Heart of Ice

3

It had been almost forty minutes since he had scooped Lily off that basement floor and carried her outside to the veranda. He tried to stay calm as he gently examined her. He could tell that her right arm was sprained. Going down to the iron fence facing the lake, he managed to flag down a bicyclist to go get help.

When he returned to Lily she was crying. He cupped her face in his hands and asked her if she was all right, even though he could tell by the blank look in her eyes she was nowhere near okay.

Louis heard the sound of a car engine and looked up, surprised to see an ambulance pull in behind the chain-link fence.

“I thought you said there were no cars here,” Lily whispered.

“For kids who get hurt there are always cars. Come on, let me carry you over there.”

She pulled away from his touch. “I can walk.”

“Keep your arm tight to your chest,” Louis said.

Lily walked with him to the ambulance to meet the young paramedic. It didn’t take a genius to see Lily had fallen into something-she was dirty, her yellow sweatshirt was torn, and her face had some cuts. But the EMT’s eyes went right to the arm she cradled against her body. When he began to examine it Lily started to cry again. Louis moved a little closer, trying to keep a reassuring smile on his face.

Louis had dealt with death many times, seen bodies floating in water, left in shallow graves, and laid out on the medical examiner’s table. He had even held a baby’s skull in his hand. But seeing Lily scared and in pain touched him in a way he never thought possible, in a place he didn’t know he had.

He heard another voice and turned to see a man dismounting a bike. He wore a white shirt and dark pants dusty at the cuffs. As he ducked under the fence and started across the yard, Louis could see the gold badge on his chest and brown leather holster on his hip.

Louis had intended to get Lily settled somewhere and then visit the island police to tell them about the bones. He hadn’t expected a cop to respond to an accident call. But on a small tourist island it was probably standard procedure.

The officer greeted the EMT by name and looked first at Lily, then at Louis. His badge read MACKINAC ISLAND CHIEF OF POLICE, the sleeve patch displayed an embroidered horse’s head.

“Jack Flowers,” he said, extending a hand. “Chief of Police.”

“Louis Kincaid.”

Flowers gave a slight nod, indicating Louis should follow him. They stopped a few yards away from the ambulance.

“Your little girl okay?” he asked.

“Scared mostly.”

“Chuck says you were inside the lodge.”

“Yes, sir. Lily-”

Flowers cut him off. “Guess you didn’t notice the boarded-up windows and NO TRESPASSING signs?”

“Lily snuck in through a milk chute,” Louis said. “When I heard her scream I broke a window to get to her. I’ll pay for any repairs.”

Flowers glanced at Lily, then looked back at Louis. “I’ll need to see some ID for the accident report,” he said.

Louis reached for his wallet and handed Flowers his Florida driver’s license. He thought about telling Flowers he was a private eye but decided against it. The title brought him little respect with most police departments, less here in Michigan, where he had been told he was red-flagged in the state’s law enforcement computer as a troublemaker.

Flowers’s radio crackled, and the chief keyed it.

“I’m out at Twin Pines, Barbara,” he said. “Just some overly curious tourists.”

Louis used the moment to size up Flowers. He was about forty, with a rough-hewn face and short jet-black hair that sprang from his head like mondo grass.

Flowers handed Louis back his license. “I should give you a trespassing citation,” he said. “But I won’t. Looks like your little girl over there feels bad enough.”

“You have no idea,” Louis said.

“What do you mean?” Flowers asked.

“There’s something inside the lodge you need to see,” Louis said.

Flowers’s thick black brows arched. “We got squatters?”

“I better show you,” Louis said.

Louis went back to the ambulance, explained to Lily that he had to take the policeman back inside, and made sure she was comfortable staying with Chuck the EMT. She gave him a small nod.

When Louis got back to the chief, Flowers was just lowering his radio. From the curious expression on Flowers’s face Louis knew the chief had run a quick background on him.

“So you’re a PI out of Florida?” Flowers asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“You carrying?”

“No, I’m on vacation.”

Flowers considered him again for a moment, then gestured toward the lodge. “Okay, Mr. PI from Florida. Show me whatever it is in that lodge you think I need to see.”

“You’d better get a flashlight.”

Flowers gave him a quizzical look, then went back to get a flashlight from the bag on his bike.

Louis took Flowers through the broken window. He picked up the still-lit oil lamp from the fireplace mantel and led Flowers to a narrow hallway off the kitchen. The wood steps leading down to the basement were steep and worn. The air grew colder as they descended into the darkness.

“Over here,” Louis said.

The beam of Flowers’s flashlight skittered across the floor, finally stopping on a spot about ten feet from a giant boiler in the corner.

“There,” Louis said.

Flowers’s Maglite caught the white of the bones and for a long time stayed steady before Flowers slowly began to move it again. The beam picked up the distinct shapes-from the large heart-shaped pelvis to the tiniest finger bones.

Flowers angled the light upward to the hole in the ceiling. “Sweet Mother of God,” he whispered. “Your little girl fell from there?”

“Yeah,” Louis said.

Flowers turned a slow circle, skipping the light over the stone walls, across the floor, and around the base of the boiler. Dust swarmed in the beam like a million gnats.

