Ashes To Ashes

by Gwen Hunter

  "Ash?"

  "I fell asleep, didn’t I?"

  "I guess that’s one way of putting it. I told your Nana that I’d take care of you."

  "Ash, this is dreadful. Just dreadful. That such a thing should happen here in the Bible belt of the nation," a familiar voice said at my side.

  I didn’t turn or glance his way. The warmth within me protected me from the fear hovering at my side caressing me with insistent fingers. The voice belonged to Vance Waldrop. Who was Monica’s friend. And who surely had known I would be here tonight. Across the room was Bret, his lips pressed together in a thin hard line, his eyes grim. I looked away. My heart hammered within me, an uneven cadence that pounded in my injured hand.

  Alan’s eyes were on mine, reading, if not my exact thoughts, at least my disquiet. His grip on my hand tightened as Vance droned on. "This is exactly the kind of thing I’ve been telling my more liberal colleagues back in Washington. You have to make the punishment fit the crime. Keep the violent offenders behind bars for the full term of their sentences We have to—"

  "Vance?"

  "Yes, Monica," Waldrop said. "This is a terrible thing, and I know you must be terrified to have it happen in your own backyard."

  "No Vance, I’m not. But I do want Ashlee to have a moment to change into something more suitable to wear to the hospital And I don’t think she should strip in front of a US Senator. The tabloids would love it and the elections are coming up."

  Monica was being foolish, worried about tabloid gossip when Jas was in danger. But then, Vance Waldrop, a powerful man with resources I couldn’t even imagine, was bending over me. Bret moved closer. I pulled Alan’s jacket tighter, scant protection, but it was all I had. My hand throbbed, and when I looked at it, the swelling made my head swim. I was far more than just merely bruised or merely tipsy. I put my good hand back into Alan’s, thinking about the way the room seemed to spin. It didn’t usually do that.

  "Emory darlin’, how about you and Bret taking the senator back downstairs and talk to the policeman. There’s no reason Ashlee should be forced to give a statement here, when she could do it in the comfort of an emergency room."

  Comfort? What was comfortable about an emergency room? And then I realized that I had spoiled Monica’s party in a most improper and unbecoming manner. I’d had the bad taste to allow myself to become a victim of assault within sight of her home. Monica had a social fiasco to repair; having me here only prolonged the embarrassment. And Mama would be devastated. It was a miracle she wasn’t here now, weeping and carrying on.

  "I’ll bring my car around," Alan whispered in my ear. I think I managed a nod in reply as Vance, Bret, and Emory left the room together, their heads close, the senator’s full voice lowered to a whisper. Alan slipped out behind them.

  "Monica," I said, speaking with a tongue that must now be shaped like a summer squash, "What was that pill you gave me?"

  "Tylenol with codeine. Why?"

  Well, that explained why the room was spinning. I blew out a breath between numb lips. There was no point in trying to explain to Monica that I needed the pain. Pain as a diagnostic tool would be a totally foreign concept to my thoughtless pal. "Don’t tell mama," I said instead.

  "Of course not, Ashlee, darlin’," she said, pausing in the doorway. "I’ve known your mama too long to do something like that. I’d have her crying hysterics and never get her out of my bedroom. I told her you’d puked in the garden. I don’t think she’ll be around."

  "No," I whispered. "I don’t suppose so." Mama had never been able to stand the smell of sickness. And Monica never could manage to act refined. Even when wearing the Beck wealth draped around her collarbone, the wild and rowdy party girl still chose the word puke instead of any of the more ladylike and tasteful terms she would have used had there been a man within hearing. And if Monica used the same word with mama, she must have blanched like a sheet. I wished I had been there to see it. The stress had probably sent Mama home with a migraine.

  "Alan’s a nice-looking man, Ashlee. He’s a widower, you’re a widow. You’re lonely, he’s lonely." Monica was standing with her back to me, perusing her closet. It was bigger than my bedroom back home, which was probably necessary, as there were now two Monica’s. Crap . . . Two of them. "I knew his wife, and she was a bitch, Ashlee, darlin’. Margie was in my book club. She wore the pants in that marriage, and made sure we knew it."

