Heart of Ice (36 page)

The only hitch in their plan had been Maisey. Rafsky had been forced to tell her that Julie was coming back. Her joy was tempered when Rafsky asked to use the cottage but told her she couldn’t be present during Julie’s questioning. Maisey agreed to stay away as long as she got to see Julie before she was taken into custody.

As they neared the veranda Rafsky came out the door.

“Who is that?” she asked.

“Detective Norm Rafsky. He’s in charge of the case.”

She looked to him. “You’re staying, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

Rafsky held the door open and followed them in. In the foyer, Louis set their bags on the floor. Rafsky was staring at Julie as if he didn’t believe she was real.

“Miss Chapman,” he said, extending a hand.

She took his hand. “Please, call me Emma.”

Rafsky glanced at Louis, then back at her, his eyes dipping to the sock monkey in Julie’s arm. “I’ve set things up in the kitchen,” he said.

She was looking toward the parlor and it took a second for her to turn back to Rafsky. “May I have a moment?” she asked softly.

Rafsky hesitated. “Go ahead.”

Julie set the sock monkey on top of her suitcase and wandered away, her footsteps a soft echo through the empty house. She paused in the middle of the parlor, her gaze moving over the sheet-covered furniture, the rolled carpets, and bare wood floors. She moved to the empty bookshelves, running her finger over the edges.

“There’s nothing left,” she said.

“We need to get started, Miss Chapman,” Rafsky said.

In the kitchen, she paused to look around. A coffeemaker was spitting out a fresh pot. A half-filled bottle of Harveys Bristol Cream sat on the counter next to a plate of cookies covered with Saran wrap.

Louis saw Julie’s eyes move to the cookies. The look reminded him of how Lily had stared at the fudge slabs in the shops in town. He remembered Julie hadn’t eaten on the plane.

“You want one?” Louis asked.

Julie glanced at him and shook her head. “I don’t think they’re for me,” she said.

Louis suspected the cookies had been made especially for her, but he let it go.

“Can I take your coat?” Rafsky asked.

“I’m cold,” she said. “I’d like to keep it on if that’s okay.”

Rafsky nodded. “Sit down, please,” he said.

Julie slid into a chair. There was a tape recorder and a legal pad on the table, but Julie didn’t seem bothered by them.

Rafsky turned on the tape recorder and stated the date, the time, and the people present. Julie just sat there, slightly hunched. It struck Louis how different this was from most interrogations. No handcuffs, shackles, or hard metal chairs.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Rafsky said.

“Am I under arrest?” Julie asked.

“Not yet,” Rafsky said. “These rights are for your protection. You are a suspect in a homicide.”

“I understand.”

Rafsky finished the Miranda warning. “Would you like an attorney?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

“Okay, then let’s start with New Year’s Eve 1969,” Rafsky said. “Where were you and what were your plans?”

She pulled in a breath. “I was at home in Bloomfield Hills,” she said. “I was planning on coming up here to Mackinac Island to meet Cooper. We were going to run away to Canada.”

“Why had you decided to run away?”

“Cooper was going to be drafted. We thought it was our only way to be together. We were going to stay with a friend of his, Fred Grasso.”

“How did you plan to get up here?” Rafsky asked.

“I was going to take the bus,” Julie said. “But when I told Rhonda what Cooper and I were going to do, she offered to come down and get me.”

“Rhonda who?” Rafsky asked.

Julie looked at Rafsky, confused. Of course they knew who Rhonda was, but they needed Julie’s statement to be complete, with nothing that could later be interpreted as being suggested by the police.

“Please answer the question, Miss Chapman,” Rafsky said.

“Rhonda Grasso,” Julie said. “I met her that last summer and we became friends. Cooper didn’t want anyone to know we were going to Canada, especially his father, but I was so excited I called Rhonda.”

“So she drove down to Bloomfield Hills and brought you back up here?”

Julie nodded. “She was going to just drop me off at the ferry, but at the last minute she decided to come with me to the island. She told me it was too dangerous for me to be alone at the lodge.”

Louis was thinking about what Edna Coffee had told them, that the girl she saw with the stuffed monkey wasn’t with a man. They hadn’t thought to ask her about two girls traveling together.

