Heart of Ice

Prologue

Miller’s Marsh Pond, outside of Cherrystone, Washington

Hauling a dead body around isn’t easy. How could it be? There’s always the possibility that something can go wrong. An earnest young cop could flash his heart-racing blue lights, signal the figure behind the wheel to pull over, and step up to the driver’s side window. He sees a hand dangling from the neatly bound package. In such a situation, a handgun on the passenger seat can be the perfect solution.

And then, one body might become two.

A couple of teenagers without a place to go or even the money for a motel might choose the wrong spot to have sex. They select a place for its very seclusion, the same reasoning a body dumper would employ when choosing his locale. They see the man with a corpse but it’s too late to leave. Pulled from their steamed-up car, they scramble, crying and begging for their lives, to a gulley.

Pop. Pop. Skulls are pierced by the bullets from a practiced shot. Sweet.

And then, one body might become three.

The risk is always there, but at least one man knew, just then, that it also had its benefits. It brought a rush. Such jeopardy produced a kind of euphoria that was as real as the high he felt when the life oozed from the woman’s body. It was almost the same kind of charge that came when the light in the victim’s terror-filled eyes went flat and dead like the buttons on an old overcoat.

He looked to the west toward the pond, sheathed in ice. It looked like sheet metal in the light of a cloud-shrouded sky. The wind nipped at his face. If he’d remembered how hard it was to lug a dead body, he’d have moved his vehicle closer to the water’s edge. Dead weight had new meaning, for sure.

A car sped by on the highway. Even though it was a half mile away, he crouched slightly and watched as its beams gashed through wisps of fog. Ghost fog, he imagined, as he caught a glimpse of the swirling motion of heavy, cold air.

He’d packed up the woman’s body in a blue down-filled sleeping bag. A nice one. The killing had been done in haste, which of course was never a good idea. That didn’t bother him just then. He had more pragmatic concerns and they made him wince. He hated that he’d wasted a perfectly good sleeping bag when a ratty old blanket would have been just as serviceable. It had gotten to that point. The whole thing—the murder, the body dump, the return to where it had all played out. All to make sure that nothing, no clues—hair, blood, fibers—could tie him to what he’d done.

It was all about convenience.

It was as if he was that Starbucks barista he’d seen absent-mindedly pushing the buttons to make a latte for some woman who babbled incessantly about her busy life (“I’m not just a mom, I’m a lawyer, too”) and how she needed “a boost” to make it through the day. He no longer had any doubts about what he’d done or why he’d done it.

“I’m addicted, you know,” said the woman who reeked of coffee and baby wipes.

He smiled faintly, the cold air biting his handsome face. Pushing buttons. Killing a woman. So easy. He was addicted, too.

He shook off the memory.

He widened his stance and braced himself; his feet slipped a little on the icy mud as he lifted her body from the back of his truck. As he heaved and flung her over his shoulder, he let out a soft groan. She’d seemed so much lighter in life. Wispy hair. Tiny hands with pretty pink nails with carefully applied white tips. Her ankles were so thin that he was sure they could wear the rings from a shower curtain.

A shower curtain would have been cheaper, he thought.

He moved toward the frozen water’s edge. A fortress of weather-ravaged cattails guarded the flat plain of ice, with the exception of the point of entry that he’d selected for what he had to do.

She’d left him no choice. It was that simple.

He flopped the heavy bag onto the hard ground and spoke. He was quiet, but his words cut through the chill of the night.

“Jeesh, bitch, couldn’t you have worked out some? Skipped the mochas? Called Jenny Craig?”

Considering her condition, she wasn’t even that fat. She was just dead. She was doing nothing to help him and that made him angry. He tried to roll her; however, the leather cord from the bag snagged a log.

“Damn it! You make nothing easy, do you?”

He pulled the hunting knife from his hip and slammed its blade into the cord.

Snap.

Realizing he needed his insurance that she’d sink in the mud, he returned once more to the truck bed and procured a pair of heavy chains. A beat later, he was at her body, spinning the chains around her like a spider in a frigid night.

“Down you’ll go,” he said softly, a puff of vapor came with his breath. “Down, bitch, you’ll go.”

He steadied himself and pushed once more and the body rolled onto the ice. From the edge of the shore, he nudged it just far enough away so that he could crawl behind it, pushing it across, commando-style. He looked over his shoulder, back at the truck. Nothing. The wind blew over the ice and he figured he’d gone as far as he needed. He took the knife and started to pierce the ice. It was about a quarter-inch thick and it took some doing. Finally, a hole. He dragged the bag toward the opening and shoved it inside, the water making the bag heavier as it began to sink into the blackness below.

It was a perfect night. Snow was coming. Ice would form a frozen scab over the wound that had taken her body. The sleeping bag weighted with chains would sink into the ooze of the springtime thaw.

She’d never be found.

He’d be free.

He felt nothing for her. Just a little inconvenience that came with the territory of having to take her late at night when no one would see what he’d been doing. He felt the flush of exhilaration that came with a job well done. That mocha that he’d thought about sounded kind of good just then. He got into his vehicle and did what busy moms, dads, students, and killers do after a trying day.

He went for coffee.

