Ashes to Ashes (14 page)

“What do you think you know?”

“I know all about your wife,” Barrett said,
immediately causing Ashe’s breath to still. “I know that she is
dead because of
your
arrogance and
your
selfish acts
of recklessly sticking your nose in the wrong brains. You don’t
know how to mind your own business. You don’t know how to leave
people alone…even when they ask nicely. And you have a habit of
pissing off the wrong people. Dr. Walters. And that is why your
wife is dead. Because of
you
.”

“This session is over,” Ashe spat, trying to
keep his cool.

“Steven Reynolds is a family friend,” Barrett
continued, a grin upon his lips. “I want to take this moment to say
hello
to you on his behalf. If he were here, I am sure he
would say,
Hello, Dr. Walters, hope all is well in your
world
.” He began to laugh.

“This session is over!” Ashe exclaimed,
jumping to his feet. Reaching behind him, he grabbed his baseball
bat. But instead of putting it against the head of Franklin
Barrett, he swung it down onto his desk and struck the red button.
Within seconds, Tye and a couple others stormed into the office.
“Get him the fuck away from me!” He pointed to Barrett with the tip
of the bat.

“Are you okay, my man?” Tye asked, responding
to Ashe’s tone and reddening face.

“Just get him back to his cell, please,” Ashe
replied. “Please.”

“Would you like me to reciprocate the
greeting?” Barrett asked, still laughing to himself.

Tye whacked him across the back of the head
with his hand, “You heard the man. Get your ass up and let’s go.
You have a cold cell that needs to be warmed back up. On your feet!
Let’s go!”

The other two guards didn’t wait for the
inmate to stand, but instead grabbed his arms and forced him to his
feet. They escorted him out of the door. Tye went to follow, but
first stopped, turned, and asked, “You need to talk?”

Ashe shook his head. He leaned the bat back
against the wall.

“I’m okay,” the psychologist said.

“Okay,” Tye replied. “Sometimes even head
shrinkers need someone to talk to. Don’t forget that, man.”

Ashe nodded.

Tye left and the psychologist fell back down
into his chair. He thought about clearing his desk. He thought
about swiping his hand across the top of it, violently sending the
papers and photos into the air. He thought about throwing his
coffee at the wall. He thought about smashing his laptop onto the
ground. He even thought about putting his baseball bat, the one he
had been gripping moments before, against the desk itself.

But he didn’t.

Instead, he pulled his laptop closer. The
machine was connected to the internet by a WIFI signal, one
provided by the prison administration. Pulling up the browser, Ashe
began to search for the Barrett family, trying to find any
connection to Steven Reynolds and the Reynolds Gang. Why would a
high class corporate family be connected to a low class psychopath
like Steven Reynolds? After typing in the words BARRETT FAMILY +
REYNOLDS GANG + NORTHEASTERN OHIO, Ashe watched as the search
engine began to pull up results.

Chapter 16

After nearly an hour of searching through the
news articles and websites that the search engine had discovered,
Ashe rode both the highs of irritation and lows of self-punishment.
He thought about his wife. He thought about how much he honestly
missed her, even after all the years she had been gone. And he also
thought about Steven Reynolds, a man that he had never met
face-to-face, yet had changed his life in more ways than could be
imaged by the human mind. Steven Reynolds was a man that seemed to
exist in the shadows of Ashe’s worst fears and nightmares. The man
existed in that place side by side with his grief and blame,
emotions that he has been fighting for 4 years. The blame for what
happened was with the psychologist and it will always remain
there.

Taking his hands from the computer’s
keyboard, Ashe rubbed his eyes, which felt dry and strained. Why
had Franklin Barrett mentioned Steven Reynolds? Was it simply a way
to get into his head, to lash out? Or were there other motives
behind the words? Was he sending a message? Did Steven Reynolds put
him up to it? What happened to Susanne was not a mystery by any
means, however, and once the anger had subsided he became
suspicious. Anyone could do a Google search, as he had just
performed, and pull up information.

Was that it? Or not? How could he be
sure?

