Spilled Blood

56

When Chris saw Tanya go inside the high school, he went out into the frosty air and weak sunshine of the late afternoon. The smell of the river was oppressive, even on the bluff. Rollie Swenson was alone. The young attorney sat on top of a green park bench, staring into space. He wore a windbreaker and a baseball cap, and his shirt was untucked under his jacket. His gray pants were stained, and his shoes were caked with dirt. Like everyone else, Rollie was homeless.

Chris sat down next to him. ‘Hello, Rollie.’

The other attorney didn’t take his eyes off the horizon. He took a bite of a chocolate donut. ‘Chris.’

‘Terrible days.’

‘Yeah.’

‘How’s Tanya?’ he asked.

‘Stronger than me,’ Rollie said. ‘She’s been spending a lot of time with Olivia again. It helps her to have a friend.’

‘I know. I’m glad.’

They sat in silence. Rollie finished the donut and licked his fingers.

Chris found himself growing angry the longer they were together. He was angry about everything that had happened to Olivia. Angry about the waste, the loss of life, the loss of innocence. Angry about the ripples that had destroyed the lives of so many others.

‘Did you know Marco Piva?’ he asked Rollie.

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘I did. It was a tragic thing. He was a decent man.’

Rollie snorted. ‘Decent? You’re kidding.’

‘No, it’s true. Decent men can do abominable things.’

Rollie gave him a strange look and didn’t reply.

‘I wonder what I would have done in his shoes,’ Chris said. ‘Florian blackmailed his wife, exploited her weakness. The guilt she felt must have been unimaginable. After all, she met the parents in St. Croix, right? She talked to them. She saw what had happened to their children. The ugly, slow, awful deaths.’

‘Yes, she did,’ Rollie said. ‘She interviewed all of them.’

‘She could have given them comfort and closure, and instead she covered up what had been done to them. In the end, she couldn’t live with the lie. It destroyed her. It destroyed Marco, too.’

‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for him?’ Rollie asked.

‘No, I’m just saying, it can’t be easy, living your life in the grip of a horrible addiction.’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and shook his head. ‘Florian was a master of manipulation. He was like that in law school, too, finding people’s pressure points, twisting the knife. I wonder how long it took him to find Lucia and figure out how he could influence her. I guess most people have dirty secrets if you know where to look.’

Rollie stared coldly at Chris, and then he checked his watch. ‘I should go find Tanya.’

The younger attorney began to climb off the bench, but Chris stopped him with a firm hand on his shoulder. ‘One thing bothers me, Rollie. Ever since I found out the truth about Lucia, I couldn’t understand how Florian could be so sure that the judge would pick her to be the special master in the litigation.’

‘I imagine he approached her after she was selected,’ Rollie said.

‘Florian? No, he was much smarter than that. He only agreed to have a special master appointed because he knew Lucia Causey would write a report that exonerated Mondamin. He would never take a risk on the judge picking someone who couldn’t be compromised. I checked her property records. Lucia started getting money shortly after the lawsuit was filed. Florian had her in his pocket from the beginning.’

‘They fooled everyone. It was a good plan.’

‘Yes, it was, but only if the judge actually selected Lucia,’ Chris said. ‘Of course, if the plaintiff and the defense put the same name on their lists, it was a lock that the judge would pick her. I know why Florian put Lucia on his list of special master candidates. She was the one he wanted. So I’m curious. Why did you put Lucia on your list, Rollie?’

Rollie’s eyes were dead calm. He was a lawyer, unfazed by cross-examination. ‘She had the credentials. There aren’t many epidemiologists with the expertise to handle a project like that.’

‘It was just an accident? A coincidence?’

‘It must have been.’

Chris shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. Florian didn’t bet the future of his company on a coincidence.’

‘I don’t know what to tell you, Chris. I used freelance researchers to provide me with names for my special master list. Maybe Florian got to them.’

‘Maybe so.’ Chris let the silence linger. ‘You know, something else has been bothering me, too.’

