Daughter of Ashes Read online

  Ames laughed and extended his hand. When I took it, he covered mine with both of his, stared into my eyes as if checking them for cataracts and said, ‘Welcome to Tilghman County, Hannah.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I replied, thinking even his hair seemed insincere.

  As far as trolling for votes went, though, Jack Ames was barking up the wrong tree. Paul and my primary residence remained in Annapolis, firmly in Maryland’s wildly gerrymandered third Congressional district, while Ames was running to unseat the Democratic incumbent in Maryland’s ninth. I decided not to mention it.

  ‘I heard about Baby Ella, of course,’ he said. ‘Somebody’s tragedy, for sure.’ He wagged his head slowly, sadly, sympathetically. ‘But that’s actually not why I’m here. Word is you’ve got a bum well pump.’ He slipped a thumb and forefinger into the breast pocket of his oxford button-down shirt and pulled out a business card. ‘Friend of mine, Hank Daniels, runs a plumbing and heating business in Elizabethtown. Give him my name when you call and he’ll fix you right up.’

  ‘I appreciate the recommendation, Mr Ames,’ I said, accepting the card, casting my eyes briefly over it just to be polite. ‘But, happily, the replacement pump arrived today. I expect we’ll have water again by dinnertime.’

  His frown vanished as quickly as it had appeared, replaced by another of his patented perma-grins. ‘Ah, yes, well, that’s good news, then.’

  I smiled back.

  Madison smirked.

  The cameraman grinned and lowered his equipment.

  ‘Well, this has been fun,’ Madison said, ‘but I gotta get going. Thanks for your time, Mrs Ives.’

  ‘You’re very welcome.’

  She nodded at the politician, ‘Mr Ames,’ but made no move to go.

  Councilman Ames handed me a brochure featuring a color photograph of himself posing in a blue suit with a red-and-white striped tie, superimposed over the U.S. Capitol dome. The American flag in full long-may-it-wave mode had been Photoshopped over his head. ‘We need stronger leadership in Washington, D.C., Mrs Ives. When you go to the polls in November, I hope you’ll consider me.’

  ‘Thanks, I will,’ I said.

  I’d lost track of the young chauffeur, but when Ames barked ‘Tad!’ he magically appeared and whisked the councilman away.

  Madison made a rude noise. ‘Strong leadership in Washington, my foot. What he really means to say is “I’ve always wanted to see my portrait hanging in the Rayburn House Office Building.”’

  I laughed out loud. ‘Madison, please feel free to come and interview me at any time. Just as long as you leave your cameraman at home.’

  TWELVE

  ‘Man: Some dismal accident it needs must be. What shall we do – stay here, or run and see?’

  John Milton, Samson Agonistes, 1671

  It was going on three o’clock when Rusty called through the open window, ‘Mrs Ives?’

  I put down the iron griddle I was scouring with a pad of fine steel wool and peered out.

  Rusty stood in the driveway next to his motorcycle, his brow furrowed. ‘Have you seen my helmet?’

  ‘Sorry, I haven’t.’

  ‘I swore I hooked it over the handlebars this morning like I usually do, but it’s not there now.’

  Maryland has a strict motorcycle helmet law; it was illegal to ride a bike without one.

  ‘Dad needs some special waterproof tape to secure the wiring to the water pump before he sticks it down the well, so I gotta go into town, but I can’t find the damn helmet.’

  ‘Why don’t you take the truck?’ I suggested.

  Rusty gave me a look that let me know he’d rather walk into town barefoot than be seen driving his father’s truck. ‘Some bastard stole my fricking helmet!’ he growled, then disappeared around the corner of the house. Ten seconds later he stomped back. ‘Fuck it,’ he said, climbed on his motorcycle, revved the engine and roared off.

  Rusty’s helmet was jet black, decorated with overlapping red and white stars. I vaguely recalled seeing it hanging from the handlebars earlier that day, but it could just as well have been the morning of another day. Rusty wasn’t my son, but no mother likes to see a child ride off into harm’s way, so I plopped the griddle onto the kitchen counter and went off to look for the missing helmet.