Once it was determined that Franklin Barrett
was going to be sent to Wilson, there was no doubt that he would be
in Ashe’s office at least once, especially considering the
circumstances of the crime. Steven Reynolds might have considered
this a chance to remind Ashe that he still thought of him and the
unfinished business that may still exist between them.

Was there still unfinished business? No. If
anyone was even,
they
were. In fact, Ashe felt that he still
owed Mr. Reynolds a little more from his end. Even? Not really, he
figured. Ashe would love to see the son of a bitch tied to the back
of truck and drug down a gravel road until his flesh began to tear
from his bones. The truck would only stop when a bloody, mangled
corpse was all that remained.

Even? Not even close. At least not in the
mind of the psychologist. But did Steven Reynolds feel the same?
Was he sending a warning, letting Ashe know that he wanted another
pound of flesh?

Paranoid thoughts of conspiracies and plots
swirled around Ashe’s brain, but he quickly and swiftly calmed the
cyclone. Assumptions and anxiety would get him nowhere but in the
visiting chair on the other side of the desk. He had nothing but
the words of a convicted criminal, murderer of his own wife and
son. He knew better than to let them wreak havoc on his less than
stable mind. Barrett would say anything to get back at Ashe. The
psychologist had tried to get him to face his demons and the
violent death of his family by his own hands. It opened wounds.
Wide. And then a pound of salt was dumped into the cracks. The
psychologist forced himself to see the words as nothing but an
empty threat, said to him by a pathetic human being. They didn’t
mean shit.

He closed out the internet browser. He then
clicked on an icon that brought up his schedule for the rest of the
day. Some days were packed, crammed with meetings and interviews
and sessions, but luckily that Wednesday was lacking in the usual
clutter. Normally, Ashe would fill those free moments with research
or business calls, because no psychologist could properly assess or
diagnose or even treat a patient or client or inmate off the top of
his head, he didn’t care what faulty television programs wanted
their viewers to believe. It involved a lot of man hours over top
of a book or in front of a computer screen or on the phone.

But that wasn’t to be how the rest of his
morning played, Ashe concluded.

Ashe glanced at Scott’s dream journal again.
He began to fume. While Oscar and the other members of the YPD
force were actively following leads, all he had was a journal of
dreams and a mystery powder at the bottom of a lipstick container.
He suddenly felt foolish. He didn’t want to decipher dreams. He
didn’t want black and gold containers. He wanted solid witnesses
and evidence. He wanted to stand beside Oscar while they searched
for his son…together. But he didn’t have that. And it was pissing
him off.

Reopening the internet browser, Ashe made a
quick search and retrieved a phone number. The psychologist jotted
it down on a small yellow sticky note. He then folded the paper and
stuck it in the pockets of his pants. Grabbing his brown carrying
case, he packed up his laptop and all the files pertaining to
Franklin Barrett. He might want to look them over again, later on.
He looked hard at the dream journal. Instead of opening it up, Ashe
tossed it into his leather satchel and got up from his chair. He
was not going to sit at his desk any longer. He had to be careful,
but there were things he could do, thing he needed to be doing. He
had to begin the actions that might lead him to something solid,
something real. These things, he knew, were not at his desk.

He rushed out of his cage.

Chapter 17

Ashe Walters felt his head begin to clear as
he drove away from the prison. He felt his thoughts loosen as the
tenacious tension lessened. The jumble in his brain still existed,
the pressure that was crammed in his mind only loosened, but it did
not appear to be as tight of a mass as before. He could still feel
it, however, like a tumor, but as he bolted away from the prison
with a new direction in his immediate sights, he honestly felt a
tingle of hope, maybe not hope complete, or hope in a perfect and
happy ending to the current crisis, but a sense that he was on the
right path to helping his son, which was better than where he had
been moments prior, shunned by his friend, doubting himself, while
working with abstract pieces of fragmented clues and dreams which
only seemed to frustrate him more and more. He was moving forward
instead of spinning his wheels in the mud. The mud, which had been
thick and sticky beneath his tires, suddenly seemed to become
solid, giving him traction, enough traction to get out of the
trap.