“You see any clothing?” Flowers asked.

“No,” Louis said. He paused, moving the oil lamp slowly over the floor. “I don’t see the skull, either.”

Flowers swept the beam over the floor again, then he went behind the steps. He came out and looked behind the boiler before coming back to Louis.

“Maybe an animal got in here and took it,” he said.

“They usually take the smaller bones,” Louis said. “And from the looks of it I’m guessing most of the bones are still here.”

“You touch anything?”

“Lily fell right on the bones. I wasn’t thinking of preserving the scene when I was getting her out of here. But I didn’t touch anything else.”

Flowers turned the light back on the bones. Louis had seen detectives in big cities screw up crime scenes. Flowers looked like he knew enough not to stomp around down here in the dark. But he also looked like he didn’t have any idea what his next step was.

“First homicide?” Louis asked.

Flowers looked to him quickly. “What?”

“I asked if this was your first homicide.”

“Who said it was a homicide? Maybe someone just came down here and couldn’t get out for some reason.”

Louis hesitated. “There’s no clothing. And the fact the skull is missing could be important.”

Flowers just stared at him. Then he turned in a tight circle, running the flashlight beam again into the dark corners.

“Chief,” Louis said. “I have to go. Lily’s-”

“What’s that?” Flowers asked.

“What?”

Flowers moved forward and his beam of light picked up a glint of metal on the floor near the bones. He squatted down, drew a pen from his pocket, and poked at the metal.

“It’s a ring,” Flowers said.

Louis squatted next to the chief. The gold ring was dusty, but he could see a red stone and what looked like embossing.

“I guess I should just leave it and go call in some techs,” Flowers said. “They’ll have to come over from St. Ignace.”

Louis knew that once something was removed or disturbed it was impossible to restore the scene to its pristine condition. But Lily’s fall onto the bones had already compromised the crime scene.

“Take the ring with you now,” Louis said. “Get it to a lab or someplace so you can get started on an ID. That’s always the first step. Then get some of your guys out here to secure the place and make sure no one gets in.”

Flowers looked him square in the eye, and Louis waited for some defensive comeback. But the chief let out a long breath and began swinging the flashlight slowly over the floor again. Louis realized he was looking for something to put the ring in.

Louis was about to offer to go upstairs and ask the EMT for a plastic bag when Flowers pulled something from his back pocket.

It was a small rolled-up Baggie. Flowers emptied what looked like three aspirin from the Baggie and swallowed them dry. Then he turned the Baggie inside out and used his pen to push the ring inside.

Louis followed Flowers up the stairs and out of the lodge.

Chuck had Lily wrapped in a blanket, and she was sitting in the back of the ambulance. She was licking a lollipop.

“You okay?” Louis asked her.

“It hurts,” she said.

“I think it’s a sprain,” Chuck said. “But we need to get her to the clinic to be x-rayed to be sure.”

Louis looked at his watch. “When’s the last ferry?”

“At five o’clock,” Flowers said.

“You’re staying in Mackinaw City?” Flowers asked.

“Yeah, the Best Western.”

Louis let out a hard breath. Their luggage was at the hotel, they were stuck here, and he still had to call Kyla.

“Look,” Flowers said, “I’m going to have to call the state in on this, and the investigator is going to want to talk to you. Why don’t you stay here on the island tonight?”

Louis hesitated.

“I’m going to need your little girl’s prints for elimination,” Flowers said.

Louis glanced back at Lily. She was hurt and scared, but he could also see the disappointment in her face that their trip was ruined. And that she had caused it.

“My cousin works at the Grand Hotel,” Flowers said. “I can call and get you a room. It will be on the department’s dime.”

When Louis had planned this trip he had called the Grand Hotel, hoping the October rates might be more affordable than in peak season, but there had been no room for less than three hundred a night. A stay in the best hotel on the island might be just what Lily needed.

“Okay, I’ll take you up on that,” Louis said.

“Great,” Flowers said. “You go get your little girl taken care of, and I’ll send an officer over to Mackinaw City to get your things. I’ll send someone back for your bikes.”

“Thank you,” Louis said.

Flowers pocketed the Baggie and headed off to retrieve his bike. Louis watched him pedal off as he made his way back to the ambulance.

“Did he give us a ticket?” Lily asked.

“What?”

“Did the policeman give us a ticket for transgressing?”

“Trespassing,” Louis said. He smiled. “He let us off the hook.”

She looked down at the splint on her arm, then wiped her nose with her good hand.

“How you doing?” Louis asked softly.

“Okay, I guess,” she whispered, but didn’t look up.

Chuck came over. “We should get her to the medical center, sir.”

Lily looked at Chuck. “I’ve never been in an ambulance before. Can I work the siren?”

Chuck smiled. “We don’t use the siren here. It scares the horses.”

Lily considered this, then nodded gravely.

Chuck started to close the ambulance door, then paused. “Would you like to ride in the back with your daughter, sir?”

Louis met Lily’s gaze. He wondered if she had felt the same strange tug that he had when she heard “your daughter.” But he couldn’t read a thing in those somber gray eyes.