Spilled Blood

by Brian Freeman

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Because Ashlynn was already in her second trimester when she came to me. She was slow to realize she was pregnant. She’d been struggling with how to deal with it, but she’d made the decision to tell her parents. She was planning to have the baby. She was going through with it.’

  ‘So what changed?’ Chris asked.

  Hannah hesitated. ‘I don’t know what difference it makes to tell the world what this poor girl was going through.’

  ‘I still need to know,’ he told her softly.

  ‘The calls from the clinic were about her ultrasound,’ Hannah said. ‘Ashlynn was obsessed with the health of the child. She told me she’d been having premonitions that she’d lose the baby. It was taking over her life. I don’t know how, but somehow she knew that something was terribly wrong.’

  He thought about Ashlynn’s phone records. She hadn’t told Johan. She hadn’t told her parents. She’d gone through it all alone. It must have been excruciating.

  ‘What did the ultrasound show?’ he asked.

  ‘Anencephaly.’

  Chris bowed his head. ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘That’s the only reason she chose the abortion, Chris. It’s not because she wanted to give up her child. She had to. Her baby was going to die.’

  23

  The churchyard in St. Croix was deserted.

  It was late afternoon. The sun was low and feeble. Chris saw no one in the neighborhood streets or in the neat rows of the small Lutheran cemetery. He knocked on the door of the attached house where Glenn Magnus lived, but the minister didn’t answer. He assumed Magnus was with his son at the hospital. The door to the church itself was unlocked, for anyone who wanted to pray.

  Chris went inside.

  The silence was unnerving. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stood motionless in the foyer. On his right, above the winding steps to the steeple, he heard the whistle of wind sucked from the tower and the tinny vibration of the church bells. He checked the sanctuary, but the long wooden pews were empty. He was alone.

  He took the steps down to the church basement. It smelled moldy, as if moisture had seeped behind the walls. Through an open door, he saw a large meeting room with a speckled linoleum floor. Folded utility tables and chairs were stacked against the wall. One table was open, and he saw a messy stack of children’s Bible books and boxes of crayons. The only natural light sneaked through small window squares at ground level. He clicked on the harsh fluorescents, illuminating the room. Winter was past, but no one had taken down the Christmas posters, made with multi-colored construction paper and stuck with yellowing tape.

  He wandered around the perimeter of the room, studying the posters on the walls. He saw stick figures of the baby Jesus in a crèche. Sheep that looked like cotton balls. Pointy boughs of holly like barbed wire. Three wise men with long white beards. One poster featured a slogan with each letter in a different color: Love Thy Neighbor. When he peered closer, he saw that someone had written underneath, in tiny script: EXCEPT BARRON.

  Chris switched off the lights as he left the room. In the basement hallway, he called, ‘Anyone here?’ His voice sounded hollow. There was no response.

  He saw a closed door. A large wooden cross was hung on a nail, and photographs were thumbtacked to the door. Johan was in all of them, mostly with his arms around young children. The boy’s handsome face had a broad smile. Some of the photos were taken at sports games, some at church retreats. Conspicuously, he didn’t see Olivia or Ashlynn in any of the pictures. Everyone kept their real lives under wraps here.

  Chris knocked sharply and heard nothing. He glanced behind him at the empty hallway and turned the knob. The door was open. He went inside, leaving the door ajar. He switched on the overhead light.

  Johan’s bedroom was unusually neat for a teenager. His bed was made with creased corners. His schoolbooks – Pre-Calculus, Human Biology, The Civil War, Economics, and Moby-Dick – were stacked neatly on a corner of his wooden desk. A green light glowed on his computer monitor, but the screen was black. The keyboard was tucked inside a drawer. He saw manila folders and school notes, taken in precise handwriting. His pens were organized in an ELCA mug with the points downward.

  Above Johan’s bed, Chris saw a rectangular window fronting the street. He imagined Olivia crouching there, tapping on it at one in the morning. Johan, wake up, we need to talk.

