Heart of Ice

30

It was snowing again. The tracks that he had left this morning on his walk down to the mailbox were already gone. Louis turned away from the window and went back to the kitchen to refill his coffee mug and add four sugars.

He sat down at the small table, staring contently off into space as he stirred his coffee. The sound of the shower running started up from the next room, and he knew Joe was finally awake and getting ready to go in to the station. In the eight weeks he had been staying at her cabin he had learned a lot about her-that she could sleep through any noise, including the two alarm clocks she used. And that she could-in defiance of everything he had ever learned about women-get dressed in ten minutes.

He knew she wasn’t going to have time for breakfast, so he poured coffee into her travel mug and grabbed a chocolate doughnut from the Entenmann’s box on the table. Finally, for something to do while he waited for her, he pulled the copy of the Echo Bay Banner closer and scanned the front page.

The annual Polar Bear Dip had had its biggest turnout in ten years. A leaky pipe had caused $17,000 worth of damage to the county government building. Seventh grader Dina Bidwell had won the Leelanau County spelling bee by correctly spelling cockatoo. But the big story was the inauguration of the new Echo Bay mayor this morning at the high school auditorium.

Louis sipped his coffee, staring down at the photograph of the Polar Bear men standing around the hole that had been cut in the ice of Lake Michigan. In all this time here, he had never seen news that got any spicier than old guys in Speedos.

Not that he minded. He had come to like it, in fact, this weird feeling of ease. It was cold as hell outside, but here inside Joe’s cabin he felt as if he were floating in a warm and buoyant sea. So much of it was just being cocooned here in this place. But it was more than that.

All his life he had been moving. From one foster home to another, from one job to the next, from Michigan to Mississippi to Florida and back here again. He had been moving, too, away from people-from partners who had died, from women whose faces were just blurs in his memory. Even from his foster parents Phillip and Frances. When he called them at Christmas, Frances said that they were thinking of making a trip down to Florida to look at condos. He knew damn well Phil didn’t want to move to Florida, but he also knew they were getting older and wanted to be nearer to him.

He reached across the table to the pile of mail he had brought in earlier and found the red envelope. He had already read the Christmas card inside, but he slipped it out and read it again. Glitter sprinkled to the table.

Dear Louis,

I am sending you a Christmas card that I made myself with glitter. I hope you like it. Thank you for the pretty sweater. I wore it to school today. Momma said you were still up north working on getting the bones home to their family. I told my friends at school that I helped find some bones, but no one believed me. Boys are stupid anyway. I sent away for some pictures of Tahquamenon Falls, so we can go there next summer when you come back to Michigan for my birthday. Do you think that on the next trip I could meet your girlfriend?

XOXOXOX

Lily

Girlfriend. .

The sweater had been Joe’s idea. When they had gone shopping in the little stores in downtown Echo Bay to look for a Christmas present for Lily, Louis had headed straight for the bookstore and picked out a kid’s science book on the origin of horses. Joe had steered him next door to a yarn boutique where she found a nubby pink girl’s sweater with white lilies knitted down the front. And she had given him a warning.

Don’t even think about getting me a DustBuster.

He didn’t. The next day, while Joe was at work, he found a women’s boutique where he picked out a silver bracelet set with a Petoskey stone. Two months ago he hadn’t even known what a Petoskey stone was. But during one of their walks on the wintry beach Joe had told him she had been scouring the shoreline for one of the prehistoric fossils for months but had never been lucky enough to find one.

She had surprised the hell out of him by crying when he gave her the bracelet. She had worn it to the New Year’s Eve party hosted by Augie Toussaint, the Echo Bay Banner editor. But he had the feeling that he-not the bracelet-was the thing she was most proud to wear on her arm that night.

Girlfriend. .

When Joe had first introduced him to people at the party she had hesitated. Finally she had just said, “This is my friend Louis Kincaid.”

It made him feel strange, to be half of a couple. Once during the party, standing there with Joe’s arm entwined in his, he had felt that old urge to pull away. But he hadn’t. Because for the first time in his life he didn’t want to move away from people. For the first time in his life he wanted to move toward them.

“So how do I look?”

Louis turned.

Joe was standing in the doorway. She was wearing her dress uniform-double-breasted dark brown jacket and pants with a crisp white shirt. Gold buttons, gold braid on the left epaulette, gold bars on the jacket cuffs, and a gold six-pointed star on her left breast pocket.

Louis stared, dumbstruck. He had seen her in her usual uniform-plain shirt, slacks, and usually a Leelanau County Sheriff’s Department ball cap over her ponytailed hair. But he had never seen her looking like this.

“Well?” she pressed.

“You look-” He shook his head. “Impressive,” he said finally.

“I feel like George Patton in drag,” she said, heading toward the coffeepot.

Her hair was done in a neat braid. She carried white gloves and the stiff gold-braided garrison hat that he had seen wrapped in plastic at the top of her closet.

“How long will the mayor’s swearing-in take?” he asked.

“I don’t know. His wife is holding a lunch afterward. I can’t get out of it.”

He held up a hand.

“What are you going to do today?” she asked.

“I was thinking about doing the laundry.”

She sighed. “I’m sorry about leaving you alone so much.”

“Joe, don’t be ridiculous. You have a job to do.”

“I know, it’s just-”

The phone rang. Joe grabbed the receiver off the wall.

She listened for a moment. “Yes, he’s here,” she said, looking at Louis. She put a hand over the receiver. “It’s Rafsky.”

She handed him the receiver, then ducked beneath the coiled cord to put the cap on her coffee and wrap her doughnut.

Louis drew a breath, readying his words. A couple of days after he had arrived in Echo Bay, he had called Rafsky’s office, intending to tell him that he had ordered the second test-the paternity test-to compare Ross’s DNA to that of the fetal bones. But Rafsky had been on family leave, and Louis had no home phone number for him, which made it all too easy to forget about it.

“Hey, Rafsky,” he said.

“ ‘Hey’? That’s all you have to say to me-hey?”

Louis blew out a breath. “Look, I called your office, but you weren’t there and-”

“And you couldn’t be bothered to track me down?” Rafsky said.

Louis looked up at Joe. She was watching him quizzically.

“Ordering a test without telling me is bad enough. But telling them you were me? That’s low, Kincaid, even for a fucking PI.”

“Cheap shot, Rafsky. Look, I know it wasn’t a smart thing to do-”

“Actually it was,” Rafsky said. “That’s why I’m letting you off the hook.” He paused. “The first test I ordered, the familial test, is still pending, thanks to you pushing it lower down the list. But I just got the results this morning on the paternity. Ross Chapman is the father.”

Louis leaned back in the chair.

Maisey had been right. Ross Chapman sexually assaulted and impregnated his own sister.

“Bastard,” Louis said softly.

“Listen,” Rafsky said. “This isn’t information we need out there right now. Not until we know if it had anything to do with her murder.”

“I understand.”

“So how quick can you get back to the island?” Rafsky asked.

Louis glanced at Joe. She was standing nearby, holding her travel mug and hat, obviously anxious to hear what Rafsky wanted.

He covered the receiver. “There’s been an unexpected development,” he said to her. “Rafsky wants me back on the island to help him finish the case.”

For a moment she said nothing, and he wondered what was behind the play of emotions on her face. Maybe a little jealousy that she wasn’t going to be part of it. Clearly disappointment that he was going to leave. But there was something else there, too, and he knew what it was because he was feeling it as well-uncertainty about where they as a couple were going to be after this case was over.

Joe stepped forward and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

“Go,” she said. “You have a job to do, too.”