Ice Shear

by M. P. Cooley

  “Mom! Mom!” he cried. “Mom! Are you there?”

  “Your son is calling for you,” I said. The last thing the dying lose is their hearing, and maybe if the tiniest bit of life was still in her, Denise could hear me. “He loves you. He will miss you so much.”

  Denise Byrne’s answer was a terrible silence. The cold got deeper. I reached into the darkness.

  “I’m here,” I croaked, my voice weak. Then, into the radio, “I’m here. I’m alive.”

  CHAPTER 29

  MOM, MOM, MOM!” LUCY yelled from across the ice. “Mom, look!”

  I stopped in midcircuit, the winter temperatures of the rink washing over me the second I stopped moving. Outside it was warm, at least relatively; in the forties. I watched as my daughter skated in reverse. Well, perhaps skated was too generous a word. Lucy was doing little more than walking backward, but her form was perfect. Get a little force behind her and she had the making of a wonderful figure skater, if I said so myself. I clapped wildly and raced over to congratulate her.

  “That was excellent, honey,” I called. I sped up, the tendrils that escaped from my ponytail whipping across my eyes as I turned. With these new skates—thank you, overtime!—I sped up and twisted, sending a spray of ice across Lucy’s boots. She laughed and tried it, twisting her hips and then, ten seconds later, her skates. She succeeded only in throwing herself off balance. I reached for her and pulled her back into standing position.

  Keeping her hands in mine, I decided to show her what speed felt like. I skated backward, towing her.

  “Glide, sweetheart,” I said, when Lucy ran on the ice to make us go faster. “Gliiide.”

  “I can do it, Mom. Let go now.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re not tired?”

  “I’m not tired,” Lucy said. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

  Perhaps because I was. The “murder of the century,” as Jerry called it, had taken almost everything out of me, and doing the paperwork almost finished me off. Even after a month, the pain and exhaustion would still creep up on me.

  When I was brought out of the woods I wasn’t in good shape. I called out to Hale, to Dave, to anybody, to come help me.

  “We’re coming,” Lorraine said in my ear. “Keep talking to me, June. Stay awake! Talk to me so you don’t lose consciousness.”

  Light threaded through the trees, shining closer and closer. Sleepy and light-headed from the cold, I stopped trying to yell. Freezing rain washed down my chest. I could feel wetness but not the cold. Hale and three other agents—Ernie! I thought, but my mouth wouldn’t form the word—were first on scene.

  “Officer down.” Hale spoke rapidly into the radio, dropping next to me as Ernie and two other agents swept the area.

  “Where?” Hale demanded. “Where’s the injury?”

  It took a while for me to understand his question, and even longer to speak.

  “Not me,” I said.

  “June,” Hale said. Ernie radioed our location to the helicopters that circled overhead. A spotlight wiped away the grove’s shadows, exposing the misery. Hale put his jacket over my shoulders and wrapped his arms around me, sending shocks of pain through my whole body.

  The paramedics arrived and strapped me onto their immobilizing board. They carried me quickly toward the Brouillettes’ property, weaving through the grove, twisting left and right and at points lifting me over the trees. At this angle, with my soaked-through clothes, I felt like I was at the bottom of a lifeboat. The combination of the motion, my injury, and the bright lights from the helicopters made me nauseous.

  “Her first,” I said, as we passed the congresswoman. Amanda Brouillette sat on the porch surrounded by three police officers and four paramedics. She didn’t seem to notice them, clinging to her husband. They were both crying, with Phil rocking Amanda back and forth.

  “She’s conscious and aware, and has refused to go to the hospital,” the paramedic said. “You’re the top priority, little miss hero.”

  I closed my eyes to stop the motion sickness and to keep myself from telling the nice man who was carrying me not to refer to me as little or miss again. I figured I could enjoy the word hero for a minute, but images of Danielle, Ray, and Denise wiped that pleasure out quickly.

