Spilled Blood

by Brian Freeman

  ‘It must have something to do with Ashlynn.’

  ‘When we find them, we’ll ask them.’

  Chris could hear in the minister’s voice that he was hiding something. ‘I’m getting tired of people in this town keeping the truth from me, Glenn.’

  ‘I can’t divulge anything,’ he replied. ‘You know that. I’m bound by the same ethics that bind you.’

  Chris let the man walk away, and then he called after him. It was a shot in the dark. ‘Did you know about Ashlynn’s abortion?’

  Magnus stopped. The news hit him like a physical blow. His knees sagged, as if he were thunderstruck. ‘Abortion?’

  ‘Ashlynn went to Nebraska to get an abortion. Hannah told me. That’s where she’d been when she was driving home on Friday.’

  ‘Oh, dear Lord, that poor girl.’

  ‘Did you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

  ‘I didn’t. I had no idea.’

  ‘Talk to me, Glenn. Were Johan and Ashlynn involved? Is that what you’re not telling me?’

  Magnus was silent, but Chris knew what his silence meant. Yes.

  A secret affair. Johan and Ashlynn. A St. Croix boy and a Barron girl, like Romeo and Juliet caught between warring clans. It was a dangerous place for both of them to be.

  ‘How does Olivia fit into this?’ he asked.

  ‘Chris, please—’

  ‘Is Olivia protecting Johan? Why?’

  ‘You need to talk to them, not me. There’s nothing I can say.’

  Chris thought about Tanya, who had said there was something else going on between Ashlynn and Olivia. Not just the feud. Something personal.

  Johan.

  Standing on the river trail with Glenn Magnus, Chris heard the crash of breaking branches in the trees. The minister swung the flashlight in front of them. He expected to see Olivia on her secret route home, but his relief evaporated as the beam illuminated a face out of a Halloween nightmare.

  It was Johan, pale and beaten. The boy held himself up by clinging to the tree trunks on either side of the trail. One eye was swollen shut. Twin trails of blood streaked from his nose.

  ‘Johan, oh my God,’ Magnus called. He ran to his son, who staggered forward into his arms. His knees sank down to the mud.

  Chris was already dialing 911 when Johan spoke through fat lips: ‘Olivia.’

  ‘What about her?’ Chris asked urgently. He could hardly breathe. ‘Where is Olivia? Tell me.’

  ‘They have her,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Barron boys.’

  14

  Lenny Watson slid down onto the wet ground in the dilapidated shell of an old Milwaukee Road railway car. Water dripped through the rusted holes in the steel roof and landed in splatters around him. The dirt of the railroad bone yard was littered with twisted sheet metal. He had a book of matches in his hand, and he lit one, letting it burn down, watching the painted graffiti dance on the walls inside the train car. When the flame grew hot on his fingers, he tossed the match into the mud, where it fizzled with a gray trail of smoke.

  He touched his face and winced. The deep cut stung where Olivia had scratched him. It oozed blood again as he felt it. His fingers came away sticky, and he sucked them clean like a vampire. He was bare-chested and cold in the darkness. He hugged his knees to keep them from trembling.

  Awful noises assaulted his ears as the boys dragged Olivia toward the abandoned freight car that sat on dead-end tracks thirty yards away. He’d been inside many times with Kirk. It was windowless and pitch-black. There was nothing but a square hole on one end where you squeezed your body in and out. When they’d explored it for the first time last summer, there had been a homeless man living there among the rats and roaches. Kirk had beaten the shit out of him, and he never came back.

  Olivia couldn’t scream; they’d gagged her. Her cries escaped from her throat in wild, muffled lilts of rage and panic. He thought about shouting. Or singing. La la la la la la la la. Anything so he couldn’t hear her.

  A huge shadow loomed near him, and he heard breathing. He lit another match, and Kirk’s dirty, rain-slick skin flickered in the light. The bent triangles of steel on the corroded end of the train car shell looked like teeth in a shark’s mouth, ready to bite his brother in half. ‘Last chance, Leno,’ Kirk said.

  ‘No.’

  ‘I told the others you wanted her first. You’re making me look bad.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  Kirk spat in a puddle. ‘What, are you scared?’

