Ashes to Ashes (16 page)

“Are you a father?” Ashe asked. “Do you have
children?”

“Yes.”

“How many?”

“I’ve lost track.”

Ashe was unsure what the comment meant
exactly.

“Each young man or woman that have been or
will be in in this office, out on
that
court, is my child,”
Coach Barker said. “And don’t tell me that it isn’t the same thing.
I live and sweat for those young men and women, every day of my
life, rain or shine. Everything I do is so that those boys and
girls are at their best, physically
and
mentally. I want
nothing but good things for every one of them. And I will do
whatever I can…whatever is asked of me…for all of them. So…when
something happens to them…I am invested…completely.”

“Has Scott ever mentioned his roommate?”

“Owen? Once or twice.”

“He didn’t play for the team?”

“No,” Coach Barker said, almost giggling.
“From what Scott has said about Owen, the boy was not cut from that
type of material.”

“How so?”

“A little wild, I guess,” the coach admitted.
“Partied. Late nights. Scott would be tired some mornings, dragging
ass during practice and I would get on him. He would tell me that
his roommate kept him up late…loud music…having friends over…that
type of stuff. He even showed up one practice with his hands, his
knuckles bruised and cut up real good. Said that him and his
roommate got into a fight.”

“A fist fight? Over what?”

“He wouldn’t say,” the coach replied. “But it
had to have been something serious for Scott to fight. Your son
could usually keep his head straight no matter what shit was thrown
his way. This Owen kid must have pushed him too far. Or maybe
scared him into reacting.”

“I’ve never known Scott to get into a fight,”
Ashe thought out loud.

“Some kids just don’t have a violent bone in
their body…unless they are pushed to it…and then watch out.”

“When was this fight supposed to have
happened?”

“A month or so ago…I believe,” the coach
replied. “Maybe sooner…maybe not. I’m not sure.”

“You are still having basketball practice?
You said that Scott has missed the last handful of practices? Isn’t
the season over?”

“And the next season immediately began,” the
coach replied, winking. “Practice never really stops, in season or
between seasons.”

“Any other fights or problems that you know
of?” the psychologist asked.

The coach shook his head. “Scott didn’t have
much of life outside of basketball and his classes, like most
athletes on my teams. Scott was especially driven…in both areas. I
know he worked here and there, whenever he needed the extra cash.
But I can’t say if he is currently employed. Not much of a social
life, as far I know. Not much time for partying and living it up
with the kind of life that your son lives. It is all about
sacrifice.”

The psychologist knew about sacrifice.

Ashe asked, “I know that you said Scott had
missed a few practices, which was weird, but has Scott been acting
weird in any other way, lately? Unusual? Strange? Not quit
himself?”

Coach Barker thought.

“Distracted,” he stated. “Like something was
on his mind and he couldn’t focus. Again. That was not like Scott,
because Scott is always focused on what he needed to do. He had
been anxious, too, I guess. Stressed…but what college student isn’t
under some kind of crisis, especially one that juggles education
and basketball as well as your son.”

Ashe nodded, even though the behavior could
have manifested in his son for other reasons. Girlfriend trouble.
Money issues. Drugs. He hoped that it was simply girls or money.
But he immediately pictured Owen’s bloody mattress and doubted
it.

“Did you ever get the feeling that Scott
might have started taking drugs?”

“No,” Coach Barker blurted. “Never Scott.
Drugs would interfere with what he wanted out of his life and Scott
would never partake in anything that jeopardized his aspirations
and potential. When he would talk about his roommate Owen he would
get animated about how much he hated dealing with Owen when he was
high or drunk or both. Never Scott. Never, ever.”

“Ok. I had to ask. Does Scott have a
girlfriend?”

“The girls like Scott,” Coach Barker stated.
“He is a good looking and intelligent athlete at a sports college.
He wouldn’t have any problems attracting a woman or two. But I can’
say for sure if he was serious with anyone. I don’t remember him
mentioning any girlfriend.”

