Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘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.’

‘It’s already bad.’ He added, ‘Where were you on Friday night?’

‘There was a big plumbing problem in one of the motel rooms. Water everywhere. I was helping Marco until after midnight. He finally called a plumber. They didn’t need me sticking around, so I left.’

‘You went home?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Did Olivia come to see you?’

Johan nodded reluctantly. ‘Yeah, she did.’

‘When?’

‘Late. After one. She came to my window.’

‘What did she tell you?’

‘She told me what happened in the ghost town. About finding Ashlynn there. About – the gun. She said Ashlynn told her that we had broken up, and she wanted to know why I hadn’t said anything. She wanted to get back together.’

‘What did you say?’ Chris asked.

‘It didn’t go well. I was furious with Olivia for treating Ashlynn like that. I couldn’t believe she left her stranded there. Olivia got upset, and she stormed off.’

‘What did you do?’ Chris asked, but there was only one thing that a boy like Johan would do. He went out there. He went to rescue Ashlynn.

‘I drove to the ghost town,’ he said.

Chris waited.

‘She was dead,’ Johan murmured, his face contorting in pain as heavy breaths squeezed his chest. ‘All I could think was: Olivia killed her. She left her there in the mud for me to find. I hated her for it. I didn’t know what to do.’

‘What time was this?’ Chris asked, dodging the boy’s emotions.

‘Between one-thirty and two, I guess.’

‘Did you see anyone else around?’

‘No.’

‘Did you touch anything on the scene? Did you move the body? Did you touch her car?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’

‘What did you do?’

‘I left.’ He added, ‘As bad as it was, I didn’t want to tell anyone, Mr. Hawk. I didn’t want to do that to Olivia. I’d already hurt her enough. I couldn’t believe she would do something so horrible, but I was willing to keep it a secret. I still am. I won’t tell a soul.’

‘It’s too late for that,’ Chris said.

He didn’t tell Johan the truth, because the truth was cruel. Keeping silent until now was the best thing the boy could have done to help Olivia. Keeping silent was what guilty people did. Lying to the police was what guilty people did. When Johan told his story now, he established for the whole world that there was someone else who had been in the park with Ashlynn after Olivia. Someone who knew her, who had been involved with her, whose heart she had broken. Someone of deep faith whose child she had terminated in her womb. Someone who hadn’t been tested for gunshot residue that night.

Another suspect.

Johan.

17

Chris was drowning.

He felt himself carried on the shoulders of turbulent waters in his dream, surrounded by debris, caught in an undertow that sucked him down like a whirlpool. Each time he broke through the surface, gasping for breath, he spun in circles. He wasn’t alone. Hannah was with him in the water, reaching for him with her hand in the gesture that had always said I love you . They were sinking together, dragged down by the sheer muscle of the rapids. The river carried them toward a bridge, where Chris flailed for the steel I-beam over his head like a lifeline. He held on, and Hannah held onto him, but the water wrenched his fingers away and washed them downstream. As the bridge vanished behind them, he saw the silhouette of a man on the span, watching the flood overpower them. His voice boomed like the voice of God.

‘ My name is Aquarius. ’

Chris bolted upright in the motel bed. He checked the clock on the nightstand and saw that he had slept for two hours. It was nearly ten in the morning. Sunshine streamed through a crack in the curtains, and dust floated in the light. He blinked, shaking off his dream. He got up and turned on the shower, and the hot water revived him. When he was dressed, he stepped outside into the motel parking lot and found a beautiful day. The rain and clouds had moved east. The temperature was still unseasonably warm. It made the previous night seem almost unreal.

He stopped at the office to pour a cup of weak coffee from a silver Thermos and grab a powdered donut from an open Little Debbie’s box. That was Marco’s idea of a continental breakfast. He ate two donuts and wiped the white sugar from his mouth. He spotted the local newspaper on the motel counter, and he picked it up to read the Barron headlines. To his dismay, he and Olivia were on the front page. A reporter had snapped their photo coming out of the courthouse after the detention hearing. They both looked wet and guilty. In contrast, Ashlynn Steele’s yearbook picture, which the paper printed next to the courthouse photo, was perfect and pretty. The accompanying article speculated on the likelihood that Olivia would be tried as an adult for Ashlynn’s murder. It was more poison for the jury pool.

Michael Altman was on the front page too, but he was talking about a different investigation. The county attorney offered details of a recent arrest in the Twin Cities suburb of Hugo, in which a police search related to embezzlement by a city worker had unearthed a trove of child pornography. The stash included a flash drive of videos mailed with a postmark from the Minnesota town of Ortonville, which was an hour northwest of Barron. Altman sought the public’s help in identifying those involved in trafficking child porn in Spirit County.