Steven Dunne - The Disciple

They both chuckled and Brook was surprised to feel an unexpected surge of kinship with his new neighbour. For the next half hour they sat in silence, drinking their drinks, smoking their cigarettes and looking at the stars.

‘We got three more female bodies from the clearing,’ said Dupree, putting the phone down and finishing a note on his pad. ‘That makes nineteen.’ Dupree hesitated over the next piece of information. ‘Two adult females, one naked … and one little girl. They’re exhuming as we speak.’

He cleared his throat and looked up at Drexler and McQuarry sitting across the office. ‘Where were we? Right, Caleb Ashwell and his wife Mandy-Sue bought the gas station in 1974, twenty-one years ago. The year after that the Campbell family go missing somewhere in the state while on vacation. Their vehicle was the oldest in the clearing. It’s not a stretch to assume they stopped for gas and that Caleb, maybe with his wife’s help, maybe not, overwhelmed the family and drove their vehicle into the clearing. The bodies are buried nearby, though there’s no way of telling how long after they were attacked. Our best stab at motive so far is robbery, but I don’t need to spell out other possible motives…’

‘Wait a minute. There were five members of the Campbell family, including two teenage boys,’ said Drexler. ‘Are you telling me they roll up for gas and one man, and maybe one woman, somehow overpowered these people right there on the highway?’

‘If they were armed and had the element of surprise…’

‘Even so, Andy, it’s far from a slamdunk. Another car could happen along, the family might fight back. A lot can go wrong. Yet Ashwell’s been doing this for over twenty years, without any comeback. Seems awful risky.’

Dupree stroked his chin. ‘See what you mean.’

‘You’re forgetting the state of some of the vehicles,’ said McQuarry. ‘They wouldn’t need guns if their victims had just been in a car crash.’

‘So you think Caleb and his wife just wandered up and down 89 in a tow truck looking for car wrecks?’ asked Drexler.

‘Wait, what if Caleb caused the crashes? We’re pretty sure Billy Ashwell was drugged.’ Dupree put on a pair of half-moon glasses and picked up some papers. ‘He drank coffee before he died. If they served coffee to customers with the same kind of drugs Billy had? A few miles down the road the victims would either pull over or crash.’

‘It’s a theory. But surely there could be other cars around that maybe get to the crash site first.’

‘So they drive on by,’ said Dupree. ‘Or maybe they stop and help like regular citizens. But there are plenty of crashes on 89. It’s a tricky drive, ’specially at night. But if nobody’s around they hook up the car and tow it back to the station. If the adults are drugged the kids will be easy…’

‘And maybe they only pick out targets at night and only ones paying cash so there’s no paper trail,’ added Drexler.

McQuarry nodded. ‘Sounds reasonable so far. Only one fly in the ointment for me. Why would a woman conspire to let her husband commit rape?’

‘It’s not unknown, Ed. Maybe she was glad it was them and not her.’

‘Or maybe Caleb’s wife didn’t know about the rapes. Far as I can remember, she would only have been around for the first one. Maybe the Campbells were just killed and robbed. We have a gap of several years to the next one — the Hernandez family from Arizona,’ continued Dupree. ‘Mrs Ashwell left Caleb before that. She gave birth to a son, then upped and left six months later, leaving Billy behind with Caleb. Maybe she got cold feet after the Campbell killings and couldn’t live with it. She leaves and a few months later Caleb picks up where he left off. 1978, the year the Hernandez family go missing. Only this time he wants more than just their car and their money.’

‘Where’d Mrs Ashwell go?’

‘Nobody knows, Ed. She ain’t been heard from since.’

‘Then how do we know she left at all?’

Dupree and Drexler looked up at her. ‘You think maybe Caleb killed her too.’

‘What mother would leave her baby with a monster like that? These three new bodies. How many you say were naked?’

Dupree looked at his notepad. ‘One. An adult female.’

‘So one adult female wasn’t?’

‘That’s right. Material indicates she was wearing a dress.’

‘So how many clothed adult female bodies do we have in total?’

‘Just that one.’

McQuarry raised an eyebrow. ‘And why wasn’t she naked?’

Drexler snapped his fingers. ‘Because Caleb didn’t rape her. She was his wife.’

Dupree checked his notes. ‘She was found in a grave on her own. Son of a bitch. You might be right.’

‘Guess we’ll find out soon enough.’ McQuarry pulled out a cigarette in anticipation of a break.

‘Poor Billy,’ added Drexler. ‘Without a mother, he didn’t stand a chance.’

‘You think Caleb trained him up to be just like him?’ asked McQuarry.

‘Monsters like that…’ Drexler shook his head. His eye met his partner’s, but he couldn’t maintain contact. He shrugged. ‘That’s what they do.’

‘Well, forgetting ancient history for a while,’ said Dupree. ‘What do we suppose happened to Caleb and Billy last week? This weren’t no family fighting back. These folks were executed.’

‘It’s all about the rose petals, Andy,’ said McQuarry. ‘George Bailey’s family are the key. They get killed but this time somebody either knew about it or worked it out.’

‘How?’

‘You got me. But whoever this is wanted us to know. The way he looked up at the camera after hanging Billy. This guy knew about the camera. This guy had been to the gas station before.’

‘So?’

‘Think about it, Mike. Without that single piece of film, we log this as a murder-suicide and just concentrate on the Ghost Road killings. We tag the Ashwells as serial killers who do their stuff until one night Billy can’t stand it any more and goes over the edge. He kills his dad, writes about what’s in the clearing in blood as a sort of confession, then hangs himself out of remorse. But this guy wants us to know. He makes damn sure we know. First the camera, then the petals.’

Brook woke in the early hours. He padded downstairs to make tea. He was on late turn today but instead of scouring the internet for old Reaper cases, he decided to read his newly acquired signed copy of Drexler’s book.

The Ghost Road Killers is a faithful account of the activities of Caleb Ashwell and his son Billy who faced justice of sorts in 1995. Their murders ended a reign of terror in Northern California and shone a light on the disappearance of several families whose misfortune it was to cross their path. It may never be known just how many men, women and children the Ashwells terrorised and murdered on the California 89 highway because some of the victims have never been found, and because the mysterious murder of the Texas-born father and son robbed the investigation of its two key witnesses.

Brook took a sip of tea. Odd. The Ghost Road Killers were identified in the book’s first paragraph yet Drexler had claimed they hadn’t solved the case. Perhaps he just meant the full facts were never uncovered.

He read for a couple more hours until the sun was up then walked round to the corner shop. He walked back to the cottage through the faint morning light, sucking in the soft chilly air and shaking the slight fug from his head. He’d drank more than he’d intended the night before but had to admit he’d enjoyed himself more than he’d expected.

After some tea, Brook returned to the book. It was well written and easy to read, but the subject matter was hard going. Women and children were abused, tortured and in most cases raped. Caleb Ashwell was a monster and his son Billy was being moulded from the same clay. The trigger for the killing spree seemed to be the infidelity of Mrs Ashwell, soon after the birth of her son. Claiming she’d walked out on him, Caleb raised Billy by himself while the body of his wife lay undisturbed in the farthest corner of a clearing near the family cabin. This had also been the hiding place for all the cars belonging to, or hired by, the families hijacked by the Ashwells while travelling on Highway 89.