Heart of Ice

by Parrish, P. J.

  “You’re sure he was clear?”

  “I got him to write out a statement. It says ‘Bones, lots of bones. I was afraid to take the skull, so I just visited it sometimes. Then I took it. It was so clean I didn’t need my beetles.’ ”

  “I don’t suppose our man of all seasons could give us a year?” Rafsky asked.

  “No, just that it was cold.”

  “Okay,” Rafsky said. “We got a positive ID. We know that the skull belongs to the skeleton.”

  “What about prints?”

  Rafsky opened the top folder. “There are matches here for Cooper Lange, Danny Dancer, and Rhonda Grasso.”

  “Did Rhonda have an arrest record?” Louis asked.

  “No, she was fingerprinted when she worked for the post office. Guess who doesn’t show up anywhere?”

  “Ross,” Louis said.

  Rafsky set the folder on the mantel and blew out a sigh. “I need a smoke.” He headed back out to the entrance hall. Louis picked up the folder and followed him.

  Rafsky was staring out the door at the setting sun. Louis put on his glasses and started flipping through the fingerprint report. It was at least twenty pages long, detailing the hundreds of prints found in the sixty-year-old lodge. Every print was assigned a number, and most were listed as unidentified. Every time a print was lifted, its number and location was noted. Louis saw his and Lily’s names on the list as IDENTIFIED PRINT #1 and IDENTIFIED PRINT #2, with locations around the milk chute, kitchen, parlor, and basement. Dancer’s IDENTIFIED PRINT #3 showed up around his rat hole and in the basement. Cooper Lange, IDENTIFIED PRINT #4, had left a trail throughout the lodge, heaviest in the southwest upstairs bedroom with no prints in the basement.

  Rhonda Grasso’s prints were listed as IDENTIFIED PRINT #7, with dozens of locations throughout the lodge.

  Hundreds of prints. And not one from Ross Chapman.

  Louis was about to close the folder when he noticed it. UNIDENTIFIED PRINT #15. Unlike the other unidentifieds, this one appeared at dozens of locations—including the basement. Louis flipped back to the page with Rhonda’s prints and back to the page with #15. Many of the locations were parallel, as if someone had been following in Rhonda’s shadow.

  “Rafsky,” Louis said, ripping out Rhonda’s page. He held it next to the page for #15. “Look at this,” he said.

  Rafsky took the two pages. It took him only a second to see the pattern. He handed Louis the page for #15, keeping the page for Rhonda.

  “Let’s walk through this,” he said.

  He went to the parlor, stopping at a shuttered window. When he turned on his flashlight it picked up black smudges of fingerprint dust. “They found Lange’s prints here.”

  “This must be the broken window he said they used to sneak in.”

  “Rhonda’s prints show up on the windowsill here,” Rafsky said. “And all over the room.”

  “I’ve got prints in the room for number fifteen but none on the sill.”

  Rafsky went to the entrance hall. “You have prints here?”

  Louis nodded. “Just on the banister.”

  “No banister prints for Rhonda,” Rafsky said. “Let’s move on.”

  There was nothing in the long hallway leading to the back of the lodge or in the back rooms of the first floor, so they headed to the kitchen.

  “Lots of good prints for Rhonda here,” Rafsky said, surveying the smooth countertops and wood cupboards.

  “Same for number fifteen,” Louis said. He went to the fireplace. “I have a lot of good hits here.”

  “I have none on the fireplace,” Rafsky said. “My next print is at the door leading to the basement.”

  “I have one there, but it’s tagged no value,” Louis said. “It’s too smeared.”

  They paused at the top of the steps as Louis shined his flashlight down into the darkness.

  “Rhonda left several good prints on the wall going down,” Rafsky said, “including one full handprint.”

  “I have nothing along the steps,” Louis said. “Let’s go down.”

  At the bottom they stopped. The Maglite beams pierced the darkness. Louis swung the beam slowly over the basement, picking up the rough walls, the concrete floor, and the old boiler.

  “I’ve got two good prints for number fifteen on one of the steps,” Louis said. He went behind the steps and found the black fingerprint dust on the back of the fourth step.

