Heart of Ice (19 page)

Rafsky turned and went back inside. He stopped in the middle of the crowded office. Everyone was staring at him. For a second Louis thought Rafsky was going to start screaming about someone leaking the information about the skulls to the press. Then Rafsky caught Louis’s eye.

“Kincaid, I need to see you,” he said.

Louis followed him back to Flowers’s office and closed the door. Rafsky ripped off his sports coat and threw it on a chair. He turned his back to the outer office.

“Who the fuck is talking to the press?” he said.

“It’s a small island, Detective, it could be anyone,” Louis
said. “Guys talk to their wives. Things get loose at the bar. And Dancer mailed skulls to customers. The people at the post office could have known.”

Rafsky drew in two deep breaths and went back around the desk to sit down. He sat there for a long time just staring out at the people beyond the glass.

“You’ve got good people out there, Detective,” Louis said. “No one here is trying to undermine you. Especially where it concerns the chief.”

Rafsky wiped the sweat from his brow and began to roll up his shirtsleeves. “Clark told me you and Sheriff Frye are leaving today,” he said.

“Yeah, Joe’s back at the hotel packing up. I’ll be staying with her in Echo Bay, and I left my contact info with Clark if you need me for anything.”

Rafsky started to say something, but the phone rang. He picked it up, listened for a moment, then said, “Tell him I need dogs. If I don’t find that skull in the cabin I’m going to dig up the whole damn island.”

Rafsky gave some more instructions, hung up, and looked at Louis. “Look, Kincaid,” he said. “I need to say something to you.”

“Make it quick,” Louis said.

“I don’t have much use for PIs,” Rafsky said.

The phone rang again. Rafsky pounced on it. “What?”

Immediately, his face softened.

“Yes, I know,” he said quietly. “Look, Ryan, I have a wounded officer here and—”

Rafsky fell silent, listening for a long time. “I know I promised her,” he said. “Okay . . . yes, I will call her tonight. You have my word.”

Rafsky hung up. He leaned forward and laced his hands together. “Look, Kincaid,” he said. “I owe you an apology.”

Louis waited.

“That day we talked to Ross Chapman, I was out of line with what I said. I’m sorry.”

“Maybe you’ll get a chance to apologize to the chief, too,” Louis said.

Rafsky rubbed his eyes. “Yeah,” he said softly.

Louis waited, but when Rafsky said nothing, he turned to leave.

“Wait,” Rafsky said.

Louis turned back.

“I looked deeper into what happened to you here in Michigan,” Rafsky said. “I didn’t have all the information, but now I do.” He paused. “You did the right thing.”

Louis hid his surprise. “Thanks.”

Rafsky sat back in his chair. “I want to ask you something,” he said. “You’ve got a good grasp of this case and experience with cold cases in general. I’m asking if you’d considering staying on to help.”

Before he could answer, Clark rapped on the glass door. He didn’t wait to be asked in. “Detective,” he said, “I think you’d better get back outside.”

“Why?”

“Ross Chapman is making a statement.”

Rafsky shot to his feet. “Goddamn it,” he said. He didn’t even bother to grab his jacket as he bolted for the door. Louis followed.

They stopped in the open doorway just behind Ross
Chapman, who had commandeered the porch of the station as if it were a podium.

Chapman was in midsentence, so there was no way for Rafsky to stop him without looking heavy-handed.

“This has been a terrible time for my family,” Chapman said. “And I just wanted to say that my wife, Karen, and I appreciate all the kind words of support we have received.” He paused. “This has been particularly hard for my father, who, as you know, has not been in good health in recent years. Twenty-one years ago my sister, Julie, disappeared, and we did what we could to mourn her and move on with our lives.”

“Congressman,” someone yelled out. “The man in custody collects skulls. Does he have Julie’s?”

Ross stared down at the man. He opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t.

“Have you seen it, Congressman?”

“I . . . don’t—”

“Fuck,” Rafsky whispered to Louis. “He’s done.”

Rafsky stepped in front of Chapman and lifted a hand. “No more questions for today.”

Rafsky put a firm hand on Chapman’s sleeve and pulled him back into the foyer. Louis shut the door.

