“Let me think,” Louis said.
“You’ll never get it,” Flowers said. He grabbed the brandy snifter and, without lifting its rim from the bar, started moving it in a tight circle. When he had it going fast enough, centrifugal force drew the olive up into the glass and Flowers flipped it upright, trapping the olive inside.
“I guess I owe you a beer,” Louis said.
“I’ll take a Labatt.”
Louis ordered for Flowers, and for a while they sat in silence watching the baseball playoff game on the TV. Louis hadn’t seen the Tigers play since he was a kid. He didn’t know any of the players anymore. It made him feel like a stranger in the state he had grown up in.
“I have the Kingswood school sending us some yearbooks,” Flowers said. “They’re also trying to locate a teacher from back then, someone who might remember Julie Chapman.”
“Chief, we still need to verify who the bones belong to,” Louis said.
“Julie Chapman,” Flowers said.
Louis suppressed a sigh.
“Let’s eat,” Flowers said. “They have really good chili-cheese fries here.”
They ordered dinner and again fell into silence as they waited for their food.
“You want another?” Flowers asked, nodding toward Louis’s near-empty beer bottle.
Louis shook his head. “I’ve been trying to cut back a little.”
Flowers signaled to the bartender and ordered a shot of Jack Daniel’s for himself. “Where’s your little girl, Kincaid?” he asked.
“Her mother picked her up and took her back to Ann Arbor.”
“Divorced, eh?”
“Not exactly,” Louis said, not wanting to explain to Flowers that he never knew he even had a kid until this past spring. “What about you? You mentioned an ex in St. Louis or somewhere?”
“Kansas fucking City,” Flowers said.
“Sound a little bitter,” Louis said. “Rough divorce?”
“We’re living down in Alpena, right? I’m a patrolman for the city police, putting in all kinds of overtime just to make ends meet so she can live in this ugly old Victorian on the lake. Everything is fine for seven years. Then out of nowhere she tells me she’s not happy anymore.”
Louis picked at the chili-covered fries. He didn’t really want to hear this, but Flowers, flush with booze, obviously needed to say it.
“So I let her go back to work at the bank,” Flowers went on. “A year later she’s made manager and putting in more hours than me, and her mother’s at the house a lot with the twin girls. It wasn’t a good time for us.”
Flowers’s eyes slid to him, then back to the empty shot glass. For a long time neither man said anything.
“Then Carol got the job offer in Kansas City,” Flowers said. “She wanted me to move there, but I knew I wasn’t going to be able to get on with any department there. So we split up.”
Louis wondered why Flowers had taken the job here on the island. It couldn’t be for child support because he doubted the chief made much here. More likely, Flowers felt he needed a title in front of his name to convince himself he was still in control of something, even if it was only a tiny island.
“Well, isn’t this an impressive image of quality police work.”
They both turned on their stools to see Rafsky standing behind them.
He was carrying two FedEx boxes and a manila envelope. The packages and his trench coat were spotted with rain. Louis glanced at the window. Rain rippled the glass, giving the streetlights a quivering white glow.
“How did you two make out with the ferry employees?” Rafsky asked.
“It was twenty-one years ago, Detective,” Louis said. “No one remembered anything worth following up on.”
“There was the Coffee woman,” Flowers said.
“Excuse me?” Rafsky asked.
“One old lady said she remembered a girl buying a ticket one New Year’s Eve,” Flowers said.
“She has Alzheimer’s,” Louis said to Rafsky.
“Still doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the memory stored in there somewhere,” Flowers said. “I told you, people with Alz—”
Rafsky stopped Flowers in midsentence by turning his back on Flowers and making a point to look at Louis, for the first time meeting his eyes with some level of respect.
“I need you to do something for me, Kincaid,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“When Mr. Chapman gets here tomorrow, I want you to deal with him,” Rafsky said. “I want you to explain to him that the chief made a mistake by contacting him and that until we get a positive ID we cannot release the remains to the family.”
Louis glanced at Flowers. In the dim light he could see the rise of color in the chief’s cheeks. Louis had a sudden memory of a long-ago moment when he was facing his foster parents after getting into a fight with a bully. His foster father Phillip wanted to admonish Louis, but it was his foster mother who had the best advice.
Well, Louis, some people just need a good punch in the face.
That’s what Rafsky needed, but this wasn’t the time or place for Flowers to find his courage.
Rafsky set the manila envelope on the bar in front of Flowers. “This is all the missing teenage girls in the state for the years 1968 through 1972.”
“Why are we wasting time on other missing girls when we already have a solid lead on Julie Chapman?” Flowers asked.
“Because that’s what an investigator does, Chief Flowers,” Rafsky said. “Making the assumption that the bones belong to Julie Chapman without further investigation is amateur work. So please do as I ask. Go through this list and eliminate all the other missing girls you can.”
Louis picked up the envelope and pulled out the three-page list of names. For a small department like the island PD, researching a hundred or so missing girls was going to be a tedious and time-consuming task.
Louis glanced at Rafsky, wondering why he hadn’t just assigned this task to one of his underlings, but then it occurred to him that Rafsky was probably trying to keep Flowers busy while he did the real investigating.