Ashe sighed. A steady girlfriend would be a
good source of crucial information. If he found her, if she were to
exist, he might even find his son.

“Are you going to tell me what this is about?
Or are you going to run off and leave me in the dark as well?”
Coach Barker asked.

Ashe considered doing just that. But he
couldn’t. He wouldn’t. Coach Barker seemed to be filling the role
of father to his son, the role that Ashe seemed to have abandoned a
long time ago.

“Owen is dead.”

“What?”

“Shot. And Scott is their main suspect. And
he is missing.”

“I don’t believe it,” Coach Barker replied,
exacerbated by the mere idea, the same reaction that Ashe had upon
hearing the news. “Not Scott. He had always been one of the better
ones around here. There is
no
way. I
won’t
believe
it.”

Ashe bobbed his head in agreement, choosing
to leave out the other two dead bodies.

“I believe that you honestly care about my
son,” Ashe disclosed. “I am asking you, as someone else who loves
Scott and will do whatever he needs to, do not contact Detective
Harrison. He doesn’t want me involved in this but there is no way
that I am staying out. And please, please don’t contact the media.
It would only cause frenzy and put Scott in more danger.”

“I have no intentions of contacting anyone,”
Ashe was thankful to hear the coach admit. “I just want you to call
me, whenever you know more. Keep me in the loop. I beg you, father
to father.”

“I will do that. I promise.” He almost said
pinky
.

“Thank you.”

“I need one more thing.”

“Shoot.”

“Did Scott have any close friends? Anyone in
particular that he hung out with on a regular basis? I know that he
was part of a team, but is there one individual you would consider
to be Scott’s
best
and
closest
friend?”

“Yea. Regime Watkins.”

“Did you tell Oscar about Regime?”

Coach Barker sighed.

“Yea. I did,” the coach said. “He left a
little over an hour ago. Maybe he’d already talked to Regime and
moved on.”

“Maybe,” Ashe replied. “I’ll take my chances.
Where would I find him?”

Chapter 18

Ashe didn’t immediately pull into the bar’s
parking lot, but instead made a couple passes in order to make sure
that Oscar’s beaten Impala wasn’t present. On the second pass, he
was sure that Oscar’s brown, four-door was nowhere in the area.
Nervous. Anxious. He pulled his Mazda into a far space, one at the
back corner of the small parking lot, where it might not be at once
noticed if Oscar were to arrive while he was still inside. He would
have to worry about his escape if or when the time came.

Taking a deep breath, he questioned whether
or not he should have parked another place besides at the pub
itself, like in the parking lot of another business, from where he
could walk over, guaranteeing that his car was hidden. Even though
it wasn’t too late to make that move, he cautiously shut off the
car, instead. The hot motor began to tick and it mirrored the
rhythm of unease that was
tap
tap
tapping
against his spine.

Taking a deep breath, he got out of the
car.

The psychologist had a few expectations when
he walked toward the small college sports pub and he was not
disappointed upon entering. The bar, even though it was barely late
afternoon, was semi-busy with drinking college tweens. They must be
drinking away their strained nerves or numbing themselves for an
important upcoming exam. Finals
were
lurking in the shadows,
after all. They may even have been toasting to a semester that was
closer to over, but that would only include those who were not dumb
enough or masochistic enough to take the dreaded summer classes.
Ashe had always taken at least one summer class while at Kent
State. He was pretty sure that he had been both dumb and
masochistic, which was one of the many reason he began to study
psychology, a science that dealt with trying to figure human
nature. Sometimes it seemed almost as pointless and absurd of a
concept as the idea that a meteorologist can successful interpret
and predict the flow of
air
.

A wise man, perhaps Ghandi, had once stated
that all psychologists were actually, deep down, bat-shit-crazy
themselves. And Ashe never argued with that astute observation.
Takes one to know one, they say.

