Fic: Thirteen at Dinner (13/15)
Masterpost
Chapter XI: Joyce Ashby
Chapter XII: Kat O’Donnell
It was dark by the time they thanked Mr. Trent and left, and Sam was starting to clutch at Dean’s jacket when he thought nobody was paying attention, so Dean figured they could leave finishing the job for the morning. They still needed to do something about the other ghost, they needed an answer for Frances, and they needed to stop Mathieson’s little operation. Dean was in favour of stopping it by killing him, after what he’d tried to do to Sammy, but Sammy made big sad eyes and Dean just sighed and ruffled his hair and gave in.
They dropped Avery off at the youth centre before going back to the motel. Dean ordered pizza and found an old Western on TV. Sam drowsed against his shoulder, and although Mathieson’s papers and Frances’ medallion were still sitting around undestroyed, Dean didn’t have the heart to disturb him. The ghosts had waited more than three hundred years. They could wait another night.
About halfway through the movie, when it became clear that Sam wasn’t going to do much more than make little snuffling sounds into Dean’s shirt and occasionally mumble something about historical inaccuracy, Dean got him out of his shoes and into bed.
Dean fully intended to sit on Sam’s bed only for a couple of minutes, to make sure he was comfortable and didn’t need anything. But he’d had a long day, and his emotions were catching up with him, and before long he’d fallen asleep slumped half-sitting against the headboard.
When he woke up, Sam had curled up to him in his sleep, hardly a surprise considering how clingy the kid got when he was sick or hurt, and his phone was ringing.
Blearily, running a hand through Sam’s hair to keep him from waking up, he grabbed his phone from the nightstand and glanced at the screen.
Josh Mathieson calling.
Crap.
Dean didn’t want to talk to him. He might try to use some other mojo on Dean, and Dean already owed him a violent and bloody death for what he’d done the first time. On the other hand… What if someone was in trouble? Mathieson had a whole township’s worth of tenants, and it wasn’t their fault he was a manipulative evil jerk.
Dean tapped Sam’s cheek.
“Hey. Wake up, kiddo.”
Sam opened his eyes and looked up at him. “What? What happened?”
“Mathieson.” Dean thrust the still-ringing phone at Sam. “You want to take it?”
Sam looked a little puzzled, but he took the phone, pushing himself up as he did. Dean leaned in to listen.
“Hello?” Sam asked.
“Oh!” Mathieson sounded startled. “I’m sorry. I thought this was Dean Winchester’s number.”
Dean thought he could hear faint music playing in the background. He frowned, starting to feel little prickles of irrational anger, but Sam reached out and wrapped an arm around his shoulders and they faded.
“This is Dean’s number,” Sam said. “I’m Sam.”
“Sam? Sam? You’re alive?”
Dean’s jaw clenched. Sam’s arm tightened around him. “Yeah, I’m alive, and I don’t appreciate your little stunt trying to get me killed. We know what you’re doing, and we know you’re putting the whammy on people to get yourself favourable business deals. And, apparently, anything else you want.”
“Looks like you know a lot,” Mathieson sneered. “What are you going to do about it? You show your face, you’ll be in jail. And if you manage to evade the cops, I’ll take matters in hand and you might find yourself wishing you’d died in that car crash like they think you did.”
Dean grabbed the phone before Sam could react.
“Threaten my brother again, you son of a bitch, and they’ll never find your body. Now, did you call for a reason, or did you just want to remind me that killing you is on my agenda?”
“Cute. I called to say I’ve just learned a valuable artefact that belonged to me has disappeared. It took a while for me to find out, thanks to the confusion around Amanda Velour’s death, but it’s clear now that a seventeenth-century gold necklace has gone missing from her office. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Nothing at all,” Dean said calmly. “Goodbye, douchebag.”
He ended the call.
“So I’m guessing you do know something about the necklace.”
“Avery gave it to me,” Dean confirmed. “But the necklace can wait. First we need to figure out what Mathieson’s doing. I’ll…” He hesitated, and finally point to the crumpled sheets still lying where they’d fallen when he’d dropped them in horror. “I don’t want to touch them.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he got a pair of surgical gloves from the first-aid kit and snapped them on before picking up the sheets. Dean watched over his shoulder as he leafed through them.
“Names, addresses… There’s nothing unusual.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Does the room have a clothes iron?”