‘What’s that?’

‘It’s the note that Aquarius sent you,’ Chris said. ‘Aquarius warned you to keep quiet. He didn’t want Tanya talking to the police about what Ashlynn had told her. About her digging into her father’s secrets. About the proof she had.’

‘So?’

‘So why would Marco think that Tanya knew anything at all?’

Rollie hesitated. ‘Ashlynn must have told him.’

‘No, Ashlynn called Tanya on the night before she was killed, remember? She was in Nebraska. She never made it back home. There’s no way she told Marco.’

‘Maybe she said something to him while they were in the ghost town,’ Rollie said.

‘You mean when he killed her?’

‘Exactly.’

‘I thought that, too. It made sense when we didn’t know who Aquarius was, but now we do. The trouble is that Marco didn’t kill Ashlynn. He had an alibi. He wasn’t there.’

Rollie frowned. ‘Well, he found out somehow. He was afraid that Tanya knew enough to expose him.’

‘Actually, I don’t think Marco knew anything about Tanya.’

‘Then why did he send me that note?’

‘That’s easy. He didn’t. The note was a fake.’

‘A fake? Why would someone go to that trouble?’

‘Not someone, Rollie. You. You faked the note. You needed a reason for Tanya not to tell anyone about Ashlynn’s phone call. You needed to be able to explain why you didn’t tell the police about that call. Aquarius gave you the perfect excuse. You were afraid your daughter was in danger.’

‘What are you saying, Chris?’ Rollie asked, but he knew. He couldn’t hide it.

‘I’m saying that the phone call from Ashlynn was your worst nightmare.’

‘That’s crazy.’

‘Is it? I’m trying to imagine what was going through your head when Ashlynn called. Did she only talk to Tanya, or did Tanya give you the phone? It must have been a shock. Here was Ashlynn talking about her father covering up Mondamin’s role in the deaths in St. Croix, and she says she can prove it now. Did she give you any specifics? Did she mention Lucia Causey? I bet she did.’

Rollie’s face was stone. He said nothing.

‘Poor Ashlynn,’ Chris went on. ‘She thought she was telling the one man who could help her. She thought she was giving you a chance to go back into court and be a hero for the people of St. Croix. She was willing to betray her father and expose his corruption, but she had no idea that exposing Florian meant exposing you.’

‘Exposing me?’ Rollie asked impassively.

‘Florian didn’t just blackmail Lucia,’ Chris said. ‘He blackmailed you, too.’

‘You have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘Yes, I do. It must have seemed so simple. So safe. All you had to do was put Lucia Causey on your list for the judge. One little betrayal. No one would ever question it. Like you said, she had the credentials.’

Rollie scratched the stubble on his chin with his thick fingers. He didn’t look at Chris; instead, he stared across the trampled mud of the field. Finally, his lips folded into a small smile. ‘It’s a shame you’re not a trial lawyer, Chris. You’d be good with juries. You really know how to tell a story. Hell, I almost believed it myself. Then I remembered. This is the man who would do anything to protect his daughter from a murder charge. He’d lie. He’d destroy reputations. Don’t play those games with me. You’re shooting in the dark. You don’t know a damn thing.’

Chris leaned closer to him. The proximity made his flesh crawl. ‘I know about the sick shit that Kirk Watson was selling you, Rollie.’

The young lawyer froze. He looked like an invisible man who suddenly realized the world could see who he was. Chris saw a glimmer in his dark eyes of what it had been like for the man to live two separate lives, one in public, one for his private desires.

‘Kirk told Florian you were one of his customers, didn’t he?’ Chris said. ‘That was the leverage Florian had. It must have been devastating when he came to see you. The litigation was your shot at redemption, wasn’t it? You thought you were doing something noble for once in your life, but your addiction poisoned it like everything else. Did Florian humiliate you? Did he treat you like a criminal? If you didn’t play along with him, you’d be arrested, exposed, disbarred, destroyed. Everyone would know what kind of man you really were. Including your daughter.’

