Broken Ice--A Novel

by Matt Goldman

  The band might have been local or might have come from Duluth or Grand Rapids or some other tiny cold city. Drums, two guitars, and a bass, squished onto a tiny stage, all twentysomething guys except for the twentysomething woman on bass. They wore thrift shop clothes. The rhythm guitar player parked his head under a fedora. The lead guitar wore a winter hat, Day-Glo, deer hunter orange. The woman bass player wore a T-shirt with ripped-off sleeves. She showed a sliver of side-boob, and no one, I’m sure, complained about that. All four of them failed to play David Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold the World.”

  I looked up. Dollar bills crowded the ceiling like a leafy canopy. Some had dropped their quarters. Others had not.

  “It takes some practice to stick ’em up there good,” said a voice. I looked to my left and saw Mike and Connie Housh sitting on the same side of a green vinyl booth, a couple bottles of Bud Light on the table. Mike’s corn silk blond bangs had been freshly chopped an inch above his eyebrows, giving him a juvenile air. Connie wore a more subtle shade of blue eye shadow, or maybe it just looked subtle in the bar light.

  Connie said, “We heard about what happened outside the cave. Some people are saying you almost died. Kind of surprised to see you walk right in here like nothing happened.” She took a swig of Bud Light and got that sad look people get when realizing their bottle is nearly empty.

  “You mind if I grab a beer and join you?”

  Mike said, “Go ahead. Just passing the time before we bury our daughter tomorrow.”

  I couldn’t tell if he was being honest or sarcastic. “A couple fresh ones?”

  Connie lifted her beer bottle and said, “Yeah. That’d be nice.”

  I went to the bar and returned with a Moose Drool and two cold Bud Lights. I sat across from the Houshes’ sunken faces.

  I said, “This place have food?”

  “No,” said Craig, “but the pizza place down the street delivers.”

  “So Craig’s Bar and Grill is really just Craig’s Bar?”

  “Yep.”

  “Would you like a pizza?”

  “Well,” said Connie, “we figured we’d just drink our dinner tonight. It’s not the right thing to do, I know, but it takes the edge off. Trying to get through the hours, you know.”

  I ordered a pizza from the number on a cardboard table tent then filled in the Houshes on what I’d been up to since I’d seen them Wednesday morning. Mike said he felt pretty bad for the Haas woman, but Roger getting it seemed fair. Connie asked if I thought the same person who shot me, shot Winnie and Roger. I said that was likely.

  “This world,” said Connie. “I just don’t know. Maybe it’s always seemed like it’s falling apart. I just don’t know. Maybe Haley was lucky.” She forced a hopeful smile toward Mike. He didn’t return it. Connie’s faded into nothing. The band finished “Losing My Religion.” The singer said something about the mild spring as a segue into “Good Vibrations.” They were out of tune from note one.

  “You know anything about what happened to our Haley?” said Mike.

  “A little. I don’t know where she went after the game or how she ended up in that cave. I have a feeling when I find Linnea I’ll learn more.” Mike and Connie shared sour expressions. “Did you know they drove down to the Cities together on weekends?”

  “Of course we did,” said Connie. “Haley had an internship on Saturdays at the public radio station down there. They put her up in a hotel and everything.”

  I let Connie hear her own words as the band’s atonal harmonies filled the space.

  Mike said, “Are you saying she didn’t have an internship?”

  “To the best of my knowledge she didn’t.”

  Connie said, “Then what was she doing?”

  “I’m working on that. I do know Haley and Linnea split up once they got down there. It was more of a carpooling situation than anything else. Haley spent most of her time with Ben Haas. She stayed at his house. It seems Linnea had a boyfriend or maybe just a friend down there, too. But Linnea and Haley were more connected than people thought. Even if it was just for the drive. That’s six hours each way. Tough to spend that much time with someone in a confined space and not get to know each other pretty well.”

  Mike said, “You really think if you find Linnea you’ll learn more about Haley?”

  “There’s a good chance.”

