Ray Elkins mystery - 04 - Shelf Ice

by Aaron Stander

  “Tristan, I’ve got to listen to your chest. We’ll try not to undress you too much, I know how cold it is in here.”

  With Ray’s help, she unzipped Laird’s down jacket and the second fleece jacket under it. She slid the chest piece of the stethoscope up under his t-shirt, instructing him to take deep breaths as she listened to his lungs, first on his back and then on his chest. When she was finished, they carefully zipped him back into his jackets.

  Ray looked across at Hannah. He could see by her expression that Laird’s condition was serious. He imagined that she was trying to figure out a way to convince Laird that he needed the kind of care that could only be provided in a hospital.

  “How am I, Doc?” he asked in a wheezy voice.

  “Things aren’t good, Tristan. You have a lot of congestion in your lungs and a high fever. You need to be in a hospital.”

  “You were going to bring me meds,” said Tristan in a pleading tone.

  “I did, Tristan. Meds and food and a dry sleeping bag. But you’re too sick for them to do you much good. My colleague here,” she gestured toward Ray, “will confirm my diagnosis.”

  “It’s true,” said Ray in a soft voice. “We can save your life if we can quickly get you to a hospital.”

  “I can’t leave. Someone is trying to kill me.”

  “We’ll get you safely out of here to a place where you can get better,” said Hannah.

  “We can get round-the-clock protection, no one will be able to get you,” added Ray.

  “Just leave the meds and food. I’ll be okay,” he pleaded.

  “Tristan,” said Ray, leaning close. “The weather is changing, the wind is coming up. You can hear it, can’t you?” He paused to let the sound of the wind and waves echo through the cave. “Six to eight foot waves tonight. This cave is going to be flooded. If we are going to get you out safely, we’ve got to leave now.”

  “I’m too weak. I can’t paddle.”

  “If you can sit in your boat, we can tow you back. I’ll radio for assistance and have an ambulance and police waiting for us.”

  Laird offered feeble resistance as they lifted him by his arms and moved him toward his boat. They carefully helped him pull on a spray skirt and PFD. Then they maneuvered his less than limber body into the tight-fitting cockpit.

  “How are we going to do this?” asked Sue.

  “It’s a tippy little kayak, and he’s very weak. We can’t take a chance on him capsizing. Why don’t you ramp with him, and I’ll tow.”

  “It’s a long way.”

  “When I get tired we’ll change off. Let me call dispatch and get people rolling, then we’ll launch.”

  After Ray called for assistance, he got into his boat and carefully slid out of the cave. He waited as Hannah slowly pushed Laird’s boat in his direction. With one arm, he held onto the second boat while pushing away from the ice with his paddle, making room for Hannah to launch. Once she was on the water, she ramped up with Laird. Ray hooked his towline to the bow of her boat and paddled away slowly, allowing the rope to spool out of the bag. Once it was taut, he began to paddle, slowly at first to get the other boats moving, then adding more power, his eyes fixed on a distant destination. He settled into a steady rhythm, trying to set a rate that he could maintain for the entire route. Minutes crept by. Ray could feel the sweat begin to build in the interior of his dry suit. He kept looking back to check on the other boats.

  Ray focused on moving as quickly as possible toward their destination. He was startled by the sharp report of a pistol. As he turned he saw a dark figure standing near the end of the shelf ice, firing toward the kayaks that were bouncing in waves at the end of his towline. Then he saw a flash from Hannah’s flare gun, the blaze of magnesium hitting the center of the figure, followed by an explosion of flames as the bulky nylon jacket of the shooter was ignited by the white-hot projectile. He heard a scream and then saw the shooter plunge into rolling surf.

  Ray raced back, “Are you hit?”

  “No,” Hannah answered. “We’re both okay.”

  Ray let the towline go slack and paddled over to the edge of the shelf ice in the area where he saw the body hit the lake. He maneuvered back and forth several times in the reflecting waves, peering into the dark water. Then, pulling the GPS off his deck, he set a waypoint.

