Heart of Ice

40

The sun was hovering above the lake, and the wind was cutting across the water like knives. Louis hustled from the police SUV to the porch of the lodge.

He fumbled with the key in the frozen lock, yanked open the door, and stepped inside. It took him a second to catch his breath. It was just as cold inside as out.

The lodge windows were still shuttered, and the entrance hall was dark. He hit the light switch. Nothing. The power had been turned off again.

He opened the front door to let some light in and glanced at his watch. It was only four but it felt later.

First the long drive to Cedarville on icy roads to get Rhonda Grasso’s dental records. On his way back through St. Ignace he stopped at the jail and got Dancer to confirm that the skull he had hidden in his cabin had come from the lodge.

Rafsky had been working the phones since last night, trying to squeeze any results from the Marquette lab on the processing of the lodge months ago. An hour ago, Rafsky had relayed a message through Barbara the dispatcher asking Louis to meet him at the lodge.

Louis was glad Rafsky was late. It would give him time to walk through the lodge alone. And it had nothing to do with looking for evidence.

He went to the kitchen. It was the only room not shuttered, and for the first time he got a good look at it. It was large and lined with old wooden cupboards marked with smudges of black fingerprint dust. A stone fireplace dominated one corner.

What was he looking for here? He didn’t know. He never knew. He just knew he had to stand here and feel things.

It was why he had asked Maisey to see Julie’s room. Why he had asked Chester to see Rhonda’s room. Why he always asked to see the places where people had lived and maybe died.

Most times the places were silent, like it had been in Julie’s bedroom. But sometimes, like in the trash-strewn rooms of an abandoned asylum or in a crumbling root cellar on a farm south of Hell, Michigan, there was something left in the air. Something visceral and usually unsettling, but something that always took him closer to the truth.

And now that they had a new victim, he needed to find out what this old lodge could tell him about Rhonda Grasso.

Louis unzipped his parka and went to the parlor. There was nothing in the room except empty bookcases, a tattered red chair, and a stone fireplace with a deer head over the mantel.

Going down the hallway, he peered into all of the rooms, each with the same log walls, scuffed floors, shuttered windows, and silence.

Back in the entrance hall he paused. He was tempted to go down to the basement but decided to wait for Rafsky. Instead, he started up the staircase to the second floor, careful to test his footing for rotten wood.

It was colder upstairs. The rooms were like those downstairs, shuttered and dim, holding nothing but cobwebs. He was about to give up and chalk the lodge up to one of the places determined to keep its secrets when he found a room that made him pause at the doorway.

It took him a moment to understand what had stopped him here. It was the light.

There were three windows, but only two were shuttered. Louis went to the open window and looked out.

It couldn’t have been prettier if it had been a painting from one of the galleries on Main Street. A sloping bluff of snowcapped pines was silhouetted against an exploding sunset of lavender and pink. And the lake lay below, as smooth as antique milk glass.

He turned and went to the spot on the floor where he imagined someone would put a bed. There was no bed now, but he knew they hadn’t needed one.

That last summer this spot had been covered with blankets and pillows stolen from the linen closets of the Chapman cottage. There had been candles purchased from the Wick Shoppe in town. And music playing from a transistor radio-the Righteous Brothers or the Temptations, maybe.

Something on the log wall in the corner caught his eye. He went to it and knelt down. Someone had carved something in the log wall-JC+CL.

It was so small and faint it was easy to understand why the techs might have missed it during their search. But would it have made any difference if they had had this clue months ago? All it proved was that Julie and Cooper had been in this room.

Assumptions, Kincaid.

But it felt right.

His eyes drifted back to the windows, and his breath billowed in the icy air. It took him a moment to figure out where his melancholy was coming from.

There was a time when he would not have understood two kids creating a hideaway in such an ugly old place. Or understood the kind of love that would drive Cooper Lange to cross an ice bridge. But he did now.

He heard the door downstairs bang shut. When he went back to the parlor, he found Rafsky sorting a stack of file folders. Dancer’s wooden box sat on the red chair.

Rafsky glanced over his shoulder. “We have lights?”

“Nope.”

“Be right back.”

Rafsky left and returned with two Maglites. He tossed Louis one and stuck the other in the pocket of his coat.

“You get the final report from Marquette?” Louis asked.

Rafsky nodded, picking up two folders. “This is it, everything they found during the processing of this place.”

“I found some initials, JC plus CL, carved in the wall upstairs,” Louis said.

Rafsky arched an eyebrow. “I’d bet that’s in here somewhere. They noted all marks and graffiti. What’d you find out in Cedarville?”

“I found Rhonda’s dentist in De Tour Village,” Louis said. “The guy pressed me about a warrant or permission from her family.”

“How’d you get around that?”

“I told him we didn’t want to give the father any cause for concern until we were sure,” Louis said. “I’m not sure he believed me, but he finally handed the X-rays over, telling me he expected a warrant faxed to him as soon as possible.”

“He’s got a long wait,” Rafsky said. “Let me see them.”

Louis handed Rafsky an envelope. Rafsky took the skull from the box and set it on the fireplace mantel. He shined his flashlight first on the X-rays, then on the skull, then repeated the motion.

“Three fillings, one missing tooth, and a quarter-inch gap between the front teeth,” Rafsky said. “We have an ID for our victim now.”

Rafsky slipped the X-rays back in their envelope and tucked his flashlight back in his coat. “Did you get in to see Dancer?”

“Yeah,” Louis said. “It took a while, but he finally admitted he took the skull from the basement and left the other bones.”

“You’re sure he was clear?”

