Ashes to Ashes

by Nathaniel Fincham

  Chapter 23

  The back deck of Ashe’s house was where he would often spend warm evenings, relaxing and staring thoughtlessly out over his rectangular backyard, which was surrounded by a tall white fence. The fence was not a flimsy picket fence, but something thicker, sturdier, and more secure. While working in a maximum security prison, habits can sometimes follow a person home. At least the fence was not topped by razor wire.

  The yard was currently in stages of neglect, Ashe had to admit. The grass wasn’t ridiculously over grown but it needed a mowing along with trimming around the edge of the house. He used to be better at taking care of his piece of land, especially the rock path that led from the deck to a square patch at the back corner of the yard. Over the past few years the large chunks of flagstone that made the path had shifted, causing the walkway to become uneven. The patch of earth at the end of walkway was once a small garden, but it had become infested with weeds and bugs. Ashe remembered when the garden was full of growing vegetables, like tomatoes and onions. But those days were long gone. Susanne had had the green thumb. But she was long gone as well.

  The sliding glass door behind him slammed closed shattering Ashe’s thoughts. “Your refill has arrived, sir,” Katherine said, handing him a cold bottle of lager. The top had already been popped and he immediately put the long neck to his lips. It had been awhile since he had some company on the deck. He was enjoying it, more than he realized he would.

  “Thank you,” Ashe said.

  A breeze blew by them and the smell of cooking meat filled his nostrils. He went to stand but Katherine quickly rushed across the deck toward the large metal grill. “No. No. No,” she cried out. “I brought the meat, so I get the joy of cooking it. You just keep your ass in that chair, mister.”

  Calling Katherine quirky was an understatement. But she was fun and Ashe was actually enjoying himself, if only for the moment. It was a good shift to his serious day. He watched her as she used a long, two pronged fork to flip the pair of sizzling steaks. Her grin was infectious. With her red hair up in a ponytail, he got a good view of her long neck. Her skin looked creamy, smooth, and soft. A bead of sweat formed behind her earlobe and it dripped its way down toward her shoulder. He forced himself to pull his attention elsewhere or may begin to sweat too.

  “You seem to know your way around a grill,” Ashe told her.

  “Surprised?” she asked, closing the grill. “Women can grill too, you know. I found your sexism rude yet attractive. Funny how that works.”

  “That is me all the way,” Ashe replied. “Rude…and attractive.”

  She laughed. Going to her own chair, she found her beer bottle waiting. Taking a large drink, she sighed with pleasure.

  “You got the rude part right,” she said. “You did leave me at the altar.”

  “You mean restaurant,” he corrected her.

  “That is what I said,” she assured him. “Never correct a woman when she is lying. That type of shenanigans will only get you shot.”

  “Been there, done that,” he replied.

  Katherine’s eyebrow rose. “Pray tell.”

  He took a drink.

  “That isn’t something I disclose on a second date,” he explained.

  “Second date?” she asked. “I thought this was a booty call?”

  Ashe nearly spat out a mouthful of beer. “You’re crazy,” he swallowed and then blurted.

  “That is why I am here, Dr. Walters,” she said. “I came to tell you my darkest dreams and my lightest fantasies.”

  “How about your lightest dreams and your darkest fantasies,” he replied. Was he flirting?

  “Not on a second date, Doctor,” she said.

  “I thought that this was a booty call,” he corrected.

  “You wish.”

  The discussion remained fluffy and somewhat flirtatious as the steaks cooked and the sun disappeared. As the night came so did a chill that chased them back into the house. He was trying his best to stay in the moment and not think about anything else, but his mind continuously attempted to sneak back to Scott.

  “Where are you, right now?” Katherine asked.

  He met her eyes from across the dining room table. He cleared his head and replied, “Nowhere good.”

  “I’m a good listener,” she told him. She reached across the table and touched his hand. “Anytime you want, I will join you in that place.”

  He withdrew his hand and used it to take a piece of steak from his plate. The steak was delicious and he stretched out his chewing, enjoying all the mesh of spices that filled his mouth. When he was finished, he replied, “Not a place anyone else can go.”

  “I’d be happy to try,” she said, before changing the subject. “How was work, today? I’m interested. Very interested.”

  Ashe thought about it.

  “A transfer finally went through for one of my patients,” he began. “Grub, or at least that is the name he answers by. I’ve been trying to get the board to approve his move to a psychiatric facility for some time. I’ve been worried that it might not go through or go through on time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “In prison,” Ashe said, “there are those who are mentally incapable of protecting themselves. They are easy prey and are often isolated, used, and manipulated. They can’t fight back. They are not strong enough. If they do fight back…it never ends well for them.”

  “What did grub do?”

  He knew the question would come.

  “Sexual assault,” he quickly answered.

  “Sexual assault?”

  “Young girls.”

  Katherine swallowed hard. Her eyes lowered to her steak, but Ashe knew she was looking far beyond the piece of meat. “How awful. That is…terrible. Why would you try to protect someone like that? Why would you care if they are hurt or even killed? Doesn’t he deserve whatever happens to him?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Would you punish a dirty, mistreated dog, when the only life they had ever known was violence and aggression?” he asked. “If that dog was trained to bite and didn’t know any better, would you blame him for biting you?”

