The Ice Maiden

by Edna Buchanan

  “We’re working with a new clay that bakes at three hundred fifty degrees in your own home oven,” Sunny said.

  Carlos, the oldest, age ten, held the exalted post of Sunny’s assistant, age apparently his sole qualification. The sad-faced girl was his little sister, Pilar. The other two girls were sisters, ages five and six.

  We navigated the turnstiles holding hands, then clustered around the huge manatee tank. Several gentle thousand-pound sea cows were in residence, one a mother with her calf. The unique white patterns, visible on the backs of all, were deep scars, cuts, and gashes from boat propellers. The endangered slow-moving vegetarians munch aquatic plants in shallow waters where they are unable to avoid speeding watercraft.

  “I wouldn’t want to be a manatee,” Rosie said. “They don’t have arms.”

  “How can they hug?” Pilar asked. “Do they kiss?”

  “That’s what they’re doing now,” Sunny said, as the mother nuzzled her calf with a whiskery snout.

  “If the state would only enforce boating regulations,” Nazario added, “manatees could coexist with people.”

  I resolved to take Onnie’s son, Darryl, to the Seaquarium soon. I wished he were with us today. These children were learning more than just art.

  “Are daddy manatees bullies?” Rosie wanted to know.

  “No, sweetheart,” Sunny said, her hand on the child’s shoulder. “They just like to swim in warm water and nibble on plants. We’re their worst enemies.”

  “Right,” Nazario said. “All these manatees were injured, but good people rescued them, and when they’re well enough they’ll go back to their old homes in the wild.”

  Sure, I thought. Until the next drunk or hopped-up speed-crazed boater runs them down. My heart ached for the slow, lumbering sea creatures.

  “How do they get hurt?” Rosie said.

  “Boat propellers cut them,” Sunny said, “and sometimes they get crushed in floodgates or in the locks of drainage canals.”

  “Or poisoned when people throw trash in the water,” I said. “Careless people leave fishing lines, hooks, and plastic bags floating among the plants manatees eat.”

  Sunny nodded. “That’s why we never ever throw garbage in the water,” she said.

  “Did you know that early sailors and explorers thought manatees were mermaids?” Nazario said.

  Carlos hooted skeptically. “They must have needed glasses.”

  “Maybe they did.” The detective shrugged. “Or maybe they’d just been at sea too long.”

  “They never saw The Little Mermaid,” Rosie said, stretching into a ballet pose.

  “Can we pet them?” Jonathan asked.

  “No,” Sunny said. “We mustn’t pet or feed them because they’ll lose their natural fear of us and be more likely to be hurt later.”

  “Why are they that color?” Rosie grimaced. “I’m painting mine pink.”

  Jonathan suddenly grabbed his crotch and demanded a bathroom—now!—and Nazario hustled him off to the men’s room.

  Sunny watched in alarm. “Is he…I’m responsible. Their mothers all sign releases.”

  “For God’s sake, Sunny,” I said, “the man’s a police officer, one of the good guys.”

  Still, she looked as relieved as Jonathan when the two rejoined us minutes later.

  “You ever notice,” Nazario said later, as Rosie interrupted her ballet stretches to comfort Jonathan, now whimpering over some imagined slight, “how little girls are born knowing what they’re supposed to do—”

  “But little boys never know what they’re supposed to do,” I said, finishing his sentence.

  Sunny was quiet until we were ready to leave the manatee tank.

  “Take a good look,” she told the children. “Remember what they look like, because by the time you grow up there might not be manatees anymore.”

  She sure knew how to take sunshine out of a day, I thought.

  During the drive back, Nazario spun the children a story about his adventures with a volunteer rescue team on a mission to save an injured manatee in the Alligator Hole River on the south coast of Jamaica. Despite dense tropical vegetation, hidden caves along the riverbanks, and hordes of nesting Jamaican crocodiles, they succeeded in hoisting the 900-pound manatee out of the river onto a specially designed stretcher.

  “Did you come from Cuba too?” Carlos asked Nazario.

  “Sí,” the detective said, nodding. “A long time ago. I was five years old, smaller than your little sister.”

