Fic: Thirteen at Dinner (14/15)

[jedisapphire]

Masterpost
Chapter XII: Kat O'Donnell

Chapter XIII: Ralph Ashby

“Talk to me,” Dean said, starting the car. “Where are we going?”

“Back to the motel. We need to grab some stuff. Then we’re going to find Avery and Frances.”

“Did Frances do it? Sam?” Dean turned to see Sam rapidly flicking through his phone’s menus. “Sammy. Hey. Sam.”

Sam stopped texting long enough to look up at Dean. “What?”

“I have a guess. Tell me if I’m right.”

Dean leaned in and whispered a name.

Sam laughed and nodded. “Yup. You’re right.”

“You bet I’m right!” Dean said. “Because I have the best instincts ever. And that, little brother, is one reason why I’m the best hunter in the United States of America.”

“Yeah?” Sam said distractedly, his attention focused on his phone again. “What’s the other reason?”

“You know what the other reason is, and you’re just trying to make me have a chick-flick moment while I think you’re not looking.”

Sam muttered something, but he didn’t look up. After a minute, he said, “Avery and Frances are going to meet us at the youth centre in an hour. Avery says the other ghost was sighted again.”

“Is it -?”

“Yeah.”

“So how do we get rid of it? We have no idea where the body’s buried. You think Frances might know?”

“It’s not the body that’s holding it here. Don’t worry, the ghost won’t be a problem.”

“What’s the rush?” Dean asked, as Sam almost fell over himself in his haste to gather the sheets of paper from Mathieson. Dean had Frances’ medallion tucked safely in his pocket.

“Mathieson knows we know, and now he knows we know about the medallion. That must’ve been why he wanted it. He doesn’t give a crap about history, and although the money was an incentive, it wasn’t the main one. We should’ve known as soon as he called - got it!” Sam retrieved the last sheet of paper from where it had flown under the bed. “Come on, Dean. Let’s go.”

“No gloves?” Dean asked, raising an eyebrow at Sam’s bare hands.

Sam shook his head. “I don’t feel anything, Dean. I don’t think it works that way - it’s probably specific to the person. That’s why Mathieson always gave them to you, and spoke to you.”

“And here I was thinking he liked me.”

“Do you want Mathieson to like you?”

“The man who tried to kill my little brother?” Dean scoffed. “Yeah, sure. I want to get season tickets to the Celtics with him.” He opened the door, motioning for Sam to go ahead of him. “Can I at least tell him about all the ways I’ll hurt him if he even thinks about going after you again?”

“Sure, you can do that. But don’t actually kill him.”

“Hey! I’m going to be the model of restraint.” Dean followed Sam out and shut the door. “I mean, it’s restrained if I just break his arm when I actually want to rip his lungs out, right?”

“Dean!”

Avery was waiting outside when they got there.

“Frances is in my room,” she said. “I told her to wait there. She was getting anxious about the other ghost, she says it’s getting more violent, but you said you knew what was going on.”

“We do. Let’s go. We need to talk to Frances. She’ll need to help us with the ghost. And for that, she needs to understand what happened.”

Sam and Dean followed Avery to her room. Dean took a canister of rock salt and a loaded shotgun, ignoring the weird looks people cast him as he made his way down the corridors. For once he had to run to keep up with Sam’s long strides.

Frances was standing in Avery’s room. With a glance at Sam for confirmation, Dean started putting a salt circle around her.

“What are you doing?” she protested.

“We need to make sure you stay,” Dean said shortly. “Sam, you want to start? You like doing the professor thing.”

Sam grinned. “OK, then.” He sat on the end of Avery’s bed. “This was… a difficult case to figure out. Normally when you’re solving a murder you can use a process of elimination, but Ralph Ashby was killed so long ago that that wasn’t possible. What we had to do instead was figure out a theory that made sense and fit the facts, and then try to find confirmation of it.”

“Short version: Sammy’s a geek,” Dean said, grinning.

“When Dean and I first heard about Frances, we didn’t really question whether or not she was guilty. It didn’t seem to matter. We’ve dealt with ghosts who were good people in life, and ghosts who were bad people, and in the end they all kill people. That’s what it comes to. But Frances Ashby… Well, you sounded sane when you came to me and said you were innocent.”

“Doesn’t mean we didn’t think you were necessarily telling the truth,” Dean put in, from where he was standing by the door. “Just that we thought you weren’t completely crazy.”