  Mike rotated his beer bottle on the table. He looked up long enough for me to see the beer had done its job—his blue eyes couldn’t focus on any one thing. Then he looked back down at his bottle and said, “Half the town will be at Haley’s funeral tomorrow. They’ve sent a lot of hot dish and cookies and cakes to the house. Don Lindgren, he’s my foreman at Marvin, he told me to take as much time as I need, all paid, of course. That’s what Warroad people do. Support each other.

  “Everyone says they’re so sorry and that they’re praying for me and Connie and the kids and Haley. They say it’s a shame, and that Haley was such a pretty girl. But you know what I haven’t heard? No one person has said Haley was nice. Was kind. Was good. Nobody says her death was a tragedy. Or even that she’ll be missed. Terrible thing it is, to lose a child, they say. But I haven’t heard one nice thing about Haley other than she was a pretty girl.”

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, but I didn’t look at it.

  Mike took another swig of beer. “You raise ’em right. You send ’em to church. Make sure they do their homework. Teach ’em how to fish and skate when they’re two. Get ’em up in the deer stand when they’re eight. Show ’em all that’s good in life. But I’ll tell you this: kids are who they are the moment they’re born. We had four of ’em. Now we got three. And you know what people say about the other three? They’re such nice kids. Good people. Hope my little so-and-so grows up to be like your Robbie or Cate or Mike Jr. Not with Haley, though. She was born with a road map and that’s the route she followed and it led her straight into that cave.”

  Connie put her arm around Mike and pulled him into her. The band finished “Good Vibrations” then went straight into “Pump It Up.” There is nothing worse than terrible musicians with good taste in music.

  The door opened. A girl in a red windbreaker and trucker’s hat entered carrying pizza in an insulated sleeve. I gave her a twenty and told her to keep it. The Houshes looked at the pizza as if it were the first food they’d seen in days. It wasn’t, of course. Their fridge and countertops were full, thanks to the town that takes care of its own. They reached for their first slice. I glanced at the text on my phone.

  Mel Rosenthal: Came up to Warroad to get some things for Anne. Don’t know if you’re here yet, but I found something you should see.

  Me: Text me the address. Be there in 10.

  The band butchered Radiohead’s “Creep,” and I left the Houshes with their pizza and two new Bud Lights and an assurance from the bartender that they’d get a ride home. I stood on the sidewalk and texted Char Northagen: Check with your ex at the DNR. Does Mike Housh have a bow-hunting license?

  Google Maps said Mel Rosenthal was 1.2 miles away, just south of the river and west of Highway 11. I got in the Volvo, started the engine, and for the second time in a week, noticed a breeze where a breeze shouldn’t have been. I turned to look at where the rear passenger window used to be, but my head stopped when hitting something hard and cold.

  “Just fucking drive.”

  28

  Coach Gary Kozjek pressed a pistol against my temple. I closed my eyes then opened them. “I’m not comfortable driving right now.”

  “You want a bullet in your head?”

  “Do I really have a choice?”

  “Shut up and drive.”

  I didn’t want to die, but I wasn’t going to make it easy for him.

  “Sorry, Coach. The last thing I’m going to do is take us to a remote location. Not that downtown Warroad is hopping, but if you’re going shoot me, you’ll have do it here. And you do not want me to drive, because if I do I’m going to take this car up to a
hundred miles an hour ’til a cop chases us or I kill us both.”

  “You fucking asshole. Don’t make this uglier than it has to be.”

  “I’m opening my door and getting out of the car. That’ll be your chance to—” Pain shot through my left shoulder. It took my breath. And my sight.

  * * *

  I woke on a floor that smelled of pine and dirt. My eyes opened to candlelight. I lay on my back, my hands bound before me looking at an open-raftered ceiling of rough-hewn beams. I wriggled my wrists. The hair pulled. Tape. I tried my legs, but they were bound at the ankles. I tried to sit up but fell onto my back.

  “Jesus Christ, Shapiro, I barely touched you.” I heard footsteps then felt his hands under my arms.

