Ice Run: An Alex McKnight Novel (Alex McKnight Mysteries)

by Steve Hamilton

She looked me in the eye. “What about her?”

  “I’m just asking. I’m sorry, go ahead.”

  “My mother,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “She didn’t exactly get along with my grandparents. I guess it was kinda tough, living with your in-laws after your husband is dead, but she didn’t try real hard to make it work. We moved out once when I was like twelve years old, but, well…”

  She stopped.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “Alex, you’ve got to understand … Some things happened to me back then. I know it was a long time ago, but.. .”

  I waited.

  “Some things you don’t get over,” she said. “Maybe you get better at dealing with them. That’s all.”

  “What happened?”

  “My mother got remarried for a while. That’s when we moved out of here. My stepfather … Well, for now I’ll just say this, eh? He died a couple of years ago.”

  “Natalie, did he—”

  “He made a lot of money, too—after he left my mother for somebody else. He became some kind of real estate big shot or something. I don’t know exactly. All I know is that Albert DeMarco had a long and happy life. If there’s any kind of justice in that, somebody is going to have to explain it to me.”

  My stomach started to burn. I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “I finally ran away,” she said. “I came back here. My grandfather told Albert he’d have to kill him to take me away again.”

  “So your mother … Is she still around?”

  “Yeah, she is. Although, hell, when’s the last time I even talked to her? I think it was when she called me to tell me Albert had died. I think she actually thought I’d be happy enough to start forgiving her.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “My grandparents were great, okay? They were the best. My grandfather, you should have seen him …” She smiled at the memory. “He was so strong. So kind. He’s been gone a long time now, but I still miss him.”

  She took a hit off her beer bottle and then put it back down.

  “Anyway, as great as they were, I was still kind of lonely growing up. I was such an awkward kid. And shy, especially after everything that had happened to me.”

  I could see it in her. As beautiful as she was on that night, I could see that kid in her face. A tomboy with a slight overbite and big eyebrows.

  “But I loved playing hockey. I used to play with all the boys, and I was faster than most of them. When I started playing girl’s hockey in high school and then in college, it was okay, but you could never really hit anybody. I led my women’s hockey team in penalty minutes— I guess that sums me up pretty well, eh?”

  I shook my head and smiled.

  “After hockey, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. But you know, whenever I thought about my stepfather … I said to myself, why not become a police officer? Maybe help stop it from happening to somebody else. So I took the tests and joined the OPP. I don’t know how it works down there, but up here a woman can do pretty well.”

  “You never got married?”

  She looked at me. “No, Alex. I got close once. There was this other officer, Jimmy Natoli. That’s right, my name would have been Natalie Natoli. But he really wanted me to quit the force after I married him. I didn’t want to do that. Although maybe, looking back on it… I suppose I still had problems getting close to someone. After it fell apart, I was still on the force with him, so things got a little weird. That’s when I got shipped up to the Hearst station. I was thinking, great, look where they stuck me, way the hell up here. They partnered me with Claude DeMers, too, this ancient guy. They must really want to bury me up here.”

  She took another drink.

  “But then he turned out to be so great. It sounds kind of dumb, but with my grandfather gone … It was like I really needed him, you know? He tried to make things good for me. Until that business at the lake.”

  “Yeah,” I said. That part I knew.

  “I swear, I’m cursed, Alex. Wherever I go, bad things happen.”

  “Come on, Natalie.”

  “But no matter what,” she said, “I always had this place to come back to. When my grandmother died, she left it to me. I hired somebody to come in and keep things working. Run the furnace, make sure the pipes didn’t freeze. But I was never sure what to do with it. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. It was like my refuge from the world. But now … I’ve been here for a few weeks, and I’m thinking maybe it’s time.”

  “That’s why you’re doing all this packing.”

  She nodded her head. “Yeah. But after I sell it, then what? I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”

  I didn’t say anything. I sat there with her for a while until she got up to do the dishes. I grabbed a towel and dried while she washed. Later, we went to bed and this time we slept together, despite what she had said about always sleeping alone. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had told me that day, about her own scars and how they’d never heal completely. It helped me to understand her a little bit better, how she could be so close to me one moment and then suddenly a million miles away.

  I worked with her on some more packing the next morning. Then I went home. I thought about her all the way home and all that day and that night. I sat at Jackie’s in front of the fire and I thought about her.

  I had been alone too long. To a starving man, this sudden feast.

  “You’ve got to keep your head on straight,” I said to the flames. “Or you’re gonna be in big trouble.”

  I kept plowing. The sun came up, somewhere behind the snow clouds, giving the world a muted glow and no warmth. I rumbled down the main road to fill up the tank. There were a few poor souls out trying to shovel in the dim light, but aside from that it was quiet in Paradise.

  I pumped the gas and paid Ruthie, the lady who owned the place. She told me I looked different and I agreed with her. “It’s been a long night,” I said.

  “No, I mean there’s something else.”

  I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I left before she could figure it out. I got back in the truck and pulled out right behind one of the county trucks. He had his big blade down and he was kicking that snow at least twenty feet in the air. I saw one car get completely buried, and I hoped the guy who had been dumb enough to park it by the road had a good memory.

