by Steven Dunne
Stepping out of his car in Hartington sometime after seven, Brook realised with a sinking feeling that his new neighbour was clearly the outdoors type. Framed against the dark sky, he could see the glow of a fire in Rose Cottage’s small back garden and knew that he would have to stay indoors unless he wanted to endure an evening of tedious chitchat. With winter fast approaching, Brook had wanted to maximise use of his garden while he still could, and this impediment was a nuisance.
When he reached his door, however, he found the situation far worse than that. A note stuck out of his letterbox.
Damen
Having a house-warming BBQ tonight. Come and have something to eat and drink.
Mike
Brook hovered over the note for a minute before screwing it into a ball and binning it. At least when the tenants had kids they didn’t have time to bother him. He went into the house and neglected to turn on any lights, without quite realising why. Eventually he flicked on a small lamp next to his computer and immediately began to feel self-conscious. He kicked off his leather shoes and squeezed his feet into a pair of deck shoes before padding back into the kitchen and opening the refrigerator. It was empty except for a carton of milk, a baked potato skin, an opened can of beans and a bottle of champagne left over from his last night with Wendy Jones the year before.
After a moment’s contemplation he closed the fridge door, but not before plucking the champagne from its cradle. He strolled next door, remembering to take a full pack of cigarettes with him. Despite his infrequent attendance at social functions in the last fifteen years, Brook remembered sufficient misery when plentiful alcohol and tobacco was not at hand.
As he knocked on the front door, Drexler came to greet him from the side path.
‘Damen! Good to see you. How are you doing?’
‘I’m fine. How are you?’
‘I’m good,’ nodded Drexler, unaware of the tic of annoyance his grammar caused Brook. ‘Champagne. Thank you. That’s thoughtful,’ he added.
Brook managed a smile as he followed Drexler round to the back. ‘The least I could do. Settling in okay?’
‘Pretty good.’ Brook looked around the garden of his new neighbour, half an eyebrow raised. ‘Yeah, it’s just us, Damen. Tom’s been and gone.’
‘Great,’ Brook muttered under his breath.
‘And Basil, of course.’ Brook spied the black cat gnawing away at some blackened meat on the tiny lawn. He looked up briefly to be sure Brook wasn’t about to steal his food, then returned to his meal. ‘Please sit. Wine or beer, or would you like champagne?’ smiled Drexler.
Brook was aware now that his host was slurring slightly. ‘Not champagne, beer or red wine if you’ve got it,’ he said cracking open his fresh pack of smokes.
‘As you’re still in the job, how about both?’ asked Drexler, with a grin. Brook shrugged his assent and Drexler disappeared into the tiny kitchen of Rose Cottage, re-emerging moments later with a cold bottled lager and a large glass of red wine. He trotted back into the kitchen and returned with a plate of raw burgers. He slapped two of them onto the grill of the barbecue then put his feet up on a spare chair and tapped his bottle against Brook’s. ‘Cheers.’
‘Cheers.’ Brook braced himself for a conversation and went over his mental checklist, but Drexler satisfied himself with staring into the hot coals, punctuated with the occasional bout of burger flipping and organising the salad. When the burgers were nearly done, Drexler dropped a square of processed cheese onto one of them, and when that wilted he began to assemble Brook’s massive double cheeseburger.
When his plate was plonked down, Brook tucked in with more gusto than he thought possible. Since leaving the city, Brook’s meagre diet had consisted of baked potatoes, beans on toast and the occasional takeaway. The unexpected pleasure of flame-grilled meat left him purring.
When it was finished, Brook licked the ketchup, mayonnaise and grease from his fingers, wiped his hands with a serviette and sat back with a sigh.
‘Mike. That was the best burger I’ve ever had. Thanks.’
‘My pleasure. Another?’
‘That was plenty for me.’
Drexler nodded and took a pull on his beer, then turned back to stare at the dying coals. When the coals began to lose their heat, Drexler pulled out a small pot-bellied garden stove and lit the newspaper protruding from beneath a pile of dry sticks. It sparked into life instantly and they both got to work examining the spitting flames and taking the occasional chug on their drinks.
