The Ice Maiden (6 page)

“What do you mean?”

“She's the boss.” He cracked open another can and took a long drink. “She said no way.”

“Why?”

“Lot of reasons, none worth crap if you ask me. Said even if we could put Coney there that night, he's dead and beyond prosecution.”

“But the others. What about them?”

“Sez we don't have a snowball's chance of IDing 'em now, and even if we did they're probably dead too—or in prison.”

“Hell, you could say that about every cold case. This one's high-profile, it would be a coup to close it.”

“Tell me about it,” he said bleakly. “But there ain't no talking to her. Doesn't want us spinning our wheels, wasting time. Says we got to ‘prioritize.' Target cases with higher possibilities of prosecution. The brass wants stats, results.”

“How much time would it take to talk to Sunny and to Coney's family?” I asked indignantly. “Did you give Riley an argument?”

“Got into it big-time. You know what a short fuse that woman's got. Says she don't have to explain. She's the supervisor,” he said bitterly. “Said to focus
on Meadows and half a dozen others we've been looking at.”

“Can you go over her head?”

“Sure. Let's see now,” he said sarcastically. “Which future do I want? Busted to patrol on the midnight shift and never seeing my family, or still working regular hours with a normal happy family life for the first time in twenty years?” He weighed the options, using his hands as scales. “Midnight shift? Family life? Crappy life? Happy life?

“I shouldn't have pushed it,” he said, with regret. “Then she wouldn't have got pissed and issued me a direct order to leave it alone.”

“Don't beat yourself up, Craig. It was a good catch. You were doing the right thing. It would be different if Ernie was still lieutenant.”

“Damn straight.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Off the record? That's where you come in, Britt. We were thinking maybe you could help us out.”

“Me?”

“You're already on top of Coney getting zapped. You've got a rep for digging, checking things out. What if you started looking at it, asking questions? The lieutenant hears about it and has to react so we don't look bad in case you start coming up with answers. You know how it is. When the press starts looking into something, that always blows a case wide open.”

“But the Sunday magazine editor wants to make the Cold Case Squad a cover story. If I piss Riley off, she could make it really difficult for—”

“Neither one of us do what we do cuz we wanna be
loved. If we wanted that, we'd be firemen. Me and the guys talked about it. Stone and Nazario thought it could work. You'll just have to protect us, make it look like you nosed out the story on your own.”

“Craig, I don't know….” A sudden chill swept over me, and despite the night's heat I hugged my arms.

He popped two more beers. I sipped mine, then sipped again. Burch raised his eyes to mine.

“There was dirt in that girl's lungs,” he said. “They pushed her face into the ground while they were raping her.”

I closed my eyes, and we sat without speaking across the scarred boards of the picnic table.

“I used to go out there at night,” he said softly. “I'd turn off the car lights and walk out there with no radio, no flashlight, and just stand there, in the silence of that dark remote field, in the same place, at the same time that it happened, trying to get a sense of what those kids felt, what they saw or didn't see as they were being forced out into that field to be brutalized and shot.”

“Did it work?”

“It ain't solved, is it?” He got to his feet, walked heavily to his car, and took another six-pack out of the trunk.

He crushed an empty beer can in his fist, then lobbed it into a wire trash can six feet away.

“Bull's-eye.” He cracked open another.

“Hey.” I shook my head. “No more for me. You either. It's ten o'clock. Does your wife know where you are? You want
two
angry women on your case, your
wife
and
K. C. Riley? Then you'd
really
wish you were dead. Hey, I thought you quit a long time ago.”

“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy,” he said simply.

“You really believe that?”

“They ain't my words. Benjamin Franklin said that. What's the matter, you don't like beer?”

“Sure,” I said. “I mean the part about God.”

“Lately,” he said, eyes hidden in shadow, “I'm not even sure He exists.”

We gazed across the dark deep water at the stars, the glittering city lights, and the moon racing through misty swirling clouds.

