The Ice Cradle

by Mary Ann Winkowski

  “Yeah?”

  “There was a fire where we’re staying. Well, out in the barn, I mean.” I glanced over at Henry and covered the phone with my hand. “It was set,” I whispered.

  Dec’s professional skepticism kicked right in. “How do you know that?”

  “Fire marshall,” I said, hoping that if I spoke elliptically, Henry wouldn’t tune in and start asking questions. I watched him as he got up, padded over to the bathroom, and closed the door behind him.

  “No kidding,” Dec said, and I suddenly wanted to tell him the whole story, right then and there.

  “I wish you were here,” I blurted out, now embarrassing myself.

  Dec was silent. We always steer a very wide berth around the subject of our feelings for each other. What we’d had had been great, but in the end, he’d gone back to Kelly, and now, in addition to Henry, there were Delia and Nell in our odd little ensemble. This was never going to change, I told myself. Unless Kelly died, which was a horrible, terrible, unthinkable thought that I sometimes still had.

  “Because we need a real detective,” I hastily added. “There’s something weird going on.”

  I imagined Dec perking up.

  “What?” he asked, anxious to establish that I wished he were here not because I wished he were here, but because a professional detective might be able to make sense of some suspicious goings-on.

  While Henry dawdled in the bathroom, I told Dec all about Rawlings and the wind farm and the speeding Subaru, about the accelerants in the bottles’ matching the samples from the barn, and about the girl at the party who bought her clothes at the Salvation Army store in Back Bay.

  “You get a name?” he asked.

  “Elsa Corbett.”

  “License plate on the car?”

  “No, but I might be able to.”

  “Do,” he said. “Call me and I’ll run both the name and the number.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  “What do you think it’s all about?” he went on.

  “I don’t know.”

  “Got a gut feeling?”

  Dec was big on gut feelings. Far from considering them to be insubstantial intuitions, he believed they were a form of superior knowledge and far more likely to be proven correct than many a rational hypothesis.

  “I think it’s all got to do with the wind farm,” I ventured. “Lots of people oppose it for all kinds of reasons. The controversy’s made for some pretty strange bedfellows.”

  He didn’t say anything, so I asked, “What do you think?”

  “You’re probably right,” he said.

  We chatted for a few more moments. I promised to call him later with the license plate number of the Subaru, if I could get it, and then we hung up. Henry was running a bath for himself, and after peeking in and concluding that he had matters under control, I decided to crawl back under the covers. Not to sleep, but to think.

  I thought about Dec. And Bert. I always did this, sooner or later, and there had never been a contest: Dec was always smarter, kinder, better looking, braver, nicer to waitresses and small animals, and in every significant way superior to the lunkhead or poseur with whom I had recently taken up. I used to do the side-by-side after the first real date, until my friend Nat convinced me that I had to give the poor helpless fellow a fighting chance. Now I try to wait. Three dates, four. But even before then, I start to imagine what it would be like to introduce Dec to my new flame, the fancy-schmancy lawyer or the post-post-post doc in cultural anthropology. I always imagine Dec’s expression betraying his reaction, which is somewhere along the spectrum between “You’ve got to be kidding me” and “Huh?”

  I hadn’t really been on a date with Bert, but we’d had several meals together, I trusted him implicitly with Henry, and I’d seen plenty of evidence that he was a real guy’s guy—my type. It had to have been hell losing his wife, so he wasn’t a stranger to grief and tragedy, yet he didn’t trot it out the minute you met him, or even a week after you met him. He was funny and self-deprecating and not at all the victim. He liked his sister. He wasn’t weirded out by my traffic with ghosts; in fact, he didn’t even ask for explanations. He was close to Mark and Lauren. He brought people fish. He showed Mavis’s dog who was in charge, with a steak and not a harpoon. And he was gorgeous. And he didn’t seem to know it.

  I cautiously conjured up an image of Dec. I nervously imagined Bert. Then what happened was a first for me.

  Dec turned to Bert, extended his hand, and said, “Grab a beer?”

