Kat Wolfe on Thin Ice

by Lauren St. John

A red banner scrolled across the television screen. ALLEGED WISH LIST GANGSTER DENIES THEFT OF $50 MILLION NECKLACE.

  Brenda turned up the volume. “There he is now: King Rat. This is only the arraignment, mind you—a pretrial hearing. The real trial won’t happen for a couple of years.”

  A figure with a coat draped over his head was being helped from a prison van. The watching crowd surged forward, and he stumbled on the courthouse steps. Guards helped him up, virtually carrying him the rest of the way.

  Inside the courthouse, he was assisted into the dock. As the guards stepped back, Brenda gave an incredulous laugh: “That’s the ringleader? Let me guess—his other accomplices are a dozen red-nosed reindeer.”

  Kat giggled. “He does look a bit like an arthritic Father Christmas.”

  “Maybe he is,” joked Harper, “except he kept the best gifts for himself.”

  But all three stopped smiling when the defendant spoke in a low, querulous voice to confirm his name and age: Gerry Thomas Meeks, ninety-one. He gave his address as Shady Oaks Nursing Home, New Jersey. His face was creased with laughter lines, as if he’d once been jolly. Now it was haggard, and he tugged nervously at his white beard.

  “How do you plead, Mr. Meeks?” asked the magistrate judge.

  “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

  The prosecutor snorted in disbelief.

  The judge banged her gavel. “Any more of that and I’ll hold you in contempt, Mr. Talan. And while we’re on the subject, I hope you have a watertight case. Life is short, and so is my temper.”

  “Your Honor, we have a star witness who will prove beyond doubt that Gerry Meeks is a criminal mastermind who snatched the diamond necklace at the Royal Manhattan Hotel while security guards helped tackle a blaze across the street.”

  The prisoner looked more dejected than ever. As he was led away by guards, a tall woman with a sweep of dark hair whispered something to him.

  “That’s Rachel Scott,” Brenda told Kat and Harper. “She’s a big-shot defense attorney. Heaven knows why she’s representing Gerry Meeks and why she’s doing it pro bono. That means no win, no fee.”

  Reporters clamored around the lawyers as they emerged from the courthouse.

  “Who are Mr. Meeks’s accomplices?”

  “Will he name them?”

  “Will he reveal where he’s hidden the diamond necklace?”

  “Who’s the star witness?”

  Rachel Scott paused, crimson coat swinging. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is a clear case of mistaken identity. Mr. Meeks is a blameless senior who struggles to climb five steps. You saw that with your own eyes. The idea that he could mastermind a string of heists the length and breadth of the United States beggars belief.”

  “Save the speech, Rachel,” snapped Kasper Talan. “If he was so innocent, the judge wouldn’t have denied him bail. No, far from being a decrepit ninety-one-year-old with amnesia and bad knees, Gerry Meeks is as cunning as a fox. A resident at Shady Oaks recalls him winning at chess and doing yoga in his room. That’s how smart and limber he is.

  “Our star witness will reveal how Gerry Meeks slipped the jewels into his coat pocket, the very same pocket where detectives later found a copy of the wish list. He was so sure he’d get away with his crime that he’d had the audacity to check off number nine on the list: a diamond necklace.”

  “And where is that necklace now?” asked Rachel, cool as snow. “Do you have it? Do the cops have it? Oh, it’s still missing, is it? As I suspected, bungling detectives plan on scapegoating an innocent old man to cover up their own incompetence.”

  She turned with a cheery wave. “See you in court, Kasper T.”

  The news clip cut to a grinning TV anchor. “There you have it, folks. A wily fox or a blameless senior? Ringleader of the Wish List gang or a heartbreaking case of mistaken identity? We’ll keep you posted. In other news, New England residents batten down the hatches for ninety-mile-per-hour winds and possible snow as back-to-back weather systems, including a strong nor’easter, are set to arrive on—”

  Brenda muted him. “Whaddya think, girls? Guilty or innocent?”

  Kat glanced at Harper. “We believe that people are innocent until proven guilty.”

  “But if you had to guess?”

  “Innocent,” said Kat.

  “Guilty,” said Harper.