“This is the cheapest motel in the state of Massachusetts, Sam. Of course it doesn’t have a clothes iron. Why? You need to be all dressed up to visit Kara?”
“Who’s Kara?”
“Wow! I know a librarian you don’t!” At Sam’s rolled eyes, Dean laughed and went on, “I asked her to do some research for me. She said Peter Winn claimed responsibility for Ralph Ashby’s death - and Peter Winn died, five years to the day after our friend Ralph, same place, same way. Kara thinks it was guilt.”
“He was a kid!”
“Yeah, I didn’t think it was him, either. Probably the real murderer who killed him, to make it look like he did it and was stricken by remorse.”
“But why would Peter Winn think he did it at all?”
“According to Kara, he got some voodoo crap from an old woman, and thought he’d put a whammy on Ralph.”
“Right. So whoever it was hired some poor old woman to give little Peter some fake voodoo, and then if suspicion did fall on them, they could always divert it by claiming they’d seen Peter doing something.”
“But suspicion didn’t fall on them, because nobody accused Peter of anything.”
“So it wasn’t Frances,” Sam said, grinning.
Dean laughed. “I’ll give you that, kiddo. It probably wasn’t Frances. Unless she was the old woman who gave Peter Winn his voodoo stuff and then felt guilty about it. So what did you want with the iron?”
Sam grinned. “Remember all those adventure stories I used to read as a kid? Give me your lighter.”
Sam stretched the most recent sheet of paper Mathieson had given Dean out with a couple of clips, and then thumbed the flame on and held it to the back, just far enough that the paper wouldn’t catch fire, moving it gently around. It took several minutes, but finally faint lines of writing appeared.
“Invisible ink?” Dean asked incredulously. “Could he get any more clichéd?”
“Clichéd, maybe, but effective. It wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, but…” Sam squinted at the writing. “It’s not Latin. Looks like some kind of French… Creole French, I guess, so it must be voodoo.” Sam dropped the paper and the lighter and stared at Dean. “Do you realize what this means?”
“I’m guessing you’re about to tell me.”
“Mathieson must have learned the voodoo spells from someone. Maybe it was Isabelle - she admitted to being a witch, and she grew up in Paris. Who knows how old she really is, and where she went before she came stateside, with or without Philip?”
“So… You think Isabelle killed Ralph Ashby?”
“It makes sense, but… I don’t know. Why would she lie about it? She was planning to kill me anyway, and probably Avery too. Why bother pretending she was innocent when she admitted that she wanted to kill him, and as good as admitted that she killed Philip Ashby?”
“So if it wasn’t Frances and it wasn’t Isabelle… Unless one of the men was a cross-dresser, we can choose between Agnes Winn and Kat O’Donnell.”
“I doubt it was Agnes. She sounds like she had less motive than anybody. Kat, maybe. It’s just…” Sam picked the paper up again, holding it to the light. “I feel like she’s connected somehow. Why would somebody try to turn Kat against Frances? I mean, why Kat? In those days, a woman’s opinion wouldn’t have counted for much. If they did want to make sure Frances got convicted, why not try to get to the judge? Or… I don’t know, maybe even Philip Ashby. Or Colum O’Donnell.”
“Frances said Colum supported her.”
“Exactly. But I’m pretty sure his word counted for more than Kat’s. Why would someone pick Kat? But if Kat was the one who killed him, it would make sense - she’d try to throw off suspicion, and Frances may just have been the easiest target. And the fact that Colum was in love with her might have made a difference too.”
“Maybe.” Dean got to his feet. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Let’s find a diner and get some breakfast. I can’t think on an empty stomach.”
“Dean?” Sam asked, when Dean put a tray loaded with pancakes, eggs, bacon, croissants, muffins and sausages in front of him, instead of the breakfast smoothie he’d asked for. “What the hell?”
“You’re recuperating from an injury -”
“I just got a few scrapes -”
“That Trent dude said he had to give you like forty stitches.”
“He was exaggerating, and it’s, OK, maybe a couple of cuts, but -”
“Sam. Shut up and eat.”
Sam sighed, but he smiled when he put the first forkful of pancake in his mouth. “This is good.”
“See? That’s why you should listen to your big brother.” Dean got started on his own breakfast. “So what are we going to do about Mathieson? We can’t turn him in for using voodoo on people, they’ll laugh at us. I could just kill him -”
“Dean.”