  I searched the downstairs, including the bathroom, then made my way out to the shed. No sign of the helmet there, nor in the garage. I was coming back to the house via the compost heap when I noticed a tiny patch of red just behind the woodpile. ‘Ah ha, there you are, you rascal!’ Rusty must have set his headgear down on the woodpile and somehow, with all the workers to-ing and fro-ing during the day, it’d got knocked down behind it. I retrieved the helmet, turning it over in my hands as I pondered the best thing to do. Odds were Rusty would ride into town and back without incident, but what if …

  I tossed the helmet onto the passenger seat of my car and took off after him, going as fast as the speed limit allowed.

  I had to slow down at the tiny community of Shelton where I’d recently been pulled over for going thirty-five in a twenty-five mile-per-hour zone. The cop who had stopped me was still lurking; I could see the hood of his cruiser peeking out from behind the dumpster in the parking lot of the general store. He’d given me a warning, but I didn’t think he’d be so generous with a repeat offender.

  As I passed the store, though, the officer himself was just emerging from inside holding a thermos, so I could have been driving a hundred miles an hour and gotten away with it. I pressed down on the accelerator.

  About a mile outside of Shelton, on a long straightaway, I caught sight of a motorcycle way up ahead. I eased my car up to forty, but didn’t seem to be gaining on him. As the cyclist crested the next hill, I lost sight of him again, but when I popped over the hill there he was, stuck behind a farm tractor hauling a manure spreader, both proceeding at a more leisurely pace. The distance between us was closing.

  I was so intent on my quarry that I barely noticed the black car that had been bearing down on me from behind on the narrow, two-lane road. Lean, low and mean, it stalked me like a panther, so close that I couldn’t see its license plate. Was his bumper about to bite mine? I clutched the steering wheel in a death grip, having flashbacks to the time when a couple of thugs had run my car off the road and into a pond. I was starting to hyperventilate when the vehicle suddenly whipped out into the southbound lane and zoomed past me as if I were standing still.

  ‘Idiot!’ I muttered, thinking where was the cop now that I needed him? Filling his thermos bottle back in Shelton, dammit.

  It took only a few seconds for the black car to catch up with Rusty and the farm vehicle. The driver tailgated for a while; even he seemed reluctant to pass on a double white line.

  I was about two hundred yards away when the black car swerved to the left, then to the right, clipping Rusty’s motorcycle and knocking it out from under him. As I watched in horror, Rusty flew into the air and tumbled down the embankment, landing at the edge of a grove of trees that paralleled the road.

  ‘No!’ I shouted as the black car shot around the tractor and disappeared over the next hill.

  Heart pounding, breathless, I screeched to a halt on the shoulder just behind Rusty’s capsized cycle, its rear wheel still spinning. I needed to call 911, but where was my cell phone? Damn! In my hurry to leave, I’d left my purse at home.

  Perhaps I could flag someone down?

  But first, I had to check on Rusty. I scrabbled down the embankment.

  Rusty lay face down just short of the tree line, his head buried in a small pile of leaves that had accumulated as he slid along the ground. ‘Rusty! Rusty!’

  He didn’t answer. He didn’t move.

  Please don’t be dead, Rusty. Please!

  I knelt down beside the young man, carefully swept the leaves away from his nose and mouth. Blood oozed from a wound on his temple, but that was a good sign, wasn’t it? Dead men don’t bleed.

  ‘Rusty?’
r />   Still no answer. I leaned over, put my ear next to his mouth and was relieved to feel soft, warm breath flutter against my cheek. Rusty was still breathing.

  The impact of the crash had undone the band that secured Randy’s ponytail. Gently, I moved his long hair aside, pressed my fingers against his neck and found a pulse. Strong and steady.

  I looked up and around, feeling helpless. Rusty had a cell phone, I knew, but where was it? I flashed back to earlier that afternoon: Rusty leaning against the oak tree, slipping the phone into the back pocket of his jeans. Hoping the phone hadn’t been damaged in the crash, or thrown clear, I checked his jeans and was relieved to see a rectangular outline on Rusty’s right hip. ‘I need to use your cell phone, Rusty,’ I said in case he could hear me. ‘I’m taking it out of your pocket now.’

  Rusty’s jeans were tight. Using my thumb and forefinger, I wriggled the phone free and when I turned it on, the screen glowed bright with text messages. Rusty was a popular guy.

  Dude, Crusty Crab after work? texted someone named Luke.

  Ken said, Got it. Stay cool.