  Brenda nodded. “I’m with you, Harper. I’m not buying the sweet-old-grandpa act for a second. Nobody steals a fifty-million-dollar necklace unless they’re as sharp as a steak knife. Wonder where he’s stashed it.”

  Kat didn’t answer. She was staring at the screen. A weather forecast graphic showed a shape-shifting fireball spitting icy arrows as it barreled toward the northeast coast of the United States. “What is that?”

  “What’s what, hon? Oh, they’re predicting Snowmaggedon for New England. A polar vortex is sweeping south from Canada. Something to do with a low-pressure system tugging freezing air from the Arctic. But don’t worry. Up north in the Adirondacks, it’s going to be a perfect day.”

  RUBY RAIN

  “Oh, I do love a road trip,” said Dr. Wolfe as the highway hummed beneath their wheels. “There’s something so romantic about heading into the great unknown, especially when that unknown is a million-acre wilderness park. And we couldn’t have asked for more glorious weather.”

  “If only Dad was with us,” Harper said wistfully. “Thank goodness he’s found his passport, so he should be here tomorrow or the day after.”

  Kat was only half listening. Nose pressed to the window, she watched road signs flash by on Interstate 87, pointing the way to New York City, Albany, Saratoga, Troy, and—beyond the Adirondacks—Montreal, Canada.

  Everything was new and yet somehow familiar, as if she were in a Hollywood film come to life. A red barn against a bright blue sky. A black truck with monster tires and two dogs leaning out, tongues lolling. A milkshake drive-through. Lorries that Harper called semis carrying bread, eggs, and corn. Holstein dairy cows ambling home.

  Lining the highway were trees in shades of rust and green-yellow.

  “Are those the legendary fall colors?” asked Kat, who was less than impressed. Harper had told her that tourists came from across the globe on “leaf” holidays. To come so far and be met with trees that were no better than the ones in Bluebell Bay was a little disappointing.

  “Be patient!” teased Harper. “Wait till we get to the Adirondacks.”

  Patience was not one of Kat’s virtues. Not unless it involved animals, in which case she had all the patience in the world. Restless and fidgeting in the back seat, she willed the Chevrolet to do a quantum leap to the distant forest.

  For eleven years, Kat and her mum had lived in a cramped, fume-filled part of London, the streets noisy with honking, drilling, hammering, and bursts of music and arguing. It wasn’t until she moved to Bluebell Bay that she realized she needed nature the way she needed oxygen. The farther she got from cities, the better she liked it.

  Which was why her spirits had soared when Harper and her dad had invited the Wolfes to join them for a log cabin vacation in the wild heart of the Adirondack Park. Harper had grown up in the neighboring state of Connecticut, where her father had been a professor at Yale University. Now she had few connections to her hometown, so she hadn’t minded when her dad suggested they spend fall break in the Adirondack wilderness. He’d spent many happy summers there as a boy.

  For months, Kat had thought of little but Nightingale Lodge, which the cabin’s owner, Ross Ryan, described as a “haven of tranquility on the edge of a lake.” Even the park’s name, which she’d had difficulty getting her tongue around, conjured up images of campfires and shy deer peeking between pines: Ad-i-ron-dack.

  “It comes from a Native American term ha-de-ron-dah, meaning ‘bark-eater,’” explained Harper. “That’s what the Iroquois tribe used to call their rivals, the Algonquin. They didn’t think much of their hunting and berry-gathering skills. The Iroquois and Algonquin were the f
irst people of the Adirondacks back when it was one of the toughest places on earth to survive. The winters were long and brutal. Often there was still snow on the ground into May. The summers could be a nightmare too. The woods were crawling with hungry bears and bugs. Rattlesnakes too.”

  “Gosh, you’re really selling it to me,” Kat said wryly.

  Harper rolled her eyes. “Nowadays there’s heating and bug spray, and people know they need to lock down any food if they don’t want their cabin doors clawed off their hinges or their tents ripped open by scavenging bears. We have it easy.”

  Not everyone had it easy, Kat discovered, when they stopped for a rest break at the Inquiring Minds Bookstore in Saugerties, a quaint town in the Catskills. Cross-legged on the floor of the travel section, she pored over At the Mercy of the Mountains: True Stories of Survival and Tragedy in New York’s Adirondacks.

