Ashes to Ashes Read online

  Chapter 5

  Ashe quickly changed his mind about clearing his head at home. It simply wouldn’t work. His head would never clear. And for what seemed like hours, all he was able to do was drive fast and angry with no discernible destination before him. He circled and circled the city of Youngstown, his knuckles tight and white on the wheel, while obsessively checking his mirrors for the flashing blues and reds of an approaching police car. He couldn't remember the last time both his car and his mind raced with that much frantic uncontrollable energy. The last thing Ashe needed was a speeding ticket.

  Youngstown was calm and quiet, even for a night in the middle of the week. The hush of the empty streets was the polar opposite to what was going on inside of Ashe. He couldn't get his mind wrapped around what Oscar had told him.

  Scott was suspected of murder.

  His career as a forensic psychologist, in which he had many years of experience, was aimed at understanding the motivations and behaviors of people, even criminals. And he always considered himself to be somewhat competent. But he never thought he would have to figure out and maybe even justify the actions or suspected actions of his own son. Never in a million years. As a child, Scott had always been outgoing and outspoken, even from his first word, which was “no.” Yet, no matter how outgoing and outspoken Scott had been, he had always been kind and giving and never violent or aggressive, even when he played pee-wee baseball and football. He was always competitive, like his father, but Scott would never hurt another person.

  But that was Scott as a child...and even as a teenager. How well did Ashe know his son as an adult, though? There were too many possibilities and unknowns in Scott's present life for Ashe to be comfortable making any type of decision or opinion. There was simply too much that he didn't know. He just didn't know. And it made him feel confused and uncertain about the innocence of his own son. Could Scott have murdered someone? He wanted to say no...no way…but he knew better.

  No matter how much he desired to seek out the unknowns, though, Oscar Harrison had abandoned him to the sidelines of the investigation. Ashe had been labeled compromised and forced to witness everything through an electrical fence, with the information and clues that he needed out of his view and reach.

  He had never been forced to the outside. The state chose to send him the worst, most viscous criminals to assess and evaluate, trusting him to do his job, objectively and without bias. And he did so effectively, even sometimes obsessively, for years. He had also once stood by the side of Oscar himself through some strenuous and brutal investigations. Side by side they had worked the cases. But Oscar had denied him the ability to work toward finding his son.

  How dare Oscar think that he would be emotionally compromised?

  Ashe unconsciously slowed down at a traffic light and made a swift right turn. He immediately became aware of the street he had entered. It was dark but he was able to read the sign. Johnston Street. He knew the name from his memory. Glancing to the right, he saw Youngstown State University looming against the far horizon, tall buildings against the black night sky. They looked like giants watching from a far. To his left, he came upon an apartment building, one in which Scott had lived in for two or more years. It was the same building from which his son had fled, either in fear or guilt, as his roommate lay shot, bloody and dead. The image gave the psychologist a shiver.

  He had only been to the building once or maybe twice, though he couldn't remember the meaning for the visits. It was most likely business void of pleasure or personal regard, a fact that he at once regretted. His subconscious must have brought him to the building, in spite of his friend's order to remain on the outside. And his instinct must have figured a reason, a rationale that brought him to King Tower. At that moment, Ashe understood that he would never be able to remain on the sidelines. Not when the suspect was Scott.

  Instead of pulling into an empty parking space across the street or in front of the apartment complex, Ashe continued beyond the building and swung into the small lot of a bankrupt gas station. He was not the only person to take advantage of the abandoned piece of asphalt, three other vehicles also used it for either permanent or temporary parking. He slammed the maroon Mazda to a halt, causing his body to slightly jerk forward with the momentum. It took a couple seconds for him to snatch back his breath.

  The psychologist slid slowly into the silence and shadows of closed down business. After exiting his car, he began to walk cautiously down the road. Hands in pockets, trying to look casual, Ashe came closer to the front of the building. All at once he froze in place, as if suddenly turning to ice. His eyes fell on a brown Crown Vic sitting along the road at the front of the apartment building, a figure behind the wheel.

  “Damn,” Ashe swore.