  “Maybe number fifteen was hiding back there, waiting for Rhonda,” Rafsky said.

  Louis came out and shined his flashlight onto a spot about three feet from the steps. “I have multiple no values for number fifteen here,” he said.

  “Same for Rhonda,” Rafsky said.

  “I’m guessing there was a struggle,” Louis said. “That’s why the prints here are all smeared.”

  “But Rhonda died over there,” Rafsky said, shining his light at the drain four feet closer to the furnace.

  Rafsky blew out a long sigh. “Fuck, no prints for Ross anywhere, and none for Cooper in the basement.”

  “It was winter,” Louis said. “They could have worn gloves.”

  “Maybe. But who the hell is number fifteen?”

  They were quiet for a long time. Louis swung his flashlight beam up the steps, pausing it on the step where the two prints had been lifted. He turned the beam onto the report for UNIDENTIFIED #15. Again he scanned the locations throughout the lodge, focusing finally on SW UPSTAIRS BEDROOM.

  The same bedroom where he had seen the initials carved in the log wall—JC+CL. The same initials—JC—engraved inside the Kingswood ring.

  “It was Julie,” he said. “Julie is number fifteen.”

  Rafsky’s beam swung to him.

  “I found a picture of Rhonda and Cooper in Chester Grasso’s garage,” Louis said. “I thought Rhonda might have killed Julie out of jealousy.”

  “But then Rhonda became our victim,” Rafsky said.

  They both swung their flashlights to the spot in the floor where all the smeared prints had been found.

  “There was a struggle,” Louis said. “And Julie won.”

  “So where is she?” Rafsky asked.

  Louis took a few steps forward, moving his flashlight beam over the ghost stain on the floor.

  “I don’t know where she is, but I know she’s alive,” Louis said.

  “Assumptions, Kincaid,” he said softly. “Bring me some proof.”

  41

  Louis stood down the slope from the Chapman cottage, watching the two women on the porch. One of them was Maisey, who he knew was still readying the place for sale. He didn’t know the other woman, but from the way she was gesturing toward the house he suspected she was a real estate agent. He was waiting for her to leave so he could talk to Maisey alone.

  Bring me some proof.

  Rafsky’s words had brought him back here, to the woman who was figuratively—if not literally—Julie’s mother.

  The agent and Maisey shook hands, and as the agent came down the walk and passed Louis, Maisey’s eyes found his.

  He knew she was still angry that he had asked her to take a DNA test, so he just stood there hoping she would relent. Finally, with a small shake of her head, she motioned him toward the house.

  The foyer was stacked with cardboard boxes. Maisey stood in front of him, arms crossed, waiting for him to speak.

  “I’m sorry, Maisey,” Louis said. “My questions about you and Julie last time I was here were intrusive and rude.”

  Maisey’s lips drew into a straight line.

  “But it’s my job to speak for the victim,” he said. “Sometimes that takes me places that are uncomfortable for everyone.”

  Maisey uncrossed her arms. “I’m still not going to take that test,” she said.

  “I’m not going to ask you to again.”

  She gave a small nod. “Okay, then. Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr. Kincaid?”

  “Love one.”

  “I’ve closed the heat vents
in most of the rooms already. But the parlor’s warm. Go have a seat,” she said. “I’ll bring you a cup.”

  Louis wound his way through the boxes to the parlor. Maisey had mentioned before that she wasn’t sure what to take from the house but apparently had found enough keepsakes to fill at least two horse carts with boxes.

  He took a seat next to a table with a carafe on it, rubbing his hands to warm them. Maisey appeared a moment later with a cup and poured him some coffee. She had left some picture frames on her chair, and she picked them up before sitting down. She kept them on her lap.

  “What do you need this time, Mr. Kincaid?” Maisey asked.

  “First, I need to ask that you not share what we talk about today with anyone,” Louis said.

  She hesitated, then nodded. “You were fair with me about Mr. Ross, so you have my word.”

  Louis decided to just start laying things out and watch her for a reaction.

