by Meany, John
“Baseball?”
“Uh huh. The guy made a wiseass crack about Mike Piazza hitting a homerun, then boom, out of nowhere; he clobbers me over the head with a tree branch. I must have blacked out for a couple of minutes.” He also recounted how the same guy had strangled Ashley.
“No way.” Adam was stunned. “That’s insane.”
“I know. I’m still in shock.”
“Jeez! I could imagine.”
With its siren blaring, the ambulance drove past. The sight of it produced a morbid, empty feeling. Not only for Troy and Adam, also for the group of employees watching from the loading deck.
“So the girl’s dead?”
Troy shrugged. “Well, that’s what I thought originally. Then I saw the paramedics giving her oxygen, so based on that, I’m assuming that maybe she’s still alive. At least I’m hoping.”
“I should have stayed with you.”
“No. Don’t start blaming yourself, Adam. It’s not your fault. You didn’t know those psychos were still out there lurking. Neither did I.”
“So that wasn’t you blinking the flashlight?”
Troy nodded. “No. That must have been them. Must have happened while I was in La La land.”
“Hey,” Adam put his hand on Troy’s shoulder. “You’d better get your head checked. You‘re bleeding.”
Troy felt his scalp and then examined his fingers. They looked to be covered with ketchup. “You‘re right. My neck is also killing me. I feel like I might pass out . . . Can you help me walk?”
“Sure. Give me your arm.” Adam escorted him to another one of the patrol cars that had pulled onto the scene. “I guess my manager will have to answer your questions at the hospital,” Adam told the cops politely. “He needs to go the Emergency Room. He has a head injury.”
“Okay” The officer behind the wheel said. “We’ll get him to the ER right away.”
***
As Adam watched the police cruiser drive away, the store security guard Eli Hill came over to talk to him.
“What’s going on?” Slightly winded. Eli weighed close to three-hundred pounds but had the personality of a gentle giant.
“Evidently,” Adam said. “The people who jumped the girl came back, and tried to kick Troy’s ass. He said one of them bashed him over the head with a tree branch.”
Eli’s face turned white. “Is he gonna be all right?”
“Yeah. I don’t think he’s hurt that bad. He has a pretty nasty bump and it was bleeding, but he should be fine. I‘m more worried about the girl. We‘re not sure whether she‘s even alive or not.”
“I can’t believe something like this happened here.”
“Me either.”
“It’s not like this is Harlem.”
Suddenly, another employee from the market, Matt Rushmore who worked in maintenance, interrupted the conversation and informed Adam and Eli that the police had spotted the suspects in the parking lot. Surprised, they hurried back inside, through the loading dock, to look out the window at the front of the store.
***
After the cops had chased Ashley’s attackers into the forest and failed to apprehend them, they were forced to trail the suspects on the highway in a high-speed pursuit.
Before Craig and Buck’s Ford pickup truck had reached the town’s large drawbridge, the authorities radioed ahead to the tower operator and instructed him to raise the grid.
When he observed the drawbridge going up, the leader panicked and, while speeding at an estimated seventy miles per hour, he suddenly slammed on the brakes and desperately tried to swing the Ford truck around, an impossible undertaking. With the tires screeching and smoking, the fast-moving truck crashed into the steel guardrail. The wheel barrel in the back flew out onto the pavement.
Buck was killed instantly. Not wearing his seatbelt, the bodybuilder’s head catapulted through the windshield. Unlike his accomplice, Craig had been wearing his seatbelt, and had somehow managed to exit the mangled vehicle.
Bloody, injured, and shaken, the leader stumbled down the steep grass embankment, as law enforcement, also on foot, fled after him. Thinking he could swim across to the other side; Craig jumped into the frigid canal, where the powerful current immediately became his foe.
“He’s had it,” one officer commented, while leaning against the chain-link fence and shinning his flashlight down toward the rough water.
“I agree,” another cop said. “Even if he wasn’t injured he’d drown.”
“Do you see him?”
“No.”
