Spilled Blood

by Brian Freeman

  ‘Where is she?’ Chris asked.

  They were back on the porch of Hannah’s house, out of the rain. Hannah left her red umbrella on one of the Adirondack chairs. She beckoned him inside. The house was warm and quiet. She took off her raincoat and peered through the windows at the church, which was still a hive of police activity. No one had followed them. No one was watching them.

  ‘Is she here?’ he asked again.

  Hannah pointed at the closed door that led down into the basement. ‘She came to me for help. They both did. I wasn’t going to say no, Chris.’

  ‘Jesus, Hannah. Tell me she wasn’t at Kirk’s house tonight.’

  She said nothing, but he knew that was exactly where Olivia had been. He opened the basement door. The light was off.

  ‘Olivia, it’s me,’ he called into the darkness.

  He switched on the light and marched down the wooden steps beside the stone blocks of the foundation. Hannah followed him. It was cool and damp under the ground. In the open space, he saw area rugs spread across the hard floor and metal shelves lining the walls. Ductwork made a maze overhead. Mice had found their way under the house; he saw tunnels in the pink insulation.

  A shabby blue sofa was pushed against the north wall. During tornado season, it was a place to wait out the storm.

  Olivia sat on the sofa with her arm around the waist of Johan Magnus.

  Both teenagers looked freshly showered; they wore clean clothes; their skin was pink. They had a blanket over their laps. Chris heard the bang of the drier; their clothes had been washed and were tumbling dry. Hannah had already helped them. She’d destroyed evidence.

  Johan didn’t say a word. He looked overwhelmed. Olivia, in contrast, looked in complete control. She was the strong one. The determined one. Her voice, when she spoke, was perfectly calm.

  ‘Johan didn’t do it, Dad,’ she told him. ‘He didn’t kill anyone. He’s innocent. Like me.’

  43

  Florian Steele waited fifteen minutes, but Kirk never showed.

  The park by the Indian monument was where they always conducted their business. Their relationship wasn’t for public eyes. It was cash only; it was one on one; it was only at night. They met, they talked, they did their deal, they went their separate ways. He didn’t like it, but he’d long ago made peace with the fact that every business needed a Kirk Watson to survive.

  Kirk was Florian’s problem-solver. When Vernon Clay’s insanity became a liability, he’d sent Kirk to deal with him. He’d hoped never to cross that line, but the scientist gave him no choice. Since then, Florian had slept soundly, convinced that Vernon was no longer a threat. Now he didn’t know what to believe. If Vernon was alive, then Florian understood the danger. If Vernon was dead, then Aquarius was a mystery. His plans were unknown.

  He remembered what Julia had said. He’s trying to kill us.

  Florian checked his watch. He couldn’t wait any longer. It was unlike Kirk to miss a meeting, and the more time that passed, the more he worried about a trap. He drove out of the park onto the rainy roads. He kept his eyes on his mirrors, but no one followed him.

  He called Julia to tell her he was on his way home. She didn’t answer. She was probably in the shower, getting ready for bed, ignoring his messages. Since Ashlynn’s death, she’d been asleep when he came to bed. She hadn’t let him touch her for days. Tonight, he would wake her up, undress her, make love to her, sweat passion out of her. He couldn’t stand the emptiness of his life for another night. He was dead, and he needed to feel alive. If he could break the dam between them, they could both grieve like normal people. They could take comfort in each other. They could finally cry.

  He dialed again. ‘Pick up, Julia,’ he murmured, but if she was there, she let him stew in silence.

  Florian turned off the highway and followed the sharp incline of the bluff. The city, the river, the company were all in the valley below him. He reached his U-shaped driveway and saw that Julia had turned off every light in the house. She was leaving him in darkness. The gulf in their marriage pained him. It was hard enough to deal with the loss of his daughter, but even worse to do so alone. He wondered if Julia realized how much he still loved her. He wondered if she knew he had always been faithful.

  He pressed the garage door opener and almost drove into the closed door. He pushed the button again, but the door didn’t move. He studied the unlit house and realized that the power was out. When he looked at the rest of the neighborhood, he saw that lights burned everywhere but here.

  Something else was going on, and he didn’t like it.