  “No, no! Just the right shoulder.” Gary Kozjek got on his knees and pushed me up onto my feet. I struggled to find my balance. Kozy braced me while grabbing a chair and swinging it behind my legs.

  He said, “Sit.”

  I sat. I was in a small, rustic log cabin. Paper bags filled with groceries from Doug’s Supermarket filled a simple, wooden dining table. Nothing but black outside the windows. Kozjek walked to the table and faced me.

  I said, “What happened?”

  “You said you were going to get out of the car, so I grabbed your left shoulder. Forgot about your injury. Must have hurt like hell. You passed out.”

  “You didn’t pistol-whip me?”

  “I didn’t have to.”

  “Guess I’ll put that back on my bucket list.”

  “Don’t worry. There’s still time.” He reached behind his back and removed the gun from his belt. It was a black Glock, but that’s all I could tell. He looked at it in the faint light then set it on the table. The cabin was so goddamn quiet the gun landed with a thud.

  “Where are we?”

  “Some asshole’s hunting cabin just south of the border, not far from the bay.”

  “Did you have to use hockey tape? It’s going to rip all the hair off my wrists. Good chance I’ll faint again.”

  Kozy leaned on the table. Not even a hint of a smile. “It’s not coming off anytime soon.”

  “That’s disappointing.”

  He leaned down and put his face near mine. His scars gleamed in the candlelight. “Why do the cops want me?”

  “You know the answer, otherwise you wouldn’t have run.”

  “I don’t know the answer,” he said, walking back toward the table. “But I saw ’em during the game. I could hear their fucking walkie-talkies behind the bench. I’m not an idiot. Two girls from Warroad disappear. One shows up dead. The other’s still missing. They must think I had something to do with it.”

  “Did you have anything to do with it?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Then why’d you run?”

  He lifted the gun from the table and let it rest on its side in the palm of his hand, as if he were trying to guess its weight. “Can you get ’em off my ass?”

  “Depends. You like to shoot people with arrows?”

  He looked up. The candle revealed deep creases across his forehead. “I was coaching the state tournament. I didn’t have time to take a shit much less shoot anyone.”

  “That’s not what the cops think.”

  “You’re going to help prove I didn’t do it.”

  “I can help you put together a timeline of your whereabouts. You should have solid alibis.”

  He looked out the window at the black night. “Yeah, well I got a problem there.” He just stared out the window. After a long hunk of quiet he said, “I didn’t have anything to do with Haley Housh’s death, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t have anything to do with Haley Housh.” He fogged the black window with his breath, lifted his finger toward the condensation but thought better of it, and lowered his hand. “For two hundred bucks, I got an hour with Haley to do whatever I wanted. Two hundred bucks is nothing. Nineteen years in the NHL and now I’m living in a town where a few hundred thousand dollars buys a big, beautiful house.”

  “So you’ve got no alibi for right after the game.”

  “I did. But she’s dead. If I tell that to the police, I’ll never coach again. Doesn’t matter how big of a star I am in Warroad. They wouldn’t tolerate that.”

  “Better to lose your job than go to jail.”

  “You know, it’s just a habit I can’t break. Sex on the road.” He walked away from the window, leaned on the table and faced me. “Nineteen years in the NHL. Never got married. Every town I played in, there’d be women hanging around after the game. When I was young, they were young. When I got a little older, they were young. When I was the oldest skater on the ice, they were still young. Never had to give that up.

  “Haley started working me when she was seventeen. I told her to get lost. But I couldn’t get her out of my head. She came back to me after turning eighteen. I said if the time and place ever presented itself, I might take her up on her offer. It happened a few months ago when her family went duck hunting. Haley stayed behind and, well, it just took once and I couldn’t stop.”

  “When was that?”

  “Let’s see.” He looked up, as if the answer was written on the ceiling. “I think it was October.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Halloween decorations were up, so pretty sure.”

  “Where did you and Haley rendezvous after the game on Tuesday?”

