Ashes to Ashes by Nathaniel Fincham

obviously that of
marihuana. He thought about picking one up to examine it closer,
but he had already touched enough in the room.
    If the stench of blood wasn’t so thick about
the room, Ashe might have smelled the scent of weed, telling him
that Owen had been high when he fell asleep. It was a real
possibility, because cannabis often put the users to sleep, unlike
those drugs found in powder form. And Owen might have even been
drunk, Ashe inferred, even though there was no evidence of alcohol,
at least not in the room. He had never searched the fridge, but
there might have been alcohol. It was , in fact, a college
bachelor pad.
    Drugs might have been what got Owen shot in
the back of the head. A substance abuser or addict, if that was
indeed what Owen was, cared nothing of anything but that next high,
whether it came from an upper or downer. The high was all that
mattered. Not their friends or family or themselves. The high was
their only motivation. Owen could have possibly crossed the wrong
dealer or fellow addict while seeking that next high, giving that
person or group of people a need for violent restitution. And they
timed their homicide perfectly, by getting at their victim while he
was passed out in bed.
    Why didn't they shoot Scott, too? Or at least
shoot at him? He had been home when the shooting occurred
and Ashe knew that his son would have reacted. He truly didn't see
Scott hiding in his room.
    The train of thought only brought about more
questions.
    Rising, Ashe went back into the hallway to
search for evidence of gunfire, holes in the walls, but there were
zero. Naught. The psychologist searched the rest of the bedroom the
best he could without leaving behind any prints. The surfaces he
couldn’t help but to touch, he quickly wiped off with the base of
his shirt. There was nothing left to find in the room, nothing of
substance, only some ragged clothing and additional pornographic
movies. Anything of substance or importance had been taken. The
Crime Scene Unit must not have seen any weight in the remaining
items, either, which was why they had left them behind.
    There was nothing new to discover in Owen’s
personal space. All that was left to do was go into his son's
bedroom. Maybe there would be some answers to find there.
    He hoped.
    As he crept into the room, his foot thumped
hard against something on the floor. He cursed quietly. The object
was hard and metal. Lowering the light, Ashe saw that it was a hand
weight. Forty-five pounds of solid metal. Another one sat nearby.
Scott was always serious about staying in shape. He was surprised
that there wasn't an entire weight bench crammed into the small
bedroom.
    Stepping over the weight, Ashe began to drift
the light over the room. He could tell that the bedroom had been
looked over and rummaged through, but only slightly. The top two
dresser drawers were still askew and the dresser itself had been
pulled a few inches from the wall. Scott’s mattress looked a little
crooked, off center from the box spring.
    How hard or how fast did they inspect the
room? Ashe had hoped that Oscar and the other detectives wouldn’t
have torn the room asunder, because it meant that something might
have been left behind.
    He came further into the room, taking in as
much as his phone light would show. On the walls were sports
posters, mostly basketball, with more posters depicting the
Cleveland Cavalier than any other NBA team. Scott must have
remained a loyal fan of the Cavs.
    Ashe had always been a Celtics fan.
    Scott had played many sports growing up,
baseball, soccer, football, etcetera, but Ashe knew that his son’s
heart had always been with basketball. During the last year of high
school, basketball became the only sport that Scott had played,
while the other sports fell to the wayside.
    On the wall Scott had also hung three framed
pictures. One was of himself in his high school basketball jersey,
posing with a basketball wedged between his arm and chest. The
other