Murder on Ice

by B. T. Lord

“Impressive. You look good with a gun.” He glanced at her to see her reaction to his joke. Her stony reaction checked him. He leaned forward in his seat. Cammie leaned back.

  “I was hoping I could talk you into taking me on a tour of our old haunts. Talk over old times.”

  “There is nothing to talk about. And I’m sure Carolyn would be more than happy to be your tour guide."

  Eli clicked his tongue. "She was a pain in the ass fifteen years ago. Obviously, she’s not as physically as big of a pain, but still a pain."

  Cammie raised an eyebrow. "Harsh, aren't we? It takes a lot of willpower to lose as much weight as she has. She's remade herself. She’s now a well-respected insurance agent."

  "Who still hasn't forgiven you for stealing me away from her."

  Cammie stiffened. "I never stole you away from anyone. You pursued me."

  He chuckled. "I know. But in Carolyn World, you’re the villain and she’s the damsel in distress. Besides," he added, the corners of his mouth lifting into his patented charismatic smile, “she could never understand what a sucker I was for tall redheads with gorgeous hazel eyes. Still am."

  “If you think your smile is going to charm me, it isn’t going to work. In fact, it hasn’t worked since the night you left Twin Ponds.”

  Eli met her gaze, then suddenly threw his head back and laughed. She noticed his startlingly white teeth and harrumphed.

  Probably has them bleached.

  “Hey, you can’t fault a guy for trying. So, what have you been up to all these years? Do you still play hockey? You were one terrific hockey player.”

  An unexpected flash of grief coursed through Cammie. She hadn't picked up a hockey stick in a long time. Not since the night --

  Her mind instantly veered away from the unpleasant memory. She took a deep steadying breath and gave him a direct look.

  “What’s this all about?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This. You appearing after ignoring us for fifteen years. You suddenly wanting to get to know me. What are you up to? And,” she added in a testy voice, “what’s with the sugar packets? You’ve been lining them up ever since we sat down. You develop OCD in your old age?”

  Eli looked down at the packets in surprise, then shrugged. “It’s all about precision, cupcake. I’ve spent my entire professional life working on precision. It’s what got me to the top. Hard habit to break. As to your other question, I’m not up to anything. Can’t a man return to his hometown when he wants to? You did, didn’t you? And since when is it against the law to look up the woman who once meant so much to him?”

  She guffawed. “Oh please, Eli. The only person who ever meant anything to you was you.”

  Eli started to say something, then thought better of it. Instead, he glanced down at his hands. “Okay. So I was a shit. That’s what I’d like to talk to you about. There’s a lot of unresolved issues between us that I’d like to clear up.”

  “You’re too late. I have no interest in rehashing what happened. You did what you did and no explanation will change that."

  "I'd still like a chance to--"

  "To what?" she asked, exasperated. "To clear your own conscience? To make yourself feel good?" She shook her head in disgust. "I hate to break this to you, but I haven't spent all these years pining away for you. I moved on. I have a very happy life here."

  "Oh yeah," he sneered "Shacking up with Junior."

  Her eyes flashed a warning. "Do not go there."

  "It's comforting to know you're still hot for hockey players. I hear he's pretty good. Even if he is cradle material."

  She started to react when she caught herself. Eli had always been good at goading her. As skillful as a surgeon, he’d mined her psyche with his scalpel, looking for those buttons he could push whenever the urge hit him. Some of those buttons she’d worked hard removing. Some, unfortunately, were still there. But for once she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of provoking her. She sat back and recrossed her arms over her chest. “You’re really doing a great job of convincing me to clear up our unresolved issues.”

  Eli stared at her for a moment, then broke into a chuckle. “Okay, that was a low blow. I apologize.” He sat back and took a sip of coffee. “Let’s start all over again. What did you do after you left Twin Ponds? I really want to know.”

  “You can look up my bio on the internet.”

  “You’re really not going to make this easy, are you?”

