Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘Then explain it to me.’

The girl scrambled off the bed and knit her hands together in front of her chin. ‘I sat next to Ashlynn in a religious studies class. We’d talk sometimes. She wasn’t what I expected.’

‘How so?’

‘I thought she’d be stuck up, but she wasn’t. She was actually pretty lonely like me. She’d stopped hanging out with the Barron gang, and the St. Croix kids all hated her. I think she figured it was safe to talk to me, because no one from Barron wanted me around, because of the lawsuit. We got to know each other, but she said I shouldn’t tell anyone we were friends. Especially Olivia. I thought it was because Olivia was so anti-Mondamin, but now I guess it was because of Johan, too.’

Chris waited. He was afraid if he said anything wrong, the girl would shut up, and he badly wanted to hear what she had to say.

‘A few months ago, she pulled me aside after class, when all of the other kids were gone,’ Tanya went on. ‘She was acting weird. She wanted to make sure no one saw us.’

She stopped and chewed her fingernail. She went to the doorway and looked outside, and then she closed the door. The room got darker, and the blasting heat grew oppressive. Chris expected her to talk, but she remained frozen in silence.

‘What did she want?’ he asked her quietly.

‘She wanted to get a message to my dad,’ Tanya told him. Her soft voice was hard to hear above the noisy fan.

‘What was the message?’

‘She was willing to – to steal stuff.’

‘Stuff?’

‘Papers from her father’s office. Mondamin documents. She wanted to help us prove that the company had been concealing things during the lawsuit.’

Vernon Clay.

‘Did you give your dad the message?’

Tanya bit her lip and nodded. ‘Yes, he said if Ashlynn really believed there was something illegal going on at Mondamin, she should go to the county attorney. Michael Altman.’

Chris swore under his breath. He didn’t like the possibility of a secret relationship between Altman and Ashlynn. He wondered what the county attorney would have done if Florian Steele’s daughter arrived in his office with information against her father’s company. Altman had already told him: I knew that girl well.

‘Did she talk to Altman?’ he asked her.

‘I don’t know. Ashlynn never mentioned it again. Not until the day before she died.’

‘She called you on Thursday night,’ Chris said. ‘The phone call wasn’t about homework, was it?’

Tanya shook her head. ‘She said she had evidence now. She said Mondamin chemicals killed those people in St. Croix, and her father covered the whole thing up. She said she could prove it.’

36

Rollie Swenson’s black hair sprouted wings as he mussed it in frustration. He slammed his office door and whirled around on Chris. ‘I told you that I didn’t want you talking to my daughter without my permission.’

Chris sat in front of Rollie’s desk. ‘I’m sorry, but Tanya came to me. She wanted to talk.’

‘She’s sixteen .’

‘I don’t care how old she is. I’m not the police. If a witness comes to me with information, I’m going to listen to her.’

One of the flaps of Rollie’s yellow shirt had come untucked, and it dangled over the bulge of his stomach. He sat down behind his desk and grabbed an oversized cup that had a straw squeezed through the hole. He sucked up a mouthful of pop. When he was done, he slammed it down, and Coke spewed upward through the straw and onto his desk. He let it drip onto the floor.

‘You’re going to get her killed,’ Rollie told him. ‘I am trying to protect her.’

‘I’m just asking questions.’

‘Don’t play games with me, Chris. I know you’re doing everything you can to save your own daughter, but I thought you’d respect me when I told you to stay away from Tanya. Instead, you took advantage of her.’

‘You lied to me, Rollie,’ Chris snapped. ‘Don’t talk about respect unless you’re prepared to be honest with me first.’

‘Okay. Fine. I lied. You’d lie, too, if you were in my shoes.’

Chris stood up. ‘I’m done here. You can talk to Michael Altman and the sheriff about all of this.’

He yanked open Rollie’s door, but before he could leave, Rollie bounced off his chair and intercepted him. The younger attorney pushed the door closed again. ‘Don’t get them involved in this. Not yet.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I don’t know who to trust.’

Chris pointed at the empty chair. ‘Start over, Rollie.’

Rollie’s chin, which looked perpetually unshaved, was especially dark. There were circles under his eyes, and the caffeine wasn’t helping to revive him. They both sat down again.

‘Tanya told me that Ashlynn offered to get inside information about Mondamin,’ Chris said. ‘Did you meet with her?’

Rollie’s fists gripped the arms of his chair. ‘Sure, I did.’

‘When was this?’

‘Sometime last fall. November, I think.’

‘What did she tell you?’

Rollie shook his head. ‘Nothing we didn’t already know.’

‘Meaning what?’

‘Ashlynn suspected that her father was involved in a cover-up, but she didn’t have any actual evidence.’

‘Did she mention Vernon Clay?’ Chris asked.

Rollie’s eyebrows went up. ‘Yes, she did. How did you make that connection?’

‘A contact at Mondamin. Someone else that Ashlynn reached out to.’

‘Well, you know we were trying to find him. We thought he might be our smoking gun.’

‘What did Ashlynn know about him?’

‘That’s the trouble. She didn’t have any new information. She didn’t know where he was or how we could reach him. She didn’t have any details about what he might have done while he was at Mondamin. All she had was the same speculation that we had years ago. It was a dead end.’

‘So what was Ashlynn proposing?’ he asked.

Rollie took another slug of Coke and wiped his face, which had a dew of sweat. ‘She told me she could hack into Florian’s computer at home and copy his paper files. She thought she could do it at his office, too, without him finding out.’

‘What did you tell her?’

The younger attorney scowled. ‘What the hell do you think I told her? I said no. She was offering to violate civil and criminal statutes by stealing private company documents. If I’d encouraged her, I would have been disbarred, sued, and dumped in jail. I told her that if she had any specific information regarding a crime, which she didn’t, she should take it to Michael Altman, not me.’

‘How did Ashlynn react when you said no?’

‘She said she’d do it on her own. I tried to dissuade her. I told her not to go behind her father’s back or break the law by taking anything that didn’t belong to her. I also told her the truth, which is that we lost the litigation fair and square. A judge dismissed it. The scientific issues involving Mondamin and St. Croix – including Vernon Clay – were examined in detail by an outside expert who found no link between the cancer cluster and the actions of the company.’

‘Did you convince Ashlynn to stay out of it?’

‘I thought I did.’

‘Did she contact you again?’

‘Not until she called Tanya on Thursday night.’

‘What did she say when she called?’

‘You already know. Ashlynn claimed to have evidence against her father now. She didn’t say what it was.’

‘Did you talk to her yourself?’

‘No, Tanya did.’

‘Did she tell Tanya anything else?’

‘No. I don’t know what kind of proof she supposedly had.’

Chris leaned forward with his elbows on the desk and stared into Rollie’s tired eyes. ‘Why the hell didn’t you tell the police about this when Ashlynn’s body was found? Why didn’t you tell me?’