’s attention away from Barrett, ‘that you tell your reader how you came upon the bacteria. You were going to tell me about your relationship with Dr Albert.’

  Glash looked back at George. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘this is important.’ And apparently satisfied that the camera was correctly positioned, Glash picked up a sketchpad and a charcoal and sat down beside Cosway’s cage. As he rapidly sketched, flipping pages at three- to five-minute intervals, he kept up a steady narrative with Houssman, who occasionally asked for clarification.

  ‘So,’ Houssman said, about to take a calculated risk of tripping Glash’s fury. ‘What you’ve just told me changes your story a great deal.’ He held his breath, knowing to tread lightly.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Glash replied, not looking up from his latest drawing.

  ‘You just told me that Dr Albert was waiting for you, or someone like you, to activate his bacteria.’

  ‘That is correct.’

  ‘He led you to the security codes for Bioforward. He gave you the instructions for rapidly culturing the bacteria.’

  ‘Yes. This is all correct.’

  ‘So it’s his plan, not yours,’ Houssman stated, applying pressure on Glash’s fragile ego.

  Glash looked up. ‘No. It is mine.’

  ‘Are you certain? Or will history view you as a pawn of the brilliant Dr Albert?’ Houssman trod carefully; he wanted to see what would happen if Glash were pressed. ‘It’s his bacteria. It’s his name that will be attached to it, and to whatever happens.’

  ‘No,’ Glash said, looking at Houssman, ‘you’re trying to upset me, aren’t you?’

  George didn’t let up. ‘I’m stating facts,’ he replied coldly, attempting to match Richard’s tone. ‘You are the instrument of Clarence Albert’s plans. You’ve just said so. He left the bacteria for someone else to find. He knew that it was so deadly, that the safest place to ride out the death and the destruction would be in prison. His plan is brilliant. There is a high probability that you will not survive. There is a high probability that he will.’

  ‘I’m not stupid,’ Glash spat back. ‘There is a ninety percent chance that I will die.’

  Houssman startled at the sound of a door opening overhead. A shaft of light spilled into the gloomy cellar and footsteps descended.

  Peter Glash entered with a wooden breakfast tray that held a plate with neatly arranged sandwiches and a large pitcher of iced tea with four glasses.

  The elder Glash looked at his son. ‘What’s the matter, Richard?’

  ‘He’s trying to upset me. He’s saying that Dr Albert will get the credit for the plague.’

  Peter Glash put down the tray and poured tea, the ice clinked as he methodically filled each tumbler to within an inch of the top. ‘He will get some credit,’ he finally commented. ‘But whatever happens in the next two days will be your doing.’

  ‘You helped me,’ Richard said, looking at his father.

  ‘Yes, son.’

  Houssman watched the two of them from his perch on the cot. He stiffened as Peter Glash sat next to him and carefully removed his mask. He handed him a sandwich and glass of iced tea. ‘Eat this.’

  Houssman worried if the meal might be drugged, but observed Richard devouring one crustless sandwich square after the next. And in spite of the situation, the food – chicken salad sandwiches with crisp lettuce and tomato – tasted good and the cool beverage with the tartness of lemon and not too much sugar carried the off-kilter whiff of Alice’s tea party with the March Hare and the Mad Hatter.

  ‘Have you had enough?’ Peter Glash asked Houssman.

  ‘Yes, thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  George tensed as Peter Glash rearranged his mask. The proximity caused him to shrink back. The man’s eyes were dull and expressionless. He caught George looking at him. ‘I’m going to win,’ he said, ‘you’re going to lose everything. You’re going to know what you did to me and to my son. An eye for an eye.’

  He then got up and walked by Cosway, who coughed a single time, and like a spark landing on gasoline, the agent doubled over in an uncontrollable paroxysm of coughing.

  Richard put down his sandwich and looked across at his father. ‘It’s been just eight hours,’ he said. ‘It’s four hours faster than we thought.’

  ‘Are you certain, Richard?’ Peter asked. ‘There might be another way.’

  ‘I know,’ Richard replied, ‘but the probability for success goes down.’ He walked across to Cosway’s cage and unlocked it.

  ‘Are you certain, Richard?’ Peter repeated. ‘I would try to help you find another way.’

  ‘I’m certain,’ and Richard looked back at his father. ‘Thank you.’ The two men looked at each other across the brightly-lit basement. ‘Thank you for everything.’