“I got him to write out a statement. It says ‘Bones, lots of bones. I was afraid to take the skull, so I just visited it sometimes. Then I took it. It was so clean I didn’t need my beetles.’ ”

“I don’t suppose our man of all seasons could give us a year?” Rafsky asked.

“No, just that it was cold.”

“Okay,” Rafsky said. “We got a positive ID. We know that the skull belongs to the skeleton.”

“What about prints?”

Rafsky opened the top folder. “There are matches here for Cooper Lange, Danny Dancer, and Rhonda Grasso.”

“Did Rhonda have an arrest record?” Louis asked.

“No, she was fingerprinted when she worked for the post office. Guess who doesn’t show up anywhere?”

“Ross,” Louis said.

Rafsky set the folder on the mantel and blew out a sigh. “I need a smoke.” He headed back out to the entrance hall. Louis picked up the folder and followed him.

Rafsky was staring out the door at the setting sun. Louis put on his glasses and started flipping through the fingerprint report. It was at least twenty pages long, detailing the hundreds of prints found in the sixty-year-old lodge. Every print was assigned a number, and most were listed as unidentified. Every time a print was lifted, its number and location was noted. Louis saw his and Lily’s names on the list as IDENTIFIED PRINT #1 and IDENTIFIED PRINT #2, with locations around the milk chute, kitchen, parlor, and basement. Dancer’s IDENTIFIED PRINT #3 showed up around his rat hole and in the basement. Cooper Lange, IDENTIFIED PRINT #4, had left a trail throughout the lodge, heaviest in the southwest upstairs bedroom with no prints in the basement.

Rhonda Grasso’s prints were listed as IDENTIFIED PRINT #7, with dozens of locations throughout the lodge.

Hundreds of prints. And not one from Ross Chapman.

Louis was about to close the folder when he noticed it. UNIDENTIFIED PRINT #15. Unlike the other unidentifieds, this one appeared at dozens of locations-including the basement. Louis flipped back to the page with Rhonda’s prints and back to the page with #15. Many of the locations were parallel, as if someone had been following in Rhonda’s shadow.

“Rafsky,” Louis said, ripping out Rhonda’s page. He held it next to the page for #15. “Look at this,” he said.

Rafsky took the two pages. It took him only a second to see the pattern. He handed Louis the page for #15, keeping the page for Rhonda.

“Let’s walk through this,” he said.

He went to the parlor, stopping at a shuttered window. When he turned on his flashlight it picked up black smudges of fingerprint dust. “They found Lange’s prints here.”

“This must be the broken window he said they used to sneak in.”

“Rhonda’s prints show up on the windowsill here,” Rafsky said. “And all over the room.”

“I’ve got prints in the room for number fifteen but none on the sill.”

Rafsky went to the entrance hall. “You have prints here?”

Louis nodded. “Just on the banister.”

“No banister prints for Rhonda,” Rafsky said. “Let’s move on.”

There was nothing in the long hallway leading to the back of the lodge or in the back rooms of the first floor, so they headed to the kitchen.

“Lots of good prints for Rhonda here,” Rafsky said, surveying the smooth countertops and wood cupboards.

“Same for number fifteen,” Louis said. He went to the fireplace. “I have a lot of good hits here.”

“I have none on the fireplace,” Rafsky said. “My next print is at the door leading to the basement.”

“I have one there, but it’s tagged no value,” Louis said. “It’s too smeared.”

They paused at the top of the steps as Louis shined his flashlight down into the darkness.

“Rhonda left several good prints on the wall going down,” Rafsky said, “including one full handprint.”

“I have nothing along the steps,” Louis said. “Let’s go down.”

At the bottom they stopped. The Maglite beams pierced the darkness. Louis swung the beam slowly over the basement, picking up the rough walls, the concrete floor, and the old boiler.

“I’ve got two good prints for number fifteen on one of the steps,” Louis said. He went behind the steps and found the black fingerprint dust on the back of the fourth step.

“Maybe number fifteen was hiding back there, waiting for Rhonda,” Rafsky said.

Louis came out and shined his flashlight onto a spot about three feet from the steps. “I have multiple no values for number fifteen here,” he said.

“Same for Rhonda,” Rafsky said.

“I’m guessing there was a struggle,” Louis said. “That’s why the prints here are all smeared.”

“But Rhonda died over there,” Rafsky said, shining his light at the drain four feet closer to the furnace.

Rafsky blew out a long sigh. “Fuck, no prints for Ross anywhere, and none for Cooper in the basement.”

“It was winter,” Louis said. “They could have worn gloves.”

“Maybe. But who the hell is number fifteen?”

They were quiet for a long time. Louis swung his flashlight beam up the steps, pausing it on the step where the two prints had been lifted. He turned the beam onto the report for UNIDENTIFIED #15. Again he scanned the locations throughout the lodge, focusing finally on SW UPSTAIRS BEDROOM.

The same bedroom where he had seen the initials carved in the log wall-JC+CL. The same initials-JC-engraved inside the Kingswood ring.

“It was Julie,” he said. “Julie is number fifteen.”

Rafsky’s beam swung to him.

“I found a picture of Rhonda and Cooper in Chester Grasso’s garage,” Louis said. “I thought Rhonda might have killed Julie out of jealousy.”

“But then Rhonda became our victim,” Rafsky said.

They both swung their flashlights to the spot in the floor where all the smeared prints had been found.

“There was a struggle,” Louis said. “And Julie won.”

“So where is she?” Rafsky asked.

Louis took a few steps forward, moving his flashlight beam over the ghost stain on the floor.

“I don’t know where she is, but I know she’s alive,” Louis said.

“Assumptions, Kincaid,” he said softly. “Bring me some proof.”