“I mean it. We all know what happens to people who mess with my little brother. And he deserves it. It’s no thanks to him you’re OK. So the question is, do I shoot him, or do I just use my bare hands?”
“Dean. You’re not going to murder a human.”
“Sam, he’s not human. And he deserves it for what he did to you.”
Sam cocked his head. “Wait… That’s it.”
“So I can kill him?” Dean asked happily.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can’t kill him. But we can turn him in - for murder. Or at least for attempted murder, or conspiracy, or something.”
“What? How?”
“What’s the betting Mathieson used that same voodoo stunt to persuade the police officers to go along with his plan? If he wrote it down, it doesn’t matter if it’s in Creole or uses invisible ink. It’s an admission of guilt. We may not be able to press charges, or persuade the DA’s office to take it, but think of the scandal if it goes to the papers. Mathieson will never live it down.”
“And he’ll never do business again. Awesome.” Dean’s grin was impossibly wide. “I love taking down dicks who try to kill my brother.”
“First we’ll need to find proof.”
“Great. So you finish eating everything on your plate, and then we’ll go to Mathieson’s office.”
Sam didn’t think he’d be able to finish everything on his plate, but Dean just sat there refusing to budge, and eventually it all went down.
“I don’t think I can move,” Sam grumbled, getting to his feet.
“Good. You need to rest.”
“I thought we were going to Mathieson’s office.”
“Yeah, and you’re staying in the car. You’re in no shape to fight, and I don’t want you hurting yourself worse or busting stitches if things get rough.”
“You can’t go in alone, Dean. What if he does something to you again? You’ll be on his turf.”
“OK, so what do we do?”
“Leave him for now. Let’s sort out the ghosts first, and we can worry about Mathieson later.” Sam stretched. “We need a break from thinking about Ralph Ashby. How about we try to deal with the other ghost?”
“We’ve got nothing to go on. If it wasn’t Frances… I mean, we wouldn’t even have figured Frances out if she hadn’t been helpful enough to write her own name. She was trying to get our attention.”
“So what do you think the other ghost wants? There’s only been one incident of violence.”
“So you think it could be trying to get attention, too?”
“We could ask Frances to find out?” Sam shook his head. “That’s so weird. Do you think ghosts have places where they get together, all the ghosts in an area?”
“Like, what, a ghost bar or something?” Dean laughed. “I doubt it, kiddo. If they had companionship, they probably wouldn’t go as crazy as they do. All those years being alone, that must be what twists them.” He shot a sideways glance at Sam. “Just like the hunters who go crazy when they spend years hunting alone.” They were outside by then, and he grabbed the front of Sam’s jacket and pulled him close. “So don’t you dare die, Sammy. I can’t lose you. I’ll… I just can’t.”
“Dean,” Sam whispered. “I’m here. I’m alive.”
“Yeah, and you’re damn well going to stay that way.” Dean made sure nobody was looking at them before he let his head drop to Sam’s shoulder. “I don’t know how to live without you, Sammy. Even when you were at Stanford, I knew you were OK, having fun and being a geek and… I knew you were alive.”
“Dean, it’s OK.” Sam’s arms were around him. “I’m OK. How about we take this to the Impala before somebody sees you having a chick-flick moment?”
“Shut up,” Dean muttered. He gave himself another fifteen seconds to listen to Sam’s breathing and feel his heartbeat and know he was alive, and then he pulled away. “So, what? We go find Frances?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Can we drive by Mathieson’s office first?”
“And do what?”
“Reconnoiter. Scope out exit routes and stuff. Maybe see if there’s a way to send him a dead rat in the mail.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he looked more amused than exasperated.
“Fine, come on. We’ll drive by Mathieson’s office and you can mutter threats.”
“Now you’re talking.”
When they actually got to the building, though, Dean didn’t mutter a single threat. He was staring at the board outside, with Mathieson’s company logo on a brass plaque that gleamed in the sun.
“Dean?” Sam asked. “What?”
“That.” Dean pointed at the plaque. “I knew it looked familiar. Sammy - that logo is the same design as the engraving on Frances’ medallion.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. I didn’t realize it until now, but this is shining just like that was in the fire, and - Sam? What’s going on? You’ve got that look like you’ve figured things out.”
Sam’s eyes were wide. “I know who killed Ralph Ashby.”