“Look,” I said. “I can ask Coney's friends and family a few questions—and maybe talk to Sunny. But I don't know how much good it will do.”

“If the victim wants it looked at and starts raising hell, it'll make a big difference,” he said confidently. “I told the guys we could trust you, you wouldn't burn us.”

He dug a manila envelope out of his jacket and a ten-year-old mug shot of Coney, taken after a drug bust. “Show it to her,” he said, and handed them to me, “but make sure you mix it in with the rest.” A half-dozen other mug shots, all men, approximately the same age and description, were in the envelope. Burch wrote Sunny's address on the outside.

“I hear she's some kinda artist now,” he said, as we walked back to our cars, pausing for a last look at the Miami Beach skyline winking in the haze. “You know, Britt,” he commented, as I climbed into the T-Bird,
“you're a pretty girl, but you really oughta do something with your hair.”

 

My landlady, Helen Goldstein, and her husband, Hy, were out in their patio chairs, enjoying the late evening. “We couldn't take the TV news anymore,” she told me, when I stopped to share some of my fresh-picked vegetables.

“But isn't it too smoky out here?”

“It's chased away the mosquitoes,” she said cheerfully, then peered more closely in the dim porch light. “Britt, what happened to your hair?”

 

I left the frozen pizza in the oven too long, nibbled some anyway, and went to bed. Frustration burdened my dreams. I searched in vain for the brown-haired girl in the blue sweater, then tried and tried to make an urgent call, but the phone would never work. I was trapped, on deadline, in impossible, impassable traffic. Then I had to pee but never could find a rest room. The digital face of my bedside clock glowed in the dark when I awoke—3:24
A.M.
Part of my dream was real, I thought, and climbed out of bed to visit the bathroom. I blamed the beer.

 

Unable to go back to sleep, I wondered why some women, like Gretchen and K. C. Riley, don't know or care that we should help each other, especially in times like these. Loneliness and fear are always more acute in the wee small hours. Was Lottie right about Fitzgerald? I wondered. Maybe…

I groped for the TV remote and flicked fitfully, hoping for something to occupy my restless mind. A startling image caught my eye. Mesmerized, unable to take my eyes off it, I watched. Finally, knowing I shouldn't, I reached for the phone. He answered on the first ring.

“Hey, Fitz,” I murmured.

“Do you have any idea what time it is, young lady?”

“Sorry, did I wake you?”

“No, sweet thing. Matter of fact, I was thinking 'bout you.”

“Imagine that. I was thinking about you too.”

“Just get in?”

“Nope,” I said. “Couldn't sleep.”

“Me too. Just watching the tube.”

“Me too,” I said. “Wait a minute! What are you watching?”

He chuckled evasively.

“The History channel!” I accused. “You're watching it too! Shame on you. So am I.”

“I'm missing you, baby. Big-time, right about now.”

I laughed aloud, surprised at the sound in my dark bedroom. “Did you see what those Greeks were doing?”

“How about those Roman frescoes?” he said. “Who'da thought? Say, when are
we
getting together?”

“Wish you were here right now,” I said, voice dropping to a seductive whisper.

“Me too. How about Tuesday? I've got an early deposition in a homicide case, but I can drive down right after. I'll put in for the time tomorrow.”

“Can't wait to see you, gorgeous.”

“Hey,” he said, “I can get dressed right now, hop in the car, and be there in time for breakfast.”

“Don't tempt me,” I said, voice husky. “You know we both have to work tomorrow.”

“The Volusia state attorney's office and the
Miami News
would manage fine without us.”

“See you Tuesday,” I said.

“How could I have known he'd be watching
The History of Sex
too?” I said, phone to my ear, as I brewed coffee the next morning.

“I'da stayed up to see it myself,” Lottie said. “Why didn't you call me?”

“It's so easy to flirt at a distance,” I said, with remorse. “But now we have a date.”

“You won't be sorry,” she predicted. “I'd bet the Ponderosa on it.”