  “Yes.”

  He sighed.

  “Bad example. Grub was trained and molded to be a sexual predator from birth,” Ashe continued. “His father taught him how to rape and abuse, forcing him to practice on his own sister. It became as natural as breathing. He never had a chance in hell at being anything but what he became. Should he be punished for what was out of his control?”

  “But aren’t violent dogs usually put down?”

  “Yea,” he agreed. “But should they be?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Grub will most likely never be free,” he admitted, “Even if he survives his long sentence. There is no way, in modern society, to get around that. I’m not saying otherwise. As a psychologist and human being, I have to take into consideration the life of others, as well. His treatment and cognitive restructuring might work or it might not, most likely not, but we have to try. Grub is a monster, like that made by Frankenstein, but I also can’t help but view him as a victim. He doesn’t belong in the same building as…Franklin Barrett…a rich, spoiled snake who murdered his wife and son in cold blood.”

  “Franklin Barrett? You’ve met with him?”

  “Just briefly,” Ashe said. “I’m not impressed.”

  He took a long drink of beer. His face was becoming warm and he knew the alcohol was taking a hold of his brain. He chewed and swallowed another bite of steak, hoping that the meat might soak up some of the beer in his gut. At the same time, part of him didn’t want it to. He wanted to feel the buzz. He wanted to feel the bite.

  “I don’t want to talk about Franklin Barrett.”

  “Your beer is about empty,” Katherine blurted. “Let me get you another one.”

  “Thank you.”
<
br />   Ashe closed his eyes and listened to Katherine. Her feet on the tile floor. The opening of the fridge. Her voice. “Did you know that you have a message on your machine?” She pushed the button. Suddenly, he found himself lunging out of his chair and across the room. But he was slow to react.

  “Sweetheart. Love you. Love you…”

  He pushed the button to stop the recording and stood there in silence.

  “Your wife?”

  Ashe nodded. He leaned his body against the counter and tried to catch his breath. As usual, the message was like a punch to the gut, taking away the wind from his lungs. He could listen to it over and over and the effect would be the same.

  “It was like she was in the room with us,” Katherine mumbled. She was standing directly next to him, close enough that Ashe felt her heavy breathing. “I can’t imagine how hard that has to be for you.”

  “It gets easier,” he lied.

  “Tell me about her?” she asked.

  He shook his head. But he couldn’t help but to think about one aspect of his wife. When she died. Steven Reynolds’ name had recently been uttered by another murderer and it bothered him. He could not have anticipated the effect hearing that man’s name out loud had caused him. It was like his wife’s voice, hearing it out loud will always have the same effect.

  “Tell me something about her?”

  Ashe lowered his eyes.

  “During that time, I was still an outside consultant for the YPD, helping investigate and profile crimes, mostly deaths for the homicide department,” he said. “Susanne understood why I did it, even though it would often be dangerous. She understood why I helped. She would often tease, saying that I had a superhero complex. But I don’t think that that was close to true.”

  “You wanted to catch the bad guys,” Katherine stated.

  “If I could help,” Ashe began, “why shouldn’t I.”

  “I understand.”

  “There had been a rash of murders four years back, spreading from Youngstown and into Cleveland,” Ashe continued. “Prostitutes. Brutal crimes. The killer had been quickly named the Eastside Slasher, for whatever reason. Detective Harrison and his group from the YPD division of homicide worked with detectives from Cleveland. Mainly a man named Wan. The FBI joined the case after the fourth victim was found in Shaker Heights. I was brought in about that time. Detective Harrison, Oscar, had brought me in and forced the FBI to take me seriously.”

  “You were his go to guy,” Katherine added.

  “I was,” he said. “He’s an old friend. But he would never include me unless he trusted that I could do the work.”

  “I’m sure that you were more than capable,” Katherine insisted.

  “Sometimes I wasn’t so sure,” Ashe said. “I had spent hours bent over the pictures of the first three crime scenes. I had then been present at the fourth and fifth. My skin still shivers at the thought of those killings.” He took a minute. “The bodies had been mutilated. Mangled. They had been found in dirty motel rooms. In the rooms…there had been more blood than oxygen. Everywhere.”

  He paused.

  “Sexual abuse and penetration had been present,” he said. “I still don’t know how they were able to figure that out, given the shape of the bodies.”

  “It’s amazing what they can do,” Katherine added.

  “I’m sorry,” Ashe apologized, shaking his head. “You don’t want to hear any of this.”

  “I do,” she quickly objected. “I do…because you want to say it.”

  “My initial profile,” he immediately continued, “had been that of a sexual sadist, male between the ages of twenty to forty years of age, who hated women. Hated them and wanted to punish them. All the rage was released through acts of extreme violence and sexual viciousness. The rage might have come from inadequacies in social skills, due to a possible disfigurement or stutter or other socially crippling factors. Whatever the root, women didn’t pay attention to him. And the anger had finally boiled over.”

  “Why hookers?”