‘So you’re a writer,’ ventured Brook.
Drexler bent his head towards Brook and smiled without parting his lips, then scrunched up his nose in an expression of scepticism. ‘Not really.’
‘I thought Tom said you were.’
‘I’m getting there. It’s a second career of sorts. It pays the rent.’
‘What was your first career?’
‘Same as you, Damen — law enforcement.’
Brook looked up sharply. He waited for a moment but Drexler didn’t expand, either on his own career or how he knew Brook was a policeman. He was on the verge of asking him when he realised that Tom must have told him on the drive from the airport. Of course. Ask about the new neighbours. It was the most normal thing in the world to do, assuming you weren’t as dislocated from the norm as Brook.
‘Whereabouts?’
‘California. Sacramento. It’s the state capital, just north of San Francisco.’
‘I’ve heard of it. But you flew in from Boston.’
‘That’s right. I moved to the East Coast in?01 after my book became a hit.’
Brook nodded. ‘What was it about, your book?’
Drexler looked away. Brook had nearly given up on an answer when Drexler said, ‘A case I worked for the FBI.’
‘You were in the FBI?’
‘That I was, Damen. A long time.’ Drexler stared into the flames intently, before adding under his breath, ‘Or maybe it just felt like a long time.’
Brook took another pull on his beer and wondered whether to further pick at what looked like an open wound. ‘I’ve got to take my hat off to you, Mike. I mean, you deal with things in the States that we just don’t see over here.’
‘Plus the bad guys have guns.’
Brook smiled, now more forgiving about the quirks of sharing a language with another country. ‘Plus the bad guys have guns,’ he echoed. Interested now, Brook racked his brains for a way to probe further but then decided against it. He had a sudden flash of sitting with Sorenson in his study all those years ago, plied with drink, a fire nibbling at his toes, being similarly dissected.
‘What’s the book called?’ he finally asked.
‘The Ghost Road Killers.’
‘And should I not ask you what it’s about?’
Drexler turned to Brook with a bitter smile. Suddenly he chuckled. ‘In case I’m scarred by it, you mean. In case I wake up every night screaming, sheets damp, brain on fire.’ He chuckled again. ‘No. You can ask me. I dare say you get people tiptoeing round you when it’s not necessary. You being The Reaper Man and all.’ Brook raised an eyebrow as Drexler laughed. ‘Sorry. You mustn’t blame old Tom. You know how it goes. It’s our job to pull this stuff out of people, and we do it even when they don’t want us to. Tom was a pushover once he’d let it slip. Besides, you’re even famous in the States — in police circles, at least.’
Brook shrugged. ‘That’s good to know,’ he added stonily.
‘I’m sorry, Damen. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. It’s been a while since I had to live and breathe the life, night and day. It always stays with you, but I guess you forget how personal it gets. And I gather some hack writer’s done a hatchet job on one of your investigations. Must be tough.’
‘I’ll live.’
‘Glad to hear it. Don’t let the bastards grind you down,’ Drexler added, offering his bottle to Brook for a sympathetic clink.
‘The problem is, the last Reaper killing was only two years
ago so it sits a little heavier.’
‘I hear you, man. And I know it kinda grates when you ain’t caught the guy.’
Brook gave Drexler a piercing glance but drained his beer to cover it. Drexler immediately picked up the empty and grabbed a couple of replacements from the fridge.
Brook wondered about the wisdom of drinking too much, especially in front of a stranger, and what’s more, a writer. It struck him suddenly that maybe their meeting was not an accident. Maybe the subject of Drexler’s next book was to be The Reaper. After all, Brian Burton seemed to be making a good living out of it, laying open Brook’s faults for the entire world to see. Maybe Drexler was jumping onto the bandwagon. Maybe moving into the same village as ‘The Reaper Detective’ was a shrewd career move.
‘So what are you writing this time?’ Brook asked, trying to seem no more than politely interested.
‘Actually, Damen, it’s a kind of sequel.’
Brook was puzzled. ‘A sequel? I thought you said your book was about a real case.’
‘It is.’ Drexler smiled enigmatically at Brook.
