Ash: A Novel

By James Hartman

Dr. Leslie Wilson, Major Nicole Brooks and Rev. Roxanne Clement have been through crises before. They’ve tracked a serial killer. They’ve lost friends and colleagues to violence. They’ve maintained their faith. Now a new killer is stalking their community, and the clues are confounding. A Jewish Temple is bombed. Two houses are destroyed. The bodies are piling up, and it’s harder than ever to determine what defines and drives the killer. With a case that defies logic, the women face multiple bodies, a mysterious missing person report, and a 30-year-old cold case. A diverse team of investigators probes the details and the clues, following the path wherever it leads – to an explosive collision of secrecy, conspiracy, and murder. The mystery, and the answers, lie deep within the ash.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Nov 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781684711864

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HARTMAN

Copyright © 2019 James Hartman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-6847-1185-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6847-1186-4 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 10/30/2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

M any thanks to many people:

To the cops from whom I have learned and with whom I’ve shared adventures and mysteries – too many of you to name them all, but to mention a few in no particular order: Richelle Sharp, Jack Strain, Randy Smith, Tim Lentz, Calvin Lewis, Tom Buell, Rick Richard, Gerald Sticker, Freddy Drennan, Jennifer Harper, Shawn Woessner, Sean Beavers, Gene Tyrney, Hal Taylor, Donald Sharp, Joe Jarrell Jr., Kathy Sherwood, Randy Caminita, Jimmy Richard, Pamela Bailey, Cheryl Kirk, the late Cheryl Wilson, Rosemary Smith, Mike Boyet, Daniel Seuzeneau.

The those who have taught me a thing or three about Coroner’s Office operations: Chuck Preston, Dave Morel, Mark Ford, Ken Fielder, Rebecca Caminita, Peter Galvan, Joy Raybon, Melanie Hughes, Mike Defatta.

To the reporters I admire and with whom I have worked over many years, many of whom I call friends: Ashley Rodrigue Arnaud, Faimon Roberts, Sara Pagones, Robert Rhoden, Bob Warren, Kim Chatelain, Ryan Naquin, Nick Reimann, Glenn and Nancy Parker Boyd, Thahn Truong, Kriss Fairbairn, Camille Whitworth, Sabrina Wilson, Curt Sprang, and the utterly remarkable Norman Robinson.

To the clergy who do the right thing: Revs. Alisan Rowland, Keith Mozingo, Clinton Crawshaw, Gail Minnick, Tom Howe, Kathy Pfleider; Rev. Elder Rachelle Brown; and Rabbi Erin Boxt, who provided help and insight with this effort.

To the firefighters I’m proud to know, and with whom I’ve stood in the ash, including: Larry Hess, Merrick Tassin, Darrell Guilott, Chris Kaufmann, Chad Duffaut, Stephen Krentel, Earl Gorrondona, J.P. Taylor.

To my family, too plentiful to cite, but who have names like Hartman, Smith, Corelitz, Stephan, and Collins.

To the friends who especially inspire me in life, a few of them by keeping my glass full of single-malt scotch while I wrote vigorously, and some whose names came in handy when I was creating characters: Kristina Trahan, Patrick Rouse, Sebastian and Emily Rey, Whitney McCray, Marcella Harker, Bret LeBlanc, Joe Palmer, Cody Delcambre, Cindy Starbuck Leonard, Mark Mebruer, James Weeser, Nicole Fekete, Joshua Parish, Dana Lafonta, Ryan Croan, Garrett McGavran, Bert McComas.

DEDICATIONS

To those who save lives, probe deaths, prosecute criminals, and investigate tragedies of all types;

To the clergy who care and actively do what God would have them do;

To all who face persecution and even death because they are different;

To those who try to do good for all people through politics and public service;

To Nanette Krentel, for special reasons;

To my Gerflufterflaffen. She knows who she is.

CHAPTER ONE

I rmo, South Carolina, November 1986

Beau Hampton wept silently. The fire that consumed his home was also consuming his parents and his brother. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t cope.

