Ashes To Ashes

by Gwen Hunter

  I tilted my head back, staring overhead, the shape of the opening to the loft wavering in my tears. Perhaps one of Cherry’s brood could be trained to herd. Dogs worked better on cattle than on horses, but they were still a great help on a horse farm. One of Cherry’s pups showed every sign of having been sired by a large-sized dog, his feet already like saucers and his ears nearly dragging the ground. The thought of the puppies cheered me somewhat, and, wiping my eyes on a sleeve, I trudged back to work.

  I spent the morning at the barn and lunch at Nana’s tending to her itching foot, trying to convince her not to remove the cast with a ball-peen hammer. Early afternoon was dedicated to showing Elwyn around the barn, the grounds, and the books. With the computer gone, the books for Davenport Downs were relatively simple—the hard copies stored in an upstairs bedroom.

  The rest of the day I spent with Macon. It was another day of problems, typical small calamities, but the ones brought to me by Macon were by far the worst. His first words to me were, "I’ve been looking for days, but I still can’t find the necessary permits from the Corps of Engineers to move earth or build around Prosperity Creek. It’s possible Jack never got them."

  It was a bald, uncompromising accusation. Even I knew this would be a far worse problem than Mabel playing tag down the driveway. I sank down on a kitchen chair, putting my head in my hands and resting them on the tabletop. Why had Jack done this to me? "What are we going to do about it?" I finally asked, my words echoing in the hollow of my arms.

  "I’ve already asked for all the part-time people who fill in at the office to come here, under the direction of Donaleen, the paralegal who does our title search work. With the extra help, I’ll be going through every piece of paper turned over to me by RailRoad the Third. Donaleen is going directly to the source, and find out if the Corps has anything on file. It means alerting them to the possibility of a problem, but we have little choice, Ash."

  I nodded and lifted my head. "What are the ramifications if Jack didn’t file a development plan with the Corps?"

  "Steep fines. And I mean really steep. Steep enough that you might have to have political clout to work around them. But that’s not all. I think you should see this."

  I followed Macon to the office, which was marginally neater and cleaner now, since Esther and the cleaning crew had been to work for hours. The burglars had left a mess, and Esther had obviously spent the morning reorganizing her office after the most recent ransacking.

  Macon led me to the safe, which now hung open. "Esther and I went through the safe when you hired me, but only a cursory examination. This morning we went through it thoroughly. We found these." These, were the metal canisters that had stood in the safe for ages, and a small stack of official looking papers. I looked up at Macon. Esther, dressed in a vibrant pink outfit, stood in the doorway, pad in hand. Her expression was somber. She was wearing shoes. Somehow, that alarmed me more than her serious demeanor. "Ash. How long have these canisters been in here?" Macon asked.

  "They were the first things Jack put inside. That and my good jewelry."

  Macon sighed and knuckled his kinky hair with a fist. "I think they point to the murdered inspector. And by the way, Wicked’s been here to disable the listening devices. I don’t know what anyone would make out about our discovery by what we’ve said this morning, but I didn’t want anyone knowing the full extent of this. Any use you might have put the bugs to is forfeit, but you need security more. Wicked was putting together an operation to draw out the bigwigs behind Dixon, but even he agreed. This takes precedence."

  "Sit down, Ashlee," Esther said, guiding me to a chair. I sat. "Now, you let Macon explain it all, honey. And then we’ll find a way to deal with it. It’ll be alright." Esther’s mothering me in the same way she once mothered Jack was reassuring and frightening. It reminded me that Jack was gone, and that whatever they told me rested squarely on me. Alone.

  "The soil sample containers are the kind used by DHEC to inspect core drillings on land that changes hands for development. For example, at Davenport Hills, Jack called in DHEC to do a large-scale inspection of the soil before he could do anything else. And the soil had to pass the inspection. The soil itself, Ash."

  "Okay," I said. But I didn’t understand and they both knew it.

  "I’m talking wetlands, Ash. When land anywhere is developed for the first time, it has to be proven not to be wetlands."

  "You mean the drainage problems?"