  “Your brain is your biggest asset…,” advised the author. “Those people that remain calm, don’t panic, and then logically reason out their situation are the ones who most often survive.”

  The cover showed a man signaling for help in a snowbound landscape.

  The sparkles in the snow reminded Kat of the diamond necklace. What would a ninety-one-year-old in a nursing home want with $50 million worth of jewels?

  Then again, why would a real thief plant the wish list on a “blameless senior”? It didn’t add up.

  “Good choice,” said a voice. “Forewarned is forearmed.”

  Kat jumped guiltily, as though she were the one with the wish list in her pocket. A mother cradling a sleeping baby and a copy of The Very Hungry Caterpillar was smiling at her and nodding at the book.

  Kat put it down. “Umm, er, have you visited the park?”

  The woman laughed. “I used to live there, so more times than there are lakes and ponds in the Adirondacks. There are close to three thousand of those. That’s not counting the thirty thousand miles of streams and brooks feeding twelve hundred rivers. And don’t get me started on the number of mountain ranges and wild animals. There are four thousand bears alone.”

  “Wow. That’s a lot of wilderness.”

  “Sure is. Three steps off the trail in the wrong direction can turn a stroll in the woods into a major search-and-rescue mission. Blink and a person’s gone. Now you see them; now you don’t.”

  Kat resolved never to stray so much as a millimeter from any trail. “How do the rescue crews find them?”

  “First, they try to pinpoint where they were when they vanished. That’s often the trickiest part. Those tasked with naming six million acres’ worth of ponds, peaks, roads, and rivers ran out of inspiration early on. For every Lake Tear of the Clouds or Train Wreck Point, there are nine Deer Creeks, two Mirror Lakes, and thirteen Bear Roads. When friends say, ‘Jack said something about hiking near Bear Road—dunno which one,’ that’s not real helpful.”

  “We’ve been hunting everywhere for you, Kat,” said Dr. Wolfe, rounding the shelves with Harper and three mugs of hot chocolate. “There are so many nooks and crannies in this glorious store that one literally could get lost in a book.”

  The woman smiled. “I do that all the time. More fun than getting lost in the woods.”

  Harper hooked her arm around Kat’s. “Come on, let’s go. The leaves are calling!”

  Kat hung back long enough to say to the woman with the baby, “Nice chatting to you.”

  “You too. Enjoy the beautiful Adirondacks. They say that once you’ve breathed the High Peaks’ air and felt the ruby rain on your skin, you’ll be forever changed.”

  CALL OF THE WILD

  After everything she’d read and heard, Kat expected to feel the earth shift on its axis when they crossed the border of Adirondack Park, but it wasn’t like that at all. Lake George, the first town they came to, was just as neat and picture-perfect as Bluebell Bay.

  Granted, she had never seen a stag sharpening its antlers on a mailbox before, but her seaside home had its fair share of exotic creatures. Seals and dolphins, for starters.

  And, Kat thought with a shudder, spies. Her early days as Bluebell Bay’s first pet sitter had not worked out the way she thought they might. Not at all. If she hadn’t met Harper and accidentally formed a detective agency, Wolfe & Lamb Incorporated, she wasn’t sure she’d have survived them.

  Judging by its tame appearance, Lake George was pleasingly spy-free, but Kat had learned the hard way that appearances could be deceptive. Perfect places often hid perfect crimes. If jewel thieves lurked in nursing homes, any crime was possible anywhere.

  “What’s ruby rain?” she asked Harper as the golf courses, burger joints, and water parks slipped away behind them.

  “You’ll know it when you see it” was her friend’s enigmatic reply.

  Kat was travel weary and fed up with waiting and seeing, but before she could say so, the sunlight caught a maple tree, transforming it into a living flame.

  Her breath caught in her throat. While she’d been lost in thought, suburbia had given way to forests with wildfire colors. White birch trees were crowned with gold, and groves of beech and oak with flaming orange.

  As the road twisted higher, the first crags poked above the trees. Red maples ablaze with hues of crimson, fuchsia, and vermilion turned every mountainside into nature’s most spectacular art gallery.

  “Now do you see about the leaves?” Harper asked with a smile.

  Awed, Kat could only nod.

