Spilled Blood (19 page)

He knew how to use it, and thanks to Lenny, he knew where Kirk Watson lived.

Kirk Watson sat in his pick-up truck three blocks from the Post Office building in Madison, which was a flyspeck town twenty miles from Barron. He had the window rolled down, and he dangled a cigarette between his fingers. Toby Keith played on the radio. With his other hand he used binoculars to watch the cars coming and going from the parking lot. People in, people out, nothing to worry about. Even so, he took his time and kept an eye on the traffic in the mirrors.

You couldn’t be too careful.

That stupid son of a bitch in Hugo had gotten himself arrested on embezzlement charges, and then they’d found the stash of porn on his computer. The asshole wasn’t even smart enough to destroy the envelope in which he’d received his last delivery. Thanks to him, the feebs were watching the Post Office in Ortonville now. Kirk had driven by the building earlier in the day, and there they were, in their sedan, in their suits, as obvious as Vegas hookers. That was why he stuck to the rules he’d made for himself. Always wear gloves. Never lick a stamp. Never use the same mailbox twice. Never buy materials in the same store. Use a prepaid phone, and keep it turned off between calls. Keep the house clean, because you never know when a cop will show up with a warrant.

When he was satisfied no one was watching, he drove down the rural street to the parking lot and got out of the truck. The town’s co-op corn elevator towered in gleaming silver behind the Post Office. He leaned on his door, finishing his cigarette as he took a last, hawk-eyed look around the street. He crushed the
butt on the asphalt, pulled his baseball cap low on his forehead, and went inside the red-brick building, avoiding the ceiling-mounted cameras. Damn government employees, snooping on everybody. Like terrorists would want to blow up the Lutefisk Capital of the USA.

He squatted at his P.O. box. There was junk mail inside, but stuffed among the coupons was the package he’d been expecting. It was the size of a greeting card and just slightly thicker where the flash drive was secreted inside. The foreign stamps showed paintings of purple flowers. On the back of the envelope, someone had written ‘Hapy Bithday’ in an awkward hand. Sometimes it read ‘Mery Christmass’ or ‘I Love U.’ Stupid sentiments always deflected suspicion for anyone inclined to take a closer look.

He shoved the card in his back pocket and left the Post Office. He’d been inside less than thirty seconds. He headed south on Highway 75 into the desolate rural lands. He picked a dirt county road at random, turned east, and stopped on the shoulder. He got out of the truck, opened the envelope, and slid out the slim black USB flash drive from inside the greeting card. He flicked his cigarette lighter and incinerated the card and the envelope, letting them burn to ashes at his feet. After the fire was out, he scattered the ash with the sole of his boot.

That’s what you do with deliveries, fucking Hugo man.

Kirk drove on the county road until he reconnected with the Barron highway. A mile from downtown, he reached the dirt road that led south toward the ghost town where Ashlynn had been killed. He didn’t go as far as the deserted town; instead, he turned at a driveway with a battered U-Stor sign. The driveway led to two rows of self-storage units in the middle of an old field.

His own unit was at the far end of the first row. He parked and snapped on gloves, then undid the heavy padlock on the metal door and threw the door upward on its track with a clang. Inside, he lowered the door again. When he was alone inside the
windowless space, he pulled the string that lit up a single bare bulb.

This was his man cave. His business headquarters. His armory. Only Lenny knew about it, and he’d made it clear to his brother that he would bury a pick-ax in the kid’s brain if he told anyone. The guy who owned the U-Stor lived in Marshall, which was an hour away. He didn’t ask for identification, as long as he got his fee in cash. When you ran a storage business, you knew that people stored things behind those garage doors that they didn’t want anyone else to find, and if you were smart, you didn’t ask questions.

Kirk kept his guns here. Almost a dozen pistols, mostly Rugers and Glocks bought from online dealers. A smaller number of revolvers. Two shotguns. Three hunting rifles. Ammunition in several dozen boxes on metal shelves. Solvents, oils, brushes, and rags. There was an abandoned farm near Hazel Run where he practiced every month, and he was careful to collect his spent casings and dig his bullets out of the barn wall where he hung his targets. Whenever he needed a gun, he wanted it to be a virgin. Untraceable.