  "No," he said. "A high percentage of Dawkins’ land is blackjack, with drainage problems, especially near creeks. I’m talking about official wetlands, the kind protected by the Federal Government." Suddenly I remembered my dreams. Jack telling me about the ground.

  "Every developer has to submit a plan to DHEC and request an inspection. First. Before anything else. If the soil is proven to be wetlands, the development can’t go through. Period. Under the current Washington administration it’s almost impossible to develop wetlands. But the point is this. Jack got the land inspected as per regulations. The inspector’s name was Charles Whitmore. And he died shortly after the inspection."

  "How shortly?" I asked, feeling a familiar dread settle around me. I had lived with the soil canisters for so long that I never really saw them anymore when I went into the safe. And these tall metal canisters were the evidence we had needed?

  "He inspected the land on a Tuesday. He died the following Friday night. His soil samples and a typed report were found on the secretary’s desk the next Monday morning when she got back from a long weekend. He died in a one car accident and his blood alcohol level was three times the legal limit."

  I must have looked confused, because Macon elaborated.

  "Charles was an alcoholic but he’d been on the wagon for years. And he never—never, Ash—typed his own reports. His secretary did. The secretary was so suspicious, she made another inspector compare the soil samples with the final report. They matched. The soil was suitable for development."

  I shook my head. It sounded as if everything was fine. Charles started doing his own typing. So what was this problem that had Esther wearing shoes as if this were a funeral?

  "This is a copy of the report his secretary found on her desk." Macon handed it to me and I flipped through the pages. All neatly typed. "And this is what Esther and I found in the safe, with the soil sample containers. It wasn’t an actual report, just handwritten notes, so we both overlooked it the first time we went through the contents." Macon handed me a yellow legal pad, edges curled with age, the pages covered with diagrams and chicken scratch any doctor would have been proud of. There were four small maps as well, covered with notations. I didn’t bother to read it. I rested both reports on my lap, waiting.

  "This handwritten report is very negative, Ash. It states that Charles found large portions of the old plantation and the farms that now make up Davenport Hills were unsuitable for development. I have a contact in DHEC who owes my father a favor. She’s going to fax him a sample of Whitmore’s handwriting if she can find one."

  "But if the soil samples matched the report . . ." I started.

  "They did. But these are the samples Charles Whitmore actually collected, Ash. They are numbered as to where he collected them, and they have his initials on the stickers. The small maps and handwritten report matches the canisters. The notes are in the same handwriting as the report. I think someone killed Charles. And switched the reports, the samples, the maps, everything. I think Davenport Hills is wetlands, Ash."

  "Jack knew," I said softly.

  "Yeah. He had to. Perhaps even Bill McKelvey, your telephone admirer, knew. Or at least guessed. And that was why he said he could ruin Jack in court."

  "And the Davenport Hills development . . ."

  "Is a done deal, which in some ways may help our case. Every part of the property has felt the blade of landscapers and earthmovers. The land is radically damaged. Eighty percent of the development is complete. That puts a whole new spin on the problem." Macon was
poker faced, his tone giving no indication what he was feeling. "And lastly, Jack is dead."

  I shook my head. Macon was feeding me so much information I couldn’t process it all. Wetlands? I pressed my lips together tightly to hold in thoughts I wasn’t ready to speak.

  Macon smiled then, a hard, brutal smile. "Having a state senator as an investor could help here, as long as the press doesn’t notice and start screaming about political cover-ups and favoritism. Senator Waldrop could intervene and smooth things out for DavInc and Davenport Hills. So long as you and he are bosom buddies. Or perhaps cookie buddies."

  Realizing Macon had been talking to Nana, I shook my head and offered one of my mother’s smiles, a sickly unconvincing attempt that never reached my eyes. The expression reminded me of Reverend Perry’s visit, and the paltry smile faded. "I’ll start baking cookies."