  Monica looked at me over her shoulder, her expression cool. She was long and lean in her designer gown and emeralds. Beautiful and bitter and harsh, cutting as a bullwhip. Two of them. "You take good care of Alan. Keep him close by, you know what I mean?" Without another word, she swept out leaving a purple sweat-suit on the bed. I turned and closed my eyes. I knew what she meant. Alan had been right. Monica wanted him for herself, but she was being generous. She was giving him to me. The codeine and vodka made the whole concept amusing and fuzzy, insignificant and sad. What would I do with Alan? I didn’t need a man.

  "The room’s cleared out," Alan whispered, waking me from a light sleep. "Do you want to go to Carolina’s Medical Center? I think we could sneak out back with no one the wiser."

  "The last part sounds wonderful," I mumbled, struggling to sit upright in the squishy chair. "But could we go to Mercy South instead?" I asked, speaking of the smaller, more exclusive, and therefore possibly less busy hospital in the south of Charlotte. I would wait for hours at the larger Carolina’s Medical.

  The pain in my hand had become as fuzzy as my mind, a soft, pliant, yielding, thrum of agony. All I really wanted was my own bed. And Jas by my side. And all this mess with Jack over, once and for all. "If wishes were horses. . . ." I mumbled.

  "Then beggars would ride. I know. But you don’t have to beg to go to Mercy South. It’s on the way. Come on. Up you go," Alan said, pulling on my good left hand.

  "My clothes," I whispered, not resisting and rising slowly.

  "Well, you could put on the purple sweat-suit, but that which would mean a phone call or visit to return them. Somehow I get the impression you don’t run in Monica’s circles."

  "Perish the thought," I said, reopening my eyes. When had I closed them? Alan and I were alone in Monica and Emory’s bedroom. Alan was standing close, his face above mine. I focused on his mouth again, and was glad there were only two lips.

  "Or you could simply keep my jacket. You look quite fetching in it actually."

  I looked down at myself. "I look like a toddler playing dress-up in Daddy’s coat."

  "Yes. You do. Come on. We have a narrow window of time in which to make our getaway."

  "Vance won’t be pleased," I said, as Alan slipped his arm around me. "He’s probably already called the press for an exclusive interview from the scene of the crime. He prolly—pro-ba-bly—wants me here to look abused and pathetic." The last word came out as "patetic", but Alan seemed to understand. I was growing more inebriated by the moment on the vodka and Codeine. If my thumb needed surgery, it would be hours before any self-respecting orthopedic surgeon would put me under. Lovely. Just lovely.

  And suddenly I was outside, and closed up in Alan’s car, a black BMW with leather upholstery and a sound system vastly improved by the medication and alcohol in my system. I hoped I didn’t throw up all over the car’s luscious interior. I slept all the way to Mercy South, waking only when an aide in a dark scrub suit rolled a wheelchair to the car. The ER visit was all a blur, the doctors and nurses uniformed paper-doll cutouts, all frowning at having to deal with yet another well-heeled drunk.

  Within sixty minutes I was checked in, X-rayed, and released, an ugly splint on my thumb. Nothing was broken, nothing caught in between the bones of the joint. I had set it perfectly. The doctor in charge was amazed that a lush in an advanced state of intoxication had reset her own thumb. Alan explained that my good friend had slipped me the liquor, but the doctor didn’t believe him. Or didn’t care. He was a moonlighting resident, still working on his first hundred thousand, and he couldn�
�t be bothered with lowlifes like me. And frankly, I was too stoned to care. I was also too drunk to care what the police officer thought.

  He was even younger than the doctor, still trying to grow enough peach fuzz on his face to make it worthwhile to shave every few days. Tall, slender, and brown eyed, he took my report with all the passionate interest in his frame until he realized I never saw my assailant. After that he lost interest. It seemed I couldn’t please anyone tonight.

  Alan found my home, despite my disjointed directions and the fact that right and left ceased to have real meaning. I had never handled medication well, and the combination of Tylenol with codeine and vodka were worse than anything I remembered. It was only when we were rolling up the gravel drive that I remembered the plaque I was supposed to receive at the Patrons’ Party. I never got it. Great. All this for nothing. Tears pooled in my eyes and spilled over drunkenly, though I managed to wipe them away before Alan saw.

