Heart of Ice (26 page)

Rafsky turned in his seat and looked back at Ross. “You’re in a place people around here call Dead Center. Right in the middle of the island, triangulated by three cemeteries.”

Ross looked to Louis, then back to Rafsky. Before he could say anything Rafsky got out of the SUV and opened the back door.

“Get out,” he said.

“What? Why?” Ross asked.

Rafsky stared at him. “Get out or I’ll pull you out by your balls.”

Ross looked at Louis and, seeing no help there, slid uneasily from the backseat. He stood, looking around while Rafsky leaned his head into the open door of the SUV.

“You might want to come, too, Kincaid.”

“What for?”

“To keep me from killing the motherfucker.”

Rafsky closed the door and gave Ross a shove toward the iron gates.

“What’s going on?” Ross asked. “Why aren’t we going to sign the papers for Julie?”

Rafsky stopped and turned to face Ross. “There are no papers and there is no skull. I lied to you.”

Ross looked to Louis and back at Rafsky. It was dark now, but in the glare of the headlights Louis could see Ross’s face clearly. He was getting scared.

“I want to go back to my plane,” Ross said. “Now.”

“No, we have some business to take care of first,” Rafsky said.

Ross looked around, at the old tombstones just visible in the snowdrifts and the thick ring of trees that surrounded them. He seemed to know how far away he was from anyone who could hear him.

When he didn’t move Rafsky gave him another shove toward the gates. Ross trudged forward, his shoes sinking into the snow, his eyes darting back over his shoulder at Rafsky.

Rafsky pulled on his black leather gloves as he talked. “This is one of the oldest cemeteries in the country,” he said. “Mr. Chapman, do you know who was the first person known to be buried here?”

Ross turned. “I don’t give a fuck who’s buried—”

Rafsky smacked him on the side of the head with an open hand. “Wrong answer, Senator.”

Ross glared at Rafsky, his hand to his temple.

“The first person buried here was a little girl,” Rafsky said. “Her name was Mary Biddle. She fell into the lake
while trying to cross the ice bridge. They rescued her, but she later died from pneumonia. Do you know how old she was?”

“I don’t care how—”

Rafsky smacked Ross again, harder this time. Ross lost his balance and almost fell. He spun to Louis.

“You better stop this crazy bastard.”

Louis didn’t know how far this was going to go, but he was willing to give Rafsky some rope. “I have no authority here,” he said with a shrug.

Ross started back toward the SUV. “I don’t have to take this shit from people like—”

Rafsky punched Ross, blindsiding him. Ross tumbled to his hands and knees. Blood spotted the snow under his head.

“You’re not going anywhere,” Rafsky said. “I’m not finished telling my story.”

Ross drew to his feet slowly, wiping his mouth. The snow was falling harder now, swirling in the headlights and salting his hair and overcoat.

“Mary was eight years old,” Rafsky said, “just four years younger than your sister, Julie, was the first time you fucked her.”

Ross’s panicked breaths clouded the air. “That’s perverted,” he said. “I would never—”

Rafsky grabbed the lapels of Ross’s overcoat and slammed him against the gate.

“You’re the father of Julie’s baby and the DNA you gave proves it.”

Ross’s hands flew up to Rafsky’s wrists but he didn’t fight. And Louis knew he wouldn’t.

“No,” Ross said. “No, it’s wrong. The test is—”

Rafsky jammed his fists up under Ross’s chin, slammed his head against the bars, and kneed him in the groin. Ross grabbed his crotch and slumped down, but Rafsky jerked him back up.

“DNA doesn’t lie,” Rafsky said. “You’re a freak. A twisted, perverted freak who got off on his own little sister!”

“No! No!”

Rafsky punched him again. Ross dropped to his knees, eyes closed, gasping for air.

“Admit it or I’ll start kicking. Your choice, sicko.”

“All right!” Ross shouted, throwing out an arm. “All right. I did it! We did it. But it was consensual. Every damn time. I swear.”

“So that made it okay?” Rafsky said. “You’re a loser who went after his baby sister because he couldn’t get laid by real girls.”

“Shut up,” Ross said.

“And that last summer up here,” Rafsky said. “You raped her that year, didn’t you?”

“No! I told you—”

Rafsky leaned over him, his mouth at Ross’s ear. “You took her to that lodge—”

“Lodge? What lodge?”