  Macon laughed. It wasn’t the same laugh he had brought to work on his first day here. It was older, strained, fierce, and worn, as if his time here had aged him. On his face was an expression I had often seen on the faces of my Chadwick kin, familiar, protective, stern, and strong. It said, "This is family, and family sticks together." It was also an expression I had seen once before on my cousin’s face. Years ago, on the day I last remembered seeing him before all this began, standing thigh-deep in the big swimming pond, his fists on his hips. Suddenly, that day came flooding back, fragile and uncertain, softened at the edges.

  The Chadwick’s and our strange "color scheme" had been accepted by most of Dawkins County. The fact that we were multi-racial and shared certain genetic patterns back a few generations wasn’t universally liked but was ordinarily tolerated, for the political and financial power of our family, if not for more personal reasons. Under normal conditions we had no trouble with the less broad-minded citizens, but that hot, dry day had been an exception.

  Wallace, two of his half-brothers, and a sister, Willie Mae, Uncle Horace’s granddaughter Mindy, and I were taking a break from the heat, swimming in a pond fed by a creek that was still running. Elsewhere it had been dry for weeks and the ponds on neighboring farms were drying up, the earth cracking open, the crops baking in the fields. Cattle and chickens were suffering from the heat. Several surrounding farmers faced ruin if rain didn’t come soon.

  The tension had reached a boiling point in local bars where fights had broken out over little or nothing. There had been a murder/suicide of one farmer and his wife, and the stress and frustration had been clear even to us children. Hence the whoops and hollers and splashing and general roughhousing as we younger Chadwicks let off steam. Unfortunately, the noise level had attracted three neighborhood boys, out hunting quail in the off-season.

  They had cornered Mindy in the shallow water, the older boy pulling at her bathing top talking dirty and threatening my blonde-haired, blue-eyed cousin. The two younger boys stood knee deep in mud and pond water, two air rifles held on us Chadwicks as we watched Mindy and her tormentor. Helpless, all of us. Until Macon hit one of the young guards with a well placed rock thrown overhand, hard.

  The resulting fray had left the three interlopers with black eyes, broken noses and mud-clogged gun barrels. The outgunned Chadwicks won a decisive victory, celebrating with a watermelon stolen out of Aunt Mosetta’s garden, and Macon had been the hero. Proud. Protective. Stern. Standing in the center of the pond, smiling that lopsided smile. His expression back then had been like now. A Chadwick, responding to a threat against family. Strange that I hadn’t remembered that incident, that moment, until now.

  "I’m not saying you have to kiss the old goat’s backside or even feed him cookies, I’m saying you might have to pull a Nana on him."

  I cocked my head.

  Macon chose his words carefully. "Explain to him the unquestioned benefits of lending his support with DHEC and the Corps of Engineers before this problem becomes a press problem. He’ll know the part about journalistic investigation should he not handle this thing well, of course, but as an investor, his butt’s in the sling already. If he doesn’t help us, and we have problems, he’ll be nailed to the wall with us. Something like that. Get the point?"

  "I think so," I said, seeing the young Macon so clearly in the grown man standing before me. "But, Macon, what if Waldrop was one of the investors involved with the murder?"

  "So what? If he screwed up that big, he can take his lumps along with the rest of us." It was a callous remark, reminding me of the child Macon, rock in hand. I shook my head and put the reports to the side. The idea of dealing with Vance Waldrop like Nana would was terrifying. Perhaps I should bring along a plate of cookies, just in case.

  "Of course, I may yet uncover the paperwork for the Corps, so don’t make any plane reservations for DC just yet. But do keep it in mind."

  I nodded. "I’ll do that. You need anything right now?"

  "More space. Can we use the living room?"

  I seldom thought about the living room, the twenty-five by nineteen foot space where Jack and I entertained important guests and had the social functions necessary to running DavInc. It was the location of the company Christmas parties. I hadn’t been in there since Jack died. "Help yourself. TVs gone, of course, thanks to our robbers, but you can bring in tables, chairs, whatever you need. Rent them if you like."

  Macon nodded, his eyes searching mine. He was watching me closely, studying me, and I didn’t like the expression on his face. "When’s the last time you got a full night’s sleep, Ash?"

