Ice Run (5 page)

When she had poured two glasses, Natalie picked hers up and raised it to the man across the room. He tipped his hat again.

“Veuve Clicquot,” she said, taking a sip. “This is the good stuff.”

“Yeah,” I said, with a little edge. “We’ll have to go thank him.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Ah, it’s nothing. Like you say, he’s probably harmless.”

We drank the champagne until the waitress brought our dinners. The wind kicked up and rattled the big windows so hard we could feel it in our bones. But it was warm inside, and a full bottle of champagne was making everything look soft in the light from the chandeliers. Natalie was a little too beautiful to be true, her green eyes sparkling. The whole night seemed a little unreal.

When I looked over a few minutes later, the old man was gone.

“Guess our friend called it a night,” I said.

“I hope he’s not going outside.”

“He’s a ghost, remember? Ghosts don’t get cold.”

That’s the line that would stay with me. That’s the line I’d remember the next day, when we would find out what had happened. At that very moment, the two of us sitting there in the dining room, finishing the last of the champagne, the old man was out there. He had left the hotel. He had walked down Portage Avenue. He had taken a right onto Ashmun, and had made his way south, walking on the street lined with snowbanks and dark empty buildings on each side. It was snowing harder. He must have been walking slowly. He crossed the little bridge, over the frozen canal that cut off the downtown from the rest of Sault Ste. Marie. He made it as far as the bookstore on the right side of the road.

Was he already freezing at that moment, when I made my bad joke about ghosts not getting cold? I’ve been there myself. I know how it feels. You’re disoriented, you start talking to yourself. Things from your past come back to you. You can’t walk straight. Then finally, the ultimate irony. Or maybe the ultimate mercy. You don’t feel cold anymore. You don’t feel anything at all.

But, of course, we didn’t know. We hadn’t gone back to the elevator yet, feeling happy and full after the big meal, and still a little lightheaded from the champagne. We hadn’t kissed in the elevator and held tight to each other. We hadn’t seen the present he had left for us, on the floor in front of room 601.

I hadn’t gone back down to the lobby yet, looking for him, or asked the woman at the front desk if she had seen him. I hadn’t looked for the doorman, or gone outside myself with no coat on, to look up and down the street for some sign of the old man.

We didn’t know he was out there, the snow covering him at that very moment. Or that the snowplow would run over his frozen body early the next morning, nearly cutting him in half.

Ghosts don’t get cold. I said it, and then we finished our dinner and went upstairs. The thing was sitting there on the hallway carpet, right in front of the door. The door he had seen me go to. Whatever it was, it was covered by the big dinner napkin he’d had tucked into his collar.

I pulled the napkin off. Underneath was a hat, upside down, filled with ice and snow.

The man had apparently gone out to the sidewalk, filled his hat to the brim, and then brought it back inside to leave it here by the door. The ice and snow were already starting to melt and leak through the material, a dark stain spreading onto the carpet.

“What the hell,” I said. I bent down and picked it up.

“That’s the hat he was wearing, right? The old man downstairs?”

“It is. But why?”

“Wait a minute,” she said. “Is there something else inside there?”

She was right. I reached into the frozen mess and pulled out a piece of paper. It was the hotel stationery, and there were five words written in capital letters with an unsteady hand.

“What does it say?” she said.

I didn’t say anything. I just turned the piece of paper around and showed it to her.

I KNOW WHO YOU ARE !

I took the hat with me to Jackie’s place the next day. I had come home that morning to plow the road again, having spent the night with Natalie on a strange hotel bed, after finding the hat with the ice and snow in it, along with the note, after going downstairs to look for the old man and then going out into the snowy night. I had come back to the room and we had talked about it.

“Are you sure you’ve never seen him before?” she had asked.

“I’m positive,” I said. “I don’t know the man.”

“Well, he didn’t leave it for me. I told you, I’ve never even been in this town before.”