He had arrived at the fire when he got home from his job at a local restaurant, where he worked to save money for college. In 18 months, he knew he would be on his own, away at school. He hadn’t expected to be an orphan. Fearful children – and he had always been a fearful child -- dream of tragedies and worry for their security and their parents’ safety, but he had never expected this.

The two-story house, one of the larger ones in the neighborhood, crackled, loudly. Firefighters raced. Police held him back until he calmed. Flames lit up the night sky, and he had never realized until now how dark it usually was here.

Tragedies didn’t happen in Irmo. It was a place of faith, family, Saturday ball games and Sunday church. It was a house where he had lived his entire life, where he had learned to walk and where he took his girlfriend for furtive necking – and fucking – while his family was at mid-week church dinners and Bible studies. It was not a place for death and destruction. Not until now.

After a time, he stopped sobbing and his tears became silent, evaporating on his face from the heat of the blaze. A policeman put his hand on Beau’s shoulder, made muscular with training for the wrestling team. In the distance, he heard a train, the signature sound of this suburban town.

Beau said nothing. The officer paused.

Son, the cop said.

Before Beau could answer, the house crackled again, more of the structure failing beneath the fire and the best efforts of those who fought it. He had imagined fires, many times, but he had never really dreamed how hot they would be, how bright.

Beau, the officer said.

He turned. The officer’s face was road-weary but sincere, kind. In the flickering light of the fire behind him, he looked familiar.

Son, he said. It’s me. Officer Spencer.

Beau softened just a bit. Spencer had been his instructor for D.A.R.E., teaching him at a young age to avoid drugs and alcohol. Unlike many of his peers, unlike his twin brother, he had stuck with it, completely clean at age 17 and with every intention to stay that way. Still, he said nothing.

Beau, the cop said. Come with me. Come sit in my car.

Beau jerked away from him, turning his face back to his home.

My parents are in there, he said. My brother. Why aren’t they saving them?

Beau, he said. They’re trying. They’re doing everything they can.

They both knew it was a lie. A fire of that magnitude, with that intensity, was impenetrable. No one could go inside, and no one inside could survive. If they did, they’d wish they hadn’t. Spencer had seen it before, survivors of fires with second- and third-degree burns over much of their bodies, suffering, screaming, as doctors did what they had to do to try and salvage life. It rarely worked. They always suffered greatly, more than any human should. They almost always died.

Beau started to speak, but immediately knew his words fell on deaf ears, that Officer Spencer was right. The firemen couldn’t do much more. Silently, stilly, he turned and walked back to the police car.

Irmo was a suburb that had grown into a town. Founded in the early 20th century by railroad moguls named Irmill and Mosely, whose names had formed the hybrid for its name, the town was rapidly becoming a city. Bolstered by a professional and largely affluent population, white flight and urban migration had fueled its growth into a community of prosperity. It was a refuge of happenstance. It was a refuge from crime and poverty. It was place tragedy avoided.

When the flames were out and the scene secure, Officer Spencer took Beau to his own home. He had called ahead, and his wife greeted them at the door. She had hot food and a quiet guest room ready. Beau accepted all as graciously as he could, but he didn’t sleep. He thought he might never sleep again.

Spencer didn’t sleep either, but he prayed that, in time, Beau would accept things. He would accept his parents’ passing, and his brother’s, and his new situation. In time, he would be a normal boy, a normal man. But it wouldn’t be soon. Spencer and his wife had no children of their own, but there was plenty of room. They lived, in fact, not far from where Beau had spent his young life, a neighborhood of cookie-cutter houses built when Irmo was first beginning to grow.

Beau’s life would no longer be idyllic. Irmo still was. It still is.

Spencer, I need to see you, the chief’s voice called when he walked into work the next day.

Yes, sir? Spencer asked, closing the door that separated the squad room from the chief’s office.

This Hampton kid …. You’re close to him?