“You were going to Canada,” Rafsky said. “Why didn’t you just cross the bridge to St. Ignace and go from there?”

“That was what Cooper wanted me to do,” Julie said. “But I told him I needed to go to the island first.”

“Why?”

Julie drew a deep breath that flushed her cheeks. “I had been stealing money from my father’s wallet and hiding it at the lodge,” she said. “I knew Cooper didn’t have much money, and I wanted to surprise him with it.”

“How much had you taken?”

“About a thousand dollars,” Julie said.

Louis had been standing near the door and came forward. “You stole a thousand dollars in one summer?”

Julie looked up at him. “I had been stealing on and off since I was about twelve. I guess I always thought about running away. But after I met Cooper I started taking more because I think I knew in my heart we would need it someday.”

“What happened after you got to the island?” Rafsky asked.

“The ticket lady at the ferry told us there was a snowstorm coming. Rhonda said I shouldn’t stay at the lodge alone and offered to come with me,” Julie said. “I was worried Cooper would be upset that I brought someone, but I thought he’d be okay if it was Rhonda. She had been helping us exchange letters.”

“Cooper was supposed to meet you at the lodge?”

“Yes. Rhonda and I got to the lodge about two. Cooper was supposed to get there by three. When he didn’t come, I didn’t get too worried because in winter the ferry is often delayed.”

“What did you do while you waited?”

“By four it was really cold and getting dark because of the storm. We only had one flashlight, so Rhonda and I huddled in one of the front rooms and just talked.”

“What did you talk about?”

Julie looked down at her hands clasped in her lap.

“Miss Chapman, please.”

“We talked about our parents, school, and horoscopes. Rhonda told me I probably had a lot of trines in my chart because my life was so charmed.”

She paused.

“She asked me a lot of questions, about going to a private school, about living in Bloomfield Hills. She really liked my Kingswood ring, so I let her try it on. She said she’d be rich one day, too, designing her own jewelry in San Francisco.”

When Julie paused again, Louis thought he saw a flicker of impatience in Rafsky’s eyes and hoped he didn’t start pushing her as he had Dancer and Cooper. He glanced at the coffeepot, then back to Julie.

“Would you like a cup of coffee, Miss Chapman?” Louis asked.

“No, thank you.”

“Then let’s go on,” Louis said. “You’re doing fine.”

Julie wet her lips and nodded. “I knew Rhonda had a brother in Canada, and I asked her what it was like up there, what it would be like for Cooper and me. Rhonda got quiet and she changed the subject. She started asking me what my surprise for Cooper was. I didn’t want to tell her because I was afraid to trust her. But Cooper said he had known her for a long time and she was a good friend to us.”

“So you told her about the money?” Rafsky asked.

Julie nodded. “She said she wanted to see it. So I decided to go get it from my hiding place.”

“Where was that?” Rafsky asked.

“In the kitchen,” Julie said, “behind a loose stone in the fireplace. It was dark, so I asked Rhonda to come with me to hold the flashlight.”

Julie shook her head slowly. “I trusted her,” she whispered.

“What happened?” Louis pressed.

“I showed her the money. She told me she had never seen a thousand dollars before and she asked if she could hold it. I let her. Then she shined the flashlight right in my face and I knew something was wrong. I couldn’t see her but I could
feel
something change.”

Julie pulled in a deep shuddering breath.

“I couldn’t see her but I could hear her, and I could hear her voice change. She said . . . she said, ‘You know Cooper doesn’t love you.’ She said, ‘You’re just his little West Bluff whore. He brags to all his friends about screwing you.’ ”

She was gulping for air, her body bending with each inhalation.

“Miss Chapman, take a breath,” Louis said gently.

She didn’t seem to hear him. “She said that Cooper really loved
her,
that they had loved each other for a long time and that she could prove it. She said she was pregnant with Cooper’s baby and that they were going to run away to Canada.”

Her eyes came up to Louis.

“Then she told me I needed to disappear,” she said.

Tears fell slowly down her face.

Louis looked around for a Kleenex but saw only a roll of paper towels. He ripped off two and held them out to her, but she didn’t take them.

“What happened next?” Rafsky said.

Julie was just sitting motionless.

“Miss Chapman,” Rafsky said. “What happened next?”