  Wildness came into the car like smoke. It was in the clean, sharp air, in the secret silver inlets, and in the talons of the rough-legged hawk that swooped past their windshield to snatch a bloody scrap of roadkill from the asphalt.

  Dr. Wolfe stamped on the brakes to avoid it. Barred feathers strained in its wings as it powered away, amber eyes gleaming with triumph.

  They stopped for a late lunch in Ticonderoga, a tiny hamlet with the atmosphere of a frontier town in a Western. As they parked beside the lake, two trucks and a Harley-Davidson biker sped off, loaded up with firewood, bottled water, and provisions.

  “Wonder what’s going on,” said Dr. Wolfe. “It’s as if they’re preparing for a siege.”

  Hardly had she spoken when the door of the general store slammed with a jangle and the open sign flipped to shut. A bundle of newspapers was marooned outside. One headline caught the girls’ eye. TOP SECRET WITNESS HOLDS KEY TO WISH LIST CASE.

  “Must be someone mega famous,” mused Harper.

  “Or royal,” suggested Kat.

  The proprietor of the Full-Belly Deli was on a ladder, boarding up the windows.

  “Any chance of a meal?” asked Dr. Wolfe.

  “Soup and crackers is the best I can do. We’re shutting early today on account of the weather.”

  “The weather? But there’s not a cloud in the sky.”

  The chef slid down the ladder and exchanged his hammer for an apron and ladle. “Around here, that can change in a heartbeat. Since yesterday the birds have been acting strange. Not singing; leaving in flocks. The woodsmen are predicting a nor’easter storm the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. Blizzards and gales. The whole kit and caboodle.”

  “That’s not what the weather app is forecasting,” said Dr. Wolfe, smiling.

  He gave her a hard stare. “When it comes to the weather, I’d trust an Adirondack local over the app on my phone any day.”

  Seeing their disbelieving faces, he warmed to his theme inside the dimly lit diner. Halloween pumpkins lined the windows.

  “You ain’t experienced winter till you’ve lived through winter in the Adirondacks. At home, we have a rope stretching from the house to the barn, like the early settlers did. Least we know we ain’t gonna die of exposure if we get lost in a snowstorm tending to the horses.”

  Harper was skeptical. “Lost in your own backyard? But never in October, right?”

  “You’d better believe it can happen in October.”

  The sun was still shining when they drove away with bellies full of
delicious tomato soup, three blankets—“just in case”—and a sketch directing them to the best leaf-viewing road through the backwoods.

  “It’s pretty as a picture, but don’t linger,” warned the chef. “You wanna be tucked up in your cabin by nightfall.”

  * * *

  They had every intention of being in their cabin by nightfall, but it was near impossible not to linger. The track was a pale ribbon of dirt winding through the flame-leaved forests, empty apart from the occasional hiker or lone vehicle.

  Each turning they took was more breathtaking than the last. Dr. Wolfe and Harper kept hopping out of the car to take photos. Kat took the opportunity to peer between the pines, hoping to spot deer or moose.

  She was curious too about the human forest dwellers. They were few and far between. She’d seen some idyllic log cabins in sunlit glades and others with moss-covered rocking chairs on the porch and rusting cars in the yard.

  Now, though, there was only forest.

  “How much longer till we reach our cabin?” she asked plaintively as they stopped for yet more leaf pictures. “I need the bathroom.”

  Her mum sighed. “Why didn’t you go when we stopped at the gas station?”

  “Didn’t need it then. Now I do.”

  They were in luck. Around the very next bend was a nature-viewing area, with an arrow indicating a compost toilet in the woods.

  The cubicle was occupied. As Kat sat on a fallen tree to wait, an SUV grumbled into the parking lot.

  Through the foliage, she watched a tall man, a stocky woman, and a girl of about her own age get out of the vehicle. On the road, a police squad car rolled by.

  “Goodness, it’s like Piccadilly Circus in the wilderness,” said Dr. Wolfe. “Kat, Harper and I will be right over there taking photos of the lake. You’ll be able to see us. Yell if you spot a bobcat on the prowl. We’ll come running.”

  She and Harper headed down to the water’s edge with their cameras, comparing notes on film and shutter speeds.

  Shortly afterward, the woman and girl came up the path, the former saying peevishly, “I asked if you needed the restroom when we were at the gas station and you were adamant you didn’t.”