Spencer hesitated.

Not really, chief. I taught him D.A.R.E. I knew his family. Just trying to be Christian and neighborly in taking him in. Why?

Chief leaned back in his chair.

Sit down, he said. There’s an issue.

With Beau?

No, chief said. With the fire.

What do you mean, chief?

Well it was obviously an arson.

I assumed as much, Spencer said. It was too hot and too fast to be an accident.

Right. An accelerant was used, and it – whatever it was, we don’t know yet – was strategically placed around the house.

Spencer nodded.

It was placed to cause maximum damage and maximum loss of life, the chief said. But there’s more than that. There’s a problem. There are a couple of problems, really.

Sir?

Where was Beau when it started?

He said he was at work, Spencer said. I didn’t think to confirm it, but I can.

No, the chief said. I’ll handle that.

What else?

Who was in the house?

Beau said his parents and his brother – his twin. Why?

Chief sighed and leaned back in his big chair.

We only found two bodies.

Spencer couldn’t help his eyebrows raising.

Which ones?

The fire was so hot, we don’t know, chief replied. Both were burned beyond recognition. Christ. Even their fucking bones were charred, what was left of them.

DNA?

This isn’t Hollywood. We’re in fucking Irmo.

Dental records?

No teeth, chief said. They either vaporized in the fire or someone knocked them out before the fire was set.

Spencer froze.

With that kind of heat I’d guess they’d have been completely incinerated either way, he said. But are you saying they were killed before the fire?

Yeah, they could’ve been, chief said. Probably. And they were more-or-less cremated. We have no way of knowing which two bodies – which two sets of ashes and bones – were whose. There’s no way for the coroner to know if there was trauma before burning.

Chief paused, shaking his head.

This is unbelievable.

The whole thing is, Chief, Spencer said. We don’t have arsons here. We don’t have murders. Like you said, it’s Irmo.

Yeah, Chief said. Well, we do now.

So what do we do?

Chief leaned back in his chair, a cheap Pleather thing that was all the town could afford – or all they’d spend, anyway. He looked at Spencer, looked down at his desk, then spun around. At least the Town had paid for wheels.

I don’t know, Chief said. If we let this out, we’ll make people afraid. Hell, we’ll make people crazy. If we start trying to piece together movements –

Chief, let me do it, Spencer said.

Chief wheeled around to face him and shook his head, slowly but emphatically.

I can’t do that, he said. You’re too close to it now.

They were both silent for a minute.

Look, Chief, if Beau hadn’t been at his job someone would’ve told us by now.

I agree.

What do we know about his brother? What kind of student was he? What extracurriculars? Did he have a job?

Chief looked at him again, this time very directly.

We don’t know anything about him. Beau went to high school. His brother was ‘home schooled,’ whatever the hell that means. He didn’t do anything. Nobody has seen him at all in about a year.

Well, let me ask Beau.

No! Chief said. Do not interrogate that boy. He’s living with you, for God’s sake. Anything you might learn would be easily impeached on the stand.

On the stand? You’re expecting a trial?

Chief sighed and turned around again, his back to his officer.

I don’t know what I expect, he said. Do you?

Now Spencer was silent.

No, he said. I guess I don’t.

Then keep your mouth shut. I wanted to keep you informed as a courtesy, but don’t expect full access to this case. Go do what you do. Do what you’re already doing. But don’t forget you’re a cop first.

Spencer went home. He did as instructed and kept his mouth shut about the case. For what remained of the boy’s high school years, he raised Beau as if he were his own. Nobody knew what the boy would become.

New Orleans, Louisiana

August, 2016

Bynum simply raised his finger and the bartender appeared, reaching into the cooler and producing a Bud Light, which he opened easily and placed on the bar between them.

What’s up, By? Jon asked. Haven’t seen you in a few days.

Bynum leaned back on his barstool, letting out a breath that was not quite a sigh. It was still early, only 10 a.m., and he had not yet been home since his overnight shift. He felt like he stank, that his hair was a mess; in truth, his scent was fine and his hair was the usual shock of fashionably unkempt mess it usually was. Jon hadn’t noticed anyway.