Rafsky set one of the FedEx boxes on the bar, nearly knocking over Flowers’s beer. Louis could see the return address: BLOOMFIELD HILLS POLICE DEPARTMENT. It had to be Julie Chapman’s missing persons file. The box had already been opened.
“I take it you requested this?” Rafsky said.
“Yeah, anything wrong with that?” Flowers asked.
“Not at all. As I said, just don’t get yourself so wrapped up in Julie Chapman that you blind yourself to other possible victims.”
“Point made, Detective.”
“I’ve already been over the file,” Rafsky said. “Read it tonight and make sure you know what’s in here before the father gets here tomorrow so you’re prepared.”
Flowers started to say something, but Rafsky roughly set the second box on top of the first. The return address on this box was the Cranbrook Academy. Like the other, this box had been opened.
“This I do have a problem with,” Rafsky said. “Why did you request old yearbooks from Julie Chapman’s school?”
“I thought it might help if we got a feel for her life, maybe look at her activities, maybe—”
“All the information you need right now on the Chapman girl is in that missing persons file,” Rafsky said. “If and when we need more background on her we’ll get it from her friends and teachers. Not from yearbooks.”
Flowers looked to the mirror behind the bar.
“Homicide investigations aren’t completed overnight, Chief Flowers,” Rafsky added. “They’re tedious and complicated and full of dead ends.”
Flowers continued to stare at the mirror.
Rafsky sighed and started buttoning his trench coat. “I’ll be in Marquette in the morning and back here by the afternoon,” he said. “Call the Marquette post if anything comes up you can’t handle.”
Rafsky left the tavern. Flowers looked back at the FedEx boxes, then reach
ed for his shot glass. Finding it empty, he set it down again.
Louis wanted to tell Flowers that Rafsky was right. Most homicide investigations took months or years, even when you had a quick ID on the victim. But he didn’t have the heart to explain that right now. Flowers needed a reprieve from Rafsky’s battering.
But maybe he needed a good slap on the head even more.
Louis ordered two more beers. Alcohol was a good lubricant when you were about to get your ass handed to you.
“You know, Chief, when it comes to Rafsky, you need to grow a pair,” Louis said.
Flowers’s eyes shot to Louis, filled with fire. But it quickly faded, and he looked away, finding his face in the mirror behind the bar again. He didn’t seem to want to look at that, either, and he turned his attention to the window.
“This is your case, Chief,” Louis said. “You called the state in. You can also tell him to leave.”
Flowers grabbed the fresh beer that the bartender had set before him, but he didn’t take a drink.
“I need him,” Flowers said. “In a couple of days, you’ll be gone, and I can’t do this alone.”
“Then turn it over to the state,” Louis said.
Flowers shook his head slowly. “I can’t do that, either.” He pulled in a deep breath. “I can’t explain this. But this is like somebody invaded my home. I have to . . .”
His voice trailed off. It took him a moment, but he finally met Louis’s eyes.
“This is my job,” he said.
10
He had walked right past it the first time, mistaking the wooden carved sign for just another one of the historical markers that seemed to be fastened to every old building on the island.
The two-story white clapboard house looked more like a bed-and-breakfast than a police station. Inside, the disconnect continued as Louis stood in the tiny foyer facing a Dutch door. Its top half was open to reveal what he assumed was the heart of the Mackinac Island Police Department.
It was a narrow, long room, its walls lined with built-in desks topped with what looked to be the latest in computers, printers, and other electronics. The place smelled pleasantly of hazelnut coffee and chimney smoke, although there was no fireplace that Louis could see.
The officer sitting at the computer looked up. “Yes, sir?”
“Louis Kincaid. The chief’s expecting me.”
The officer went to an office at the rear of the room. Louis could see Flowers inside at his desk.
Louis looked down at the file folder he was carrying. It was the Bloomfield Hills case file. He and Flowers had stayed at the Mustang until after dark. Flowers had switched to soda water, and while he ate his dinner he read the file, scribbling notes on bar napkins.
Around eight, he’d received a radio call for a domestic fight in the village and had told Louis he needed to answer this call personally because he knew the couple. He slid the case file to Louis and asked if he wanted to take it back to the hotel and give it a look.
Louis had taken it, knowing Flowers wanted backup ready in case Edward Chapman started asking some tough questions.
It appeared the Bloomfield Hills cops had done a good job. The story that unfolded was a simple one. It was the weekend before New Year’s Eve 1969. The parents were out of town; the housekeeper was visiting family in Grand Rapids; and the older brother, Ross, was at the University of Michigan. Julie had declined to go with her parents to California, telling her father she wanted to spend the holiday with her brother. Ross reported she had not told him of her intent to come to Ann Arbor and that she had never arrived.
The police had investigated her family, compiling a complete dossier. They had also talked to Julie’s friends—of which there were few—and investigated Detroit-area sex offenders. They had followed hundreds of leads and had received tips of sightings as late as 1977. But in the end, despite the family’s high profile, the case had gone cold.
The officer appeared back at the Dutch door. “The chief will see you now.”
The officer buzzed the door open, and Louis started back to the chief’s office. A black woman sitting in a chair in the corner gave him a long once-over before returning to her paperback.