  “The remains we found in the lodge do not belong to Julie,” he said.

  Maisey kept her eyes on his, but there was no shock in her expression. Finally she looked away, focusing on the picture frames in her lap. She was frozen, not a muscle moving. He wasn’t even sure she was breathing.

  “Maisey, are you okay?”

  “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “How could . . . how could you, how could the police let everyone think . . . let Mr. Edwards die believing you had found his little girl?”

  Louis set his cup down. It was a deft recovery, Maisey turning her inability to find an appropriate response back onto the police in the form of blame. It was also interesting that she didn’t name herself as a wounded party in the police’s screwup.

  “On behalf of the police all I can do is apologize,” he said.

  Maisey’s fingers tightened on the frames. She had just been told that her family’s twenty-one-year search for closure ended with a case of mistaken identity, yet her face was a mask.

  “Do you want to know whose remains they are?” Louis asked.

  Maisey’s voice was soft and far away. “If it’s not Julie, why would it matter to me?”

  “Because it was Julie’s friend,” Louis said. “The girl you picked out of the sketchbook. Her name was Rhonda Grasso.”

  Maisey shook her head. “God Bless her soul, but I barely remember her. I didn’t even get her name right.”

  Louis was quiet, and so was Maisey. If she knew nothing of Julie’s whereabouts, why wasn’t she asking questions? Why wasn’t she asking why Julie’s ring had been found in the lodge? Why wasn’t she asking about Ross being the father of Rhonda’s baby?

  Maisey started to get up from her chair, but Louis put a gentle hand on her forearm. She sat back down.

  “Julie had a boyfriend named Cooper Lange,” Louis said. “She was going to run off to Canada with him so he could avoid the draft. Did you know that?”

  “No. I told you, I didn’t know anything.”

  “Back then you didn’t know anything,” Louis said. “What about now?”

  “What do you mean?”

  He had gone too far to turn back. He had to put the question out there and see what it got him.

  “I believe Julie is alive,” Louis said.

  He could feel Maisey’s arm trembling under his hand. He could see something in her face, the same thing that had been in Cooper’s face that day in the interrogation room when he talked about Julie. It was the need to not be alone any longer with a secret.

  “Maisey,” Louis said gently, “do you know where she is?”

  Maisey opened her mouth to say something but then clamped it shut. She started to pull away, but Louis tightened his hand on her arm as a subtle pressure, hoping that if he waited long enough the weight of what she knew would become unbearable.

  But Maisey drew her arm away and rose. She was gathering herself together, and he knew he had lost the moment of her vulnerability.

  “I can be of no help to you, Mr. Kincaid,” she said.

  “I know you want to protect Julie but—”

  Maisey interrupted him. “I have things to do upstairs. Please see yourself out.”

  He stood up quickly, pissed at himself for not being more aggressive with her.

  “Maisey.”

  She was almost to the stairs and she stopped. There was one open cardboard box, stuffed with newspapers. She set the frames she was carrying on top of the newspapers, reached into the pocket of her sweater, and pulled something out. Louis saw it was the little ceramic horse he had seen up in Julie’s room.

  She set the horse on top of the picture frames and looked up at him. Her eyes were brimming.

  “I’ve given you all I can, Mr. Kincaid,” she said. “In the only way I can.”

  She turned and went up the stairs.

  There was no reason to call to her because he knew she would just ignore him. And he wasn’t going to drag her down to the station and rip the truth from her by tag-teaming her with Rafsky as if she were a common criminal. There had to be another way.

  I’ve given you all I can. In the only way I can.

  What had she given him besides Julie’s journal?

  Louis moved to the open cardboard box and picked up the ceramic horse. Underneath was the framed photograph of Julie sitting in a white wicker chair holding a rag doll, the same picture he had seen before. Except . . .

  Louis pulled out his glasses. It wasn’t a rag doll, he could see that now. It was a sock monkey.

  Edna Coffee had seen a teenage girl carry a monkey onto the ferry that winter day twenty-one years ago. If Julie treasured the stuffed animal that much, surely Maisey would have noticed it was missing after Julie disappeared. But that day up in Julie’s room, when he had asked Maisey if Julie had a stuffed monkey, she had said no.