The usual, I guess, By said. Putting in IVs and pushing pills.

I thought being a nurse was supposed to be easy? Jon asked, playfully.

Ha. Funny. It’s a little bit easier on night shift, but still … it’s tough.

Jon nodded.

I get it, he said. So where you been?

By shrugged.

Been seeing someone, so a little distracted.

Great, Jon said. Who’s the lucky girl … or guy?

Bynum paused, looking at Jon with a snarky eye.

Funny you should phrase it that way, he said, looking around. There was only one other customer at the bar, a regular, probably homeless, who wasn’t paying any attention.

Jon raised his eyebrows curiously.

Oh?

We talk in confidence, right?

I’m a bartender, By, Jon said. I’m a universal therapist. Everything is between us.

She’s a woman, of course.

Jon nodded.

I figured you for a breeder, but we’ve never really talked about it.

Bynum chuckled at the breeder term, but not as heartily as he ordinarily would’ve. There was a lot on his mind.

It’s just …

Jon was polishing tumblers as he looked up at his most regular morning customer. He said nothing, his eyes expectant.

Just what?

Something doesn’t feel right.

Jon looked at him impassively, almost sardonically.

Could you be more specific? I’m a bartender but I’m not psychic.

Shut up. I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.

She’s butch?

No.

Emotionally distant?

No.

Physically distant?

Not at all, By said. She’s very affectionate.

Affectionate? What about sexual?

Yeah, well there’s that. Hasn’t happened yet.

Jon raised both eyebrows.

So what’s the problem? You still haven’t told me what doesn’t feel right.

Bynum shrugged.

I’m serious. I can’t put my finger on it. Something just seems off.

So she’s like a tricycle?

"Huh?

Fun to ride, but you don’t want your friends to see you doing it.

Bynum laughed, this time heartily.

That’s not really it.

I don’t really know what to tell you, then.

By shrugged.

I don’t know, he said It’s just a feeling. And it doesn’t matter, anyway. She dumped me last night.

Mandeville, Louisiana

October 2016

What passed for autumn air in south Louisiana had made this Friday pleasantly cool, and Rabbi Arthur was enjoying it. A New Yorker by birth and in this area for only two years, he still hadn’t come to appreciate the triple-digit heat indices of summer – a season that dragged through September. He wasn’t sure he’d ever adapt.

Still, he didn’t complain. As a young clergyman, he wasn’t in a position to pick and choose jobs, nor to target only major synagogues in larger cities with his resume. Besides, Mandeville was nice, albeit far more suburban than the place of his upbringing. It was close to New Orleans, which had a relatively small but still prominent Jewish community, and his place of worship was less than 15 years old – modern, bright, having risen from the growing flight from the city that had caused the area to boom. Like many residents hereabouts, most of his congregants commuted to the city each weekday, and didn’t want to drive 60 miles round-trip for worship on Saturday, too.

As the days grew shorter, his fellow Jews who held to strict Shabbat tried to get home earlier and earlier, beating the sun. Although his temple was of the Reform sect of Judaism, some still practiced the old ways out of custom if not religious devotion. Observing the Sabbath, to them, meant doing nothing from sundown Friday until sundown Saturday – nothing, that is, except Saturday services, to which some of them walked in deference to Orthodox tradition. For some of them, he thought, that was a religious excuse not to answer email or phones – and he was entirely OK with that. He didn’t have that luxury. He had to be always available.

In the spring and summer, he had tried holding Friday-night prayer services, with some success. With the coming of earlier darkness as autumn drew nearer, attendance had waned to the point that he now simply came on Friday night by himself, going over the next morning’s service, ensuring everything was in place, sometimes reading the Torah and always, always praying on his own.

This was such a night.