His new found sense of purpose might have
also been conjured by the clear sky and sunshine overhead. It might
have also been the air, which was cool and crisp, existing at a
calm and gentle medium, neither too hot nor too cold. A good day
like the one around Ashe, with each breath tasting sweet and
refreshing, made it easier to think, to prioritize.

He had a purpose, Ashe told himself, a place
to go and begin his official investigation, even if he was
disobeying a direct order from the lead detective. Even though he
could be considered trustworthy, loyal, and professional by many,
it wouldn’t be the first time that he had had to step on a few toes
in order to force his will upon stubborn police officers. But he
never thought he would have to go against Oscar, someone who always
seemed to listen and appreciate what he brought to the table. That
fact, that one fact was what seemed to be throwing him off kilter
more than anything else. Oscar always had his back. Perhaps his old
friend had changed during their time away from each other. Maybe
Oscar had lost his trust and faith in a man who was responsible for
his own wife’s brutal death.

It didn’t matter. The psychologist was on his
own with an intended destination and he was confident that it would
lead to another and another, sure that the beginnings of a path was
being constructed out of the rough and rocky terrain that had been
previously in his way. All he needed somewhere to start, to take
the first real step toward finding his son. He finally admitted
that he did not have time to sit around and decipher his son’s
dreams or make ignorant assumptions about someone he honestly did
not know any longer. He needed to treat Scott like another patient
that he was assessing, researching, and evaluating. The act of
doing so would involve collecting data from collateral sources,
like friends, coworkers, or significant others, any person that had
an active role in Scott’s
current
life, instead of focusing
on irrelevant facts from a father who only had information that was
old and outdated. Relevant data could even come from legal
documentation and personal records. But that would be tricky and
Ashe was unsure had to go about retrieving those forms of
documentation without the backing of either the prison or
Youngstown Police Department. He had neither. He was on truly and
completely on his own in the wild.

He didn’t know his son, Ashe had no choice
but to accept, but he
could
think of a person that would
surely know Scott, or at least point him in the right
direction.

In the car’s mirrors, Ashe watched as the
immense structure of Wilson, with its tall, wire-topped fences,
fell further and further behind him. He usually never saw the
prison as either hindering or claustrophobic, because he truly and
honestly loved his job, the pros and cons, the good days and bad,
all the way down the most violent criminals that would rather slit
the psychologist’s throat than let him into their minds. But, that
day, he was glad to be driving away from it.

Using quick glances, Ashe managed to fish
both his phone and the phone number from his pocket without side
swiping another vehicle. Dialing with his free thumb, he pushed
SEND and waited until an automated service answered. He listened as
a monotone, robotic female voice listed the available options.
Speaking firmly, he told the computer the name of whom he was
trying to reach. He then waited another half a minute while the
service connected him to that person’s office.

It rang.

And rang.

Finally, a voice answered, “Coach Richard
Barker. How may I help you?” If anyone knew his son, anyone at all,
it would be his basketball coach. Ashe asked the coach if he would
be in the office for the next hour or so, because he would like to
stop to speak with him about an important matter that was time
sensitive. Coach Barker assured him that he would be in his office
until late into the day, even into the night, most likely.

The coach didn’t seem surprised to hear from
Ashe, making Ashe a little nervous, because he had never spoken to
the coach a day in his life. He only knew the coaches name due to
him finding it on the internet. Because of that fact, the coach
should be questioning the urgent and spontaneous meeting. But the
man didn’t. Oscar might have spoken to the man already, he thought
to himself.

Oscar was good at his job, that fact was
never in question. But would he set traps? Would his old friend
leave warning to potentially important people to watch out for and
report the psychologist? Ashe wasn’t sure but the possibility made
him pause and think. And after thinking, thinking hard, picturing
Scott, he continued to drive toward the YSU campus. He even drove a
few miles faster. He sighed loudly, but refused to change his
directions, no matter what obstacles he might run into.