“When we spoke to you, you told us there were thirteen people at dinner - and you pointed us in the direction of one person in particular. Walter Winn. Winn certainly had reason to kill your husband, because that gave him the opportunity to embezzle most of his estate from your son.”

“But you weren’t necessarily being objective when you told us you thought he did it.” Dean raised his eyebrows. “If you were guilty, you could’ve been trying to divert suspicion. And if you were innocent… Well, you wouldn’t have wanted to believe that your own children could betray you, or your best friend Kat. Father Maynard had always been kind to you. And you liked Bernard Elliott for Joyce’s sake. Who did that leave? Your brother-in-law and his girlfriend, and the Winns.”

“Agnes was never a real possibility, as we saw it. From what we heard, she was a demanding wife, but not really the Lady Macbeth type.”

“Peter Winn seemed to want to make our lives easy. He confessed his own guilt -”

“So it was Peter?” Frances asked.

“We’re not saying that,” Sam countered. “He claimed he did it. He said he used voodoo an ‘old woman’ taught him. Well, he probably did do something, but voodoo isn’t easy, and Peter was a kid. It’s unlikely that his spell had any effect at all on Ralph Ashby. It did have the effect of making him the best kind of scapegoat - the kind who was guilty of planning the crime, and who therefore believed he was guilty of committing it.”

“The voodoo angle suggested that Isabelle might have been involved,” Dean went on, “since, as we know, she really was a witch.”

“But she said she was innocent of Ralph’s murder, and I believed her. She told the truth about everything else. Why would she admit to all her other crimes and only lie about this, especially when she was planning to kill me anyway?”

“Of course, that didn’t work out for her.” Dean grinned. “There was her boyfriend. Philip. Sammy wants to believe that Philip is innocent because he won’t admit fratricide is a real thing. I’ve got more sense. Philip may really have loved his brother, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to kill him.” He paused, and then said, “But just so we’re clear, the same doesn’t hold for me and Sammy. Anyone tries to hurt Sammy, I will make them suffer.”

“Dean,” Sam admonished mildly. “Don’t scare them. Anyway that takes care of the outsiders - the people Frances would have wanted to be guilty. Now for the insiders. There was Father Maynard. He didn’t have much reason to kill Ralph, unless he was some kind of religious nut. Or maybe just thought someone like Ralph needed to die before he could hurt his wife and children.”

“If it was Father Maynard, he did me a service!” Frances said passionately. “I suffered for it, but at least my children were free. Joyce was free!”

“Yeah. Joyce was free,” Sam agreed. “If it was Father Maynard. But there was really nothing to suggest that he was connected with the crime. The way you spoke about him… Well, I won’t say he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would kill, because anyone can kill. But he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would kill and let someone else suffer the consequences.”

“It could’ve been Bernard Elliott,” Dean offered. “If I found out that someone I cared about was being abused by the man they should’ve been able to trust above all others… But, again, there was no real evidence against Bernard. Innocent until proven guilty, right?”

“And now we come to the people closest to you. Kat and Colum O’Donnell, and your own family. Anyone who cared about you or your daughter had a motive to kill Ralph. Kat’s behaviour was the most suspicious. She turned on you - it’s possible that someone put a spell on her - Dean, it’s OK - or, of course, she might have been covering for the fact that she killed Ralph herself.”

“No!” Frances snapped. “Kat would never have done that to me.”

Dean shrugged. “Maybe not. We didn’t think much of Colum one way or another. There was no reason to believe he’d killed Ralph except that he cared about you.”

“In murder mysteries it’s usually someone close to the victim who’s committed the murder,” Sam said dreamily. “Your children… Joyce and Alexander. Alexander, from everything we heard, was selfish and cruel, a younger version of Ralph. He could easily have killed him - but would poison, or voodoo, have been his weapon? He seemed like the type who’d say it with a machete.”

“Did they have machetes in those days?” Dean interjected.

“I’m pretty sure they did.”

“And then there was Joyce.” Dean crossed his arms. “You were desperate to believe that Joyce was innocent. You went so far as to tell us that Alexander had inherited your husband’s cruelty, but Joyce’s blood was untainted.”

“Of course, that only made us suspect Joyce more. Maybe you knowingly took the fall for her, and it hurt you to know that she let you. Or maybe the two of you were in it together.”

“Joyce was not a murderer!”