  Florian unlocked his glove compartment. He kept a Ruger 9mm pistol there at all times. Everyone knew who he was; everyone knew he had money. He couldn’t take chances with pirates on the rural roads. He took the butt of the pistol in his hand, checked it, and got out of the car into the rain. He followed the flagstones on his walkway and reached his front door.

  It was ajar. Rain and dirt streaked the crack of the opening onto the plush white carpet.

  He pushed open the door with his shoulder. Inside, with no electricity, the house was absolutely still, and the air was growing cold. The security system was off. He couldn’t see, but he could trace every inch of the house blindfolded. He led with the barrel of the gun and headed for the magnificent spiral staircase that climbed to the bedrooms.

  Halfway up the steps, he called for her. ‘Julia!’

  His voice, shattering the silence, sounded loud. He didn’t care who heard him. If someone was here, they’d already seen his headlights as he arrived. They knew he was in the house. They knew where he would go. To find his wife.

  ‘Julia!’ he shouted again.

  She didn’t answer, or she couldn’t answer. He was terrified of what he would find.

  Florian climbed to the landing. Their master suite was in front of him. Through the doorway, he saw a light winking at him. It wasn’t one of their lamps; it was the flame of a candle. He thought for a moment that the dark house was Julia’s idea of romance, but when he slipped inside, he found his fears realized. The bedroom was empty. His wife wasn’t here. Instead, the candle teased him from her nightstand.

  He saw a single sheet of paper on the polished oak beside the candle. A message.

  Florian knew what it was. He knew who had sent it. He walked to the bed and stared down at the ivory wax melting into drippy streaks on the candlestick and forming a hot liquid pool at its base. The note on the nightstand was illuminated by the dancing flame, but he hardly dared to pick it up.

  He thought: Julia.

  He took the message in his hand, and he felt his entire world crashing down as he read it. First his daughter. Now his wife. There was nothing left.

  TO THE ATTENTION OF

  MR. FLORIAN STEELE

  YOUR WIFE IS GONE

  HER LIFE IS NOW IN MY HANDS

  YOU CANNOT ESCAPE

  YOUR OWN DESTRUCTION

  YOU CANNOT SAVE

  YOUR WORLD

  YOU CAN ONLY SAVE HER

  I WILL CALL YOU

  AND YOU WILL COME TO ME

  ALONE

  MY NAME IS

  AQUARIUS

  PART FOUR

  EVERY CREEPING THING

  44

  Lenny slept in the pick-up overnight. He awoke at the first light of dawn, freezing, his head pounding. He’d taken a six-pack of beer as he escaped the house, and he’d drunk more than he ever had in his life while sitting in the truck. The windshield was covered over with tracks of frost. The rain had stopped, but water dripped from the tree branches, and the hood was covered with wet, dead leaves. On the horizon, there was no sun, only steel-gray clouds. He was parked on the border of a state park west of the city. From his hiding place, he’d seen the lights of police cars coming and going at high speed on the county road. They were looking for him.

  He was starving; he hadn’t eaten since his slice of pizza at noon the previous day. He pawed through the junk piled in the back seat and f
ound an unopened power bar. He ripped off the foil and ate it in three bites, choking on the gluey peanut butter. It only made his stomach growl, wanting more. He thought about stopping at a Holiday gas station for an egg sandwich, but he couldn’t take the risk of being seen.

  The truck smelled like smoke and beer. It smelled like Kirk. Daylight didn’t change the night into a bad dream. His brother was dead. Kirk would never hit him again; he would never protect him again; he would never give him money and skin mags; he would never take him to the woods to shoot, or give him joints, or tell him stories about the girls he fucked. For years, Kirk had been the center of his world, and now he was gone.

  Lenny sat in the pick-up, and as the reality of his situation sank into his brain, he bawled like a baby. Snot dripped from his nose to his mouth and down the back of his throat. He coughed it up, hacking so hard that his lungs felt raw. He wasn’t crying for Kirk. He was crying for himself. He was angry at the people he’d lost. They’d all abandoned him, every single person in his life. His mother, his father, his brother. All gone. He was utterly, absolutely, completely, for ever alone.