  Nana and Macon met Alan and me at the back door, Macon to assist me into a chair and Nana to look over Alan. She must have decided he was acceptable, as she let him in the house and gave him a glass of Jack’s good Bourbon to sip on while she put me to bed. After that, I remembered nothing till the sun peeked through the open blinds and rapped against my skull. The sound was remarkably steady and firm, exactly like the feeling of my own pulse in my head and in my hand. A constant pain that pounded sharp and cruel against my brain and my thumb injury. I was wounded, and I had a hangover. What a way to start the day.

  Nana had elevated my hand and iced it during the night, which decreased the swelling, but there was little I could do about the pain. Not with a hangover. I didn’t trust ibuprofen or Tylenol, not with the vodka beating up my liver last night. So I just lay there, surrounded by the luxury given to me by cheating, despicable Jack, and felt sorry for myself, until Jas decided I had rested long enough and came into my room. At her insistence, I got out of bed and into the shower, the cold water helping with both the pain and my muddled brain.

  I was in the shower when it occurred to me what I had to do to protect Jas. The mere thought of it brought tears to my eyes.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Only weeks after a husband’s death, the ordinary widow would have been dealing with dozens of post funeral consequences and complications with insurance companies, credit companies, the Social Security administration, the IRS, and, for business owners, the employees out in the field. The ordinary widow would have been grieving for her husband, her altered life, and her lost dreams. But then, I wasn’t an ordinary widow, was I?

  I had Esther and Macon to deal with the legal matters, and a CPA firm and law firm to deal with probate and the legal system. And I had a husband who had lived a lie for years. Perhaps many lies. That I was dealing with.

  Now, when I should have been grieving and putting my life in order, I was, instead, battling for my safety, for my daughter’s safety, perhaps for our very lives. I realized I couldn’t do battle sitting at home, wringing my hands, waiting for someone to discover the menace we faced and then protect me from it. The danger had escalated from threats to violence. It had become real. I had to go out and meet it. It seemed simple, really. I would just make a target of myself and respond when attacked.

  I dressed in work clothes, knowing what I wanted to do, yet not knowing how to go about it. It was great to have a plan, or at least the germ of a plan, but I needed a beginning, a way to get started. Nothing came to mind. Before I could work it through, Macon, Wicked, and Esther summoned me to a meeting.

  I was quiet as I sat at the head of the conference table in Jack’s office where they placed me. Silent still, when Nana came in, Aunt Mosetta shuffling along behind her. Aunt Mosetta, in her nineties, was older than Nana, and her joints were always in pain. This was the third time—or was it the fourth—that she had left the comfort of her favorite rocker and made the trek to my house. By that alone, I knew this meeting was important. Perhaps the gathering could be the impetus I needed for my plan. It was time to lay all my cards on the table, as the old saying went, and I was quite sure that when I finished for the day and folded, no one would consider me a winner. I studied my family, knowing they would not make this easy.

  Macon opened the meeting by explaining that he had called us together to give both a rundown and an update on the problems facing DavInc. He counted them off on his fingers like a grade school teacher offering a math problem to his class.

  "We have two distinct problems. First, William McKelvey, who was put into bankruptcy when his part of an equal exchange proved to be a chemical dump. Because he would have difficulty proving intent to defraud, a suit would have been little more than a delaying tactic on his part, a bullying tactic meant to inconvenience us and slow progress on Davenport Hills—force us to settle. However, because Jack is no longer here to defend himself, and because the paperwork for Davenport Hills appears to be incomplete, we could conceivably lose in court, which would severely damage Davenport Hills, Ash, and Jasmine."

  "Incomplete, how?" Wicked asked. He was stretched out on two chairs, his slim frame blocking the doorway, as if to prevent anyone from escaping. His position allowed him to see out the front windows of the conference room, keep an eye on the front entrance to the office, and watch the hallway all at once. Though he looked relaxed, his posture was deceptive. The small man was wary and watchful; a gun bulged at his shoulder, the holster fitting close to his body over his T-shirt, partly hidden by the work shirt over it. He wasn’t blocking us in; he was guarding the door.

