Frozen

by Jay Bonansinga

  “That’s better,” Okuda purred after securing them inside the cozy little lounge filled with plastic armchairs, bulletin boards, laminate cabinets, and the odors of stale smoke and burned coffee. They got out paper cups and poured some tequila and bit into lemons and giggled and tongue-kissed. A few minutes later, Wendy Hecht wandered over to the large-screen TV and started going through the loose stacks of DVDs. “Oh my God,” she exclaimed suddenly, selecting one of the DVDs. “What an appropriate title for this dreary place!”

  Okuda was zoning out on the sofa. “Don’t do this to me,” he murmured.

  “Let’s watch it.” She giggled, loading the silver disc into the deck above the TV.

  A few seconds of black, and then the telltale opening of an old black-and-white Boris Karloff chestnut was flickering and popping on the huge screen. A cardboard cutout pyramid rotated toward the screen, and then the big ominous title dripped into view: THE MUMMY.

  “Not this again,” Okuda groaned.

  “Hush!” Miss Hecht trotted back to the sofa and settled in next to her boyfriend, and Okuda put his arm around her and shook his head as the old Tchaikovsky music warbled on the ancient soundtrack.

  They drank tequila and sucked on lemons and watched the musty old tale of a group of archaeologists from the British Museum who unearth an Egyptian mummy called Imhotep. Ignoring the warnings of occult experts, the scientists defy the alleged curse and break the seal on the infamous “scroll of Toth,” inadvertently reanimating the remains. The monster, played to the hilt by Karloff, shambles around the film in filthy shreds and baleful glares, terrifying everybody in his path.

  Okuda had seen the movie about a dozen times over the years, at Harvard, at work, at various parties. But this time, when the first big shock scene came on-screen, Michael Okuda got very quiet and watched. Maybe it was the dope working on him, or the exhaustion, or something else, but Okuda watched the part where Karloff first opens his eyes, and slowly unfolds his ragged arms, and all at once Okuda got the feeling he was on the verge of figuring out the Iceman’s tattoos.

  A mummy reaching down and gently, almost tenderly, running a petrified fingertip along an ancient scroll . . . insane laughter coming from somewhere offscreen.

  “Michael? Mikey—You okay?”

  Okuda snapped out of his momentary fugue state and stared at his girlfriend. “Yeah . . . I’m fine. I just have to make some notes.”

  The conversation that would forever be thought of in Grove’s mind as the first significant break in the Sun City case took place the following morning in a small conference room in the lower level of the Schleimann Building. The room, a musty confine of forgotten archives, appeared to be the repository of a decade’s worth of corporate detritus. Stacks of cardboard boxes rose to the ceiling on one side of the room, while reams of documents bound with rubber bands covered the oval laminate table in the center of the room.

  Throughout most of the conversation Zorn sat on a metal cadenza in the corner of the room, listening, while Grove circled the table like a restless predator circling its prey.

  A woman’s voice sizzled through the tiny housing of a conference speaker sitting precariously on a pile of manila folders: “Can I ask what this is in reference to?”

  “It’s in reference to the discovery of human remains on Mount Cairn a year ago—”

  “Oh God.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Shuffling noises on the other end. “For God’s sake, how many times do I have to go through this?”

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’re just, um, gathering information at this point.”

  “There’s no more information left to gather.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “I answered every question that annoying little detective could think of—what was his name?—Pinkham?”

  “Pinsky?” Grove offered.

  “That’s it. Jesus, I talked with that old Jew at least half a dozen times last year.”

  A glance between Grove and Zorn. “I apologize, Mrs. Ackerman, if some of this seems a little redundant.”

  A sigh. “Oh, for heaven’s sake call me Helen.”

  “Helen it is.”

  “Why are you people still torturing me?”

  Grove measured his words. “The truth is, Helen, there may be something we missed that day that might help us with another case.”

  “That stupid goddamn mummy has been the bane of my existence.”

