Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘Do you believe that’s true?’ Chris asked.

The minister stared blankly at the paintings on the hospital wall. ‘I lost my little girl, Chris. I had to watch Kimberly suffer. I couldn’t blame God, so I blamed Florian and Mondamin. They were responsible. They were guilty.’

‘And now?’

‘Now I’ve run out of blame. I shouldn’t have questioned God’s will.’

‘Are you saying you no longer believe there was a connection between Mondamin and the deaths in St. Croix?’

‘I’m no expert in science, but I know what the experts told us. The people at the county and state said they had no basis to run tests, given the size of the cluster. We didn’t listen. A Stanford scientist studied everything during the litigation, and she told the judge there was no connection. Still we didn’t listen. Who am I to say they were wrong and we were right? It’s over, it’s done. I’ve let it go.’

‘Ashlynn didn’t.’

‘She was a young, idealistic girl. She wanted an explanation. God isn’t in that business.’

‘What about Vernon Clay?’ Chris asked. ‘Did you and Ashlynn talk about him?’

He nodded. ‘Yes, we did. Remember, Vernon was our principal suspect. Ashlynn fixated on Vernon when I talked about him.’

‘Did she know anything about his work that would have connected him to the deaths in St. Croix?’

‘Not that she ever told me. Why?’

‘She was still talking about him only days before her death. She seemed to blame him for what happened to her baby.’

Magnus ran a big hand through his hair, leaving it a mess of cowlicks. ‘I never should have put the idea in her head.’

‘Did you know Vernon Clay?’ Chris asked.

‘Of course. He worked at Mondamin in the early days, and he lived near St. Croix. He came to our church, but he didn’t really interact with the other parishioners. He was a loner. My wife was the only one who ever got close to him. She had a weakness for vulnerable adults.’

‘Vulnerable adults? What does that mean?’

‘Vernon was extraordinarily intelligent, but he was largely unable to function among other people. Clinically, I’d say he was borderline schizophrenic. He spouted conspiracy theories all the time, truly crazy ideas. He was deeply paranoid, always convinced that people were scheming to steal his research. And yet his mind was wired for science. He had a gift. There are more people like that than you’d believe – people who work and make a living but who are barely competent on other levels.’

‘But your wife got through to him?’

Magnus smiled. ‘Leah was persistent. She’d bring him meals, talk to him, sit by him in church. Really, she became his social lifeline. I think she was the one thread connecting him to the real world. She was probably the only person who took an interest in him for something other than his work.’

‘You said you lost your wife almost ten years ago,’ Chris said. ‘How did that happen?’

‘It was a brain aneurysm. The doctors said she’d probably carried it all her life. One morning, she simply never woke up.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘It was painless, and she was gone in an instant. If God was going to take her, at least he did so quickly. It was merciful, compared with what happened to Kimberly.’

‘How did Vernon Clay react to losing his social lifeline?’ Chris asked.

Magnus shook his head. ‘Oh, it was very sad. He withdrew even further inside himself. His delusions became much worse. He blamed everyone in town for Leah’s death. He showed up in church one day and ranted about our being murderers and the Devil coming for us and even about the Mafia and the CIA, as I recall. That was the last time he set foot in St. Croix.’

‘I can’t believe Florian kept him on at Mondamin.’

‘Well, I told you, he was perfectly functional when he put on his lab coat. From what I heard, Vernon was as much a genius as ever in his own world. If anything, he was even more obsessive about it. He worked seven days a week. I think he mostly went home to sleep, and then he went back to his lab. That was the only place he felt comfortable.’

‘What happened to him?’

‘I have no idea. About four years ago, he disappeared. Honestly, he could have been gone longer, and I’m not sure anyone outside Mondamin would have realized it. We only found out he was gone when his house burned down.’

‘Was that an accident?’ Chris asked.

‘No, it was arson. Whoever did it was never caught. Most people suspected local kids.’ Magnus frowned.

‘You sound like you don’t believe it.’

‘Well, that was when the rumors started. We were in the midst of the cancer diagnoses among the children when Vernon vanished. Some people thought Florian arranged for the house to be burned to erase evidence.’

‘Evidence of what?’

‘Evidence that Vernon had been poisoning us for years. There were those who suspected he had a delusional vendetta against us going back to my wife’s death. Others said that Vernon had taken to writing his formulae on the walls of his house, and so Florian had to destroy the house to secure any trade secrets. Believe what you want.’

‘What about the dead land?’

‘Same rumors. People suspected that Vernon had been testing experimental pesticides on the fields around his house. They said Florian wanted to erase all evidence of what had been used. Maybe it was to protect company secrets. Maybe it was toxic. When we filed the lawsuit, we were desperate to believe almost anything.’

‘You tried to find him.’

‘Yes, without success. Vernon never re-entered the scientific community. He became our mystery man.’ He added, ‘I’m not sure where you’re going with all of this, Chris.’

‘It’s the timing that bothers me. All of this coming up just before Ashlynn was killed. Hannah and I wondered if she could have discovered something about Vernon that everyone else missed. Something that became a motive for her murder.’

‘What do you think, that she found out where he was hiding? That he came back here and killed her? I realize you’re trying to help Olivia, but I don’t think anyone is going to believe that.’

Chris nodded. Magnus was right. He knew he was chasing ghosts, and he didn’t know whether to believe in them. ‘I admit, it may be nothing at all. So far, I can’t connect the dots.’

‘I suppose that leaves you back where you started,’ the minister said. ‘In other words, you’re back to Johan. If Olivia is innocent, my son must be guilty.’

‘I didn’t say that.’

‘You didn’t have to, Chris, but you’re wrong.’

He realized that he and Glenn Magnus were divided by irreconcilable faiths in their children. He also knew what the minister was really thinking. ‘You’re convinced that Olivia killed her, aren’t you? That’s what you’ve believed all along.’

‘I hope that’s not true. Truly, I do. I only know that Johan didn’t kill her.’

‘He went to the ghost town,’ Chris reminded him. ‘Her blood is on his clothes. You can’t run away from that, Glenn.’

‘Olivia was there, too, and she had the gun in her hand. She was pointing it at Ashlynn’s head. I’m sorry, Chris. Can you really not accept the possibility that she made a youthful, impulsive mistake? That she pulled the trigger and can’t bear to admit it?’

The minister’s voice was calm, and his composure was infuriating because everything he said was logical. Chris was alone in defending Olivia. Everyone else assumed she was guilty. Even Hannah had doubts. He was the outlier who couldn’t face the truth.

He also heard another undercurrent in what Magnus was saying. The minister knew Olivia better than he did. Olivia had grown up without him. He’d been missing in action, far away from the turmoil of her life. Did he really know whether his daughter was capable of murder?