Heart of Ice (7 page)

In the tiny kitchen, he opened a cupboard, pulled out
an industrial-size bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and filled a large metal bowl. It was his last bottle. He would have to make a trip to St. Ignace soon to restock his supplies. There were customers waiting, and he didn’t want to get behind.

He let out a deep breath and set the bowl down on the counter. It wasn’t easy doing everything himself. He had to feed and maintain the adult beetle colony, hunt for the perfect specimens, and package and ship the orders. He wasn’t twenty anymore. His muscles were turning to blubber, and his joints were sore.

It was getting harder to do things, like building the new shelves. It had taken him a whole week to put up the three near the east window, but it had been worth it. There was now enough room to display all his favorite skulls.

He looked up at them now. He liked to sit here in the morning and watch the gold sunlight slide over the smooth skulls, turning them into pieces of art that ought to be sitting in a gallery somewhere, maybe down on Main Street for all the tourists to admire.

But he knew better than anyone that the skulls didn’t belong in some shop where moms would herd their brats away, all the while sneaking peeks back.

No, only certain people could appreciate the perfection of skulls. That’s why he sold only to universities, laboratories, and artists. That’s why he advertised only in the classified section of
Bone Deep,
the underground magazine for collectors of the macabre.

That’s where the best money was, from the decorators in Palm Beach who bought the skulls to put on pedestals in mansions. Or landscapers in Sedona who used them as
garden ornaments. He had even sold a skull to a record producer in Hollywood who turned it into a bong.

Danny Dancer moved to the window by the front door and pulled aside the curtain, looking for strangers. He did this nine or ten times a day, sometimes more if he felt he was being watched. Though he had seen no one from his window today, this was one of those days when he felt like the skulls had eyes.

Maybe it was because he had heard this morning in town that the bones had been discovered in the basement of the old lodge. He turned away from the window, his eyes slipping to the large skull on the top shelf. It was so incredibly lovely. The eye sockets perfectly round, the teeth as white as pearls, the forehead as smooth as glass, except for that one small crack.

It was his favorite.
She
was his favorite. Because he had always felt it was a she.

He’d never known her name. And unlike his other skulls, he had never felt the urge to give her a name. But the police were nosing around, and maybe they’d even figure out her name. That would make her even more special.

But it would also bring trouble.

They would want her skull. The cops would want her so they could identify her. And her parents would want her so they could feel as if they had put all of her to rest. He didn’t imagine the poor girl’s mother wanted to live the rest of her life wondering where her daughter’s head was, wondering if it was buried somewhere in the mud, lost forever under the feet of hikers who plodded through the woods looking for magic that they couldn’t find in their own backyards downstate.

Well, let her mother wonder.

She wasn’t going home.

Danny Dancer went to the shelf and carefully took the skull in his hands. Then, hit with an impulse he had never had before, he gave the skull a kiss on the forehead.

“No,” he whispered. “You’re staying right here.”

T
he ferry was coming closer. There wasn’t much time now. Louis looked down at Lily standing at his side.

“Bet you’ll be glad to see your mom,” Louis said.

Lily didn’t respond, didn’t even look up at him.

The ferry was docking. Louis didn’t see Kyla but it was too cold to be out on the deck.

“Where’s Lucy?” Louis asked, although he already knew the answer. He had helped Lily pack up all her things just an hour ago back at the Grand Hotel.

“I put her in my suitcase,” Lily said.

“Good.”

Kyla was the only person who got off. She spotted them and started down the dock. She was wearing a burgundy raincoat and heels, a dark blue silk scarf flowing behind her in the stiff breeze. Her eyes bypassed Louis and lasered in on Lily’s splinted arm. She dropped her purse on the dock and swept Lily into her arms.

“Oh, my baby, I missed you,” she said.

Lily couldn’t say a thing, smothered up in Kyla’s bosom. When Kyla finally let her go, Lily pulled back and smiled. Louis felt his heart give a little at the warmth of it.

Kyla touched the splint. “Does it hurt much?”

Lily shook her head. “The doctor lady gave me painkillers.”