“Neither do I. Crazy of that guy to think he could swim in the canal. If hypothermia doesn‘t get him the current will.”
***
A few days later, a police helicopter identified the leader’s body in the marshes. It had washed up on a secluded beach, three miles from where Craig had entered the water.
PART FOUR
GHOSTS
CHAPTER 11
“Awe, Kimberly just smiled,” Claire Whittaker declared happily, offering the baby her pacifier. “Ashley, did you see that?”
“Yes. How’s her diaper look?”
“Clean. I just changed it.”
“Thanks mom.”
“No problem. Now I’m going to take her upstairs and put her back in her crib.”
“Oh please do. I would appreciate that.” With a bowl of Ruffles Sour cream & onion potato chips perched on her lap, Ashley sat watching TV in the warm sunny living room of her mother‘s house, where she currently resided. It was July, more than eight months after the assault. Obviously, the good news was that Ashley had survived. In addition, in March, she had given birth to a healthy baby girl, which she considered a miracle. Ashley had worried that the child might be born with some kind of defect.
It turned out Ashley’s attackers were aluminum siding contractors who’d been in Wichita the day of the crime, to do a job. Craig Elliot and Buck Kennedy were in their mid thirties and had each done time in prison for multiple offenses, ranging from burglary to assault.
Dairy manager Troy Young, and his co-worker Adam Campbell, though grateful they had saved her life, Ashley had not been in touch with either of the grocery store employees since the day after the incident, when they had come to see her in the hospital.
Because Ashley had been the victim of a sex crime, the media had not released her name to the public. Aside from the police, the only person who stepped forward to speak about what had been dubbed THE SHOPPING MALL RAPE was Adam Campbell. He did an interview with prominent TV reporter Pamela Delaney from Fox News, out of Philadelphia. Although approached, Troy Young had declined to comment.
Ashley had been tempted to visit her rescuers, mainly to say hello and to show her appreciation, but hadn’t because she was afraid of returning to the shopping center. So much so, it had compelled her to relinquish her job at the BVX drugstore. Nowadays, she had secured another occupation in a different section of town, a part-time position at Stella’s Bakery.
The insurance money Ashley had received from Peter’s accident provided her with the opportunity to get out of debt. She purchased a new car, a two-door black Toyota. She had wanted to preserve Peter’s Chevy for its sentimental value. Except, every time Ashley would look at the old classic car, similar to her diamond wedding ring, it would cause more sadness. Therefore, she felt the rational option would be to sell it.
“Ashley!” she heard her mother call in a friendly voice from the newly furnished upstairs’ nursery.
“Yeah?”
“What are you doing?”
“I’m still watching TV.”
“What’s on, anything?”
“Not really. Judge Judy is about it.”
Pertaining to her mother’s two-story home, the potpourri-scented family room was where Ashley felt most comfortable. Ashley’s mother loved art, particularly anything by Picasso or Salvador Dali. She owned several prints. On the walls were also some of Ashley’
s fabulous paintings. They went well with the glass tables, the unique decorations, and the beautifully arranged plants and flowers.
“Come upstairs for a minute.”
“Why?” Ashley asked, gobbling another small handful of potato chips. Uptight Judge Judy continued to lecture what she obviously perceived as a dishonest defendant.
“Kimberly just tried to say grandma. I swear. I’m not exaggerating. You have to hear this. It’s so adorable.”
Yes. Ashley had in fact named her daughter after Troy Young’s mother. It had not been a complicated decision. She loved the name Kimberly. It resonated with femininity.
“Mom, don’t keep playing with her,” she yelled up the stairs. “Please! It’s almost five o’clock. The baby is supposed to be taking a nap.”
“First you have to come up and hear this.”
Tuning her mother out, Ashley lazily flicked the channel from the courtroom drama to Family Feud. Presently she did not feel like getting up from the comfortable sofa.
She was high on painkillers.
After the assault, for her leg injury, the doctor at the hospital had given Ashley a prescription and she had become hooked. Of late, she had also been drinking a lot. Red wine, vodka, gin. She liked them all.