  Peter Glash nodded. ‘You’re welcome, son.’

  Richard said, ‘It’s time, then. The clock starts.’ He opened Cosway’s cage. The naked and shivering bureaucrat looked up, as Glash roughly forced him back against the hard metal bars.

  Horrified, Houssman watched the enlarged image on the monitor in front of him. With the taste of chicken salad and iced tea still in his mouth, he saw Richard press his mouth hard over Martin Cosway’s. The agent’s eyes bugged wide as Glash forced his tongue into his mouth.

  Houssman couldn’t breathe or tear his eyes away; he scrambled blindly for his pen and yellow pad. In a shaky hand he scribbled Kiss of death, and next he recorded the time, which ticked off in red block letters at the bottom of the screen: it was 8:04 P.M. on Thursday.

  Twenty-Six

  Barrett’s anxiety flared as Hobbs floored the accelerator and they raced from the mansions of Katonah toward Manhattan; it was dusk. She glanced at the clock on the dash – it felt like days had passed, but it had been only four hours since they’d fled the reservoir.

  Carla was in the back. She had her head in her hands. ‘Oh, my God, what if we’re wrong? What if she misunderstood? What if she got it wrong?’

  ‘We’re not wrong,’ Hobbs said. ‘It’s the only possibility, the only thing that makes sense. I should have locked the bastard up when I had the chance.’

  Barrett thought back through the last forty minutes spent with a shell-shocked Mary Fleming. Throughout it, her eyes hand wandered to the short blonde wig the woman, who had twice been attacked by Richard Glash, wore.

  Mary had caught her at it, and with a single motion removed it, to reveal two vivid scars that scanned the dome of her scalp, one a faded soft pink and the other more jagged.

  To Barrett, what had followed revealed a side of Glash she’d barely glimpsed.

  ‘He told me that he loved me,’ Mary said, leading them to a sprawling back deck where a day earlier Richard Glash had stood.

  Barrett took in the pricey views that stretched down to the Hudson River a few hundred feet below, and the neatly arranged wicker furniture and umbrellas. Mary Fleming had money and taste.

  ‘Strange way to show it,’ Hobbs remarked.

  ‘I always knew that if he ever got free, he would come for me. I knew that he’d kill me, so that’s why I did it. It was the only way.’ Mary sat on a white wicker chair and let her eyes drift to the river that meandered below her hillside house.

  ‘Did what?’ Barrett asked, trying to capture her attention as Mary gazed off. ‘What did you do, Mary?’

  Still stari
ng into the distance with her wig in her lap, she replied, ‘Isn’t that how you found me?’

  ‘Yes,’ Hobbs said, ‘your name came up on the prison visitors’ log. It came up as both Sullivan and Fleming.’

  ‘I was married,’ she explained. ‘I suppose it’s a good thing we’re divorced. I don’t know what Richard would have done if John had been here. Kill him, I imagine. I thought he’d come to kill me.’

  ‘What happened?’ Barrett urged.

  ‘I still can’t believe that I’m alive,’ she said. ‘I’d been watching the news. I knew Richard was out. I didn’t think he had my address, but he’s a genius. I knew he’d find me. I didn’t know what to do. In the end I did nothing. I sat here … waiting, and then he came. Just like you’re here now, he showed up.’ She’d pointed with a trembling finger at an arrangement of daisies and black-eyed Susans in a chunky crystal vase. ‘He brought me those flowers and candy.’ She hiccoughed. ‘He told me that he loved me.’

  ‘And then?’ Barrett urged, noting how Mary seemed to be disconnected, in shock.

  ‘I asked him if he was going to kill me. In a way, I’d been waiting for him all of my life. That’s why I did it.’ She glanced up at Hobbs. ‘I didn’t finish telling you …’ She shook her head, seemingly frozen. ‘What was I saying?’

  ‘You were telling us about his visit,’ Barrett prompted softly.

  ‘I was ready to die,’ Mary said, ‘almost a relief, knowing that he’d one day come for me. He said, “I don’t have to kill you anymore.” He said he’d taken care of it. He told me that he loved me and that he wanted to marry me. He said that he was going to do something that would make him very famous, that he’d make a good husband, that he’d be faithful and that we could have children. He got down on one knee – right there between the begonias – and asked me if I would marry him.’ She looked down at the human-hair wig she was gripping and twisting.

  And then Barrett caught the glimmer of the diamond.