  He booted up Johan’s computer, clicked the Start button on the keyboard and ran a search of the documents on the hard drive, using the keyword Ashlynn. He hoped to find e-mail drafts or letters, but if there were written communications between the two of them, they’d been done through mobile texts or web-based e-mails. Instead, he found a graphical file with Ashlynn’s name. He opened it and saw an achingly beautiful picture of Ashlynn Steele, taken in winter with snow up to her calves. She wore a down vest; her blond hair was loose and wind-swept, her cheeks pink from cold. Her mouth was folded into a beaming, carefree smile.

  From everything he had learned, Chris didn’t think Ashlynn had enjoyed many moments of that kind of happiness in her final months. He was pleased to see a glimmer of joy in her face and heartbroken to think of the tragedy that had consumed her. This case had become about more to him than saving Olivia. He wanted to know what had happened to destroy this girl’s peace and cut her life short.

  Chris studied the rest of Johan’s room. He opened the teenager’s dresser drawers and found stacks of folded clothes. The closet door was shut, and he opened it and saw two laundry baskets on the floor, brimming with whites and darks. The shut-in space had an aroma of sweat. He squatted and removed the darks piece by piece, examining each one and depositing them on the closet floor. Near the bottom of the basket, he found a pair of stonewashed blue jeans. Mud soiled the knees, and dirt and brown grass clung to the cuffs.

  He recognized a reddish-brown stain stretching down the pant leg, long and spidery. It was blood. He put the jeans aside and sifted quickly through the whites and found a baseball jersey with similar stains soaked into the sleeves.

  More blood. Lots of it.

  ‘Hello, Chris.’

  He spun around, startled, at the voice behind him. He’d been caught, and he had no excuses. Glenn Magnus stood in the doorway of Johan’s room. His face was expressionless.

  Chris sank back against the frame of the closet door. ‘Glenn.’

  ‘You could have asked,’ the minister said.

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘I suppose you figured I would have cleaned up first.’

  ‘You’re a father,’ Chris said. ‘I know how fathers think.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  Chris held up the jersey. ‘He was there, Glenn.’

  ‘I know. He told me.’

  ‘Did he kill her?’

  ‘Johan isn’t capable of that kind of violence.’

  ‘Anyone can lose control,’ Chris said. ‘This is blood. Johan told me he didn’t touch anything at the scene, but that was a lie. He lied to the police about being there at all.’

  The minister’s brow wrinkled in anger. ‘Johan lied to protect Olivia. It was foolish, but it was noble. As for the blood, what do you think he did when he saw the girl he was hopelessly in love with, lying dead in the park? He knelt at her side. He embraced her. He grieved for her.’

  ‘That’s possible.’

  ‘It’s what happened.’

  ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong, Glenn, but it doesn’t change what I have to do.’

  ‘I’m aware of that. Take the clothes. Talk to the police. If false accusations help Olivia, so be it.’

  ‘She’s innocent.’

  ‘So is Johan.’

  The minister wandered into his son’s room and sat down on the twin bed. He ran his hand along the folded lines of the comforter. He was at sea. Chris wondered if he truly believed that Johan didn’t kill Ashlynn, or if he worried that his son had been overrun by passion and grief. Even men of faith couldn’t run from dou
bt for ever.

  ‘Johan is devastated about the assault on Olivia,’ Magnus went on. ‘He really cares for her, you know. I was strict with Johan when he told me he was planning to break up with her. I didn’t want him being unkind. I didn’t want him breaking her heart.’

  ‘It broke anyway,’ Chris said.

  ‘Even so, I don’t want you thinking Johan is cavalier with girls. He’s a handsome boy, and girls develop crushes pretty easily at this age, but I’ve drummed into his head that he needs to treat them with respect.’

  ‘He and Olivia were having sex,’ Chris said.

  The minister frowned. ‘Yes, I know. I wasn’t happy about it. I think Johan and Olivia both thought they were in love for a while, but things obviously went too far.’

  ‘Were there other girls?’

  ‘Not that I know of. Not until Ashlynn.’

  ‘What about girls who were in love with him? Even if he didn’t feel the same way.’

  ‘A few, I’m sure.’

  ‘Tanya Swenson?’