This abusive pattern had started almost as soon as Ashley had taken her first pill, and had learned that the painkillers not only helped her leg, they also cushioned her mind, by reducing her anxiety. When you lose your husband the way Ashley had, and then, a couple of months later, are raped and nearly murdered, you will do anything to tranquilize the wounds.
Even though a part of her recognized how ill advised it was to abuse the medication and alcohol, especially being a new mother, at times her depression could be so debilitating; Ashley felt that that and the fact that she was a victim gave her an excuse to behave this way.
Another radical transformation in conduct she had undergone was smoking. Each time Ashley needed a cigarette, she had to go out to the front porch, because her mother would not allow her to light up inside. Furthermore, now, just about everywhere Ashley went, she wore dark shades, like a paranoid celebrity.
Pertaining to the drugs, eventually, when Ashley had used up all of her pain pills, she turned to Kitty Woo, a pharmacist that she used to work with. To earn extra money Kitty sold illegal prescriptions. Her business was not a major operation: she only distributed to a select number of friends.
Now Ashley needed to line up another transaction. After checking, the stairs to make sure her mother was not on her way down; Ashley quietly picked up the living room phone and dialed her dealer’s number.
She had to be careful. The last time Ashley phoned Kitty, she had called from her bedroom. Without knocking, her mom had barged in. Since Ashley did not have many friends (actually, she didn‘t have any at all, except for the people she knew through work), her mother had automatically become interrogative as to whom her loner daughter was secretly talking to.
“Hello?”
“Kitty.”
“Oh. Hey Ashley. How you doing?”
“I’m okay I guess.”
“How’s the baby?”
“She cries a lot. Other than that, she seems happy.”
An Asian-American, nearing thirty, who wore purple-framed glasses, Kitty chuckled. She had a terrific sense of humor, and did not take life too seriously. “Babies are supposed to cry. That’s their way of commanding attention. Now what can I do for you, Ashley?”
“I need to see you right away.”
“Already?”
“Uh huh.”
“But I just saw you a couple of weeks ago.”
Lately Ashley had been popping pills like Tic Tacs. Her last supply should have lasted her a month.
“Please!” she implored. “Can we meet?”
“Umn . . . Yes. Does it have to be today? Or can it wait until tomorrow?”
“I’d rather meet you today. If it’s all right with you.”
“Sure,” said Kitty. “I’m just getting off work. Tell you what, stop by the Chadwick Deli at six . . . And Ashley-”
“Yeah?”
“If you have your baby with you like you did the last time, no deal! You come alone.”
“Okay. Gotcha. No baby.”
CHAPTER 12
By six o’clock the weather in Southern New Jersey, as it had been for most of this summer day, remained sunny and delightfully mild.
Ashley wore a plum-colored tank top, denim shorts, and sandals. Her golden hair had not been recently brushed, yet it still looked fantastic. Even more like Marylyn Monroe since she’d recently had it slightly trimmed.
After locking the doors to her new car, a rackety crowd greeted Ashley as she entered the Chadwick Deli. This was where she and Kitty Woo normally made their transactions. Jersey-style submarine sandwiches were the deli’s specialty.
As she scanned the cordial ambiance, a mishmash of scents seized Ashley’s senses, particularly the pleasurable aroma of oil and vinegar. It took a minute or so before Ashley finally located Kitty.
The pill pusher sat at a table toward the back, underneath a poster of stacked cold cuts. In front of her, in a Styrofoam container was a clump of potato salad, and a bottle of Arizona green tea. “Glad to see you’re alone,” Kitty announced politely. “Have a seat.”
“Thanks.” Ashley parked herself in the booth. “Have you been waiting long?”
“No. Only a few minutes. No big deal. I’m not in a hurry.”
“Good. I thought you might have been.”
“Naw. Today my schedule is light . . . You hungry?”
