Cold Burn

by Max Allan Collins

  “Notice anything odd about this body?” he asked, directing the question to Catherine, senior member of the group.

  “Nothing we haven’t talked about already,” she said, with a glance over at the autopsy-in-progress. “For some reason her hair was wet, and she was cold, but why not? It was chilly out last night.”

  Robbins nodded and gestured with an open palm for her to take his place at the microscope. “Yes, but was it this cold?”

  Sitting down, Catherine gave Robbins a look, then pressed her eye to the eyepiece of the microscope. On the slide he’d prepared, she saw what appeared to be a flesh sample with several notable oddities—specifically, distortions in the nuclei of some cells, vacuoles and spaces around the nuclei of others.

  Catherine looked up at Robbins. “Is this what I think it is?”

  He nodded. “Your Jane Doe was a corpse-sickle.”

  Warrick and Nick exchanged glances.

  “Say again?” Warrick prompted.

  “A frozen treat,” Robbins said again, in his flat, low-key way. “What Catherine is looking at under the microscope is a tissue sample from Jane Doe’s heart.”

  “She froze to death?” Warrick asked, his usually unflappable demeanor seeming sorely tested.

  Robbins shrugged one shoulder. “Still working that one out. Suffocation is cause of death, but I don’t know the circumstances for sure.”

  First Nick, then Warrick took turns gazing into the microscope.

  Robbins said, “Notice those discolorations, vacuoles and spaces?”

  Warrick nodded, eyes glued to the slide.

  The doctor continued: “Ice crystal artifacts.”

  “So she was frozen,” Nick said, trying to process this information. “But maybe after she was dead.”

  “Frozen God knows when…and rather carefully frozen, at that.”

  Warrick’s eyes were wide and his upper lip curled. “And then what?”

  “And then,” Robbins said, “thawed…which is why her hair was damp. Catherine, the ground beneath the body was damp, I believe?”

  She nodded. “Wet underneath and in a small area downhill from where she lay.”

  “Suffocated,” Warrick said. “Then frozen.”

  Robbins did not answer immediately. But, finally, he said, “Yes.”

  Catherine’s mind was racing. She expressed some of her thoughts: “And because Jane Doe was frozen, we can’t pinpoint when she died.”

  Robbins grunted a small laugh. “Pinpoint isn’t an issue. It could’ve been a week ago, it could’ve been six months, or even longer, for that matter.”

  Nick was shaking his head. “Well, hell—how did we not notice she’d been frozen?”

  The doctor raised a finger. “As I said…she was ‘carefully frozen.’ Someone took precautions to avoid freezer burn. Wetted her down—a spray bottle would be enough. Kept wetting her down, all over, as the freezing process continued. And that is what kept her from getting freezer burn.”

  “So,” Catherine said. “Our killer knew what he was doing.”

  “Or she,” Nick put in.

  Robbins sighed, nodded and then explained his theory.

  Jane Doe has probably been either sedated or restrained or both. She’s still clothed at this point, then something clean cuts off her breathing, plastic over her nose and mouth maybe, and she’s out within five minutes…. Dead in not much more than that.

  The killer strips her, then seats her inside a chest-style freezer. Could be an upright, but a chest freezer would be easier; then he…or she…cranks the freezer up to its highest setting…but is careful to use a pitcher or a squirt bottle, maybe even a hose, to wet down the corpse. The killer checks on her at least once a day, and wets the body every time he checks the progress of the freezing. After some unspecified time, the killer pulls her out and allows her to defrost naturally…then dumps her body in the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

  Warrick’s eyes were tight with thought. “If he…or she…thought we’d be fooled into thinking we had a fresh body, then—”

  “Then on that effort, our killer failed,” Catherine said. “But even so, we’ve still had the time of death stolen from us, here.”

  “Exactly,” Robbins said.

  “So…” Catherine lifted her eyebrows, smiled at her colleagues. “…if we can’t determine when she died, let’s start with who she was.”

  “Which’ll lead,” Nick said, arching an eyebrow, “to finding out who wanted her dead.”

