Spilled Blood

13

They split up to search the town.

Hannah stayed at home, calling her neighbors. Chris and the ex-cop he’d hired went in different directions to hunt through the streets of St. Croix. The town was confined to a few blocks surrounded by miles of open rural land. There were only so many places to go on foot.

He saw lights inside the Lutheran church, making the arched stained-glass windows glow in multiple colors. The church was the largest building in town. It felt like a church that immigrant farmers would build, with an understated beauty, rather than showy ornateness. The walls were lined with white wooden siding, and the panels were in need of fresh paint. The most prominent feature of the church was its steeple and bell tower, rising over the peaked roof, tall enough to oversee the entire community.

The glass doors were unlocked. Chris went inside. The lobby was cool and smelled of oiled wood. On his right, narrow steps led upward toward the tower. On the opposite wall, near the stairs leading to the basement, he saw a large cork bulletin board lined with notices of fundraisers, farm equipment for sale, free kittens, and chili dinners. It was like a local, handwritten Internet to connect neighbors to the goings-on of the town. There were five eight-by-ten color photographs of teenagers thumbtacked to the board, too, and he had no trouble guessing their identities. He could see the disease in their faces, despite their youth and bright white smiles. These were the five who had died.

He opened the door into the sanctuary. The ceiling angled sharply over his head. It had the silence of sacred places, magnifying the echo of his shoes. Empty, varnished pews, stocked with black Bibles, lined the main aisle. The chancel was illuminated, and he saw Glenn Magnus at the lectern, head down, as if he were praying for an invisible congregation. Beside him was the elaborate wooden altar, draped in green silk, highlighted by a brass cross that glinted under the hanging lights. Jesus stood behind the altar on a carving that dominated the wall, his arms spread wide.

The minister looked up as he heard footsteps. Chris approached apologetically. ‘I’m sorry to intrude.’

Magnus stepped down from the pulpit and met Chris at the front of the church. ‘You’re not intruding. What can I do for you, Chris?’

‘Olivia sneaked out of her bedroom. She’s not answering her cell phone.’

‘I haven’t seen her, but let me look downstairs. Johan’s apartment is in the basement. Maybe she came to see him.’

The minister marched past him. Chris followed, but he stopped halfway, imagining the church filled with devout worshipers on Sunday, dressed for God with chins shaved and fingernails cleaned. Like him, Olivia had never been particularly religious. Hannah was another story. His ex-wife hadn’t tried to impose her values on Chris, but she had always been passionate about her religious roots. She was equally passionate about a woman’s right to control her body, and he wondered if that belief caused problems for her in a conservative small town.

He left the sanctuary, and the door closed softly behind him. In the lobby, Glenn Magnus was at the top of the basement stairs. He’d grabbed a flashlight from the lower level.

‘She’s not there.’ He added, ‘Neither is Johan.’

‘Was he here earlier?’

‘Yes, he got back from the motel two hours ago. He was downstairs doing homework.’ The minister took a cell phone from his pocket and dialed. After listening for several rings, he hung up. ‘No answer. Maybe I’d better join you in your search. It’s not safe for them outside these days.’

The two men returned to the streets. The minister walked fast, swinging the beam of the flashlight in front of them. They walked past houses to the highway leading toward Barron, but they found no sign of the teenagers. Magnus put his hands on his hips and examined the dark town. ‘Let’s follow the river trail behind Hannah’s house. Perhaps they went that way. Sometimes the teenagers hang out in the fields on the other side of the railway bridge.’

‘Okay.’

They marched side by side. The drizzle flattened their hair and gave a sheen to their skin when they passed near house lights. The sidewalks glistened with pools of standing water.

‘I told Olivia to stay in the house, but she didn’t listen,’ Chris said.

‘Teenagers rarely listen.’

‘Are she and Johan good friends?’

Magnus was slow to reply. ‘They were extremely close, but not anymore. They comforted each other after Kimberly died, but I’m afraid they won’t have anything to do with each other now.’

‘Why? Because of the feud?’

‘In part. Johan knows violence won’t bring Kimberly back. Olivia hung on to the hatred. She’s not alone. It’s a disease around here.’ Magnus stopped and put a hand on Chris’s shoulder. ‘Hannah persuaded me that we owed it to the children to find out what really happened. We tried, and we failed. Honestly, if I’d known what would happen in the aftermath, I would have stopped the lawsuit before it started. The price is too high.’