Rollie’s chest heaved. He ginned up his outrage. ‘You better stop spreading this slander before it gets you into big trouble,’ he said. ‘You have no evidence. No proof.’

‘Is that what you were looking for at Kirk’s house?’ Chris asked. ‘Proof? Were you trying to find the evidence he kept against you? Did you find it, or did Kirk keep it at the garage? The police didn’t find anything there, so I imagine Lenny took it with him.’

‘This is a pointless game, Chris. You’re not going to win. Even if there were something to find, it’s buried under four feet of silt somewhere in Iowa now.’

‘You think you’re free?’

‘I think the flood wiped the slate clean. That’s what floods do.’

‘Not for everyone. Not for a monster like you.’

Rollie stood up and yanked the brim of his baseball cap down on his face. ‘Don’t pretend you know anything about who I am. You don’t.’

‘No, you’re right, I don’t,’ Chris snapped. He stood up, too, his emotions spilling into his voice. ‘I don’t know how any man could be aroused by staring at things that would make most people stab out their eyes.’

‘We’re done here,’ Rollie told him. He zipped up his windbreaker. ‘You’re wasting my time. Like I said, you have nothing.’

Chris slid a tiny flash drive out of his pocket and held it in his fingers for the other lawyer to see. ‘Did you think Florian wouldn’t keep a copy?’

Rollie stared at the sliver of metal. ‘What is that?’

‘You know exactly what it is.’

‘Don’t think you can bluff me.’

‘It’s not a bluff,’ Chris told him. ‘I’ve seen the video, Rollie.’

‘You’re lying.’

‘Kirk didn’t leave anything to chance,’ Chris went on. ‘He videotaped the porn as he put it in the envelope, so everyone would know exactly what was inside. He used that ugly polka dot envelope you can recognize a mile away, too. He videotaped the address as he wrote it down. P.O. Box 24321 in Ortonville. He videotaped the envelope going in the mail. And then you, Rollie. He filmed you picking up the envelope at the Post Office like a kid on Christmas morning. He had you in close-up. You know what the sickest part was? It was obvious you had an erection. It turned you on just thinking about opening up another shipment of that filth.’

Rollie squeezed his eyes shut and said nothing. He knew he was done. He heard the box number, and he knew he was done. Everyone knew. There was no escape. The weight on his soul was so great he could barely breathe.

‘Julia gave me the video,’ Chris told him. ‘With Florian dead, with the truth exposed, she had no reason to keep your secret anymore. Not when she realized it was you who killed her daughter.’

Rollie opened his eyes again, and Chris saw the completeness of his destruction. His life was gone, emptying into a vacuum. The door to hell was open.

‘How could you, Daddy?’

The voice jolted Rollie like an electric shock. He spun around, as if expecting to see the devil. Instead, it was Tanya Swenson, screaming at her father.

Tanya stood behind the bench. Her Westie dog squirmed in her arms. Olivia, on crutches, stood next to her. Hannah was there, too, her arms folded over her chest, her face impassive in its fury. So was Michael Altman, accompanied by three police officers.

His daughter’s words, and the look of disgust in her eyes, cut Rollie like the slash of a blade. His mouth fell open. His face twisted into despair. He was choking. Crying. The only emotion more powerful than his self-loathing was how much he loved his little girl, but even that love hadn’t been enough to save him. ‘Baby, you don’t understand.’

‘I saw it,’ she hissed at him. ‘I didn’t want to believe it, but they showed me. How could you?’

Chris saw Tanya’s face, and her tears couldn’t mask the truth. She’d known. She’d always known. He wondered if that was why she’d come to him and told him about the phone call. She wanted justice for Ashlynn. She wanted to end the suffering once and for all. Even if meant losing her father.

‘You overheard Tanya talking to Olivia on the phone that Friday night, didn’t you?’ Chris asked Rollie. ‘You heard what they’d done, where they’d been. That was your chance. You knew Ashlynn was alone in the ghost town.’