“You took her there and you raped her,” Rafsky said.

“I never raped her!” Ross screamed. “I loved her!”

Rafsky grabbed Ross by the hair. “
Loved her
?” he shouted. “You ruined her!”

Ross shoved Rafsky’s hand away and sat back on his haunches, his lip dripping blood. Rafsky started toward
Ross again, but Louis stepped forward, clamping a hand on Rafsky’s sleeve.

“Enough,” Louis said.

Rafsky’s eyes shot to Louis. With a slow draw of breath, he turned away. Louis watched him walk a tight circle. Rafsky knew he had gone too far.

Ross used the iron bars of the gate to pull himself up.

“What difference does it make now anyway?” he mumbled.

“What did you say?” Louis asked.

“I said what difference does it make?” Ross looked up at him. “The statute of limitations on incest is expired. Even I know that. And you can’t prove I raped her. Your victim is dead.”

The word
victim
came out of Ross’s mouth dripped in acid.

Louis leaned into him. Ross flattened himself against the gate.

“Show some fucking respect,” Louis said. “Her name was Julie.”

Louis turned away. Rafsky was standing by the SUV, rubbing his bad right arm. Louis grabbed Ross’s sleeve. “Let’s go.”

Ross shuffled forward, wiping at his bleeding lip. His steps were slow and unsteady.

“I’m going to sue that son of bitch for everything he has,” Ross said, eyeing Rafsky.

“No, you won’t,” Louis said. “You’d have to take the stand and testify. And you don’t have the guts to tell a jury the shit you told us out here.”

“I know people. I’ll have his badge in a week.”

Louis grabbed Ross’s coat and spun him to a stop. “If you tell anyone what happened here, I will make sure that paternity report is faxed to every newspaper in the state.”

Ross stared at him.

“We clear, Senator?”

Ross blew out a long breath and headed to the SUV. Louis followed, and they got back in the car.

Rafsky took a moment to light a cigarette before he started the engine.

“Take me back to my plane,” Ross said.

“We’re going to the police station,” Rafsky said.

“S
it down.”

Ross Chapman’s eyes moved slowly over Chief Flowers’s office. Louis wondered if he was remembering the first time they had questioned him here more than two months ago. The confident man who had sat here then was gone. The man standing here now was bloodied, physically and mentally.

Ross had taken off his camel overcoat before coming into the station, folding it so the blood did not show. But Barbara, the dispatcher, couldn’t have missed Chapman’s bloody lip as he walked in.

Ross was staring at something on the desk.

Rafsky had placed three photographs out for Ross to see—the reassembled fetal bones, the skeleton in the lodge basement, and the school portrait of Julie.

Rafsky was holding a file folder, and he used it to gesture toward the chair. “Sit down,” he said again.

“Am I under arrest?” Ross asked.

“No,” Rafsky said. “Just being detained for questioning.”

“I think we covered all the nasty little details of my life already, don’t you?”

Rafsky stared at him long enough to make Ross visibly uneasy, then slapped the file folder down on the desk.

“I think you murdered your sister,” he said.

It took Ross a few seconds to understand. “You’re crazy,” he said. “I’m calling my lawyer.”

He reached for the phone but Rafsky hit his hand with the folder. Ross drew back and looked at Louis.

“Take a good look out that window there,” Louis said.

Ross’s eyes swung to the window. Barbara was sitting at her console. A couple of locals wrapped in parkas stood at the door with an officer holding a clipboard. They were all looking their way but trying to act like they weren’t.

“You think those people don’t know who you are, Senator?” Louis asked.

“So what?” Ross said.

“Right now all they think is that you’re a grieving brother who selflessly came all the way here to make arrangements for his dead sister before flying off to Washington to take his oath of office.”

Ross was silent, looking again at the people in the outer office.

“If you have a lawyer fly in here tonight, what do you suppose folks will think then?” Louis asked. “And what about the reporters who still come around from time to time? What will they sniff out? Maybe even that pretty blonde from the
Lansing State Journal
would come back up here for this.”

Ross sank into a chair and yanked at his tie.

Louis knew Ross was stuck. A United States senator as a murder suspect. Once that was the headline it would never matter if he had done it or not.