“He might be confused,” I said. “Hell, maybe he has Alzheimer’s. That’s another reason to find him.”

So I had gone downstairs again. Nobody had seen the man, or even knew who he was. There was no sign of the doorman, either. The woman at the desk seemed to think he had gone out to look for the man. But she wasn’t sure.

I came back upstairs and found Natalie already in bed. When I lay down next to her, she told me she was feeling a little strange. “Just being here,” she had said. “In this place. It feels like it’s so far away from home.”

I couldn’t blame her. “Do you want to leave?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t want to leave.” Then she proved it to me. The streetlamp below our window cast a dim light on the ceiling, just enough for me to see her face as we came together. It felt different this time, whether it was just the place and the circumstances I couldn’t say.

The next morning, we left the hotel early, going our separate ways. I didn’t even check out at the desk. I just took the bill that had been slid under the door and left.

I took the hat with me. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I thought it would help me figure out who the man was.

If we had stayed there a little longer, if we had gone downstairs and had breakfast, then we might have heard about the discovery down the street. But we didn’t. We left before they found him.

Now I sat there at the bar and looked at the hat, rotating it in my hands. It had obviously cost some money, way back when. It was gray with a slightly darker band. The lining felt like satin. The crease ran perfectly across the top. It was in excellent condition except for the new stains on it. As the stains dried, they left the pale residue of salt.

“What’s with the hat?” Jackie said. “Ashamed of that dye job you’re walking around with?”

“I told you, Jackie. I was just trying to rinse out some gray hair.”

“For this woman, I know. You did it for Natasha.”

“Her name is Natalie.”

“Let me see that hat,” he said. He looked at the label. “Borsalino, Milan and New York. This was a nice hat. What happened to it?”

I gave him the quick version of the story.

“You gotta be kidding me,” he said, turning the hat around. “Some old bird ruins a great old hat just to let you know he recognized you?”

“What would you call that, a fedora?”

“This is a homburg,” he said, trying it on. It fit him perfectly. “See how the brim is turned up all the way around? My father used to have one, back when men actually wore hats.”

“I’m gonna call the hotel,” I said. “See if they know anything more.”

“Hell of a thing,” he said, taking the hat off. “Doing this to a good homburg.”

He kept fooling with it while I called the hotel. He wet a dish towel and tried to rub away the salt stains, but it wasn’t working.

“Nope, this hat is a lost cause,” he said, then he stopped short when he saw my face.

When I was done, I thanked the woman and hung up the phone.

“What is it?” he said.

“The old man’s dead,” I said. “They found him outside in a snowbank.”

“Holy God.”

“She said his name was Simon Grant. He was eighty-two years old.”

“What happened? I mean, how did he—”

“He just walked outside. He went down Ashmun Street. They think he must have just got lost or got tired or something. They don’t really know. A snowplow ran over his body this morning.”

“Nobody should go that way,” Jackie said. “Nobody should freeze to death like an animal.”

I took the hat from him. “I have to call Natalie,” I said. I dialed the number and waited while it rang.

“What are you going to do with this hat?”

“Hell if I know,” I said. Her phone kept ringing.

“You should turn it in.”

“What?”

“It belonged to the old man, didn’t it?”

I held up my hand to him as Natalie finally answered the phone. When I told her what had happened, she didn’t say anything.

“You still there?” I said.

“Yes, Alex. I’m here.”

“Are you okay?”

“I can’t believe it,” she said. “Do you still have the hat he left on the floor?”

“Yeah, I’ve got it right here.”

“You have to give it back. You know that.”

“What? How can I—”

“His family,” she said. “They should have the hat.”

“I don’t even know how to get in touch with them.” I looked up at Jackie. He nodded his head at me like he knew exactly what she was saying.

“Take it to the police,” she said. “They’ll give it to the family.”

“I guess I could do that,” I said. Although driving back into town was the last thing I felt like doing.