  “Which’ll lead,” Warrick said, with finality, “to putting the bastard on ice.”

  3

  INITIALLY, THE IDEA OF A GETAWAY WEEKEND WITH HER BOSS had appealed to Sara Sidle, for all kinds of reasons. But somehow in the thirteen hours between when she’d left her apartment and fallen gratefully onto this cloud of a bed in a posh hotel, she had gotten lost in some newly discovered circle of Hell.

  Grissom had picked her up just after 10 P.M., the time they normally would have been heading into the lab. Instead, they drove to long-term parking at McCarran and schlepped into the airport with their carry-ons as well as two suitcases of equipment for their presentation; the attendees would mostly be East Coast CSIs with the instructors flown in from around the country. Typically, the boyishly handsome, forty-something Grissom wore black slacks, a black three-button shirt, and a CSI windbreaker.

  “That’s the coat you’re taking?” she had asked. Sara had a Gortex-lined parka on over her blue jeans and a plain dark tee shirt.

  He looked at her as though a lamp had talked. “I’ve got a heavier one in my bag.”

  She glanced at his two canvas duffels, both barely larger than gym bags, and wondered how he got a heavy coat into either of them. Deciding not to think about it, she got into the check-in line right behind her boss. Both were using their carry-ons for clothing, and checking their suitcases of equipment on through. No need to freak out the security staff, who would not be prepared for X-ray views of the sort of tools, instruments, chemistry sets, and other dubious implements that the CSIs were traveling with.

  Sara spent the flight from McCarran to O’Hare squashed in the middle seat in coach—Grissom took the window seat, not because he was rude, she knew, but because it was his assigned seat, and Grissom never argued with numbers.

  Sara dug into an Agatha Christie mystery—the CSI could only read cozy mysteries, anything “realistic” just distracted and annoyed her with constant inaccuracies—and Grissom was engrossed in an entomology text like a teenager reading the new Stephen King.

  The whole trip went like that—the two of them reading their respective books (Sara actually went through two) with little conversation, including an O’Hare breakfast that killed some of their four-hour layover in Chicago. Then it was two hours to Dulles in D.C., another forty-five minutes on the ground, and a ninety-minute flight to Gordon International, in Newburgh, New York. Grissom was better company on the trip than a potted plant—barely.

  They were met by a landscape covered with four or five inches of snow that, judging by its grayish tint, appeared to have fallen at least a week ago. The cold air felt like the inside of a freezer compared to what they’d left behind in Vegas, and as the pair stood outside the airport waiting for the bus that would haul them and their gear the twenty miles from Newburgh to New Paltz, Grissom glanced around curiously, as though winter in upstate New York was one big crime scene he’d stumbled onto.

  Sara, on the other hand, felt at home—spiritually at home, anyway. The temperature here, just above thirty, took Sara back to her days at Harvard; the frigid air of winter in the east had a different scent than the desert cold of Vegas.

  At the curb in front of the New Paltz bus station, an old man in a flap-ear cap, chocolate-colored Mackinaw, jeans and dark work boots, waited next to a purring woody-style station wagon, the side door of which was stenciled: MUMFORD MOUNTAIN HOTEL.

  Carry-ons draped over them like military gear, Grissom and Sara made their cumbersome way toward the
ir down-home chauffeur. As soon as the codger figured out they were headed his way, he rushed over and pried one of the suitcases from Sara’s hand.

  “Help you with that, Miss?”

  But he’d already taken it.

  “Thanks,” she said, breath pluming.

  The Mumford man was tall, reedy, with wispy gray hair; his hook nose had an “S” curve in the middle where it had been broken more than once.

  After slinging Sara’s bag in the back, he turned and took one from Grissom and tossed it in. The man’s smile was wide and came fast, revealing two rows of small, even teeth.

  “Herm Cormier,” he said, shaking first Grissom’s hand, then Sara’s. “I’ve managed the hotel since Jesus was a baby.”

  “Gil Grissom. Honor to be picked up by the top man himself.”

  “Sara Sidle. We’re here for the forensics conference…?”

  “Course you are. You’re the folks from Vegas.”

