Spilled Blood

4

Chris had last visited the town of St. Croix four years earlier, when Hannah’s mother passed away at the age of seventy-two. He thought of it as a place where kids were born, grew up, moved away, and never came back. The old-timers were the only people who stayed, living out long lives among the harsh Minnesota seasons and eventually emptying the town one by one. As the years passed, the population of the church cemetery outpaced the houses and farms.

They were dying faster in St. Croix now. Faster and younger.

He drove south on the highway out of Barron, tracking the banks of the Spirit River. Five miles later, the road turned east and followed a narrow stream for several more miles before heading south again toward Iowa. It was easy to miss St. Croix along the highway. Several miles from the split at the river, the speed limit dropped to thirty miles an hour, and he turned left into the tic-tac-toe grid of town streets. He could see the white bell tower of the Lutheran church jutting above the roofs of the houses. The wide blocks were empty. It was dusk, and the four hundred residents of St. Croix were saying grace and eating dinner.

His ex-wife’s maiden name was Grohman. Hannah Grohman, daughter of Josephine and Cornelius Grohman. She’d kept the name Hawk after the divorce, because she said it fit her personality better. That was true. Hannah had keen eyes for trouble, and she dove into situations without fear and with wicked strength. To her neighbors, though, she was Hannah Grohman, living in the house where she’d been born. She was a hero in St. Croix, because she had returned home after years away. She’d rejected the city and gone back to the country. She’d brought her daughter with her. No one did that.

Chris parked outside the Grohman home at an intersection immediately across the street from the church. He saw lights inside the two-story house and caught a glimpse of someone moving behind the curtains. He recognized her silhouette, and his heart seized. It was too early to go inside. Too early to see her.

He got out of the car and took big strides into the middle of the lawn, which was muddy from rain. Lots were large here; there was plenty of space. Trees were spread far apart, casting large pools of shade and leaving other patches for sunshine. The house itself had white wooden siding and a sprawling front porch, furnished with four Adirondack chairs. The black roof had a sharp angle above the second-floor windows. The house had stood in this place for nearly a century.

The winding branch of the Spirit River flowed immediately behind the house, so close that Olivia probably could have jumped to the water from the window in her upstairs bedroom. It felt like a river out of Huckleberry Finn, with evergreen trees leaning over the sides of the bank and dipping their branches in the lazy current. With no leaves on the trees yet, he could see the brown water shouldering toward a gray metal railway bridge two hundred yards away. On the other side of the stream, dormant tracts of corn fields awaited the spring thaw.

Chris stood alone on the bank, motionless, watching the quiet town of St. Croix as night fell. Above the moldy dankness of the water, he smelled the aromas from town kitchens. Roast chicken. Cookies. Two dozen types of hot dish. A few people had left up their holiday lights to blink in white rows on the roof lines. Eventually, he heard chimes in the bell tower of the church. It was eight o’clock. When the bells tolled for the eighth time and went quiet, silence fell over the town like a shroud. He didn’t see a soul.

This was what Hannah had left him for. This lonely scene stripped from a Christmas card.

He knew he was being unfair. A fifteen-year marriage didn’t end in a heartbeat, and it didn’t end without both of them forgetting to care for it. Back then, he’d felt blindsided when his amazing, beautiful wife had turned her back on him and taken away his daughter. He’d worked for years to make a life for the three of them, to keep them safe in a world that offered little security. He’d assumed that was what she wanted, and instead she’d said: I can’t be that woman anymore.

That woman. His wife.

It began with the death of Hannah’s mother. Josephine Grohman, iron-willed like her daughter, had founded the Grohman Women’s Resource Center in Barron to address what she called an appalling inattention to the health and social service needs of rural women. She’d spent decades as a lightning rod for controversy, and her death had left a gaping void in the politics of southwestern Minnesota. During her slow decline, she’d made it clear that she wanted Hannah to fill that void. To come home and continue her legacy.

Chris had never believed his wife would go; she would never leave him. He was wrong. She’d been silent for a year as she wrestled with her destiny, but then she came out of the shower, crying, took his hands, and told him she was going home. Just like that. It took him a long time to give up his bitterness. It took him two years to realize that the end of their marriage hadn’t begun with Josephine’s death. It had begun much earlier, as they led a slow march away from each other and watched it happen like spectators, doing nothing to stop it.

