Heart of Ice (11 page)

She heard the creak of the wicker as he dropped into the chair next to hers. Still she couldn’t bring herself to look at him.

“Do you have another glass?”

She turned. His eyes were glistening. She slid her full glass toward him. “I haven’t touched it.”

He hesitated, then picked it up and downed the sherry in one gulp. As she watched him, she had a memory of the day she caught him sneaking bourbon from the liquor cabinet. Ross had been just twelve, and she had given him a hard swat on the butt because Mr. Edward was gone so much he trusted her to discipline the children as she saw fit and Mrs. Chapman wasn’t in any condition to care.

And she had taken that responsibility seriously. Even later when she caught him with a girl in his bedroom, even when money started disappearing from her purse.
She had always handled Ross herself, never bothering Mr. Edward.

“What else did the police tell Dad?” he asked.

“He didn’t tell me very much, and I just wanted to get him back here to the house. I think the police are waiting to talk to you.”

Ross Chapman let out a tired breath and pushed himself from the chair. “I guess I better get over there,” he said. “Would you call and let them know I’m coming?”

“Yes, Mr. Ross.”

He nodded his thanks and went to the door where he had dropped his suitcase. She followed him and closed the door behind him. She stood at the window and watched him walk down West Bluff Road toward town.

She watched until he was out of sight, then picked up his bag and took it upstairs.

R
afsky slammed the door to Flowers’s office and slapped down three newspapers with such force it scattered the other papers on the desk.

“How the hell did this happen?” Rafsky asked, jabbing at the headline on the top newspaper.

Louis leaned forward in his chair. It was the
Lansing State Journal.
The story was at the bottom of the page, but the headline couldn’t be missed.

SKELETAL REMAINS FOUND ON MACKINAC; CHAPMAN FAMILY HOPES FOR CLOSURE

Rafsky gestured toward the outer office. “Who the fuck is talking to the press?”

Flowers rose from his chair. “Look, Rafsky, you can think what you want about me, but I have good people here. None of them would talk to a reporter.”

Rafsky’s eyes swung to Louis. “What about you? You got any friends at the
State Journal
?”

“I have one friend in this whole state,” Louis said, “and she’s not a reporter.”

Louis picked up the paper. The article, bylined Sandy Hunt, was short, offering sketchy details about the discovery
of bones in the Twin Pines lodge by an unnamed trespassing tourist. There was no comment from anyone official, just the line “Although a positive identification has not yet been made, sources close to the investigation say police are proceeding on the theory that they belong to Julie Anne Chapman, who disappeared from her Bloomfield Hills home twenty-one years ago.” It went on to summarize the missing persons case and ended with a quote from Ross Chapman about bringing closure to the Chapman family.

Louis set the Lansing paper aside and picked up the two others. A quick read told him that both the
St. Ignace News
and the
Mackinac Island Town Crier
had picked up the
Lansing State Journal
story from the wire services—which meant the story had gone out all over the state. Four days and they had already lost control of the press.

Louis tossed the paper on the desk. “My guess is this was leaked by Ross Chapman,” he said.

“Why would he do it?” Flowers asked.

“Grieving brother swoops in to bring his sister home after twenty-one years,” Louis said. “Should be good for a couple of sympathy votes.”

Rafsky was looking at Louis but then turned to Flowers. “It’s your leak, Chief. Plug it,” he said.

Flowers was about to argue, but Rafsky turned away and began reading a report. Louis noticed that Rafsky’s right hand, turning the stapled papers, was trembling. Rafsky discreetly pressed it against his side to stop it.

Joe’s voice was a sudden whisper in Louis’s ear.

I knew from the moment I saw Rafsky that I liked him. He was different . . . he respected me, respected my idealism and my
position as the only woman in the department. In fact, there was a moment when I thought we might find something else, but he was married and I was . . . well, too young.

Joe Frye was a woman with class and smarts, and Louis couldn’t help but think that to get her attention Norm Rafsky must have been a very different man fifteen years ago.

“Ross Chapman’s going to be here soon,” Rafsky said. “The three of us need to figure out where we’re at with this case. I want us all on the same page when we talk to him.”