Rafsky slid a small tape recorder toward Ross and punched a button. Ross stared hard at it.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” Rafsky said. “When your sister disappeared, did you know she was pregnant?”

Ross shook his head.

“I think you did,” Rafsky said. “I think she told your parents the truth about going to Ann Arbor that weekend. I think she was alone and scared and came to see you for help.”

Ross shook his head again.

“And your idea of help was to take her to Canada for an abortion.”

Louis had been looking at the floor. His eyes came up quickly but Ross was a blur. Instead, Kyla was there and so were his words to her eleven years ago—
get rid of it.

Rafsky smacked the desk with the folder.

“But Julie was a good girl, wasn’t she?” Rafsky said. “She wasn’t going to let you just get rid of it. I think she threatened to tell your father.”

“She never came to see me!” Ross said. “I spent all weekend partying at the Phi Psi house.”

“Who saw you?” Rafsky asked.

“Hell, I don’t know,” Ross said. “It was New Year’s. There was an open party all weekend. Everyone was coming and going. We were drowning our sorrows because Michigan lost to USC.”

Rafsky pushed a notepad across the desk. “Give me some names. Start with your frat friends,” Rafsky said.

Ross leaned over the desk. “Listen to me,” he said. “These guys are professionals now, lawyers, doctors, CEOs. You’re not going to go traipsing into their offices asking about my college days.”

Rafsky looked at Louis. “Traipsing? Do I traipse?”

“I did not kill Julie!” Ross said. He ran a shaky hand over his face. “You don’t understand,” he said softly. “I wanted . . . all I ever wanted . . .”

Ross put his head in his hands.

Rafsky took a step forward, but Louis put up a hand. Ross Chapman had just opened a vein. He was vulnerable. They had to exploit the moment carefully.

Louis pulled a chair close to Ross and sat down.

“What did you want?” he asked.

Ross didn’t move.

“Senator, what did you want?”

When Ross looked up his eyes were glistening. “All we had was each other,” he said softly. “We were always together. We were best friends. Nothing about it felt wrong.”

Louis glanced up at Rafsky.

“But when we got older, things changed,” Ross said. “When I went off to college I missed her so much. But then that last summer . . .”

Ross looked at the tape recorder. Louis reached over and turned it off.

“What about that summer?” Louis asked.

Ross pulled in a deep breath. “I thought it would be our last chance. I knew that if we didn’t reconnect this time we never would. That’s why I came up here.”

Louis glanced at Rafsky. Arms crossed, he was listening intently.

“But she ended it,” Ross said. “She ended everything.”

“You’re breaking my heart,” Rafsky said.

Louis shot him a look, but Ross hadn’t seemed to hear him. He was staring at the three photographs on the desk.

“I went crazy after that,” Ross said. “For a month I
fucked everything that moved. But finally I couldn’t stand being here—being around her—and I went home.”

“When was that?” Louis asked.

Ross shook his head slowly. “It was right around my birthday, on August 20,” he said. “I remember because I went back to Ann Arbor and drank myself sick.”

Ross was quiet for a long time. He was staring at the bulletin board behind the desk. Or maybe the old sepia-toned photographs of Main Street. Louis couldn’t tell.

“I thought maybe things would change when Julie came home,” Ross said softly. “I thought I could talk to her, convince her that we needed each other.” He paused. “I had this crazy idea that we could run away to another country where we could be together.”

“Where were you going to go?” Louis said.

“Sweden,” Ross said. “They let siblings get married there.”

Rafsky jerked open the door. “I’ll be right back,” he said. “I’m going to go puke.”

Rafsky slammed the door behind him. Ross didn’t seem to notice. For a long time the room was quiet, then a furnace thumped on and heat poured from an overhead vent. Ross was looking at the sketch of Julie. He reached out and ran a finger over it.

“I’m not a monster,” he said.

He looked up Louis.

“Julie was only my half sister,” he said.

It was the last thing Louis had been expecting to hear. But now that the words were out there it didn’t seem so incredible. Because everything about this fucked-up family had seemed unreal.

“Explain,” Louis said.

“My father and Maisey,” Ross said slowly. “They had been having a relationship for years, since I was boy.”

Louis’s mind flashed to Maisey’s face the last time he had seen her on the dock eight weeks ago. He picked up the photograph of Julie.