Brian Freeman - Spilled Blood

‘The police found beer bottles. Were you drinking?’

‘Yeah, Tanya snuck some Miller Lite out of her dad’s house.’

‘How much?’’

‘A six-pack.’

‘Did you finish it?’

‘Yeah. I had four. Tanya had two. I was pretty buzzed. I don’t do it a lot, but I was really upset.’

‘I understand.’

‘Ashlynn showed up around midnight. We hid when we heard another car, because if it’s Barron boys, you don’t want to be around, you know?’ A hardness came over her face. ‘But it was her. That blond bitch.’

Chris stopped writing and put down his pen. ‘Olivia, listen to me. Ashlynn is dead. She was a teenager like you, with people who loved her. She had her whole life ahead of her, and someone stole it away. It diminishes you to talk about her that way.’

Olivia looked upset with herself. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m sorry.’

‘What was it about Ashlynn? Why did you hate her?’

She pulled a messy strand of her chestnut hair through her lips. ‘Mondamin,’ she said. ‘What else? St. Croix is dying, and no one will do anything.’

‘Mondamin is run by her father. Why did you blame Ashlynn for that?’

‘She was there.’

‘Is that all it was?’

‘Look, Dad, I’m not proud of it. I was drunk. I was stupid. I just wanted to scare her.’

He waited for her to say more, but she looked down and fiddled with the buttons on her shirt. He could feel her withdrawing. There was a disconnect between what she said and what he could see in her face. For the first time, he felt as if she were hiding something from him.

Lying.

‘They tell me you had a gun,’ he said, changing the subject.

She nodded. ‘Yeah.’

‘Where did you get it?’

‘One of the boys in St. Croix gave it to me. I’ve had it for months.’

‘Why?’

Olivia gave him an exasperated look. ‘You don’t know what it’s like around here, Dad. I mean, yeah, the kids in St. Croix did some stupid things, but the Barron boys ratcheted up the violence. They started to treat the feud like it’s a gang war. I wanted protection.’

‘Have you ever fired the gun?’ he asked.

‘A couple of times out in a field.’

‘Did you fire it on Friday?’

She bit her lip and nodded unhappily. ‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know. I was showing off. I fired into the tree.’

‘The police say you put a bullet in the gun in order to play Russian roulette with Ashlynn. You were terrorizing her.’

‘I guess so. It all happened fast. I was yelling at Ashlynn, and I fired, and yeah, I started messing around like in Russian roulette. Tanya freaked and ran.’

‘What did you do next? After you and Ashlynn were alone?’

‘ Nothing. I swear.’

‘Did you point the gun at her head?’

‘Yeah, I did, but—’

‘Did you pull the trigger?’

‘ No. ’

‘Did you play the game, Olivia? Did the gun go off?’

‘I didn’t pull the trigger,’ she insisted, her voice rising. ‘I didn’t.’

Chris let his daughter sit in silence, her chest rising and falling. He scribbled notes on his yellow pad, but he was really thinking about Olivia on a witness stand and how her story would survive on cross-examination.

Answer: Not well.

‘Okay,’ he asked softly, ‘what did you do next?’

‘I dropped the gun. I left. I was really upset with myself. I couldn’t believe what I was doing. I just left.’

‘You didn’t take the gun with you?’

‘No, I never wanted to touch a gun ever again. I mean, I almost did it, Dad. I was this close. That was too scary.’

‘What about Ashlynn? What did she do?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Did you talk to her?’

‘No, we didn’t talk to each other. I left her there. That was it.’

Chris watched the darting motions of her eyes. She was lying to him again. There was something more going on, something that Olivia was determined to hide. If it came to that, a jury was likely to think she was hiding the fact that she had fired the revolver.

‘Okay,’ he said.

He deposited his yellow pad in his briefcase and closed it. Olivia stared at him with a nervous half-smile, and he knew what anyone in the world would think, studying her expression.

She looked guilty.

‘So what now?’ she asked.

‘There’s a detention hearing in the morning, and I expect you’ll be released. I’m going to talk to the county attorney about the investigation and the charges. They’re moving fast. We need to slow them down.’

‘I didn’t pull the trigger, Dad,’ she repeated. ‘I didn’t kill her.’

‘You said that already. I know you didn’t.’ He thought of a question he hadn’t asked. An important one. ‘Do you know who did kill Ashlynn? Do you know what happened to her?’

‘I left, Dad. When I left, she was alive.’

‘That’s not what I asked you.’

His daughter met his eyes, and he wished he could believe whatever she said. ‘No, I don’t know what happened.’

‘Okay.’ Chris got up and kissed her on the head. ‘Take care, and don’t be scared. I’ll be back in the morning.’

He turned to flag the guard, but Olivia stopped him by grabbing his sleeve. ‘Have you seen Mom yet?’

‘Not yet. I’ll stop over there tonight.’

‘There’s something you should know,’ she said.

‘What?’

Olivia hesitated. ‘I told her she should tell you, but she didn’t.’

‘Tell me what?’

‘Mom’s got it.’

He stared at her, and he didn’t understand. Or maybe the truth was that he simply didn’t want to understand. He stood in frozen silence, as if he could postpone for ever the next words out of his daughter’s mouth. She felt it, too, and she kept his arm tightly in her grip.

‘Mom’s got cancer,’ she said.

3

‘Mr. Hawk?’

Chris heard someone calling his name, but the voice wasn’t enough to rouse him. He sat on a wooden bench on the first floor of the courthouse near the outside door. The tapping of rain had a hypnotic quality, and it lulled him out of reality. He thought about his ex-wife. Hannah, the ferocious athlete, a runner, a tennis player. Hannah, obsessed with organics and gluten-free foods. Hannah, whisper-thin, all muscle, healthy, passionate.

Hannah did not have cancer. That was not possible.

‘Mr. Hawk?’ the voice repeated.

He dragged himself back into the present. An older man in a black trench coat stood in front of the bench. Water dripped from the fringes of his coat onto the oak floor. The man wore a gray fedora, which he removed to smooth his thinning silver hair. He wore rain-speckled heavy black glasses. He had a beard trimmed so neatly that he must have used tweezers to keep the lines precise. He was short, no more than five feet seven.

‘I’m sorry,’ Chris told him. ‘Yes, I’m Christopher Hawk.’

‘Michael Altman. I’m the county attorney for Spirit County. I believe you wanted to speak to me.’

‘Mr. Altman, yes, I do. It’s about Olivia.’

‘Of course. My office is upstairs. Shall we talk there?’

Chris trailed behind Altman, who was a compact, efficient engine. The county attorney was easily sixty years old, but he marched up the courthouse steps like a soldier, without losing a breath. On the second floor, he guided Chris to an office on the south corner of the building and closed the door when they were both inside. The office looked out toward the river.

Altman removed his trench coat and hung it on a hook behind the door. He wore a solid navy suit, not expensive but perfectly pressed, with a starched white dress shirt and paisley tie. His dress shoes weren’t new, but they had a shiny polish. The county attorney pointed to the chair in front of the desk, and Chris sat down. The older man slid a handkerchief from his pocket, which he used to dry his wet glasses. He repositioned them on his face, then sat and checked his watch and folded his hands together. His desk was empty of clutter.