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the YSU
campus. King Tower. Neighbor heard a gunshot coming from the
apartment across the hall and called it in to 911. When officers
arrived, the front door to that apartment was ajar. Upon entering
the premises, the officers found a body in a back bedroom, lying
face down in a bed. A single gunshot wound to the back of the
head.” Leaning back in his chair, he continued. “I didn't know that
it was Scott's apartment until I got there and saw the pictures in
his room.”
    “Scott?” Ashe asked. “In his bed?”
    “The body was not Scott, Ashe. Of that I was
immediately certain,” Oscar assured him. “We believe it to be
Scott's roommate.”
    “Ummm…Owen?”
    “Owen Roberts,” Oscar concurred, nodding his
head. “That was the name we were given.”
    “Scott?”
    “Scott is missing,” Oscar replied. “A young
man fitting his description was seen by several witnesses fleeing
from the building. No one can say with certain which way he was
heading, only that he was on foot.”
    The psychologist didn’t know what to say.
    “Does Scott own a handgun?” Oscar
continued.
    “Not that I know of,” Ashe replied. “He was
never much of a firearms type of person.”
    Questions were filling Ashe's brain,
scattered across his mind like long, complicated equations.,
equations that were missing important variables. He had to find the
missing sections in order to solve the equations.
    “ No ,” Oscar quickly demanded.
    “What?”
    “I know that look,” Harrison replied. “Your
wheels are spinning so fast that they are smoking up my office. Let us handle this .”
    “Scott is my son.”
    “And you are too close to this,” Oscar
insisted. “You know more than anyone how things can go when someone
gets emotionally compromised. It is never good. Things go sour when
you can't think rationally.”
    “I always think straight. It’s what I
do.”
    “You can compartmentalize better than most
people, Ashe,” the Detective declared. “I'm not arguing against
that fact. And I've always admired that in you. It makes you
strong. It makes you good at your job. Maybe even a little cold,
seemingly objective to a fault, in some cases. But this is
different. This is your son. And he may have murdered someone. No
one can be objective, distant in a situation like this. It is not
possible. And I have seen how you can be when things get too
personal for you. We all have seen the consequences.”
    “Scott doesn't have it in him to kill
anyone.”
    “Are you sure?”
    Ashe wanted to say yes but couldn't. There
have been numerous times when an inmate, someone responsible for
violent and atrocious crimes, had once upon a time been a normal,
law abiding, lord fearing person. Sometimes something happened, an
unforeseen event or factor occurred, giving them a reason, a
rationale to commit heinous acts, like murder. The event or factor
could come on gradually or suddenly.
    Had it happened to Scott?
    “I can help,” Ashe argued.
    “You can help,” Oscar agreed. “Go
home. But stay in contact. If Scott calls you or comes and sees
you, get him to turn himself in. He is only a suspect, Ashe. We
just need to find out what happened.”
    “You know the suspect too,” Ashe pointed out.
“Doesn’t that cause conflict of interest for you, as well?
Shouldn’t you pass it on to one of the other teams?”
    “It fell on my rotation,” Oscar replied. “My
boss already cleared it. Or would you rather have Connelly on
it?”
    Ashe bit back his frustration and shook his
head.
    Pulling a yellow pad of paper from his desk,
Harrison asked, “What is Scott's cell phone number?”
    He gave it.
    “I know you said that you haven't been in
much contact with him, but can you think of any place Scott might
go?” Harrison asked. “Girlfriends? Close friends? Hang outs?
Anything would help.”
    Ashe thought about it for a minute. He just
simply didn't know a lot about Scott's life, of his normal
routines. He knew little about his son...period. Did