Ashes To Ashes Read online

  I was giving it my best shot.

  Chapter Fourteen: Contexts

  Several things troubled me about that interview with Marcia. There were content problems and context problems. How much could I believe? Was there any reason for not believing all of it?

  Putting the thing in context with our first two encounters, I had to first make allowance for the fact that the first two were colored by alcohol while the third was not only cold sober but also post-trauma.

  And while two and possibly three moods or personality movements had been displayed during those interactions, at least one apparently dominant character trait came through in all three: forthrightness, a sort of natural honesty. There was a refreshing directness to that character, even when she was trying to be otherwise.

  Even so, she had displayed an amazing candor in revealing her plan to run away with Carl Powell. I must tell you here, though—and I hope you can take the comment as clinical, without ego—that I have noted a tendency among women in general, who know about my background and interests, to be sometimes embarrassingly candid with me in highly personal matters, even some who are normally secretive and deceptive with others.

  So much so, in fact, that I have had to recognize a certain intimidation factor inherent in the label of psychic—not nearly as much in men as in women, however—to the degree that I have learned not to discuss my work or "talents" in purely social contacts. I have found that women are generally more receptive than men to the reality of psychism—that is, more believing. I have an interesting theory to explain that, but I will not go into that here.

  The point is that I am frequently told much more than I really want to know about a woman's interior life—as if to say, what the heck, he already knows it anyway so let's talk about it.

  That factor could have been at work during that late-night conversation with Marcia Kalinsky.

  I decided to accept—at least for the moment—the question of basic context and go on to the more troubling questions of content. And, really, a lot of bothersome stuff had been developed during that brief talk.

  The most bothersome to me, vis-à-vis Karen Highland, was the information about her dead mother, Elena. A lot of powerfully operative stuff, there—operative, that is, upon the developing mind of a child—possibly traumatic stuff. No way could I miss the obvious, there: Was Elena the ethereal companion? If so, did she exist as an actual disembodied entity drawn to this plane by the frustrations of previous life here or did she exist purely as a traumatized spin-off from Karen's own troubled consciousness.

  Bear with me, please. I am contextualizing content, here. This is important stuff, much too important to bang against a stone wall of preconceived notions.

  Karen had given me to understand that she did not know the identity of this "visitor." She had also stated that the visits had begun in her early childhood, had grown more frequent in later years—and, I gathered, personally bothersome to Karen during recent times.

  She claimed very little conscious memory associated with either parent, even though she was fourteen years old at the time of their deaths. She had also told me of a certain confusion in distinguishing dreams from actual events.

  Could her memory of childhood visits, which she now likened to the ethereal visitations, actually be confused memories of actual physical events involving her actual mother during those infrequent periods when Elena was "between institutions?"—and was that now the source of a traumatically spun-off psychic-companion personality?

  Her father, TJ, was—by the record—as much a recluse as his father, JQ, which means that he must have been under roof, so to speak, throughout Karen's early life. Why, then, did she exhibit such careless memory of her father?

  Carl Powell, if I could believe my conversation with him, had her diagnosed as an Electra. In the Electra complex, a female child is in love with her father and hates her mother as a competitor for the father's affection. If he had probed through her conscious and subconscious memories to that extent, could he have missed entirely the ethereal companion?"

  Or had Carl Powell been as big a rat as Terry Kalinsky now seemed to be shaping into and had he merely helped to manufacture a psychopath—or an apparent psychopath—to help Kalinsky keep control of the Highland billions?

  Was Karen Highland a psychopath or merely a victim of human greed?

  Was she a killer?—and I had to take in, now, the question of her own parents, Bruno, perhaps even Bruno's brother—who thus far was only a postscript, but not a forgotten postscript, to this developing drama—Marcia's mishap in the pool, and of course Karen's psychiatrist and Marcia's imputed lover, Carl U. Powell, M.D.

  It was a time for answers and all I had were questions.

  And don't tell me to use my psychic powers. I do not use them, they use me.

  But I would have gratefully accepted any small crumbs that they would feel inclined to toss my way.

  Time was quickly running out for Karen Highland. And maybe for Ashton Ford. I had to find some answers, and I had to find them damned quick.

  Chapter Fifteen: Resonating

  Doc Powell's quarters were in the same wing as Karen's and were expansive enough to house also a small dispensary and a paneled study. I learned later that this had been JQ's apartment for his final two years, during which time he had confined himself within those walls. It had been a period of considerable discomfort and pain, which perhaps accounts for the depressing atmosphere I encountered there.

  I have found that unhappy human experiences, especially those of a repetitive or continuous nature occurring within the same physical reference, or a singular event experienced with severely traumatizing emotions, somehow become imbedded in the molecular structures of that space-time field and sometimes never dissipate to the point where a sensitive person does not resonate them.

  Sometimes the resonance is there long after the purely physical structure has been totally destroyed—so maybe the very earth, itself, is imbedded with this unhappiness.

