Heart of Ice

29

The waves were crashing against the pilings, and the dock was groaning under the onslaught of wind and water. Louis stepped outside the shelter of the ferry office and peered into the rain, but there was nothing to see but grayness. He went back inside.

Joe was huddled on a bench in the corner, clutching a Styrofoam cup. She held it out to him, and he took it, taking a drink of the hot coffee even though it had no sugar in it.

“I can’t wait to get off this island,” Joe said.

“I’m sorry this wasn’t the great getaway I had planned,” Louis said, sitting down next to her.

She burrowed closer to him. “We’ll make up for it when we get to Echo Bay. Did you think about what we talked about?”

Last night Joe had suggested he stay with her through Christmas. Her mother, Florence, was coming up for Thanksgiving, and it was time for Louis to meet her, she said. At first Louis had been reluctant, but he really had no reason to go back to Florida right now. He had cleared all his PI cases in anticipation of going into the academy, and he sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to spending another Christmas alone.

“Yeah, I thought about it,” he said. “I’d like to come stay with you for a while.”

She smiled broadly and wove her arm through his. They were silent as Louis finished the coffee.

“Where’s Rafsky?” he asked finally.

“He left on the first ferry this morning,” Joe said. “He was pretty anxious to get home to Marquette. It’s his granddaughter’s birthday today.”

Louis looked to the open doorway. A seagull took flight off a piling, straining against the wind, but finally gave up and turned back to land.

Through the rain, Louis spotted a smudge of red coming down the dock from Main Street. It was an umbrella, the person beneath bent low against the wind. Suddenly, a gust caught the umbrella, turning it inside out.

It was Maisey.

She struggled to right the umbrella but was clearly losing. Louis ran out to her. He grabbed the shredded umbrella and tossed it aside. Locking an arm around her shoulders, he steered her into the ferry office.

“Oh Lord,” she gasped, stopping just inside the open door. “Thank you, Mr. Kincaid.”

“Louis,” he said.

Her green plaid overcoat was sodden, and her plastic rain bonnet had blown down around her neck. She pulled the bonnet off and wiped her face.

“I went to the police station,” she said. “They told me you had gone home. But I took the chance you might be here.”

Her eyes slipped past him to the open door. Louis turned and saw the ferry far out on the lake, coming toward the island.

Maisey touched his sleeve. “I have to talk to you.”

“Is it about Rhoda? Did you remember something?”

“Rhoda?” Maisey shook her head. “No, no, it’s about Julie.”

With a glance toward Joe, Maisey turned so her back was to her and faced Louis. She closed her eyes for a long time and when she opened them Louis was surprised to see tears threatening.

“Maisey, what is it?”

“I wanted to tell you this yesterday when you came to the house, but I couldn’t talk of it. I just couldn’t.”

Louis waited while Maisey took a deep breath.

“I couldn’t tell anyone before now because it would have killed Mr. Edward to know.” She paused. “But he’s gone now, and I can’t keep it inside anymore.”

The tears flowed down her face.

“Mr. Ross. . he did things to Julie,” she said.

Her words came out as a low hiss. And Louis understood immediately what Maisey was saying.

“He molested her?” Louis asked.

Maisey stared at him, and Louis had the sense the word molested wasn’t strong enough for what Maisey was trying to tell him and for the anger she was feeling.

“He never let her be, Mr. Kincaid,” she said. “It started when she was about twelve, and it went on right up till that last summer here.”

Louis let out a hard sigh and looked over Maisey’s head to Joe. She had questions in her eyes, but Louis gave her a look that told her not to come over. It was clear Maisey was angry and embarrassed, but he suspected she was also deeply ashamed.

“Do you know this for certain, Maisey?” he asked.

She hesitated, then shook her head slowly. “I never caught him. And Julie never told me. But I know. I just know.”

Louis knew enough about incest to know that it usually began in childhood and often went on for years. He knew, too, that the victims often blamed themselves and rarely told anyone. Knowing what he knew now about the odd dynamics of the Chapman family, he suspected it would have been impossible for Julie to find a safe place within its cold comforts.

A horn blew. The ferry was at the dock.

Maisey saw it and her eyes shot back to Louis.

“Mr. Ross did it,” she said.

“Did what?”

