The Ashes of Murderous Lies

By Mary Cruz

Firefighter and businessman Chase Bennett could never have predicted the entangled secrets and intricate lies cutting down a few evergreen trees would unearth, but once the first decayed skeleton was found in Victor Falls, Washington the towns residents frantically rush to bury their own dirty secrets faster than the truth can be exposed.
Five years have passed since three women, Maggie, Paige and Iris Anne collectively conspired to bury a scoundrel of a man, Jack Russell, but even as they worked together to bury him, individually each of the women believed they were solely responsible for his murder.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 18, 2016
• ISBN: 9781524650773

Mary Cruz

Mary Cruz is a retired firefighter/EMT and medical transcriptionist. In addition to her passion for writing, she is an avid quilt maker who loves animals especially dogs and cats who love quilts. College graduate with degrees in Psychology, General Studies. She studied so much for so long until her father asked, Will you be graduating soon? Because, daughter dear one day you have to decide whether you want to be a milkman or a brain surgeon. Mary has never met a stranger and she finds most things funny. She shares a laugh with everyone she meets.

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CHAPTER ONE

Thursday, July 15, 2004

Occam’s razor defines truth as the simplest explanation, but it seems to me the truth is anything but simple. No one could have predicted the entangled secrets and intricate lies cutting down a few trees would unearth.

As I ate the last bite of my stale sandwich and swigged down the last of my beer, I looked around at the trees lying there on the ground. I knew that life here would never be the same. The quiet and the solitude would be gone forever, and I had been one who helped take it away. Just when you feel comfortable with what you know, it changes and you do not know anything anymore. Nothing is ever what it seems.

For weeks now the sounds of progress sawed its way into the surrounding woods of the Emerald Ridge Estates subdivision of Victor Falls. The buzzing of power saws combined with the smell of fresh fallen timber forever changed what had always been.

Harley Chase Bennett is my given name. People call me Chase. I have lived all of my life in Victor Falls. Truth be told, I loved this small isolated community that has not grown much, until now. Sometimes the isolation had been a nuisance, but I would not be happy anywhere else. That is not always the case, as you will understand.

All right, lunch is over. We can sit here all day drinking beer and shooting the breeze, but it’s not going to get this job done. Bob said. Up on your feet, let’s do this thing.

The last thing I wanted to do was cut down any more trees. Especially here, but it was the job we had been hired to do. It did not seem that long ago when my friends and I had a clubhouse in these woods, and buried our treasures at the base of a tree here. Gathering all of our most valued possessions, we placed them in a metal filing box that I had stolen from my father’s office. The box had a lock and a key, which made it perfect for our purpose. We locked our precious items away and buried them. It seemed the right thing to do at the time to insure our trinkets remained safe. Meticulously, we sketched out a map using features of the landscape to diagram our treasure map. We voted on where to hide the key. Then, we each swore a vow of secrecy with one another never to tell anyone. The map and the key have long since been misplaced. Our clubhouse is gone. As the trees came down now it permanently altered the scenery and erased the scenic memories of our boyhood adventures here as well.

My buddies and I had thoroughly explored these woods, inch by inch. We had classified clubhouse meetings here. We built a few forts, enacted small wars, and inspected dead animals we found in these woods. On one of our forest explorations, we had even found some old rusty animal traps, those set by poachers long before any of us were born. Later, as young men the five of us had even done a little hunting out here. We told our best secrets, and shared our troubles with each other in these woods.

It made me melancholy. I wondered if Bob and the others were feeling this way too, or if the extra money was the perfect anesthetic needed to soothe the pain of this deadly destruction. Still, I felt guilty for being a part of violating what had once been sacred ground, even if my family did not own it anymore. It was just wrong.

Looking around at felled trees, the uprooted ground cover and the devastation reminded me of a war zone bomb blast. The destruction felt like a punch in the stomach. I hate change. I like things the way they are, even if things are not perfect at least you can rely on the stability of what is. I wonder what my grandfather would have said about us scalping the land this way.

At one time, the 80 acres that made up Emerald Ridge had belonged to my family as part of the Bennett farm. My grandfather, Marshall Bennett, sold this particular parcel of land right after he acquired the farm back in 1920. My grandfather said the land was, ‘not good for anything,’ so he sold it to an Italian miner who had lost his job in the Black Diamond Mine strike of 1921. The miner paid a nice price for it; about three times what it was actually worth. Since this area was wetland and would never drain properly, it was not worth much to a farmer.