  To illustrate that latter connection, I remember an incident a few years ago when I was driving through one of the western states—Wyoming, maybe—and picked up a very strong emotional resonance while stopped at a rest area along the interstate highway. It was a feeling of desperation and despair mixed with terror. Casual questioning of a maintenance man brought out the story of a homesteading pioneer family of ten massacred on the site by an Indian war party. This some one hundred years earlier, yet somehow the event remained indelibly impressed in the space-time matrix despite the disappearance of all physical traces.

  I was very uncomfortable in Powell's quarters, despite the fact that they were charmingly decorated and pleasing to the masculine sense of comfort. This feeling of discomfort had nothing to do with the knowledge that I was working on very short time before Kalinsky or the cops, or both, came looking for the same thing I was looking for.

  I had that feeling of urgency, yes, but it was quite distinct and apart from some disturbingly resonating factor impressed within those walls. I did not know, at the time, that JQ had died in that apartment nor did I have any specific feeling as to the nature of the disturbance; I knew only that unhappiness had lived there.

  This, coupled with the time-factor urgency, may have had some effect upon the efficiency of my search. I did find an entire library of open-reel tapes, indexed by date and covering psychoanalytic sessions with Karen over a five-year period. The periodicity indicated semiweekly sessions over the entire period, which seemed to make a liar out of Karen. She had told me point-blank that she had never thought of herself as being "in analysis."

  The surface evidence seemed to indicate that she had been involved in some very heavy analysis. There were over five hundred such tapes, a fact that foreclosed any thought of carrying them away from there—besides which, it would have required probably a thousand hours to simply listen to that entire library, perhaps five thousand to come to any conclusions about the information that might be recorded there. I had
no such time at my disposal. Five hours would have been regarded as a great luxury of time.

  Of much greater value, in the given circumstances, would have been some sort of cross-index or catalog of subjects covered in those tapes. A quick scan of such a catalog could at least reveal the range and depth of those sessions, enough maybe to allow a fast synthesis and give me a mental snapshot of the trouble with Karen.

  I found no such catalog, nor could I locate a case file, which should at least show a psychiatric profile of the patient as well as progressive commentaries by the doctor.

  I did find a little leatherbound notebook in the bookcase headboard of Powell's bed. It was not labeled and the contents were written in what appeared to be some sort of shorthand notation. Scrutiny revealed the shorthand to be, actually, an abbreviated form of plain English; further scrutiny satisfied me that the forty-odd pages of jottings all concerned Karen Highland. I added this to my treasure trove.

  Ten more minutes of careful searching turned up several more notebooks, a couple of unmarked cassette tapes, a small desktop appointment calendar covered with doodles and more shorthand, a couple of bankbooks that indicated that the five-year residency had been profitable, indeed, for Doctor Powell, two one-way airline tickets to Rome for the following Saturday, a small legal tract on "Conservancy and the Mentally Disabled," and ten thousand dollars worth of American Express traveler's checks in Powell's name.

  I took the notebooks, tapes, and calendar and left everything else undisturbed.

  And now I have to give you one of those “suspended disbelief” items. I do not know how to explain it in conventional logic nor even in a sensible unconventional logic; I can only tell you what occurred, or how I sensorially interpreted what occurred, and leave it to your own conclusions.

  As I was standing at the front door and preparing to quit that apartment, I saw something suspended in the air over near the bookshelves in the sitting room. Now, the room was darkened, with only a small nightlight near the front door, so this object or whatever had to be supplying its own illumination. It had a very faint glow, somewhat like radium, and exhibited a sort of undulating-wave appearance—if you can visualize a sheer curtain panel being gently manipulated by the breeze at an open window, sort of like that except that no constant form was maintained.

  The closest description I can arrive at, for those who may have had a class or two in psychics, is that it looked like an electronic screen representation of the electrical field of an energy wave, with about the same degree of stability—at maximum expansion, maybe ten inches wide and two feet long.

  As I watched, this energy wave or whatever moved into the bookcase and instantly contracted to a point and disappeared. As it did so, a large volume was ejected from the bookcase and fell to the floor.

  I stood rooted to my spot by the door for perhaps thirty seconds, then I turned the lights back on, went to the bookcase, picked up the fallen book.

  It was warm to the touch, front and back, a heavy leatherbound tome titled "Principles of Economics."

  What appeared at first to be a bookmark tucked between the pages turned out to be two sheets of lined yellow notepaper, legal size, folded twice and filled front and back with finely scrawled handwriting.

  The heading of the front sheet read: "The True Final Will and Testament of Joseph Quincy Highland."

  The second sheet was headed: "My Dearly Beloved Karen."

  Let me tell you that, even before I read those final messages from JQ, my mind was fairly tumbling with the implications of the event.

  Please remember that I am a guy who does not like any suggestion that supernatural agencies could be at

  work in my reality. Yet I had been given an at-hand demonstration of an event that seemingly could not be explained in any other terms.