  I hit my road again and ran the plow through for the hundredth time. I had to keep at it, or I’d lose the road completely. With the new snow, the snowmobilers would finally be coming. As long as I had to put up with the noise, I might as well be making some money from it.

  The snow started to let up. I finally got ahead of it, and made one more pass, down the road and back, before I stopped at my cabin. I had some coffee and splashed some water on my face. The phone rang. It was Natalie.

  “Alex,” she said. “Are you getting a lot of snow?”

  “I don’t know. I haven’t noticed.”

  “Yeah, right. You still think we should try this today?”

  “I’ll be there,” I said. “I promise.”

  Then a silence, another hesitation that should have told me something important, but didn’t.

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you there. Drive carefully.”

  “You, too,” I said. Then I hung up.

  Now there’s only one problem, I thought. Make that two. I look like shit and I feel like shit. I took most of my clothes off and collapsed on the bed. Plenty of time to grab a little sleep, I thought. A little sleep so I could feel human again, then a hot shower, get dressed, and go over there. Plenty of time.

  When I woke up, the clock read 2:14 and it was snowing like crazy again. “Son of a bitch,” I said. I got out of bed and looked outside. There was already another eight inches of snow on the ground. “Son of a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.”

  I called Natalie. There was no answer. I left her a message, told her I was still at home, and that I needed to plow again
, and that I’d still try to make it. But hell, if it was this bad out her way, maybe she shouldn’t even try. Assuming she hadn’t left yet.

  But if she wasn’t answering her phone, she had to be on the road already. If she was on the road, then I was going to be on the road, too. Just plow a couple more times, I thought. Plow, then come in and call her again. Maybe call the hotel, see if she’s there yet. If she is, get cleaned up, put some clothes on. Hell, go plow a couple more times if you have to, then head to the Soo. If the road gets buried, so be it. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

  I headed out into the snow again. It was getting harder and harder to plow. There was no place to put the new snow, with the banks already four feet high. The road was getting narrower and narrower, but as long as one vehicle could get through, I figured I’d be okay. It’s not like I’d ever have a lot of traffic.

  I went back and forth three times, and then headed back inside. It was hard just to walk to my front door. The snow was up to my knees now, and the wind was blowing everything sideways. I fought my way inside and slammed the door. It was insanity to even think I’d be going anywhere. Absolute insanity. So of course I’d be going. I called Natalie’s number again. I let it ring a dozen times.

  “It’s ringing,” I said. “That means the phone lines are working, right? She’s just not there.”

  I pictured her out on the road. I hoped she wasn’t stuck somewhere.

  I called the hotel. She hadn’t arrived yet. It was after three o’clock now. God damn it, where was she?

  Relax, Alex. She’s on the way. She’s taking her time.

  I took a shower and shaved. I slapped some cologne on my face, felt it burning my skin. I put on an undershirt, took one look at it in the mirror and then tried to find a different undershirt. Twenty minutes later, I was finally dressed and ready to go.

  I went outside and fought my way back to the truck again. The wind was screaming. The snow lashed at my face. “I’m going,” I said to myself. “I’m going.”

  I had to brush the snow off the windshield again. I backed out and put my plow down for one more run. “I’m going. I’m going. I’m going.”

  I drove through town. There was nobody, no sign of life until I saw the lights on at Jackie’s place. I kept driving. My wipers were clogged with snow already, and I could feel my tires losing traction every few feet. I fishtailed and swerved and swore at the snow.

  There’s a stretch of road a couple of miles south of town—it runs along a narrow strip of land, with the lake on one side and a pond on the other. It was totally exposed to the wind, so I figured it would be a little tricky. As soon as I got close to it, the truth finally caught up to me.

  I wasn’t going any farther.

  I hadn’t turned my radio on since the day before, so I hadn’t heard it. I didn’t want to hear it. But now as I looked at the great expanse of snow—I couldn’t even guess where the snow-covered land lay, between the snow-covered ice of the lake and the snow-covered ice of the pond—I knew that there had to be a state of emergency all through the county. Even if I got through this stretch, and broke the law and tried to get to the Soo, I’d get stuck somewhere else. It was fifty miles if I stayed on the main roads, and even if most of M-123 was sheltered by the trees, as soon as M-28 broke out of the Hiawatha National Forest, it was all open ground. They wouldn’t even try to plow it until the snow let up and the wind stopped blowing.

  I hit the steering wheel with both palms, and then spent the next ten minutes trying to turn the truck around. When I was finally pointed north again, I drove back into town. There was no rush now. I went five miles per hour instead of my daredevil ten miles per hour. When I got to Jackie’s place, I looked in again and saw the lights and pictured the fireplace and a cold Canadian. I pulled into the parking lot.

  There were six people in the place, all locals who had walked down the road for a little company. They all looked up at me when I opened the door and cheered. It was that kind of night, when walking fifty yards was a cause for celebration.

  “Alex!” Jackie said from behind the bar. “Did you walk all the way down here?”