  “I promise we’ll make this as painless as—”

  “What possible difference could it make to anyone what I was wearing at the time or what direction the wind was blowing or what I had for breakfast that morning?”

  “I know you’ve probably heard this before, but any detail no matter how minor might be helpful to us.”

  After a pause: “Go ahead and ask me your questions, get it over with, I got a Junior League meeting in an hour.”

  “We’ll make it quick, I promise.” Grove looked at his notes. “Now according to Detective Pinsky’s logs, you and your husband, Richard, were taking a hike when you stumbled across the Iceman?”

  Through the speaker: “For the umpteenth time, yes, we were out early because we wanted to make it to the summit before the afternoon showers rolled in because we had heard from the concierge at the resort that the sunrise was lovely but you had to hurry to get up and down before the rains came, so, yes, we were on our way up the trail when we found that hideous, disgusting frozen bag of bones.”

  Grove made a note, then glanced up at the speaker box. “Can I ask who saw it first?”

  After a moment: “What?”

  “The mummy, I’m wondering who saw it first that morning, you or your husband.”

  “Like I told the detective, Richard saw it first. At least I think he saw it. What difference does it make? When I finally saw what he was fooling with I thought it was a coat, like somebody had left a leather coat up there. But then I realized, who in their right mind would leave a gorgeous distressed leather garment up on the side of a mountain?”

  “So your husband saw the mummy first?”

  “What did I just say? Yes, for God’s sake, Richard saw the thing first.”

  Grove leaned closer to the speaker. “May I ask what you meant when you said you think he saw it?”

  An exasperated sound on the other end. “Here we go again. Okay, look, for the last time . . . I didn’t see a thing at first. All right? Richard tripped over something, and I looked, and there was nothing there. I swear to God there was nothing there. No stump, no rock, but Richard’s on his ass, and he’s staring at this empty trail.”

  A beat of silence.

  “Would it be possible for us to talk to Mr. Ackerman today as well?”

  Another pause. “Are you serious? Are you kidding me?”

  “Is there a problem?”

  A flinty laugh spewed out of the speaker. “Let’s see, is there a problem, let me think . . . um, yeah, I think you could definitely say there’s a problem with putting Richard on the phone today.”

  Another glance between Grove and Zorn. Finally Grove told the woman to go on.

  Through the speaker her voice sounded as taut as a high-tension wire. “If you two clowns did your homework you would know that my husband went out for a pack of cigarettes about a year ago and never came back.”

  Grove and Zorn looked at each other. Silence gripped the room.

  Grove’s pulse quickened.

  Maura sat alone at a corner table in the Mariott Courtyard’s crowded coffee shop, picking at a soggy BLT sandwich, absently going through her notes for an article that she was not sure she would ever publish, when she noticed a familiar figure out of the corner of her eye sweeping past the hostess stand, lugging along a suit bag and briefcase. Dressed in a smart Burberry overcoat, Ulysses Grove looked distracted and harried as he stood there for a moment, scanning the bustling restaurant. Maura felt a faint stirring in her chest when their gazes met. Grove’s eyes lit up as he came over to her.
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  “There she is,” he said, coming up to her table and giving her his warm, open face.

  “You leaving us?” she asked.

  “Yeah, um . . .” He nodded at her barely touched food. “I’m sorry to interrupt your lunch, but you mind walking with me for a second?”

  She closed her folder. “Not at all. I’d love to, I was done anyway.”

  They left the restaurant, then went out the closest exit into the raw wind of the Alaskan midday. Grove told her he was on his way to the cab stand, and Maura had to practically trot to keep up with him. They strode along a weathered boardwalk that wrapped around the front of the motel, quickly sidestepping slow-moving guests and bellhops laden with luggage carts. Grove explained that there had been a break in the case, and he was going to be flying to Illinois that afternoon with his associate, Special Agent Zorn, to conduct an interview, and he needed to ask Maura something before he pursued this particular lead. Maura said she would tell him whatever she knew.

  “These folks that discovered the Mount Cairn mummy,” he said, loping along.