  “See anything?” Hannah asked.

  “No. Must have gotten trapped under the ice. We’d better get going,” Ray said, his destination now illuminated by the flashing lights of emergency vehicles. He got the slack out of the line and paddled toward their destination again, his efforts aided by the sudden burst of adrenalin.

  48.

  Ray leaned against Hannah’s Subaru and sipped on a water bottle one of the EMTs had given him before they left the scene with Tristan Laird, Hannah at Tristan’s side attending to his needs. A pickup truck slowly came down the road in his direction and stopped a few yards in front of him. Ben Reilly gingerly opened the passenger’s door and waved from the seat. A heavy black nylon jacket with his name and the department logo embroidered on the front was wrapped over his shoulders. Cut-off sweatpants covered the casted leg, with heavy socks and worn Birkenstocks on his feet.

  “What are you doing here?” asked Ray.

  “Couldn’t keep him away,” answered Maureen, Ben’s wife, coming around the truck from the driver’s side. “He calls Central Dispatch two or three times a day to see what’s happening. He hasn’t changed one bit.”

  “I was talking to Central when your call came in. I knew Sue was out of the area, and I thought you might need some help,” Ben explained.

  Ray looked toward Maureen who muttered, “It’s alright. He needed to get out of the house.”

  “Ben, I could use your help. And he can do everything from here,” Ray reassured Maureen. He retrieved his GPS from the driver’s seat of Hannah’s car. “Push this button to bring the display back on,” he instructed. “When the dive team arrives, give them these coordinates. I think they’ll be able to locate the body just under the ice shelf in that area. And Brett should soon be here to collect evidence and photograph the scene. He’ll be able to figure it out from the coordinates too. I would bet the assailant’s car is near. They probably followed us here. This is the closest open access. Maybe that black Audi,” Ray pointed to a vehicle sitting at a plowed widening in the road.

  “Do you have a name?” asked Ben, pulling a small notebook and pen from an interior pocket.

  Ray took the notebook and pen, and using the top of the Subaru as a writing surface, carefully printed the first and last name. “I think that’s who you will find,” he said, handing back the notebook. “And you will probably find that name when you run the plates on that Audi.”

  “You okay?” asked Ben.

  “You know how it is when you come off an adrenaline high. I just need to go slow for a bit. I’m going over to the medical center and check on things. Thank you for being here.” Ray held Ben’s hand, then gave Maureen a hug.

  “You guys,” she said. “You don’t change.”

  • • •

  Ray found Hannah Jeffers in the central area of the emergency wing, dressed in blue scrubs, standing at a desk keying information into a laptop.

  “How’s the patient?” he asked, lightly grasping her left elbow to indicate his presence.

  As she turned and smiled, he could feel her exhaustion. “Things are under control. He’s in the medical ICU, he’ll have round-the-clock security. His name is not on the patient roster. No one will know that he’s here.”

  “The prognosis?”

  “Excellent. With treatment and proper nutrition, he’ll be through the medical part quickly. Then there’s the whole psychological side. He seems to need a minder.”

  “Brenda Manton, the first victim in this bizarre case, played that role in Tristan’s life. I don’t know who will do that now. I’ve heard that he has family somewhere out east. We’ll try to contact them.” Ray paused for a moment. “Will
I be able to talk to Tristan anytime soon?”

  “In a day or two, no problem. I know you will be attentive to his psychological state.”

  Ray nodded to show his comprehension of her statement. “I’ve got your car here.”

  “How about Simone?” Hannah asked.

  “I forgot about her. She’s probably okay. I hope.”

  “I better get you home fast. I hate seeing a sister in distress.”