  Magnus raised an eyebrow. ‘Tanya? I have no idea. She spent a lot of time with him, but Johan never mentioned her having feelings for him. Why?’

  ‘Ashlynn called Tanya the day before her death. I just wondered if there could have been another love triangle at work. An unrequited one.’

  ‘If there was, I never heard about it.’

  ‘Johan told me that he met Ashlynn because of you,’ Chris said. ‘She was visiting you here at the church.’

  ‘Yes, she reached out to me as a religious adviser. She was looking for ways to build bridges between the towns. We became very close. Ashlynn was one of the loveliest, most spiritual girls I have ever met. It’s devastating how it all turned out. I miss her.’

  ‘How did she hope to reconcile the towns?’ Chris asked.

  ‘She was seventeen. Seventeen-year-old girls believe they can do anything. She wanted to heal the wound caused by the deaths of our children here in St. Croix. I told her she was taking too much onto her shoulders, but she didn’t listen. She had such a sense of purpose and mission. One time, she even insisted I come with her to pray at the Continental Divide. She said it was very symbolic.’

  ‘The Continental Divide?’

  ‘Yes, the glacial ridges meet near Browns Valley north of Ortonville. On one side of the divide, the rivers flow north to Hudson Bay. On the other, water travels south to the Gulf of Mexico. For Ashlynn, that was the problem between Barron and St. Croix. We were neighbors living next door to each other but flowing in opposite directions.’

  ‘She sounds like a remarkable girl.’

  ‘She was. Johan was very serious about her. I truly thought they would get married.’

  ‘And yet Ashlynn broke up with him.’

  ‘I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I know why,’ Magnus said.

  ‘I suppose Ashlynn felt she couldn’t talk to either of us about her pregnancy. As spiritual as she was, she was a young girl. She was unprepared. Still, I just can’t imagine that she would have had an abortion. Not Ashlynn. It must be a mistake.’

  Chris shook his head. ‘It’s not a mistake, and it’s not what you think. The baby was anencephalic.’

  ‘I’m sorry, what does that mean?’

  ‘It’s a severe birth defect, invariably fatal. If the baby survives to term, it dies within days or hours. Essentially, the fetus develops without a brain.’

  Magnus shook his head, mute with horror.

  ‘You should tell Johan,’ Chris said.

  ‘If the police don’t already know, they’ll find out soon. It’ll be better coming from you.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘You’re sure Ashlynn didn’t tell him about the baby?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Johan? Never. He couldn’t have remained silent about this.’ Magnus stared at the ceiling, his face wretched, as if he were questioning the mercy of God. ‘How that girl must have suffered. I can’t imagine it. She must have believed she was being punished.’

  ‘Punished? For what?’

  ‘For the cancer cluster. I’m sure she believed God was taking her baby, the way He took Kimberly and the others.’

  ‘Their deaths had nothing to do with her,’ Chris said.

  ‘Maybe so, but tell that to Ashlynn. That was one of the reasons she first came to me for spiritual counsel. She was convinced that the cancer cluster in St. Croix was real. She was convinced that her father’s company was causing it.’

  24

  Florian Steele stood on the sprawling porch of his cliff-side home. He swirled Stags’ Leap chardonnay in a bell-shaped glass. Leaning on the balcony, he watched the rocky promontory of the bluff descend below him into a nest of trees. From where he stood, he could see the town of Barron and the stark white headquarters of Mondamin. For ten years, the company had been his dream. His life. He had built it from nothing, and for the first time, a decade of labor felt utterly empty.

  He heard Julia behind him. Her heels were unmistakable. His wife stood next to him at the balcony, and he stole a glance at her. She was perfectly put together, as she always was. The cross on her neck. The pinned-up blond hair. The rose dress hanging as if it were cut to her figure, which it was. Her back stiff and proud. He had been married to her for nearly twenty years, and there were days when he didn’t understand her at all.

  ‘There’s something wrong with us that we can’t cry,’ he said.

  Julia didn’t look at him. ‘I know exactly what I’ve lost. I don’t need tears to grieve for her.’

  ‘I do.’

  His wife brushed a stray hair from her eyes. She was impatient with him. ‘Maybe you can’t cry because you feel guilty. Did you think about that?’