‘But you’ve fictionalised it?’
‘No.’ Drexler continued to smile at his guest, his eyes suddenly boring into him. ‘See, we didn’t catch the guy either.’
‘Oh? And is that what the sequel’s about?’
‘Not really. It’s complicated.’
‘So maybe I should just buy the book. Save you having to relive it,’ said Brook apologetically. ‘There’s always one case that won’t go away, isn’t there?’
‘Like The Reaper?’
Brook laughed. ‘Well, that’s one that won’t go away but The Reaper’s crimes aren’t what haunt me.’ Brook looked into the fire, remembering the decomposing corpse of Laura Maples, the rats who consumed her and the face of Sorenson, her avenging angel. After a pause, Brook said, ‘You know what’s funny, Mike?’
‘Yeah. Nothing’s funny.’
Brook nodded his surprise. ‘That’s right. Nothing.’
They both chuckled and Brook was surprised to feel an unexpected surge of kinship with his new neighbour. For the next half hour they sat in silence, drinking their drinks, smoking their cigarettes and looking at the stars.
Chapter Eight
‘We got three more female bodies from the clearing,’ said Dupree, putting the phone down and finishing a note on his pad. ‘That makes nineteen.’ Dupree hesitated over the next piece of information. ‘Two adult females, one naked … and one little girl. They’re exhuming as we speak.’
He cleared his throat and looked up at Drexler and McQuarry sitting across the office. ‘Where were we? Right, Caleb Ashwell and his wife Mandy-Sue bought the gas station in 1974, twenty-one years ago. The year after that the Campbell family go missing somewhere in the state while on vacation. Their vehicle was the oldest in the clearing. It’s not a stretch to assume they stopped for gas and that Caleb, maybe with his wife’s help, maybe not, overwhelmed the family and drove their vehicle into the clearing. The bodies are buried nearby, though there’s no way of telling how long after they were attacked. Our best stab at motive so far is robbery, but I don’t need to spell out other possible motives…’
‘Wait a minute. There were five members of the Campbell family, including two teenage boys,’ said Drexler. ‘Are you telling me they roll up for gas and one man, and maybe one woman, somehow overpowered these people right there on the highway?’
‘If they were armed and had the element of surprise…’
‘Even so, Andy, it’s far from a slamdunk. Another car could happen along, the family might fight back. A lot can go wrong. Yet Ashwell’s been doing this for over twenty years, without any comeback. Seems awful risky.’
Dupree stroked his chin. ‘See what you mean.’
‘You’re forgetting the state of some of the vehicles,’ said McQuarry. ‘They wouldn’t need guns if their victims had just been in a car crash.’
‘So you think Caleb and his wife just wandered up and down 89 in a tow truck looking for car wrecks?’ asked Drexler.
‘Wait, what if Caleb caused the crashes? We’re pretty sure Billy Ashwell was drugged.’ Dupree put on a pair of half-moon glasses and picked up some papers. ‘He drank coffee before he died. If they served coffee to customers with the same kind of drugs Billy had? A few miles down the road the victims would either pull over or crash.’
‘It’s a theory. But surely there could be other cars around that maybe get to the crash site first.’
‘So they drive on by,’ said Dupree. ‘Or maybe they stop and help like regular citizens. But there are plenty of crashes on 89. It’s a tricky drive, ’specially at night. But if nobody’s around they hook up the car and tow it back to the station. If the adults are drugged the kids will be easy…’
‘And maybe they only pick out targets at night and only ones paying cash so there’s no paper trail,’ added Drexler.
McQuarry nodded. ‘Sounds reasonable so far. Only one fly in the ointment for me. Why would a woman conspire to let her husband commit rape?’
‘It’s not unknown, Ed. Maybe she was glad it was them and not her.’
‘Or maybe Caleb’s wife didn’t know about the rapes. Far as I can remember, she would only have been around for the first one. Maybe the Campbells were just killed and robbed. We have a gap of several years to the next one — the Hernandez family from Arizona,’ continued Dupree. ‘Mrs Ashwell left Caleb before that. She gave birth to a son, then upped and left six months later, leaving Billy behind with Caleb. Maybe she got cold feet after the Campbell killings and couldn’t live with it. She leaves and a few months later Caleb picks up where he left off. 1978, the year the Hernandez family go missing. Only this time he wants more than just their car and their money.’