  He should have known that Oscar would place an officer outside of Scott's building, undercover, with eyes continuously on the front set of double doors. The officer, most likely a rookie, would have a picture of Scott and would notify Oscar if he would happen to return. The rookie would sit there all night, watching and waiting, to be replaced by another rookie in the morning.

  It was a pointless assignment, which was why Oscar would only assign a rookie to it. But the pointless move came from an old experience, Ashe knew. Oscar hadn’t always appreciated surveillance, mostly because he hated to remain still. One case had changed his mind, though. In the middle of 2000 a fifteen year old female by the name of Claudette Janita Jones went on the run after strangling her mother to death. After taking a few hours to speak to Claudette’s family in order to gather information about the running killer, Ashe suggested to his old friend that they leak some false information to the media, claiming that the mother had actually survived the assault and was back in her home. Oscar wasn’t immediately convinced of the tactic, but the psychologist explained the level of hatred that the juvenile had for her mother, a hatred that had become all encompassing. The detective never believed that the young woman would be stupid enough to return to the scene of the crime, but Ashe knew that she would never stay away while her mother still breathed. And the psychologist had been right. They walked right up on Claudette Janita Jones as she approached the front door of the house, a long knife held firmly in her hand.

  But Scott would not return like that young killer. He couldn’t say that he knew his son well, but he had been privy to Scott’s determination whenever he was trying to run. Ashe was sure that his son was long gone and would never return to the scene of the crime. He knew it for a fact. After Susanne had died, Scott found his chance to run to college with scholarship in hand and never once returned to the scene. Ashe figured that he took some comfort in the fact that his son didn't run across the country, only into Youngstown, a stone's throw away. He just never took advantage of the proximity and reached out, at least not enough to make a difference. At that moment he regretted it, more than ever before.

  Still paused, Ashe considered his options. The rookie might not know him personally, having been away from police business for quite a few years. Oscar knew him, however, and how stubborn he could be. His old friend quite possibly had given the rookie a picture or description of himself, as well.

  “Damn,” Ashe repeated.

  To the left was a little alleyway that seemed to lead to the other side of the apartment complex. It appeared to circle around to the back of the building. He wondered if there was another door. Would that door be covered as well? He pictured another undercover hanging around the back entrance, harmlessly on the phone or smoking a cigarette. Once exposed to the undercover, Ashe would have nowhere to hide. What excuse could he possible conjure up to explain his being there?

  He considered the option and the possible exposure and quickly decided to take his chances. The psychologist took the alley with caution and careful steps. Coming to the backside of the tall building, he saw there was indeed a single back door.

&nbs
p; A tall gentleman wearing a dark brown hoodie stood several feet from the back door, exposed by a single light hanging from the side of the building. Ashe froze again. He could see the lit tip of the man’s cigarette, along with the several butts that had been discarded at the man’s feet. More surveillance, Ashe realized.

  Ashe didn’t move for many seconds, unsure how to react. He didn’t step forward nor did he turn back. He was still as stone. The psychologist watched as the man glanced in his direction. The undercover officer gave Ashe a brief once over before turning his attention toward another direction.

  A breath escaped Ashe’s lungs. He shook the tension from his shoulders and approached the back door. But, as he got closer to the door he noticed that it had a scanner. A red light blinked. It was a card reader. And that was when he recalled that the front doors had one as well. They were the building owner’s attempt at security. He vaguely remembered them, proving that he had indeed been there at least once.

  He swore under his breath.

  From the corner of his eye, Ashe watched a young couple appear, walking toward him. Faking annoyance, he searched his pockets and wallet for an imaginary entrance card. When the couple arrived, they were more than happy to let him in.

  How nice of them. So much for the illusion of top-notch security.

  Once inside, he quickly made a comment to the young couple. “Did you hear what happened? Crazy. Right? My son lives in the building…on the top floor. I’m kind of worried. I hope he doesn’t mind me coming by so late. I just need to know that he is okay.”

  The young lady nodded rapidly. “I heard it was a gang hit.”

  Her boyfriend laughed. “It wasn’t a gang hit. That’s stupid. Cheating girlfriend…is what I heard. Caught her in the act.”