Flowers’s office was tiny, with none of the usual plaques and commendations hanging on the walls. Instead, there was a map of Michigan, some sepia photographs of the island, and a prominent picture of the five-man Mackinac Island Police Department on bicycles.
It was only after Flowers had closed the door that Louis noticed the old man.
He was sitting in the corner, a frail man with sparse gray hair and pale skin, almost lost in the bulk of his blue sweater. There was a tiny breathing device in his nostrils with thin tubes running back behind his ears. Louis saw the portable oxygen canister near the chair and looked to Flowers.
“Kincaid, this is Edward Chapman, Julie’s father,” Flowers said. “Louis Kincaid is the man I was telling you about, Mr. Chapman.”
The old man extended his hand, and Louis shook it. Given his appearance, the man’s grip was surprisingly strong. Louis remembered a detail from the family dossier, that Edward Chapman had been an executive vice president with Ford, in charge of overseeing the company’s European operations. The Chapmans had led a high-profile life in Europe when Julie was very young. But Edward Chapman had taken an early retirement not long after his daughter disappeared. As Louis considered the fragile man before him, he thought—not for the first time in his career—about the toll murder took on those left behind.
Flowers shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. “I was just telling Mr. Chapman that it was, well, premature of me to have called him because we are not sure the remains are those of his daughter,” Flowers said.
“And I was telling the chief that it doesn’t matter,” Chapman said quickly. “If there is even the smallest chance that this is Julie, then I want to be here.”
The smallest chance.
Since last night in the bar, Louis had been thinking about pushing for DNA analysis to identify the bones but had decided to wait. He wondered how much Flowers knew about the technology. His own exposure was limited to what he had read and the one case he had worked recently in Palm Beach. The remains of an illegal immigrant worker had been found and there were no records or family to identify him. They had talked about using DNA to identify him, but the police department had no interest in footing the high cost of the test. Louis suspected money would be no such barrier to a man like Edward Chapman. But he had to talk to Flowers about it first.
“You said you had Julie’s ring,” Chapman said.
“We think it is her ring,” Flowers said. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small manila envelope. He took out the ring and set it on the desk.
Chapman reached beneath his sweater and pulled out a pair of glasses, slipping them on. He peered at the ring for a long time, then set it down on the desk. “I don’t know if this is hers,” he said softly. He looked up at Flowers. “Do you have anything else, maybe her clothes?”
Flowers glanced at Louis before he answered. “We didn’t find any clothes with the remains. I’m sorry.”
Chapman stared at Flowers, then his eyes closed. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the soft hiss of his oxygen. He opened his eyes. “I brought her dental records. We can use those, can’t we?”
“We didn’t find her skull,” Flowers said. “Again, I am so very sorry about this, Mr. Chapman.”
Louis realized the black woman out in the reception area was watching them intently.
“Can I see Julie?”
Louis’s eyes shot back to Mr. Chapman and then to Flowers.
“Mr. Chapman, I don’t think—”
“I want to see her,” Chapman said. “I want to see my daughter. Even if there’s only bones.”
Flowers drew in a breath. “We had to send the remains to a lab in Marquette. We will have them back soon.”
Chapman took off his glasses with shaking hands. He stared at the
small gold ring on the desk, then looked up at Flowers with brimming eyes. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.
Louis looked to Flowers, who gave him a silent signal that it was okay to take the lead.
“You can help by telling us about Julie,” Louis said. When Chapman hesitated Louis went on. “Let’s start with the day she disappeared. We have the police report, but sometimes family members can provide details that might have been missed.”
Chapman wiped at his eyes. “It was the holidays, the week after Christmas,” he said. “Her mother, Ellen, had been in ill health, and I thought a vacation somewhere warm would be good for her, good for the whole family, really. We decided to go to Pasadena. Michigan was playing in the Rose Bowl, and we were alums, you see, so we thought it might be good for us.”
He stopped, shaking his head. “But the kids . . . well, neither of them wanted to go. Ross was studying for finals and didn’t want to be away. Julie told me she would go stay with Ross in Ann Arbor and they would watch the game on TV. So I didn’t worry about her.”
“Ross was nineteen at the time?” Louis asked.
Edward Chapman nodded.
“He’s a state congressman now,” Flowers said to Louis. “He’s running for U.S. senator.”
The Senate. The case had attracted only local interest so far, but that was going to change fast. “Is your son coming to the island?” Louis asked.
Chapman’s eyes were slow to focus on Louis. “Yes,” he said. “He’s been busy with his campaign, but he told me he’d be here as soon as he could.”
“That weekend you went to California,” Louis said. “When did you realize your daughter was missing?”
“Not until we came home,” Chapman said. “Until we called Ross we didn’t know she had never even made it to Ann Arbor. Ross said Julie never called him about coming.”
Louis had read this detail in the report last night, and it had struck him then that maybe Julie Chapman had lied to her parents about her plans. It didn’t mean she wasn’t abducted, but it raised questions.
“Mr. Chapman, do you think your daughter lied to you about going to stay with her brother?” Louis asked.
Heart of Ice Page 7