  I woke up in the hospital, the emergency room personnel going to a lot of trouble to warm me up. Through the fog I was able to catch bits of the news station from the TV bolted into the upper corner of the emergency room. As I waited to be x-rayed I watched Marty’s release. He made no statement, but his mother made plenty. I propped myself up on the bed so that I could better hear Linda Jelickson.

  “An eye for an eye,” Linda said. “And a life for a life. Revenge has been served, and Marty, an innocent man wrongly accused, is now free.”

  In the background, Marty leaned close and whispered something to Zeke. Zeke smiled wide. I shivered, and had to explain to the nice emergency room doctor that yes, really, I was warming up considerably.

  “Yeah, you can’t remember warm,” he said.

  I asked for another pillow, and he brought me another blanket. I was about to complain when the pillow and a bear hug arrived, care of Dave. He gave off warmth like an electric heater, and unlike the staff who’d slipped the little hand warmers over my fingers, he was willing to share his coffee.

  “Sure you’re not contagious?” I teased. He looked as healthy as a horse.

  “That yellow dust isn’t going to hurt anyone. Unless you are allergic to bees, like Craig. It was pollen.”

  “Pollen?”

  “Bee pollen. Some kind of vitamin that the pharmacy stocks in bulk. Denise knew his medical history, what with having filled his past prescriptions, and hit him where she knew he’d hurt.”

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  “Not sure yet. We’re lucky they got to him when they did. He had a second reaction, but they ventilated him.”

  “And you?”

  “Me? I’m healthy and strong. Which is more than I can say for you.” He ran his hand over my head. He was probably checking for bumps, not stroking my hair.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to say. I’d seen people die before, but all I could think was What a waste. Not only Danielle and Ray but also Denise. Denise had worried what Jason and Greg would do without her for good reason. They kept Jason away until the body was removed, but I doubt that they removed the snow, red and telling. Denise hadn’t considered the loss she created in people’s lives when she killed young Ray and Danielle, but still. Jason would miss his mother.

  I let myself sink back into the pillow. I felt as far from a hero as you could get.

  My doctor wasn’t going to let me out even after the X-ray proved I didn’t have a broken arm, just a dislocated one, and only relented once I was in a sling and my father promised to take care of me.

  “I can open a goddamned can of soup,” he said. His conversation with Shirley, an RN he went to high school with, sealed the deal.

  Dave wheeled me out to my father’s waiting car, where he tucked a blanket over the sling holding my arm in place, keeping me warm in the hospital scrubs. They had cut off my bloody clothes and bagged them as evidence.

  “I’m going to keep Craig company. He’s a lot more fun to hang out with when he can’t talk,” Dave said with a jaunty wave. “Plus, he was brave, in a very complaining way.”

  I was a little disappointed that Lucy wasn’t in the car.

  “I didn’t know how you’d . . . look.” My father kept his eyes glued to the road in front of us. He was going three miles an hour all the way, swerving to avoid potholes. You couldn’t really see them in the predawn light; he had them all memorized.

  “I wanted to get you stowed in bed before she saw you. Jeannette from next door came over. It might be hard for, for . . . someone”—and his voice broke, but he got it under control quickly—“for someone who loves you to see you like this.”
r />   “Sorry,” I said. I never thought my father the cop might worry.

  “Nothing to be sorry for. You did the job. We’re lucky that things like this only happen once every fifty years in Hopewell Falls. You’ll have retired as chief before it happens again.”

  The next week was spent at half speed, with Lucy physically attached to me most of the time. I cleaned up before she saw me, leaving only the sling, but Lucy was pretty freaked out nonetheless. To her, a sick parent meant death. I made sure I put on clothes every morning and came downstairs, even if all I was able to do was nap on the couch while pretending to watch TV. Dave brought reports of Craig (“Fully recovered. Whining at full volume”) and the Byrnes (“Store’s shut up, with a sign telling people to go to the CVS”). Hale brought reports of the Brouillettes (“They thank you for your diligent efforts in finding their daughter’s killer”) and Jeff Polito.

