Heart of Ice (5 page)

“She fell and sprained her arm,” Louis said. “They took X-rays and the doctor said—”

“There’s a doctor on the island?”

“There’s a good medical center,” he said. “Kyla, you have to believe me, Lily’s fine.” When Kyla didn’t say anything for a long time he knew what she was thinking—that he wasn’t competent enough to keep his own daughter safe on a tourist island for three days.

“I can be there tomorrow,” Kyla said.

“No,” Louis said quickly. He glanced at the bathroom door. “She’s fine, Kyla, and she doesn’t want to go home.” He paused. “And I don’t want her to. I need this time with her. Please don’t cut it short.”

There was a long silence on the other end. Then she said, “Are you going to Echo Bay after this weekend?”

Louis sat back against headboard. The last thing he needed right now was a lecture about Joe. “Yes, I am,” he said.

Another silence, then “How about if I come up to the island Monday afternoon and pick up Lily?”

He was confused. Kyla had never been particularly kind to him in the past about anything, so why was she
offering to save him a trip back to Ann Arbor? Especially since it freed him up to be with his lover, Joe, a woman Kyla clearly didn’t approve of.

“Okay,” he said. “Thank you.”

“We still need to talk, Louis.”

He thought about the bones. “Yes, we do.”

“Tell Lily to call me.”

They said their good-byes and Louis hung up.

Lily came out of the bathroom. She was wearing the T-shirt. It hung past her knees and elbows. She just stood there looking around the room.

“You want to watch TV?” Louis asked.

She looked around the room and then back at Louis. There was no television in the room. Louis felt a small panic rising up in him at the thought of having to keep her entertained for the rest of the night. But Lily looked away, toward the partially opened window. It was dark, and the street outside was quiet. Her eyes drifted to Louis. She looked very tired.

“Can I lie down?” she asked.

“Of course you can.”

He got up and pulled the comforter down. She climbed up on the bed, carefully holding her splinted arm. Louis tucked the comforter around her.

“I wish I had Lucy,” she said.

“Lucy will be here tomorrow, I promise.”

She turned away, closing her eyes. Louis went back to his bed and lay down. He wasn’t really tired, and under normal circumstances he’d be searching out the nearest bar right about now. He turned off the light and lay there in the dark, staring up at the shadows on the ceiling. From
the open window came a cool breeze and the clip-clop of a passing carriage.

He closed his eyes.

He had almost drifted off when he felt something warm at his side and smelled the scent of soap. He stiffened, almost afraid to move, like if he did he could roll over and crush her.

Holding his breath, he turned to his side and gently put his arm over Lily’s back.

T
here was something about pancakes. Louis remembered whenever he didn’t feel well his foster mother Frances would make him banana nut pancakes. Since he was so thin, she never bothered him about sugar. It was just
Eat, you’ll feel better
.

Lily was staring at her stack of whipped-cream-topped blueberry pancakes. “Mama says sugar is bad for me.”

“It is, but once in a while a little bit won’t hurt,” Louis said.

Lily picked up her fork and began to eat. Louis sipped his coffee, watching her. She had slept all night with him, waking up before he did to brush her teeth and tie up her hair. After he called down to get their bags she went into the bathroom to dress herself. She emerged wearing a pink sweatshirt and jeans, Lucy in her arms.

He had decided to do his best to make their last day on the island together memorable. The morning had started at the police station, where a big-mitted officer had gently taken Lily’s fingerprints. She watched as Louis was printed and seemed thrilled when the officer gave her a copy of her print card. Next they had stopped at a souvenir shop, where Lily picked out a little ceramic horse with
MACKINAC ISLAND
stamped on the base. After that it was everything
horses—a carriage ride and their pancake lunch here at the Pink Pony to be followed by a trip to the stables to see the horses get baths.

“May I join you?”

Louis had been so intent on watching Lily that he hadn’t seen Chief Flowers approach. Louis gestured to the empty chair, and Flowers sat down, setting a manila folder on the table and filling the air with the scent of Old Spice.

Flowers turned his attention to Lily. “And how are you today, Miss Sunshine?”

Lily held up her right hand, which still had traces of ink on the fingertips. “I got finger-painted,” she said.