Evidently, it was worth more to a miner, since my grandfather said he sold the land for a ‘king’s ransom.’ I do not know exactly how much a king’s ransom is, but it was enough to earn the miner the legendary name of Crazy Dino. Then again, Dino spent the rest of his life living alone out here digging until he had vanished and defaulted on his land payments. That could have been the origin of that story. I really could not say with certainty since all of that took place before I was born.

Later when my grandfather became ill, he deeded this parcel and the rest of his property to his brother, Alton. It was not long after grandfather died that Uncle Alton sold what remained of the Bennett farm to the Landmark Development Company to fund his poker failures. Yes, I am sure my grandfather would be dismayed to see us raping the landscape, but that is the way with progress. It goes on with you or without you, and there might as well be some compensation for what I was losing. At least that is what I told myself to ease my own guilt.

The tree cutting crew and I knew each other well from our younger days at Victor Falls Elementary School. While Bob, Tommy, Charlie and I were the ones acting up when the teacher left the classroom, Willie was the guy handpicked by the teacher to write our names down to tell on us for what we did while she was gone.

In turn, we got we pounded him with chalkboard erasers that we threw at him. Naturally, Willie would cry and tell our teacher, old lady Cross, and then we would all get to stay after school for that. I never threw any erasers at him, probably since I felt a little sorry for him. Willie was a little guy, much smaller than the rest of us physically, and I knew all he ever wanted was to be one of us.

Bob befriended Willie, mainly to get closer to Willie’s sister, and that worked out about as Bob had planned, because now Willie was Bob’s brother-in-law.

The need for Willie to be one of us blended in well with our misadventures. Willie was the last one anyone would suspect of doing something wrong, so we always used that to our advantage. Living out on a farm there are great many misadventures for young boys to get into. Without reservation I know the outcome of those adventures molded us to the men we are today. The first thing that comes to mind is from a chapter of our lives called, ‘When Boys Ride Goats.’

On the farm, we always owned horses. People who own horses usually have a couple of goats hanging around. For some reason, goats are a comfort to horses, and they keep them from getting wild. In addition, periodically when the foals are born, they will not take the mare’s milk, or maybe there is no mother’s milk. In that case, the colts or fillies nurse on goat’s milk instead. There was no logical reason to have any male goats on our farm, except to keep the nanny goats happy, or because my grandfather always liked having one since they were so mischievous. Grandpa Bennett had a Billy goat named Grandy.

Grandy was about the meanest goat that ever was. He was part goat and part devil. As it went Grandy hated kids, and in return, we hated him, so we taunted each other. In some twisted way, Grandy enjoyed entertaining my grandfather at our expense. Therefore, whenever he got a chance, Grandy would run up behind us and head butt us in the seat of our pants.

Of course, a hit like that will not hurt much other than your pride when it knocks you down on the ground. Getting even with Grandy was never an option because once he butted us in the britches he would run and we could never catch him. I still do not like goats today, and primarily for that reason. Well, that and let’s face it, goats smell bad. Once you get a little goat stink on you it’s practically impossible to wash it off.

I remember one afternoon we had an idea to see if we could break that goat to make him friendlier toward us. Something along the lines of what my father did when he tried to tame a wild horse. Just ride ‘em until they come around to a better way of thinking, and eventually they will calm down to do things your way.

Since we were all so big, and Willie was so small, we figured Willie was the only one of us who could actually ride him without breaking his back. For one thing, if we ever did something to hurt that goat my grandfather would be angry and we would all be in trouble. Trouble was what we tried to avoid from every angle.

We did not have a saddle for goat riding, so we decided we better put a twine bridle on Grandy for safety and all. I truly believe this was the day we had our boyhood personalities set in stone for the grown men we would eventually become. It is funny to me how one childhood event can often mold a man’s personality. I remember it well.

Now, go ahead and climb on there! Charlie said handing him the reins. We can hold him for you.

Willie refused to do it. No! He might bite me.

He ain’t going to bite you! How many people you ever knew ever got bit by a goat? Come on. Bob said.

Bob grabbed Grandy goat’s head and held him tightly in a headlock. Get on there while I hold his head.

