The Ice Maiden (23 page)

“Sunny? You scared me. What are you doing up there?”

Her hair was long and loose, her face white. She held a flashlight in her hand.

“The battery died,” she said, and descended, joining me. “The power went out; it must be the wind. Then I thought I heard a noise upstairs. I was afraid somebody might be stealing from Jimmy's apartment. People do that sometimes, when they hear someone has died.” She dug a key ring from her pocket. “Let me lock the front door. We usually don't bother. But with none of the other tenants in town…”

“Good idea,” I said.

The front door bolted, we retreated to her apartment. Her studio, with its sheet-covered statuary, was illuminated by a battery-powered Coleman lantern.

“Part of my survival kit,” she said. “It wasn't hard to put together after nine-eleven. I already had hurricane supplies—you know, water and canned food, candles and waterproof matches. I didn't spring for the gas mask, though.” She looked scattered, face taut.

“There have been some developments,” I said. “Things you need to know about.”

A sudden knock at the door startled us both. Three sharp raps.

Sunny looked puzzled. “How did somebody get in? We just locked the front door.”

“Who else has a key?”

“Only other tenants.” She peered through the peephole, then began unlocking the door, throwing bolts open, unhooking the chain.

“Wait a minute,” I said, alarmed. “Who is it?”

“A woman,” she said. “It's okay.”

“Sunny, don't!” Too late. She opened the door.

“Thank you, ma'am,” the visitor said fervently. “I really need to call triple A, my car's stuck.”

She brushed by Sunny and stepped inside.

“Well!” the tall raw-boned woman said, then looked Sunny up and down. “Look at you, now.”

Sunny stared, expression odd. “Do we know each other?”

“You betcha, missy. You wouldn't be standing here now, without me.” She glanced at me, still frozen in place.

“You
would
have to be here,” she said pettishly. “I thought that was you when you came in.”

“Sunny,” I said, my voice a warning.

The woman reopened the door behind her. “Clyde. Get in here!”

The man wasn't wearing his baseball cap, but I recognized the same sharp features I'd seen in the old news photos and in Sunny's sketches. He was as tall as the woman but his shoulders were slightly hunched, as though he was reluctant to be there.

Sunny stepped back. I fought the instinct to do the same.

“Mrs. Pinder,” I said. “And this must be Clyde, your husband. Do you recognize him, Sunny?”

Sunny frowned, bewildered.

“You sketched him. You think you never met, but you didn't dream up his face in those drawings. He's real.”

Rebecca Pinder shot her husband a hard glance, then reached into her large shapeless purse and came up quickly with a small-caliber handgun.

She waved the gun at us, her finger on the trigger.

“Is that it? The murder weapon?” I asked.

I heard Sunny's deep breath.

“See?” The woman said sharply. “I told you they knew.”

Almost apologetically, Clyde reached into his waistband and came up with a dark-colored revolver.

“Who are you?” Sunny turned to me, bewildered. “Pinder. Isn't she the woman who called the ambulance that night? I remember hearing that name later.”

“Sunny,” I said, staring at the guns, “the boys who abducted you and Ricky, they didn't assault you, and they didn't shoot you. He did.”

Clyde hunched even more, eyes darting, his gun hand trembling.

“He has a record of sex offenses. Attempted rape, indecent exposure, lewd behavior. He did time in prison for it when he was in his twenties.”

His wife regarded him with contempt.

“That was a long time ago,” he protested, his voice a nasal whine.

Sunny shook her head. “I don't—”

“You had a head injury. You may not consciously remember the traumatic events. Your abductors were beating up Ricky but were frightened off by approaching headlights. They thought it was the police. It was probably Mr. Pinder in his truck. He found you.”

“Saw a light, heard something out there. Thought somebody was stealing my equipment,” Clyde protested. “When I got out of the pickup, there she was, all trussed up like a Christmas goose, young and pretty, blond-headed, just waiting for me. On my own goddamn property! What do you expect a man to do?” he said plaintively.

“You just couldn't resist,” I said.

“That's enough, Clyde!” his wife snapped. “No point talking about it.”

“When you finished with her, you panicked and shot them both.”

“But…”—Sunny turned to the woman—“she helped me, she saved my life.”

“Because when you showed up at the house, hours later, she didn't know what he had done. Am I right, Mrs. Pinder?”

“The damn fool,” she said bitterly, gun in her hand, striding about the studio as though looking for something. “If I'da known, I never would've called the ambulance. We could've got ridda both of 'em. Nobody would've known. But the fool didn't tell me what he'd done until after they took her off to the hospital.