  “Can I use your phone?”

  “Help yourself,” he said, pushing the phone across the bar. As I got closer, he did a double take and stared at me.

  “What did you do?”

  “Huh?” I dialed Natalie’s number.

  “You did something.”

  I shook my head at him. Natalie wasn’t answering.

  “You did,” he said. “Something’s different.”

  I dialed the Ojibway Hotel again. I got the same desk clerk, and this time he told me, yes, Natalie Reynaud was there. I waited while he called her room.

  “Alex,” Jackie said. “You did something to your hair. That’s what it is.”

  Yeah, I thought. My hair. The box said it would look totally natural, and that nobody would notice. Totally natural, my ass.

  “It’s just a little thing for my gray,” I said.

  “Just a little thing? You look like a lounge singer.”

  I gave him a look and wondered how the day could get any worse. Then I heard her voice on the phone.

  “Alex, is that you?”

  “Yeah, it’s me.” I tried to pull the phone off the bar, but the cord wasn’t long enough. I waved Jackie away, but he didn’t move an inch.

  “Oh my God,” Jackie said. “Now I know.”

  “They said the roads are all closed out your way,” Natalie said on the phone. “I barely made it here myself. I think they closed the bridge right after I got across.”

  “This explains everything,” Jackie said. “I should have known.”

  If I could have reached him, I would have grabbed him by the collar and choked him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said into the phone, trying to wave him away again. “It was a bad idea.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Alex. It’s kinda nice here, eh? A nice hotel. It’s really good to be out of that house for a while. I was going stir crazy.”

  “I shouldn’t have asked you to come out.”

  Jackie just stood there watching me, shaking his head.

  “Alex, I’m fine,” she said. “Really. I’ll just go downstairs and get something to eat. Watch the snow for a while. If you think you might be able to get here tomorrow—”

  “Yes,” I said. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

  Jackie looked at the ceiling and sighed dramatically. I looked around for something to throw at him.

  “Okay, then,” she said. “I’ll stay here tonight and I’ll see you tomorrow. Call me in the morning, eh?”

  “I’ll do that,” I said. Then there was a long silence while I tried to think of something else to say.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said. We both said goodbye and hung up.

  “A woman,” Jackie said.

  “I’m going to kill you.”

  “A woman. This is why you’ve been acting so weird lately.”

  “Yeah, and this is why I didn’t mention it before, Jackie. I know how you are about women.”

  I didn’t want to have the whole discussion again with Jackie, the man who lived through the worst divorce of the twentieth century. But it was coming whether I wanted it or not, so I just asked him for a beer and went over to the fireplace. As long as I’d be staying put in Paradise, I knew I should be back out there plowing my road. But a little break wouldn’t hurt.

  So that’s where I was when the sun went down that evening. I was sitting by the fire in the Glasgow Inn, my usual spot, but on this day not at all where I wanted to be. The wind kept blowing and the snow was still coming hard, like it would never end.

  This is why the Ojibwas prayed to the winter every year, asking for mercy, asking that the spring would come quickly, and that the old man and the young child would both live to see it.

  The snow finally stopped around midnight. But the damage had already been done. I didn’t even know it yet. As I slept alone in my bed, I didn’t even k
now what I had done.

  Everything that was about to happen would begin that night. And it would all be on my head.

  Chapter Three

  The time passed between the two of us, leading up to this night at the Ojibway Hotel. I had been going over there three or four times a week, for how long was it then? A month? Five weeks? You add up the actual waking hours we spent together, and it wasn’t that much. But she was always there in my head. If I wasn’t on my way over there or on my way back, I was thinking about what she was doing, and when I’d be seeing her again.

  And me, I was virtually the only person she saw, the only person she ever talked to. She’d go down into Blind River, pick up some things, go right back home, work on the house. That’s all she did. She said it helped her forget everything that had happened. She had to put it all behind her before she could think about what to do next. That’s what she told me.

  It made me wonder. Was I just a part of that? Another way to forget?

  It got strange sometimes. She’d be doing something and she’d look up at me, like I had just shown up and she had no idea what I was doing there. I wouldn’t hear from her for three or four days. Then she’d call me up and ask me how soon I could be there. She was hungry and she wanted to eat dinner with me right away.

  Then we’d go upstairs. It was always the same room. The same bed or floor or a little of both. The last couple of times, we’d lain there and she’d be looking off at nothing, like she was a million miles away. She’d snap out of it and give me a quick smile, and then without a word she’d get up and go downstairs.

  It wasn’t real. That’s what I finally started to realize. The whole thing was like a spell, or a daydream, or something you’d make up on a lonely night. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were someone, right here, right now …

  I’ve never left well enough alone, not once in my entire life, so I decided it was time to put this thing to the test, to get it out in the daylight and to see what happened. So I asked her if she’d like to come down to Michigan sometime. Just mentioned it. That she’d never seen the cabins, or Paradise, or the Glasgow Inn. She’d have to meet Jackie, and, of course, Vinnie she already knew. But it would be good to see him again, to see how well he was recovering.