Willie reluctantly threw his right leg over the goat’s back. The goat attempting to keep Willie off, jolted forward, and wiggled out from under him. Grandy did not run too far because Bob steadied him like a football player holding off the offensive line. The goat’s hind legs joggled around to the side trying to wrangle himself free from Bob’s hold.

With labored breathing, Bob said sternly, Get over there and hold his back legs Chase before I twist his hairy head off!

Doing as I was told, I grabbed the goat by his back legs, and held him, even though I did not want any part of this. Of course, Grandy goat did not want any part of this adventure either.

Having seen my dad try to ride unbroken horses for the first time, I knew that horses and goats will react about the same when it comes to having someone try to ride them. It is unnatural. They will not like it. I knew right away that Grandy was going to buck like a bitch, just about as soon as Willie climbed on. Still, we were all determined to see Willie get a ride that bucking goat … even if that meant I had to get a goat toxin on me in the process.

Grandy goat was anxious and rowdy, even nervous about what was fixing to happen, but he was unable to do shit about it. Bob and I held Grandy as still as we could as we each coerced Willie to climb on.

Charlie patted Willie on the back trying to convince Willie this was a good idea. You can do this. Are you ready buddy?

Willie was close to tears. I don’t want to. He will kill me. I know it.

He can get on Charlie, I said with skepticism, But as soon as we let this goat loose he is going to get bucked right back off.

Having seen this sort of thing before, I knew a critical part of the formula for success was having enough riding time on the animal’s back to break him.

Yeah, you’re right. What do you want to do?

Here’s an idea, Tommy said enthusiastically, We can tie Willie’s feet on and that way he can’t get bucked off.

That sounded like a great idea. I say ‘sounded like,’ because what came next none of us could have ever imagined.

Willie hesitantly climbed onto the goat a second time. That goat became practically rabid over this situation as he snorted and grunted, blowing snot and slobber out of every orifice he had. All too soon the goat jerked back away from me and I lost my grip on those bony, hairy legs. In a flash, Grandy reared up and kicked me with his hind leg squarely in the ribs.

Damn! Hang on to him Chase! Charlie said.

I’m trying to! It is not easy you know. Do you want to try it?

While I tried to ignore the pain, I regained a hold of the goat’s legs, while Charlie helped Willie to get a steady seat for riding.

The pain in my ribs came in throbbing waves but I did not want the rest of the boys to see me crying over something like a little goat kick. I was angry at Grandy goat for kicking me. Willie was going to ride this son-of-a-bitch now or one of us, me or the goat was going to die. I put all my energy into holding the goat immobile.

Grandy’s back bowed and sagged with the weight of Willie as Bob steadied his front end and I held on at the back end. There was just enough room for Tommy to crawl up underneath the goat and securely tie Willie’s feet together.

I can’t hold him all day, hurry up down there! Bob exclaimed.

Tommy tied the twine tightly around both of Willie’s feet, then handed him the makeshift reins for hanging on and for steering.

There! Tommy shouted. Now let him go!

A this point I let go of the goat legs and smacked Grandy on the ass so Willie would be sure to have a good ride, but more so to get even with that goat for kicking me.

What none of us realized is that the goat would still have so much fight left in him, or that he would run like he did. Bucking we counted on … running we didn’t.

The goat ran and bucked, bucked and ran until somehow Willie did a 180-degree flip and he slid off Grandy’s back and rolled up underneath the goat’s belly. Willie’s feet were still securely tied so he could not jump off, and now his bound feet were sticking straight up in the air on top of Grandy’s back like a couple of fence posts. We had intended for Willie to ride him, but it seemed more as if that goat was riding him.

I had seen a similar predicament on television a few times where cannibals captured people, and then tied them upside down on a stick so they could carry them back to their camp where they could later cook them and eat them. Willie looked like that now, only the man-killer Grandy goat was taking no live prisoners. He meant to kill Willie, and he meant to do it right away. Eating all of us afterwards would have just been a goat bonus feast.

A twirling tornado of dust and stones spun wildly around the goat hooves while Willie’s head bumped along in the dirt. Being unable to free himself, Willie remained trapped underneath those frantically stomping goat legs while that goat jumped all over Willie. He kicked him and flung him around from right to left like a rag doll. Grandy stomped on Willie like a rhino extinguishing a campfire. All the while, the still tied Willie was screaming like a little bitch. It was the first time I ever knew something could be so funny and so sad all at the same time.