“That poor man. What a terrible night.”

“Natalie …”

“I’m sorry, Alex. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”

“Okay,” I said. And then she hung up.

“She agrees with me,” Jackie said. “Am I right?”

“What’d you guys do, talk about this beforehand?”

“It’s the only right thing to do.”

That’s how I ended up driving back to the Soo for the second time in two days, with the hat resting on the seat beside me. The sun was finally out, and it made the snow shine so bright it was hard to look at. Not that there was anything to see. The banks were piled five feet high all along the roads, and the plows were still out there trying to catch up.

When I got to the city, I saw a hundred people with snow shovels, trying to reclaim the sidewalks. I drove by the Ojibway Hotel, but I didn’t see the doorman outside. I kept going, taking the right on Ashmun. This is where it happened, I thought. According to the woman at the hotel, this is where they found him.

I slowed down as I crossed the little bridge over the canal. A few yards beyond it I could see where they had dug out most of the snowbank, right in front of the bookstore. There were lots of tire tracks and sand and dirt and God knows what else. An empty paper coffee cup blew across the road.

You could tell that men had been there, working hard at something. But there was no crime scene tape, or anything to suggest that something bad had happened. But then, come to think of it, there had been no crime. It was just an old man who fell into the snow and froze to death.

Simon Grant. That was his name. I looked down at the hat lying on the seat next to me. Simon Grant, whoever the hell he was, is no more.

The City County Building was back on the north side of the bridge, over on Court Street. I knew what I had to do next. But instead I kept going. I wasn’t ready yet. On the spur of the moment, there was one thing I wanted to do first.

Simon Grant. I kept saying the name to myself. Simon Grant.

When I got to Three Mile Road, I hung a left and drove down to the Custom Motor Shop. They had just plowed the parking lot, and there was a mountain of snow to one side you could have used skis on. As I pulled in, I couldn’t help feeling a little guilty. Sure, I had promised I’d stop in to see him the next time I was in town. But how convenient that I just so happened to have this little thing to ask him about.

I might have sat there thinking about it, but at that moment the man himself came out the door. Leon Prudell, my old partner. When a local lawyer talked me into trying out the private eye business, it was Leon who lost his job to me. It was Leon who showed up at the Glasgow Inn and called me out into the parking lot. That’s how much he loved his job, and how much he hated me at that moment. When the whole private eye thing blew up in my face, he was there, and he actually helped me out, and proved that he knew what he was doing. Later, we had an off-and-on partner thing going for a while. When I walked away from it, he was still there to help me, whenever something would drag me back into the game. Now here he was, selling snowmobiles for a living, trying to forget all about those old dreams of being a private investigator.

“Alex!” he said when he saw me. I got out and shook his hand. He looked the same as always, with the wild orange hair and the extra pounds around the middle. In his down coat he looked as big as the Michelin Man.

“How’s business?” I said.

“We had a busy morning,” he said. “Now that the snow finally came.”

I looked into the front window and saw a long line of gleaming snowmobiles. “I do love those machines. I just can’t get enough of that noise.”

“Snowmobilers pay your bills, Alex. What the hell did you do to your hair?”

“It’s nothing,” I said. “It’ll wash out in a couple of days.”

“I guess things are going well with Natalie?”

That stopped me. Then I remembered. Leon was the one who ran down her address for me, back when I had this crazy idea I should try to find her. That plus the hair, it was pretty basic detective work.

“Actually, I was with her last night,” I said. “But something kinda strange happened.”

That’s all I had to say. He was already hooked. I could see it in his eyes. So I gave him the rundown, up to and including the old man being found in the snowbank.

“Do you have a name?” he said.

“Yes, the woman at the hotel told me. His name is Simon Grant.”

“Hold on,” he said, taking out a small pad of paper. You could count on Leon to always have a pad of paper.

“Simon Grant,” he said slowly, writing it down. “Any other information on the deceased?” He was slipping right back into private eye mode.