The morning was already a scorcher, I discovered, standing barefoot on my front stoop. Billy Boots did figure eights around my ankles and Bitsy chased a lizard through the shrubbery as I picked up the newspaper. The protective plastic sheath slid like an oversized condom off the giant phallus upon which my life
revolved. Damn, I thought, I've got to swear off late-night TV.

I settled at my kitchen table to devour the morning paper with juice and coffee. The headline over my story was huge:
FIREFIGHTERS RESCUE TRAPPED TOT
in 48-point Bodini. They ran Villanueva's picture, five columns, in color. The young mother's expression as she reached for her child was poignant and unforgettable.

The subhead read:

 

C
HEERS
, T
EARS
E
ND
S
IX-HOUR
D
RAMA

by Ryan Battle

N
EWS
S
TAFF
W
RITER

 

I nearly spit up my orange juice. Gretchen had called my bluff. But why? She hadn't changed the copy. The story read just the way I wrote it.

The phone rang minutes later. “Did you see?” Lottie asked.

“Just now.”

“Didn't you—?”

“Yes! Every word.”

“That bitch,” we chorused.

 

Irritated and dispirited, I showered and shampooed. The directions said to leave the hot oil conditioner on my hair for two minutes. I left it on for ten. Still far from perfect when I rinsed, it looked a bit better than the night before. Hopefully it would be back to normal before Dennis Fitzgerald arrived.

 

The building I was looking for was a few blocks from the ocean, light-years away from the phony glamour, glitz, and glitter of South Beach. North Beach is still real, but it won't stay that way long if the city and the developers have their way.

The address, a small two-story hotel, appeared to have been converted to apartments. An ornate wooden front desk, unmanned and dusty, still dominated the front lobby. Clearly, no guest had checked in for years. A worn stairway to the left led to the second floor. The hotel dining room must have been to the right originally but appeared to have been partitioned off. A door built into the partition was marked 1-A, the same apartment number Burch had given me.

Because her parents were well off, I found it hard to believe that Sunny Hartley lived in the dining room of an old hotel in an aging North Beach neighborhood still untouched by the building boom. I knocked, then knocked again. No response. But a door slammed upstairs and a bearded man descended, his flip-flops slapping the soles of his bare feet. He wore shades and an open shirt over a pair of baggy bathing trunks and carried a beach towel and a magazine. He paused on the landing, startled to see me.

“I'm looking for Sunny Hartley. Does she live here?”

“You've got the right place,” he said.

“I guess she's not home,” I said. “I'll leave a note.”

“You have to knock loudly.” He tapped his ear as he reached the lobby. “She's probably in there. She's almost always home.”

He left for the beach.

I rapped louder and called, “Hello, is anyone home?”

I sensed movement behind the peephole.

“Who is it?” a woman finally asked.

“Britt Montero, from the
Miami News
.”

“I'm not interested in subscribing.”

“I'm looking for Sunny Hartley. Is that you?”

“What do you want?”

“To talk for a moment.”

“Reference?”

I looked around the lobby. “A private matter.”

“Can I see your identification?”

“Here's my card.” I slid it under the door. “And I can show you my press ID.”

I waited, fanning myself with my notebook, my hair damp with perspiration.

“Did you find my card?” I called eventually.

I heard the metallic sounds of a chain lock disengage. The door inched open. I don't know what I expected, but certainly not the woman who stood there.

It was difficult to determine what she looked like. All I could see was her red nose and cheeks, as though painted by Jack Frost himself. She wore a ski cap with woolen ear warmers, goggles, a fleece headband, thermal gloves, an insulated snowmobile suit, and fleece-lined boots. She looked as though she were about to scale Mount Everest. But this was Miami Beach, where the temperature was 96 in the shade. Furthermore, she held a knife in her gloved hand. Light glinted off its odd blade, curved in the shape of a half moon.

