Spilled Blood (16 page)

‘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.’

‘So? It’s been raining around here for weeks.’

‘Yes, but Tanya says that Olivia pushed Ashlynn in the park that night. Ashlynn fell. She got mud on her clothes.’

‘I’m not following you.’

‘Maybe Ashlynn tracked that mud back to her car. If Olivia left Ashlynn in the ghost town – alive – what would Ashlynn do? She’d go back to her car and wait. Then someone else arrived. Someone who killed her.’

‘That’s an interesting theory, Mr. Hawk, but Ashlynn’s body was found in the park, exactly where Olivia confronted her. If she went back to her car, why wasn’t she killed there? The more likely explanation is that the dirt on the seat of the Mustang was days old.’

Chris frowned. Altman was right. He couldn’t explain why Ashlynn would have gone back to the park. Even so, the mud in the car raised a doubt, and doubt to a lawyer was like a dripping faucet. Eventually, drip by drip, it made a flood.

Altman put a hand on Chris’s shoulder. ‘Get some sleep, Mr. Hawk.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘I meant what I said. I’m sorry about Olivia, and I will do everything I can to catch the boys who did this.’

‘Thank you.’

‘I also meant the part about staying out of it. Revenge doesn’t give you a free pass for violence.’

‘Message received,’ Chris said.

Altman returned to the elevator, leaving Chris alone in the hospital hallway. He watched the doors close. With Altman gone, he left the evidence box on the floor and wandered toward the first patient room beyond the nurse’s station. From the doorway, he watched Olivia in bed, asleep, at peace. Her face was angelic. She bore no scars on the outside. It was her head and heart that worried him.

He needed fresh air. He returned to the hallway and hoisted the evidence box on his shoulder. Inside the elevator, he sagged against the rear wall and closed his eyes, and for a second or
two, he slept. The opening of the doors on the first floor jarred him. He shook himself and exited into the hospital lobby. Outside, the night was cool, and the rain had stopped, but the air was damp. His Lexus was parked at the back of the lot, facing a grassy field. He carried the box to his car, popped the trunk, and deposited it inside. Tomorrow, he would review what the police had found, looking for more evidence. More doubt. Drip by drip.

Chris slammed the trunk. He saw no cars on the streets, and there were no lights in the nearby houses. The town of Barron was quiet. Even so, he felt as if a voyeur were watching him. It was a strange, uncomfortable sensation. He studied the parked cars in the hospital lot, but he was alone. He looked across the street to the dark field, which was buried in shadows. If anyone was there, they were invisible.

He was about to return to the hospital when he noticed something under the windshield wiper of his car. It hadn’t been there when he parked. He assumed it was the kind of annoying advertisement that sandwich shops placed on cars on the Minneapolis streets, but when he plucked it from the windshield he saw that it was an envelope. Nothing was written on the outside. It wasn’t sealed.

Chris slid a single sheet of paper from the interior, and when he unfolded it, he looked up sharply, staring into the empty darkness around him. He hadn’t been wrong. He wasn’t alone.

He read the black printed letters on the page.

TO THE ATTENTION OF
MR. CHRISTOPHER HAWK

YOU HAVE SUFFERED TONIGHT

YOU ARE IN A WORLD
WHOSE EVIL IS BEYOND SALVATION

YOU ARE IN A WORLD
THAT WILL SOON BE DESTROYED

LET THIS BE YOUR WARNING

THERE WILL BE NO ESCAPE

IF YOU STAY YOU WILL DIE

MY NAME IS

AQUARIUS

Chris found the minister’s son, Johan, awake and alone in his hospital room. The teenager sat up in bed, staring out the window at the pre-dawn darkness and using an incentive spirometer for deep breathing. It was obviously painful, and he winced as he inhaled. Seeing Chris, Johan put the device aside. His face still bore the welts and bruises of the beating he’d taken, but the wary demeanor that Chris had observed when he first met Johan at the motel had softened.

‘Mr. Hawk, I’m really sorry,’ Johan told him.

Chris pulled a chair next to the bed. ‘Why are you sorry?’

‘It’s my fault. I couldn’t stop them.’

‘There was one of you against half a dozen or more of them,’ he told the boy. ‘Don’t blame yourself.’

Johan rolled his head back. His fingers curled together into fists. ‘Those bastards.’

Chris saw in the boy what he’d felt in himself the previous night. It was so easy, so tempting, to be consumed by hatred in this town. Marco Piva at the motel had said the same thing. Everyone wants revenge.

‘I’d like to ask you some questions, Johan, if you’re up to it.’

‘Okay.’

‘It’s about you and Ashlynn,’ he said.

The teenager didn’t look surprised. ‘I figured people were going to find out sooner or later.’

‘You were involved with Ashlynn, weren’t you?’ Chris asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘Was it serious?’

‘Yeah. Very.’

‘Who knew about it?’

‘Almost nobody. It wasn’t safe, you know? My dad knew. Ashlynn told her mom. That was it. We didn’t tell anybody else.’

‘What about Olivia?’

Johan hesitated. ‘Yeah, she found out,’ he admitted. ‘She saw us together. She was really upset.’

‘Why? Because of Kimberly?’

‘Not just that.’ The boy hooded his eyes. ‘She was – well, she was really jealous.’

Chris was confused, and then he realized he’d missed the answer that was staring him in the face.
Something personal.
A teenage triangle. Boy, girl, girl. That was why Olivia hated Ashlynn so much. Olivia loved Johan.

‘Did you and Olivia have a relationship, too?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. Last summer.’