Flowers smiled. “And who’s this?” he asked, nodding to the stuffed rabbit on the windowsill.

“That’s Lucy,” Lily said.

Flowers looked to Louis, his hand resting on the manila folder. “You want to know what we found out?” he asked.

“Not really and not here,” Louis said quietly.

Lily looked up. “It’s okay, Louis,” she said. “Did you find out who the bones belong to, Chief Flowers?”

Flowers looked to Louis for permission to answer. Louis nodded, hoping Flowers knew where to draw the line.

“The ring we found was from the Kingswood school,” Flowers said. “That’s the girls’ school of the Cranbrook Academy. You familiar with Cranbrook, Mr. Kincaid?”

“Yeah, high-end private school outside Detroit,” he said.

Flowers opened his folder and handed Louis a close-up photo of the ring next to a ruler for sizing. Louis could see it was a girl’s ring, given its delicacy. The engraving
KINGSWOOD
and the year 1969 were clearly visible. Then Flowers set a second photo on the table, a close-up of the inside of the band. The initials
J.C.
were engraved in the gold.

“Did the bones belong to a girl?” Lily asked, rising slightly in her seat to see the photograph.

Flowers glanced at Louis before he looked at Lily. “We’re pretty sure the ring belonged to a girl.”

Lily looked at the chief. “What did she look like?”

“Well, we don’t really know that yet.”

Lily fell quiet, Lucy now in her lap. She didn’t look upset, just curious.

“I called the school,” Flowers said. “They had a student enrolled in 1969 named Julie Chapman who didn’t come back after Christmas break. Her family reported her missing just after New Year’s. I called the Bloomfield Hills police and found out she never turned up. They’re sending their file.”

“Bloomfield Hills,” Louis said. “That’s three hundred miles from here. And why would she be here in the middle of winter?”

Flowers nodded. “Maybe she was abducted,” he said.

Louis reached for his coffee.

“John Norman Collins,” Flowers said. “You remember him? He abducted girls from Michigan and Eastern and left their bodies in the woods and—”

Louis shot him a sharp look as he nodded toward Lily.

“Sorry,” Flowers said.

“Collins was in prison by December of 1969,” Louis said.

Flowers sat back in his chair, his eyes drifting to the window.

Louis set his coffee down. “What did you do with the remains?”

“I sent them to the state lab in Marquette,” Flowers said.

The Marquette lab, located in the Upper Peninsula, was top rate. The last case Louis had worked in Michigan involved bones found on a farm. The techs in Marquette had been able to eventually establish a time and cause of death, even though the bones had been buried for eleven years.

“That was a good move,” Louis said.

Flowers was quiet, his fingers tapping on the folder. “You know, I did a little research on you last night, read some articles in
Criminal Pursuits
magazine. I also called a friend of mine in Fort Myers. He said you’re really good with the cold stuff.”

Louis glanced at Lily. She was listening closely now but pretending not to.

“I could use a little help with this,” Flowers said.

“Chief, I’m on vacation here,” Louis said. “And I’m not even licensed in Michigan. I thought you called the state police in?”

“I did,” Flowers said.

The tone in Flowers’s voice told Louis that Flowers shared his dislike for the state police. He wondered if it went beyond the usual jurisdictional pissing matches.

Flowers’s eyes suddenly looked past Louis. “Speak of the devil,” he said.

Louis felt a rush of cold air and turned. A tall man in a tan trench coat had just come in the restaurant. His eyes scanned the restaurant with a laser-like proficiency, and when he spotted Flowers he came to the table.

Flowers rose and held out a hand. “Chief Flowers.”

“Detective Norm Rafsky.”

The name was an itch in Louis’s brain, but he couldn’t remember where he had heard it before.

“This is Louis Kincaid,” Flowers said, nodding. “And his daughter, Lily.”

“Kincaid . . . you’re the one who found the bones?” Rafsky asked Louis.

“I did,” Lily said.

“I’ll explain later,” Flowers said.

Rafsky’s eyes dropped to the photographs on the table. He picked them up and gave them a glance before moving on to the folder with the crime scene photos.

“This all you have?” he asked.

“I have plenty more at the station,” Flowers said.

Rafsky was trying to put the photographs back in the folder. Louis noticed that he had to brace the folder against his chest and that his right hand had a slight tremor.