Of course, Bob, the boys and I ran along behind laughing, and running as fast as we could, desperately trying to catch them. After all, it was going to be difficult to later explain to Willie’s parents how he had died bare back riding a goat.

HELP! Save me! Willie yelled. He is going to kill me! Murder! Bloody murder!"

Finally we caught up to Grandy and Willie, but only because Willie got smart enough to grab a handful of goat beard and gave that a good tug. Willie yanked those gruff goat whiskers so hard that goat’s head zipped between his own front legs, and instantly the two of them went rolling in a forward flipping, braking somersault. By the time they stopped, Willie landed on top of their entanglement and quickly pinned Grandy down in the dirt on his back like a wrestler. Luckily, he was able to hold Grandy down long enough for the rest of us to come along and give him a three-second pat to end the match. We used a dull pocketknife to saw through the twine bindings on Willie’s feet.

We did a damage assessment on Willie – and brother, he looked real bad. His clothes were tattered and torn, caked with blood, dirt and plenty of grass stains. His skin was covered in scratches, bruises and a serious lot of bleeding. From what I could see, that was a whole lot of injury for anyone to survive. It would be a miracle if Willie did not die.

Feeling the pulsing pain in my own ribs where the goat had kicked me earlier, I imagined how awful it must feel to be pounced on by a runaway goat a thousand times.

Tommy said, Listen Willie, you little weasel, you better not tell on us about this. If you tell it, we’ll pound you worse than this goat ever did. You got it?

Of course, I would like to believe none of us would have actually done anything to him for squealing on us, but Willie did not know that. Since we never got in any real trouble for Willie’s goat riding adventure, we all assumed his parents took one look at him and assumed he had gotten run over by a car.

I remember another time, when we double dog dared him; Willie put the garden hose with the yard sprinkler attached in through the window and onto the middle of his mom and dad’s bed. When Charlie turned the water on the rest of us ran off and left Willie to take the blame. Several hours passed before Willie’s parents came home, and by then their bed was pretty soggy. From what I heard coming from Willie’s house that night it must have been the worst trouble any boy could ever get into. Undoubtedly, that was the single most life-altering childhood event that made Willie cognizant of doing everything the right way today.

Our relationship with each other has not changed much in 30 years, because Bob, Charlie, Tommy and I are still brewing up trouble, and poor Willie still bears the brunt of it. On some level, I feel bad about that.

Now, doing as Bob had instructed we tossed empty beer cans and lunch papers into the pickup bed, and readied ourselves for a busy afternoon of tree cutting. I never fancied myself as a tree harvester, or a heavy equipment operator, but here I was knee-deep in both. Our job was to bring the trees down, and later a logging company would come in and remove the trees we had cut and take them away to the mill where they would fashion them into useable lumber.

Of course, we did not have any of that sophisticated equipment that professional logger’s use like an actual tree harvester. I had seen a tree harvester in operation some time ago and it was quite an impressive machine. One man runs it from a cab sitting on a base of two tracks like a tank. A hydraulic arm grabs hold of the tree, saws it down, then the tree shoots through the harvester arm, shearing off the branches, pausing periodically to saw and section the tree into smaller, more manageable logs. The whole process is complete in a matter of minutes. A tree harvester works at what I guess would be the equivalent of 50,000 beavers an hour.

Since this was a short job for us, and our crew was small, and we were not professional tree cutters, much of what we did, we did the old fashioned way, without the convenience of too much equipment and technology.

I guess it must have been somewhere around 2:30 in the afternoon when things turned ugly on our job. Our work had proceeded about as we expected. Bob supervised the whole operation and designated which trees we would cut next. I operated the cherry picker machine and carefully navigated through the fallen trees, maneuvering the cherry picker to a new tree that Tommy and Charlie who were riding in the bucket could cut down.

Willie busied himself with tinkering and equipment maintenance, which was also a part of Bob’s plan. As it was, Willie was obsessed with knowing how things worked and ran, and he was exceptionally good at it. Willie is the sort of guy who understands things quickly, but who will read the instructions on something a half dozen times to insure he knew how it all worked frontward, backwards, and laterally until he knew with certainly all the safety precautions and what to do when things went wrong. In that realm, Willie thought of himself as a makeshift expert on most things mechanical, and most of the time he was right. It was a little irritating, but the rest of us tolerated it. For on any given day, Willie’s knowledge, calculations and projections kept us all out of serious trouble and possibly even dying from an untimely death.