The revolver he’d used in St. Croix, shooting up Hannah Hawk’s house, was already at the bottom of the lake behind the Spirit Dam.

He sat down behind a garage sale desk and booted up his computer. He played with a burnt hole in the leather of the old chair through the finger of his glove. There wasn’t a fingerprint to be found anywhere in the storage unit. He kept his long hair tucked under his cap to avoid leaving DNA samples. He always told Lenny: You don’t even blow your nose in here, okay? Snort up your snot, and keep it there.

His own name and address couldn’t be found anywhere inside the unit. Not on the computer. Not on an envelope or piece of paper. If the feebs found this place, they couldn’t tie it back to him. He was a ghost.

Kirk had to be careful. Prosecutors and judges played hardball with child porn, because it made great get-tough shit for the voters at re-election time. Get caught, and expect to give up twenty-five years, maybe more. This wasn’t juvie time.

He removed the Vietnamese flash drive from his pocket and shoved it into one of the USB ports on the front of his computer. The drive contained four gigabytes of material, including hundreds of photos and videos. It was top-quality shit, hi-res, good close-ups. Everybody wanted the eyes; you had to see the eyes. He sifted through the photos and shook his head in disgust. This kind of sick shit did nothing for him; he was normal, not a fucking pervert. To him, it was about money, end of story. If he could have put a bullet in the head of every one of his customers, he would have done it. Once, with a problem customer in Mankato, he’d had to do just that. The guy had come down with a fit of conscience and threatened to call the cops. Most of the ones with conscience were fakers; they were like chain smokers, always taking one last cigarette and promising to quit. This one was different. Every now and then, you got a real reformed sinner.

The guy was a threat, but he didn’t realize that Kirk knew who he was. That was his big mistake, thinking you could be a buyer of this shit and keep your secrets to yourself. Kirk had photos and video of all of his customers; it was like an insurance policy. It was leverage against bad things happening. He’d scouted every house, every office, every P.O. box, where he’d made a shipment, and he’d identified every buyer. They belonged to him. The guy in Mankato thought he could vanish and make an anonymous confession to the feds, but Kirk got to him first. Shot him in the head. Sanitized his apartment. Dumped his body near a crack house in south Minneapolis.

He’d sent a newspaper clipping about the murder to all of his other customers. It was an object lesson in keeping your mouth shut.

Kirk reviewed the flash drive, looking for a special folder. It was a custom order, like buying tile for your kitchen floor, or commissioning
an artist to do a portrait of your wife. This was a service biz like anything else. You gave the customers what they wanted. If someone had a special request, they could have it. For a price. He found the folder and examined the files to make sure they met the specifications: the layout of the bedroom, the angle of the photos, the specific positions in the video. The devil was in the details. He didn’t ask why the jerk-off wanted it this way, and he didn’t care. He took the specs, and he delivered.

Kirk turned on his prepaid phone in order to make the call. He plugged in his voice changer to disguise his voice. There were four settings. You could sound like a robot, or an alien, or a sexy woman, but he always picked door number four. The little child’s voice. He loved the joke. He loved twisting the knife.

The son of a bitch didn’t know that Kirk was the dealer behind the business. Their relationship was a one-way street. All the sick fuck knew was that a little boy called him every few months to arrange the cash drop, and then his latest precious package arrived in the mail the following day.

All secret. All anonymous.

He didn’t know that Kirk was the man who controlled his life. Who knew his most horrible secret. Who could destroy him on a whim.

But I know who you are
, Kirk thought as he dialed, and his mouth folded into a grin.
Oh, yeah, I know you, Daddy.

His phone rang.

It was the special phone, the unlocked, pay-as-you-go Samsung flip phone that he kept in the locked drawer. It was the phone that separated his angels from his demons. It was the phone that enabled his disease. Buy an access card for cash in any drugstore, and you were good to go. Make calls, or get calls, and no one knew who you were.

He hated the phone. He dreamed of destroying it. More times than he could remember, he had taken it to the river to throw it
into the rapids. He had held a hammer over it to smash it into bits. He had stared at the fireplace and tried to throw it into the flames. Every time, he bowed to reality. He couldn’t give it up. If he did, time would pass, and the urge would come back, and he would start again. He’d been a slave to the cycle of depravity his entire life.