  They didn’t know what happened, Ashe assumed. They were nothing but a part of the rumor river that often ran through small communities, and an apartment complex was nothing more than micro-community. They would not be able to provide the psychologist with anything solid, anything fact based.

  When the young couple moved to the elevator, Ashe departed and rushed off toward the stairs. He recalled that Scott lived up on the third floor, which was a lot of steps for his tired legs. Breathing heavily, he finally found himself in front of Scott's door. A yellow crime scene banner still crisscrossed over it, like the bones on a pirate’s flag. It was a warning. He had long ago lost count of how many times he had been invited to venture past the borders of the yellow banner and into a crime scene. But he had been ordered, sternly, to remain on the other side of the current one. An order he dismissed by opening and swinging forward the unlocked door.

  He was immediately curious to why it was unlocked. He figured there wasn't much point in locking it. The damage had been done. And a pair of rookies was outside watching the building.

  Ducking beneath the yellow strands of plastic, he entered the apartment. Closing the door behind him, Ashe was suddenly smothered in black. He didn’t have any access to a flashlight, so he decided to pull his cell phone from his pants and use the dim light of the screen. The undercovers wouldn't be able to notice it from the outside, like he would notice if the overhead apartment lights suddenly sprung to life.

  Scott was never the cleanest person and Ashe wasn't surprised to find the kitchen little untidy, dishes in the sink and trash protruding from the top of the garbage can. As a young boy, his son liked to leave behind evidence of his existence, a discarded sock or candy wrapper. He would often follow behind Scott, picking up clothes as they fell from his body. If he had found the counter tops freshly wiped with the salt and pepper shakers labeled and evenly spaced, he might have been worried.

  Moving the light into the living room, Ashe looked for signs of a struggle. But he reminded himself that Owen had been shot in his bed, obviously while sleeping. There wouldn’t be any struggle or signs of one.

  Standing in the center of the living room, he illuminated all around him, across the couch, the walls, and the floor, searching for anything out of the ordinary, something that would stand out as weird. But there was nothing. The couch had the expected wear and tear. The walls were pretty much bare, except for a single cheap painting of an orange flower in a brown vase. The carpet had a handful of stains, most likely from spilled soda or beer. It was a bachelor pad. Nothing more. Nothing less.

  Sigh.

  It all seemed impersonal...lacking personality. There wasn’t anything that represented Scott or his roommate Owen. He needed to more than bland and boring. He needed to find something personal. He needed to understand who they were. Even his own son had become a stranger that he needed to better understand. Without that understanding, Ashe had nothing. He looked down the hallway. The bedroom, he considered, was always thought of as personal space, where nothing was secret, even the whips and chains hanging in the closet.

  Using the cell phone to guide him, Ashe made his way down the hallway. It was a short distance before the first bedroom appeared on the left, the door wide open. The smell of blood still hung in the air, drifting from Owen's room, like thick metallic vapors. He wasn't sure but he thought he also smelled the stench of a fired weapon. Blood and gun powder sometimes liked to hang in the air long after the initial expulsion.

  Ashe followed the odors into the bedroom and his eyes instantly fell upon the bed that Owen had died upon. The blankets and sheets had been stripped away by the Crime Scene Unit, but the blood had soaked deep into the mattress, which had been left behind. He could perfectly make out where Owen's head had laid.

  Shooting someone while they slept could have meant many things. It could imply fear, like when an abused wife murdered her husband while he was passed out drunk. Ashe could clearly remember a fragile lady, Tela Poling, who had been sent to his cage for assessment, after having been convicted of first degree murder. Her complexion was pale and her frame was fragile. The area around her eyes was forever bruised by worry, lack of sleep, along with her husband’s fist. Outside observers might say that she had “lost it” but it was clear to him, without Tela having to utter a single word, that she was a gentle woman pushed too far. In a moment of desperation, she had given in to fear and stabbed her husband 34 times while he slept off a two-day binge.

  Two or three jabs hadn’t been enough. Tela made sure that her husband was good and dead.