Rollie was silent.

Chris looked at Tanya, who squared her shoulders and wiped the tears from her eyes. She was done covering for him.

‘I saw him leave,’ she said. ‘I was in my bedroom. I heard the car. He came back an hour later. I didn’t say a word. I pretended I didn’t know.’

Rollie’s head sagged. He stared at his lap, as if the worst crime was hearing what he’d done from his daughter’s lips. He could see the future. How she would grow up despising him. How she would see the demon he saw in himself every time he looked in the mirror.

‘Ashlynn was probably excited to see you,’ Chris said. ‘She thought you’d come to rescue her.’

‘I just wanted to know what she’d found out,’ Rollie murmured. ‘I didn’t go there to kill her. I figured she had suspicions, that was all.’

‘But she had more.’

Rollie nodded. ‘She knew what Florian had done. She had proof. It was all in her laptop. She knew everything about Lucia. She’d copied phone records, bank records, travel records from Florian’s computer. She’d found e-mails between them. She knew about all of it.’

‘Except you.’

‘Except me,’ he said.

He looked up at his daughter and reached for her, but Tanya recoiled. She turned and ran away, making wet footprints in the grass, sprinting for the school. He followed every step until she disappeared.

Altman nodded at the cops, who came up to Rollie and took him off the bench and handcuffed him. Rollie was in a daze and didn’t resist. One fat tear trickled onto his cheek. It was followed by another, and another, turning into a flood. He looked as if he would rather be on the bottom of the river, buried like the ruins. They had to help him walk as they led him away.

Chris watched him go, thinking about fathers and daughters. Husbands and wives. Florian losing Ashlynn. Julia losing Florian. Tanya losing Rollie. Marco had it right, as usual. Life changes, my friend. One moment it was in your hand, and the next it was slipping away.

The county attorney turned to Olivia and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I made a mistake about you, Miss Hawk. I falsely accused you of a terrible crime. I apologize.’

Olivia shook her head. ‘I made a mistake, too. Mine was worse.’

‘You’re sixteen,’ Altman told her. ‘I hate to break this to you, but you have a lifetime of mistakes ahead of you. I think your parents will tell you that the thing about mistakes is learning how to live with them.’

The county attorney winked at Chris, and he marched after the police officers with the precise steps of a soldier.

When everyone else was gone, it was just the three of them in the field. Chris. Olivia. Hannah.

The sun vanished, searing the clouds with streaks of orange. The air got colder.

They were a family torn apart and brought back together. They’d lost everything and won everything. He had exactly what he wanted now; he had what he’d come here for. His home in the city had never been a home without them. Out here they had nowhere to go and nowhere to live, and somehow it didn’t matter to Chris at all.

He went and cupped his daughter’s face, and they bent into each other, forehead to forehead. He felt lucky. He felt saved.

‘I should find Tanya,’ Olivia said. ‘She’s going to need help.’

‘Go.’

His daughter kissed his cheek. ‘Love you, Dad.’

‘I love you, too.’

Olivia eyed both of her parents, and she got a silly smile as she watched them together. For a moment, she could have been ten again, their little girl, not a young woman who had already had her heart broken and grown up too fast. She was happy. Chris realized that his daughter had learned something that it had taken him decades to figure out. When something good happens, you don’t ask questions. You just smile and hold on tight.

Hannah stood beside him as Olivia hobbled toward the school to find her friend. He felt her fingers curl around his, and she took his hand. They both knew. They both felt it. She didn’t ask if he was staying, if he would be there for her, if he would be there for Olivia, if they could rebuild themselves along with the towns. It was understood. No questions. Smile and hold on tight.

Maybe they had months. Maybe they had years. Time was a funny thing. He didn’t care. He wasn’t going anywhere. Right there, holding onto Hannah, he felt time freeze as solid as the winter ice, until it didn’t move at all.