“I could have handled that,” Chapman said.

“No, you couldn’t,” Rafsky said.

“Look, Detective, I can—”

“I’m going to tell you this once and only once. Stay away from the press. And don’t make any assumptions about your sister’s case.”

“But I—”

“Go home,” Rafsky said.

Chapman was silent. When he started to open the door Rafsky pushed it closed. Looking around, he spotted Clark and waved him over.

“Sergeant, would you please escort the congressman home? And use the back door.”

Clark nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Chapman yanked up his raincoat collar and followed Clark.

“You’re not going to keep him quiet,” Louis said. “He’s her brother.”

“And a fucking politician,” Rafsky said.

Rafsky pulled out his cigarettes and started to light up. He hesitated, then went outside. Louis followed him out onto the porch.

Rafsky lit his cigarette and turned to Louis.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said. “Will you stay?”

The reporters were moving away, probably headed to the Mustang. A ferry horn sounded, even though there were probably no passengers to summon.

Louis saw a spot of black emerging from the fog. It was Joe. She was pulling her small rolling suitcase and had his duffel slung over her shoulder.

Rafsky saw her coming. “I know you have plans,” he said. “I could use Sheriff Frye’s help, too.”

When Louis didn’t say anything, Rafsky tossed his cigarette to the street and went back inside.

Joe stopped at the foot of the steps and dropped the duffel. “We missed the ferry,” she said.

“I know.”

Joe’s eyes went to the closed station door and back to Louis’s face.

“You want to stay, don’t you?”

He came down the steps. “Yes.”

“Why?” she asked.

He had been asking himself that question all day, and the answer had come from Lily and what she had said that morning in the restaurant.
It’s sad that the bones were down there in the dark for so long and no one knew it.

“I promised Lily I would make sure the bones get home,” he said.

Joe smiled, shook her head, and started dragging her suitcase back toward the Potty. Louis picked up his duffel and followed.

T
he fog grew thinner as they climbed higher. The only sounds were the steady thuds of Sergeant Clark’s footsteps behind him and the soft jingle of his keys.

Ross glanced back, but Clark didn’t meet his eyes. Last night he had come to the cottage and efficiently briefed Ross on the chief’s shooting and Dancer’s arrest.

But now he was clearly uncomfortable, and Ross knew why. Clark wasn’t like Rafsky or Kincaid. Clark was a local who knew how to treat people.

They made the turn onto West Bluff Road.

People who lived up here.

Ross thought back to the press conference. It had been his campaign manager’s idea, to use the spotlight of the chief’s shooting to get some camera time. But he hadn’t been prepared when the reporter blurted out, “Have you seen it?”

Julie’s skull. He felt a rise of bile in his throat and swallowed hard. This was so ugly, and it was only going to get worse. He had to stay in control somehow.

Ross stopped and turned to Clark. “Sergeant,” he said. “This man Dancer. Tell me more about him.”

“Well, sir, I’m not at liberty to discuss the case.”

“I just want to know what kind of man he is.”

Ross saw Clark’s eyes flick over to the big shuttered houses. “He’s lived here his whole life, sort of a hermit. Some folks say he’s retarded. They also know he’s been sneaking in and out of the old lodge.”

“What about these skulls of his? Did you see them?”

Clark hesitated and ran a hand under his nose as he gave a small nod. “Yeah, I saw them. His cabin is filled with them and all these bugs that eat the skin away. None of the skulls are human, though, sir.”

“Does Detective Rafsky think this man killed my sister?”

“I don’t know, sir, but he’s got a lot of people digging up Dancer’s yard.”

Ross nodded slowly. He looked down the road to the last house. “Thank you, Sergeant. I can make it from here.”

Clark turned and started back down the road. Ross headed to the cottage.

Inside, the house was chilly, the drapes drawn. Ross knew Maisey closed them to keep the house warm, but it didn’t help. Nothing helped. Like the house down in Bloomfield Hills, the island cottage was old and drafty. Sometimes he felt as if he’d been raised in a chill, which was one reason that when he married he built a big modern house in Rochester, with three fireplaces and two furnaces.