At 28, Arthur had not yet married. That was, in some ways, a defiance of tradition, but he didn’t mean it to be so. He simply hadn’t fallen in love, and he didn’t believe in marriage for its own sake. Wanting, of course, to marry a fellow Jew, his options here were limited – especially being an outsider without the family ties and older female relatives to play Yenta. He was OK with being a bachelor, for now. It gave him the freedom to focus on his work and his ministry, and to stay at temple as long as he wanted, late at night.

He was by no means a mystic, but his spirit was deeply troubled tonight. Something just seemed unsettled – not only in himself but in the very air. He had felt this before, and he searched his memory to place it. It had been after 9/11, when New Yorkers were all more edgy and minorities of all varieties were feeling even more afraid. The public backlash had been against the Muslims, but the Jews were also disturbed and afraid and angry. He had been a teenager then, but that’s what he was feeling now, he realized, but for no discernable reason.

There was no uproar in Mandeville, no crime spree, no overt prejudice, no cross-burnings. He had sensed, in fact, no community issues like that at all. The only things that got this city wound up were land use, development, and zoning.

Why, then, was he feeling this way? His spine literally tingled, and not in a pleasing way. It wasn’t like the frisson of a first kiss, nor the feeling of deep prayer. It was, instead, the feeling of deep and inexplicable fear. He didn’t like it.

Arthur had lit the candles on the altar, the sanctuary still dimly illuminated, to set the mood for his own prayer time. He liked it like this. Now, he needed more. His connection to God was feeling stifled by the unexplainable feelings of dread, and he needed to try harder. He needed to FEEL harder. He knew that ADONAI was never far away. ADONAI was never away at all.

He knelt behind the altar and turned the dial on the light directly over it, an odd key light he found off-putting but convenient. Then he removed the scroll from the Ark and opened the Torah. He didn’t have a passage in mind, so he let his eyes fall on the scroll randomly.

They landed on Exodus chapter 9, the plagues of Egypt: So there was hail, and fire flashing continually in the midst of the hail, very severe, such as had not been in all the land of Egypt since it became a nation.

Arthur frowned. What was God trying to tell him? He sighed. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe it was just the fluke of random scripture selection. He breathed deeply again, put the Torah back in the Ark, went to the front pew, and sat. He leaned over, head in his hands, and prayed again. He prayed hard.

The explosion seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, all at once. In his peripheral vision he saw flames, sensed the heat, felt the blast in his very bones, and then everything went dark.

Carter hated working weekends and he especially hated late-night calls, regardless of the day. Twenty years of firefighting and four as an arson investigator had left him jaded. He still tried to remind himself that when he was being called to work at unpleasant times it was because someone else was having a far worse day.

He parked his SUV as close to the scene as he could. As an investigator, he was among the last called to a fire scene; the firefighters themselves and other first responders, perforce, had to be first. He didn’t rush. There was no need. The fire was out, or at least contained, and whatever evidence there would be wasn’t going to change. He didn’t need to hurry.

From the rear of his vehicle he grabbed his evidence collection kit, a large plastic box that more closely resembled a suitcase, dropping it to the ground and extending the handle. Then he closed the tailgate and moved towards the scene, wheeling the kit behind him.

Even from 100 yards away, he could see it was a total loss. The building was in tatters, the pitched roof fallen atop what remained of the structure, the walls mostly gone, fallen and consumed by flame. There wasn’t a steeple like he was used to, but a Star of David still stood, tenuously, on what was left of the front gable. He’d be able to tell more later, but right now it looked like the walls had blown out and the roof had fallen straight down.

He bypassed his fellow firefighters and went to the deputy standing at the Crime Scene tape, a young redhead who exuded a lack of confidence. He didn’t know him, but it didn’t matter, or shouldn’t have. They had one purpose, if not shared experience.

What’ve we got? he asked.

Unclear, sir, the deputy said.

Carter waited.

Anything else? he asked, flatly, after what seemed like seven minutes of waiting.

Not really, the uniform said.

Carter sighed as imperceptibly as he could