Her eyes swung to Rafsky. “She picked up the stone from the fireplace and came at me,” she said. “She hit me
on the shoulder but I got away. It was so dark, but I saw a door. I pushed through it and suddenly I was falling down some steps. I hit my head and thought I was going to black out.”

When Julie didn’t go on, Louis prompted, “Could you tell where you were?”

“Not at first,” Julie said. “It was completely dark. But then I saw a light. It was coming toward me, and I knew it was the flashlight and that Rhonda was coming down the stairs. I knew then I was in a basement. I crawled away and hid under the steps.”

Her face had gone ashen, her eyes dark.

“I could hear her boots on the stairs, and I could see the light’s beam. Then I saw her legs through the steps.”

She held her hands out. “I grabbed her and pulled hard. She fell and the light . . .”

Louis put a hand on Julie’s shoulder to calm her, but she didn’t seem to feel it.

“. . . the flashlight. She dropped the flashlight, and it was laying there on the floor. I tried to get up the steps, but she grabbed me and pulled me back down. She was strong and she was on top of me, hitting me, choking me. I couldn’t see her, I couldn’t see anything. But I felt something. My hand touched something hard, and I knew it was the stone from the fireplace. I grabbed it and I . . . God, oh God.”

She covered her face with her hands, sobbing. Louis looked up at Rafsky. He was sitting ramrod straight in his chair, the pen poised above the pad.

Louis touched Julie’s shoulder and held the paper towels under her bowed head. She took them, pressing them
to her face. She took two deep breaths and looked up. Her face was streaked with mascara.

“Suddenly she was gone,” she said. “I gulped for air and couldn’t see anything for a few seconds. I was afraid she would come back after me, so I got on my hands and knees and tried to crawl away.”

Julie shut her eyes. “I saw the light first, from the flashlight on the floor. Then I saw her. She was lying over by the boiler. She wasn’t moving.”

“Did you go to her?” Louis asked.

Julie shook her head slowly.

“What did you do?”

“I went back upstairs to wait for Cooper.” She opened her eyes. “But he never came.”

“How long did you wait?” Louis asked.

“All night,” she whispered.

The tape clicked off. Rafsky opened the recorder, turned over the tape, and hit the
RECORD
button.

“Rhonda was right,” Julie said.

“About what?” Louis asked.

“Cooper. She was right. He didn’t love me.”

Louis glanced at Rafsky, who gave him a subtle shake of the head.

“What did you do in the morning?” Louis asked.

She had drifted away and it took her a moment to come back to him.

“I knew I couldn’t go home,” she said. “I had killed someone, and all I could think about was what Rhonda had said.”

“What was that?” Rafsky asked when she didn’t go on.

“That I needed to disappear.”

Her eyes had gone blank.

“But to do that, you couldn’t just leave Rhonda in the basement as she was,” Rafsky said.

She looked at him.

“You need to tell us what you did, Miss Chapman.”

When she reached up to push her hair back her hand was shaking. “I remembered my father talking about this man who had killed some students in Ann Arbor. He was worried about me going to school there. I had this idea that I could make it look like someone like him had killed her. So I took her clothes and the stone from the fireplace.”

“But you left your school ring,” Rafsky said.

“I didn’t mean to,” Julie said. “I had forgotten I gave it to Rhonda to wear.”

“What did you do after you left the lodge?” Rafsky asked.

“I threw the stone out in the weeds outside. I got Rhonda’s clothes and her purse and I took the ferry back to Mackinaw City. I got in Rhonda’s car and drove away. I drove for two straight days.”

“Why did you go to California?”

“Rhonda had told me about a friend she had there named Dirk. He worked in the free clinic in Haight-Ashbury. He took me in and helped me get a fake ID.”

She let out a long tired breath. “It was easy to disappear in those days.”

Rafsky sat back in his chair and glanced up at Louis. Louis knew it was a signal. Julie Chapman had told them what they needed to know. Now they could tell her what she needed to know.

Louis looked at her. She had wrapped her arms around
herself, and her head was bowed. Her hair had come loose from its ponytail and hid her face. She was rocking slightly.

“Miss Chapman,” Louis said.

Nothing.

“Julie.”

She looked up at him, her eyes wet and expectant.