  “Did your mami and papi bring you?” Rosie asked.

  “Nope. I came to Miami all by myself.”

  “No way,” Carlos said.

  “Oh, sí, amigo,” Nazario said. “My parents sent me on a plane. They were going to follow later but they couldn’t, because of Fidel. So here I was in Miami, all alone. Lots of parents sent their children then. They called it Operation Peter Pan.”

  “When did you see your mami and papi again?” Rosie asked, as Sunny steered the van into northbound traffic.

  “I never did.”

  “Never? Who did you live with?” Carlos asked.

  “Lots of families. The church put me in foster homes up in New Jersey for a while. Then they sent me back here and I stayed with some other people.”

  “Why wouldn’t Castro let them out?” Sunny asked, speaking directly to Nazario for the first time.

  “My dad wound up in prison, a political prisoner. My mom wouldn’t leave Cuba without him. She died waiting for his release. So did he, still in prison, a few years later.”

  “Castro killed my father too,” I said. “A firing squad.”

  “It must have been frightening,” Sunny said, “to be a little child, alone in a foreign country, orphaned.”

  He shrugged, expression nonchalant. “It was tough in the beginning. I spoke no English and they kept placing me with families who spoke no Spanish. After my parents, I missed the food the most. I can’t complain.” He turned to Carlos. “So, amigo, I hear you went to the ballet last week. How’d you like it?”

  “I can’t complain.” The boy shrugged, mirroring the detective’s nonchalant expression. “It would’ve been okay, if it wasn’t for all that dancing.”

  “I hope they have Mickey Mouse next time,” his little sister said.

  Rosie skipped, holding tight to Nazario’s hand, as we trooped across the lobby to Sunny’s studio. She must have thought we’d never leave. She’d planned to fix soup and sandwiches while the children worked on their clay models.

  Instead, Nazario ordered pizza.

  “Sunny?” Jonathan looked up from his shapeless blob of clay.

  “Yes?”

  “Can I have a kiss?”

  “Of course.” She kissed his cheek.

  Smiling sweetly, Rosie looked up from her hot-pink manatee, dripping paintbrush in hand. “Sunny?”

  “Yes, sweetheart?” She turned her good ear toward the child.

  “My mom says you bleach your hair and had a boob job.”

  Sunny’s cheeks colored, as the little girls giggled.

  “Mothers are always right,” Nazario commented, with a straight face.

  “Sometimes they’re mistaken,” Sunny murmured.

  With the clay sea cows finished and in the oven, the tables were cleaned off and set. Somehow I wound up at the kiddy table, leaving Nazario and Sunny at the other. They didn’t seem to eat much but they were talking quietly, a hopeful sign. I tried eavesdropping, but it was difficult with the kids all chattering. The only snatch of conversation I heard was Sunny saying, “You have to study the stone, let it speak to you and tell you what it wants to be.”

  “Then you carve,” he said attentively.

  “No, not yet. You do lots of drawings. Then you make clay models of the piece—much smaller, of course, but proportionate. After that, you do a plaster cast.”

  Nazario nodded, impressed. “All that before you even start carving?”

  Then Jonathan spilled his juice, the k
ids got noisy, and I heard no more. I’d warned him that all she’d talk about was work. How, I wondered, would he calculate the right moment to whip out a fistful of mug shots? And how would she react?

  He and the kids were still there when I left.

  I had a date with a dead man.

  11

  The viewing for Andre Coney was set for 7 to 9 P.M. The Reverend Earl Wright and his demonstrators marched up and down the block, his voice chanting the loudest, as they waved signs that read MURDER! and JUSTICE NOW! Which came first, I wondered, the TV crews covering them or the protesters eager to perform for the camera?

  The Liberty City funeral home resembled a large, comfortable, slightly rundown private residence, except for the wide gravel parking lot at the rear, the shiny black hearse at a side door, and the parade on the sidewalk out front. A funeral-home employee in a dark suit greeted visitors at the door, solemnly distributing leaflets memorializing the deceased. Andre Coney’s black-and-white picture on the front seemed a bit informal for the occasion. He was grinning, clad in T-shirt and jeans, the photo cropped in a way that hinted it had been a group picture and he’d apparently been holding a drink. The only other choice was probably a mug shot, I thought. His brief biography, printed inside, along with biblical verses, poems, and a list of relatives, made no mention of his accomplices.