They continued walking. Where the town ended at the river, they plunged into the trees at the river bank. Even with the flashlight illuminating the ground, Chris found it nearly impossible to see, but Magnus walked with confidence, leading them toward the trail by the water. The minister was a tall silhouette. All Chris heard was the man’s voice, which was deep but gentle.

‘It must be hard,’ Magnus said, ‘coming back into Hannah and Olivia’s lives this way.’

‘I don’t think Hannah wanted me to come at all,’ Chris said.

‘No, she’s relieved. She told me so. She probably found it hard to ask, but she’s glad you came.’

‘She keeps me at a distance. She didn’t even tell me about the cancer. I had to find out about it from Olivia.’

‘I imagine she was more afraid of telling you than anyone else.’

‘Why?’

The minister considered his reply. Everyone around here made calculations before they spoke. The flashlight filled his face with shadows, which made him look sorrowful.

‘You wouldn’t know this, but I lost my own wife nine years ago,’ Magnus told him. ‘It was very sudden. I’ve been alone since then. When Hannah moved to town, the two of us clicked. To be honest, I fell in love with her.’

Chris didn’t want to be having this conversation. ‘I could tell you two were close.’

‘Close, yes. Dear friends, yes. Romantic, no. That door was firmly closed, with a No Trespassing sign hung outside. The sign has your picture on it, Chris.’

‘What are you saying? That she closed herself off emotionally because of the divorce?’

The minister shook his head. ‘I’m not saying anything. That’s for you and Hannah to talk about, not me.’

Magnus turned back to the trail. He circled the area with the flashlight, catching the brown water of the river and the winter brush in its glow. They were still alone.

‘If Olivia and Johan don’t talk to each other anymore,’ Chris asked, ‘why would she sneak out of her room to meet him as soon as she got home?’

Magnus hesitated. ‘I couldn’t say.’

‘It must have something to do with Ashlynn.’

‘When we find them, we’ll ask them.’

Chris could hear in the minister’s voice that he was hiding something. ‘I’m getting tired of people in this town keeping the truth from me, Glenn.’

‘I can’t divulge anything,’ he replied. ‘You know that. I’m bound by the same ethics that bind you.’

Chris let the man walk away, and then he called after him. It was a shot in the dark. ‘Did you know about Ashlynn’s abortion?’

Magnus stopped. The news hit him like a physical blow. His knees sagged, as if he were thunderstruck. ‘Abortion?’

‘Ashlynn went to Nebraska to get an abortion. Hannah told me. That’s where she’d been when she was driving home on Friday.’

‘Oh, dear Lord, that poor girl.’

‘Did you know?’

‘No.’

‘Did you know she was pregnant?’

‘I didn’t. I had no idea.’

‘Talk to me, Glenn. Were Johan and Ashlynn involved? Is that what you’re not telling me?’

Magnus was silent, but Chris knew what his silence meant. Yes.

A secret affair. Johan and Ashlynn. A St. Croix boy and a Barron girl, like Romeo and Juliet caught between warring clans. It was a dangerous place for both of them to be.

‘How does Olivia fit into this?’ he asked.

‘Chris, please—’

‘Is Olivia protecting Johan? Why?’

‘You need to talk to them, not me. There’s nothing I can say.’

Chris thought about Tanya, who had said there was something else going on between Ashlynn and Olivia. Not just the feud. Something personal.

Johan.

Standing on the river trail with Glenn Magnus, Chris heard the crash of breaking branches in the trees. The minister swung the flashlight in front of them. He expected to see Olivia on her secret route home, but his relief evaporated as the beam illuminated a face out of a Halloween nightmare.

It was Johan, pale and beaten. The boy held himself up by clinging to the tree trunks on either side of the trail. One eye was swollen shut. Twin trails of blood streaked from his nose.

‘Johan, oh my God,’ Magnus called. He ran to his son, who staggered forward into his arms. His knees sank down to the mud.

Chris was already dialing 911 when Johan spoke through fat lips: ‘Olivia.’

‘What about her?’ Chris asked urgently. He could hardly breathe. ‘Where is Olivia? Tell me.’

‘They have her,’ he whispered.

‘Who?’

‘Barron boys.’