Kyla’s eyes shot up to Louis.

He pulled two vials from his pocket. “She didn’t need them. Here’s what they gave her.”

Kyla rose slowly and took the vials. She looked tired. “Thanks,” she said softly.

She touched Lily’s hair. “Baby, can I have a few minutes to talk to Louis?”

“I forgot to buy a souvenir for Daddy. Can I go get him some fudge?” Lily asked, pointing to the ferry gift shop.

Kyla started to say something, then bit it back. Louis dug in his pocket and handed Lily a ten-dollar bill. She ran off to the shop.

“She seems all right,” Kyla said, watching her go.

“She’s a strong little girl,” Louis said.

Kyla looked back at Louis. “You didn’t tell me how this happened,” she said.

Louis took a deep breath. “Okay, she . . . we were exploring an old house. The floorboards were rotted, and she fell.”

Kyla’s face tensed, but Louis didn’t give her a chance to say anything. “She fell into the basement. I got down there and got her out as quick as I could.”

Kyla let out the breath she had been holding.

“There’s one more thing,” Louis said, glancing toward the gift shop. “There were some bones in the basement. Human bones. She fell on them.”

“What?”

He held up his hand. “We talked about it,” he said.
“She’s okay, Kyla. Believe me, if I thought there was anything really wrong with her because of this, I would tell you.”

He had expected a burst of fury, anything but what he was seeing on Kyla’s face now. She looked confused, then she shook her head as she looked at the gift shop.

She turned back to Louis. “
Human
bones?”

“Not a body, Kyla. Just dried-up old bones.”

Kyla pushed the hair off her face, then slowly she nodded. “Okay,” she said softly. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis said.

“For what?” Kyla asked.

Louis didn’t know how to answer.

“Louis,” she said. “You can’t protect them from everything. Believe me, I know. And like you said, she’s a strong little girl.”

Lily emerged from the gift shop, holding a bag. Louis watched her coming toward them and turned to Kyla.

“Thank you for letting me have her,” he said.

Kyla hesitated. “Maybe next time, it can be longer.”

Lily came up to them. “I got Daddy fudge with nuts,” she said to Kyla.

The ferry horn blew, signaling its departure back to Mackinaw City.

“Louis?”

He looked down at Lily. She was holding something out to him. He knelt in front of her.

“I got you something, too.”

It was a small silver-and-pink thing.

“It’s a knife,” she said.

He took the pocketknife, turning it over in his hand. It
was about two inches long and had a Pink Pony emblem on the side.

“It’s for your keys, see?” she said, pointing at the attached ring.

Louis looked up at Kyla, who was smiling.

“Are you going to put your keys on it?” Lily asked.

Louis fished his keys from his pocket and hooked the cheap little knife onto the heavy stainless-steel ring.

“Thank you, Lily,” he said, jingling the keys. “I can really use this.”

The ferry horn blew again.

Lily looked at the ferry, then suddenly put her arms around Louis’s neck and squeezed him. He wrapped his arms around her back and buried his face in her hair.

He was the one who had to push away. “You have to go or you’ll miss your boat,” he said.

The cold air rushed in where she had been. He stood up and gave Kyla a nod. He didn’t trust himself to say anything.

“ ’Bye, Louis,” Lily said.

Kyla took her hand, and Louis watched them board. Lily looked back and waved before they went inside. The ferry pulled away, and he stood there on the dock until it was just a white dot in the distance.

*  *  *

His bag was packed and sitting on the floor. The door of his room was open, and he could hear the drone of a vacuum cleaner. The man at the front desk had told him he was the last guest in the Grand Hotel and that he could take as long as he wanted to check out today.
Flowers had gotten him a room at the Potawatomi Hotel in town.

There was no reason to stick around. But he had one more thing to do before he left.

He picked up the phone and dialed the sheriff’s office in Echo Bay. The dispatcher recognized his name but told him that Sheriff Frye was on the other line and asked him to wait. Joe picked up moments later.

“Hey, it’s me.”

There was a pause. “Don’t tell me you’re not coming,” Joe said.

“No, no, I’ll still be there.”