  The ferry carrying Mark and the ghost detectives was due to arrive in an hour. I had deposited Henry—well rested, excited, and full of peach-pecan pancakes—at the school at five minutes of ten. The final dress rehearsal was scheduled to run until one o’clock, after which there was going to be a pizza party in the cafeteria. After a little fine-tuning based on the morning’s run-through, the curtain would go up on Grease at four o’clock.

  I hurried back to the Grand View and dashed up the stairs. I wanted to be sure that neither Vivi nor Baden was on the premises, and I had to look at the novel that had first saddled the inn with the reputation of being haunted. I’d been trying to get to it all week, but every time I picked it up, I got interrupted.

  According to Lauren, Wicklow had written about a ghost who looked like Abraham Lincoln, and another with her hands pressed to her ears. I hadn’t come across them in the week since I’d arrived, but I wanted to read what the author had actually said, in case I was missing a detail that could prove to be important. Thankfully, no one was around; Lauren had left me a note explaining that she had a couple of errands to run and then would pick up Mark and the ghost detectives when the boat came in at 11:10. They’d be back here by eleven thirty at the latest. I didn’t have a minute to lose.

  I flopped down on the bed and examined the book. The cover illustration could have been done by Edward Gorey. It showed a night sky filled with ominous storm clouds above the roofline and upper story of a building, presumably the Grand View. The windows glowed with a sickly yellow light. At one, the silhouette of a man wearing a black top hat and a formal jacket faced into the room. From out of the other window hung the tortured form of the female phantom, her hands stuck firmly to her ears. Spindly, leafless trees hugged the building, and the typeface of the title looked like antique comic book print. I opened the novel and inhaled that old-book scent that I love, equal parts dust and mildew.

  I skimmed it as fast as I could. I couldn’t comprehend the plot, flying along at this speed, but I did find descriptions of the ghosts, and Lauren had been right. They had allegedly appeared at the foot of the bed that used to occupy the room where I had first met Baden, the room with the evergreen wallpaper. I got up and crossed the hall. I opened the door to that room. It was deserted.

  I decided to see if Baden was in the barn, where we had agreed he would wait for me. As I came down the steps to the first floor and headed down the hall and into the kitchen, I encountered not Baden, but Vivi. She was sitting in the rocking chair by the woodstove, apparently in a perfectly fine mood. Nearby, Frances was asleep on her massive cat bed, round and peaceful and purring quietly. I was surprised to find myself feeling very warmly toward the ample feline, seeing how calm Vivi was in her presence. I’ve never been much of a cat person, but then again, I’ve never had a cat. I wasn’t much of a kid person until I had Henry.

  “Hi!” I said to Vivi.

  “Hi. Where is he?”

  “Henry? He’s at school. They’re getting ready to do their play.”

  “What’s that?” she asked, indicating the book.

  I smiled. “A story about ghosts.”

  “Me?” she asked.

  I paused. Was she asking if it was about her or if she was a ghost?

  “Well,” I said. “A writer came to stay here one time and he wrote a book about two ghosts he said were here.”

  “Who?”

  “A tall man in a top hat.”

  “Mr. Nivens,” Vivi anno
unced matter-of-factly.

  “Who?”

  “Mr. Nivens,” she said, showing a flash of her customary impatience. “He used to be here. But now he isn’t.”

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know. Any others?”

  “A woman in her nightgown. She had her hands like this.” I demonstrated, bringing my palms up to my ears.

  “Amy,” Vivi explained. “They froze like that.”

  “What did?”

  “Her hands. They froze like that. In the boat.”

  I thought back to the horrific accounts I had read of the hands, feet, ears, and noses of the doomed Larchmont passengers freezing in the lifeboats. The woman had obviously died with her hands covering her ears, perhaps frozen in place by the sleet and ice.

  “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know,” Vivi said.

  “Have you seen her around?”

  “No!” she said freshly, obviously tiring of my questions.

