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Ashes to Ashes
Category:
Action/Thriller
Publisher: Platinum paw press
Type: Fiction
Pages: 346
Copyright: 09/21/2021
ISBN-13: 9781733197250
Price: $5.99 (eBook)
Sometimes instinct is all a detective has to go on. Add jealousy, money, and family ties to the equation and what do you get? Detectives Connor Maxwell and Kate Stroup, along with canine Sundae, must sift through the ashes to find the answers. From deep in the shadows of that fateful night, the crime unfolds with suspense.
Sometimes instinct is all a detective has to go on. Add jealousy, money, and family ties to the equation and what do you get? Detectives Connor Maxwell and Kate Stroup, along with canine Sundae, must sift through the ashes to find the answers. From deep in the shadows of that fateful night, the crime unfolds with suspense.
Excerpt
C H A P T E R 1
The ripple of children’s laughter had long
since faded as darkness rolled across the
city of Lakewood like a blanket covering its young.
The days had begun to shorten and the nights
lingered longer. September had welcomed a brisk
chill early this year and Lakewood homeowners
closed their windows to block out the cold. High
above the city, the harvest moon shone brightly. It
glowed through the bony, naked trees, creating long
shadows that formed an eerie pattern on the grassy
canvas below.
The home was a large two-by-four structure
whose owner had built it some thirty-eight years
earlier. Joel Sawyer had constructed the home for his
wife, Sylvia, and his young son, Logan. The
rambling ranch-style residence was set back from
the other houses in a cul-de-sac. The home had a
large, well-groomed front yard and a backyard twice
the size of any of the others on the street. It was a
magnificent yard, laid out with flagstones that
curved around the grass and led to an outdoor fire‐
place, a bricked-in barbeque, and wicker furniture.
The backyard bordered a large forest, giving the
home even more privacy. Rumor had it that the
house at 2255 was the first home to be built on
Decker Avenue.
Joel strolled over to his flat-screen TV and began
to stream his favorite piano and stringed music. As it
played softly in the background, he peered out the
living room window and into the darkness. The
mirror image of his face shone off the glass. After
checking that the front door was locked, Joel eased
himself into his favorite chair in front of the fire‐
place. There, he held a book in his lap and watched
the flames dancing before him. His mind took him
back in time, to a much happier era when he and
his wife, Sylvia, had often sat in this same spot,
reading together. She had passed away two years
ago. At seventy-eight years of age, Joel knew he
would never remarry. He doubted that he would
want to remarry even if he were twenty-eight.
There would be only one woman in his life and that
was his Sylvia. God knew how much he missed her.
When his best friend, Fletcher Potts, had lost his
wife months later, Joel had invited Fletcher to move
in with him and Joel’s adopted disabled son, Cole.
In the backyard at 2255 Decker Avenue, two deer
lazily grazed on the foliage under the moonlight.
Suddenly, a window exploded, spewing shards of
glass onto the lawn. Flames licked upward around
the house’s exterior. Both deer looked up, startled at
the sound, then bolted in fear back into the forest.
Every window in the house glowed as the fire
engulfed the interior. The lumber creaked and
moaned as the roof gave way and collapsed with a
whoosh.
Behind the house, close to the forest, stood a
black-clad figure who watched the home burn. Only
when the sound of a distant siren became louder did
the figure snuff out the cigarette with the toe of his
shoe. After taking in one last look at the house fire,
he turned and left.
It had been a long day. Detective Connor Maxwell
unlocked the door of his unmarked police unit and
started the drive home. He had to pick up Sundae,
his canine companion, at the vet before they closed.
Switching to a country station, Connor brushed a
lock of brown hair off his forehead.
As he turned left out of the Lakewood Police
Department parking lot, he saw the orange glow of
a fire filling the night sky.
“15, PD, has Lakewood Fire Department been
dispatched to the westside?”
“Negative, 15,” said the Lakewood dispatcher.
After hours, the police department dispatchers
handled all the police and fire department calls.
“I’m heading over there now. Better get those
smoke suckers rolling.”
Connor drove toward the glow, turning down
two wrong streets before he found his way to Decker
Avenue and the burning house. The siren and
flashing lights from Connor’s car brought the neigh‐
bors out from the warm comfort of their homes to
watch. Connor quickly gave the address to dispatch
and then ran for the garden hose at the side of the
house. He peered in the windows, trying to see if
anyone was inside, but the fire was too hot and
burning out of control. He felt helpless trying to
contain a house fire with only a garden hose. One
of the neighbors ran to the backyard and used the
hose there.
Coughing, Connor ran back to his car, grabbed
a rag, and wet it with the garden hose. He wrapped
the rag over his nose and mouth while using the
garden hose as best he could. By the time the fire
department arrived, the house was pretty much a
loss. Connor walked across the street, where a
cluster of people stood watching the firefighters who
tried to contain the relentless blaze.
“Did they make it out?” asked a woman wearing
a fluffy pink bathrobe and pink rabbit-eared
slippers.
“Can you tell me who lives there?” Connor
asked.
“Oh, that would be Joel Sawyer. He’s very
elderly and...what’s his name?” She snapped her
fingers as if the movement would cause the
forgotten name to flow from her mouth. “Oh, I
can’t remember his son’s name. He has some type
of disability. Also, another elderly man lives there,
moved in a few years ago after Joel’s wife passed...”
Connor left the woman in mid-sentence and ran
back to Kirk Neil, the captain of the fire depart‐
ment. Everyone called him “Captain Kirk.”
“There could be three males in the house,”
Connor yelled to Kirk.
“If there are, they perished in the fire,” Captain
Kirk said.
Connor pulled the rag back up over his nose and
mouth and started for the back door. Captain Kirk
grabbed Connor by the shoulders and stopped him.
“Detective, no one would have survived this
house fire. All we can do is pray they all went out for
the night. Did you ask the people if they saw them
in the crowd?”
“Captain, when I got here, no one was standing
outside.”
Connor returned to the crowd that had gathered
on the sidewalk and tried to gather any information
he could about the occupants of 2255 Decker
Avenue. He took notes from the neighbors as he
watched the smoke billow into the sky.
Hours later, when all that remained of 2255 Decker
Avenue was a pile of water-drenched rubble,
Captain Kirk and Connor walked through the soggy
ash and debris. They found the charred remains of
two people.
“Didn’t you say Sawyer had an adopted son?”
Captain Kirk looked at Connor.
“That’s what the lady told me. Said he was
disabled, too.”
“We have only two bodies here that I can see.”
Connor looked down at the two charred sets of
remains lying on their sides.
“Guess we’d better have another look-see,”
Captain Kirk said.
“Do houses usually go up this fast?” Connor
asked.
Captain Kirk stopped, studying the debris.
“It almost looks like an accelerant was used. Gas
usually burns away, leaving us with very few clues.
But the way this fire reacted, I think every room was
doused with gas or something.”
Captain Kirk began walking through the
remains of the house. Still, only two bodies could be
accounted for. Connor bent down, examining one
of the bodies. He had turned his head to one side to
get a better look when he noticed something.
Quickly, he pulled a ballpoint pen from his shirt
pocket and examined a hole in the back of one of
the victim’s skulls. Then Connor stood back up and
bent down to examine the other victim. Again, the
same thing: a hole in the back of the skull.
“Captain, we don’t just have a house fire here.
We have a double homicide.”
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