Ross took off his raincoat and hung it on a coatrack in the foyer. He heard the creak of footsteps above and looked up the staircase. The lights were on in the front bedroom. He needed to go up and see his father, but he needed a drink first.

He went to the parlor and switched on a lamp. He
poured a half glass of Hennessy and sat down in the chair by the phone.

Maisey had left a small pile of messages. He took a quick drink and sifted through them.

Six calls from four different reporters, including a name he didn’t recognize from the
Washington Post.
Two messages from the Reptile—as he called his campaign manager—asking when he was coming back to Lansing. And two messages from Karen, one reminding him that the boys’ Cranbrook tuition was due and the other warning him that she wasn’t going to the Michigan Leadership Conference dinner alone.

Karen . . .

Image was everything to her, and she was so good at burnishing it. Everything from what pictures of the family were released to the press to the color of his ties. It was a talent she had gotten from her mother, a distant relative of the Piedmont family, who had made a fortune building tract homes in the suburbs during the fifties. Karen’s parents didn’t have money but nonetheless Karen had been raised to believe privilege was her right. That mind-set led her to a college junior named Ross Chapman, a Ford executive’s son with a bright future.

And when Ross chose politics over business it had been a pregnant Karen who told him that she wasn’t going to spend the rest of her life living in Lansing married to a state representative. If Ross wanted politics, then he better want it all, because she wanted to live in Georgetown, host cocktail parties for diplomats, and get invitations to inaugural balls.

Ross took another swallow of brandy and closed his eyes.

But the images wouldn’t go away.

Retard.

Bugs eating skin off skulls.

A skeleton like a baby bird.

This was beyond ugly. It was grotesque. Not even Karen would be able to paint over it.

Everything would come out, and Ross knew exactly what would happen when it did. He understood the “disgust factor,” understood that a man like Dancer was irresistible to the public and media. The story would play out in endless loops on Court TV and in the
National Enquirer.

It wouldn’t stop with Dancer. If it went to trial, Dancer’s defense attorneys would go after Julie, paint her as a troubled runaway with no close friends, a girl with an absent father and a drugged-out mother. A girl who teased the retarded kid, ended up pregnant, and got what was coming to her.

Ross looked toward the stairs.

Dad . . .

He hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. Or any of the other things Clark had told him. In his darkest moment he had hoped this would all somehow stay quiet until after his father died. But he couldn’t chance that any longer.

He downed the last of the brandy and pushed himself from the chair.

The door to his father’s room was open. His father was reading in a chair facing the window. Maisey was folding towels at the bed, and she glanced at Ross but said nothing as he came in.

“Hello, Dad.”

His father looked up, tucked his book between his thigh
and the chair, and removed his glasses. “Ross. Where have you been?”

“At the police station.” Ross leaned down and touched his father’s hand. “How are you feeling, Dad?”

“Pretty good, considering,” Edward said.

“We should talk, then,” Ross said. “I have some things to tell you.”

“I have something to ask you first,” Edward said. “Maisey tells me you held a press conference this morning. Is that true?”

Ross glanced at the housekeeper. “Word travels fast,” he said.

“It’s a small island, Mr. Ross,” Maisey said, without looking up.

“Why did you do that?” his father asked.

“Dad, I just thought—”

“You thought you could use the press to your advantage,” Edward said. “This is your sister, for God’s sake!”

“They wanted to know how the family was doing,” Ross said evenly. “I couldn’t just walk away from them.”

Edward shook his head and looked out the window. It put his face in the hard granite light. Ross had noticed how quickly his father seemed to be aging, especially the last few months. His heart, the doctor had told him last month, had become as thin as paper.

“Tell me about this man they arrested,” Edward said. “Did he kill my Julie?”

My Julie. Not just Julie. Not even
our
Julie. My Julie.

Ross eased in front of his father and sat on the window seat. Choosing his words carefully, he told his father what Clark had said about Dancer. Even though he was careful
to tell his father that the police had no proof Dancer had killed Julie, he could see that his father was putting things together in his head—and he was horrified.

“Do you need some water, Dad?” Ross asked.

Before his father could answer, Maisey was there with a glass and a pill. She waited while Edward took the medication before going back to her folding.