Chapter XIII: Ralph Ashby
Chapter XI: Joyce Ashby
Chapter XII: Kat O’Donnell
It was dark by the time they thanked Mr. Trent and left, and Sam was starting to clutch at Dean’s jacket when he thought nobody was paying attention, so Dean figured they could leave finishing the job for the morning. They still needed to do something about the other ghost, they needed an answer for Frances, and they needed to stop Mathieson’s little operation. Dean was in favour of stopping it by killing him, after what he’d tried to do to Sammy, but Sammy made big sad eyes and Dean just sighed and ruffled his hair and gave in.
They dropped Avery off at the youth centre before going back to the motel. Dean ordered pizza and found an old Western on TV. Sam drowsed against his shoulder, and although Mathieson’s papers and Frances’ medallion were still sitting around undestroyed, Dean didn’t have the heart to disturb him. The ghosts had waited more than three hundred years. They could wait another night.
About halfway through the movie, when it became clear that Sam wasn’t going to do much more than make little snuffling sounds into Dean’s shirt and occasionally mumble something about historical inaccuracy, Dean got him out of his shoes and into bed.
Dean fully intended to sit on Sam’s bed only for a couple of minutes, to make sure he was comfortable and didn’t need anything. But he’d had a long day, and his emotions were catching up with him, and before long he’d fallen asleep slumped half-sitting against the headboard.
When he woke up, Sam had curled up to him in his sleep, hardly a surprise considering how clingy the kid got when he was sick or hurt, and his phone was ringing.
Blearily, running a hand through Sam’s hair to keep him from waking up, he grabbed his phone from the nightstand and glanced at the screen.
Josh Mathieson calling.
Crap.
Dean didn’t want to talk to him. He might try to use some other mojo on Dean, and Dean already owed him a violent and bloody death for what he’d done the first time. On the other hand… What if someone was in trouble? Mathieson had a whole township’s worth of tenants, and it wasn’t their fault he was a manipulative evil jerk.
Dean tapped Sam’s cheek.
“Hey. Wake up, kiddo.”
Sam opened his eyes and looked up at him. “What? What happened?”
“Mathieson.” Dean thrust the still-ringing phone at Sam. “You want to take it?”
Sam looked a little puzzled, but he took the phone, pushing himself up as he did. Dean leaned in to listen.
“Hello?” Sam asked.
“Oh!” Mathieson sounded startled. “I’m sorry. I thought this was Dean Winchester’s number.”
Dean thought he could hear faint music playing in the background. He frowned, starting to feel little prickles of irrational anger, but Sam reached out and wrapped an arm around his shoulders and they faded.
“This is Dean’s number,” Sam said. “I’m Sam.”
“Sam? Sam? You’re alive?”
Dean’s jaw clenched. Sam’s arm tightened around him. “Yeah, I’m alive, and I don’t appreciate your little stunt trying to get me killed. We know what you’re doing, and we know you’re putting the whammy on people to get yourself favourable business deals. And, apparently, anything else you want.”
“Looks like you know a lot,” Mathieson sneered. “What are you going to do about it? You show your face, you’ll be in jail. And if you manage to evade the cops, I’ll take matters in hand and you might find yourself wishing you’d died in that car crash like they think you did.”
Dean grabbed the phone before Sam could react.
“Threaten my brother again, you son of a bitch, and they’ll never find your body. Now, did you call for a reason, or did you just want to remind me that killing you is on my agenda?”
“Cute. I called to say I’ve just learned a valuable artefact that belonged to me has disappeared. It took a while for me to find out, thanks to the confusion around Amanda Velour’s death, but it’s clear now that a seventeenth-century gold necklace has gone missing from her office. You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
“Nothing at all,” Dean said calmly. “Goodbye, douchebag.”
He ended the call.
“So I’m guessing you do know something about the necklace.”
“Avery gave it to me,” Dean confirmed. “But the necklace can wait. First we need to figure out what Mathieson’s doing. I’ll…” He hesitated, and finally point to the crumpled sheets still lying where they’d fallen when he’d dropped them in horror. “I don’t want to touch them.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he got a pair of surgical gloves from the first-aid kit and snapped them on before picking up the sheets. Dean watched over his shoulder as he leafed through them.
“Names, addresses… There’s nothing unusual.” Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Wait.”
“What?”
“Does the room have a clothes iron?”
“This is the cheapest motel in the state of Massachusetts, Sam. Of course it doesn’t have a clothes iron. Why? You need to be all dressed up to visit Kara?”