  “Andre faced many trials in life,” the bio stated. That was true. They left out his impressive string of arrests.

  Lingering in the red-carpeted foyer, listening to piped-in organ music, I wondered what this fine send-off would cost Ida Sweeting and her family.

  When it was my turn to sign the guest book, I pored over all the other names. Bingo! A Mr. and Mrs. Charles C. Wells. Could that be Cubby, the boyhood friend Andre’s aunt had mentioned?

  I scanned the crowd of mourners for a possible candidate. Many wore black T-shirts bearing Coney’s same slaphappy snapshot, his name, the dates of his birth and death, and the words IN MEMORIAM. Wayman Andrews from Channel 7 was trying his best to stir up some action among them at the back of the room.

  Ida Sweeting, the dead man’s aunt, was front and center in the first row, clutching her Bible as friends paid their respects. She grasped my hand and thanked me for coming, despite her daughter, who shot me daggers.

  The star of the show lay in pious repose, hands folded over a small black Bible. Mourners kept saying how “good” he looked. It was true. His scars covered, Andre Coney did look good in his casket, probably better than he’d looked in years. All cleaned up, shaved, hair neatly trimmed, he was manicured and well dressed in a new suit clearly bought for the occasion. His appearance had improved vastly since I first saw him.

  I sidled up close when one of Andre’s cousins cried out a greeting to “Cubby.”

  The young man wore a suit, dress shirt, and subdued silk tie and had an attractive, vivacious young woman on his arm: the picture of someone who’d escaped the projects and prospered. Coney’s sister and cousins welcomed him like a long-lost friend.

  Keeping the couple in sight as I mingled, I saw him hug another young woman and introduce her to his companion.

  Moments after they parted, I caught the second young woman’s eye. “Wasn’t that…?”

  “Cubby Wells,” she said affably.

  I asked about Ronald Stokes as we chatted. “I thought he, Andre, and Cubby were old buddies,” I said, “but I didn’t see his name in the guest book.”

  From her reaction, she knew him too.

  “He’ll probably be at the service tomorrow,” I said innocently.

  “No.” She shook her head. “He won’t. He’s…away.”

  “Oh, right,” I said. “He had some trouble years ago, so he’s still…”

  “Yes, he’s…away,” she said softly.

  Her name was Shelby Fountain, formerly Stokes, Mad Dog’s sister. It didn’t seem to make her proud.

  “I’d like to meet you somewhere, so we can talk,” I said.

  “Why would you want to talk to me?” When another mourner turned to stare she lowered her voice. “I hadn’t seen Andre in years.”

  “I’m trying to piece it all together,” I said. “You know, the whole picture. The history, all the things that happened back when Andre, your brother, and a few of their other buddies were teenagers.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “I hear they were a tough crowd,” I said.

  Something in her face made my heart beat a little faster. Her hand flew to the silver cross on a chain around her neck. She knew what I was saying. We were on the same wavelength.

  “People got hurt,” I said.

  Her eyes darted nervously, as though uneasy at being seen with me.

  “Let’s talk somewhere in private,” I said. I reached for a business card, but she demurred. She didn’t want to be seen accepting it.

  “Take my number,” she said softly, “but don’t let anyone see you write it down.” She recited the number softly, under her breath. Before I could repeat it, a man in a black T-shirt interrupted, scowled at me, and whisked her away.

  I jotted down the number and then lingered until Cubby Wells and his companion said their goodbyes. They left first, me right behind them. He held the door open. “Aren’t you Cubby Wells?”

  He hesitated, but the young woman flashed a friendly smile.

  “I was,” he said reluctantly.

  “His childhood nickname,” she explained. “He hasn’t used it for years.”

  “It’s Charles,” he said.