  “I told you Eli, what happened between us is ancient history. Ranks up there with Caesar crossing the Rubicon. The Greeks fighting the Persians. It’s so long ago, nobody cares. I have no need or desire to rehash it all again to ease whatever sense you have of right and wrong.”

  “Then tell me about Harlan.”

  She jerked her head up, her hazel eyes crackling with anger. “No.”

  The word reverberated between them. They stared at each other across the table, the tension growing between them.

  Eli watched her face harden, but not before a flicker of pain so deep and unrelenting glimmered in her eyes before she blinked it away. His own reaction startled him. Up until that moment, he’d been going through the motions. Trying to talk to Cammie about their past was something he felt he should do. Like most other things in his life, he’d done things he felt he should do because it was expected of him, without any true compassion or emotion behind it. But now, seeing the anguish she tried to hide, the selfishness and self-absorption that made up who he was suddenly became ugly and distasteful. He saw and understood for the first time what his actions had wrought. For the first time in his life, he genuinely felt horrible for what he’d done.

  It left him shaken. Struggling with emotions he didn’t even know he had, he tried to reach out and find a gap in her armor he could penetrate.

  “You know, Cam,” he replied in a soft voice that surprised the both of them. “You’re lucky life turned out for you the way it did.”

  She snorted. “Yeah, right.”

  “No, I mean it.” He searched desperately for words that could describe feelings he’d never given voice to, feelings he’d never acknowledged until that moment. “Sure, I had the fame, the glory, the money. But the truth is, when you have those things, people stop caring about you. All they care about is the money. You try to help them out, but they don’t quit. They don’t get up on their own two feet. They keep coming back and coming back and asking for more and more. Fans, so-called friends, sportswriters, you name it. They always want a piece of you. You never would have done that. Despite whatever else you could say about our relationship, you never would have seen me as just a bank account, or someone to use for your own interests.”

  The restaurant grew silent. The soft classical music playing in the background faded away as Cammie squirmed in her seat, ill at ease with the unexpected turn in their conversation. She’d learned long ago not to trust Eli and despite his apparent sincerity, she couldn’t let down her guard. She couldn’t, wouldn’t allow herself to be that vulnerable again. Yet his sudden somberness and his strange words that made no sense left her uneasy. This was a side of him she’d never seen before. Was it real? Or was it as fake as their whole relationship seemed to have been? Thankfully she was saved from trying to answer that when a voice boomed across the empty bar.

  “O beauty, till now I never knew thee!”

  Eli jumped slightly at the unexpected intrusion. “What the hell was that?”

  “That’s Dancing Harry.”

  Grateful for the interruption, she turned in her seat. A wizened old man, his thin white hair askew, his clothes two sizes too big, his shoulders drooping under the weight of whatever took place in his muddled mind, slowly exited the pool room and made his way towards their booth. Behind him, he dragged a broom in his palsied hands.

  “What the hell is a Dancing Harry?”

  “He showed up in town about eight months ago. No one knows anything about him. I’m not sure he even knows or remembers much about hi
mself. The locals call him Dancing Harry because he does this funny little hopping dance whenever he gets excited. He’s harmless.”

  Dancing Harry reached their table and offered Cammie an elegant bow. “I arise from dreams of thee/ In the first sweet sleep of night/When the winds are breathing low/And the stars are shining bright.”

  “That’s sweet, Harry. Let me finish up here and I’ll buy you a coke before I leave.”

  “I can refuse you nothing, my dear lady.” He turned and shuffled away.

  The appearance of the old man broke the strange mood Eli had lapsed into. He now sat back in his seat, a sarcastic grin Cammie recognized all too well tugging at his mouth. “I can see you’ve lost none of your sex appeal. The bum has it for you. Badly. Let me guess. You got him a job and a place to live, right?” When she didn’t answer, he shook his head. “Despite the years, you’re still playing guardian angel to lost animals and neglected people. Payback in this case is a vagrant spouting nonsense to you who can barely hold onto the broom. Probably has the DTs from all the alcohol he’s consumed over the years.”

