Ice Run (3 page)

“So you’re saying you’ve got some high standards.”

“Yeah, but if you’ve got some Canadian beer in the house, you might win me over.”

“Molson Canadian,” she said. “A case in the fridge. Bottles, not cans.”

“I’m on my way.”

It was two and a half hours in the truck again, across the bridge and down the Queens Highway. Of course, up here that’s nothing. You drive two and a half hours to buy your groceries.

It was still light out when I got there. She was wearing the same gray sweats. She had a white handkerchief wrapped around her head.

“You shouldn’t have gotten all dressed up just for me,” I said.

She pulled me inside and kissed me hard. A minute later we were upstairs, in the same bedroom. We went slowly this time. She took the handkerchief off her head and shook her hair. I ran my hands up her rib cage, caressing the soft flesh beneath her breasts. She closed her eyes.

She grabbed my hands as she moved against me. She worked at it harder and harder, all the while biting her lower lip. She looked at me once and then closed her eyes again. A great shudder ran through her body. Then she collapsed against me and whispered in my ear. “Oh God,” she said. “What are you trying to do to me?”

We lay there without talking for a long time, as the sun went down and the light coming through the curtains changed the color in the room. It was the kind of light that usually makes you feel a little sad and tired, the light of a midwinter day that ends too quickly, with spring a long time away. But on this day it felt different.

“What’s this from?” I said, running my finger along her eyebrow. I hadn’t seen the scars on her face the first time, not in the dim light of New Year’s Eve.

“Hockey, what else? I caught a stick there. Fourteen stitches.”

“And here, too?” I touched the long line on her chin.

“I took a dive on the ice. Seventeen stitches.”

“Don’t they wear face guards up here?”

“In college you have to,” she said. “But not out on the lakes. Face guards are for pussies. And Americans.”

We rolled around a couple of times over that one. Then she got up and put her sweats back on. I couldn’t help thinking, what kind of woman invites a man over and doesn’t do anything to get fixed up? Maybe the kind who at the last moment was hoping nothing would happen between them? If that was it, her resolution lasted all of three seconds. Hell if I knew.

She served me her beef stew at the big dining room table, under the antique light with the five glowing lanterns. When she sat down across from me, I finally got her story. It’s funny how you can distill your whole life down to a few minutes, telling it like it had a plot and a theme and a moral at the end. Or at least what will pass for a moral for the time being, until your whole life story is done.

“This house,” she said, looking up at the ceiling. “It was my grandparents’. But it was my house, too. I grew up here. My father …”

She looked down for a moment.

“He was killed when I was six years old. He was shot in a bar. Apparently he was trying to protect somebody. Some woman was getting roughed up and he stepped in to help her. Anyway, I only have a couple of memories of him. Good memories, I guess. Him holding me up in the air and swinging me around. One Christmas when he bought me this big rocking horse. I think it’s still in the attic.”

She looked at the ceiling again.

“And your mother?”

She looked me in the eye. “What about her?”

“I’m just asking. I’m sorry, go ahead.”

“My mother,” she said, sitting back in her chair. “She didn’t exactly get along with my grandparents. I guess it was kinda tough, living with your in-laws after your husband is dead, but she didn’t try real hard to make it work. We moved out once when I was like twelve years old, but, well…”

She stopped.

“What is it?” I said.

“Alex, you’ve got to understand … Some things happened to me back then. I know it was a long time ago, but.. .”

I waited.

“Some things you don’t get over,” she said. “Maybe you get better at dealing with them. That’s all.”

“What happened?”

“My mother got remarried for a while. That’s when we moved out of here. My stepfather … Well, for now I’ll just say this, eh? He died a couple of years ago.”

“Natalie, did he—”

“He made a lot of money, too—after he left my mother for somebody else. He became some kind of real estate big shot or something. I don’t know exactly. All I know is that Albert DeMarco had a long and happy life. If there’s any kind of justice in that, somebody is going to have to explain it to me.”

My stomach started to burn. I wasn’t sure what to say.

“I finally ran away,” she said. “I came back here. My grandfather told Albert he’d have to kill him to take me away again.”

“So your mother … Is she still around?”

