Heart of Ice

28

The interior of the Mustang Lounge was as dark as a tomb and deserted except for one man sitting at the bar. It took Louis a moment to realize it was Rafsky. He hesitated, thinking he’d go back to the hotel and wait for Joe. But she told him she had at least an hour of phone calls to catch up on and that he should go on without her.

The smell of frying meat drifted over to Louis. Finally hunger overcame any trepidation he had about having to make lunchtime small talk with Rafsky and he went to the bar.

“What’s good today?” Louis said, sliding onto the stool.

“Try the Mustang Burger,” Rafsky said.

The bartender placed a plate of fries and a towering burger in front of Rafsky.

“I’ll have the same, no pickles,” Louis said. “With a Heineken, please.”

The bartender left, and Louis watched Rafsky as he took the top bun off his burger. He dismantled the stack of tomato, bacon, onion slices, pickles, and lettuce and then carefully put the hamburger back together again.

“You always do that?” Louis asked.

“Do what?”

“Restack your burger?”

Rafsky turned to stare at him. “Yes. Does it bother you?”

“No.”

“The tomato should always be on top,” Rafsky said.

Louis nodded as though he understood. The bartender brought his beer, and he took a long draw.

“I need to fill you in on something,” Louis said. “After you left the Chapman house this morning Maisey took me aside and told me she thought Ross might have done something to the old man.”

Rafsky stopped in midchew. “Done something? She say what he did exactly?”

“No. She says they argued before Ross went to Lansing.”

“About what?”

“Something about Julie. I think she believes Ross killed his father.”

“Why would Ross Chapman do that?”

“She didn’t have a chance to tell me more.”

Rafsky was quiet, eating.

“Maisey’s just really upset.” Louis paused. “I think she and the old guy were lovers.”

“That doesn’t surprise me. I noticed it between them the first day I saw them together.”

“Yeah. She seemed very protective of him.”

Rafsky nodded. “Every time he looked to her through the glass I got the feeling he wanted her in the room with him, holding his hand while he talked about his daughter.”

Louis was quiet. Had Edward asked for Maisey to be in the room they would have let her come in. But he knew a man like Chapman would never ask such a thing. He thought of his own parents in that moment, something he rarely allowed himself to do. His black mother, his white father, coming together in the deep shadows of the South just long enough to give him life. Things might have been easier for Maisey and Edward twenty years ago but he doubted it. And he was sure their relationship had been carried on in secret in what he was beginning to believe was a house full of secrets.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d still like to alert Chapman’s doctor in Bloomfield Hills and ask him to take a look before they bury the old man,” Louis said.

“Be my guest,” Rafsky said. “But I can tell you what he’ll say. I had an uncle who was in bad shape, oxygen tank, heart pills, the whole HMO bonanza. He died in his sleep a day before he was going to take his life savings out of the bank and start a cruise around the world.”

“That sounds suspicious,” Louis said.

“One cousin accused the other, and they ended up spending half his money getting expert opinions. It was always the same. There was no way to tell if someone gave him one too many pills or pinched the oxygen tube closed.”

“I’m still going to make the call.”

“Go ahead,” Rafsky said as he slathered his fries with ketchup. “It’s the right thing to do.”

The server set Louis’s burger down in front of him. He ordered another beer.

“How’s Frye like being a sheriff?” Rafsky asked without looking at him.

Louis was surprised at the question-or rather the fact Rafsky had brought up Joe. The tension he had noticed the first few days between Joe and Rafsky had seemed to fade some, but things were still awkward between them.

“She loves it,” Louis said.

“I’ve heard her name mentioned over the years,” Rafsky said. “She’s got a kick-ass reputation.”

“I believe that.”

“You know, I knew her when she was a rookie,” Rafsky said.

Louis took a swallow of beer and set the bottle down. “I know,” he said. “She told me.”

“Did she tell you about the case we worked?”

“Yeah.”

Rafsky was quiet. He set his burger down and just sat there, staring at himself in the mirror on the other side of the bar.

“Did she tell you she saved my life that day?” Rafsky asked.

“She told me everything,” Louis said.

Rafsky was still looking at himself in the mirror, but Louis saw nothing in his eyes. It was as if the man weren’t seeing his own reflection but something-or someone-else.

“She saved my life, too,” Louis said.

It took Rafsky a moment to turn to him. “I’m sorry, what?”

“I said she saved my life, too,” Louis said. “Put six bullets in a man holding a knife over me.”

Rafsky raised a brow, then picked out a french fry, swirling it in the ketchup.

“How do you two manage a relationship twelve hundred miles apart?” he asked finally.