  “Prostitutes are often an easy target. You pay them and you can get them into situations normal women would never enter,” he said. “Easy.”

  He paused.

  “I had profiled the murderer to most likely to be a loner,” he explained, “due to his socially crippling factor.”

  “Sounds like a good profile,” Katherine replied, inching even closer to him.

  “No. It wasn’t,” he assured her. “I had been wrong.”

  “Wrong?”

  “It didn’t have a thing to do with social inadequacies,” he continued. “Or built up sexual frustrations. The crimes had not been about that at all. They had been about power. Control. Blood lust. I should have seen it sooner. I had gotten the sadism part right, but nothing else continued to fit.”

  “How did you figure it out?”

  “The bodies,” Ashe said. “Results from forensics showed us that the murders took place over two days. That hadn’t fit my initial profile. When frustration and rage builds up to a boiling point it erupts and the explosion is hot but burns out quick. Once the frustration is vented, the killer is spent and the event is over. It should not have lasted for a couple days. It was not impossible, but not likely. The Eastside Slasher had taken his time, enjoyed the act itself. He had liked to bind the girls to the bed, slowly raping and mutilating them until there was nothing left. He had displayed his dominance over them, over their life, and then he took it when he saw fit.”

  “That is…horrible,” Katherine sighed.

  “Yea,” he replied. “And the evidence had left little else to go on outside of a vague profile.”

  “But you figured out who did it?”

  “Yea,” Ashe replied. “But only because he had made a mistake.”

  “A mistake?”

  “When the last body showed up,” he began, “so did a witness. The killer hadn’t realized that another prostitute was nearby, leaning against a building having a cigarette. Not only had this call girl seen the killer, she had known exactly who it was.”

  “Who?”

  “A man named Steven Reynolds.”

  “Steven Reynolds had had his hand in small time crime across this part of Ohio, but he had mostly been considered a local crook,” Ashe said. “I had never heard of him, either, until that day. But I had looked and had been able to find his fingerprint in a lot of things criminal. Drugs. Guns. But he had been a low tier in the Ohio crime ring, a thug who hadn’t quite acquired the prestige and power that he had desired. He also ran some of the local prostitution. The girls that were butchered had been his own girls, or so we had been told.”

  “And you arrested him?”

  “No evidence outside of the eyewitness of a known prostitute,” he answered. “No DNA left behind. Nothing. Wouldn’t stick.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I came up with the idea of having a press conference on the local television stations,” he continued. “Normally press conferences wouldn’t have taken place for slain hookers, but I had had an idea. We had not referred to Steven Reynolds by name, we had only talked the killer, the Eastside Slasher, who we all had known to in fact be Steven Reynolds. I wanted to get in front of the cameras myself and jab a stick at his arrogance and power lust. I had called the Eastside Slasher an impotent coward who attacked woman in order to make up for his shortcoming as a man. I had been rude and abrasive. I had wanted to diminish him in the eyes of the public. I had wanted him to feel my words. I had wanted him to make another mistake.”

  “Smart.”

  “No. Not at all,” Ashe corrected. “I had been cocky. Ignorant. We had eyes on Steven Reynolds and were waiting for him to make a move. What could have gone wrong? Right?”

  “Right.”

  He sniffled.

  “A lot…actually,” he replied. “He must have had seen the press conference. It must have enraged h
im. He managed to slip the tight surveillance. I still don’t how he did it. But his rage had acquired a new target. Me. And he wanted to show that he could dominate me, as well, and bring me to my knees. He wanted to prove that he was in control and not the police, especially not me.”

  Katherine shook her head and sighed heavily.

  “Your wife?” she asked.

  Ashe nodded, tears streaming down his face.

  “For two days…” he began but choked up.

  Katherine got in front of him. She placed her head on his chest and heard his heart as it raced. As he breathed, her head rose and fell with his breaths.

  “…he tortured and raped her,” he finally said, “before he killed her. My son, Scott, was only sixteen when he lost his mother.” Sobs took over his throat and he could no longer speak coherently.

  “Tell me about her,” Katherine said. “What was she like?”

  Ashe put his head down, unable to meet Katherine’s eyes. “I can’t…”

  Putting her hand on Ashe’s cheek, Katherine kissed him. As a reflex, he pushed her back away from his lips and looked closely at her. He was confused. Part of him felt wrong about kissing a woman seconds after describing how his wife was murdered. At the same time, the warmth of her lips on his made him realize exactly how lonely he had been.

  Pulling her back in, Ashe began to kiss Katherine. She was soft. And the weight of her against him was comforting. He had forgotten how comforting touching someone else could be. To kiss. To touch. Those were the small wonders that kept people going from day to day.

  Katherine pulled back long enough to talk. “This doesn’t mean that you don’t still love your wife. But you deserve this. You’ve earned this. Can I stay with you tonight?”

  Ashe nodded.

  Taking her hand, he showed her where the stairs were, which would lead upstairs to the bedroom, the same one that he had once shared with Susanne. It had been cold and empty for many years. Katherine would help him warm it back up. He looked forward to it more than he realized he would.