  “My husband is such a stuffed shirt,” she said fondly. “I don’t know why he minds so.” She held out her hand. “I’m Abby Wells.”

  She taught fourth grade, she said, and he was a social worker who counseled troubled teens on probation.

  “Cool,” I said casually. “Too bad Andre didn’t have someone like you to turn to when he was that age. You guys were pretty wild back then, weren’t you?”

  He didn’t answer as we three strolled back to the parking lot. The evening fell soft around us. The sun had set, leaving just a glimmer of orange above the horizon.

  “Andre couldn’t stay out of trouble,” I went on. “Mad Dog is doing time. How did you manage to rise above it all and become a success?”

  He shrugged, face solemn.

  His wife giggled and gave him an affectionate nudge. “Come on, sourpuss, answer the nice lady.”

  “I don’t know if you could call me successful,” he said tersely. “You don’t get rich counseling kids in trouble.”

  “You’re not dead,” I said. “You’re not in prison. You’re a success.”

  His wife frowned. “Charles, what has gotten into you this evening? Of course you’re successful. We’re a success. We do what we love. We’re making a difference.” She turned to me. “We made that our mission statement when we got engaged, to make a difference.”

  They had reached their car, a blue Buick Skylark.

  “It’s still early,” I said. “Can I buy you two a cup of coffee or a drink? It’s important,” I added, as they hesitated, “for the press to show the positive side, the good that can emerge from the same neighborhood where these things”—I jerked my head toward the protesters and the funeral home—“attract all the media attention.”

  Wells shook his head, mumbling, “We’ve got to pick up the baby—”

  “Oh, let’s stop for coffee,” Abby persuaded. “The baby’s fine. My mother doesn’t expect us for hours. I thought I’d finally get to meet all his childhood friends,” she told me, “but he rushed me out of there like he’s embarrassed to be seen with me.”

  He denied it and apologized. The man didn’t stand a chance. We met at a diner on Twenty-seventh Avenue and sat in a booth. He and I had coffee while Abby ordered a glass of milk and blueberry pie à la mode with vanilla ice cream. “I’m hungry all the time,” she whispered. “I’m not showing yet, but we’re expecting another one.”

  She was four months pregnant, she said. Their first child, a
little girl, was three.

  “Charles isn’t really like this,” she told me, as he looked uncomfortable. “I think the death of this childhood friend is affecting him more than he admits.”

  “We weren’t all that close,” he protested. “I don’t even know why we came tonight. I was just…” He shrugged, momentarily at a loss for words. “I was curious. I hadn’t seen anybody from the old neighborhood for so long. I hadn’t even seen Andre since I was fifteen.”

  “But you and your buddies were tight then, weren’t you?” I said.

  Eyes troubled, he reached for his wife’s hand. “Half a lifetime ago. I was the youngest in the group.”

  “What happened? What made you break away from them?”

  “My grandmother happened. My mother sent me up to Fort Lauderdale to live with her, right after the New Year. That’s what saved me,” he said.

  Apparently it was the only good thing his mother had ever done for him. The intent was not to save him, though that was the result. His move out of Miami and out of her life was a matter of convenience: hers. A troublesome teenager, running with a rough crowd, he was fatherless and she was a destitute crack addict with only drugs and death in her future.

  “My grandmother took me to church, put me back in school, got on my case about studying. She saved me,” he repeated.

  Eventually he won a college scholarship.

  “That’s why he loves what he does so much,” Abby said, licking ice cream off her lips. “He sees himself in these kids, their potential. He can set them on the right road, because he’s been there, on his way down the wrong one himself.” They exchanged fond glances.

  Yeah. Sure, I thought. I liked her. Under other circumstances I might have liked him too. But certain questions iced that possibility. Did he rape Sunny too? I wondered. Did he help beat Ricky? Did he jam the gun to the boy’s head and pull the trigger?

  “I always think, There but for the grace of God…” he mumbled. “I’m so lucky.”

  I smiled, my heart a stone in my chest. He was lucky. He had it all: a career, a nice wife, and a family he loved. The good things in life that Ricky Chance would never experience because he was doing the big dirt sleep.