“I guess you're on your way out,” I said stupidly, re
acting to her attire. I tried to appear friendly, one eye on the blade. Why is it that whenever I think I have met every possible sort of Miami Beach screwball, eccentric, and mental patient, a new variety turns up?

“No, of course not.” She reacted as though
I
was crazy, then took off her goggles and gestured with them. “Come in,” she said.

I stepped inside, cautiously. There was little furniture in what once had been a large high-ceilinged dining room. Bright light poured through big picture windows designed to overlook a tropical garden that had withered long ago, falling to the ravages of wind, weather, and neglect. Its centerpiece, once a sparkling art deco fountain, stood chipped and dry, the rusty piping corroded and exposed. The view now consisted of passing traffic, a Kentucky Fried Chicken outlet, and an Amoco service station across the street.

The big windows were tinted so no one could see into the huge space, which had been converted into a studio. Dining tables set with crisp linen, silver, and fine china had been replaced with well-braced wooden work tables constructed of sturdy six-by-sixes stacked up like log cabin walls. Tools and sharp blades of various sizes were arranged on smaller tables. There were stone shapes and figures of polished marble, some sheet-covered, along with an air hammer and a compressor motor mounted on a tank with air hoses snaking out.

“I'm a reporter,” I began. “I cover the police beat for the
News
.”

Something flickered for a millisecond in the cold depths of her eyes.

I could see her better in the studio's natural light. Her pale eyebrows and lashes, nearly invisible without makeup, made her deep-blue eyes look even more intense. Her hair, straight and pale blond, hung down beneath her cap in a single thick braid that reached nearly to her waist.

“A thief named Coney was killed breaking into a downtown shop. You may have seen or heard about it on the news.”

She shook her head, her expression distant. “I don't watch much television news or read the paper. I'm too busy.”

“He was thirty-one years old, a criminal, with terrible scars on his body from old burns.”

She paused. “I have to get back to work,” she said, and turned abruptly, face unchanged.

She stepped briskly through double doors into what had been the hotel kitchen. I followed. The doors were framed with an overhead hoist, like a giant IV with chains. Huge ovens, stoves, a grill, and double sinks stood to the left. A pop-up toaster, a blender, and a small microwave oven appeared oddly out of place among the culinary relics. An open pantry at the far end of the kitchen had been converted to personal living space. An alcove where rows of shelves once held food supplies or kitchenware was now lined with books and potted plants. A small four-drawer dresser and a chifforobe flanked a daybed with a crocheted coverlet. A canvas smock, a green rubber face mask, a hat, and a heavy leather apron hung from an old-fashioned brass coatrack.

“There is a possibility,” I said, trailing her uncer
tainly past a garagelike delivery door that opened out onto a loading dock surrounded by mini-gantries, like those used to load cargo at the port of Miami, “that the dead burglar may have been one of those responsible for the crime in which you were a victim fourteen years ago.”

Acting as though she hadn't heard me, Sunny adjusted her ear warmers, put on her goggles, and yanked open one of two wide metal doors to our immediate right. A frosty cloud emerged as she stepped inside. I followed. The sudden icy blast made me shiver. We were in a huge walk-in freezer. But no sides of beef hung from above; there were no cases of frozen vegetables. Instead, another sturdy worktable stood front and center, reinforced by stone and metal supports. A lighthouse appeared to be emerging from a half-carved six-foot block of blue-white ice atop the table.

I stood in awe, mouth still open, stung by the cold and the sight of my own breath, a phenomenon that always revives wretched memories of my J-school days at Northwestern and the gut-wrenching miseries of cold, snow, and being homesick for Miami.

“You're an ice sculptor!” I exclaimed, relieved that she might actually be sane.

“It pays the rent,” she said curtly, “and buys me time and material for more serious work.” She stepped back, studied the unfinished sculpture for a moment, and began to work, ignoring me as her knife blade skimmed the ice, sending showers of icy crystals erupting into the air.

Something about the sculpture began to look familiar. “Is that…is that the lighthouse at Cape Florida?”