Maisey wiped her face roughly with her sleeve. “One day Julie came home and she was all muddy and her blouse was torn. She told me she went hiking down the trail that leads from the cottage down to the lake and fell. But I know he did it.”

“Did what, Maisey?”

“He raped her, Mr. Kincaid,” Maisey said. “He raped her and got her pregnant.”

“I wish you had told me this when we first talked,” Louis said.

“If I told you, Mr. Edward would have found out,” she said. “I just couldn’t do it to him. I couldn’t break his heart.”

Joe stood up and was coming toward him, pointing at her watch and then the ferry. He waved her back.

“You’ve got to do something,” Maisey said.

“Maisey, I-”

“I didn’t protect her,” she said. “That’s something I have to find a way to live with. But it’s not right that Mr. Ross doesn’t have to pay for what he did to her.”

The ferry horn blew again.

“Maisey,” he said, turning back to her. “I have to go. I can’t do anything right now.”

“But you will?”

He didn’t know what to say. “I’ll think about it and call you. When are you going home?”

Her eyes clouded. “I won’t be going back to Bloomfield Hills. Mr. Ross let me go.”

“What?”

“He told me he didn’t need my services after this week.”

He remembered she had no family of her own. “Where will you go?” he asked.

She gave a small shrug. “My brother’s widow lives down in Grand Rapids, and she might take me in until I figure things out. Mr. Ross gave me six months’ salary.”

Louis fished in his jeans pocket and came out with a business card and a pen. He wrote Joe’s phone number on the back. “You call me when you get wherever you’re going, okay?” he said.

She took the card and put it in her coat pocket. “I have to get back now,” she said. “Mr. Ross wants to leave today, and I’ve got to close down the house.”

Her eyes held his for a moment, then she retied the plastic rain bonnet over her hair. She touched his arm.

“Please don’t forget about Julie,” she said.

She set off back down the dock. Louis watched her until he lost sight of her green plaid overcoat.

Joe came up to him. “What was that all about?”

“I’ll tell you on the ferry.”

He picked up his duffel, and they went out into the rain.

At the gangplank, he stopped suddenly. “I have to make a call,” he said.

“Louis-”

“I have to call someone. Go ask the captain if he can wait five minutes.”

Louis went quickly back inside the office. The old guy manning the desk looked up from his newspaper.

“Can I use your phone?” Louis asked.

“Be my guest.” The guy swung the old black rotary phone toward Louis and went back to his paper.

Louis pulled out his notepad and flipped through the pages. He found the number of the lab in Marquette and dialed. He was trying to remember the name of Rafsky’s friend at the lab when a woman answered.

“Dr. Bloodworth’s office.”

“Is the doctor in? This is-”

“No, I’m afraid he’s out of the office today. I’m his assistant. Is there something I can help you with?”

“I’m calling about the Chapman case. Julie Chapman. You’re doing a DNA test.”

“Yes, the bones found on Mackinac Island.”

Once he told this woman who he was there was no way she would do what he wanted.

“This is Norm Rafsky,” he said.

“Oh, yes, Detective. What can I do for you?”

“I need another test done. I need you to test the fetal bones for paternity. I want them compared with the sample we took from Ross Chapman.”

“We’ll need you to fax the lab order.”

“No problem. One more thing. I’d really appreciate your giving this test priority, even if you have to move it ahead of the familial test.”

“We can do that, Detective.”

He thanked the woman and hung up. He was skating on thin ice here, and he knew it. Not only was Rafsky going to be pissed when he found out but Louis also wasn’t certain ordering the second DNA test was even legal. Ross had given a sample of his own DNA only to identify his sister and had never given his permission to do a paternity test. Even if the paternity test was legal, it would never hold up in court if it came to that.

The ferry horn blasted twice.

Louis started to dial Rafsky but set the receiver down. It could wait for now; he didn’t want to interrupt Rafsky’s granddaughter’s birthday party.

When he went back outside Joe was waving him frantically from the ferry.

He hustled on board. The engines kicked to life, and the ferry began its retreat from the dock. He stayed out on the deck, watching the island slowly dissolve into the mist. He thought of Lily and how this place had looked when they first saw it, a riot of color and life. Now it looked empty and cold.

He’d have to deal with Rafsky soon, but his part of this was over. He’d spend the holidays with Joe and then he had to go back to Florida and learn how to be a cop again. Whatever happened now was up to Rafsky alone.