“I’ll need to see the lodge,” he said. “Can you get me a car?”

“I can get you a golf cart,” Flowers said.

Rafsky glanced at his watch. “What hotels are still open here?” he asked.

“The Potawatomi Hotel over on Astor Street stays open year-round,” Flowers said.

Rafsky gave a nod and left. Louis watched him through the window. He was standing in the street as if he was trying to figure out which way to go. The man’s name was still hanging on the edge of his memory.

Norm Rafsky.

Suddenly it all came back. Joe’s description of the state investigator with the ice-blue eyes. It took a few more seconds for Louis to retrieve the details of the story Joe had told him about her rookie year as a police officer in northern Michigan’s Leelanau Peninsula. She had pursued a monstrous serial killer and witnessed the assassinations of two fellow officers and the wounding of a state investigator.

The investigator had been Norm Rafsky.

“Louis?”

He looked over at Lily.

“Can we go look at the horses now?”

“Sure we can. You finished?”

Lily nodded and slid out of the booth. Louis looked down at Flowers.

“I’m going to stay and get a burger,” Flowers said.

“We’ll be here one more night if you need me,” Louis said. He started to reach for the check, but Flowers grabbed it.

“Lunch is on me,” he said.

Louis nodded. “Thanks.”

Outside they paused on the sidewalk. Gray clouds had rolled in.

“I think it might rain soon,” Louis said. “We better go find the stables.”

Lily didn’t answer, didn’t even look up at him. She was just standing there, clutching the stuffed rabbit.

Thirty minutes ago she was eating her pancakes and singing to Lucy. Now she looked—what? He had never been able to read kids, and he sure couldn’t read Lily right now.

He dropped to one knee. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

She was looking back at the restaurant. He tipped her face toward his.

“Tell me the truth.”

“Why don’t you help Chief Flowers?” she asked.

He let his hand drop and just stared at her.

“I don’t think he knows how to do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Make sure the bones get home.”

“Chief Flowers will take care of the bones.”

“But he sent them to a lab.”

Louis couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“We found her, Louis,” Lily said. “It’s up to us to make sure she gets home okay.”

Louis sat back on his haunches. He had to force himself not to look away from her because he was remembering that day seven months ago when she had asked him why he had never tried to find his real father. He told her then that it was complicated. But for her it had been simple, just like this was now.

But it wasn’t simple. In two days he was supposed to be in Echo Bay. Joe had arranged to take a week off so they could try to rebuild the bridge that had been so damaged by their separation. But he also knew that Flowers needed
some help, and that without it this guy Rafsky would eat him alive.

Louis zipped up Lily’s sweatshirt. He stood up and took her hand. “Come on,” he said.

He led Lily back into the restaurant. Flowers was just digging into his burger when he saw them coming. He set it down and looked up at Louis.

“Okay, Chief,” Louis said. “I can give you a couple of days.”

A
s the Ford Explorer pulled away from the docks, Louis couldn’t resist a look back.

He knew Lily was in safe hands. Chief Flowers had suggested that his dispatcher, Barbara, watch Lily while he and Louis went back to the lodge. The deal was sealed when Flowers told Lily that Barbara was taking her own daughter down to the docks to watch the first of the horses leave. Every October, as the island began to shut down for the winter, most of the horses were led in teams from their stables to the docks, where they were loaded onto ferries and taken to a farm in the Upper Peninsula. For Lily, the prospect of saying good-bye to the horses trumped any reservations she had about leaving Louis for a few hours.

After dropping Lily off at the docks with Barbara, Louis and Flowers headed out of town in the direction of the Grand Hotel. Just before the hotel’s entrance road Flowers stopped the SUV.

“I was thinking about what you said about the victim being a long way from home,” Flowers said. “I asked around and found out Julie Chapman’s family has a cottage on the island.”

“That could help explain why she ended up here,” Louis said.

“Want to see the Chapman place?” he asked.

Before Louis could answer, Flowers swung the Ford left. The Grand Hotel, its awnings furled and its flagpoles bare, loomed above them until the road narrowed as they passed between two stone pillars. To the left was an unbroken panorama of water and sky. But it was the view to the right that riveted Louis’s attention.