  “I had a second hotel room at The Wabasha. I paid for it myself. If anyone found out about it, I’d tell them I couldn’t sleep in my suite because assistants used it to scout video late at night, which was pretty much true. The room was on a floor Haley and I could both access via the stairs. It was a little risky, but that was part of the fun. Haley left the game early and headed back to the room when no one else was around. I met her in there about 10:00.”

  “And where’d she go after that?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she had another job.”

  “There were others?”

  “Oh, yeah. Paying customers. And just boyfriends. Graham was one of them. Then she had that boy in Woodbury.”

  “Ben Haas?”

  “Yeah. That’s the one. She was worried he’d find out what she was doing because he was possessive.”

  “Graham Peters said something like that, too. But when I asked Ben about it, he said their relationship was just about sex.”

  “Well, one of ’em was lying. Or maybe it was Haley.” Kozy ran his fingers through his short, thinning hair. “So the police obviously know I was sleeping with Haley.”

  “Actually, I don’t think they do.”

  “Then why the hell are they after me?”

  “They found your fingerprint on the arrowhead that struck my shoulder.”

  “You got to be shitting me!” Kozjek’s face looked just like it had when Luca Lüdorf got boarded by the Wayzata player and the refs didn’t call a penalty. Intense outrage. Nothing fake about it. Only problem was I couldn’t tell who he was mad at—me, someone else, or himself. “That’s bullshit! The fingerprint’s impossible!”

  “No, it’s not. You could have thought you were being careful but accidentally touched it once. Or it could have been faked. Do you know anyone who’d want to set you up?”

  “No. Not everyone loves me, but I don’t know anyone who hates me enough to frame me for murder.”

  “Anyone know you were sleeping with Haley? Anyone in her family? Maybe Ben Haas?”

  Kozy hesitated then said, “I don’t think so, although you never know. She wouldn’t have been the first woman to brag about sleeping with me.” He walked over to a small pack in the corner and pulled out a beer. “Want one?”

  “Yes, please.” Gary Kozjek twisted the cap off a beer I hadn’t heard of and handed it to my taped hands. I had to hold it like a chipmunk. “Mind cutting this tape off?”

  “Yeah, I do mind. I got a few more questions for you. You used to be a cop, right?”

  “If you knew that, why’d you act like you didn’t
know me when we first met in St. Paul?”

  “I didn’t want you nosing around, so I was trying to make you feel uncomfortable.” He picked up a beer for himself and opened it. “What I want to know is, how much trouble can I get in?”

  “A lot if you kill or killed anyone. But first offense paying for sex, not much. It’s the public shaming that’ll cause the most damage.”

  “How do I prove I didn’t kill anyone?”

  The long, high-pitched howl of a wolf penetrated the cabin. I hadn’t been this far north since the state had made it illegal to kill wolves except in defense of human life. There were over 2,500 of them roaming Northern Minnesota. I thought of Linnea and Miguel trying to evade border patrol in the wilderness. Maybe they’d succeed. But evading a circling pack of wolves was a different challenge.

  “You can’t prove you’re innocent. You’re the last known person to see Haley alive. And as far as the arrow murders go, even if you have an alibi, you could have hired someone to do it. That’s what the D.A. will argue, anyway.”

  “Fuck.”

  “You know that old saying, you can’t prove a negative? Let me find Linnea Engstrom. Let me find whoever shot me and killed Roger Engstrom and Winnie Haas. That’s your only chance.” Kozy took a long swig of beer and looked at me with cold eyes. “If you’re innocent, Kozy, but don’t let me go, you’ll be an innocent man making yourself guilty.”

  He set down the beer and picked up the gun. He ejected the magazine, looked at it, then reinserted it. “I didn’t do it. How could my fingerprint end up on that arrowhead?”

  “If I were going to fake a fingerprint, I’d find one on a clean, glass surface like that beer bottle. I’d photograph it with a high-resolution camera and print it in silicone on a 3-D printer. I’d press the silicone fingerprint on my nose or scalp to pick up some oil then press it on wherever I wanted it to appear. Just like a rubber stamp. It’s hardly a new idea. A ten-year-old could do it.”