Startled, she paused to stare at me for a moment as though impressed. “I'm surprised you recognized it at this stage. You must know it well. Actually, even when the piece is finished, the form you want isn't there yet. That doesn't come until about a quarter of the way into the melting process. You should see it then. There'll be a prism at the top, with a light wheel focused on it from a distance.”

“Who's it for?”

“The South Florida Historical Society, an event this weekend at Vizcaya.”

Made sense. The restored lighthouse is one of South Florida's few surviving historic sites.

“Who do you work for?” I asked, beginning to shiver.

“Myself,” she said. “I freelance pieces for hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, private parties, weddings, bar mitzvahs, engagements, and lots of conventions. As my own boss, I can pick and choose my jobs. So many just want their company logo.” She wrinkled her nose. “That's like painting by number. I like to find out about the event and the people and then present a concept, my own ideas and sketches. If they like it, fine; if not…” She shrugged.

“Cool!” I said.

“Exactly.” She waggled a gloved index finger at me. Did I detect a hint of warmth in the eyes behind the goggles? “Most ice sculptors have no art training,” she said solemnly. “They're chefs who learn the basics at culinary school. They don't mind the routine, repeating the same things over and over: a swordfish for the seafood buffet, twin hearts for a wedding.”

I hugged myself in the cold, secretly pleased. We seemed to be hitting it off.

“You're wrong,” she blurted, without looking up from her work.

I thought she'd read my mind.

“It won't be fourteen years until December.” She cut her eyes at me in a brief sidelong glance. “How did you find me?”

“We had lots of old stories on the murder case.” The frigid temperature was becoming increasingly uncomfortable.

“My name was never in the newspaper.” She sprayed the lighthouse with a fine mist of some icy cocktail, chose a straight wide blade, and resumed work.

Strike two, I thought, as tiny icicles formed in my damp hair.

“Sergeant Craig Burch, the lead investigator, believes the dead man fits the description of one of the suspects. I brought some photos for you to look at.”

She reacted slightly to Burch's name; then she averted her eyes and skirted the sculpture to work on the far side.

Fingers numb, I opened the manila envelope containing the mug shots. “Would you take a look?” I quavered, my nose running.

She picked up a heavy mallet and swung it with surprising power, breaking away chunks of ice at the base.

“Here.” Shoulders hunched involuntarily against the cold and the sounds, I looked for a place to spread out the pictures. “Maybe you could just—”

“Careful,” she warned suddenly, “that tank is liquid nitrogen; I use it to fuse the ice when I'm finished. It's
almost four hundred degrees below zero. You don't want to knock it over.”

I gave the tank a wide berth as she continued to work, her chisel grating on the blue-white ice like fingernails on a blackboard, her demeanor as frigid as the air.

“Ms. Hartley.” I raised my voice, my teeth actually chattering. My thighs felt frozen together, like drumsticks in a freezer. “You may not be aware that first-degree murder has no statute of limitations. The men responsible for the crime can still be prosecuted and punished.” I shivered uncontrollably, my words slightly slurred. I was freezing to death in Miami Beach.

She continued to work as though I wasn't there.

“Look,” I croaked in desperation. “I am really, really cold right now. Can you please just take a moment to look at these?”

She ignored me.

“All I need to know is whether you recognize—”

She looked up suddenly from behind the clear blue ice, the same color as her wide expressionless eyes.

“You must be cold,” she said, as though concerned for my health.

“Yes!” Frost had formed on my eyelashes, and I couldn't feel my toes.

“You should leave,” she suggested, selecting another razor-sharp tool with a narrow blade.

I left a second business card and, taking the mug shots with me, practically bolted out. I wasn't sure her front door locked behind me, but I didn't bother to check as I plunged headlong out into South Florida's wonderful, soupy, steamy hot bath. Now I knew what it
felt like to be a Pop-Tart, going straight from a freezer into a toaster. Sinuses aching, I closed my eyes and lifted my face to the sun's warm embrace.