  “Right.” Maura nodded, remembering the phone conversation she’d had last year with the wife. “What was their name? The Ackermans?”

  “Right . . . so, anyway, what I’m wondering is . . . you interviewed them for the article?”

  She nodded, hurrying to keep up. “Yes. The wife. I spoke to her briefly on the phone.”

  “Did you notice anything—you know—out of the ordinary? Strange?”

  “Strange?” Maura thought about it. “Not really. She was a little . . . how do I put it?”

  “Bitchy?”

  Maura grinned. “That’s the word I was looking for.”

  “Anything else?”

  Maura shrugged as she walked. “Not really. She just gave me a thumbnail of what they were doing when they stumbled upon the thing.”

  Grove nodded as they approached the circular drive in front of the courtyard. The cab stand was busy. Grove paused, waving at an airport van waiting for him at the bottom of the drive about twenty yards away. A man in a Stetson hat stood outside the van, leaning against its rear quarter panel, reading a newspaper, presumably also waiting for Grove. Maura assumed that the cowboy was the mysterious Agent Zorn with whom Grove had vanished a couple of days ago.

  “There’s something else I wanted to mention,” Grove said in a low, conspiratorial tone. He seemed exceedingly distracted, anxious.

  “Sure, go ahead.” Maura waited in the wind.

  “You’re cold, we’ll talk about it later.”

  “No, please—go ahead.”

  He rubbed his chin nervously. “I’m not good at this kind of stuff.”

  “Just say it. Anything. It’s okay.”

  He looked at her. “I lost my wife to cancer four years ago, and not a day goes by I don’t think about it.”

  “Oh my God, I’m sorry.” Maura’s brain suddenly flooded with contrary emotions. “I’m so sorry.”

  “The thing of it is, I need to get on with my life. Hannah would have kicked my ass, would have wanted me to do just that.”

  Maura had no idea where this was going. “She would have been right, too.”

  “The thing is, what I wanted to ask you is, after all this is over . . . if you might want to—I don’t know—go have some coffee or something.”

  Maura was nodding like crazy. “Absolutely, yeah . . . coffee would be nice.”

  “Excellent, excellent,” he said, awkwardly backing away from her as though he might trip over his own feet. “I’ll be in touch, take care!”

  He turned and made his way down the walk to the waiting van, and Maura watched, her eyes stinging from the wind and unexpected emotion welling up inside her.

  8

  Ghost in a Three-piece Suit

  “Should be up here on the left.” Grove glanced up from his MapQuest directions and studied the tasteful split-rail fencing running along the road. They had just made the fifteen-mile journey from O’Hare International Airport through a violent spring storm, but now the rains had lifted and the night had become crystalline and shiny.

  “I’m in the wrong goddamn business,” Zorn offered as he pulled the sedan over to the curb in front of 2233 N. Linden Avenue.

  They found themselves in a world of graceful Victorians and old manicured trees. Gaslights dotted the parkways. Raindrops pinged off copper gutters. Everything had the patina of old money.

  The Ackerman house was a massive Queen Anne with a wraparound screened porch and more roof pitches on it than an eighteenth-century hotel. Most of the shades were drawn. Gaslights burned along the cobblestone walk. Grove and Zorn put on their suit jackets before climbing out of the car, Zorn clamping his cowboy hat down over his gleaming pate. They traversed the vast lawn in silence, ultimately ascending the wide steps to the huge oak front door.

  The bell sounded like something from the belfry at St. Mary’s Cathedral.

  “Yessuh?” A plump black woman in a pale blue uniform peered out at them from behind the enormous door. “Help you with something?”

  Grove introduced himself and his partner, then told the maid they were here to see Mrs. Ackerman.

  “She expecting y’all?”

  “I believe she is, yeah,” Grove said with a smile.

  The housekeeper let them in, then told them it would be just a minute.

