Heart of Ice

by Parrish, P. J.

  She gave Louis a wry smile, which he returned with one of his own.

  “Do you remember her name?” he asked.

  Maisey frowned. “It started with an R. It was . . . Roberta.” She paused. “No, wait. Rhoda. That was it. Rhoda.”

  “Can you remember her last name?”

  “No, but I think she worked here on the island because she always came here after five or so.” She looked up suddenly at Louis. “She smelled like chocolate.”

  Louis took the sketchbook back, slipping it into the envelope. He was disappointed Maisey hadn’t been able to recognize Julie’s boyfriend, but this Rhoda could be a lead.

  “If there’s nothing else you need, Mr. Kincaid, I really should go see to Mr. Edward,” Maisey said.

  “Actually, there’s one more thing,” Louis said. “Can I see Julie’s room?”

  “Her room? Why?”

  “It helps me get a sense of a person. Sometimes if I see where they spent their time, what things they had, it helps me figure out what might have happened to them.”

  “The room’s not the same as it was then,” she said.

  “I’d still like to see it.”

  She gave him a nod. Louis followed her up the staircase. At the first open door, she paused, listening for a moment. Louis got a glimpse of the interior—burnished antiques, the edge of a plush bed, and light streaming in from the bay windows.

  Maisey moved on down the hallway. All the other doors were closed. At the end of the hallway Maisey stopped and opened the heavy oak door.

  The air inside was stale, the drapes drawn. Maisey touched a wall switch and an overhead light went on.

  Louis had been expecting something different, maybe like the room back at the Grand Hotel with the canopy beds. This was just a small plain room with two twin beds, one oak bureau, a small bookcase, and a braided rug on the wood floor. Except for the white chenille bedspreads the only thing that looked remotely feminine was the wallpaper dotted with pink rosebuds.

  “It’s not what I thought it would look like,” he said.

  “What were you expecting?” Maisey asked.

  “I don’t know. Something that tells me a teenaged girl used to be here.” He turned to Maisey, who was still standing by the door. “Stuffed animals. A monkey, to be exact.”

  “A monkey?” Maisey pulled her sweater tighter around her. “Julie wasn’t much for that kind of thing.”

  Louis went to a closet and opened the door. It was empty. “There’s nothing left of her things?” he asked.

  “After Julie disappeared Mr. Ross ordered that everything be taken away. He said it upset Mr. Edward too much to see the room like it was.”

  Louis heard a sound, like someone calling out. Maisey stepped out into the hallway and looked toward the far end.

  “That’s Mr. Edward,” she said quickly. “Do you mind seeing yourself out?”

  “Not at all. Thanks for your help, Maisey,” Louis said.

  She gave him a brisk nod, then went down to the first bedroom at the top of the stairs.

  Louis watched Edward Chapman’s bedroom door close and stepped back into Julie’s room. He went to the drapes and pulled them open. The room looked out over the backyard. He let the drapes fall and turned to consider the room again.

  There were seven bedrooms in this place. Why had Edward Chapman’s “princess” been given this small one in the back?

  He went to the bookcase and scanned the titles of the books, but they all appeared to be novels. He started for the door but something tucked in the shelf of the bookcase caught his eye. It was a small ceramic horse, similar to one he had bought Lily, right down to MACKINAC ISLAND painted on the base. Just a cheap souvenir, and it seemed out of place in such a grand house, even in this plain little room.

  He put it back on the bookcase and left the room, quietly making his way down the stairs.

  Outside he paused to look back at the house. He saw Maisey standing at the upstairs bay window. He felt her eyes follow him as he walked back down West Bluff Road.

  25

  Louis stared out the window of the police station. This morning when he had walked up to the cottage to see Maisey, the watery horizon had been bloated with steel-gray clouds. Now it was snowing.

  “Louis?” Clark came up next to him. “Dancer’s attorney wants to talk to you.”

  “Attorney?” Louis asked.

  “Don’t ask me what got into him all of sudden, but Dancer asked for one late last night. Mackinac County sent a public defender a few hours ago. Name is Lee Troyer.”