  • • •

  Ray led the way to the parking lot, tossing Hannah the keys across the hood of her car. They rode in silence most of the way. Finally she said, “It all happened so fast. I’m just starting to comprehend the enormity…” Her voice faded off. After several minutes of silence she continued, “And I don’t know what I’m feeling. I’m just numb. It’s a flashback to Iraq. I’ve walled myself in an emotional bunker.”

  After several minutes she asked, “I killed someone, didn’t I?”

  “You shot someone, fired in self defense. They may have died in the ensuing events. I didn’t see any of it. What happened?”

  Hannah’s answer was slow in coming. “By the time we were back on the water, the wind had picked up and the boats were moving a lot with the waves coming off the lake and the rebounding water from the shelf ice. I was really worried about losing my hold on Tristan’s boat. I was leaning over the back of his cockpit trying to keep our bows in line so we wouldn’t be too difficult to tow. At first I didn’t see anything. I just heard the pop. Then I glanced up at this dark form holding a pistol. I pulled out that little flare gun and took a wild shot. I can’t believe I hit anything. And then there was the fire, the person toppling into the lake. It’s all surreal… a dream… a nightmare. It’s not like I haven’t been around violence and death. But I’ve never….”

  “The flare didn’t inflict a mortal wound.”

  “But the fire. I started the chain of…”

  “No, you just responded. You were protecting your patient. You were doing the only thing that could be done in that situation.”

  “Have you ever…?” Hanna left the opening of her question hang.

  “Yes, similar situation. I was badly wounded, barely conscious of my actions. It was a desperate act of self-defense. I had one shot at him with my rescue knife. My assailant wandered off and died a week or more later from an infection.” Ray paused and reflected on the incident that had taken place only a few months before. “That was a very difficult time. I’m still dealing with the psychological fallout, probably always will be. But before now, I never thought about the part I played in that young man’s death. There was no other choice.”

  They rode in silence the rest of the way. On reaching the house, Simone came dashing out the instant Ray pushed the front door open. After absorbing her enthusiastic greeting of barks and wags and wet kisses as they passed her back and forth, they walked down his drive and then continued through the near neighborhood. The wind had dropped and the temperature was mild for early March. They strolled under streetlights and along the quiet streets of the village, both aware of the special gift of sharing tranquil moments with a friend and a dog.

  49.

  Simone’s sharp bark pulled Ray’s attention from the nearly completed Incident Report he had been working on since arriving at the office. He had made an early morning stop at the hospital’s morgue to ID Elise Lovell’s body, his mood shaken by the lifeless visage of the once vibrant woman that he remembered so clearly from his brief encounters.

  Sue settled in a chair near him, Simone wiggling excitedly in her arms.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Tired. Plane was real late. They told us weather-related, but it was a clear, beautiful flight. I wasn’t on the ground until after midnight. Close to 2:00 when I finally made it to bed. I didn’t figure you’d be too pleased having me stop by to pick her up at that hour. How was my girl? A good guest?”

  Ray smiled.

  “You look a bit worse for wear,” observed Sue. “Anything happen in my absence?”

  Ray added a few more words to the Incident Report and hit the print command. He retrieved the hardcopy from the tray and handed it to her. “Here’s something to read while I get some coffee. Want some?”

  “Sure,” she responded, grasping the pages in her right hand.

  When Ray returned to the room, Sue was sitting at the conference table, the pages of the report laid out in front of her. Ray set two clean mugs, a carafe of coffee, and a can of Diet Coke on the table.

  She took the Coke, popped the opener, and looked over at Ray. “My God,” slipped from her lips, her eyes returning to the print.

  They sat in silence until she had completed the last page. When her eyes met his, Ray asked, “What did you learn yesterday? Help me understand how this all happened.”

  Sue retrieved a laptop from her backpack. “I started pulling notes together last night at O’Hare while I was waiting for the flight. It’s just a rough draft, more of an outline, really.” She looked over at Ray then back at the screen, as she opened a document. “Nice town, about ten or twelve thousand. Flat country out there. I met with Detective Sergeant Jeanette Walters; she looks like she’s in her late 40s. Once I showed my identification and proved to her that I was who I said I was, she was very cordial. She’s a real character.”

