Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘Why did you think she was lying?’

‘I thought maybe she’d been in St. Croix.’

‘Why would she be there?’

‘That’s the way it’s been for the past year. Raids and sneak attacks between the towns.’

‘Was Ashlynn part of that?’

‘I don’t know. She was from Barron. They’ll do anything to hurt us.’

Chris still wasn’t convinced that his daughter was giving him the whole story. ‘What did you do after you dropped the gun and left Ashlynn in the park?’

‘I went home and went to bed.’

‘Did you talk to your mother?’

‘She was already sleeping. She sleeps pretty heavy because of the chemo.’

‘So she didn’t hear you leave or come back?’

‘I guess not.’

‘Did you tell anyone about Ashlynn? Did you send someone to help her?’

‘No.’

‘Why not? You said she was stranded out there.’

Olivia shrugged. Whenever she talked about Ashlynn, her face went cold. ‘I wasn’t going to help her,’ she said.

‘What time did you leave Ashlynn in the ghost town, and what time did you get home?’

‘It was around twelve-thirty when I left, and I got home ten or fifteen minutes later. It’s not far.’

Chris put the facts together in his head. Olivia left Ashlynn Steele stranded at half past midnight. Alive, with a gun at her feet in a deserted park, miles from either Barron or St. Croix. Five hours later, before dawn, Tanya Swenson finally confessed to her father what had happened overnight, and Rollie Swenson called 911. The sheriff’s department found Ashlynn in the park, dead of a single gunshot to the forehead. The revolver was missing. The girl’s Mustang was parked in the main street of the ghost town, with a flat tire, exactly as she’d left it.

The initial estimate placed the time of death several hours before the body was discovered. In other words, she’d been killed shortly after Olivia left Ashlynn there.

Or before , he thought to himself.

Olivia could see it in his eyes. ‘You don’t believe me, do you? You think I killed her.’

‘No, I don’t think that, but a trial is about good facts and bad facts. Right now, we have a lot of bad facts. You were there. You had a gun. You threatened Ashlynn. Ashlynn is dead. What we need are facts to support your version of what happened. That you didn’t pull the trigger. That someone else did.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Dad. It could have been anyone.’

‘Tell me about Tanya,’ Chris said.

‘What about her? It’s not like she went back to the park and blew Ashlynn away.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Tanya? No way.’

‘If you weren’t there, you don’t know that. Our job is to establish reasonable doubt that you killed Ashlynn. Tanya knew about the gun. She knew Ashlynn was stranded. She didn’t tell her father or call the police for five hours.’

‘Yeah, but Tanya would never—’

‘She’s a suspect, Olivia.’

His daughter frowned. ‘Whatever.’

Chris opened his mouth to chastise her, but he held his tongue. He reminded himself that she was young. Sixteen-year-olds could do adult things; they could smoke, drink, have sex, and even kill. It didn’t matter. She was still a kid, who didn’t realize that the rules of the game had changed, who didn’t grasp that her whole life was hanging in the balance.

‘It’s time for the hearing,’ he told her. ‘Let’s get you out of here.’

*

After a hearing lasting no more than three minutes, the judge ruled that Olivia would not be kept in secure detention, and he released her without conditions, pending the next stages in the criminal proceedings. Chris wasn’t surprised, because the presumption in any juvenile case, even murder, was to release the child. It was an easy victory, but going forward, the battle got much harder.

Outside the courtroom, while Olivia was in the bathroom, Michael Altman corralled Chris. The county attorney’s face was concerned. ‘I heard about the incidents at your motel and at your ex-wife’s house. The sheriff wants to talk to you about what happened.’

‘We didn’t see who did it.’

‘Maybe not, but I don’t want teenagers in either town thinking they can get away with these assaults without consequences.’

‘I understand.’ Chris added, ‘I assume you’re planning to file a motion for a certification hearing.’

The certification hearing would determine whether Olivia’s case would continue in juvenile court, or whether she would be tried as an adult, with adult punishments. Unfortunately, in a murder case, the presumption of the law worked against them. The only way to keep the proceedings in juvenile court was to mount an uphill argument that mitigating factors weighed in Olivia’s favor. Judges rarely agreed.

‘The hearing may be a moot point,’ Altman told him.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I plan to seek a grand jury indictment for first-degree murder. At that point, the certification is automatic.’

Chris felt as if he’d been punched in the chest. ‘First-degree murder? You can’t be serious.’

‘I am.’

‘Even if you believe Olivia pulled the trigger, you can’t possibly believe she intended to kill Ashlynn.’

Altman’s face was grave. ‘Talk to your daughter.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘It means this wasn’t just a depraved game played by a teenager without regard to the consequences. It was a deliberate revenge killing.’

‘Revenge for what? Kimberly’s death?’

Altman hesitated with his hand on the oak door of the courtroom. ‘I’m afraid it goes deeper than that, Mr. Hawk,’ he said.

Without waiting for Chris to reply, the county attorney turned and disappeared inside the courtroom.

Chris stood alone in the hallway, inhaling the musty smell of the old building. He remembered what the motel owner, Marco Piva, had told him when he first arrived in town. You will not be trusted. People will not tell you things you need to know. That was already true. He felt as if there were a back story playing out around him, and everyone else knew what it was.

Talk to your daughter.

Olivia emerged from behind the frosted window of the women’s bathroom. She wiped her mouth and rubbed her fingers on the denim of her jeans. She looked pale and fragile. Her chestnut hair hung straight down in long, dirty strands.

‘Are you okay?’ he asked.

‘I threw up.’

‘I’m sorry.’

His daughter slid down onto a bench and laid her head against the wall. He sat down next to her and slid an arm around her back, which was so skinny he could feel her bones. The sweet, sickly smell of vomit clung to her. She folded herself into his shoulder the way she used to do as a child. Her eyes were vacant as she stared at the ceiling. They sat next to each other in silence, as if there were nothing to do but wait for a flood to carry them away.

First-degree murder.

The courtroom door opened again, and two people slipped through the doorway. Their footsteps on the hardwood floor sounded hollow under the high ceiling. Chris recognized them. He tensed, expecting a confrontation that he didn’t want at all. Not now.

It was Florian Steele. The CEO of Mondamin Research was accompanied by his wife, Julia.

Chris knew Florian. They weren’t friends, but they were both alumni from the University of Minnesota Law School, two years apart. They’d served together on the editorial board of the Law Review. He hadn’t spoken to him in fifteen years. He remembered Florian as a law student whose interest was corporate law: public and private offerings, securities, and mergers and acquisitions. Even then, Florian was all business, which made him a rarity. Most law students were either idealists, like Chris, who figured law was a way to change the world, or they were litigators who thought they would spend their careers in court. Florian saw law as a means to an end. Start a business. Acquire capital. Grow. Make money. Sell.