  He knew now Maisey hadn’t lied to protect Julie. She had lied to protect herself. She knew Julie had not been abducted. She knew Julie had left voluntarily.

  Why had she kept the secret from Edward? Maybe because she knew Julie was running away from something and didn’t want to be found?

  He looked up the staircase. Maisey had wanted him to find the photograph. She wanted him to find Julie now.

  But one photograph was not enough proof. He looked back at the open cardboard box. The only other things sitting atop the newspapers were some books. They were so thin he was able to grab all four with one hand.

  They seemed to be a set of some kind, the dust jackets all featuring landscapes—snowcapped mountains, a deserted beach, a shadowed forest, jagged ocean rocks, a log cabin on a lake. The author’s name, Emma Charicol, meant nothing to him. The titles held no clues—The Path to Acheron, Elysian Echoes, From Pelion, Island of the Sun.

  His heart gave a kick.

  Pelion.

  The place in Julie’s poem where the centaur Chiron lived. The name she gave to the lodge.

  The drawing on the jacket of From Pelion was of a log cabin high on a bluff overlooking a lake. He turned the book over. There was no author photo, just a brief biography.

  Emma Charicol is the author of four books of poems. She is an adjunct professor of creative writing at Berkeley City College, where she is a founder of the Lyrics and Odes Reading Series.

  Louis flipped through the poems, scanning them for something that would resonate with Julie’s journal. Finally, he found it. The last poem in the book, titled “Seventeen.”

  From a chrysalis of ice

  Into the August sun I glide

  A flight too brief

  On wings of grief

  Now my heart beats a dirge

  For the girl who died

  There had been a poem in Julie’s journal called “Twelve.” It had clearly been about the incest. Was this one—also titled with what could be an age—about the death of Rhonda Grasso?

  Louis closed the book, looking again at the author bio on the back. There was a small rush of adrenaline moving inside him, but there was also something else. Something more sobering—the knowledge
that if Emma Charicol was Julie Chapman, then his next step would be exposing a woman who had spent her entire adult life trying to escape her childhood.

  But she was also a murder suspect.

  He gathered up the four poetry books, the ceramic horse, and the photograph of Julie and started toward the door.

  Masiey’s voice came soft and weary from the quiet shadows of the second floor.

  “Good-bye, Mr. Kincaid.”

  He paused, his hand on the doorknob. “Good-bye, Maisey,” he said. “Thank you.”

  42

  Louis drove slowly up the narrow winding road, leaning forward to see the house numbers through the light fog. Then, around another bend, there it was—290 Rose Street.

  He pulled to a stop, looking up at the big shake-shingled house. It had come down to this one moment, all the months of investigation, all the hours of work he and Rafsky had put into this case. It had all come down to this moment and his instinct—that Julie Chapman was dead but had come alive again as Emma Charicol.

  Rafsky had decided not to make the trip to California. There would be no way to explain it to his boss without revealing how far things had gone off the rails. Except for finding her address in Berkeley, they had also decided not to alert any authorities in California or run any computer checks on Emma Charicol. First Louis had to see her himself.

  During the long flight from Chicago to San Francisco, Louis had read all the From Pelion poems. They had none of the desperate despair that infused Julie’s childhood verses. Emma’s poems were about gardens that bloomed in winter, deaf children who sang, and mythical worlds where three moons burned so white that “the night was benign and belighted.”

  Louis picked up the From Pelion book from the passenger seat and turned to “Seventeen.” It was the only one of Emma Charicol’s poems that had a hint of darkness and perhaps a hint to what happened in the lodge in 1969.

  My heart beats a dirge for the girl who died.

  Louis took out the two Xeroxes he had used as a bookmark. He had stopped at the library in San Francisco to find whatever he could on Emma Charicol. The first copy was from a reference book published by the Academy of American Poets that listed the same bio as her book jacket with one new piece of information, that Emma Charicol was thirty-eight, the same age Julie would be now.