  While Laurie, clearly a girlfriend from all the emoticons that followed her text, wrote: Movie? Ninja Turtles?   ♥

  Sadly, beer and the movies would have to wait. Praying that Rusty’s phone wasn’t password protected, I bypassed the messages, swiped the screen and breathed a sigh of relief when the phone icon appeared.

  My finger was poised over the screen when someone said, ‘I’ve called nine-one-one.’ A man wearing well-worn jeans and a denim jacket over a stained T-shirt was sliding down the bank behind me. ‘He’s gotta be hurt bad, a fall like that.’

  ‘He’s knocked out,’ I said, laying Rusty’s phone aside. ‘And he’s got a pretty bad cut on his head.’

  ‘Jackass went sailing by me like a bat outta hell.’

  ‘You saw the accident?’

  The farmer nodded. ‘Didn’t look like no accident to me, ma’am. Asshole swerved sudden-like, run him off the road on purpose.’

  I sat back on my heels, breathing deeply, taking this in. Why would anyone …?

  While the farmer stayed with Rusty in case he came to and started trying to move around, perhaps exacerbating his injuries, I rushed back to my car, popped the trunk and pulled out a couple of beach towels. I tucked one of the towels around Rusty’s body, like a blanket, and used the other to put gentle pressure on his wound.

  ‘Rusty? It’s Hannah. Stay with me, Rusty. Help is on the way.’

  As I waited with the farmer for the ambulance, I massaged Rusty’s limp hand, trying to stroke life back into it, and attempted to reconstruct what had just happened. The car was black, I was sure of that. Make and model, who knew? If it didn’t have a distinctive hood ornament, or if nothing was inscribed on the car in racing stripes or fancy chrome letters a mile high, I was clueless. It was big, though. Mean. Two doors. Tinted windows, yes! Dark, way too dark by Maryland standards. No way I could see the driver as required by law. License plate? Oh, I wish, but he went by me like a flash. Perhaps the friendly farmer …?

  Back up on the road, the farmer was diverting traffic, directing it around Randy’s fallen cycle. It seemed like hours, but a police car arrived fairly quickly, followed almost immediately by a chartreuse and white ambulance manned by two EMTs from the Elizabethtown Volunteer Fire Department.

  As the EMTs tended to Rusty, I explained my relationship with the victim and told them about the helmet. Then I burst into tears. ‘But I was too late! If only he’d been wearing it!’

  ‘Ma’am?’ The patrolman was speaking to me. Through my tears, I recognized him as the same guy who had pulled me over for speeding through Shelton. When he offered me his hand, I realized I was still kneeling on the ground and, in spite of the heat of the afternoon, I shivered.

  He escorted me to my car, opened the door to the passenger side and made me sit down. A bottle of water magically appeared.

  ‘Where are they taking him?’ I asked the officer as they loaded Rusty, now wearing a cervical collar and securely strapped to a backboard, onto a gurney. An oxygen mask covered his nose and an IV snaked out of his arm.

  ‘Peninsula Regional in Salisbury,’ the officer replied.

  As the EMTs loaded Rusty into the ambulance, I dabbed at my eyes with a tissue, pressing hard, trying to discourage the flow of tears. ‘Is he going to be all right?’

  ‘Let’s just get him to the ER, OK?’ Apparently I had made no move to touch the water bottle because he twisted off the cap and placed the bottle firmly into my hand. ‘Drink.’

  After I’d taken a few sips, he asked, ‘Is there anybody we should call?’

  ‘Dear Lord, yes!’ How could I have forgotten about Dwight, back at the house, waiting patiently for his son to return with the waterproof tape so that I could have a bath that night. ‘We need to call his father!’

  ‘Do you have a number?’

  ‘He’s still working at my house,’ I said, gathering myself together. ‘I’ll do it. I’ll tell Dwight the bad news.’

  THIRTEEN

  ‘And we meet, with champagne and a chicken, at last.’

  Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ‘The Lover: A Ballad,’ 1748

  Two weeks after the accident, with Rusty lying comatose in the hospital, it seemed odd to be pawing through my closet, worrying about what to wear to his mother’s fancy garden party. Neither Paul nor I were in a party mood.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s going ahead with it,’ I commented to my husband as I slid plastic hangers along the rod from one side of the closet to the other.

  ‘They aren’t allowing Rusty any visitors, Hannah, so I don’t see what more you can do.’

