Page 91 of Pieces of Ash
“Gus?” I look pointedly at the car and then back at Gus, a clear question in my eyes.Who the fuck is that?
“Him? Ohhh! No, no, no!” he says, reading my expression. “It’s just an Uber! Jock took the car.”
Shit. Okay.
As Gus thanks the driver for waiting and waves him away, I go back for Ashley.
“Gus is here?” she asks. “Hmm. I wonder what’s up.”
We meet Gus at the front door, then step into the living room. Gus takes off his khaki trench coat as I run to my bathroom for towels since Ashley and I are soaked. When I return, Ashley’s still standing just inside the front door, staring at Gus.
“You’re scaring me,” I hear her say. “Just tell me what happened.”
For the first time, I notice that Gus’s expression is deeply troubled, bordering on grave.
“Sit down, li’l Ash,” he says.
Gus sits in a wingback chair by the fire, and I sit across from him, beside Ashley, on the edge of the sofa. I place a towel in her lap, which she ignores. She is totally focused on her godfather.
“Please,” she whispers.
“Oh, honey. There’s no easy way to share this…” He winces, staring at the folded hands in his lap before looking up at Ashley. “I called your school today. Your, uh, Father Joseph…last week when I talked to him, he told me that he had a meeting set up with Mosier on Wednesday night. Uh, that was yesterday, um, night. So, I called this afternoon…just to see how the talk went.”
Ashley’s entire body has tensed up beside me. Her arms are crossed over her chest and her shoulders brush the lobes of her ears. She nods at him to continue.
Gus licks his lips nervously. “Father Joseph…aw, baby doll, he had a heart attack last night.” Ashley gasps, covering hermouth with her hands, and I can’t stop myself—I put my arm around her rigid shoulders. “I’m so sorry, Ash, but he’s gone.”
“No!” she cries, her voice keening. “No. No, no, no. No. Please, no.”
“Aw, honey,” says Gus, leaning forward in his chair, his brown eyes brimming with tears. “I’m sodamnedsorry.”
She is shaking her head, sobs racking her small body as she repeats the wordnoover and over and over again. The depth of her sorrow is shocking and terrible, and I wish I could halve it for her, share it with her, make it go away.
But I can’t.
I look up at Gus, and to my great dismay, I realize that he isn’t finished. He has more to say.
“What else?” I ask, sliding closer to Ashley and rubbing her back.
“I asked…” Gus pauses before starting again. “I spoke to Sister James. She said that he was fine yesterday. She saw him at dinner, and he asked her to pray for him. He said he was meeting with the stepfather of a student at eight thirty that evening and called it a ‘complicated matter.’ When he wasn’t at Mass the next morning, she sent a student to the rectory. They found him at his desk. He was gone.” Gus sighs. “According to the coroner, the time of death was approximately nine o’clock the night before.”
Ashley has been cradling her head in her hands, but now her neck snaps up and she looks at Gus. “What?”
Gus looks sorry as hell to have to share this information, but he nods as Ashley adds up the facts in her head. “He either died while Mosier was still there or directly after he left.”
“What do you mean?” Ashley demands, springing to her feet. “Did Mosier hurt him?” she screams. “Did Mosierkillhim?”
Now Gus is on his feet. “Baby doll, your Father Joe wasn’t a young man.”
“Sister James said he was fine the night before!”
I stand up too, looking at Gus. “Did you get a sense of foul play? From the nun you talked to?”
Gus looks thoughtful for a second, then shakes his head. “No. She didn’t tell me that anything was off, aside from the fact that he seemed concerned earlier in the evening.” He takes a deep breath and releases it slowly, crossing his arms over his chest, his expression bleak. “But are you asking ifIsuspect foul play? I don’t know how you’d go about giving someone a heart attack, but the answer is yes. The timing stinks.”
I nod because I feel the same way.
“There are untraceable drugs that will induce a heart attack,” I say. “They aren’t easy to find, but someone like Raumann, who deals in the importation of illegal drugs, wouldn’t have trouble getting his hands on something. With a tiny needle, it would be virtually impossible to detect a puncture wound.” I take a deep breath, imagining an alternative. “Or he could have been threatened and frightened to such an extent that his heart sped up to dangerous levels and gave out. Either way…”
