The ashes, p.1
The Ashes, page 1
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—Publishers Weekly
“. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”
—Booklist “Starred Review”
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The Ashes
Vincent Zandri
“I know you were there with me on that night two years ago when Whalen made his final move. I know you were there because I felt your presence with every one of my five senses. I smelled your skin, I heard your voice, I felt your touch. You entered my body and gave me strength. You made me fight my fear. You helped me survive.”
—Rebecca Underhill in a letter to her late twin sister, Molly
“Of all ghosts, the ghosts of our old lovers are the worst.”
—Arthur Conan Doyle
May 13, 2015
Albany Police Department
South Pearl Street Precinct
The old homicide detective sits behind his metal desk surrounded by the cold quiet of the early morning, staring forlornly into the radiant screen on his department-issued laptop. He’s been using the laptop, which is integrated with the department’s web server, for years and years now, but he still fondly recalls the days when his desktop supported only a telephone connected to an old-fashioned landline and an IMB Selectric typewriter. And how could he ever forget the old two-tiered Inbox/Outbox?
He glances at his inbox and the two dozen or so new emails that have come his way since he last checked it the previous evening. He scans the subject lines for their importance, relegating most of them to routine until he comes to one marked, “URGENT: Serial Murderer Hanover Escapes Custody.”
Tall, wiry, white-haired Detective Nick Miller has been on the force for more years than a man should be. Or so he’s been told countless times by his peers in the department. But he’s a widower who can’t seem to get over the fact that his wife is gone, even years after her untimely death on an operating table after suffering a burst aneurysm. It also explains why he’s sitting behind his desk, suffering from the pangs of a whiskey hangover, on a quiet Sunday morning.
He opens the email.
“To Whom It May Concern,” reads the department-wide message. “The former cellmate of New York State registered sex offender and convicted murderer, Joseph William Whalen, has escaped from the Mid-Hudson Psychiatric Center in New Hampton, New York while en route to a routine medical review at an upstate facility. Lawrence Frederick Hanover, 69, Caucasian, was convicted on several counts of murder in the first degree and is considered extremely dangerous. Both guards who were assisting with the transfer were killed during an apparent violent exchange with Hanover, aka Skinner or The Skinner. His present whereabouts is unknown.”
Miller exhales, sits back in his swivel chair.
The email originates not from the FBI but from the state police, most notably, the Rensselaer County Division. He recalls Whalen as the maximum-security inmate who, not long after his release, attempted to abduct and kill the same woman, Rebecca Underhill, whom he’d abducted back when she was a little girl in 1977. Her twin sister, Molly, was also the target of his attacks. Although Molly has since died, Rebecca still lives in the area with her son.
The email comes with several pictures of Hanover, including his most recent mugshots and psychiatric facility photo records. The small, bald, scraggly faced little man doesn’t seem like he could hurt a fly much less another human being. But Miller wasn’t born yesterday, and he knows that even a little man can kill as efficiently and quickly as a big, monster of a man. Perhaps even more quickly and efficiently.
Sitting back up, he scans the rest of the email.
“While state police have issued a state-wide APB and launched a task force to hunt for Hanover’s whereabouts, we are asking that police cooperate in every way possible to ensure the quick, efficient, and discreet apprehension of the serial murderer. All communications should be delivered directly to this office via the email/phone number listed.”
Once more, Miller sits back.
“The quick, efficient, and discreet apprehension of the serial murderer,” he whispers. “Somebody fucked up and that somebody doesn’t want the press to get ahold of this story.”
Sitting there, alone in the quiet office, Miller feels a distinct and very unpleasant chill run up his backbone.
“What would a schooled Statie or FBI pathologist have to say about this rather delicate situation?” he whispers quietly to himself. “That a killer as skilled and hungry as Hanover is gonna slip up and be found sleeping in some crappy hotel somewhere? That they can then slip him back inside his rubber room at Mid-Hudson Psychiatric like he’s some two-bit bank robber?” The detective laughs aloud. “I’ll tell you something right now. If The Skinner doesn’t want to be found, then no way in hell he’s gonna be found. Simple as that. He didn’t escape to be free. He escaped to kill, to butcher, and that’s all.”
His bloodshot eyes focus on the laptop screen once more; the old detective shifts the cursor so that it clicks on the Action Taken box beside the open email. He clicks on Saved Mail.
Closing the laptop, he finds that his hands are shaking. He opens the bottom desk drawer, pulls out the bottle of Jack Daniels stored inside. Pouring a generous shot into his empty ceramic coffee cup, he drinks it down.
“Skinner,” he whispers. “Who will you flay next? Whose flesh will you feast on?”
October 2016
Albany, NY
“How long have you been hearing the voices coming from the cornfield, Mike?”
The man speaking is a child psychologist by the name of Dr. Robert Cuther — an aging, semi-retired child psychiatrist who’s come highly recommended to me by my best friend, housemate, and blonde bombshell co-conspirator at The School of Art, Robyn Painter (her real name, no pun). So the story goes, Cuther has been conducting therapy on Robyn’s eight-year-old daughter, Molly (named after my late twin sister), after we found her hiding in a second-floor closet of the farmhouse that our two half-families share. The little blonde-haired, blue-eyed clone of her mom has convinced herself the Boogeyman lives in our basement (he doesn’t . . . we checked) and that any day now he is going to abduct her and drag her down into his underground lair.
Truth is, I’m not sure what to expect from the man who — with his thick, curly gray hair, short stature, wrinkly pale face, and old wool suit over a black turtleneck — looks more like an over-the-hill Einstein than Freud. But I’m beginning to worry more and more about Michael, Jr. and the voices he claims to be hearing. Speaking to Dr. Cuther seems like the reasonable solution. He also agreed to see us on a quiet Sunday morning so as not to interrupt school and work schedules, which makes him not only reasonable but convenient.
“Go ahead and answer the Doctor, Boo,” I say, sitting across from the perch he occupies on a long leather couch. “Dr. Cuther is our friend.”
Little Mike peers at me with his smooth round face, little pug nose, thick head of dark brown hair that, even at eight years old, sports a lock that hangs down over his long forehead, just like his late dad. Sometimes, when he looks directly into my eyes with his big brown pools, I feel like I’m not only seeing his father but that I’m once more looking into my ex-husband’s soul.
“He’s not gonna give me any shots, is he, Ma?” Mike says, his short blue-jeaned legs hanging off the couch, his blue Converse sneakered feet in constant motion like he’s jogging in place.
Cuther laughs. It’s a genuine laugh. The kind of laugh a grandfather would make after a little boy made a joke about his gray hair or about the strange way his lips don’t move much when he talks. As though, at his age, it takes a grand effort to make facial expressions.
“No shots here, young man,” Cuther says. “When you come here, you do only fun stuff.”