“Yeah, she is. Although, hell, when’s the last time I even talked to her? I think it was when she called me to tell me Albert had died. I think she actually thought I’d be happy enough to start forgiving her.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” she said. “My grandparents were great, okay? They were the best. My grandfather, you should have seen him …” She smiled at the memory. “He was so strong. So kind. He’s been gone a long time now, but I still miss him.”

She took a hit off her beer bottle and then put it back down.

“Anyway, as great as they were, I was still kind of lonely growing up. I was such an awkward kid. And shy, especially after everything that had happened to me.”

I could see it in her. As beautiful as she was on that night, I could see that kid in her face. A tomboy with a slight overbite and big eyebrows.

“But I loved playing hockey. I used to play with all the boys, and I was faster than most of them. When I started playing girl’s hockey in high school and then in college, it was okay, but you could never really hit anybody. I led my women’s hockey team in penalty minutes— I guess that sums me up pretty well, eh?”

I shook my head and smiled.

“After hockey, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself. But you know, whenever I thought about my stepfather … I said to myself, why not become a police officer? Maybe help stop it from happening to somebody else. So I took the tests and joined the OPP. I don’t know how it works down there, but up here a woman can do pretty well.”

“You never got married?”

She looked at me. “No, Alex. I got close once. There was this other officer, Jimmy Natoli. That’s right, my name would have been Natalie Natoli. But he really wanted me to quit the force after I married him. I didn’t want to do that. Although maybe, looking back on it… I suppose I still had problems getting close to someone. After it fell apart, I was still on the force with him, so things got a little weird. That’s when I got shipped up to the Hearst station. I was thinking, great, look where they stuck me, way the hell up here. They partnered me with Claude DeMers, too, this ancient guy. They must really want to bury me up here.”

She took another drink.

“But then he turned out to be so great. It sounds kind of dumb, but with my grandfather gone … It was like I really needed him, you know? He tried to make things good for me. Until that business at the lake.”

“Yeah,” I said. That part I knew.

“I swear, I’m cursed, Alex. Wherever I go, bad things happen.”

“Come on, Natalie.”

“But no matter what,” she said, “I always had this place to come back to. When my grandmother died, she left it to me. I hired somebody to come in and keep things working. Run the furnace, make sure the pipes didn’t freeze. But I was never sure what to do with it. I couldn’t bring myself to sell it. It was like my refuge from the world. But now … I’ve been here for a few weeks, and I’m thinking maybe it’s time.”

“That’s why you’re doing all this packing.”

She nodded her head. “Yeah. But after I sell it, then what? I don’t know what the hell I’m going to do.”

I didn’t say anything. I sat there with her for a while until she got up to do the dishes. I grabbed a towel and dried while she washed. Later, we went to bed and this time we slept together, despite what she had said about always sleeping alone. I couldn’t stop thinking about what she had told me that day, about her own scars and how they’d never heal completely. It helped me to understand her a little bit better, how she could be so close to me one moment and then suddenly a million miles away.

I worked with her on some more packing the next morning. Then I went home. I thought about her all the way home and all that day and that night. I sat at Jackie’s in front of the fire and I thought about her.

I had been alone too long. To a starving man, this sudden feast.

“You’ve got to keep your head on straight,” I said to the flames. “Or you’re gonna be in big trouble.”

I kept plowing.
The sun came up, somewhere behind the snow clouds, giving the world a muted glow and no warmth. I rumbled down the main road to fill up the tank. There were a few poor souls out trying to shovel in the dim light, but aside from that it was quiet in Paradise.

I pumped the gas and paid Ruthie, the lady who owned the place. She told me I looked different and I agreed with her. “It’s been a long night,” I said.

“No, I mean there’s something else.”

I knew exactly what she was talking about, but I left before she could figure it out. I got back in the truck and pulled out right behind one of the county trucks. He had his big blade down and he was kicking that snow at least twenty feet in the air. I saw one car get completely buried, and I hoped the guy who had been dumb enough to park it by the road had a good memory.

I hit my road again and ran the plow through for the hundredth time. I had to keep at it, or I’d lose the road completely. With the new snow, the snowmobilers would finally be coming. As long as I had to put up with the noise, I might as well be making some money from it.