“I hear a
but
in your voice, Louis.”

He took a breath. “I picked up a case up here. A homicide.”

“On Mackinac Island?”

He had to smile. “Yeah, I know. The chief here is in over his head. I offered to help for a couple of days.”

In the long pause that followed he could almost feel her disappointment. They hadn’t seen each other for eighteen months. That first summer apart, her new job as Leelanau County sheriff had prevented her from making the trips to Florida she had promised. By Christmas their phone calls had dwindled, and he drifted into depression and an affair. It took him more than six months to realize what he had lost—not just Joe but himself.

She had been the one to give voice to it:
I want you to want something for yourself.

He knew what he wanted. He wanted his badge back. And he wanted Joe back. This trip had been for Lily, but it had also been for him and Joe. He knew that if they didn’t
reconnect this time they never would. But now here he was again, putting her off for work and hoping she’d understand because she was a cop.

“I’ve never seen Mackinac Island. How about I come up there?” she said.

“Joe, look,” he said. “Everything on the island is closing down. It would be a long drive for you, and I’m only going to be here another day, I promise.”

Joe was silent again. Then, in a soft voice, “I want this to work, Louis.”

“So do I, Joe. More than you know.”

He heard her let out a long breath. “Okay. One more day.”

They said their good-byes and hung up. Louis looked around the room, his eyes lingering on the canopy bed. He picked up his suitcase and left the room. Down in the empty lobby, he waved to the man behind the desk, then stepped out onto the veranda. The rocking chairs were gone. The black carriages and red-coated livery men were gone. He hoisted up his bag and started down the long driveway.

On Cadotte Avenue, heading down toward town, he saw only one other person, a bicyclist pulling a cart filled with cords of firewood heading toward the Village.

He turned onto Main Street, walking down the middle of the empty road, passing men on ladders taking down the baskets of geraniums from the lampposts. Many of the stores had already closed, and the few that were open had signs in the windows—
EVERYTHING MUST GO
.

Almost overnight the island had changed. It looked like a deserted amusement park, and in that moment Louis realized his memories of this place had been distorted,
refracted through his need to believe that the real world stopped at the ferry dock, that all ugliness could be forgotten and all hurts could be healed.

Everything did have to go, even illusions.

The wind coming off the lake had the feel of winter. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed toward his hotel.

I
t was near three by the time Louis met Flowers at the docks. They took the ferry to St. Ignace. It was a good-size town, sitting in the shadow of the magnificent suspension bridge that linked the lower part of the state to the Upper Peninsula. Unlike Mackinaw City, its gaudy tourist-trap cousin on the southern end of the bridge, St. Ignace had the feel of a real town, with modest homes and a downtown of mom-and-pop restaurants and taverns where
HUNTERS WELCOME
signs hung in the windows. Unless you lived in St. Ignace or had a summer home there overlooking the lake, there was no real need to detour off I-75.

After Flowers picked up a loaner car from the state police post they headed out, bound for a map-speck place sixty miles north called Paradise.

They had spent most of the morning working the phones, talking to the captains of the ferries who had serviced the island twenty-one years ago. The men were easy to locate through the company records and the mariner’s union. Finally, one of the captains pointed out to them that they should probably talk instead to the ticket-booth attendants.

Flowers’s dispatcher, Barbara, had been able to locate addresses for only nine. None of them recalled anything
special about New Year’s Eve 1969 except that it had been a particularly brutal winter.

The last woman on the list was Edna Coffee. On the phone she told Louis that she vaguely remembered a young girl traveling alone one winter, but she wanted to see a photo to jog her memory. So Louis and Flowers made the ninety-minute drive through the woods of the U.P. to Paradise.

Edna Coffee was eighty-six and living with her son. She seemed delighted to see them and demanded that her son, Jeff, bring out cookies and tea. Jeff stoically retreated to the kitchen while Edna jabbered about the weather, her arthritis, and her two parakeets, Basil and Birdie. After Jeff returned with the tray, Louis and Flowers politely drank tea and ate cookies before Louis was finally able to turn the conversation to the purpose of their trip.