  ‘I just don’t want to.’

  ‘You’re a pussy, Leno. Sit here and jerk off for all I care.’

  Lenny listened to the angry crunch of his brother’s footsteps as Kirk stalked toward the train car. He forgot about the match in his hand, and it sizzled down to the nub and scorched his thumb. He cursed.

  ‘Get the bitch inside,’ he heard Kirk call.

  Guilt ate a hole in Lenny’s stomach. His body ached to go with the others. He wanted her so badly, but his brain screamed at him. Stop this. Save her. He dreamed of clawing the other boys away from her and rescuing her like a hero. It was a stupid dream. Lenny was no hero. He sat and did nothing. He squeezed his eyes shut and tightened his hands into fists. He wanted it to be over and done. He wanted it to end.

  He had Olivia’s cell phone in his hand. It vibrated in his palm and rang, playing a song by Lady Gaga. ‘Bad Romance.’ Her father was calling, hunting for his daughter. He let the call go into voice mail. He flipped open the phone and stared at a photo of Olivia on the screen saver. It was a serious photo; she was in profile to the camera, hair blowing across her face, eyes closed. He flicked his thumb to look at her other photos and recognized most of the faces. Kimberly Magnus, laughing for the camera, even though she was bony and bald. Tanya Swenson, up to her neck in the Spirit River. Picture after picture of Johan Magnus, as if he were a GQ model. Johan in a black leather jacket in the corn fields. Johan poised on the railway bridge in St. Croix. Johan near the slats of the church bell tower, with divided sunlight making stripes on his face.

  And then: Olivia herself. Naked. She was in her bedroom; Lenny recognized it. She’d used a tripod. She stood near the window overlooking the river, with darkness behind her. She was skinny, and her skin was china white. She had small rose nipples on the tips of her breasts. Her mound was curly and light brown. She stared into the camera with her mouth slightly open, as if she were trying to make a clumsy seduction. Her eyes had a fragile innocence. He didn’t know what boy had received the photo, but he could guess. It was Johan. He wondered if Olivia was still a virgin or if she had let the minister’s son make love to her.

  Seeing her nude felt private and intimate, but he couldn’t enjoy it, not when she was so close to him, in the old train car. Crying. Resisting. Fighting back against the boys intent on mauling and punishing her. He knew she couldn’t see. She could only feel them holding her down. It was seven against one, but she struggled like a warrior. Still fighting. Not giving in. The battle was so ferocious that Lenny could hear the thump of her body slamming on the steel floor of the car.

  She was being destroyed.

  Stop this.

  His thumb hovered over the phone. He caressed it, leaving sweat on the keys. He squeezed the green telephone button with his thumb and scrolled to the most recent call, which was labeled simply as ‘Dad’ on the caller ID. He hesitated. If Kirk found out, his brother would beat him senseless. Lenny was terrified of Kirk’s explosive temper. When Ashlynn dumped him, Kirk had given Lenny three broken ribs and a dislocated jaw.

  He listened. Olivia still fought the boys, but soon there would be no more struggle, no more resistance. There would only be silence and surrender. He couldn’t bear to hear it. Not from her.

  Lenny pushed the call button.

  Christopher Hawk answered on the first ring. ‘Olivia?’

  ‘She’s in the railroad bone yard south of Barron,’ h
e whispered, disguising his voice. ‘Hurry.’

  Chris heard the police sirens wailing, getting closer and louder as they converged on the hideaway where Olivia was being held. He turned off the northbound highway, but as he bumped across an unsigned railway crossing, two trucks ran him off the dirt road. Their high beams blinded him, and mud splashed across his windshield. He could have turned and chased them, but he had to make a life-or-death bet, and he bet that these boys would have left Olivia behind in a race to save their own necks.

  He let them escape.

  He sped into the abandoned rail yard, which sprawled over several hundred yards of parallel tracks. His headlights lit up decaying shells of freight cars, painted with stripes of orange and red. They’d been gutted; some were overturned. Other train cars lingered on weed-covered tracks, as if they had been dropped there and forgotten. Swirls of spray paint marked the metal walls. The ground was strewn with railway ties and broken glass. The railroad had moved elsewhere and left its detritus to rot.