Not her fault. Not his fault. Their fault.

He thought about what Olivia had told him at the jail. Mom’s got it. Cancer. The same disease that had claimed Josephine’s life. He was devastated at the news and hurt that she had insisted on going through this alone, as if she assumed he couldn’t bear it. She was probably right. He stood there, invisible among the trees, trying to gather the courage to see her. Trying to find a way not to melt at the sight of her face.

Chris headed for the house, but he stopped when a rumbling truck engine interrupted the solitude of St. Croix. Not even a quarter-mile away, rubber squealed as a vehicle braked sharply and turned off the highway. He saw the twin beams of headlights, but as he watched, the headlights vanished. The pick-up truck was dark. It cruised through the criss-cross grid of streets, coming closer. It passed the church and came straight toward the intersection. He couldn’t see faces through the dark glass.

The truck slowed in front of Hannah’s house.

Then the shots began.

Chris threw himself to the wet ground as bursts of smoke and light flashed like bombs. Six loud bangs erupted in rapid succession. Glass shattered as at least one bullet smashed through a first-floor window, and he heard someone scream. He recognized the pitch of the voice. It was Hannah.

He pushed himself up and ran, shouting her name. Cheers and laughter floated from the pick-up. They were young voices – teenagers – but the voices cut off in startled silence as they heard him. The truck headlights flashed on, blinding and pinning him. He ducked, conscious that he was an easy target. The pick-up bolted in reverse, weaving as it retreated up the street. The headlights vanished, and the car screeched into a U-turn, speeding across one of the house lawns as it veered toward the highway. He heard the engine roar. The car accelerated, racing north.

Back toward Barron.

He ran for the steps of Hannah’s house and pounded on the door. He called her name again, but there was no answer. The house was quiet, and the silence fed his fear. Just as he was about to climb inside through the broken window, he saw the door slide open six inches. The pretty face of his ex-wife peered out at him.

‘Chris?’

‘They’re gone,’ he said.

Hannah switched on the porch light and opened the door wider. He wanted to embrace her, but she walked past him onto the front steps. He looked over his shoulder and saw that a dozen people had already assembled near the house; they had run from their own homes to help. She waved at the street.

‘I’m okay,’ she called. ‘Everything’s okay.’

Then to him: ‘Come on in, Chris.’ As if no time had passed.

He followed her inside. She put her hands on her hips, studying the broken glass on the dining-room floor. With a sigh, she disappeared into the small kitchen and came back with a hand-broom and dustpan. She got down on her knees and began methodically sweeping up the shards of glass. That was Hannah. No panic. No drama. Get it done.

‘We should call the police,’ he said.

Hannah stopped and looked at him. It was as if she’d realized for the first time that he was really here. They had not seen each other since she left Minneapolis and took Olivia across the state. Three years. Three years in which his only contact with the woman who had shared his life for nearly two decades was a handful of tense phone calls.

‘We should,’ she said, ‘but it won’t do any good.’

‘I couldn’t see their faces or identify the car. I’m sorry.’

‘It was Barron boys. It doesn’t really matter who.’

‘We should call the police anyway. They should have someone here to protect you.’

Hannah finished sweeping in silence. When she was done, she stood up with a weary smile and laid the dustpan on an antique table. ‘No one wants to protect us. They want us to go away. Or die.’

Chris heard a rapping at the front door. Hannah brushed past him, their arms touching, and opened the door. He saw a good-looking man on the porch, his own height, his own age. The man had unruly blond hair and a pale, chiseled face with a high forehead and a spattering of freckles. His blue eyes were filled with concern. He wore a white dress shirt and black slacks.

‘Hannah? Are you all right?’

His ex-wife put a hand on the visitor’s shoulder. ‘Oh, yes, just more of the same. It never stops.’

‘Would you like me to send Johan over when he gets back from the motel? He could stay the night if you’d like.’

‘I appreciate it, Glenn, but that’s not necessary.’