  Grissom smiled. “Is it that easy to spot us?”

  Cormier nodded. “Your coat’s not heavy enough,” he said, with a glance toward Grissom’s CSI windbreaker. “And you both got a healthy tan. We got nobody comin’ in from Florida or California for this thing, and I knew two of you were coming from Vegas…. Plus which, all but a handful of you folks won’t be in till tomorrow.”

  Grissom nodded.

  “You, though, Miss,” Cormier said, turning his attention to Sara, “you’ve been around this part of the country before.”

  Though anxious to get into that warm station wagon, Sara couldn’t resist asking: “And how did you reach that conclusion?”

  The old man looked her up and down, but there was nothing improper about it. “Good coat, good boots, heavy gloves—where you from, before you lit in Vegas?”

  “San Francisco.”

  “No, that ain’t it.” His eyes narrowed. “Where’d you go to college?”

  She grinned. “Boston.”

  Cormier returned the grin. “Thought so. Knew you had to’ve spent some time in this part of the country.”

  The driver opened the rear door of the wagon and they were about to climb in, when another man sauntered up. A husky blonde six-footer in his late thirties, the new arrival had dark little eyes in a pale, bland fleshy face, like raisins punched into cookie dough. He wore a red-and-black plaid coat that looked warm, aided and abetted by a black woolen muffler. In one black gloved hand was a silver flight case—this was another CSI, Sara thought, and that was his field kit—and in the other a green plaid bag that jarred against the competing plaid coat.

  “Gordon Maher,” he said to all of them.

  Cormier stepped forward, shook the man’s hand and made the introductions, then said to the new arrival, “You must be the forensics fella from Saskatchewan.”

  They piled into the station wagon, Grissom and Maher in the back, Sara and Cormier in the front. Despite the snow blanketing the area, the roads were clean. As the station wagon wended its way through the countryside toward Lake Mumford, Sara allowed herself to enjoy the ride, relishing the wave of nostalgia she felt, watching the snow-touched skeletal trees they glided past.

  Harvard had been where Sara first took wing, first got out from the shadow of her parents. She sought out kindred spirits, overachievers like herself, and soon she was no longer seen as too smart, too driven, too tense.

  The very air in this part of the country smelled different to her now—like freedom, and success. She didn’t know when she fell asleep, exactly, but suddenly Cormier was nudging her gently. The car was parked on the shoulder and, when she looked around, Sara realized that Grissom and Maher had gotten out.

  “Thought you might like to catch the hotel and lake,” Cormier said, “from their best side.”

  Slowly, Sara got out of the car, the chill air helping her wake up; she stretched. Grissom and Maher stood in front of the car, staring at something off to the right. Going to join them, she looked in that direction as well, shading her brow with her hand as she gazed down the hill through the leafless branches at an ice-covered lake surrounded mostly by woods.

  In preparing for this trip, Sara had understandably assumed Mumford Mountain Hotel would perch atop a mountain. Instead, the lodge hunkered in a valley between two mountains, overlooking the lake—and from this distance, situated as it was on the far side of the frozen expanse, the sprawling structure brought nothing so much to mind as a gigantic ice castle from the fairy tales her mother had read to her as a child.

  It wasn’t beautiful, really, more like bizarre—and mind-numbingly large, which was especially startling out here in the middle of nowhere. A hodgepodge of five interconnected structures, Mumford Mountain Hotel might have been a junkyard for old buildings: in front, near the lake, sat a squat dark-wood ski chalet; to the right and behind the chalet, a huge gray castle complete with turrets and chimneys rose seven stories. That gothic monstrosity was flanked by two functional-looking green four-story buildings that might have been the boys’ and girls’ dormitories at an old private school.

  The one on the right had a deeply sloped, gabled roof, while its fraternal twin at the other end had a flatter roof with a single sharp point rising like the conical hat of a Brothers Grimm princess. If those buildings didn’t supply enough rooms for Mumford’s guests, a last building—what looked like a two-story gingerbread house—had been cobbled together on the far right end. The whole unlikely assembly seemed to shimmer under a heavy ice-crystal-flung dusting of snow.