‘Where’d Mrs Ashwell go?’
‘Nobody knows, Ed. She ain’t been heard from since.’
‘Then how do we know she left at all?’
Dupree and Drexler looked up at her. ‘You think maybe Caleb killed her too.’
‘What mother would leave her baby with a monster like that? These three new bodies. How many you say were naked?’
Dupree looked at his notepad. ‘One. An adult female.’
‘So one adult female wasn’t?’
‘That’s right. Material indicates she was wearing a dress.’
‘So how many clothed adult female bodies do we have in total?’
‘Just that one.’
McQuarry raised an eyebrow. ‘And why wasn’t she naked?’
Drexler snapped his fingers. ‘Because Caleb didn’t rape her. She was his wife.’
Dupree checked his notes. ‘She was found in a grave on her own. Son of a bitch. You might be right.’
‘Guess we’ll find out soon enough.’ McQuarry pulled out a cigarette in anticipation of a break.
‘Poor Billy,’ added Drexler. ‘Without a mother, he didn’t stand a chance.’
‘You think Caleb trained him up to be just like him?’ asked McQuarry.
‘Monsters like that…’ Drexler shook his head. His eye met his partner’s, but he couldn’t maintain contact. He shrugged. ‘That’s what they do.’
‘Well, forgetting ancient history for a while,’ said Dupree. ‘What do we suppose happened to Caleb and Billy last week? This weren’t no family fighting back. These folks were executed.’
‘It’s all about the rose petals, Andy,’ said McQuarry. ‘George Bailey’s family are the key. They get killed but this time somebody either knew about it or worked it out.’
‘How?’
‘You got me. But whoever this is wanted us to know. The way he looked up at the camera after hanging Billy. This guy knew about the camera. This guy had been to the gas station before.’
‘So?’
‘Think about it, Mike. Without that single piece of film, we log this as a murder-suicide and just concentrate on the Ghost Road killings. We tag the Ashwells as serial killers who do their stuff until one night Billy can�
�t stand it any more and goes over the edge. He kills his dad, writes about what’s in the clearing in blood as a sort of confession, then hangs himself out of remorse. But this guy wants us to know. He makes damn sure we know. First the camera, then the petals.’
Brook woke in the early hours. He padded downstairs to make tea. He was on late turn today but instead of scouring the internet for old Reaper cases, he decided to read his newly acquired signed copy of Drexler’s book.
The Ghost Road Killers is a faithful account of the activities of Caleb Ashwell and his son Billy who faced justice of sorts in 1995. Their murders ended a reign of terror in Northern California and shone a light on the disappearance of several families whose misfortune it was to cross their path. It may never be known just how many men, women and children the Ashwells terrorised and murdered on the California 89 highway because some of the victims have never been found, and because the mysterious murder of the Texas-born father and son robbed the investigation of its two key witnesses.
Brook took a sip of tea. Odd. The Ghost Road Killers were identified in the book’s first paragraph yet Drexler had claimed they hadn’t solved the case. Perhaps he just meant the full facts were never uncovered.
He read for a couple more hours until the sun was up then walked round to the corner shop. He walked back to the cottage through the faint morning light, sucking in the soft chilly air and shaking the slight fug from his head. He’d drank more than he’d intended the night before but had to admit he’d enjoyed himself more than he’d expected.
After some tea, Brook returned to the book. It was well written and easy to read, but the subject matter was hard going. Women and children were abused, tortured and in most cases raped. Caleb Ashwell was a monster and his son Billy was being moulded from the same clay. The trigger for the killing spree seemed to be the infidelity of Mrs Ashwell, soon after the birth of her son. Claiming she’d walked out on him, Caleb raised Billy by himself while the body of his wife lay undisturbed in the farthest corner of a clearing near the family cabin. This had also been the hiding place for all the cars belonging to, or hired by, the families hijacked by the Ashwells while travelling on Highway 89.