  "1982. Jasmine had the flu and I got it from her. Slept twelve hours straight," I said, the comeback snappy and quick. "You never get a full night on a farm, Macon. You know that. I’m lucky if I get six hours."

  "Ash. You look like hell. Have you glanced in a mirror lately?" His voice was gentle. Concerned. And that should have made me feel reassured, more secure, but it didn’t. It made me angry. Coldly, unreasonably angry.

  "No. But I’ve looked in Jack’s gun cabinet and my silver chest. Into my jewelry box and into Jasmine’s eyes. I’ve looked down at Jack’s headstone, and into my husband’s illegal business dealings. I’ve held my daughter while she cried, and walked through an empty house and slept in a lonely bed. Something’s gone from them all, Macon." I stood, pushing against the table with my hands. "My life isn’t what it once was. I’m not who I once was. Everything is changed. You can’t expect me to look like a beauty queen after all this."

  "Ash, I’m not denying all that. But you could pass for Frankenstein’s wife about now. You need rest."

  "I agree. And when Jasmine and her future are safe, I’ll get some. I promise." I walked away from Macon, back toward my room and the solitude I could find there. "Let me know about DHEC and the Corps of Engineers and what you discover."

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "Night, Macon."

  "Night, Ash."

  Elwyn VanHuselin and Bish were now both living in my house. The sound of running water indicated that Elwyn was showering off the effects of travel and a day spent traipsing through Carolina red mud. Bish was folding his laundry, his door open. And Jas was sitting on the edge of his bed, watching, her face winsome and fresh and soulful. And very much in love. She didn’t see me slip back down the stairs and into my room. I didn’t announce myself. When I stepped out of the shower, long, hot, steamy minutes later, Nana was sitting on the vanity seat I seldom used, her cast propped up on the tub. She held an untwisted metal coat hanger, stretched out, in her right hand; the far end of the long metal wire buried beneath her cast. Scratching.

  I wrapped up in a towel, tossing a second one over my head. "You moving in too?" I asked. It sounded surly, even rude, but I didn’t care, I was too tired to care anymore.

  A strange grin spread across Nana’s face. She continued to scratch. "My, aren’t we touchy," she said laconically. "You do have a houseful."

  I rubbed the towel over my wet hair, blocking her out. Found a terrycloth bathrobe and pulled it on. With my back turned, I shaved my legs. I hadn’t shaved them since the sympho
ny so it took a while. All that time, I ignored Nana. And all the time I ignored her, she was smiling that strange toothy smile. I know. I peeked at it in the various bathroom mirrors. It never wavered.

  Nana sipped from a mug. It had the words "I’m not old. I’m just grouchy!" printed on the rim, over a likeness of the actress who starred in the movie Throw Mama From The Train. It fit Nana, especially tonight, the peculiar expression on her face. Beside her was a second mug, a refill or one for me. I would have ignored it too, except it smelled so good. "You want to tell me why you’re so touchy tonight? I mean, besides the obvious reasons of grief and exhaustion and no sleep."

  "Not really," I said, dropping one towel and pulling a comb through my hair. The mug held chicken soup. Homemade. Thin broth with noodles nesting in the bottom and herbs floating. Fragrant steam rose toward me. It smelled wonderful. I put down the comb and secured my hair back with long pins. Dabbed my face with night cream. Macon was right, I did look awful. Bruised crescents hollowed under my eyes. My cheeks were sunken in below bony protuberances and I had developed a sharp vertical line between my brows. I smoothed more night cream into my face, as if by pampering my skin tonight, I might make up for weeks of neglect.

  The mug of soup had scented the entire bathroom. It smelled heavenly. My stomach rumbled. "That for me?" I finally asked, my voice gruff and curt. It was the same tone I’d used as a child the one time Nana had slapped my face. Sassy, she’d called me. And though she didn’t slap my face this time, she didn’t answer either. Just cocked a brow. I cleared my throat and tried again. "The soup smells really good. Is it for me?"

  "Yep," Nana said, wasting no words. "But I’d stir it up first."