“We went through hell when you didn't die the way they said you would,” she told Sunny, her words accusatory. “Thought Clyde would be arrested any minute. The farm was all we had. I couldn't have run it alone. But then the news said all she could describe was the boys who took her, and we started to breathe again.

“Now,” she said angrily, “now, after all the hard years, we finally struck gold. All that cash money about to come in, like hitting the lottery. The Catholic church buying the whole damn shebang. And this has to come up to ruin everything.

“If all this was to come out now, it'd kill the deal. It's the
church,
for God's sake! Our pictures'd be on the news. The whole world would know what I've had to live with all these years.”

From the scathing expression she fixed on Clyde, she wasn't referring to their guilty secret; she meant him.

“Clyde,” she said sternly, “keep them here while I look around, figure something out. Either one-a them moves a hair, you shoot her dead. You hear me?”

He nodded grimly. His hand was steady now.

He waved the gun, herding us closer together.

“Hey, chickie,” he murmured softly, eyes settling on Sunny. “You sure you don't remember me?”

He gave her a sick little smile.

“You wouldn't shoot us,” I said reasonably, fighting to remain calm.

“I would,” he said. “Just ask the little lady. Heard you're deef in one ear. Which one?”

Sunny turned, as though to indicate her left ear, and kicked the gun out of his hand. It flew about six feet, hit the floor with a clatter, and spun toward the picture window.

He and Sunny scuffled as I followed the gun.

I lunged for it, scrambling on all fours. As my fingers curled around the grip somebody stomped on my hand and I screamed in pain.

The rolled tops of her support hose were at my eye level as she kicked away Clyde's weapon and jammed her own gun to my head with such force that I thought for an instant I'd been shot. She twisted my hair in her hand and yanked me to my feet. We both saw Clyde pressing Sunny against the wall, his hands around her throat.

“Don't leave marks on her!” his wife screeched. “Can't you do anything right?”

He glanced at us and Sunny kneed him in the groin. He went down as she bolted for the door. Rebecca pulled the trigger and the world exploded. My last thought was that this was how it was for Ricky Chance. But I wasn't dead. Instead, I saw plaster fly off the wall above Sunny's head as she fumbled with the locks. She froze. Clyde, still on the floor, grabbed her ankles. Then she was down and he was on top of her.

I couldn't hear, my ears rang, my eyes flooded with tears.

As though from underwater, I heard Rebecca Pinder say, “I found the perfect place.”

Shivers rippled up and down my spine as ice water oozed through my veins. I knew where we were going.

They marched us back to the freezer, as outside the picture windows the first hint of dawn crept relentlessly up the horizon.

“An accident, that's what it'll look like,” the woman crowed, her words a distant underwater murmur. “Locked theirselves in by mistake. Happens to little children in old refrigerators all the time. Nobody can prove different.”

The icy breath of the big freezer enveloped us as she opened the thick double doors. A six-foot block of ice towered atop the worktable, ready to be carved.

Rebecca Pinder puttered about, still holding the gun, collecting Sunny's tools with her free hand. “Don't leave nothing they could use to force the doors open,” she told Clyde, who wore a grimace and was holding his testicles. “Make sure there's no phone in here, and take out those tools.”

Sunny shivered, arms wrapped around herself.

“We'll freeze to death in here,” she pleaded.

The woman's stare was sharp. “Don't look to me for sympathy, girly,” she said. “You owe me. The last fourteen years were a gift you never would have had without me. A rich doctor's daughter, and what thanks did I get? A pretty little note on fancy stationery.”

“Do you know how many lives are ruined because of what your husband did?” I said. “Even the teenagers he scared off have lived through hell because of him.”

“They woulda done the same thing Clyde did. They
didn't take her”—she waved her gun at Sunny—“out there for a hayride. They had the same thing in mind but they got interrupted. And don't preach to me about grief and hard times. I know hard times. I'm only protecting what's rightfully mine.”

“What's this,” Clyde said, “a fire extinguisher?”

His arms loaded with Sunny's tools, he squinted at the nitrogen tank, standing against the freezer's back wall.

“Whatever it is, don't take no chances, get it outa there,” his wife said.

Sunny and I exchanged glances. I had no clue how to operate the tank and no time to figure it out. Sunny had to do it. Fast.

I didn't know if she could or would.

She did.