  He knew what Kirk would say to him, with a rap to his skull. Grow some balls, Leno.

  That was right. He wouldn’t run away and hide. He wouldn’t be a coward and a pussy anymore. He would do what Kirk would have done.

  He would make them all pay.

  Lenny wiped his face and saw his reflection in the rear-view mirror. Red-streaked eyes. Scraggly, unshaved beard, with hairs of different lengths on the point of his chin. A pus-filled white pimple bulging from the base of one nostril. The cut on his face was puffy; it was getting infected. His sallow skin looked like dishwater. He was a mess. Not handsome and powerful like Kirk. Not a clean-shaved blond god like Johan Magnus. It didn’t matter.

  He would make them all pay.

  Lenny turned on the engine, and the big motor growled like a tiger. The radio blared Kid Rock. He checked the highway, but he didn’t see any cops. It was early. Even so, he stuck to the back roads, past block-long towns and empty farms where you could count the people on your fingers. That was what Kirk would have done to give everybody the slip. Stay off the grid, and nobody will find you, Leno.

  Everywhere he looked, he saw water left over by the storm. Standing water on the roads. Lakes across the corn fields. Ditches filled like swimming pools. Even without the rain, it was an ugly day, black and cold. A day for bad things to happen.

  The ruts of the dirt roads hammered his kidneys, and he bounced in the seat. He reached over to the glove compartment and took out Kirk’s silver wrap-around shades. They cost two hundred bucks. No one touched them but Kirk. Lenny figured Kirk wouldn’t care now, and he slid them over his eyes. The shades were a loose fit, and the day was so dark he didn’t need them, but when he checked his look in the mirror again, his teeth flashed into a crooked smile. He was cool.

  He reached over to the passenger seat, where there was one can of beer left from the six-pack. He popped the top with his index finger, and some of the foam burbled out of the hole. He took a swig. It was warm, but he didn’t care. He was feeling better. He had a plan.

  It took him twenty minutes to twist his way down the roads like he was playing a game of Tetris, and he got lost more than once. He’d only been to Kirk’s U-Stor garage three or four times, and the roads out here all looked alike. Same fields. Same dirt. No signs. Finally, he saw the driveway and the run-down double row of locked storage units behind the red doors. No one else was around.

  Lenny parked in front of Kirk’s garage and got out. He had a few swallows of beer left, and as he drank, some of it leaked down his chin. He was still buzzed from the overnight hours. His head swam. He heard the noisy squawk of a crow in a tall oak tree, and he could see the bird, big and black, perched on a high branch. It yelled at him and wouldn’t quit, and the annoying caw caw made his headache worse.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, bird,’ Lenny shouted. The crow didn’t quit. It screeched louder, as if it were laughing at him. He found a rock on the ground, and he hoisted it at the tree, but his aim wasn’t even close. The crow aired its wings defiantly.

  Caw caw. It kept laughing.

  Lenny spat on the ground. Damn bird.

  He walked around to the tailgate of the pick-up and squeezed his hand under the dirty bumper near the left rear tire. Kirk kept the locker key in a hidden magnetic case, rather than on his key ring. Fiddling with his fingers, Lenny found it and pried it off the inside of the bumper. He squeezed the case open and found the key, and he undid the padlock on the metal door.

  Lenny went inside, leaving the door open behind him. The musty garage was where Kirk kept everything he didn’t want the cops to find. He saw the file cabinets with Kirk’s records, his gun cases, and boxes of thumb drives and overstuffed folders spilling across his brother’s desk. Kirk would come here and play Tim McGraw on his iPod and copy porn for his customers and count his money.

  Money. Lenny needed money.

  He spotted the two-foot safe with the combination lock shoved against the rear wall. He squatted and spun the dial, entering the four numbers he’d memorized: 17-4-19-26. The door opened with a click as he wrenched the lever to the right. He spilled the heavy box forward, dumping the contents, and he whistled in delight. Stacks of cash, tied with rubber bands, littered the floor. Dozens of them. A fortune. He didn’t stop to count; there must have been thousands of dollars here, enough to last him a year or more on the run.

  He also saw a lone USB flash drive, no bigger than a stick of gum. It was labeled in thick letters with black marker. Daddy.