“It could’ve been you,” Sam said, ignoring the outburst. “You had more reason than anyone to want Ralph dead, more than money. And who had a better opportunity, either of poisoning him or putting a spell on him, than his own wife?”

“But there was one person, maybe, even likelier,” Dean said, cutting off Frances’ protest. “And that was Ralph himself. We know he was insanely cruel. He didn’t want his daughter to marry Bernard Elliott, but the Elliotts were an important family. He didn’t dare refuse his permission. Did he kill himself to prevent it? We know Ralph Ashby was crazy, but was he crazy enough to commit suicide to prevent his daughter from marrying her fiancé?”

“Yes!” Frances said, almost bouncing on the spot. “Yes, that must have been it!”

Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you want to believe that. Everyone who was present seems to have had a different theory. Kat thought you did it. You thought… either Kat or Joyce did it, if you’re willing to be honest. Isabelle thought Father Maynard did it. Philip thought Isabelle did it. William Winn thought Agnes did it. And Peter Winn claimed to have done it himself.”

“Who did it is one question.” Dean looked from Avery to Frances. “The other question was how. At first we were sure it must have been a spell, because it would’ve been much too risky to poison one specific person at a crowded table, with everyone watching everyone. You might get away with it, but there’d always be a risk of getting caught. But the only spell of which we found any evidence was mind control.”

“That doesn’t mean it wasn’t a spell that killed Ralph Ashby, but there was no way to know. So we tried to think of ways someone could have poisoned him undetected… and that was when we realized there could have been someone else… someone nobody paid much attention to.” He turned to Frances. “Someone you forgot to mention, because she wasn’t sitting at the table.” She stared at him uncomprehending. “If you were sitting at the table with everyone else, someone else must have been bringing in the courses. A cook, or a housekeeper?”

“Patty!” Frances sounded shocked. “Patty! She was serving at table that day, she was the cook’s niece and she helped out when we had company - but - are you saying Patty killed Ralph?”

“She put the poison in his cup when she took him the roast. He drank, and then he picked a fight with Father Maynard.”

“But why would Patty want to kill Ralph?”

“She didn’t.” Sam’s voice hardened. “You missed out Patty because you forgot her, but you lied to us about something else. If I hadn’t heard the truth from Isabelle… Dean?” Sam held out his hand. Dean tossed him the medallion. Sam dangled it in front of Frances’ eyes, just out of her reach. “Who gave you this? The same person whose hair is in it?” Frances gasped. “Yeah, I heard about that. You said you didn’t encourage Colum O’Donnell, but you wore his hair in a locket around your neck.”

“Colum wouldn’t have killed Ralph! And he knew I was innocent!”

“Why do you think Colum gave you this? Because he loved you so much? This is the same symbol as on Josh Mathieson’s company logo!” Sam shook it. “I’m not sure how Mathieson does it - I’m guessing he drips some of his blood into the dye they use for the paper. That’s how this spell works. If this symbol is on your person, with a little bit of somebody’s DNA, you’ll think and act exactly as that person would want.”

“No! Colum said it was a talisman for luck!”

“Sure it was,” Dean snorted. “Luck for him. I bet your friend Kat had one too, didn’t she? She must have been the old woman who gave poor Peter Winn his little voodoo spell.”

“Colum… Colum said, since we were like sisters, we should have the same luck.” Frances shook her head, but it wasn’t as vehement. “No… I can’t believe… Why? Why would Colum kill Ralph? I can’t believe he would do it just for my sake.”

“You’re lying again,” Sam said quietly.

“He wouldn’t do it for your sake,” Dean put in. “But I bet he’d do it for his daughter’s. You were really eager to tell us how your friend’s husband wasn’t attractive at all. Joyce wasn’t Ralph Ashby’s daughter, was she, Frances? She was Colum O’Donnell’s. And Kat knew.”

“And now I know.”

They all looked up in shock; they’d been so absorbed that they hadn’t noticed the door open. Josh Mathieson stood outside, gun in his hand. It was pointing at Sam.

“Nobody move,” he said. “This time, I promise you, Sam won’t make it out alive.”

“Dad?” Avery asked in horror. “Daddy, what are you doing?”

“Solving our ghost problem and making sure these two jokers can’t make trouble for me. You, Sam, get up and walk towards me. Slowly. Dean, back away. Any sudden moves and I’ll shoot Sam right in the head.”