‘Did you break up with her because of Ashlynn?’

‘Look, Mr. Hawk, I never meant—’

Chris held up his hands to stop him. ‘I’m not playing the outraged father here. I just want the truth.’

He saw genuine conflict in Johan’s face. ‘Olivia thought so, but that’s not how it happened. I really care for Olivia a lot, but we’re so different. She thinks religion is a waste of time, and me, well, it’s a big part of my life. There were lots of things like that, where we just didn’t see life the same way. The more we dated, the more I began to realize we didn’t have that much in common. The one thing we did have was Kimberly, but you can’t build a relationship around losing someone, right?’

‘That’s true.’

‘I tried to tell her that, but she said she loved me. She was really hurt.’

‘What about you and Ashlynn? How did that happen? You two were on opposite sides of a pretty big divide.’

Johan looked uncomfortable, as if he were reluctant to share the secret even though Ashlynn was dead. ‘We met at church.’

‘In St. Croix?’ Chris was surprised.

‘Yeah. Ashlynn started coming to see my dad.’

‘Ashlynn was visiting
Glenn
?’

Johan nodded.

‘When was this?’

‘About six months ago.’

‘Why?’

Johan swung his legs over the side of the bed. Gingerly, he got up. He walked with a slight limp, but he was a fit teenager, and he was already bouncing back from his injuries. He crossed the hospital room and closed the door. ‘It was very secret. She didn’t want anyone to know.’

‘I’m sure.’

‘The thing is, Ashlynn hated what the feud was doing to this area. She was heartbroken about the kids who died, too. She felt guilty, because of who she was. She wanted to reach out, so she began to visit my dad. At first, she just wanted to tell him how sorry she was about Kimberly and how bad she felt. Then she started getting religious counseling, too.’

‘How did your relationship with her develop?’

‘I’d help her get to and from the church, because she didn’t want anyone seeing her car in St. Croix. We talked for hours. Sometimes all night. She visited me at the motel, too, when I was working. I realized how amazing she was. Not just pretty – she was just this incredible person. I knew things weren’t working out with Olivia, and after we broke up, Ashlynn and I started talking about how we felt for each other. It was serious.’

‘How serious?’ Chris asked.

‘We were in love.’

‘Were you having sex?’

‘Does that matter?’ Johan asked.

‘Actually, it does. I’m sorry.’

Johan looked at the floor. ‘Ashlynn was a virgin. She didn’t like the idea of sex before marriage. I’d had sex before. I mean, Olivia and I – that is, we had—’

‘I get it,’ Chris said. ‘Did you and Ashlynn eventually have sex?’

The teenager nodded. ‘After a few months, we decided we were ready for it. We’d already been talking about getting married after school. It felt right.’

Chris heard regret in Johan’s voice. ‘Was it a mistake?’

‘I guess.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Ashlynn got really distant after we did it. I could tell it was bothering her. I apologized, but she didn’t want to talk. Then, like a month ago, she texted me that we should stop seeing each other. I couldn’t believe it. I thought she loved me.’

‘Did she say why she wanted to break it off?’

‘She said things were moving too fast. That’s it.’

‘Nothing else?’

‘No.’

Chris waited for Johan to talk about the pregnancy. The abortion. He studied the teenager’s face and saw nothing but confusion. Johan was telling the truth about being in the dark. He didn’t know what was really happening to Ashlynn. For whatever reason, Ashlynn had chosen to go through this on her own. She had turned to Hannah for guidance. Not Johan. Not Glenn Magnus. Not her own parents.

‘Tanya told me Ashlynn dated Kirk Watson last year,’ Chris said. ‘Is that true?’

‘Kirk,’ Johan snapped, his lip curling. ‘That vicious son of a bitch. He did this to Olivia. It was him.’

‘Do you know that for a fact?’

‘No, but none of the Barron boys do anything without his say-so.’

‘What about Kirk and Ashlynn?’ Chris asked again.

‘There was nothing between them. They went out a few times.
That was it. She cut him off at the knees when he wanted more.’

‘He doesn’t seem like her type,’ Chris said.

‘He wasn’t.’

‘So why did she go out with him at all?’

‘I don’t know. She didn’t want to talk about it.’

‘Is it possible something happened between them?’

Johan’s eyes narrowed. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Could Kirk have assaulted her?’

‘He’s capable of anything, but I think she would have told me if he did.’

‘Did Kirk know you and Ashlynn were involved?’

‘I don’t think so. If he knew, he would have done something.’

‘Maybe he did,’ Chris said. ‘Maybe he killed her.’

Johan said nothing. Chris could see in his face that the boy had already leaped to a totally different conclusion about Ashlynn’s death. Like everyone else, he assumed Olivia was guilty.

‘How did Olivia find out about you and Ashlynn?’ Chris asked.

‘She saw us parked near the town. We were – we were kissing. She confronted me about it.’

‘What did she say?’

‘She accused me of cheating on her. I told her that Ashlynn and I didn’t start seeing each other until after I broke it off with her. She didn’t believe me. She called Ashlynn some terrible things. It was ugly.’

‘When did this happen?’ he asked.

‘Right before Christmas.’

‘And since then?’

‘She hasn’t really talked to me.’

‘So what happened the night of Ashlynn’s murder?’

Johan paled. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, Olivia was arrested for shooting Ashlynn, and the first thing she did when she was released was go to see
you
. Even though she hadn’t talked to you in months. Why?’

The teenager glanced at the closed door. ‘I don’t think you want to ask me about this, Mr. Hawk. I don’t want to make it worse for Olivia.’