“Who’s Kara?”
“Wow! I know a librarian you don’t!” At Sam’s rolled eyes, Dean laughed and went on, “I asked her to do some research for me. She said Peter Winn claimed responsibility for Ralph Ashby’s death - and Peter Winn died, five years to the day after our friend Ralph, same place, same way. Kara thinks it was guilt.”
“He was a kid!”
“Yeah, I didn’t think it was him, either. Probably the real murderer who killed him, to make it look like he did it and was stricken by remorse.”
“But why would Peter Winn think he did it at all?”
“According to Kara, he got some voodoo crap from an old woman, and thought he’d put a whammy on Ralph.”
“Right. So whoever it was hired some poor old woman to give little Peter some fake voodoo, and then if suspicion did fall on them, they could always divert it by claiming they’d seen Peter doing something.”
“But suspicion didn’t fall on them, because nobody accused Peter of anything.”
“So it wasn’t Frances,” Sam said, grinning.
Dean laughed. “I’ll give you that, kiddo. It probably wasn’t Frances. Unless she was the old woman who gave Peter Winn his voodoo stuff and then felt guilty about it. So what did you want with the iron?”
Sam grinned. “Remember all those adventure stories I used to read as a kid? Give me your lighter.”
Sam stretched the most recent sheet of paper Mathieson had given Dean out with a couple of clips, and then thumbed the flame on and held it to the back, just far enough that the paper wouldn’t catch fire, moving it gently around. It took several minutes, but finally faint lines of writing appeared.
“Invisible ink?” Dean asked incredulously. “Could he get any more clichéd?”
“Clichéd, maybe, but effective. It wouldn’t stand up in a court of law, but…” Sam squinted at the writing. “It’s not Latin. Looks like some kind of French… Creole French, I guess, so it must be voodoo.” Sam dropped the paper and the lighter and stared at Dean. “Do you realize what this means?”
“I’m guessing you’re about to tell me.”
“Mathieson must have learned the voodoo spells from someone. Maybe it was Isabelle - she admitted to being a witch, and she grew up in Paris. Who knows how old she really is, and where she went before she came stateside, with or without Philip?”
“So… You think Isabelle killed Ralph Ashby?”
“It makes sense, but… I don’t know. Why would she lie about it? She was planning to kill me anyway, and probably Avery too. Why bother pretending she was innocent when she admitted that she wanted to kill him, and as good as admitted that she killed Philip Ashby?”
“So if it wasn’t Frances and it wasn’t Isabelle… Unless one of the men was a cross-dresser, we can choose between Agnes Winn and Kat O’Donnell.”
“I doubt it was Agnes. She sounds like she had less motive than anybody. Kat, maybe. It’s just…” Sam picked the paper up again, holding it to the light. “I feel like she’s connected somehow. Why would somebody try to turn Kat against Frances? I mean, why Kat? In those days, a woman’s opinion wouldn’t have counted for much. If they did want to make sure Frances got convicted, why not try to get to the judge? Or… I don’t know, maybe even Philip Ashby. Or Colum O’Donnell.”
“Frances said Colum supported her.”
“Exactly. But I’m pretty sure his word counted for more than Kat’s. Why would someone pick Kat? But if Kat was the one who killed him, it would make sense - she’d try to throw off suspicion, and Frances may just have been the easiest target. And the fact that Colum was in love with her might have made a difference too.”
“Maybe.” Dean got to his feet. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Let’s find a diner and get some breakfast. I can’t think on an empty stomach.”
“Dean?” Sam asked, when Dean put a tray loaded with pancakes, eggs, bacon, croissants, muffins and sausages in front of him, instead of the breakfast smoothie he’d asked for. “What the hell?”
“You’re recuperating from an injury -”
“I just got a few scrapes -”
“That Trent dude said he had to give you like forty stitches.”
“He was exaggerating, and it’s, OK, maybe a couple of cuts, but -”
“Sam. Shut up and eat.”
Sam sighed, but he smiled when he put the first forkful of pancake in his mouth. “This is good.”
“See? That’s why you should listen to your big brother.” Dean got started on his own breakfast. “So what are we going to do about Mathieson? We can’t turn him in for using voodoo on people, they’ll laugh at us. I could just kill him -”
“Dean.”