When I saw her step back, toward the tank, I shrieked at the top of my lungs and tried to push the block of ice off the worktable. The ice didn't budge. A gunshot exploded. Shattered ice flew. His wife screamed a curse and Clyde took his eyes off Sunny for a moment. She snatched up the tank, turned a dial, and pointed the nozzle at his face. He refocused on her, no fear in his eyes. He must have expected a harmless foam.

I heard the hiss of nitrogen spray and a cry cut off, frozen in his throat. His eyes never changed. They remained open, still empty, his parted lips and tongue darkening shades of blue. His hair and eyelashes frosted.

Sunny continued to spray the man even after he fell. Ice crystals formed on the gun still in his hand.

His wife screamed his name. “What on earth?”

She rushed toward him. Shouting for Sunny, I scrambled around the far side of the worktable, out of the line of fire and out the door. Lungs aching from the cold, I held my breath waiting for gunshots. “Run! Run!” I cried.

Slowly, Sunny followed, then hesitated and turned back, like the girl in the blue sweater. I rushed inside, grabbed her waist, and dragged her out the door. “Run!”

“We don't have to,” she said, as I slammed the freezer doors behind us. I thought she smiled for an instant, but I might have been mistaken.

“Should we call rescue?” I asked. “Is he alive?”

“I don't know,” she said numbly.

“How cold is the gas in that tank?”

“About four hundred degrees below zero.”

I ached all over as we huddled together. “It's all right,” I whispered. “He tried to kill you.”

“Twice,” she said.

The telephone line was dead and Sunny had no cell phone.

I found mine in my handbag, kicked into a corner during the struggle. I dialed the number, hands shaking.

Seconds later, there were shouts and pounding at the front door and at the loading dock off the kitchen.

We stared at each other in panic.

“The Beach doesn't have that kind of response time,” I warned. “Nobody does.”

“Police!” The sturdy door seemed about to splinter under the heavy kicks and blows.

Sunny flung it open before they broke it down. Half a dozen detectives and uniforms spilled into the room off balance and stumbling over each other.

“How did you get here so fast?” I asked Sam Stone, who was breathing hard.

“Search the building!” he shouted to the uniforms.

“No, they're in here,” I said.

“Where?”

“The freezer. She has a gun,” I warned.

He and Nazario headed for the kitchen, weapons drawn.

They cracked open the freezer's double doors, then entered, first one, then the other, in shooters' stances.

“God almighty!” Stone said.

Rebecca Pinder was led out, huddled in a blanket, tears frozen on her cheeks.

When I asked about Clyde, Stone shook his head. “Talk about a brain freeze,” he said.

Everybody was there or showed up eventually. Burch, K. C. Riley, the chief medical examiner.

“How did you get here so fast?” I kept asking. “How did you know?”

Stone finally explained. “We had warrants for Clyde and Rebecca Pinder's arrest,” he said. “Went out to serve them but nobody was home.”

“Warrants? What for?”

“Aggravated stalking. We knew Sunny was being stalked. So we retraced her movements for the last week, then pulled the tapes from all the security cameras on her routes.

“The average person is captured on videotape eight to twelve times a day,” he said. “We played all the tapes hoping to see one of our suspects; instead, there was Rebecca Pinder, behind Sunny at the supermarket, in the bank, at the department store. When Sunny went to the post office, a security camera at the building next door picked up Rebecca and Clyde in the parking lot.
Burch recognized them. Can't beat those thirty frames a second,” Stone said. “The camera never blinks. It's an unbiased witness. Which is more than you can say about people.”

“You could have shown up sooner,” I complained, trying to flex my swollen fingers.

Sunny gently examined my hand. “You want some ice to put on that?” she asked.

“No,” I said emphatically.

 

I finished the Cold Case Squad piece that Morganstern was so hot to have, but it sat ignored on his desk for days before he read it, so typical of editors. Lottie came through, as always, with the cover art he wanted. K. C. Riley drew the line at actually sitting on a block of ice. Burch insisted privately that it was because any ice she sat on would never melt.

Instead, she posed sternly in the foreground, arms folded, as the solemn detectives sat or leaned on huge frozen blocks behind her. Great picture.

Edgar was threatening and harassing Onnie again, so I let her use my apartment while Kendall McDonald and I escaped to the British West Indies for a romantic week in Tortola. Darryl would love being near the beach and playing with Bitsy and Billy Boots.

Onnie and Lottie helped me pack.

“Hope you ain't aiming to elope, Britt,” Lottie warned. “I hate weddings, unless it's mine, but I want to be there the day you get hitched.”

“Me too.” Onnie looked relaxed for a change. “You don't know how much Darryl and I look forward to staying here,” she said. “It'll be like a vacation for us.
I've called the police so many times, but Edgar always splits before they show up.”