“You hurt my brother,” Dean growled, “and you’ll beg me to kill you before I’m done.”

“Cute,” Mathieson sneered. “Sam, get moving.”

Slowly, Sam got to his feet, and came to Mathieson.

He held out his hand. “Give me the locket. Slowly. Then tell me what I need to do to get rid of the ghost.” Sam put the locket in his hand. Before Sam could back away, Mathieson said, “Stay.” Sam stopped. “On your knees.” Sam knelt. Mathieson put the gun to his head. “Now, Dean, tell me what I need to do. And remember, if I’m not happy, my finger might get itchy.”

“If you hurt my brother -”

“We’ve been through this. Tell me what to do.”

“Open the locket.”

Without taking his gaze off Sam, Mathieson fumbled the talisman one-handed. “I can’t. How do I open this?”

“I don’t know. Let me see.”

“You’re lying to me.”

“No, wait!”

“Daddy, no!”

But Mathieson was already moving; he swung the hand holding the gun, catching Sam’s face and sending him sprawling.

Then, for one moment, the gun wasn’t pointed at Sam, and that was enough. Dean tackled Mathieson, knocking the gun and the locket out of his hand.

“Avery take the locket!” Sam gasped, scrambling for the gun. “Frances, show her how to open it. Mathieson, don’t move.” He raised the gun. “Stop! Now.” He tried to get up, but his head hurt too much, so he stayed on his knees. “Dean?”

“Got it.” Dean took the gun from Sam, taking a step to the side to shield him from Mathieson’s gaze. “Avery, you have that locket open yet?”

“Yes -”

“Colum!” Frances shrieked. “Colum, no!”

“Crap!” Dean yelled as another ghost materialized behind Mathieson. “Duck!”

He dived as he said it, throwing himself in front of Sam just as the ghost lunged at Mathieson. He screamed.

“Daddy!”

“Dean!” Sam gasped. “Help him. I’m fine. Avery, is it open? Burn his hair. That’s the only way to get rid of him.”

“I’m trying!” Avery said. “Oh god, oh - oh! Daddy!”

Mathieson collapsed to the floor.

“Burn it!” Dean yelled, tossing Avery his lighter as Sam fired a rock salt round at the ghost to get it away from Mathieson. The ghost went for Sam instead, transparent fingers wrapping around his throat. Dean raised his gun, but he didn’t dare fire. Sam was too close. “Avery! Hurry up!”

“Got it!”

The chunk of hair went up in a flash of fire, Colum disappeared, and Dean grabbed Sam before he could fall, pulling him in and supporting him against his chest.

Avery dropped to her knees by her father’s side.

“Is he OK?” Sam asked.

“He’s breathing.”

“He’ll be fine, I think. But maybe take him to the ER just in case.”

“More than he deserves,” Dean muttered.

“Dean.”

“No,” Avery said quietly. “He’s right. I am taking him to ER - he’s my father - but this, taking advantage of people, cheating tenants who can’t afford lawyers, hurting people, this has to stop. I’m going to make it stop. I - I know everything now, and I’ll make sure Daddy doesn’t - doesn’t cheat people, or hurt people, anymore.”

“Are you sure that’s safe?” Dean asked bluntly. “Hurting people doesn’t really cover it. Your father’s tried to kill people.”

“You’ve actually killed people,” Avery said with a pointed glance at where Dean was absent-mindedly tracing protective sigils on Sam’s upper arm. “I’m his daughter.”

Dean laughed. “Fair enough.”

“I - I’ve been selfish. I knew Daddy was - was doing things he shouldn’t. I didn’t know the details, but I knew enough to know he was harming people. I never even tried to stop him. I just - I thought I could walk away.” Avery glanced at her phone. “The ambulance is on its way. Do you want to take Sam in?”

“No,” Dean said, running his hand through Sam’s hair. “We’ll be fine. I can ice his face and fix any stitches he’s torn. We should get going.”

“I should get going. If you could break the circle.”

Sam smiled. “Frances. Sorry, we needed to make sure you stayed and heard it all. You have the truth now. I don’t know if it makes you happy.”

“It doesn’t,” Frances admitted. “But… Well, something does make me happy.” She looked at Avery. “You did well today. You kept your head, and you… you did what you had to do. I don’t know where you found your courage, but I hope you keep it.”

“Thanks,” Avery said quietly.

Dean reached out and broke the circle.

Frances vanished.

Epilogue