The two of them hugged. Chris felt an odd pang of jealousy, watching his ex-wife embrace this man, and watching his arms around her. They were obviously close. He wondered if it was anything more than that. Three years was a long time. It had foolishly never occurred to him that Hannah might be in a relationship. Olivia had never said a word.

The man detached himself awkwardly from Hannah as he noticed Chris. He reached a hand through the doorway. ‘I’m Glenn Magnus. I’m the minister at the church here in St. Croix.’

Hannah glanced between them in embarrassment. ‘I’m so sorry. Glenn, this is Christopher Hawk, my ex-husband.’

‘How is Olivia?’ the minister asked.

‘As well as can be expected,’ Chris said.

‘It’s good that she has both of you here.’

The minister was cordial and sincere, but Chris wanted the man to leave. He didn’t want the first moments of his reunion with Hannah to be marred by the presence of anyone else. Magnus obviously leaped to the same conclusion that he was a third wheel.

‘Well, I just wanted to make sure you weren’t hurt,’ he told Hannah.

‘Thank you.’

‘I’ll speak to you tomorrow,’ he said. With a smile at Chris, he added, ‘Please let me know if I can be of any help to you or Olivia.’

Chris said nothing, but he smiled back. Hannah closed the door. She turned around, leaned against it, and folded her arms over her small chest. She’d always been able to see through him, and nothing had changed.

‘I’m not sleeping with him,’ she said. ‘That’s what you were wondering, isn’t it?’

‘No,’ he lied.

‘Glenn is a dear friend,’ she went on. ‘We’ve been through a lot these past three years. Life and death.’

Without saying more, she retreated to the kitchen, where she dumped the broken glass into a wastebasket under the sink. She reached for two chipped mugs from a cabinet over the counter and poured coffee for both of them. He sat down at an old Formica table, and she joined him. For several minutes, they did nothing but sip coffee in silence. The small kitchen had fading floral wallpaper and 1980s appliances, but it was impeccably clean. The house smelled of lilac potpourri.

Hannah was small, around five feet two, and even thinner than he remembered. Thin, but not fragile; she still looked strong. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but her face was oval and perfect, like a cameo. Two crescent shadows underneath her vibrant brown eyes betrayed her fatigue. Even so, to him, she didn’t look older. Time hadn’t passed. Only her dark hair was different. It was shorter and lacked the highlights of cherry and gold that he’d always loved.

She watched her watching him. ‘It’s fake.’

‘What?’

‘The hair.’

Reality slapped him in the face. ‘Oh.’

‘I assume Olivia told you?’

‘Yes, she did.’

Hannah drank her coffee and looked away, as if seeing things in the room that weren’t there.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he asked.

She laughed quietly. ‘What could you do, Chris? Did you cure cancer since the last time I saw you?’

‘I could have provided support. I would have done anything to help.’

‘I know that. You’re a fixer. That’s who you are. But some things you can’t fix.’

‘Maybe not, but I wish I would have heard about it from you.’

‘Yes, you’re right,’ she acknowledged. ‘I should have told you, but I was scared. I don’t know why.’

His lips tightened into a thin line. ‘Tell me about it.’

‘It’s ovarian cancer,’ she said.

‘I’m so sorry.’

She held up a hand, stopping him. ‘No pity. Please.’

He searched for something to say. ‘What’s the treatment? What do the doctors say?’

‘I’m undergoing something called neoadjuvant chemotherapy. The idea is to reduce the size of the tumor before they operate. When that’s done, they’ll do the surgery.’

‘When?’

‘Next month.’

He ran his hand across his face. He was sweating. ‘What’s the prognosis?’

‘That depends on whether you believe me or the oncologist. I say my daughter still needs me. So do a lot of other women around here.’ She changed the subject, as if there were nothing more to discuss. ‘How is Olivia, really?’

‘She’s like you,’ he said. ‘Strong and stubborn.’

That elicited a smile. ‘What did she tell you?’

‘She says she didn’t do it. She didn’t shoot Ashlynn.’

‘Do you believe her?’