“Only thing worse than a bad marriage,” Lottie said, “is a divorce that don't work out.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, folding shorts and T-shirts into a zippered section of my garment bag. “Do you know that after Clyde told her what he did, Rebecca Pinder burned Sunny's bloody clothes and then pretended she'd hidden them somewhere, to hold over his head? She admitted to the detectives that whenever he crossed her, she'd threaten to turn him in. After DNA evidence began being used, she'd remind him that his own secretions could convict him.

“Hard to believe what families can do to each other. Look at Sunny's parents. Her father's evil little scheme to manipulate his teenage daughter took on an ugly life of its own that grew, spread out, and created more victims than he ever could have anticipated. To think, I even envied her for having her dad,” I said.

“How is Sunny?” Onnie asked.

“Probably the healthiest member of her entire family. She's tight with Nazario,” I said. “He's crazy about her.”

“Damn,” Onnie said in front of the mirror, holding my new bathing suit up in front of her. “I wish Edgar would fall in love. It would take the pressure off us. Sometimes things are quiet for a day or two and I think, Praise God, he's met a woman! But then he shows up, trying to kick down my door. My landlord's uptight, Darryl's having nightmares.” She sighed. “I'd be relieved if he went back to jail. His mother is scared of him, thinks he's doing drugs. So why does she let
him stay there? She enables the man. Is there any family that's not dysfunctional?”

“Never met one,” I said.

“Dern tooting,” Lottie said. “I can fight off my enemies, but God protect me from my kin. The sorry butts I'd like to kick the most all belong to relatives.”

“Well, thanks, buds,” I said, snapping my suitcase shut, “for the cheerful send-off. This is it. If the man doesn't propose, I don't know what I'll do.”

“He will,” Lottie said, with a sly wink.

 

When McDonald picked me up, Mrs. Goldstein was baking chocolate-chip cookies for Darryl, who, wild with excitement, was playing ball with Bitsy in the yard.

Our flight wasn't crowded and the hotel business was slow, with many people opting not to travel. It was as though the mountains and white sand beaches were ours alone. We ignored the news, forgetting Miami's trials and troubles and the world's, if only for a while. We slept late, sunned and swam, and explored other islands aboard a powerful cigarette boat piloted by a crusty Miami expatriate. We danced barefoot on warm sand, beneath a bright yellow moon and a million silver stars. When a troupe of musicians from the hotel played “I Can't Help Falling in Love with You,” to a reggae beat, McDonald dropped to one knee and asked the question. I didn't know I was crying until he wiped away my tears. The answer was Yes—of course.

The musicians applauded.

“Some things are meant to be,” he whispered. He even had the ring, momentarily lost in the sand.

Nothing ever felt so right.
We
never felt so right. We got back to the hotel late, but I called my mother and Lottie and Onnie and everyone else I could think of.

“First time you ever woke me up with good news,” Lottie said, her voice sleepy.

“You go, girl,” Onnie said, and put Darryl on the phone.

The wedding would be in the spring. My mother immediately spun into a frenzy of ideas, plans, and lists.

We tanned and talked and walked beside the sea for hours, discussing our future, our children, our home. I'd always been hesitant about bringing children into an uncertain world where so many are in need of nurturing. But my thinking had changed. We agreed that for each child we had, we would adopt one and then forget which was which.

We wore tropical shirts over T-shirts and shorts for the flight back. Fire and ice glittered from my ring finger.

We arrived home in the late afternoon. Onnie's car was parked outside so I knocked, then fumbled for my key. Mrs. Goldstein opened the door, clearly shaken, face drawn.

Relief in her eyes, she hugged me. “Thank God you're back, Britt, and that he's with you.”

As she reached for McDonald, I saw Onnie inside. Her lower lip was cut and swollen, her face bruised, her eyes red and puffy from crying. My apartment was
in an altered state of disarray, as though survivors had tried to clean up after a tornado.

“It's Edgar. He took Darryl.” Onnie limped toward us, sobbing.

“Oh, no!” I said. “Where is he?”

McDonald put his hands gently on her shoulders. “When did this happen? Did you call the police?”

Mrs. Goldstein shook her head. “He threatened to hurt the boy.”

“He'll kill him!” Onnie cried. “He means it, Britt. He'll kill him!”

“Tell us exactly what happened,” McDonald said.

I helped her to a chair, sat her down, and held her hand.

“He was here, Britt. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.”