  “You’re kidding me,” I said. “Jeff was the drug distribution network? He was going to move two million hits of meth?”

  “Only a few hundred thousand. He was Denise’s guy, not Danielle’s.”

  “Still. That’s quite a leap from buying beer for high schoolers.”

  “He’s a trucker,” Hale said. “They don’t call meth ‘trucker speed’ for nothin’.”

  “Was he connected to the Abominations?”

  “Nope. Just helping Denise out on her project. It happened after Danielle died. He moved a little that she made out of store stock, but I don’t know if he transported any, or simply had intent.”

  Neither of them brought word of Marty. After ten days, I returned to the station and spent three days doing paperwork. I was supposed to be staying off the streets, leaving the heavy lifting at the Byrnes’ house and the pharmacy to people who could still lift things. Everyone seemed to be done with the excitement, particularly once the Jelickson parents, along with Ray’s body, left town in a blaze of exhaust. Behind Ray’s hearse rode the Merrimen, the first of a long line of outlaw gangs that would honor Ray on his route back to California. The Abominations would pick them up in the lower Midwest, following through Arizona and California. An honor guard, of sorts.

  Still, Marty stayed, and I visited him, hoping to shake his hand now that he was cleared.

  “What?” Answering my knock wearing jeans and a wifebeater, Marty opened the door a foot and blocked the whole entrance with his body. The tattoo on his right arm of a skull with flames coming out of the eye sockets was in full relief.

  “Back to bust me? Or maybe show me pictures of my dead wife and brother?”

  “Marty, can I come in?” I looked for the young man I had met before, who spoke of living an honorable life, but that Marty had disappeared behind tired, bloodshot eyes. “I’d like to apologize personally.”

  “Aww. Think I’ll sue? Or maybe you’ll claim that the party I had last night was a cartel, and bring me up on RICO charges. You bumped titties with me, sister, tried to pin it on me. I get it; it’s what you pigs do.” He was closing the door on me as he spoke. “But we’re even.”

  I shoved my foot inside. The door bounced hard off my boot, and the vibrations ricocheted through my body, making my shoulder throb, fresh and bright. The pain must have shown on my face because Marty stopped, leaving those last few inches open—his core of decency and honor was still there. I grabbed my chance.

  “I’ll leave you alone.” I held my sling close, easing the ache and giving me a second to figure out how to say what I came to tell him. “But I want to ask you—to ask your family, the Abominations, not to take revenge on the Byrnes. Jason and Greg were innocent—”

  “No shit. I told you that, remember?”

  “I remember.”

  “My family won’t be a concern.” He spoke slowly, concentrating on every word, and I wondered if he had been drinking. “We made a deal: Jason and his family . . . his father . . . can live.”

  I didn’t want to know the answer to my next question. “What do your parents get?”

  “In exchange? Me.” He held his arms wide like a game show host, kicking over a pile of empty beer bottles that stood next to the door. “And ain’t I a prize? Going back to the loving bosom of my family. Where I belong.”

  “You could belong here.”

  He shook his head, disgusted. “Jesus, you sound like Jason. Pair of half-wits. Told him to never show his fucking face here again or I’d kill him, and the same goes for you.”

  I was afraid to ask the next question. “Marty, have you been drinking?”

  “No! And if I was? It’s not illegal.”

  “But your sobriety—”

  “My sobriety is my business, not yours. Not yours, not Jason’s, not anyone’s in this town. God, Hopewell Falls is a shit-hole. I have to finish up some business, and I’m gone. You won’t need to worry that I’ll seduce any more sweethearts of the city. Unless, of course”—his smile was feral—“my dad thinks there’s some growth opportunity here. And I’m a pretty good tattoo artist, one of the best, and lord knows this state could use some good ink. And I’ll have family here to visit—Jackie’s kid should know his uncle. I might come back.”

  “Marty—”

  “That’s it. I’m gone.” He slammed the door.

  And he was, three days later, when I visited to drop off his security badge from the capitol and a huge ring of keys, which he had left at the station.