There was another choice. The permanent choice. You kill yourself, and you kill the disease. He’d bought a gun to do it. The gun was in the locked drawer next to the phone. Loaded. There were always two choices for him. The gun or the phone.

He unlocked the drawer and opened it and saw both of them. Reaching in, he stroked the butt of the gun with his fingers. He told himself for the millionth time:
Do it.
In a millisecond of light and pain, he would be free. The black hood would be lifted. He wouldn’t endure the guilt that kept him in a vise. He wouldn’t have to do terrible things to protect himself. He could finally kill the thing inside him once and for all.

Ring ring ring ring ring, went the phone. Laughing at him. As if it knew exactly what he would do.

He answered the phone, clutching it as if he could crush it with his hand. Tears pushed out of his eyes. He cringed, awaiting the hideous voice. It was always the same.

‘Hello, Daddy,’ the strange, hollow, false child said to him.

He wanted to scream. ‘
Stop that
,’ he hissed. ‘Don’t use that voice.’

‘Are you mad at me, Daddy?’

He beat his fist against his skull and wished again that he were dead.
Hang up. Pick up the gun.
It was so easy, but he couldn’t do it.

‘Your latest order is in. It will make you very happy, Daddy.’

‘I don’t want it. Stop calling me that.’

‘You owe me money, Daddy, and you need to pay.’

‘Fine, I’ll pay, forget the delivery.’

‘It doesn’t work like that, Daddy.’

He heard childish laughter. It sounded wicked, coming from this stranger’s mouth.

‘Tomorrow morning. Seven a.m. You know where. Throw the red backpack with the cash into the field. Turn around and go back the way you came. Your package will be waiting in your box.’ The child laughed again. ‘Don’t be late, Daddy.’

‘This is the last time.’

A childish giggle. ‘Oh, you always say that, Daddy.’

That was true; he swore every time that he was done, but it was a hollow boast. They both knew it. The man on the other end of the line knew he would make the drop and pick up the package. He couldn’t walk away.

‘I know what you did to me,’ he whispered into the phone. ‘Why? For God’s sake, why?’

This time, the child’s voice was silent, which was almost worse than his taunting. He wished he knew who the caller really was. He wished he could find him and kill him. Maybe that would end this torment.

‘
Why?
’ he repeated, hating the crack in his voice. ‘Why did you have to destroy me?’

‘Why not, Daddy?’ the child replied.

The line went dead.

The box of evidence supplied by Michael Altman took Chris back to the early hours of Saturday morning.

The first responder was a Spirit County sheriff’s deputy, whose emotionless report from the crime scene belied the horrifying reality of what he’d found. It was strange that an act like murder, which was bound up in so much emotion, could be distilled to bloodless facts.

I responded to a referral from a 911 emergency operator that a teenage girl, identified as Ashlynn Steele, seventeen years old, of Barron, was potentially stranded in the ruins of the unincorporated town of Bell Valley. I arrived in the town at 5:43 am and discovered an orange Mustang convertible, license plates 489 BAW. The vehicle was unoccupied, and the driver’s side rear tire was flat. Registration of the vehicle was to Florian Steele of Barron. I made several verbal announcements of my presence in an attempt to locate the missing girl. When I received no response, I began a search of the area, including the unoccupied buildings. Seven minutes later, I observed the body of a woman in a park approximately one hundred yards from the vehicle. I determined that the woman was deceased and noted a gunshot entry wound in the center of her forehead. Her face matched the driver’s license photograph of Ashlynn Steele. I saw no sign of a weapon at the scene of the crime. At that time, I reported the incident and remained on-site to secure the scene pending the arrival of investigative and medical personnel.

That was all it took to mark the end of a young life and begin the ripples that threatened to destroy many more.

Chris removed the police material page by page and organized the documents into piles on the table in the hospital lounge. Olivia was talking with the counselor Hannah had hired, and Chris passed the time by reviewing the chain of events that had led from Rollie Swenson’s 911 call after Tanya awakened her father on Saturday morning, to the arrest of Olivia two days later.