It was five minutes to closing and both the young women in the coffee and pastry shop wished to God that no one else showed up so they could get out of there the second the big green clock hit the hour mark. The night had been as intermittent as the storm, customer-wise. A flurry of latte-sippers after eight, then nothing outside of a trio of high school kids who managed to stretch their coffee drinking into what seemed like a two-hour marathon. The women working the counter were authorized to give refills to customers at their discretion, but those teens weren’t getting another sip. The workers wanted to go home. Snow had fallen and it looked like it would be a total bitch to drive.

Then he came inside, just before the lights would be dimmed.

The young blonde behind the stainless-steel counter had a concerned look on her face. She was petite, with lively blue eyes and a kind of knowing countenance that comes from either personal tragedy or too many years of retail experience. She smiled at the man in front of her, looking him over for a cue of recognition. Face. Eyes. Shirt. Anything. He wasn’t a regular. He was handsome, trim, and had a killer smile, which seemed to be on autopilot as he entered the store. He wore a heavy navy blue coat, from one of those expensive outdoor recreation companies that specialized in outfitting men with outdoor dreams and office realities. His jeans were old-school 501s, stained wet and dark at the knees. He seemed vaguely familiar, as though they might have met somewhere, or had shopped at the same grocery store. But she knew she hadn’t seen him at the coffee shop. She was required to know every customer by first name—if they came in more than twice. He must be passing through.

“You OK?” she asked. “You look hurt.” Her gaze landed just above his brow.

For a second, he didn’t quite track what she was saying. Hurt? Like feelings hurt? Hurt, like an injury?

“Huh? I’m OK,” he said. “Tall mocha please. Extra hot.”

She handed him a napkin. “You’ve got a cut on your head.”

Oh, that hurt.

He took the napkin and dabbed at the small wound. Blood bloomed between the paper fibers. It was too high up—on his forehead—so he couldn’t use the old “cut myself shaving” excuse.

Which he’d used at least once before.

“Must have scraped it on the darn tree,” he said, adding a quick smile, and gesturing toward his pickup truck. “Those noble firs are spiky. Been out all evening getting the perfect tree.”

That explained the dirty attire. Good one.

The girl was frothing the milk and the noise howled in the space of the coffee house. “And I thought I was rushing the season,” she said. “They made us put up this Christmas stuff Thanksgiving night.” She rolled her eyes and indicated a heap of faux gift boxes around a hot pink feather tree.

He shrugged. “Can I use your restroom?”

“Over there.” She handed him a key with an oversized foam core cutout of a coffee cup with REAL MEN DRINK MO-CHAS emblazoned around the rim.

Once inside, he locked the door and turned on the faucet.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

His own interior monologue mocked him as he scrubbed away the crusted-on blood from his temple. She had hurt him. She goddamn made him bleed. She paid for it, of course. Nevertheless, why did she have to go and do that? What was the point, bitch?

He looked at his face in the mirror. Normally, when he did so, it brought an appreciative gaze from his own eyes. This time, his heart pumped a little faster. Not as fast as it had earlier that evening by the frozen pond, of course. But faster, nevertheless. The blood he saw at his left temple brought worry and a touch of fear. He knew it meant something that he hoped would never surface. That she, literally, would never surface. It was possible that his DNA was lodged underneath one of her prettily painted fingernails. How come he hadn’t thought of that? He could have chopped off her fingertips and fed them to the dog. He could have killed her faster to avoid that burst of adrenaline that gave her the upper hand for just one second.

Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Water ran down the drain as he scrubbed his hands and pulled himself together. Though he hadn’t used it, he flushed the toilet. He’d been in there a long time.

Thinking. Cleaning. Worrying. But also reliving the triumph of what he’d accomplished in the flat, cold light of a snowy winter night in the middle of nowhere.

His drink was ready when he emerged from the restroom and slid the key at the girl. She was pretty. No denying that. Yet not his type. She had a tattoo on her wrist that appeared to be some kind of tropical flower, maybe a hibiscus. The tattoo artist who’d rendered the image was either a hack or a newbie. Either way, it was permanently a very bad tattoo. If her wrist was any indication, she likely had more of them wallpapering her young, lithe body. Probably some piercings, too.

The man liked his women a little more on the traditional side. More conservative. Pretty, like the coffee girl, but not so wild. Not so reckless with the beauty God had bestowed on them by virtue of His grace and their parents’ genetics.

“Whip on this?” the girl asked.

“Oh, yes.” He smiled, set down five dollars pulled from a gold monogrammed money clip, and winked. “I love whip. Keep the change.”

The girl at the counter caught the eye of her coworker, a pudgy brunette who never flirted with customers. They watched as the man with the mocha got into his truck, turned the ignition, and drove away.

“Do you want some creepy with that mocha?” the brunette teased.

“No kidding. Make that a venti creepy.”

“Extra hot, though.”

The young women laughed. Both knew that the man, no matter how handsome or fit, was too old for them anyway. Besides, it was against company policy to even think about hooking up with a customer. The last one to do that got a week of corporate-sponsored ethics training and a new assignment repacking scones in a warehouse. Not worth it by a long shot.

As the truck backed out and pulled past the windows of the shop, the blonde walked to the door and turned the lock. Her coworker flipped the overhead lights and the store went dark. As they looked out at the moving truck, which was slightly shrouded with swirling snow, they noticed something that seemed a little strange. There was no Christmas tree in the truck bed.

It was empty.

“I thought he said he’d been out getting a tree,” the brunette said

“Jesus. It figures. Everything is a pickup line these days.”

The blonde rolled her eyes. “You got that right.”