  I pulled out a kitchen chair and sat down. The wall clock read 10:45. This might be my only chance to enlist Vivi’s help, and I didn’t have a minute to waste.

  “Vivi, I’m going to ask you something.”

  “What?” She was sounding now like her usual volatile self.

  “Can I talk to you like a grown-up?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, can I ask you to listen very carefully to what I have to say?”

  In response, she got the chair rocking hard, awakening Frances, who looked up, sleepy and baffled. Vivi didn’t look at me, but I could tell she was listening.

  “Can I? Can I talk to you like a friend?”

  At the word friend, the rocking ceased briefly. “Yes,” she said, peering up at me and then back down at her lap. She got the chair moving again.

  “You’re a very smart girl. Henry really likes you, and so do I.”

  “No you don’t.” She looked up with a hurt expression.

  “I do. I really do. But you know what? Sometimes people who are very much alike kind of get on each other’s nerves. They are so similar that they—” I rubbed my hands together. “I think you and I are a lot alike.”

  “You do?”

  I nodded. “We’re both …” I paused. “Bossy. We think fast. We have a lot of energy.”

  “Crazy,” she added.

  “Definitely crazy,” I conceded, and I saw her smile.

  The minute hand clicked toward eleven. I had to get on with this.

  “We don’t have much time,” I said. “There are some people coming here in a few minutes. I don’t know if they can see ghosts or not, but they say they can. They want to prove there are ghosts here at the Grand View. But if they do, people won’t come here to stay.”

  “Why?”

  “Because people are afraid of ghosts.”

  “But why?”

  “Because they don’t understand. Most people can’t see ghosts—”

  She interrupted. “I know.”

  “Of course you know! They think ghosts might want to hurt them. They think ghosts can do all kind of things that you and I know they can’t. And if people are too afraid to come here to the inn, Lauren and Mark will have to leave. Go somewhere else.”

  “Where?” she said, with alarm in her voice.

  “I don’t know.”

  “But who would be here? Would Frances have to go?”

  “Yes! But there’s something we can do,” I said. “Something we can try, at least. And if you help me, I’ll help you. I’ll get Jamey back for you, and I’ll get you both back to your mommy and daddy.”

  “You can’t.”

  “I can. You’re going to have to trust me a little bit, which I know will be hard to do. But it’s the only way we can do this. Okay?”

  She looked me straight in the eyes for a few minutes, then got up, came over, and crawled into my lap, just as she had that first night. I wrapped my arms around her, as much as you can wrap your arms around a skinny little spirit. What she said brought a tightness to my throat.

  “I like you.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  CALEB WAS PEDALING into the driveway when I stepped out onto the back porch. He paused, and without getting off his bike, reached into his leather bag and pulled out an envelope. He held it up in the air. Puzzled, I walked over. He handed it to me.

  “What’s this?”

  “Nice of you not to bug me, but I do have to pay you.”

  “I wasn’t worried. I know where you live.”

  He rebuckled his bag. “See you at the play?”

  “You bet.”

  He waved and pedaled off.

  I glanced at the envelope. My name was typed on the front with what looked like an old-fashioned typewriter; traces of the inked ribbon blurred the edges of the letters, which caused faint indentations in the rich, creamy vellum. The envelope wasn’t sealed, so I extracted my check. I was happy to see that nice, solid number, but the pleasure ended there. In stately type in the top left corner were the words The Lenox Consortium.

  I was flooded with confusion and remorse. These were the people who were paying my salary—the very same parties who were trying to sandbag the wind farm? The folks who funded Rawlings’s questionable environmental impact study?

  In a sickening moment it all made sense: to bring alive the tragic story of the Larchmont’s dead at the very moment that the wind farm debate was heating up! What a coincidence of timing! Oh, they were sly! The cunning was positively breathtaking.