  ‘Olivia Hawk is guilty. Not me.’

  ‘Maybe Olivia is simply the instrument that God chose to punish us.’

  Florian scowled. ‘I don’t need a Bible lecture from you, Julia. Ashlynn’s death is not my fault.’

  He slugged down the rest of his wine. He didn’t want to have this argument with her. He was tired of feeling angry when he should have been crying his eyes out. What made it worse was that Julia was right. He felt guilty. He had let Ashlynn drift out of his life without fighting to get her back. His precious little girl had begun to treat him like an enemy.

  He left the porch. Inside the patio doors was the family room, rustic and huge, with a vaulted ceiling and a fieldstone fireplace. It was his room. His space. Everything else had been designed and selected by Julia, even the décor of his Mondamin office. He’d insisted on one place for himself. Dead animal heads – deer and moose, even a bear he’d shot near Grand Marais – adorned the wall. If you were a Minnesota CEO in farm country, you had to hunt. It was part of the job description. Florian had never hunted as a child, but like his other endeavors, he had researched it, practiced it, and became expert at it. Ashlynn had joined him once when she was ten. She was a natural with a perfect eye. After her first kill, though, she’d cried for hours and never hunted with him again.

  Ashlynn. His little girl. Gone. There were still no tears to squeeze from his eyes. He was a void.

  Florian sat on the stone hearth. Julia wandered inside and adjusted the angle of the paintings on the wall like a slave to her obsessive-compulsive ways. He resented her presence, and he hated himself for it. They’d turned on each other since Ashlynn’s death. She blamed him, and he blamed her. He felt as if his wife had been a co-conspirator in turning his daughter against him. It was ironic. In the early years, he’d been the one to put Ashlynn to bed and sing lullabies to her. He wondered if his daughter even remembered those days. As she got older, though, things changed. He ran out of time as the business demanded more and more of his attention. Ashlynn became Julia’s child, molded in his wife’s image, graceful and beautiful.

  ‘Why did you lie to me?’ he asked his wife.

  Julia stopped with her hand on the frame of a watercolor of the Spirit River. ‘About what?’

  �
��You knew Ashlynn was seeing Johan Magnus.’

  ‘She asked me not to tell you about it, and I didn’t. That’s not a lie.’

  ‘I wanted to know if she was seeing anyone.’

  ‘You wanted to know if she was seeing Kirk,’ Julia said. ‘I told you no.’

  ‘George Valma told me that Maxine saw Ashlynn and Kirk together near the school. I was concerned.’

  ‘You mean you were concerned what Kirk might tell her.’

  ‘Damn it, Julia!’ Florian shouted, his face flushing. He rose unsteadily, feeling the effects of two-thirds of a bottle of wine. ‘I don’t want to talk about Kirk!’

  Julia’s pointed look made him feel like an insect. Everyone thought of him as a tower of strength at Mondamin. If only they knew the truth. Julia ruled the house. Julia ruled him.

  ‘You’re still paying him, aren’t you?’ she asked.

  He didn’t say anything. That was enough to give her an answer.

  ‘Forget Kirk,’ he said. ‘This is about Ashlynn and Johan. You didn’t see any problem with her dating him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t.’

  ‘You should have known that he and his father would brainwash her. They’d turn her against me.’

  ‘Ashlynn didn’t need Johan for that, Florian. Her relationship with him had nothing to do with you. He’s a handsome, decent boy. Ashlynn was in love with him, and from everything I saw, he loved her, too. I was not going to let you come between them. She was perfectly capable of making up her own mind.’

  ‘You should have told me,’ he repeated.

  ‘What would you have done? Would you have had Kirk pay him a visit? Isn’t that how you solve your problems?’

  ‘Shut up, Julia.’

  ‘I heard about the assault on Olivia Hawk. Was your hand in that?’

  ‘No! How can you say that? How can you think I would be part of something like that?’

  ‘I think you sold your soul a long time ago, Florian. It’s a little late to start talking about morality.’

  ‘I had nothing to do with it,’ he insisted. ‘I want to see Olivia Hawk in jail. That’s all.’