  Ashe had tried to put his professional two cents in on Tela's behalf. He had gone to Oscar for advice and help. Tela was not a killer, only a battered wife who had finally stood up for herself, desperate to make the hurting stop. Her defense counsel had been incompetent and her own voice was never heard during the trial. And yet, there seemed to only be dead ends down the road he tried to take. No one had listened to what he had to say, even if he had had some good points. He too eventually succeeded to the fact that Tela would remain in prison, her thin form rotting away.

  There could also have been a severe disregard by the shooter for Owen as a person, which was why they killed him in his sleep, like nameless cattle. If that was the case, the murderer would surely be either a sociopath or a psychopath. Cold. Calculated. Unfeeling.

  A professional hit? But why would anyone hire a hitter to kill a college student? That didn't make any sense. Unless Owen had gotten himself in deep with the wrong people, the kind of people that didn’t take being let down lightly.

  Ashe shook his head in disgust.

  Owen's room was simple. The bed had been nothing more than a twin mattress and a box-spring on the floor. An old television sat on top of an old stand. The stand was wooden and slanted slightly to the right, looking ready to tumble over in a heap. A DVD player was on the stand’s one and only shelf. Everything was unplugged from the wall. Ashe wondered if Owen had fell asleep watching television, which meant that it would have still been on when the YPD found the body.

  Did they take the movie, he wandered.
Squatting down, Ashe plugged in the DVD player and pushed the EJECT button. Out came the tray revealing a disk. The Crime Scene Unit must not have viewed the disc to be of forensic importance. Using only the tips of his fingers, he picked up the disk and examined the top picture. In the picture were images of sex and sexual activities. Owen had been watching porn.

  The fact that Owen had been watching porn could mean something but it could also mean absolutely nothing. It would depend on how much he watched and whether or not it was an addiction. A porn addiction could be important. It was hard to say. Ashe knew, from experience, that most college men were highly sexual and probably watched porn quit a lot during their free time, especially when they were alone in bed.

  Placing the disk back in the tray, Ashe closed the player and unplugged it. He remained squatting. That was when he noticed a sprinkling of powder alongside of the television, spread finely next to the base of the television. The thin layer stood out under the light of the cell phone. It was barely visible, as were the scratches across the wood of the stand, which had obviously been done by a sharp razor.

  Owen did drugs, Ashe concluded.

  But the coke would have kept Owen awake and alert and aware that an attacker had appeared in his doorway. The evidence of coke use was strong, but Owen could not have been using the drug before he was killed. Turning, the psychologist used his lowered position to scan the floor around the stand. Down by the base of the stand was a gathering of green seeds, obviously that of marihuana. He thought about picking one up to examine it closer, but he had already touched enough in the room.

  If the stench of blood wasn’t so thick about the room, Ashe might have smelled the scent of weed, telling him that Owen had been high when he fell asleep. It was a real possibility, because cannabis often put the users to sleep, unlike those drugs found in powder form. And Owen might have even been drunk, Ashe inferred, even though there was no evidence of alcohol, at least not in the room. He had never searched the fridge, but there might have been alcohol. It was, in fact, a college bachelor pad.

  Drugs might have been what got Owen shot in the back of the head. A substance abuser or addict, if that was indeed what Owen was, cared nothing of anything but that next high, whether it came from an upper or downer. The high was all that mattered. Not their friends or family or themselves. The high was their only motivation. Owen could have possibly crossed the wrong dealer or fellow addict while seeking that next high, giving that person or group of people a need for violent restitution. And they timed their homicide perfectly, by getting at their victim while he was passed out in bed.

  Why didn't they shoot Scott, too? Or at least shoot at him? He had been home when the shooting occurred and Ashe knew that his son would have reacted. He truly didn't see Scott hiding in his room.

  The train of thought only brought about more questions.

  Rising, Ashe went back into the hallway to search for evidence of gunfire, holes in the walls, but there were zero. Naught. The psychologist searched the rest of the bedroom the best he could without leaving behind any prints. The surfaces he couldn’t help but to touch, he quickly wiped off with the base of his shirt. There was nothing left to find in the room, nothing of substance, only some ragged clothing and additional pornographic movies. Anything of substance or importance had been taken. The Crime Scene Unit must not have seen any weight in the remaining items, either, which was why they had left them behind.

