Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘Okay.’

They marched side by side. The drizzle flattened their hair and gave a sheen to their skin when they passed near house lights. The sidewalks glistened with pools of standing water.

‘I told Olivia to stay in the house, but she didn’t listen,’ Chris said.

‘Teenagers rarely listen.’

‘Are she and Johan good friends?’

Magnus was slow to reply. ‘They were extremely close, but not anymore. They comforted each other after Kimberly died, but I’m afraid they won’t have anything to do with each other now.’

‘Why? Because of the feud?’

‘In part. Johan knows violence won’t bring Kimberly back. Olivia hung on to the hatred. She’s not alone. It’s a disease around here.’ Magnus stopped and put a hand on Chris’s shoulder. ‘Hannah persuaded me that we owed it to the children to find out what really happened. We tried, and we failed. Honestly, if I’d known what would happen in the aftermath, I would have stopped the lawsuit before it started. The price is too high.’

They continued walking. Where the town ended at the river, they plunged into the trees at the river bank. Even with the flashlight illuminating the ground, Chris found it nearly impossible to see, but Magnus walked with confidence, leading them toward the trail by the water. The minister was a tall silhouette. All Chris heard was the man’s voice, which was deep but gentle.

‘It must be hard,’ Magnus said, ‘coming back into Hannah and Olivia’s lives this way.’

‘I don’t think Hannah wanted me to come at all,’ Chris said.

‘No, she’s relieved. She told me so. She probably found it hard to ask, but she’s glad you came.’

‘She keeps me at a distance. She didn’t even tell me about the cancer. I had to find out about it from Olivia.’

‘I imagine she was more afraid of telling you than anyone else.’

‘Why?’

The minister considered his reply. Everyone around here made calculations before they spoke. The flashlight filled his face with shadows, which made him look sorrowful.

‘You wouldn’t know this, but I lost my own wife nine years ago,’ Magnus told him. ‘It was very sudden. I’ve been alone since then. When Hannah moved to town, the two of us clicked. To be honest, I fell in love with her.’

Chris didn’t want to be having this conversation. ‘I could tell you two were close.’

‘Close, yes. Dear friends, yes. Romantic, no. That door was firmly closed, with a No Trespassing sign hung outside. The sign has your picture on it, Chris.’

‘What are you saying? That she closed herself off emotionally because of the divorce?’

The minister shook his head. ‘I’m not saying anything. That’s for you and Hannah to talk about, not me.’

Magnus turned back to the trail. He circled the area with the flashlight, catching the brown water of the river and the winter brush in its glow. They were still alone.

‘If Olivia and Johan don’t talk to each other anymore,’ Chris asked, ‘why would she sneak out of her room to meet him as soon as she got home?’

Magnus hesitated. ‘I couldn’t say.’

‘It must have something to do with Ashlynn.’

‘When we find them, we’ll ask them.’

Chris could hear in the minister’s voice that he was hiding something. ‘I’m getting tired of people in this town keeping the truth from me, Glenn.’

‘I can’t divulge anything,’ he replied. ‘You know that. I’m bound by the same ethics that bind you.’

Chris let the man walk away, and then he called after him. It was a shot in the dark. ‘Did you know about Ashlynn’s abortion?’

Magnus stopped. The news hit him like a physical blow. His knees sagged, as if he were thunderstruck. ‘Abortion?’

‘Ashlynn went to Nebraska to get an abortion. Hannah told me. That’s where she’d been when she was driving home on Friday.’

‘Oh, dear Lord, that poor girl.’

‘Did you know?’

‘No.’

‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

‘I didn’t. I had no idea.’

‘Talk to me, Glenn. Were Johan and Ashlynn involved? Is that what you’re not telling me?’

Magnus was silent, but Chris knew what his silence meant. Yes.

A secret affair. Johan and Ashlynn. A St. Croix boy and a Barron girl, like Romeo and Juliet caught between warring clans. It was a dangerous place for both of them to be.

‘How does Olivia fit into this?’ he asked.

‘Chris, please—’

‘Is Olivia protecting Johan? Why?’

‘You need to talk to them, not me. There’s nothing I can say.’

Chris thought about Tanya, who had said there was something else going on between Ashlynn and Olivia. Not just the feud. Something personal.

Johan.

Standing on the river trail with Glenn Magnus, Chris heard the crash of breaking branches in the trees. The minister swung the flashlight in front of them. He expected to see Olivia on her secret route home, but his relief evaporated as the beam illuminated a face out of a Halloween nightmare.

It was Johan, pale and beaten. The boy held himself up by clinging to the tree trunks on either side of the trail. One eye was swollen shut. Twin trails of blood streaked from his nose.

‘Johan, oh my God,’ Magnus called. He ran to his son, who staggered forward into his arms. His knees sank down to the mud.

Chris was already dialing 911 when Johan spoke through fat lips: ‘Olivia.’

‘What about her?’ Chris asked urgently. He could hardly breathe. ‘Where is Olivia? Tell me.’

‘They have her,’ he whispered.

‘Who?’

‘Barron boys.’

14

Lenny Watson slid down onto the wet ground in the dilapidated shell of an old Milwaukee Road railway car. Water dripped through the rusted holes in the steel roof and landed in splatters around him. The dirt of the railroad bone yard was littered with twisted sheet metal. He had a book of matches in his hand, and he lit one, letting it burn down, watching the painted graffiti dance on the walls inside the train car. When the flame grew hot on his fingers, he tossed the match into the mud, where it fizzled with a gray trail of smoke.

He touched his face and winced. The deep cut stung where Olivia had scratched him. It oozed blood again as he felt it. His fingers came away sticky, and he sucked them clean like a vampire. He was bare-chested and cold in the darkness. He hugged his knees to keep them from trembling.

Awful noises assaulted his ears as the boys dragged Olivia toward the abandoned freight car that sat on dead-end tracks thirty yards away. He’d been inside many times with Kirk. It was windowless and pitch-black. There was nothing but a square hole on one end where you squeezed your body in and out. When they’d explored it for the first time last summer, there had been a homeless man living there among the rats and roaches. Kirk had beaten the shit out of him, and he never came back.

Olivia couldn’t scream; they’d gagged her. Her cries escaped from her throat in wild, muffled lilts of rage and panic. He thought about shouting. Or singing. La la la la la la la la. Anything so he couldn’t hear her.

A huge shadow loomed near him, and he heard breathing. He lit another match, and Kirk’s dirty, rain-slick skin flickered in the light. The bent triangles of steel on the corroded end of the train car shell looked like teeth in a shark’s mouth, ready to bite his brother in half. ‘Last chance, Leno,’ Kirk said.

‘No.’

‘I told the others you wanted her first. You’re making me look bad.’

‘I can’t.’

Kirk spat in a puddle. ‘What, are you scared?’

‘I just don’t want to.’

‘You’re a pussy, Leno. Sit here and jerk off for all I care.’