  He drove into the heart of the ruins. The land around him was flat and huge. He was surrounded by dozens of train cars, like a cemetery for giants. He got out and took Glenn Magnus’s flashlight with him.

  ‘Olivia!’ he shouted. He listened for any sound, any clue, to where she was. He shouted her name again. ‘Olivia!’

  Chris followed the nearest tracks, swinging the flashlight ahead of him. He wiped rain from his eyes. At each train car, he pointed the light inside the hollowed-out windows, illuminating garbage and rats. He looked for tire tracks from the trucks, but the gravel was so rutted and uneven that nothing looked fresh. He called again, but Olivia didn’t answer.

  Distantly, above the growing scream of the sirens, he heard music. What the hell was it? It stopped, and then it started again, and then it stopped. He realized the music was a ring tone for a cell phone, but it went silent before he could pinpoint its location. He stepped across more tracks, cutting between hulking slabs of corrugated metal. He thought to himself: Whoever called me used Olivia’s phone. He yanked out his own phone and dialed his daughter’s number. He held his breath, waiting.

  The music began again, not even thirty yards away, an annoying staccato beat. He shifted the flashlight in that direction like a spotlight and ran. The music got louder, and he saw the phone, dropped in the gravel, glinting in hot pink as the beam found it. He stood directly over the phone and spun in a circle, lighting up the ground, looking for her.

  ‘Olivia!’

  The sirens became a deafening roar as half a dozen squad cars rumbled off the dirt road. Headlights criss-crossed the bone yard. He was happy to have the police here, but he wanted silence to hear his daughter answer his cries. If she was conscious. If she could call to him. He checked inside two passenger cars, shining his light through dirty, cracked windows. A police searchlight caught him in its glare like an escaping prisoner, and two voices shouted at him. He squinted into the beam and waved them closer. ‘Here! Over here!’

  Chris saw another freight car set apart from the others at the end of a track circle. It was untouched by the elements, with riveted steel walls. The only access was a small rectangular hole at the rear of the car. In the glow of the flashlight, something on the ground near the tracks caught his eye. It was a Nike shoe. Pink, like the phone.

  Olivia’s shoe.

  He sprinted. At the freight car, he used the metal handrail to pull himself onto the bumper near the access hole. He cast the light into the dark interior. Blankets lined the floor. He saw bottles of beer and porn magazines. With his head and shoulders thrust inside, he smelled a powerful sweet aroma of marijuana, concentrated in the closed space. He swung the light, seeing torn clothes strewn around the interior. Fragments of a T-shirt. Jeans. Socks. Panties ripped in half.

  He heard a low moan, and he snapped the light toward it. There she was. His baby girl.

  Chris reared backward from the car. He was bathed in the tunnels of numerous searchlights, and when he shielded his eyes, he saw half a dozen shadows racing toward him. He waved both hands frantically.

  ‘Over here! She’s in here!’

  He threw himself inside the freight car. The metal floor rumbled and boomed as he crawled toward Olivia, who lay on her back, ten feet away. Her eyes were closed. Her long brown hair covered most of her face. Her body was badly bruised and scratched, but he saw no blood on her skin. When he touched her shoulder, she kicked spasmodically; her fists beat against his chest. She was too weak to hurt him.

  Chris wrapped her up gently in his arms. He pulled a blanket over her skin to warm her. ‘Shhh,’ he whispered as he held her. ‘I’m here, it’s all right.’

  She struggled, but she had little fight left. He hung on, hearing voices, seeing the beams of light invade the freight car. He stroked Olivia’s hair and continued to whisper to her softly, reassuring her. Help was coming. Help was close. She was safe. It was over.

  He didn’t tell her what was really in his heart. The raw intensity of the emotion churning in his body scared him and tasted like acid in his mouth. It was hatred. He wanted nothing but revenge against the boys who had done this to his child. He wanted their throats in his hands. He wanted them dead.

  Hatred.

  That was the real disease spreading through this town, and he’d caught it. He wasn’t an outsider anymore. He was part of the war.

  15

  It was four in the morning.