  “He’s not a vagrant, Eli, nor does he have the DTs. Not that you care, but he suffers from Parkinson’s and his ‘nonsense’, as you so eloquently put it, is poetry.” She glanced back at Harry. “He’s someone who couldn’t cope with life. Something along the way broke him. He finds relief in beautiful words.” Her eyes flashed anger as she turned back to Eli. “Not everyone has your capabilities of rising to the top.”

  “For Chrissakes--!” Eli’s protest was cut short when Dancing Harry suddenly hurried back to their table. He came to a halt before Eli and pointed a shaking finger at him.

  “I know you!” he shouted.

  “No shit, Sherlock. Everyone knows me.”

  “Assume a virtue, if you have it not.”

  Eli exploded. “Get your broom and get the hell out of my—“

  Cammie leapt out of the booth and blocked Harry from Eli’s view. “Honestly, Eli. He’s just a harmless old man.” She draped her arm around Harry’s shoulder. “Come on, Harry. Let’s buy you that coke.”

  “Hey, what about our conversation?” Eli demanded, suddenly wanting, needing to get through to her.

  She turned and gave him a long look. “Whatever you want to say should have been said fifteen years ago. It’s too late, Eli. It’s not going to change the past and it’s certainly not going to change the future. Just let it go.”

  The heat of Eli’s anger and disappointment hit her squarely in the back as she led Harry to the bar. To her surprise she felt calm.

  “Get Harry a coke, will you, Zee?”

  “Did you get your answer?”

  Cammie realized that she hadn’t. To her delight, she found she didn’t care. It was so freeing, she allowed herself a smile.

  “I did never know so full a voice issue from so empty a heart,” Harry replied, glancing back over his shoulder at a still smoldering Eli, “but the saying is true. The empty vessel makes the greatest sound”.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In small towns, news travels faster than the speed of light. It is its lifeblood. Within an hour of Cammie’s meeting with Eli, it was all over Twin Ponds. And, as typically happens, it was embellished and added to until it barely resembled the tense meeting it really had been.

  It was lunchtime and Jace had his head buried beneath the hood of Mrs. Nation’s ancient Corolla. She had a habit of waiting until every liquid in the engine and brake system dried up before delivering it to Jace to make right.

  So far that day, he’d been able to keep fairly busy, with only the occasional flare-up of temper when the memory of Eli kissing Cammie would unexpectedly raise its ugly head and torture him. In those moments, it took all he had not to fling the wrench across the garage.

  He was tired, irritated and wanting nothing more than to track Kelley down and have it out. While part of him relished the thought of burying his fist into that pretty boy face, part of him knew how ridiculous he was being.

  He also knew Cammie would never stand for it.

  She was the sheriff in a town where gossip was as necessary to its inhabitants as air to breathe or food to eat. To have her current boyfriend duking it out with her prior boyfriend would make her a spectacle. An object of ridicule or worse. Pity. He could just imagine how she’d react to that.

  Somehow, someway, he was going to have to swallow his anger and frustration and get on with it. At least he could console himself with the irrefutable fact that it was him in Cammie’s bed every night. And despite Rick inconveniently interrupting their moment last night, he’d bet every last dollar he had that he was also – finally – in her heart. He’d seen it in her eyes. Heard it in her voice.

  He’d waited a long time for this. Funny how he needed to hear her utter those three little words. In the past, it had never seemed important. Three words that were so easily said, but not so easily felt. But this relationship was different. He couldn’t begin to understand what it was about that stubborn, hard headed woman that attracted him more than any other woman he’d ever been with. Yes, he’d been with more attractive women; he’d been with more pliant women. He’d had fleeting relationships; he’d had deep relationships. In fact, just before he met Cammie, he’d been seriously considering moving to Calais to be near his parents, who had left Twin Ponds to live by the ocean. But that cold November evening a year before, when she’d walked into Zee’s, he knew his life was never going to be the same again. The five foot eight inch woman with the messy auburn hair and the large hazel eyes had immediately caught his attention. Their gazes met and before he knew what he was doing, he’d offered her a seat. And a beer. And a game of pool.

