Ashwood County 7

Chapter Seven:

The House That Remembers

The sheriff’s office smelled like old paper and older coffee—bittersweet, sour, and soaked in regret. It was the kind of smell that sank into your skin and left a mark. The kind of smell that told you this was a place where time didn’t move forward so much as it curled inward. Outside, the heat pressed against the windows like a hand trying to get in. Cicadas droned in waves, carving the air into something brittle. Inside, Sheriff Cal Danner sat at his desk, sorting through reports he already knew by heart. The kind that looked official enough to matter, but soft enough not to say anything. Bureaucratic lullabies.

He rubbed at the base of his neck, where the ache had settled like an old friend. Another night of restless sleep, another day with the same ghosts showing up in different fonts. He exhaled slowly and reached for the photograph.

His fingers hovered first, then lifted it gently from the corner of his desk. Mona. Four or five. Juice box held like a microphone. A frozen laugh mid-sparkle in her eyes. Kila beside her, half-smiling with her hand on their daughter’s shoulder. Danner let his thumb drift across Mona’s cheek in the picture, slow and reverent, like the image might dissolve if he pressed too hard.

He didn’t look at it often. But when he did, it wasn’t nostalgia that grabbed him—it was longing. The kind that aches behind the eyes and settles low in the gut. He traced the edge of the frame again, as if the memory inside might offer direction, or absolution. Or magic. Because sometimes, when the weight got too heavy, he wanted to believe that picture held more than light and paper.

Outside, the wind stirred the dust in lazy circles, and a single crow barked from a wire like a bad omen trying to be heard.

What was he supposed to do about those damn notes? He’d turned them over in his hands a dozen times, read the words until they blurred. Whoever left them didn’t want a conversation—they wanted control. Wanted him rattled. He wasn’t in the mood to be chased like some green deputy in a B-movie. If they had something to say, they ought to say it to his face. This cryptic cat-and-mouse nonsense was for yahoos, drama queens, and assholes with too much time and too little courage.

The screen door creaked. Then footsteps. He didn’t look up.

“Sheriff,” Deputy Mills said. “They’re here.”

Danner nodded once. “Send ’em in.”

Ramirez entered first, sharp-eyed and unsmiling, the kind of walk that didn’t ask for room so much as carved it out. Her scent trailed behind her—leather, smoke, and something faintly medicinal. Followed by Vance, hands in his pockets, gaze already scanning the walls like the building itself might lie to him. He had the quiet lean of a man who kept his thoughts folded tight in his coat lining.

“Detectives,” Danner said, not standing. “Hope the drive didn’t ruin your suspension.”

“Only the back axle and my faith in rural infrastructure,” Ramirez said. She didn’t wait for an invitation to sit. The vinyl chair gave a low groan as she dropped into it.

Vance offered a polite shrug. “We found the girl. Tulip field. North of the windmill.”

Danner leaned back slightly. The leather on his chair creaked, tired. “You get a name?”

“Not yet,” Ramirez said. “But she didn’t walk there. And she didn’t die there. Someone refrigerated her. Dumped her like compost.”

Vance added, “Still wearing a boutique jacket. City brand. Clean soles. She didn’t belong here.”

Danner took that in. Slowly. A muscle in his jaw flexed and relaxed. “A lot of people don’t.”

They let the silence sit for a moment. The fan overhead whirred just enough to remind them how still the rest of the room was. A fly buzzed against the window screen, stubborn and lost.

Ramirez folded her arms. “Your guy, Ezra Jennings. He was at the scene.”

Danner’s eyes didn’t blink. “He didn’t kill her.”

“Didn’t say he did. Just said he was there. Watching. Talking riddles.”

“That sounds like Ezra.” He said it fast. Too fast. Like a door slammed just before they could see what was behind it.

Ramirez leaned forward. Her elbows settled against her knees, eyes narrowing. “You know, this is the part where most sheriffs ask what we found. What we think. What might connect.”

“You come into Ashwood County thinking everything connects, you’ll go mad before lunch,” Danner said. “This place buries its own storylines. I’m just here to keep ’em from clawing out too fast.”

Vance, who had been quiet, finally spoke. “You ever heard of a man named Clem Ford?”

Danner’s jaw shifted again, but this time slower. He looked away from them, out the window.

“That name still gets mail.”

“So you do remember him.”

“I remember a lot of people. Most of them would rather I didn’t.”

He didn’t add more. The room settled again, the weight of unspoken history pressing against the walls.

Before anyone could push further, Deputy Mills appeared in the doorway again. Hat in hand. Voice careful, like a man carrying a bowl full of water through a burning house.

“Sheriff? Sorry to interrupt, but… something’s goin’ on out at Ashwell Farm.”

Danner blinked. That got through. The change in his posture was barely there, but Ramirez caught it.

“Say again?”

Mills stepped in, but didn’t come farther. Just stood at the threshold, like the name Ashwell Farm had drawn a line across the floor. “Old Clem Ford’s been seen out there. Neighbor called it in. Said he was just standin’ in the yard. Didn’t knock. Didn’t go inside. But the porch swing was movin’. Said the wind was dead still, but that swing kept on like somebody was pushin’ it.”

Nobody spoke right away.

Ramirez broke the silence. “Ashwell Farm. That’s not in any of the files you gave us.”

“Because it’s not a place you file,” Danner said. “It’s a place you forget. Or try to.”

Vance leaned forward. “What happened there?”

Danner didn’t answer immediately. His gaze drifted to the corner of the room where the old evidence cabinet sat closed, latched with a lock that hadn’t seen a key in years.

“House like that doesn’t rot. It remembers.”

He stood. Grabbed his hat from the rack.

“Deputy, gas up the cruiser. We’re heading out.”

“You want us to come with?” Ramirez asked.

Danner hesitated. He studied her, then Vance. The lines in his face deepened.

“If you do, don’t expect answers.”

He paused in the doorway. Just long enough to add:

“Sometimes the dirt out here talks louder than the people. And the farm? It talks in circles.”

Then he left. The screen door creaked again. The echo felt heavier this time.

Ramirez looked at Vance.

“Let’s go see what the house remembers.”

They both moved, slow but certain, following the echo of Danner’s footsteps. But as they stepped onto the porch, Ramirez slowed.

“Vance,” she said, quieter now. “Who the hell is Clem Ford? And why am I just now hearing about him?”

Vance adjusted the collar of his coat as the door creaked shut behind them.

“He was mentioned in a sealed file I pulled during prelim sweeps,” he said. “Fire case. Years back. Never prosecuted. Never cleared either. Name came up in a line of questioning, then disappeared.”

Ramirez narrowed her eyes. “So you sat on it.”

“No,” Vance said. “I waited. Danner wasn’t going to talk about him until he had to. And now he has to.”

They stepped off the porch into the thick, humming heat. The cicadas hadn’t stopped. If anything, they’d gotten louder. A mouse scurried under the porch, not out of fear, but to escape the heat.

Ramirez shook her head. “This place is stitched together with silence.”

Then, dryly, “And here I was expecting sweet tea and fried wisdom.”

Vance nodded toward the cruiser. “You bring the tea, I’ll bring the tamales.”

Ramirez snorted. “Hell of a picnic.”

He looked back toward the station. “And I think we just found one of the threads that’s coming loose.”

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Ashwood County remembers what others try to forget.

If this chapter stirred something, follow the trail.

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