  "I’m getting to that. Prosperity Creek runs through the property, creating several problems. One, a hundred-year floodplain that severely restricts the type of development allowed on the land extending out from the banks of the creek. Two, the land doesn’t perk well," he said, meaning percolate, or drain, resulting in a standing water problem following heavy rains. These were common problems in Dawkins County and Jack had dealt with them a half dozen times over the years. Nana made an impatient twirling motion with her fingers to speed him up.

  "Which brings us to our third distinct problem. Davenport Hills itself. When Esther and I started here together, the office had been ransacked. Permits allowing certain parts of the development are missing. Though Esther says Jack definitely applied for them, we don’t know what he may have been doing with them in the days prior to his death, or where the permits are now. We’re missing Corps of Engineers’ permits, FEMA permits, and several State and County permits, all of which deal with the poor-draining, blackjack soil."

  I nodded. Blackjack was heavy clay soil, the kind that absorbed rain water only slowly and when dried out, developed the consistency of concrete.

  "Esther assures me that the permits were granted, and that Jack kept numerous appointments with inspectors from various agencies. But the record of which inspectors he met with, when the meetings took place, which permits were approved as applied for and which needed to be re-worded or altered, or were denied completely, has been lost. Esther can find no record of them. Either the file was stolen when the office was broken into, or Jack took them someplace. All this means problems. Big problems."

  "So what do we do?" Wicked asked.

  I smiled. We. The we of family—the Chadwicks. The pain in my body seemed to ease.

  "We approach McKelvey. We tell him Jack has passed on. We ask first for more time, and then we use that time to find a way to clean up the Charlotte property and bail out McKelvey’s finances."

  "Wait," Nana said. "I’ll run get my magic wand. And Moses, you go dig up that pot of gold you found under the rainbow last week. And Ash can wish upon a star." Aunt Mosetta cackled. Macon sighed. "Son," she said, "we have money, but it’s all in land. And Ash is in danger now. Not five or ten years from now when we might be able to sell enough property to pay for a cleanup. You told me it would cost millions, Macon. Not the few hundred thousand I would be able to put together in three or four months."

  "It’s not a matter for miracles, Nana. J
ack had a plan all mapped out, including a list of potential investors and a government cleanup program. It’s both feasible and sensible, even in this economy, and it shouldn’t cost DavInc a dime. Jack had been working on this problem for a long time. McKelvey’s problems can still be handled if we go at it right."

  "But McKelvey is the lesser problem," I said, rising from the chair where they had seated me. My thumb ached and throbbed, and my shoulder and ribs were stiff, but my pain was better than last night. With any other injury, I would have given myself time to heal in bed at least a day and icing down my tortured joints. But, I had no time to relax and get over last night’s attack. Today, I had to protect Jasmine. "Last night, I was attacked. And although I couldn’t see him, it was the same man who attacked me in the emergency room on my last night of work.

  "Both times he did several things. He demanded the permits—which I am guessing is part of the missing paperwork—the evidence, and the files. He told me there was a bigger problem than McKelvey, as if he knew all about the man’s threats and problems. This time, he threatened to rape my daughter."

  Aunt Mosetta’s eyes narrowed. Nana sucked in air with a soft hiss. A threat to family was not to be accepted. A threat to one Chadwick was a threat to all. And a threat to a Chadwick child was a call to war. With that one statement, I took total control of the meeting. I didn’t know what Macon and Esther had planned for this conference, but it no longer mattered.

  I continued. "I assume the evidence he wants is the evidence for the murder Jack mentioned in his letter. Have you found anything that might pertain to the death of an inspector?"

  Macon shook his head and took a seat beside Aunt Mosetta, physically relinquishing control of the meeting to me. "No, nothing."

  "Well, someone knows exactly what they want. And that someone is close to this family and to this business. Last night, the man who attacked me said I had made a mistake by hiring a evil man to work for me. I think he meant you, Wicked. Wicked, not evil." The room grew still around me as I let the words and their meaning sink in. To the rest of the world, Wicked was Chad or Owens. Even his old school friends called him Owens. Wicked was Wicked only to family. "Only family knew we had hired you."