Flowers nodded, waiting. Louis was finding it hard to hide his annoyance that Rafsky had taken the lead.

“How did you make out with the missing persons list I gave you last night at the Mustang?”

Flowers picked up a folder. “We’re almost finished. Most of the girls on the list turned up alive. Two were murdered, but there was no evidence to tie them to our case. We have two we couldn’t find, but neither had a connection to the island here or Kingswood.”

Rafsky nodded as if finally satisfied with something Flowers had done.

“I’ve got more crime scene analysis and ME reports,” Rafsky said, flipping back to the first page of the report he had been reading. “First, they concluded that the remains were not moved after death. This is confirmed by the residual bodily fluids they found soaked into the concrete.”

Louis remembered the ghostlike stain he had seen on the basement floor.

“More important,” Rafsky went on, “they also found
a highly degraded stream of pure blood—no decomp contamination—that ran from where the skull would have been to a drain. Which means she suffered a severe head wound that probably caused her death.”

“Any indication of other injuries?” Flowers asked.

“No,” Rafsky said.

“What about the missing skull?” Louis asked. “Was she decapitated?”

“All of the vertebrae were found with the remains,” Rafsky said. “There were no cuts or nicks on any of the neck bones. The ME believes the head detached naturally during the decomp process.”

“Okay, I know I asked this once before,” Flowers said. “But isn’t it about time that we started thinking about where the hell the skull is?”

“I’d guess the killer took it,” Louis said.

Rafsky looked up from the report.

“Killers, especially sexual predators, often come back to relive their crimes and take trophies,” Louis said. “Usually it’s within days, but this guy could have waited months.”

“Why wait?” Flowers asked.

“Julie Chapman disappeared in December, so the body didn’t start decomposing until at least spring,” Louis said. “The killer was patient. I’m guessing he waited until she was skeletonized, then came back to get the skull.”

Flowers sat back in his chair. “That’s really sick,” he said.

“Let’s move on to the pregnancy,” Rafsky said, digging out another report. “The anthropologist estimates the fetal bones are sixteen to eighteen weeks.”

“If this is Julie Chapman and she died around New Year’s, then she got pregnant in August, when she was here on the island,” Louis said.

“And that the father of the baby is our first suspect,” Rafsky said.

Louis knew the stats, knew that murder was the number one cause of death for pregnant women, and the odds were better than 50 percent that the father was the killer. Violence in intimate relationships was always about power, and a pregnancy put a woman in an even more vulnerable position. For the father who had something to lose—be it a married man worried about exposure or a kid scared of being tied down for life—killing a pregnant girlfriend was all about self-preservation.

Which meant that if the bones belonged to Julie Chapman, they needed to know everything about her life. Especially the secret parts.

Flowers had picked up the file folder. He was leafing through it when he suddenly stopped.

“Oh God,” he said.

He set a photograph on the desk, turning it so Louis and Rafsky could see it.

It was a picture of the fetal bones. Louis had seen fetal bones before, but they had always been neatly laid out by sections—long bones together, ribs fanned out, and the skull bones gathered like broken eggshells.

But someone in Marquette had taken the trouble to reassemble the bones so they looked like an actual fetus, and a ruler had been placed beside the bones for sizing. The skeleton—just six inches long—looked like a delicate newly hatched bird.

The three men were silent as they stared at the photograph.

A tap on the glass drew their attention to the door. An officer opened the door and looked to Flowers.

“Ross Chapman is here,” he said.

Flowers turned the photograph facedown. “Send him in,” he said.

F
lowers came around the desk. As Chapman came in he gave each man a quick look before settling back on Flowers.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Chapman,” Flowers said. He quickly introduced Rafsky and Louis, then offered Chapman the only other chair in the small office.

Chapman slipped off his raincoat and folded it over his knees as he sat down. He was wearing a pale yellow cashmere sweater, dress shirt, and gray trousers. Louis had the thought that despite his polished veneer the man looked like he had been punched in the gut.

“Mr. Chapman,” Flowers said, “before we go on, I’d like to apologize for contacting your family before a positive ID has been made.”