  There was nothing new to discover in Owen’s personal space. All that was left to do was go into his son's bedroom. Maybe there would be some answers to find there.

  He hoped.

  As he crept into the room, his foot thumped hard against something on the floor. He cursed quietly. The object was hard and metal. Lowering the light, Ashe saw that it was a hand weight. Forty-five pounds of solid metal. Another one sat nearby. Scott was always serious about staying in shape. He was surprised that there wasn't an entire weight bench crammed into the small bedroom.

  Stepping over the weight, Ashe began to drift the light over the room. He could tell that the bedroom had been looked over and rummaged through, but only slightly. The top two dresser drawers were still askew and the dresser itself had been pulled a few inches from the wall. Scott’s mattress looked a little crooked, off center from the box spring.

  How hard or how fast did they inspect the room? Ashe had hoped that Oscar and the other detectives wouldn’t have torn the room asunder, because it meant that something might have been left behind.

  He came further into the room, taking in as much as his phone light would show. On the walls were sports posters, mostly basketball, with more posters depicting the Cleveland Cavalier than any other NBA team. Scott must have remained a loyal fan of the Cavs.

  Ashe had always been a Celtics fan.

  Scott had played many sports growing up, baseball, soccer, football, etcetera, but Ashe knew that his son’s heart had always been with basketball. During the last year of high school, basketball became the only sport that Scott had played, while the other sports fell to the wayside.

  On the wall Scott had also hung three framed pictures. One was of himself in his high school basketball jersey, posing with a basketball wedged between his arm and chest. The other was of himself standing next to his mother, his arm around her shoulder. The last one, which was significantly bigger than the other two, was solely of Susanne, smiling wide for the camera. Ashe couldn't help but to smirk at the sight of his wife.

  There were no other pictures in the bedroom. None showing either friends or girlfriends. Maybe the police had taken any other pictures, ones that might have contained possible leads in the investigation, but Ashe didn’t see any signs of where other pictures might have been placed.

  At the right corner of the room was a narrow metal desk, on which sat a thick black laptop. It was open. Putting his rear end onto the black folding chair that sat in front of the metal desk, Ashe nudged the laptop and watched as the narrow screen came to life. The background was the YSU penguin, the mascot of the college team. The psychologist scanned what few icons were on the screen with nothing standing out.

  Ashe was far from a computer expert, but he was adequate enough to search through files and programs. Using the wireless mouse, he opened and closed folder after folder, only finding school work, Scott’s papers and presentations. He then double clicked an icon and tried to open up the internet browser, but instantly realized that there wasn’t any internet to connect to. Scott must get online at the school or library, the psychologist figured, because in those days, a college student was nearly impotent without access to the World Wide Web.

  Rubbing his sore eyes, Ashe turned from the laptop. Beside the metal desk was a narrow wooden table, with what looked like clutter on the top. Ashe moved closer to it. But the clutter was only a group of high school sports trophies.

  He leaned in closer to admire the grouping of trophies. That was when Ashe noticed the little black container sitting at the foot of the trophies. For some reason, he reached in and picked up the container. The object was only slightly longer than his thumbnail. It looked like a miniature lipstick case, black with gold trim where the bottom and lid met. Due to its weight, he was sure that it was empty.

  He shook it anyway.

  “What is this?”

  He didn't understand the reason at the time, but Ashe knew he had to take the container with him. He believed it to be important. It didn't fit. In that room, the empty lipstick-like container did not belong. It was odd. It was an anomaly, which was why he tucked it into his pants pocket anyway. He wondered why Crime Scene had left it behind. But he honestly didn’t fully understand why he was taking the object himself, because it would most likely as purposeless to the crime as the shiny trophies it had been sitting by.

  Getting up from the chair, Ashe took a couple steps backward and his calves connected with the fram
e of Scott’s bed. It caught him off guard and he almost stumbled onto the mattress. Bracing his legs, he managed to regain his footing. The already disturbed mattress shifted even further. The psychologist turned around to right and noticed something peeking out from between the mattress and the box springs.

  A maroon notebook. A journal. It was worn and heavily handled.