With her unblemished olive complexion, heavy-lidded brown eyes, and long dark hair, Ashley considered Kitty to be modestly attractive. To be a knockout, she would have needed to apply more make up, got contacts, and learned hairstyling tips.
“I’m a little hungry,” Ashley confessed, eyeing a thick turkey sub that someone had at the next table over. “Except not for anything in here. For dinner tonight my mom is cooking roast beef.”
“Okay,” said Kitty, taking a tiny bite of potato salad. “Then I guess we should get down to business. You know the routine.”
“Yes.” Inconspicuously, Ashley slipped a plain white envelope underneath the table.
Without bothering to count it, Kitty tucked the cash into her purse. Then she passed Ashley the tan pill bottle.
“Awesome!” Ashley said, relieved. “Thanks. Hey, I was also wondering if you could get me some sleeping pills?”
“Sleeping pills, are you serious?”
“Uh huh. If you could I would really appreciate it. I don’t know what it is; I just can’t seem to turn my mind off lately.”
“Why do you think that is?” Kitty asked. “Is your baby keeping you up?”
“No. It’s not really that. I love my baby girl. Kimberly means the world to me. It’s just . . . I’m still having a lot of nightmares.”
“Because if it is your daughter keeping you up, that’s normal.”
Ashley sighed. She wanted to get back to the subject. “So does that mean you’ll hook me up? I’ll pay extra.”
“You couldn’t afford my fee.”
“Try me.”
After thinking it over, Kitty revealed her price. “I told you it’d be expensive.”
“No problem. I can cover that.” Then, as an afterthought Ashley added, “Yeah. I need something that’ll put me out completely. So I don’t have to hear the voices.”
“You hear voices?”
“Yes. Sometimes.” She was embarrassed.
“Whoa! What kind of voices?”
“Them . . . you know the men who raped me . . . Never mind.”
“Oh you poor dear.”
Ashley tried to explain that she wasn‘t crazy.
“I’ll tell you what,” Kitty said, groping through her bag again. “I’ll start you off with these.” Underneath the table she handed Ashley a second pill bottl
e. “These are from my own personal stash. They’ll put you to sleep in twenty minutes. Guaranteed! But don’t mix them with wine. Also, only take a couple at a time. I‘ll get you more in a few days. Consider that a sample.”
“Okay. You’re the best, Kitty. See you later.”
“You’ve got it.”
***
The old cemetery where Peter was buried was on the way home. Ashley decided to stop and visit his grave. Since his funeral, she’d been coming here once a month.
The cemetery, which had a creaky iron gate, was home to roughly three hundred graves, some dating as far back as the Revolutionary War.
When Ashley’s had stopped at her deceased husband’s tombstone, (1979-2003) she bent down and in front of it, placed a big bouquet of yellow roses.
“I thought you might like these,” she said. “It’s all I can do now, Peter. Is just keep bringing you flowers and pray that somehow you can hear me.” Her black sunglasses hid the tears in her eyes. “I hope you’re not disappointed in me. It’s not like I want to take the pills, and drink so much, it’s just I feel like I have to. For a little while anyway, until the pain goes away.”
As it often did whenever she came here, Ashley felt her heart thumping feverishly.
“A year ago,” she resumed, “all I ever worried about was money, and whether it would work out if we moved in with my mother. And if your parents would love the baby. Now you’re gone and I don’t have to worry about money anymore, at least not the way we used to.” She took off her shades briefly to dab, with a tissue, her moistened eyes. “I’d return all that insurance money right now though, Peter, if I could have you back. I could never replace you. Nothing can. Nothing or no one.”
As she listened to the leaves of the trees swooshing in the light breeze, a gravedigger suddenly lured Ashley’s attention.
He stood about forty yards away near a big mound of recently dug soil. The man had white hair, a white beard, and a pudgy gut that wobbled like a bowl of Jell-O. His pale t-shirt had stains on it from both sweat and dirt. Ashley also noticed that the gravedigger had a cigar in his mouth. She could smell the smoke. It reminded her of a tobacco shop.