Louis glanced at Rafsky, who had retreated to a corner of the small office, arms crossed. He seemed willing to let Flowers take the lead.

“No apologies are necessary, Chief Flowers,” Chapman said. “If there is any chance this is my sister, I want to be here.”

Chapman’s voice was calm, but his hazel eyes never stopped moving—from Flowers to the officers outside the glass to the closed folders on the desk. They finally came back to Flowers’s face.

“I was told my sister was found with no skull. Is this true?” he asked.

“Yes, sir, I’m afraid it is,” Flowers said.

“My father also said you found her school ring, but he isn’t in any state to give me any other details,” Chapman said. “Could you update me on what other evidence you have that leads you to believe this is my sister?”

“Right now, the ring is all we have,” Flowers said. “Except for the fact that the remains are roughly the same height and age as Julie.”

“Could I see the ring, please?”

Flowers produced the ring from a drawer. Chapman turned it over, looked at the initials. “I remember the day she got this,” he said.

“You were there?” Flowers asked.

Chapman nodded. “There’s a ceremony at Kingswood when the juniors get their rings. It symbolizes the girls becoming women and leaders. It’s a big deal, and the girls wear white dresses and the families are invited to breakfast to see it all.”

He paused. The ring looked tiny in the palm of his hand. He let out a long breath and handed it back to Flowers.

“This isn’t enough, is it?” he said.

“Not for a positive ID,” Rafsky said.

Louis knew they would have to bring up DNA testing but decided Flowers had to handle this in his own way.

“What about her clothes?” Chapman asked. “Wouldn’t they help in identifying her?”

“No clothing was found,” Flowers said.

Chapman stared at him. “You mean it all rotted away?”

“No, sir. We found no clothing at all anywhere near the remains.”

It took a moment for this to register, but when it did Chapman’s eyes darkened. “Was Julie sexually assaulted?” he asked.

“We don’t know,” Flowers said. “The lack of clothing implies it is a strong possibility.”

Chapman put a hand to his mouth. Louis subtly gestured for Flowers to continue.

Flowers cleared his throat. “There’s one more thing, Mr. Chapman, something we didn’t tell your father. Your . . . the victim was pregnant.”

Chapman slowly lowered his hand. “What?”

“Your sister was pregnant.”

“I thought you only found bones. How do you know?”

Flowers hesitated, turned over the photograph of the fetal bones, and slid it across the desk.

Ross stared at it for a long time. Whatever composure he had brought into the room was gone. His eyes welled up.

“May I have a glass of water, please?” he asked softly.

Flowers went to the door and hollered out to one of his men. An officer came back quickly, bearing a coffee mug of water. Chapman drank it in one long draw.

“Do they . . .” Chapman paused. “Can they tell how far along she was?”

“Four to five months,” Flowers said.

Louis felt compelled to break in. “We know your family was here that summer, so we know your sister got pregnant while she was here.”

“Anything you can tell us about your sister’s life here at that time would be very helpful,” Flowers said.

“Life?” Chapman said.

“Boyfriends,” Louis interjected.

“Julie didn’t have any boyfriends,” Chapman said.

“You never saw your sister with anyone that summer?” Louis asked.

Chapman shook his head slowly.

“This is a small island,” Louis said.

“And you and your sister ran with a small, exclusive group of kids,” Flowers added.

Still Chapman said nothing. Then he let out a long breath. “Okay,” he said. “I didn’t think about it at the time, but something was different that summer. Julie was very moody. One minute she was sky-high, the next she would lock herself in her room and cry.”

Louis noticed Flowers nodding. “I have teenage girls. What you’re describing sounds pretty normal.”

“Except she got pregnant,” Rafsky said.

Chapman’s eyes swung to Rafsky. “I don’t remember Julie seeing anyone or even talking about anyone that summer.”

“What about a girlfriend, someone she might have confided in?” Flowers asked.

“I . . . I don’t know, really. We were at separate schools at Cranbrook,” Chapman said.

Flowers reached into his drawer and pulled out the yearbook from Kingswood. “Could you take a look, please?” he asked. “Maybe you’ll see someone whose face rings a bell.”