  Grabbing the notebook, Ashe cradled it in his hands and began to flip through the first few pages. And then the next tooth fell to the floor...I couldn't stop floating over the brown house...I don't know what the blue lady wanted but it wasn't good. To an outsider or random observer, the notebook would be gibberish or random images. Reading it over, he knew it to be a dream journal.

  During an early undergrad psychology class, Ashe had learned about dream journals and their possible uses during treatment or therapy sessions. Dreams have long been thought to be important, and sometimes mysterious. He agreed with some of that statement. Dreams were important but not all dreams. Freud, in his day, had highly exaggerated the importance of dreams as a whole, stating that dreams were a symbolic language used by the subconscious and were important to understanding underlying urges and impulses. Most dreams, Ashe believed, were merely remnants of the day's thoughts and events. Unimportant. However, reoccurring dreams could give clues to inner turmoil or troubles that the subconscious was trying to solve. Keeping a dream journal could be helpful to identifying and recording the clues.

  And it could be interesting at the same time.

  For most of his life, Ashe had kept a dream journal. And he had passed along the habit to his son at an early age. As a young boy, Scott had suffered from minor night terrors, which caused him to wake screaming in the middle of the night. The feelings and visions of whatever was scaring him faded quickly, leaving behind nothing but mist. Because of the quickness of the fading, Ashe began to run into Scott's room at the sound of screaming, with a notebook and pen, to try and record what his son had been seeing and feeling.

  There had been a boy in Scott's class named Malcolm who bullied him day in and out, and Scott had been afraid of the boy, enough so that the fear crept into his dreams, scarring him even in his sleep. Ashe was able to figure it out through the broken emotions and visions of his son's fading nightmares.

  Scott had thought the dream journal was...neat. And, possibly thinking that the space had the power of magical concealment, he had always hid the journal underneath his mattress.

  Holding the journal in his hands, Ashe wanted to believe there was answers it. Just like with the night terrors, the dream journal would provide him the broken pieces in which to rebuild the whole puzzle. Getting inside of Scott’s psyche would be an important step, even if it was only the initial step in a long, treacherous hike.

  He had been in the apartment long enough, Ashe realized.

  Turning to leave, he noticed one more thing that stopped him cold. The bedroom door had been open and he had missed it on the way in, but on the inside of the door were two large sliding locks. They appeared to be thick, sturdy, and expensive. And together they could possibly stop an angry bull from charging into the room.

  Why? What or who was Scott trying to keep out?

  Taking a long look at the locks, Ashe gripped the journal firmly and left the bedroom and the apartment. He paused in the hallway. The door to another apartment sat directly across from Scott’s. For a few seconds he stared at the doorway. Oscar had said the neighbor from across the hall had been the one to call in the shooting. He put his body in front of the door and decided to knock.

  Eventually, after knocking several times, a tired looking, dark skinned young woman answered. She looked to be around Scott’s age. She chose to keep the door’s chain latched, providing a barrier between Ashe and herself, understandably so.

  “I’m sorry to wake you, ma’am,” Ashe began, “but I work for the Youngstown Police Department and I was wondering if I could ask you some questions about what happened in the apartment across the hall. I would only need a couple minutes of your time. I know you probably have to rest up for class in the morning. I apologize for the inconvenience.”

  “I’ve already talked to the police,” the woman replied. “And you don’t look like a cop, either.”

  “I’m not a cop, I’m a consultant,” Ashe told her. He suddenly wished that he still had his laminated badge. “I was sent with some follow-up questions. I’m sorry that it had to be late. But time is crucial. My I get your name, please?”

  “No you may not, consultant,” the young lady remarked. “And you can ask me all the follow-up questions that you want…tomorrow…during the day. But bring a real cop with you…if you want me to answer anything. Goodnight.” She then aggressively slammed the door.

  Ash thought about knocking on other doors, to try to find any witnesses to Scott’s bolt from the building, but decided to go home instead. He was spent. And no one would talk to him anyway. He did not have a badge or even his consultant laminate.

  He groaned and rubbed his tired eyes. A seemingly normal day had turned rabid and bit him in the ass.