The snow started to let up. I finally got ahead of it, and made one more pass, down the road and back, before I stopped at my cabin. I had some coffee and splashed some water on my face. The phone rang. It was Natalie.

“Alex,” she said. “Are you getting a lot of snow?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t noticed.”

“Yeah, right. You still think we should try this today?”

“I’ll be there,” I said. “I promise.”

Then a silence, another hesitation that should have told me something important, but didn’t.

“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see you there. Drive carefully.”

“You, too,” I said. Then I hung up.

Now there’s only one problem, I thought. Make that two. I look like shit and I feel like shit. I took most of my clothes off and collapsed on the bed. Plenty of time to grab a little sleep, I thought. A little sleep so I could feel human again, then a hot shower, get dressed, and go over there. Plenty of time.

When I woke up, the clock read 2:14 and it was snowing like crazy again. “Son of a bitch,” I said. I got out of bed and looked outside. There was already another eight inches of snow on the ground. “Son of a bitch bitch bitch bitch bitch.”

I called Natalie. There was no answer. I left her a message, told her I was still at home, and that I needed to plow again, and that I’d still try to make it. But hell, if it was this bad out her way, maybe she shouldn’t even try. Assuming she hadn’t left yet.

But if she wasn’t answering her phone, she had to be on the road already. If she was on the road, then I was going to be on the road, too. Just plow a couple more times, I thought. Plow, then come in and call her again. Maybe call the hotel, see if she’s there yet. If she is, get cleaned up, put some clothes on. Hell, go plow a couple more times if you have to, then head to the Soo. If the road gets buried, so be it. I’ll deal with it tomorrow.

I headed out into the snow again. It was getting harder and harder to plow. There was no place to put the new snow, with the banks already four feet high. The road was getting narrower and narrower, but as long as one vehicle could get through, I figured I’d be okay. It’s not like I’d ever have a lot of traffic.

I went back and forth three times, and then headed back inside. It was hard just to walk to my front door. The snow was up to my knees now, and the wind was blowing everything sideways. I fought my way inside and slammed the door. It was insanity to even think I’d be going anywhere. Absolute insanity. So of course I’d be going. I called Natalie’s number again. I let it ring a dozen times.

“It’s ringing,” I said. “That means the phone lines are working, right? She’s just not there.”

I pictured her out on the road. I hoped she wasn’t stuck somewhere.

I called the hotel. She hadn’t arrived yet. It was after three o’clock now. God damn it, where was she?

Relax, Alex. She’s on the way. She’s taking her time.

I took a shower and shaved. I slapped some cologne on my face, felt it burning my skin. I put on an undershirt, took one look at it in the mirror and then tried to find a different undershirt. Twenty minutes later, I was finally dressed and ready to go.

I went outside and fought my way back to the truck again. The wind was screaming. The snow lashed at my face. “I’m going,” I said to myself. “I’m going.”

I had to brush the snow off the windshield again. I backed out and put my plow down for one more run. “I’m going. I’m going. I’m going.”

I drove through town. There was nobody, no sign of life until I saw the lights on at Jackie’s place. I kept driving. My wipers were clogged with snow already, and I could feel my tires losing traction every few feet. I fishtailed and swerved and swore at the snow.

There’s a stretch of road a couple of miles south of town—it runs along a narrow strip of land, with the lake on one side and a pond on the other. It was totally exposed to the wind, so I figured it would be a little tricky. As soon as I got close to it, the truth finally caught up to me.

I wasn’t going any farther.

I hadn’t turned my radio on since the day before, so I hadn’t heard it. I didn’t
want
to hear it. But now as I looked at the great expanse of snow—I couldn’t even guess where the snow-covered land lay, between the snow-covered ice of the lake and the snow-covered ice of the pond—I knew that there had to be a state of emergency all through the county. Even if I got through this stretch, and broke the law and tried to get to the Soo, I’d get stuck somewhere else. It was fifty miles if I stayed on the main roads, and even if most of M-123 was sheltered by the trees, as soon as M-28 broke out of the Hiawatha National Forest, it was all open ground. They wouldn’t even try to plow it until the snow let up and the wind stopped blowing.