  It was more than her looks though. Or her intelligence. Or the warmth and compassion that lay beneath the veneer of toughness and indifference. There was that intangible about Cammie that kept him coming back to her. Maybe it just all came down to the fact that they worked. Despite the odds, their relationship worked. And he meant to keep it working.

  So shove that up your fancy NHL ass, Kelley.

  With that comforting thought, he turned back to Mrs. Nation’s Corolla.

  Engrossed in trying to flush out the engine oil that now resembled packed sludge, Jace heard the bell go off above his head. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an old Ford Escape creak up to the gas pumps. The new kid, Nathaniel Tucker jumped off his stool from inside the office and ambled outside. He wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, but he showed up every day, pumped gas and considered himself lucky to be working alongside his hockey hero, Jace Northcott.

  The door between the garage and the office was open and Jace heard Nathaniel and what sounded like a young female talking as the young man rang up the sale.

  He smiled. Knowing Nathaniel, he was probably trying to flirt with whoever the girl was. He’d flirt with a tree stump if he thought he’d get a response.

  With the radio turned to an 80’s station, he found himself humming along to a B52’s song. He started to turn his attention back to the oil that wouldn’t budge when he heard the girl mention Cammie by name. In the next breath, he heard her mention Eli.

  His good humor instantly evaporated, the humming frozen in his throat. Moving as unobtrusively as he could, he kept his head under the hood as he eased closer to the door.

  “Yeah, the Sheriff and Eli were sitting in the back of Zee’s – you know the booth all the way in the back. The make-out booth I always call it.” She giggled.

  “They probably wanted their privacy,” Nathaniel commented.

  “I’ll bet they did. I heard they were real lovey-dovey. Holding hands, the whole nine yards.”

  “No way. The sheriff is spoken for, if you know what I mean.”

  “Since when does that matter? She and Jace aren’t married, are they? Besides, I heard that Eli Kelley was the love of her life. She probably still has it bad for him. I know I would if I were in her shoes. God, he’s so handsome. Even if he is kinda ancient. Do you know he d
ated Julia Roberts and Charlize Theron and…”

  Nathaniel shushed the girl, probably realizing – finally - that Jace might overhear their conversation. They lowered their voices, but it was too late.

  Jace seethed. He looked down at the wrench he held fisted in his hand, seeing instead the image of Cammie and Eli sitting in the booth. Laughing. Smiling. Looking into each other’s eyes. Holding hands. Kissing.

  He couldn’t breathe past the pain in his chest, the nausea welling up in his stomach. He wanted to hit something. Badly. He heard Nathaniel finishing up the conversation beyond the office door. Terrified that if the hapless teenager came into the garage, he’d take out his fury on him, he stomped to the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

  He placed shaking hands on either side of the sink and forced himself to take a long deep breath.

  Get a grip, man. You have no right to be pissed. Cammie’s a grown woman. She and Eli go way back. Even though he hurt her a long time ago, she’s obviously over it. They were probably just catching up on old times. It doesn’t mean anything. Let it go.

  But he couldn’t.

  Jace didn’t know the whole story behind Cammie’s relationship with Eli and its explosive destruction. Nor its more violent aftermath with a man named Harlan Barrow. She’d never talked about it and he hadn’t asked. But it wasn't hard to figure out.

  He remembered the first night he'd traced his fingertip over a fine lined scar on Cammie’s hip soon after he’d moved into her cabin. They’d finished making love; she was on her side and he was slowly and lovingly caressing her hot skin. He’d started to ask what it was from, but she’d quickly changed the subject. But not before he’d felt her stiffen, as if his touch had triggered a peek through the door she always kept tightly closed. He’d never asked again. But as if to make up for it being on her warm, loving body, he kissed the scar. And would kiss it whenever he could.

  He replayed last night at Zee’s. What tore him apart was looking across the table at Eli and recognizing the look in his eyes. It was the same look he had when he looked at Cammie. It was the look of a man in love. No matter the years, the man still had it for Cammie. Big time.