  “How so?” probed Ray.

  “She was the first woman in the department and the first one with a college degree. She said she had a lot of challenges early on, she didn’t elaborate. She just seemed to assume that I would understand.

  “We walked from the public safety building to the library, just a couple of blocks. Along the way she explained that all the records on Elise had been sealed by order of the court. Elise was a juvenile at the time. When we got to the library, she introduced me to the research librarian, a Robert Kampy—tall, skeletal, smelling of pipe tobacco. I would guess that he’s in his late 60s. It soon became apparent that Jeanette had prepared Robert for my visit. He took me in a back room and, behind closed doors, he led me through a series of microfilms from the local paper, a publication that no longer exists. There were reports of vandalism and arson, with the suggestion that teens were suspected.”

  “What are we taking about?” asked Ray.

  “The surrounding country there is quite rural. The early articles referred to vacant houses being vandalized, interiors being badly damaged. The things left at the scenes, beer cans, lots of car tracks suggested the places had been the sites for a large party, probably by teens. Then there were several articles on vacant homes being destroyed by fire, with the suggestion these were probably related to the earlier vandalism and that this was a very dangerous development. The last article he showed me was about a high school senior being killed in a fiery accident early on a Sunday morning. The boy who was killed was hit from behind while sitting at a stop sign. He was hit by a large dump truck, his gas tank exploded, and he died in the fire. Other than noting that the driver of the other vehicle was a minor, there was no identification.”

  “So what’s all that about?”

  “That’s what I asked Kampy. He said the person at the wheel of the truck was Elise Brickston. The boy driving the car had been her steady. While Jeanette Walters had done her best to be a bit elusive, Kampy was not. He told me that she was the daughter of one of the wealthy members of the community. Her father had made millions running a large road-building company. He said that Elise was willful and wild and that the accident was no accident, it was murder with premeditation committed by a minor.”

  “So what happened?” asked Ray.

  “That was his point, nothing happened. Elise was whisked out of town to some expensive treatment facility to help her recover from the horrible trauma of the accident and her overwhelming feelings of guilt and remorse.

  “Kampy was bitingly sarcastic. He said he thought that Elise was probably pregnant and her parents wanted to get her out of town and get things taken care of. She was never charged. She was l
ater sent to a pricy prep school, he said he heard it was in suburban Chicago. Kampy told me that some of the kids from town ran into Elise in college. She went to Northern Illinois. And he said he always wondered what might lay in her future. As far as he was concerned, she was a killer.”

  “So how does Kampy fit into this whole story?” asked Ray.

  “It was his son, Eric, the boy who was killed in the accident. Kampy said that at that time he had figured out that his son was involved in the spree of vandalism and arson. He had confronted Eric just hours before he died. Eric had confessed to Kampy his involvement, but he told his father that Elise was at the center of it all. It was her idea, and he was going to break up with Elise because he was afraid that she would ruin his life. The night of the accident he was going out to meet her, to tell her that the relationship was over. Kampy isn’t sure what happened, the order of events. But he is sure that his son was murdered and that Elise got away with it.”

  They sat in silence for several minutes. “That’s a really good piece of work on your part. Reaching back twenty years, making the connections.”

  “Yes, it is,” she agreed. “But after the fact, too late to protect anyone or bring Elise to justice. We end with questions rather than answers.”

  50.

  Ray and Sue did not have long to contemplate Sue’s last remark. Their attention was pulled to a voice at the open door asking if she could come in. They turned to find Molly Birchard, looking tired and disheveled, standing just outside the doorway in the hall.

  Ray came to his feet and escorted her into his office, shutting the door behind her. When she was seated at the conference table, he retrieved a digital recorder from his desk, turned it on, pressed the record function, and set it on the table between Sue, Molly, and himself.