Now, looking around, we must have cut down five or six Douglas fir trees about 120 feet tall or so. We were making steady progress. The fresh-cut trees fell just where we planned for them to as we pressed on with our work.

It was here that Bob decided we should take down what appeared to me to be the mother of all trees. It stood well over 160 feet tall, and was about 30 feet in circumference. It took a good while for Charlie and Tommy to even saw through this particular tree. It was not anything out of the ordinary for such a large tree.

When the tree toppled over it shifted slightly to the right as it fell. Being so tall and heavy, it ripped through the standing trees like a hot knife slicing through melted butter. The tree landed about six inches in front of the parked company truck. No one was particularly concerned about that. Bob had planned for it. We knew with a slight degree of variance where it would end up.

Well, no one was excited about this falling tree except Willie who was unnerved by it; although frantic might be a better description. I could hear Willie now as he badgered Bob about safety.

Don’t you think we should move the truck? I mean, the last one was a bit too close, don’t you think? Willie said.

Oh, come on Willie, I told you not to worry. Relax. I’ve done this a thousand times. We know what we are doing. The truck is fine where it is. Bob said calmly trying to reassure him.

Willie was not so easily convinced.

Maybe, but I think we should move the truck now just to be safe. Willie said. You can never be too safe.

Bob had a considerable amount of patience with Willie, but there were times when he had reached his level of tolerance with him. As Bob scratched his right ear, he rolled his eyes and said, How about you just leave this part to me Will and let me worry about it.

No. You don’t know what you are doing. I am seriously worried. I don’t think you have thought this thing through. I think you are going to end up killing us all!

Sensing the mounting anxiety in Willie, at this point we decided to exploit his fears. I could clearly see the top of the trees that were still standing, specifically the ones we were going to cut next. From eyeballing those trees none were even remotely close to the size of the tree we had just toppled, so the chance that any of them would be falling on the truck was just a ridiculous notion. Still, here was Willie, the great doomsayer proclaiming how Bob was, ‘Going to kill us all.’ At this point preying on Willie’s fears was more fun than we could pass up.

Over the radio, I heard it when Charlie asked Bob through his headset, Hey boss, looks like your brother-in-law there is a little nervous. Want us to really work him up and give him something to fret about?

Tommy, Charlie and I got a sinister smile from Bob, who nodded and prompted us to go ahead and torment Willie. We secretly took bets on how long it would be until Willie would completely lose his composure.

As we continued cutting trees, it became a game for Charlie and Tommy to see how close they could get the falling trees to the truck without actually hitting it, and equally how nervous they could make Willie about it. It was the same type of fun we had when we were kids using a magnifying glass in the sun to torture ants, only this was the grown up version with Willie starring as the ant.

When the next tree started to fall, I could see it was going to land fairly close to the truck.

For added effect Tommy giggled, shouting, Timber!

Willie’s anxiety was insurmountable. Without so much as a glance back, Willie took off running, up the hill, through the woods and away from what he thought was certainly the demise of himself and the precariously parked truck.

Whew! Look at him go. Charlie said laughing. "That boy can run like a deer!

Willie, where are you going? Bob said. Get back over here.

Seeing Willie sprint through those trees at a runner’s pace was hysterical. He ran like a hurdle jumper at a track meet going for a trophy. It was especially comical to see the fallen tree fall short of where Willie had once stood. We all had a good belly laugh about making Willie the brunt of the joke once again with his frantic over reaction.

It was then that we heard screaming. Soberly we each looked at one another with a quizzical expression. We had heard that scream before. His screams were shrill and terribly reminiscent of a younger, frightened, goat-riding Willie.

Uh, there weren’t any goats in those woods were there Bob?

Not according to my maps. Bob said.

We had a good laugh about that too, but when the high-pitched wailing continued accompanied by gagging, grunting, thumping sounds, and murderous screams, we knew. We had to go and see what weary Willie had gotten himself into this time, whether we wanted to or not. After all, we were not really trying to kill him, and it would be a shame to do it accidentally. We would want to savor the fun of that somehow.

When Bob, Charlie, Tommy and I had reached the top of the hill and looked down, we saw the aftermath of Willie’s abrupt, unplanned plummet to the bottom of the hill. Judging from the broken limbs, the