  It was inevitable that Dancer would get a lawyer for the shooting charges, but the problem was that a good attorney would steer Dancer away from answering questions about Julie Chapman.

  “Do you know where Rafsky is?” Louis asked.

  “He’s over in St. Ignace, visiting the chief,” Clark said.

  “How’s the chief doing?”

  “I went and saw him this morning,” Clark said. “He’s mad as hell that he can’t eat or talk. But I know one thing. He’s real glad Carol is there, even though he’ll never say it out loud.”

  “I understand.”

  Clark smiled. “I guess when it comes to women we’re all too stubborn sometimes.”

  Louis was quiet. Stubborn. Was that what it was? Last night, in the cool darkness of their hotel room, wrapped in each other’s arms, listening to the clinking of the old radiator and the faraway crash of water against the giant boulders, he had almost said it.

  I love you.

  Until that moment he had not realized that when Joe wasn’t with him there was a strange emptiness that nothing else—no one else—could fill.

  He had been about to say it, but then Joe rolled away from him and reached for her wineglass. The moment—and his courage—was gone.

  “Almost forgot,” Clark said. “Rafsky said to tell you that Dancer is being transferred to the county jail in St. Ignace first thing tomorrow.”

  “Okay, thanks,” Louis said.

  He headed upstairs, taking Dancer’s sketchbook with him. At the top of the stairs he was met with the pungent smell of gardenias. Lee Troyer was seated in a folding chair, head down. Everything about her seemed cut on severe angles. Even her hair looked sharp, a blond pageboy style that reminded Louis of the kid in the Dutch Boy paint commercials.

  “Miss Troyer? Louis Kincaid.”

  She looked up from her legal pad. “You’re the person who so roughly subdued my client on the steps of his cabin.”

  “After your client shot at me and two other officers.”

  Louis glanced at Dancer. He was in one of two cells, drawing.

  “And you, a Miss Frye, and a Detective Rafsky questioned my client that same evening?”

  “Yes. And it’s Sheriff Frye.”

  “You questioned him without giving him a Miranda warning?”

  “He was read his rights in the cruiser, Miss Troyer.”

  “For the shooting of Chief Flowers, yes,” she said. “But you then proceeded to question him about the homicide of Julie Chapman.”

  “Now wait a—”

  “So,” Troyer went on, “not only was he not advised of his rights pending any charges in the Chapman case but he was also questioned by two people who have no jurisdiction on this island.”

  Louis studied the woman. Was she good enough to somehow tangle up the Chapman investigation with motions and accusations, or was she grasping at legal clichés?

  “Dancer was not given his rights for the Chapman homicide because at the time of questioning he was not in custody for that crime,” he said. “By voluntarily drawing a picture of the victim he brought the subject of her murder into the discussion.”

  Lee Troyer squared her shoulders. “I could argue that you set my client up by giving him a sketch pad, knowing he draws obsessively.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  “Detective Rafsky thinks Dancer killed Julie Chapman,” she said. “Even as we speak he has officers se
arching my client’s property for her skull. That act makes Danny a suspect in the Chapman murder, and for you to deny he isn’t is the ridiculous part.”

  She was right, but he’d be damned if he would admit it.

  “Look,” Louis said. “The fact is, your client has not yet been charged with Julie Chapman’s murder and won’t be on the basis of a single drawing.”

  Troyer was quiet, trying to keep her gaze level.

  “Off the record,” he said, “I don’t happen to think he killed Julie Chapman, and I don’t think Detective Rafsky is going to find proof out there that Dancer killed anyone.”

  Troyer looked down at her legal pad. He could see she had jotted down bullet points of her argument and was now out of bullets. She couldn’t be more than twenty-five, and he knew she had been sidetracked by Julie Chapman’s case. With the simple act of drawing a picture Dancer had elevated a small-town cop shooting to a high-profile cold case homicide, complete with a locally connected politician running for national office.

  “Look, Miss Troyer,” Louis said. “You’re probably right about Mirandizing Dancer before we asked him about Julie Chapman, but that aside, if you want my advice you need to focus on the crime he is charged with—the attempted murders of three people, two of them police officers.”