That was a good question. Did he believe her? Michael Altman was right that clients lied to lawyers and daughter lied to fathers. It was easier to do that than to admit you got drunk and threw away your whole life by putting a bullet in a girl’s brain. He had been away from Olivia for a long time, and he didn’t know how to decide if she was being honest. Even so, as a lawyer, as a father, he could only trust his gut, and his gut believed her.

‘I do.’ He added, ‘Do you?’

Hannah caressed the top of the coffee mug with one finger. ‘I want to.’

‘But?’

She rubbed her moist eyes. He saw more clearly now how tired she was, all the way into her bones. ‘It hasn’t been easy here. The two of us. Her and me.’

He said nothing.

‘She keeps secrets from me. She slips out at night. We’re distant. I know it’s been tough on her these past three years. The divorce, the move, me busy with work at the Center. Now the cancer. When we got here, Glenn’s daughter Kimberly became her soul mate, and Olivia was inconsolable when we lost her. She did what the other teenagers did. She let all that grief and frustration become hatred.’

‘Did you know she had a gun?’ he asked.

‘Of course not. I would never have allowed it. She’s still just a kid, Chris. She’s got all these emotions, but she doesn’t have the maturity to deal with them. That’s what scares me. If she was alone with Ashlynn that night, and she had a gun, I worry about what she might have done.’

‘Hannah, I really don’t think she killed her.’

‘I hope you’re right. I feel like this is all my fault.’

‘Your fault? Why?’

‘I was so caught up with Mondamin. It’s like a chamber of horrors what they’re doing there. They’re cowboys. They don’t have a clue about the real risks, and they don’t care. I begged Rollie Swenson to file the lawsuit. I worked with the parents around here who lost kids. It wasn’t about money. It was about throwing the light of day on that company, exposing what is really going on in there. The trouble is, when the litigation failed, the kids around here refused to accept it. Bad things started happening. Vandalism. Mischief.’

‘Was Olivia involved?’

‘I don’t think so, not directly, but she’s a lightning rod. Like me. Kids in St. Croix listened to her talking about Mondamin and how people in Barron were profiting from the company’s poison. Some of them took their anger too far. It was petty stuff, but then kids in Barron retaliated. The violence escalated. One boy in particular, a thug named Kirk Watson, became a kind of ringleader in Barron. He turned the feud into a war. We all knew it was only a matter of time before someone got killed.’

‘It sounds like street gangs.’

‘That’s exactly what it is.’

‘In farm country?’ he asked.

Hannah frowned. ‘This isn’t Mayberry, Chris. The problems are the same as in the city, and it’s even worse here because we don’t have the resources to deal with it. We’re all in the crossfire.’ She looked into the dining room, where the torn curtains billowed in through the broken window. ‘Literally.’

‘Olivia is going to pay the price for this war. Michael Altman is going to come down hard on her. If she didn’t do it, I need to figure out what really happened that night.’

‘I wish I knew.’

‘Did you see her go out on Friday?’

‘No, she’s become an expert at slipping out without me knowing. It’s worse with the chemo. I go to bed and sleep like the dead.’

It was an unfortunate turn of phrase, but Chris let it go.

‘You said she’s been keeping secrets. Do you have any idea what she’s hiding?’

‘I don’t. She shuts me out. She’s a deep, deep ocean, Chris. She’s not a little girl anymore.’

‘Did she ever talk about Ashlynn Steele?’

He was surprised to see Hannah hesitate, as if the question made her uncomfortable. She took a long time to answer. ‘Sometimes. Ashlynn was the enemy for kids around here.’

‘Which kids?’

‘Make a list. There are at least forty kids between the ages of thirteen and nineteen here in St. Croix. Any one of them would blame Ashlynn for who her father is. It was terribly unfair.’

He couldn’t help his first thought: You’re taking Ashlynn’s side when our daughter is accused of killing her? Then he realized that Hannah was right. He was being unfair, like the others. Ashlynn was dead. She was the victim.

Hannah got up abruptly, cutting off their conversation. She took their coffee mugs and put them in the sink, and she ran water and wiped the mugs with a towel. Without looking back at Chris, she said, ‘I’m sorry, I know I’m not being much help. I appreciate your coming here for Olivia.’

‘I wouldn’t have done anything else.’

