Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘She’s like you,’ he said. ‘Strong and stubborn.’

That elicited a smile. ‘What did she tell you?’

‘She says she didn’t do it. She didn’t shoot Ashlynn.’

‘Do you believe her?’

That was a good question. Did he believe her? Michael Altman was right that clients lied to lawyers and daughter lied to fathers. It was easier to do that than to admit you got drunk and threw away your whole life by putting a bullet in a girl’s brain. He had been away from Olivia for a long time, and he didn’t know how to decide if she was being honest. Even so, as a lawyer, as a father, he could only trust his gut, and his gut believed her.

‘I do.’ He added, ‘Do you?’

Hannah caressed the top of the coffee mug with one finger. ‘I want to.’

‘But?’

She rubbed her moist eyes. He saw more clearly now how tired she was, all the way into her bones. ‘It hasn’t been easy here. The two of us. Her and me.’

He said nothing.

‘She keeps secrets from me. She slips out at night. We’re distant. I know it’s been tough on her these past three years. The divorce, the move, me busy with work at the Center. Now the cancer. When we got here, Glenn’s daughter Kimberly became her soul mate, and Olivia was inconsolable when we lost her. She did what the other teenagers did. She let all that grief and frustration become hatred.’

‘Did you know she had a gun?’ he asked.

‘Of course not. I would never have allowed it. She’s still just a kid, Chris. She’s got all these emotions, but she doesn’t have the maturity to deal with them. That’s what scares me. If she was alone with Ashlynn that night, and she had a gun, I worry about what she might have done.’

‘Hannah, I really don’t think she killed her.’

‘I hope you’re right. I feel like this is all my fault.’

‘Your fault? Why?’

‘I was so caught up with Mondamin. It’s like a chamber of horrors what they’re doing there. They’re cowboys. They don’t have a clue about the real risks, and they don’t care. I begged Rollie Swenson to file the lawsuit. I worked with the parents around here who lost kids. It wasn’t about money. It was about throwing the light of day on that company, exposing what is really going on in there. The trouble is, when the litigation failed, the kids around here refused to accept it. Bad things started happening. Vandalism. Mischief.’

‘Was Olivia involved?’

‘I don’t think so, not directly, but she’s a lightning rod. Like me. Kids in St. Croix listened to her talking about Mondamin and how people in Barron were profiting from the company’s poison. Some of them took their anger too far. It was petty stuff, but then kids in Barron retaliated. The violence escalated. One boy in particular, a thug named Kirk Watson, became a kind of ringleader in Barron. He turned the feud into a war. We all knew it was only a matter of time before someone got killed.’

‘It sounds like street gangs.’

‘That’s exactly what it is.’

‘In farm country?’ he asked.

Hannah frowned. ‘This isn’t Mayberry, Chris. The problems are the same as in the city, and it’s even worse here because we don’t have the resources to deal with it. We’re all in the crossfire.’ She looked into the dining room, where the torn curtains billowed in through the broken window. ‘Literally.’

‘Olivia is going to pay the price for this war. Michael Altman is going to come down hard on her. If she didn’t do it, I need to figure out what really happened that night.’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Did you see her go out on Friday?’

‘No, she’s become an expert at slipping out without me knowing. It’s worse with the chemo. I go to bed and sleep like the dead.’

It was an unfortunate turn of phrase, but Chris let it go.

‘You said she’s been keeping secrets. Do you have any idea what she’s hiding?’

‘I don’t. She shuts me out. She’s a deep, deep ocean, Chris. She’s not a little girl anymore.’

‘Did she ever talk about Ashlynn Steele?’

He was surprised to see Hannah hesitate, as if the question made her uncomfortable. She took a long time to answer. ‘Sometimes. Ashlynn was the enemy for kids around here.’

‘Which kids?’

‘Make a list. There are at least forty kids between the ages of thirteen and nineteen here in St. Croix. Any one of them would blame Ashlynn for who her father is. It was terribly unfair.’

He couldn’t help his first thought: You’re taking Ashlynn’s side when our daughter is accused of killing her? Then he realized that Hannah was right. He was being unfair, like the others. Ashlynn was dead. She was the victim.

Hannah got up abruptly, cutting off their conversation. She took their coffee mugs and put them in the sink, and she ran water and wiped the mugs with a towel. Without looking back at Chris, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I know I’m not being much help. I appreciate your coming here for Olivia.’

‘I wouldn’t have done anything else.’

She turned around, and her eyes were warmer. She scanned him up and down. ‘You’re looking good, Chris. You’ve lost weight. Good for you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you involved with someone?’

‘No.’

Hannah looked genuinely sad. ‘Still addicted, hmm?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are a lot of drugs that control people. For some it’s cocaine or alcohol. For you it’s adrenaline. Money. Work. Deals. It doesn’t matter what you inject. It’s still addiction.’

He felt himself getting angry. He’d heard this before, but he tried not to fire back the way he had in the past.

‘We’ve been down that road, Hannah,’ he said softly.

She stopped herself, biting her lip, as if she realized it was too tempting to fall into old habits. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she agreed. ‘We have.’

*

Chris returned to the town of Barron at ten o’clock. He found his motel room wrecked.

The door hung ajar, splintered where someone had kicked it in. Inside, his clothes had been knifed into shreds and strewn like confetti around the room. The papers he’d gathered about the case had been stuffed into a garbage pail and burned. The room stank of melted plastic, and the carpet had a singed hole, revealing charred floorboards. Multi-colored spray paint made streaks around the walls and across the bed linens.

Someone had used a black marker to write on the bathroom mirror.

Fuck Olivia Hawk. Fuck St. Croix.

He tried to put himself inside the heads of teenagers who could feel such primal rage, and he couldn’t. He didn’t get it. All he could see was the work of animals.

The motel owner, Marco Piva, stood beside Chris. ‘I am so sorry, Mr. Hawk,’ Marco told him. ‘My house is a couple hundred yards behind the motel. I didn’t hear anything until the fire alarm started going off. I ran down here, but the bastards were already gone.’

‘It’s not your fault, Marco,’ he said.

‘I’ve called the police.’

Chris thought about Hannah’s dismissive attitude toward the police and realized she was right. There was no protection. There was nothing to be done. ‘I’ll deal with them in the morning. Right now, I just need to sleep.’

‘Of course, yes. I have another room for you. Do you need anything? I can get you whatever you want.’

‘Maybe a toothbrush and toothpaste.’

‘No problem.’ The motel owner put his hands on his fleshy hips, and his golden face screwed up in disgust. ‘St. Croix attacks Barron, Barron attacks St. Croix. Where does it end? A pox on both of their houses, that’s what I say. I wore blue for three decades in San Jose. I saw this kind of hatred in the city, but I hoped I would never see it again.’