  “Well, I do know that, of course,” Troyer said.

  “I know I have no real say here, but if you want to help Dancer you need to find him a say-what-the-defense-pays-you-to-say psychiatrist,” Louis said. “That’s the only way you’ll keep him out of prison for the rest of his life.”

  “He can’t afford that, and my office can’t—”

  “Then you petition the court to provide equal resources,” Louis said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You argue that Dancer can’t compete with the state’s criminal psychiatrists on the public defender’s budget. If you make a good argument you can get the court to order that the state pick up the tab for your experts.”

  Troyer raised a thin brow. “I never heard that kind of advice from the law enforcement side of the table before.”

  “I have an ulterior motive to keep things friendly with Dancer,” Louis said.

  “Which is?”

  Louis opened the sketchbook. “Dancer has thousands of drawings of people whose names he doesn’t remember.” He pointed to Rhoda. “This girl was a friend of Julie Chapman’s. I need to talk to Dancer about her.”

  Troyer stared at the drawing for a moment, then looked at Dancer.

  “I won’t ask him any questions about Julie’s murder,” Louis said. “I just need to know who this girl is.”

  “What if he blurts out something incriminating?”

  “I can’t control that and neither can you,” Louis said.

  There was something about this woman that reminded Louis of himself when he was a rookie investigator in rural Mississippi. Way in over his head, floundering for clues, afraid to make the wrong decision, but determined to go it alone.

  “I won’t screw your client,” Louis said. “I promise.”

  Troyer gave Louis a nervous smile, then looked back at Dancer. “You feel like talking today, Danny?”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “Come to the bars, please,” Troyer said.

  Danny didn’t get up. All his attention was on finishing his drawing. He was also mumbling.

  “What are you saying, Danny?” Louis asked. “We can’t hear you.”

  “Fifty-three, fifty-four, fifty-five.”

  “I think he’s counting the wrinkles,” Louis said to Troyer. He looked back to Dancer. “Is that Aunt Bitty?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How many wrinkles do you have to draw?”

  “A hundred and twenty-two.”

  “Danny, can you stop for a moment and please come to the bars?” Troyer asked. “I’ve brought you some chocolate fudge.”

  Like a robot reacting to a command, Danny set his pad aside and came to the bars. Troyer gave him a square of fudge. He ate it in two bites, licked his fingers, then wadded up the paper and gave it back to her through the bars.

  Troyer leaned close to Louis. “When I met with him last night I had a box of fudge in my purse to take home,” she whispered. “When he didn’t respond to me I’m ashamed to say I used it to get him to talk.”

  Louis held up the open sketchbook to Dancer. “Danny, can you tell me the name of this girl?” he asked.

  Danny was still licking his fingers, eyeing Troyer. Finally, he looked at the drawing.

  “Summer,” he said.

  “Yes, I know. Can you tell me her name?”

  Danny shook his head.

  “Danny, listen to me,” Louis said. “Can you tell me if you ever saw this girl with Julie?”

  Danny reached through the bars and touched the drawing, tracing Rhoda’s jawline with the tip of his finger. Louis sensed he was remembering and he stayed quiet.

  “Cold,” Dancer said.

  “What do you mean ‘cold’? You said it was summer.”

  Danny formed a V with his fingers and put them on the eyes of Rhoda’s drawing. Still he said nothing.

  Louis watched him, remembering how Dancer had captured emotions in the drawings he had done of Joe and Rafsky and himself. He looked at the sketch of Rhoda, and he suddenly saw what Dancer had seen.

  “You mean she was cold on the inside,” Louis said.

  “Eyes like ice,” Danny said. “Heart like ice.”

  Louis leaned closer to the bars. Danny quickly took a step back, but he didn’t walk away, interested in Rhoda in a way Louis had not seen from him before. There was some sort of connection.

  “Danny, someone told us this girl’s name might be Rhoda,” Louis said. “Do you remember anyone named Rhoda from when you were a teenager?”

  Danny’s eyes were glazing over. Louis started flipping through the notebook to keep Dancer’s attention.