  “Cleared out of here yesterday,” Marty’s neighbor said when he saw me peering in the window. I peeked again. The house looked occupied, fully furnished, with dirty dishes and ashtrays across the table. The neighbor kept talking. “Said I could keep everything. Not much worth anything, mostly a bunch of books. The gaming system will bring some money. And he gave me his car.”

  “His car?” I found that hard to believe.

  “Yeah. And before you say anything, he signed the deed over to me, so it’s mine fair and square. ‘Didn’t need no cage anymore,’ he said. Rode a motorcycle right out of here, only had the clothes on his back.”

  I didn’t know if I ever wanted to see Marty again. He’d lost hope, and that made him dangerous. I would see him at Jeff Polito’s trial, if we even had one. But that was months away, months when Marty would be living and working with his family.

  The next week was a blur of cleanup, having my sling removed, and avoiding reporters trying to “understand the woman behind the badge.” The craziness continued until Chief Donnelly ordered Dave and me to take five days off.

  “Get out of here. Now that our murders are solved, I again have no money to pay you two overtime, although that may change: the mayor received a call from the governor who got a call from the congresswoman’s office, and we may not only have money for overtime but for a whole additional detective.”

  Detective, I thought.

  “Of course, it’s still in discussion, but let’s just say you”—he pointed at me—“impressed the right people. Who control the purse strings. Now be gone, both of you.”

  I made it all the way into the ladies’ locker room before jumping up and down and squealing. I stopped when I knocked a chair into one of the lockers.

  “I can hear you, Officer Dignified,” called Dave through the hole.

  Today, the first day of my vacation, I was up early, making breakfast for my father and daughter before running out to the hardware store to pick up paint. I was going to redo my bedroom: brighten the white on three walls and paint one wall a nice brick red. On the way home I stopped at the cemetery. The grave was almost pretty, the marble slab glowing gold under the sunlight, glossy with melted snow.

  “Are you going to stay? After I die?” Kevin had asked one day, lying sideways on the bed, pillows propped under his head and his swollen stomach.

  “Here? With my dad?” I said, breathing hard. I was hauling boxes of books up from the basement. Kevin and I had both been readers and I realized that the room didn’t feel like home without books in it. “Hopewell Falls is home. I know this place.”

  �
�You’re part of it. I want to be part of it, too. You should bury me here.”

  I met his eyes. I’d gotten better at not flinching when we talked about his death. “Gray marble slab over in Saint Agnes?”

  “Yeah. Pick out what you want. Pick out something Lucy won’t be afraid of. I don’t want her to be afraid of me, ever.”

  “You might end up with something purple.”

  “Purple’s good. Or a nice ‘safety orange,’ ” he said wryly, grasping my hand in his cold fingers. “We ought to let people know they should consider avoiding cancer.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and let him hold my hand, appreciating the comfort he was offering even though he was too weak to put his arms around me.

  “I wish this wasn’t true,” I said, after a while.

  “Me, too.” He yawned. “But I’m glad we were . . . we.” He fell asleep.

  In the days after the funeral, when we were waiting for the ground to thaw enough to bury Kevin, I asked Lucy what sort of headstone she wanted. Lucy wanted something like the sun, and we picked a yellow marble. By the spring, Lucy could trace the carved rays with her fingers, talking to me, talking to Kevin, talking to the dandelions that sprouted up around the grave. These days, I no longer had the running conversations with him, but I still saved up things to tell him. He answered back less and less.

  As I squatted beside the grave, Hale’s SUV approached. He parked right behind my car and turned off the engine but didn’t get out. As his car ticked away, I walked toward him. He got out when I was almost at his door but stood there, unsure of himself in a way I had never seen.

  “Hey there, June.”

  “Hey, yourself.”

  “This okay, me stopping over here?”

  “Don’t be stupid.” I stood on my toes and pulled him down into a hug. He came gladly, lifting me up briefly before putting me down. He kissed my cheek, a quick bit of warmth against my skin.