  From somewhere out of the matrix that separates the world of space and time from whatever other realities may be only dimly guessed, an entity of will had found a way to interact with the energy universe and to thereby place in my hands the desires and instructions of a man more than ten years in his grave.

  Ashes to ashes ... okay.

  But evidently something far more meaningful than ashes just goes right on truckin'.

  Chapter Sixteen: Roots

  I used a small copier in Powell's study to copy JQ's final papers, then returned the originals to the book and replaced it in the bookcase, with the thought that since it had remained undetected there all those years, that would be the safest storage for the time being.

  Having only Marcia Kalinsky's words as a guide, I had no way of knowing just how significant this "true final will" might actually be—and, actually, it was only a rather informal codicil to what obviously must have been an involved and intricate formal will, considering the dimensions of that estate.

  Marcia had told me, you may recall, that JQ had spent the last two years of his life reorganizing his estate in such a way that "most everything would go directly to Karen instead of to his own son." Since there had also been talk of a "trust" from Karen, I had assumed that the bulk of the estate had gone into that trust, which is a more or less standard operating procedure for bequests to minor children. The "trust," in that sense, is designed to preserve the estate and to expand it as much as possible through wise investments until such time as the heir is deemed mature enough to take responsibility for his own business affairs, meanwhile providing income adequate to maintain a certain desired standard of living. A trustee is appointed to manage that trust at the time that the trust is created on paper—in this case, according to Karen, our friend Terry Kalinsky—and it was my understanding that such an appointment is not dependent upon confirmation by a probate court, as it is for an executor. When the trustor dies, then, the trustee takes over as irrevocable agent for the trustor in carrying out the terms of the trust and as sort of a financial guardian for the beneficiary.

  The setting up of a trust is of course a very intricate legal procedure, with all sorts of ramifications having to do with inheritance taxes, probate expenses, that sort of thing. For holdings as massive and as extensive as Highland's, the intricacies must have approached infinite mass. But I could only imagine all that, having no actual knowledge of any of it.

  Being only "almost a lawyer," moreover, I could not fully evaluate the possible effect of a hand-scrawled death-bed codicil upon such a mass of highly formulated estate planning; indeed, I would go so far as to suggest that few highly competent lawyers would hazard a guess on that score even with all the papers in front of them. The final determination would have to be made by a probate court and the legal skirmishing in that arena could consume years of court calendars.

  So I really did not know what I had, there. The flow of events following JQ's death, such as they were, would seem to have reduced or perhaps totally neutralized any significance to Karen, herself, but if a legal basis could have been established in time, the codicil could have had tremendous significance to Kalinsky—and perhaps it still could.

  Marcia had told me, remember, that JQ had spent the final two years of his life reorganizing the estate. If that were true, and the codicil seemed to more or less verify that by implication, then obviously the dying old man had a last-minute change of heart.

  I am going to reproduce for you, here, the full text of that death-bed wish, "The True Last Will and Testament of Joseph Quincy Highland:

  Let it be known by these presents that although I am of rapidly deteriorating body, I am of sound and rational mind and not under the influence of alcohol, narcotics or medications of any kind whatsoever; being of sound mind and in excellent possession of all mental faculties, I do set my will and desires to this writing in full knowledge of my imminent departure from this lifetime, perhaps within the next several hours; I do hereby with full faculties intend that this writing be regarded as a legally binding and governing document that shall serve to modify any and all provisions of any and all extant documents executed by me during my lifetime having to do with the d
istribution of my worldly assets upon my death, but does not and shall not serve to invalidate wholly or to replace wholly such documents but only those provisions that are in conflict with or inconsistent with the desires herein expressed, to wit:

  It is my death-bed wish that all my worldly assets except the First Trust established for the benefit of my Granddaughter, Karen Elena Highland, shall upon my death pass directly to my son, Thomas James Highland, and I do hereby nominate my son, Thomas James Highland, as sole executor of my estate.

  I do also hereby and specifically remove as Trustee for my Granddaughter's First Trust Terrance Kellan Kalinsky and do hereby appoint in his place my son, Thomas James Highland, as sole Trustee of the First Trust established for the benefit of my Granddaughter, Karen Elena Highland.

  Lest there be any doubt as to my wishes so stated above, I do hereby expressly and specifically declare all other Trusts, save the First Trust named above, to be canceled and voided as though they had never been drawn; all other bequests, save those named above, are likewise canceled and voided as though they had never been made.

  The codicil was signed and dated on the day that I later determined was JQ's last day on earth.

  There also were two witnessing signatures, those of Bruno and Tony Valensa. Figure that one.

  Considering the fact that TJ had passed on shortly after JQ, and since Karen was TJ's only natural heir, probably, it would seem on the surface that this newly discovered document—even if admitted to probate—would have no real impact on the final settlement of the estate. Unless, of course, there could be claims against TJ's estate, which could be considerable if the bulk of JQ's estate had passed to the son before TJ's death—and that would knock the whole thing into a cocked hat—especially if Elena had family somewhere and taking into account California's community property law.