  “Danny, look at this guy’s picture,” Louis said, showing him another face. “Do you know this person’s name?”

  Danny shook his head.

  “What about this one?” Louis asked, trying another unknown.

  As if his batteries had died, Danny returned to his bunk and picked up his pad. He started mumbling again.

  “Ninety-six, ninety-seven . . .”

  Louis watched him for a moment, then closed the sketchbook. He had worked complicated cases before, but this one was driving him crazy. A skeleton with no skull. A cop shot for no good reason. Hundreds of possible witnesses in the sketchbooks but only one name.

  “You okay, Mr. Kincaid?” Troyer asked.

  “Frustrated.”

  “I understand,” Troyer said. “But I can’t allow any more interviews with Danny until we get a psychiatric evaluation. I also need to speak with the prosecutor about a possible plea on the attempted murder charges. I’m sorry.”

  Now the lady grows a pair, Louis thought. Not that it mattered. For the first time in his career he was okay with a cop shooter taking a plea that might land him in a hospital rather than a maximum-security prison.

  And Julie Chapman’s case?

  The DNA test on her bones could take months. Anyone who might recognize Rhoda’s face was already gone from the island. Rafsky’s team had finished searching the cabin, even opening some walls. The cadaver dogs had alerted on nothing inside the cabin or the yard, and the teams were now working their way deeper into the woods. No one was willing to say it to Rafsky’s face, but it was becoming clear that Dancer didn’t have Julie Chapman’s skull.

  Louis looked at the barred window, where the snow was starting to pile in the corners. Things were fast going cold.

  And the truths they needed to know about Julie Chapman’s murder were very possibly trapped inside Danny Dancer’s enigmatic brain.

  26

  It was past midnight when Ross put the key into the front door of the cottage and slipped inside. The parlor was dark except for the glow of a dying fire in the hearth.

>   Ross hung up his coat and pulled off his scarf. He stood for a moment, eyes closed, holding the scarf to his nose. Her smell was still there in the cashmere, and so was his memory of the scarf draped between her bare breasts. It had been only a few hours since he had made love to her, but his desire stirred again. It was as powerful as it had been that first time five years ago when they began their love affair.

  He hung up the scarf and went to the liquor cabinet in the parlor to pour himself a drink.

  Love affair? No, that’s not what it was. There wasn’t a shred of love between them. It was all sex. Sex and professional favors. She needed an interview or some gossip at the state capital, and in exchange he needed . . .

  Sandy Hunt. Sophisticated, intelligent, and gorgeous—one of the most familiar faces in the Michigan media. Her public reputation was as a street-smart woman playing hardball in a man’s world. But privately Ross knew what people thought of her. He had heard what the other reporters said, the jokes they made and the names they called her in Stober’s bar as they watched her on TV. Sandy the slut . . . that was the kindest one.

  Ross drank the Hennessy, letting it burn its way down his throat.

  A few hours ago he had been in her Lansing apartment, listening to Sinatra croon from the other room. It was a drizzly day, the kind of day that lulled a man toward sleep, and her bedroom had been a grotto of silver-blue shadows.

  He had lain there, wondering why the fuck he kept coming back to a woman he couldn’t trust, wondering how he was going to get his attack ads on the air when he didn’t have the money to pay for them, wondering about—

  The memory of Sinatra’s voice momentarily interrupted his thoughts.

  “Today the world is old. . . . You flew away and time grew cold.”

  He shut his eyes. Sandy had sensed something was wrong, because she started to stroke his chest, a tender gesture that she seldom offered. Her voice had the smoothness and burn of brandy.

  Too bad your father doesn’t just fly away one night in his sleep, then you would have everything you need to be the man you were meant to be.

  I love my father, Sandy.

  Uh-huh. Right.

  She rolled away from him, smoked a cigarette, and fell asleep. Soon after, not wanting to be near her anymore, he slipped from her apartment and chartered a flight back to the island. On the way, he made a decision. He would tell his father that he wasn’t going to sit out the campaign waiting around the island for news about Julie. And he was going to demand that his father unlock an untouched trust left to Julie by their grandfather and give him the money he needed to win this election.