  ‘True,’ I mumbled into the sleeve of a ragged terrycloth bathrobe. ‘I’m definitely going to petition Naddie Bromley to bump Kendall Barfield off in her next crime novel.’

  ‘Therapeutic, no doubt,’ Paul chuckled.

  ‘Ah ha!’ I’d finally located the turquoise sundress I’d bought in Hawaii at a shop called Tropical Tantrums. I swirled it out of the closet like a matador’s cape and held it in front of me. ‘What do you think of this?’

  ‘Reminds me of a certain night on the beach at Kauai,’ Paul said, drawing me close, crushing the dress, still on its hanger, between us. ‘You were barefoot then, too, as I recall.’

  I kissed him quickly, then shoved him playfully away. ‘Shoes. Where are the matching shoes?’ I fell to my knees and scrabbled around on the floor of the closet looking for the pair of turquoise beaded sandals the saleswoman at Tropical Tantrums had also talked me into.

  Paul patted my butt affectionately. ‘You’ll be the belle of the ball.’

  ‘Hardly, dah’link, but you will,’ I said, moving my butt out of range and struggling to my feet, holding the shoes. ‘Why don’t you wear the barong tagalog Daddy brought you from the Philippines?’ I suggested, referring to the sheer white formal shirt that had been hand-loomed from pineapple fibers, then embroidered from mandarin collar to hem with delicate folk patterns. ‘With your tan …’ I fanned my face rapidly with my hand, then reached for a Hawaiian shirt he’d bought but never worn. ‘On second thought, wear this. In a barong you’d be too dangerous.’

  Paul eyed the shirt – bright red with white hibiscus – critically. ‘Jeesh, Hannah, I’ll look like Magnum P.I. in this getup.’

  I gave him a look. ‘And your point is?’

  ‘OK, OK. I can tell when I’m outnumbered.’ He tossed the shirt on the bed, then headed for the bathroom. ‘How is Rusty doing? Any word on his condition?’

  ‘Dwight tells me he’s still in the ICU, being kept in a medically-induced coma.’ I eased behind Paul – who was standing at the sink, waiting for the water to run hot so he could shave – and fumbled through my ditty bag, looking for my tweezers. Tweezers and magnifying mirror in hand, I sat down on the toilet seat lid and went to work on my eyebrows. ‘Rusty’s got a depressed skull fracture,’ I said, addressing my reflection. ‘The CT showed a temp
oral hematoma, so they had to go in and drain that. Now they’re watching for signs of infection and waiting for the swelling in his brain to go down.’

  Paul slathered his face with shaving cream. ‘Too soon to tell is what you’re saying.’

  I lay the tweezers down, watched my husband draw the razor slowly along his cheek. ‘I ran into Doc Greeley when I stopped by the hospital yesterday, and those were his words exactly.’ I drew a deep breath. ‘And all I could think of was please Lord, not another one.’

  Because of our long association with the Navy, we knew several young officers who were suffering the long-term effects of traumatic brain injury: personality changes, inability to concentrate, slurred speech, confusion. Medical advances in the treatment of wounded warriors had improved the outcome for many victims of TBI, but the road to recovery could be rocky and long. ‘Rusty really needs our prayers,’ I said.

  Paul held a washcloth under the hot water tap, wrung it out and used it to wipe the remaining shaving cream off his neck and ears. ‘Are the police any closer to tracking down the hit-and-run driver?’ he asked as he draped the washcloth over the edge of the sink to dry.

  ‘Not that I’ve heard.’ More or less satisfied with the state of my eyebrows, I tucked the tweezers and mirror away. ‘Every day since it happened, I’ve been replaying the scene in my head. The speeding car, the deliberate swerve …’

  ‘The driver might not have done it on purpose,’ Paul pointed out. ‘Maybe he was changing the radio station.’

  ‘Or texting,’ I added, although that was strictly against Maryland law, not that anyone was paying attention, from what I could observe. ‘Still,’ I said after a pause, ‘the farmer saw it all in his rearview mirror. I made quote marks in the air, “Asshole swerved sudden-like, run him off the road on purpose.” I tend to agree.’

  ‘Why would anyone want to hurt Rusty?’ Paul wondered aloud.

  ‘I’ve asked myself the same question. And when I asked Dwight, he was just as puzzled.’