The psychologist never paused or slowed down
upon entering the pub, but instead he went directly up to the
populated bar, as if he were an everyday visitor. He tried give off
the aroma of belonging. However, he was sure his age alone would
show him to be a fake, a phony. If any of the rowdy college coeds
cared whether or not he was among them, Ashe could not immediately
tell. They appeared to ignore his very existence, like they most
likely ignored every person above the age of twenty-five, outside
of their assigned class professors, but that was merely a matter of
survival instinct.

Ashe noticed that it was a short walk from
the side door he had used to the bar, which was a strategic move,
he assumed. If they put the alcohol close to entrances, it gave the
students less time to think about what they were doing and change
their minds. There must be a short gap between them entering and
them pouring booze into their bellies. If not, they may decide to
study instead of get drunk. As if that would ever happen. The
psychologist recalled the time back when was confronted by that
same daily decision, to drink or to study, to party or to not. If
he had chosen the booze over the text books a little more often,
his life might have turned out completely different, positively and
negatively.

Coming up to the focal area of the pub, the
wooden bar, Ashe was assaulted by a row of flat screen televisions
on the back wall. Every televised sports event seemed to be wiping
across the thin plasma screens. Bodies dashed and dodged and ran
and scored. Instead of becoming hypnotized by the athleticism, like
the others who were perched at the bar, he sat on a nearest empty
bar stool and motioned for the male bartender.

The young man who wore a tan shirt that
advertised the name of the establishment,
Dogwood
, slowly
made his way over to Ashe. There was no other name on the shirt
besides that of the bar, which was a sign that the place had a high
turnover, so high they didn’t waste their time or money to
customize the employees’ uniforms. Business that hired mostly
college student as employees usually went through workers quickly
and often. It didn’t matter to Ashe that the bartender’s name was
not put on the shirt, because he knew the young man to be Regime
Watkins, his son’s best friend, or so said Coach Barker.

“Let me get a Sam Adams,” Ashe immediately
ordered. “Whatever is in season,” he then clarified. “Surprise me.”
When the bartender darted away, Ashe slid a five dollar bill across
the wood of the bar. He wasn’t sure how he was going to play it.
What method would he use to initiate the conversation? Bartenders
were often busy and hard to entice into an actual exchange or
discussion longer than a couple seconds at a time. For a fleeting
instant, he considered stating that he was there on behalf of the
YPD, but he knew all too well how that had worked out last time. He
didn’t have to wait for an opening or use a specifically designed
interrogation method, though, because an opening was at once
presented to him.

The bartender swiftly snatched, opened, and
sat the frost bottle down in front of Ashe. The young man then
quickly took the green bill from the bar as he glanced at Ashe’s
face. He became strangely still. “Do I know you?” he asked before
turning to the cash register to make change for Ashe’s bill.

“Me?”

Something then happened that the psychologist
never would have expected. Recognition spread across Regime’s face
and the young man asked, “You’re Scott’s dad. Right?”

Ashe was instantly taken aback and mentally
spun around until he was slightly dizzy and ready to possibly fall
of the tall barstool.

“Yea,” the psychologist slowly admitted,
trying to show a healthy bit of confusion at how the stranger how
recognized him. He didn’t lead on that he knew the bartender as
well and had come to that certain place with a plan and an ulterior
motive. “How did you know that?”

“I’ve seen a few pictures with your face,”
Regime replied. “Scott showed me them. He talks about you
sometimes. Not often, I have to admit. All good things, I
promise.”

“I
doubt
that,” Ashe mumbled and
regretted it.

He observed the kid, sizing him up. The young
man was obviously an athlete. The psychologist didn’t have to have
been privy to any special knowledge to recognize it. He could see
the tight muscles below the kid’s uniform shirt. The kid’s
appearance was also orderly, with neatly trimmed hair, which was
cut very close the scalp. His face was clean shaven. From initial
appearances only, which sometimes spoke more than a person’s words,
Scott’s friend seemed to be a solid and trustworthy fellow. A lot
could be ascertained about a person by the typed of friends the
held company with. A large part of Ashe wanted his observations
about Regime to hold true, because it would further back up the
notion that Scott had remained good, strong, and wholesome.