  “The Mumford Mountain Hotel,” Cormier said, pride obvious in his voice.

  “Can’t say I’ve seen its like before,” Maher admitted, arms folded against himself. “What’s the story on the various building styles?”

  “Well, that castle part came first—then wings were added, to suit whoever was running the place at the time. The hotel just sort of grew over the years. It’s hard for people to get an idea of how big she is, when they’re up close. I like to give folks the chance to see it from a distance, get a little perspective.”

  Sara said, “You could get lost in that place.”

  Cormier nodded, breath smoking. “Over two hundred fifty guest rooms, grand ballroom, complete gym, meeting rooms, tennis courts, golf course.”

  “The lake get any action in the winter?” Maher asked.

  Again Cormier nodded. “They’ll clear the snow off and play hockey on it when the weather gets a mite colder.”

  Soon they were back in the car and following the narrow road that wound down the mountain and ended at the check-in entrance of the hotel, which was alongside the building—otherwise the guests would have had to maneuver the flight of stairs to the actual main entrance and the vast covered porch where countless rocking chairs sat unattended. A light snow began to fall as Cormier directed several bellboys to unload the station wagon, piling the guest luggage onto carts, a process Grissom watched with suspicion—his precious tools and toys were in those bags.

  They checked in, having just missed lunch, but Grissom shared with her a fruit basket the conference chairman had sent, and Sara left him at his room, where he was eating a pear as he unpacked. She headed down the wide, carpeted hall for her own accommodations, eating an apple along the way. She felt like Alice gone through the mirror into a Victorian wonderland—dark, polished woodwork; soft-focus, yellow-tinted lighting; plush antique furniture; wide wooden stairways; and little sitting areas with fresh-cut flowers and frondy plants and their own fireplaces.

  Now, midafternoon, having gotten the nap she so desperately needed (sleeping in the car had actually made her feel worse), Sara felt an irresistible urge to go exploring—there were only a few hours left before sundown. She wondered if Grissom would feel the same.

  Of course he wouldn’t.

  He was probably curled up with that damned bug book again. Not that she didn’t understand his almost hermit-like behavior—she was a loner herself. But ever since the Marks case, Sara had tried to force herself out into the world more, to have a life
beyond the crime lab, after noting the work-is-everything, stay-at-home, shop-out-of-catalogues existence that had contributed to the death of a woman way too much like herself.

  She had come to Mumford with a plan to embroil Grissom in an outing and Sara Sidle was nothing if not thorough. Quickly she changed from her traveling clothes into black jeans, a heavier thermal undershirt and a dark flannel blouse. She slipped into her parka, snatched up her camera, briefly considered taking along her collapsed portable tripod, then decided not to be encumbered. Maybe later. She locked the door behind her and went to Grissom’s room.

  Her first knock inspired no answer, and she tried again. Still nothing. On the third, more insistent knock, the door opened to reveal Grissom, entomology text held in his hand like a priest with a Bible—it was as if she’d interrupted an exorcism.

  “Hey,” she said, chipper.

  “Hey,” he said, opening the door wide. “You look rested.”

  Wow—that was one of the nicest things he’d ever said to her.

  Encouraged, she tried, “You wanna go for a walk?”

  He glanced toward the window on the far side of the room, then turned back to her. “Sara—it’s snowing.”

  She nodded. “And?”

  He considered that for a while.

  “I don’t do snow,” he said. He was still in the black slacks and black three-button shirt. Gesturing with the bug book, he said, “It’s cozy, reading by the fire. You should try it.”

  That almost sounded romantic….

  He frowned at her and added: “Don’t you have a fireplace in your room?”

  “…I finished my books already.”

  “The first thing the pioneers did was build shelter and go inside. Out of respect to them, I—”

  “Did you know there are 274 winter insects in eastern New York state alone?”

  He stilled, but clearly sensed a trap. “You made that up.”

  Grinning, she handed him the printout. “Snow-born Boreus, Midwinter Boreus, Large and Small Snowflies and the Snow-born Midge…just to name a few.”