  The two men waited in the spacious foyer as the maid vanished within the depths of the first floor. Grove glanced around at the mansion’s interior, marveling at the burnished quality of the place, the rich furnishings. The air had that museum-quality odor that old mansions get—a mixture of must, wood, oil, and rich spices. A gigantic hardwood staircase dominated the entryway, sweeping down from the second-floor gallery. Grove could just imagine Helen Ackerman coming down those stairs during a party in her Versace or Donna Karan like a general about to survey her troops.

  Grove knew this area—Wilmette, Illinois—from his childhood.

  He had grown up ten miles to the south, in a much seedier part of Chicago known as Uptown. Uptown kids never came this far north. Uptown kids played street hockey in litter-strewn alleys and joined gangs and grew up hard and mean. The ones that didn’t end up in jail usually became factory rats or city workers. Once in a great while they might join the military, and maybe even go to college on the GI bill. And maybe, just maybe, once every million years or so, an Uptown kid might make it all the way to the top slot at the FBI’s Behavior Science Unit.

  The murmur of a voice could be heard from somewhere within the house, perhaps the housekeeper summoning her mistress on an intercom. Grove thought of his mother, who was roughly the maid’s same age, and certainly from the same socioeconomic rung. Vida Grove still lived just south of there. In fact, she was down there at this very moment, somewhere in the canyons of condos and tenements along Lawrence Avenue, huddling in that same stuffy little apartment in which Grove had spent his formative years. She was probably busily making some kind of hideous African stew on that ancient potbellied stove. Grove remembered warming his hands over the embers of that stove on cold winter mornings. He remembered the cold wafting up the back of those awful hand-dyed dashikis she used to make him wear to school. Over the years Grove had successfully blocked all that out of his conscious memory. He had completely excised it from his life, and that was why he was perfectly comfortable with visiting the Chicago area on business and not even considering calling his mother.

  “I hope we can get this over with in a hurry,” said a voice from across the vestibule.

  The men turned and saw Helen Ackerman standing at the base of the staircase in a cranberry velour warm-up suit and a scarf tied around her graying head. She couldn’t have been more than five feet tall, but she had a regal sort of bearing with her patrician nose and eyes gleaming like black cinders. Her bracelets jangled as she moved. “I’ve got a Pilates class tonight at the civic center that I cannot miss,” she added as she approached the two fellows dripping on her foyer
floor.

  “Appreciate you seeing us, Mrs Ackerman, on such short notice,” Grove said, offering his hand. “Special Agent Ulysses Grove.”

  Helen Ackerman’s hand was bony and cold. “Interesting name,” she said as she shook Grove’s hand. “Ulysses . . . what is that, Greek?”

  Grove smiled. “We’re not sure what it is.” He indicated Zorn. “This is Special Agent Zorn.”

  Zorn took off his hat, gave her a smile, and shook her hand. “Terry Zorn, ma’am, it’s a pleasure.”

  “I suppose we might as well sit down,” she said with a pained sort of surrender, then called over her shoulder to the housekeeper, “Alice! Coffee, please! In the sunroom!”

  She led the two men through the richly appointed living room and into a breathtaking, glass-encased solarium situated off the rear of the house. A jungle of exotic plants perfumed the air. Rain ticked overhead on leaded windows. Helen Ackerman gestured toward a pair of armchairs, then flopped down on a wicker love seat near a cluster of fichus trees.

  “So . . . let’s see . . . you haven’t seen your husband since last April, is that right?” Zorn asked after the men had taken their seats across from her. The Texan had his hat cocked casually on his knee.

  Grove inwardly cringed at Zorn’s bluntness. Grove thought they should finesse the information out of the woman, but Zorn thought they should get a little tough with her, maybe do the good-cop/bad-cop thing. The two men had argued about the approach all the way in from the airport.

  “That’s right,” she said with a furtive nod. “And good riddance, if you want to know the truth.”

  Zorn looked at her. “You and your husband were having marital problems?”

  “That’s putting it mildly.”

  Grove chimed in: “If this is getting a little too personal, stop us . . . but could you tell us the nature of the problems?”

  The woman ruefully pursed her lips. “My husband didn’t exist.”

  “Excuse me?”