“I mean it. We all know what happens to people who mess with my little brother. And he deserves it. It’s no thanks to him you’re OK. So the question is, do I shoot him, or do I just use my bare hands?”
“Dean. You’re not going to murder a human.”
“Sam, he’s not human. And he deserves it for what he did to you.”
Sam cocked his head. “Wait… That’s it.”
“So I can kill him?” Dean asked happily.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course you can’t kill him. But we can turn him in - for murder. Or at least for attempted murder, or conspiracy, or something.”
“What? How?”
“What’s the betting Mathieson used that same voodoo stunt to persuade the police officers to go along with his plan? If he wrote it down, it doesn’t matter if it’s in Creole or uses invisible ink. It’s an admission of guilt. We may not be able to press charges, or persuade the DA’s office to take it, but think of the scandal if it goes to the papers. Mathieson will never live it down.”
“And he’ll never do business again. Awesome.” Dean’s grin was impossibly wide. “I love taking down dicks who try to kill my brother.”
“First we’ll need to find proof.”
“Great. So you finish eating everything on your plate, and then we’ll go to Mathieson’s office.”
Sam didn’t think he’d be able to finish everything on his plate, but Dean just sat there refusing to budge, and eventually it all went down.
“I don’t think I can move,” Sam grumbled, getting to his feet.
“Good. You need to rest.”
“I thought we were going to Mathieson’s office.”
“Yeah, and you’re staying in the car. You’re in no shape to fight, and I don’t want you hurting yourself worse or busting stitches if things get rough.”
“You can’t go in alone, Dean. What if he does something to you again? You’ll be on his turf.”
“OK, so what do we do?”
“Leave him for now. Let’s sort out the ghosts first, and we can worry about Mathieson later.” Sam stretched. “We need a break from thinking about Ralph Ashby. How about we try to deal with the other ghost?”
“We’ve got nothing to go on. If it wasn’t Frances… I mean, we wouldn’t even have figured Frances out if she hadn’t been helpful enough to write her own name. She was trying to get our attention.”
“So what do you think the other ghost wants? There’s only been one incident of violence.”
“So you think it could be trying to get attention, too?”
“We could ask Frances to find out?” Sam shook his head. “That’s so weird. Do you think ghosts have places where they get together, all the ghosts in an area?”
“Like, what, a ghost bar or something?” Dean laughed. “I doubt it, kiddo. If they had companionship, they probably wouldn’t go as crazy as they do. All those years being alone, that must be what twists them.” He shot a sideways glance at Sam. “Just like the hunters who go crazy when they spend years hunting alone.” They were outside by then, and he grabbed the front of Sam’s jacket and pulled him close. “So don’t you dare die, Sammy. I can’t lose you. I’ll… I just can’t.”
“Dean,” Sam whispered. “I’m here. I’m alive.”
“Yeah, and you’re damn well going to stay that way.” Dean made sure nobody was looking at them before he let his head drop to Sam’s shoulder. “I don’t know how to live without you, Sammy. Even when you were at Stanford, I knew you were OK, having fun and being a geek and… I knew you were alive.”
“Dean, it’s OK.” Sam’s arms were around him. “I’m OK. How about we take this to the Impala before somebody sees you having a chick-flick moment?”
“Shut up,” Dean muttered. He gave himself another fifteen seconds to listen to Sam’s breathing and feel his heartbeat and know he was alive, and then he pulled away. “So, what? We go find Frances?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
“Can we drive by Mathieson’s office first?”
“And do what?”
“Reconnoiter. Scope out exit routes and stuff. Maybe see if there’s a way to send him a dead rat in the mail.”
Sam rolled his eyes, but he looked more amused than exasperated.
“Fine, come on. We’ll drive by Mathieson’s office and you can mutter threats.”
“Now you’re talking.”
When they actually got to the building, though, Dean didn’t mutter a single threat. He was staring at the board outside, with Mathieson’s company logo on a brass plaque that gleamed in the sun.
“Dean?” Sam asked. “What?”
“That.” Dean pointed at the plaque. “I knew it looked familiar. Sammy - that logo is the same design as the engraving on Frances’ medallion.”
“What? Are you sure?”
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m sure. I didn’t realize it until now, but this is shining just like that was in the fire, and - Sam? What’s going on? You’ve got that look like you’ve figured things out.”
Sam’s eyes were wide. “I know who killed Ralph Ashby.”
Chapter XIII: Ralph Ashby