  And I had played right into their hands. In fact, I’d raised them one! Not only would the new book rescue the story from oblivion, but I’d also talked Caleb into exhibiting Honor Morton’s photographs! And I’d talked him into the idea of display cases, too, assuming the money to build them could be found and the upstairs space refurbished. No wonder Rawlings had pushed me for answers about what all this would cost. What better way could there be to elicit sympathy for the poor souls whose bones would be smashed and scattered by the gargantuan windmills than to let everyone gaze at the tattered relics of their lives, thrown up by an indifferent sea?

  Strike another blow to the wind farm.

  Well, I wouldn’t take their money! I sank down into a chair and thought of my checkbook balance. I had to take their money! No, I didn’t—I hadn’t done much of the work yet; I could just pull out of the whole project and tell Caleb why. I wouldn’t let them use me like this!

  But what about the Larchmont’s dead? Didn’t they deserve to have their stories told, regardless of what effect this might or might not have on a debate raging a century later? After all, I had personally made promises to them. I stood up, marched into the kitchen, and threw the check into the wastebasket. Then I pulled it out and wiped off a little dab of jelly. My head was spinning, and I had to make it stop. I folded the check, tucked it into my pocket, and went out to the barn, looking for Baden.

  He was resting in one of the chairs I’d rescued during the fire.

  “How’s it going?” I asked. I thought about getting into the dilemma swirling around in my head, but I knew we didn’t have time.

  “I quite like it out here,” he responded.

  “Good thing.” I smiled. “Lauren’s gone to pick up Mark and the TV guys. They should be back anytime. I think Vivi’s going to help us.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  “No, I really do.”

  “Perhaps. Have you had any news on the woman?”

  “Mavis? She’s going to be fine. You saved her life, you know.”

  “For the moment.”

  “Very funny.”

  “How old is she?” Baden pressed.

  “Ninety-one. She shouldn’t be living alone.”

  “She should be living any way she likes.”

  “But how do we know she likes it? Maybe she doesn’t have any family.”

  He was about to answer me when I heard the crunch of tires on gravel. I hurried over to the window.

  �
��They’re here! Oh my gosh!”

  “Calm down, dear.”

  “I’ve got to get Vivi.”

  I raced back into the house and found her on the kitchen floor, sparring with Frances.

  “It’s time!” I said, trying to sound really excited. “Come on!”

  Vivi hopped to her feet and accompanied me out to the barn. When she glimpsed Baden, she became uncharacteristically shy, hiding behind me like a much younger child.

  “Vivi,” I said, “You know your great-uncle.”

  “Hello, Viveka,” said Baden. To his credit, he kept the judgmental tone out of his voice.

  She didn’t answer.

  “Say hello, Vivi,” I said. “There’s no need to be shy.”

  “Hi,” I heard her whimper.

  I stepped aside and she was revealed.

  “Mr. Riegler has a story to tell you.”

  Baden regarded me with a look that said, I do?

  “About the lake in Austria?” I suggested. “What you used to do there when you were young, in the summers?”

  He blinked a few times, as though trying to recall if he had ever mentioned anything about this. He hadn’t. I was just trying to give him a hint; he didn’t seem like the kind of person who would have a clue about what to do to amuse a kid.

  “I’ll be back in a little while,” I said, ducking away before either of them could protest.

  Mark’s green pickup was in the driveway, and two men, presumably the “ghost detectives” themselves, were unloading bulky black boxes from the back of the car. I walked over.

  “Hi, Mark!”

  “Anza, hi! How are you?” I thought he was giving me a significant look, but I wasn’t sure. And if he was, I definitely didn’t know what it meant.

  “Anza, this is Dayne White and Gavin Robinson. You’ve probably seen their show, The Ghost Detectives.”

  “I have! It’s terrific. Great to meet you.”

  One of the men, who appeared to be dressed for swampy encounters, gave me an indifferent glance. The other, attired in cowboy boots, ironed jeans, and a starched white shirt, extended his hand.

  “Gavin. Playsed to meet yih.”

  “I’m Anza,” I said, and we shook hands. “I’ve heard a lot about you.” I couldn’t bring myself to say that I loved their show, so I added, lamely, “You must be here to film the lighthouse.”