  Hannah had drifted to sleep, but Chris stared into space, unable to close his eyes. The hospital was dark and hushed around them. Nurses talked in the hallway in low voices while the patients slept. He sipped bad coffee from a foam cup and listened to the ticking of the wall clock. His body hurt, and he needed a shower.

  Outside the visitor’s lounge, the elevator dinged. When the doors slid open, Michael Altman stepped out, looking neat and alert despite the late hour. The county attorney had his raincoat slung over his arm, and he carried a large cardboard box. His fedora was low on his forehead. He spotted Chris on the sofa and nodded to him.

  Chris detached himself from Hannah, who had slouched against his shoulder. He met Altman in the hallway and pulled the lounge door shut behind him.

  Altman spoke in a low voice. ‘How is Olivia?’

  ‘Stable. She’s sleeping now.’

  ‘What’s the extent of her injuries?’

  Chris took a slow breath to calm himself. ‘She’s in better shape than I feared. She’s pretty beaten up, but there are no broken bones and no concussion or head injury.’

  ‘I hate to ask, but—’

  ‘If they were planning to rape her, they didn’t get that far.’

  ‘I’m relieved to hear it,’ Altman told him, ‘and I’m very sorry about all of this. What about Johan Magnus?’

  ‘He has a couple bruised ribs, and he’s got a black eye. He’ll need dental work; two molars are loose. He’s a tough kid, though. He wanted to go home, but the doctors insisted he stay. They’re running tests to make sure there are no internal injuries.’

  Altman shook his head. ‘This is infuriating. This violence has to stop.’ Chris said nothing, and the county attorney read his expression with sharp eyes. ‘I hope you know better than to get involved in this yourself, Mr. Hawk. I don’t need any more vigilantes.’

  ‘This didn’t happen to your daughter,’ Chris said.

  ‘I understand, but you need to let me and the police do our jobs.’

  Chris was too tired to hide his sarcasm. ‘How’s that been working out for you lately?’

  ‘We will catch them, Mr. Hawk,’ Altman insisted. ‘The train car is a trove of evidence. The boys left in a hurry. We’ll get DNA and fingerprints.’

  ‘Start with Kirk Watson.’

  Altman looked uncomfortable. ‘We did.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Kirk and his brother have a house on the river south of town. It’s not far from the railway yard. He says he was home all evening, and three girls vouched for his whereabouts.’

/>   ‘They’re lying.’

  ‘Very likely. We’ll try to break his alibi. If we can identify any of the other boys who were involved, we can turn them on each other. It will happen, but it will take time.’

  Time meant days. Weeks. Months. He was already cynical about law enforcement in Barron. He rubbed his hands over his face, feeling his exhaustion.

  ‘You need sleep,’ Altman told him.

  ‘Someday.’ He eyed the box that Altman was carrying. ‘What’s that?’

  The county attorney bent at the knees and laid the box on the floor. ‘I promised you copies of the documentation we’ve gathered in the investigation so far.’

  ‘You’re efficient.’

  ‘I told you, I don’t play games. We can arrange for you to review the physical evidence, too.’ He added, ‘As painful as it is, I hope you realize this incident doesn’t change Olivia’s legal situation. I’ll still be proceeding to a grand jury indictment.’

  ‘I assumed you would.’

  ‘It may take more time, however.’

  ‘I appreciate it.’

  Chris thought about asking Altman about the autopsy results. The abortion. The triangle involving Olivia, Johan, and Ashlynn. He assumed Altman knew about all of those things, but he didn’t want to risk opening a window that was closed.

  ‘Tanya Swenson told me that Ashlynn dated Kirk last year,’ Chris said. ‘Florian denied it. Do you know if it’s true?’

  ‘I don’t, but what difference does that make?’

  ‘Kirk’s a bad actor. If Ashlynn dumped him, he had a motive to kill her.’

  ‘There’s no evidence he was at the scene.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Chris said. ‘Did you review the evidence gathered from Ashlynn’s Mustang?’

  Altman nodded. ‘Of course.’

  ‘I saw the car when I went to see Florian at Mondamin. Something bothered me when I looked inside. I figured out what it was.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Mud,’ Chris said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘There was mud on the driver’s seat.’