“Leon, I’m just telling you what happened. I don’t expect you to go to work on this.” I hesitated. “I mean, I suppose if you still have the access to your database, whatever that thing was…”

“The P-Search,” he said. “Yes, I still have it. I can do that, no problem.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to do this. Every time I see you, it’s like I want something from you.”

“I’d be mad if you didn’t ask me, Alex. Now what else can you tell me?”

“Nothing,” I said. “I just have a name. And the hat he left in front of our door.”

“You kept the hat?”

“Yeah, I did. I’m not sure why. I just…”

“What are you going to do with it?”

“I figure I’d better give it to the police. Maybe they can give it to the man’s family or something.”

“Do you have it with you right now? Can I see it?”

“Sure,” I said. I opened the passenger’s side door and brought it out for him.

“This looks old,” he said. He examined it as closely as a jeweler appraising a diamond.

“You can see the stains,” I said. “From the ice and snow.”

“You said there was a note, too.”

“Yes.” I pulled it out of my coat pocket and unfolded it.

“I know who you are,” Leon said, looking at the note just as carefully.

“I swear, I never saw this man before in my life.”

“Here, hold these a second,” he said. He handed me the hat and the note, and started writing on his pad again.

“What are you doing now?”

“The lining says Borsalino, Milan and New York,” he said, writing it down. “There’s no year on it. And no size. Although I’d estimate seven, seven and a half.”

Good old Leon, I thought. Who else would stand in a parking lot and take notes on an old hat?

“Let me take some pictures,” he said.

“What?”

“I’ve got my digital camera in the car.”

“What do you have a digital camera for? I thought you were out of the private eye business.”

“Everybody has a digital camera, Alex. It’s no big deal.”

It sounded like something he’d tell his wife Eleanor. No big deal, honey. It’s just for taking pictures of our next vacation.

He went to his car, the little piece of crap Chevy Nova that somehow never got stuck in the snow, and found a black bag. “Here we go,” he said, pulling out the camera. It looked a little too sophisticated for pictures of the kids, but I wasn’t going to give him a hard time about it.

“Okay, let me take a picture of the note first,” he said. “Put it on your hood.”

I did as I was told. He bent down close and snapped two shots.

“Okay, now the hat.”

I put the hat on the hood and watched him take nine or ten shots, turning the hat around and then tipping it over.

“Leon, is this really going to help us?”

“You never know,” he said. “Now you can go give it to the police and we’ll still have the pictures.” He put the lens cap back on the camera.

“You’re something else,” I said. But I knew this is what he would do. He’d grab on to this like a dog on a steak bone. It’s what he lived for.

“I’ll let you know what I find out,” he said. “You wanna get some lunch now? I was just on my way.”

I was about to decline, but then I thought, what the hell. Go buy the guy some lunch. He deserves that much from you, at the very least. Besides, look what’s next on your to-do list. A visit to the police station means you might just run into your old friend, Chief Maven. The longer you can put that one off, the better.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll take you to lunch on one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“We don’t eat at the Ojibway Hotel.”

We had lunch
at the Chinese Buffet, then it was time for Leon to go back to selling snowmobiles, and for me to go back downtown. Chief Roy Maven of the Sault Ste. Marie Police Department can usually be found in the City County Building, which is basically a big gray cement block attached to the old courthouse. The building and the man go together, for me anyway, because they both have roughly the same amount of charm. Today, at least, I knew there was no need to see Chief Maven himself. All I was doing was dropping off a stupid hat. I figured I’d just give it to the receptionist and leave.

There was a truck working hard to clear the front parking lot, so I parked around back by the police entrance, right next to the jail’s courtyard. It was a little twelve-by-twelve square, completely surrounded by a chain-link fence and razor wire. Ordinarily, there’d be somebody out sitting on the picnic table, having a smoke, but today the table was buried under two feet of snow.