  Lenny knew what it was, but he didn’t care. Not now. He could deal with it later. He stuffed everything back into the safe and spun the combination lock. He lifted up the safe, grunting at its weight, and hauled it awkwardly in his arms to the truck, where he dumped the metal box on the floor in front of the passenger seat. He exhaled in relief. You’re rich, Leno. He could go anywhere he wanted now. Mexico maybe. He could buy himself a brown girl and live on the beach.

  First things first. He had things to do. He needed guns.

  Kirk stored his rifles in a locked cabinet, and he kept the key in the top drawer of the desk. Lenny found it and swung the doors wide, and he gasped in awe, studying the trove of weaponry. He smelled wood oil. Light bounced off the mirrored interior of the cabinet. He ran a finger down the black metal of the barrels. His hands got sweaty as he fondled the sleek mechanisms of the rifles. He’d only fired two guns in his life, a bolt-action Remington deer rifle and a Ruger semiautomatic that was like an eight-inch penis. Kirk had taken him hunting north of Thief River Falls last fall. Lenny hadn’t made a kill, but he’d loved the deadly power of the weapons in his grip. Guns didn’t ask if you were short or tall, strong or weak, brave or scared.

  Lenny took the Remington into his arms, cradling the butt under his shoulder, aiming at the trees beyond the garage door. ‘Bang,’ he said, squeezing the trigger, hearing the empty click. In the desk drawer he found boxes of gold cartridges gleaming like tiny rockets. He took the Remington and the ammunition and loaded it all in the pick-up next to the driver’s seat.

  Handguns. He wanted those, too. Kirk had lots, stored on the metal shelves. You could never have too many. They’re like potato chips, Leno. He found the Ruger he’d used when shooting targets with Kirk; he loaded the clip and shoved it in his belt. He didn’t know if he’d need more, but he found an empty packing box and dumped the rest of the guns and clips inside and carried the whole mess to the truck.

  He had everything he wanted for now. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever come back here. It was time to go, but he stood in the mud, with the pick-up door open and the garage door open, and he couldn’t move. He was frozen. The loneliness of the world landed on his shoulders again, making him feel sick and small. He could put on cool shades, he could load the truck with guns, but that didn’t change who he was. He wasn’t Kirk.

  Over his shoulder, he heard the crow, still taunt
ing him from its perch in the tree. Caw caw caw, making his head throb. The bird knew his secrets and his fears. The bird wasn’t afraid of him.

  Lenny yanked the Ruger from his belt.

  ‘Shut up!’ he screamed again, but the crow only screeched louder.

  He aimed at the tree and squeezed the trigger, and the gun went off with a bang, making him lose his balance. The shot went off into the sky, nowhere near the bird, which spread its wings again as if to say, can’t hit me, can’t hit me. He fired again, blasting away bits of bark. And again. And again.

  The crow, bored with the game, flew away, laughing as it disappeared beyond the treetops.

  ‘What the hell are you shooting at, kid?’

  Lenny spun around at the voice behind him. He saw a man in his sixties standing near the pick-up with his hands on his hips. The old man wore a Twins baseball cap, a Vikings sweatshirt, and camouflage pants. His boots were half-laced. He had a bushy salt-and-pepper mustache. His eyes were angry.

  ‘Are you crazy?’ the man went on. ‘Put that gun down.’

  Lenny had his arm extended, the barrel of the gun pointed upward at the tree, even though the crow was long gone. Their eyes met, his and the old man’s. They were the only two people for miles around. Lenny didn’t even know where the man had come from, but his car must have been parked out of sight behind the other row of storage units.

  The old man glanced into the truck, and watching his face twitch, Lenny knew he’d seen the guns. Casually, the man shifted his eyes the other way, into the storage unit, where the gun locker with Kirk’s rifles was open. His expression morphed from anger to worry. His voice got lower and softer.

  ‘So what exactly are you doing here, son?’

  Lenny swung the pistol and pointed it at the man’s chest. ‘None of your fucking business, old man. Who the hell are you?’

  The man raised his hands defensively. ‘Nobody, son. You just look like you could use some help. How about you put away the gun, and the two of us talk for a little while?’