She turned around, and her eyes were warmer. She scanned him up and down. ‘You’re looking good, Chris. You’ve lost weight. Good for you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Are you involved with someone?’

‘No.’

Hannah looked genuinely sad. ‘Still addicted, hmm?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There are a lot of drugs that control people. For some it’s cocaine or alcohol. For you it’s adrenaline. Money. Work. Deals. It doesn’t matter what you inject. It’s still addiction.’

He felt himself getting angry. He’d heard this before, but he tried not to fire back the way he had in the past.

‘We’ve been down that road, Hannah,’ he said softly.

She stopped herself, biting her lip, as if she realized it was too tempting to fall into old habits. ‘Yes, you’re right,’ she agreed. ‘We have.’

*

Chris returned to the town of Barron at ten o’clock. He found his motel room wrecked.

The door hung ajar, splintered where someone had kicked it in. Inside, his clothes had been knifed into shreds and strewn like confetti around the room. The papers he’d gathered about the case had been stuffed into a garbage pail and burned. The room stank of melted plastic, and the carpet had a singed hole, revealing charred floorboards. Multi-colored spray paint made streaks around the walls and across the bed linens.

Someone had used a black marker to write on the bathroom mirror.

Fuck Olivia Hawk. Fuck St. Croix.

He tried to put himself inside the heads of teenagers who could feel such primal rage, and he couldn’t. He didn’t get it. All he could see was the work of animals.

The motel owner, Marco Piva, stood beside Chris. ‘I am so sorry, Mr. Hawk,’ Marco told him. ‘My house is a couple hundred yards behind the motel. I didn’t hear anything until the fire alarm started going off. I ran down here, but the bastards were already gone.’

‘It’s not your fault, Marco,’ he said.

‘I’ve called the police.’

Chris thought about Hannah’s dismissive attitude toward the police and realized she was right. There was no protection. There was nothing to be done. ‘I’ll deal with them in the morning. Right now, I just need to sleep.’

‘Of course, yes. I have another room for you. Do you need anything? I can get you whatever you want.’

‘Maybe a toothbrush and toothpaste.’

‘No problem.’ The motel owner put his hands on his fleshy hips, and his golden face screwed up in disgust. ‘St. Croix attacks Barron, Barron attacks St. Croix. Where does it end? A pox on both of their houses, that’s what I say. I wore blue for three decades in San Jose. I saw this kind of hatred in the city, but I hoped I would never see it again.’

‘Whoever quits first is the loser,’ Chris said, ‘so no one quits.’

‘It is too bad you are in the middle of it, Mr. Hawk.’

‘Olivia’s in the middle, and I have to get her out,’ Chris replied. ‘You said you had another room for me?’

Marco dug in his pocket for a key. ‘It’s the last room on the corner. I was up half the night on Friday repairing the plumbing in there, so it’s all new. The toilet, now it goes whoosh. No more floods. I’ll bring you some things, all right?’

‘Thank you.’

Chris left the room without sifting through the remains of his luggage. He walked past the other motel rooms, where rain dripped from the roof into puddles beside him. The new room was sterile and empty, which was what he wanted. It smelled of lemon cleanser. He went to the bathroom sink and ran cold water and splashed it on his face and ran his wet hands back through his hair.

He stared at himself in the mirror. He thought about Hannah.

It doesn’t matter what you inject. It’s still addiction. You can be addicted to adrenaline. You can be addicted to violence.

He heard a knock on the door. It was the ever-efficient Marco, handing him a plastic bag of toiletries. He thanked the motel owner again, then closed the door and locked it. He dumped the bag on the counter of the bathroom: toothbrush, toothpaste, shampoo, mouthwash, bags of M&Ms and pretzels, microwave popcorn, a Bible, and a clean, folded pair of XXL underwear. That was life in a small town. Someone gave you their underwear if you had none.

Back in the bedroom, he took off his clothes and lay on the bed. The room was black. The mattress was a stiff board. He stared at the ceiling, but he didn’t sleep. There was no way around it; he was a long way from home. He was an outsider, a foreigner, and the town of Barron was already sending him a message.

Get out while you can.