Louis was chewing, and it gave him time to consider his answer. The question didn’t bother him, but he wasn’t sure how honest he wanted to be with this man. But then, they had both been saved by the same woman. Maybe they had a cosmic connection.

“It’s not easy,” Louis said.

Rafsky was wiping his fingers, probably wanting to hear more but too polite to ask.

“You like PI work?” Rafsky asked.

“It pays the bills,” Louis said. “But I’ve been accepted to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement police academy. I start in mid-February.”

Rafsky continued to pick at his fries. They ate in silence listening to Stevie Wonder’s “Part-Time Lover” on the jukebox.

“Mark Steele and I graduated the academy together back in the seventies,” Rafsky said.

Steele was the state investigator who had worked the case that had cost Louis his badge. When Steele was promoted later he red-flagged Louis’s file, making certain Louis could never again work as a cop in Michigan.

“What’s your point?” Louis asked.

Rafsky turned on his stool, beer in hand. His eyes glistened with the buzz of alcohol. “I can talk to him about you if you want.”

“No, thanks, I’m no good at groveling,” Louis said. “I got a shot at the FDLE academy, and I’m taking it. I’m thirty this year. I might never get another chance.”

Rafsky eyed him for a second, then his gaze moved over Louis’s shoulder toward the front door.

Louis turned to see Joe walking toward them. Tight jeans, leather jacket, a strange fur hat on her head. Her face held a glimmer of puzzlement at seeing him with Rafsky.

Joe gave Louis a kiss on the cheek, filling his nose with the scent of her Jean Naté cologne.

“How is everything? Any news?” she asked.

“Nope,” Rafsky said. “In fact, we have a problem.”

“What’s that?”

“We’re at a dead end,” Rafsky said. “My men spent yesterday taking the sketch of Rhoda to every house on this island. No one remembered her. And the owners of the fudge and ice-cream shops, where this girl probably worked, are all in Florida or Arizona.”

“What about the search for Julie’s skull?” Joe asked.

Rafsky shrugged. “My boss says it’s time to pack it in,” he said. “Hell, maybe it’s just not there. Even the cadaver dogs are getting bored.”

“When do you expect to get the DNA results?” Louis said.

“They won’t be back until at least after Christmas,” Rafsky said.

“What about Dancer?” Joe asked. “I’m sure with some more prodding I could get him to open up to me.”

“His lawyer put him off-limits to us until the shooting charges are resolved,” Louis said. He looked back at Rafsky. “Any indication he’ll take a plea?”

Rafsky shook his head. “His lawyer has it in her head that not only can she get the state to pay for her experts but also that she can get Dancer a long stay in a psych ward instead of prison.”

There was an edge of disgust in Rafsky’s voice.

“And you think he deserves to be in a maximum-security prison?” Louis said.

“He shot a cop, Kincaid.”

“But is prison justice for a man like him?” Louis pressed.

Rafsky set his bottle down and turned it slowly in the watery circle beneath it. “A long time ago I could’ve answered that without having to think about it,” he said. “But I don’t know anymore what real justice is.”

Rafsky’s eyes moved to Joe’s face. “Nor am I sure anymore who should issue it,” he said.

Louis felt Joe’s hand tighten on his shoulder, and for a long time the three of them were quiet. Plates clattered in the kitchen, and Madonna’s voice came from the jukebox.

Rafsky finally reached for his wallet. “I think our little party on this island is over,” he said. “I’ve got some things to finish, but for the most part the investigation’s on hold until our potential witnesses come back to the island, we get our positive ID with the DNA, and we’re allowed to interrogate Dancer.”

“So you don’t need us anymore?” Louis asked.

“No,” Rafsky said. “But I appreciate your help. Leave me your address in Florida. I’ll get a check in the mail for you.”

“Send it to the sheriff’s office in Echo Bay,” Joe said. “We’re going to my home for a while.” She glanced at Louis. “If it’s all right with you, I’d like to leave first thing in the morning.”

Rafsky was laying money on the bar, and Louis noticed a split-second pause in his motion. Then Rafsky looked up-at both of them. For the first time the cool blue eyes had something warm behind them. Louis thought for a moment it was just the beer, but then he recognized it for what it was.

Envy.

Not the ugly green kind but more of a melancholy realization that what Louis and Joe had, Rafsky had lost. And for a second Louis had the feeling he was looking in the mirror. Fifty years old, living alone in a beach shack, married to his badge, and at odds with his only child because somewhere along the line he had stopped sending her postcards.

Rafsky pushed off his barstool and extended a hand to Louis.

“Good-bye, Kincaid,” he said. He looked to Joe and held out his hand. “Good-bye, Frye.”

She hesitated, then took his hand in both of hers. “Good-bye, Rafsky,” she said. “Be well.”