Now I saw my hand-painted antique nesting tables, legs broken. The shattered shards of my grandmother's crystal vase had been collected and deposited on a shelf. A painting of a street scene in Santiago de Cuba, where my father was born, hung askew on the wall.

“It's not your fault.” I touched her hair. “What matters is that you're okay and Darryl is safe. Edgar will go to jail for this, won't he?” I asked McDonald.

He nodded. “Don't worry,” he told Onnie. “We'll get your boy back. But I'm going to have to call in the department's domestic violence unit.”

“No! No! He's worse than I've ever seen him!” She clutched frantically at his arm. “He'll do it. He'll kill Darryl!”

McDonald sighed and looked up at me.

“How did he know you were here?” I asked her.

“I was so stupid! No one knew where we were staying. But I took Darryl back over to church this morning so he wouldn't miss Sunday school.” She gasped for breath as Mrs. Goldstein handed her a tissue.

“I never saw him; he must have followed us.” She wiped her eyes. “I was fixing lunch, a few minutes after we got back. Bitsy started to bark, then somebody knocked. I thought it was Mrs. Goldstein or that you'd arrived early. I felt so safe here. I opened it.

“He said he was taking Darryl. I tried to stop him and we struggled. He knocked me down, punched me. Darryl was screaming. I was so stupid.”

Mrs. Goldstein saw Darryl kicking and screaming as his father carried him to his car. She found Onnie, half conscious on the floor.

“If only I'd been faster, if only I'd been quicker.” My landlady wrung her hands. “I could have stopped him.”

“I'm glad you didn't try. Where is Bitsy?” I asked, alarmed.

“Edgar kicked her,” Onnie said. “She attacked him.”

“Hy took her to the vet,” Mrs. Goldstein said. “She has some broken ribs. They're keeping her overnight.”

I retreated to the kitchen for a glass of water. Darryl's drawings of Bitsy and Billy Boots decorated the refrigerator. I burst into tears. Little boy lost. Brave little dog.

“Why didn't anybody call the police?” McDonald was demanding.

“The other tenants were all out at the beach, I guess. When I found Onnie, she begged me not to.”

“The last thing he told me,” Onnie said, eyes flood
ing, “was that if I called the police, I'd never see Darryl alive again.”

“You think he'd take the boy out of the city?” McDonald asked.

“No. He's at his mother's.” Onnie gulped. “I called about an hour ago. Edgar grabbed the phone, talking crazy. He made no sense. Darryl was crying.”

“What does he want?” McDonald asked.

“I don't think he knows,” Onnie said. “Wants me to undo the divorce, apologize, go back to him. In the next breath he says he's gonna make me wish I was dead, that I was never born, that he's going to make me pay.”

“Let's go over there,” McDonald said, “and try to size up the situation. How much influence does his mother have? Will he listen to her?”

“Used to,” she said eagerly, wincing as she got to her feet.

“Would anybody like to see my engagement ring?” I said forlornly as we left.

“Oh, Britt,” Onnie said, hugging me. “This is such a happy time for you and I'm ruining it.”

“What else are friends for?” I shrugged, my arm around her.

Even McDonald smiled.

We promised to call Mrs. Goldstein as soon as Darryl was safe.

 

McDonald parked across the street from the duplex where Edgar's mother lived, then called the domestic violence unit with the address, asking them to stand by in case they were needed.

He asked me to wait in the car while he and Onnie went to the door. As they crossed the street, a woman came running around the side of the house. She looked disheveled and distraught. Something about her body language as she stumbled toward them propelled me from the car.

“He's crazy! He's crazy! He won't listen.” She held one hand to her bloodied nose. “He's got gasoline! He's got his baby in there! Says he's gonna burn hisself up with my grandchild!”

She had told Edgar he couldn't stay. Ordered to leave, he did, enraged, and returned with a gasoline can.

Splashing gasoline around the living room, he was threatening to ignite it as she fled the house.

Onnie's knees gave way and I held on to her.

“Is he high?” McDonald said.

“Don't know.” She whimpered, shaking her head. “I know he's been on drugs. I don't want him here. I'm scared of him.”

“He's only six years old! Darryl, Darryl,” Onnie said. “Please, please. Save my baby.”

“Does he have a weapon?” McDonald asked Edgar's mother.

“Only kitchen knives, no guns that I saw.”

Curious neighbors had begun to assemble.

“We need SWAT, a hostage negotiator, and a fire truck,” McDonald said.

“No time for that!” the older woman cried. “Edgar was splashing gasoline all over the furniture.”

Darryl's screams came from the house.

Onnie's eyes looked huge and terrified.