Ice Cream Corpse

by Stacey Alabaster

  We caught up with the group right at the tail end, just in time to get the few free samples that were left. By the time, we arrived all the good flavors had been finished off, and Athena ended up passing me a little spoon of lime gelato. I scrunched up my nose, never having been a big fan of citrus-flavored desserts. I preferred the creamy flavors like chocolate and coffee, but it was surprisingly delicious. And refreshing. Maybe we could add sorbets to the order.

  “So,” Athena asked, looking at Pippa and I with a beaming smile. “Have I convinced you ladies to stock our ice creams and gelatos?”

  I paused for a second while Pippa opened her eyes wide, nodding eagerly at me, willing me to say yes.

  “Yes,” I said, making the decision. “Okay, you’ve won me over. But no goat cheese flavor. I’ve made a list of the flavors we want,” I said, pulling out my phone where I had made the notes.

  “Awesome!” Athena exclaimed. She leaned over and looked at my list, nodding. “We can get you sorted with all of these, no problem.”

  Well, there was one little problem, actually. “But we’re going to need somewhere to display the products,” I said, a little unsurely.

  “Oh, don’t worry,” Athena said, clasping her hands together. “We’ve got display freezers that we rent out to shops. We keep them all cool so they’re ready to go. They are free if you order a minimum amount of product per month. Come along, ladies, I will show you the way!”

  The rest of the tour group finished their samples and stepped back outside into the heat while we were taken to a different part of the factory, through a heavy door and down a dimly lit hallway.

  “I wonder how much a minimum is,” I whispered to Pippa as Athena led us down a long, dark corridor. This part of the ice cream factory didn’t seem as colorful or welcoming as the rest of the factory…in fact, it was kind of creepy.

  Athena told us to wait for a moment while she entered a freezing cold room. I was shivering as we waited. “There’s no way we’ll make the minimum order every month. We’re a small bakery, Pippa,” I said. “If the price is too high, I’ll have to change my decision.”

  “I’m sorry,” Athena said, returning. “We’re running low on our display freezers. All our new ones are rented out at the moment. We’ll have to go deep into storage to find some of our old models.” She must have caught the look on my face. “Don’t worry, they work just as well. They are just a little bulkier, a little less modern looking.” She shot us a nervous smile. “I’m afraid we’ll have to go downstairs, though.” She paused before ‘downstairs’ and said the word like it was a forbidden place.

  I paused at the top of the steel staircase and looked down. It was circular and winding, the kind of place that a serial killer lures you to before you die. I was no longer feeling confident about our decision. About any of this.

  Athena explained that the room at the bottom was kept at below freezing temperature because it contained the vats of ice cream, and that the old model display freezers were stored there as well.

  “I-I’m not sure…” I said.

  “Tell you what,” Athena said. “Seeing as you’ll have to use the older model, I’ll let you rent it for free, no catches. No minimum order per month. How does that sound?”

  “Come on,” Pippa urged me. “We came all this way. This does sound like a pretty good deal. And think about all the ice cream we’ll get to eat! I mean, sell.”

  I sighed, heavily, and my breath made a little puff of what looked like smoke in the chilly air. “All right,” I said. “Let’s just get on with it then.”

  I gripped the railing of the circular steel staircase and made my way down, wondering how I got myself into these kinds of situations. The answer was almost always because I had listened to Pippa and one of her schemes.

  “Is it just me, or is it freezing cold in here?” I asked Pippa, the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

  “Well, we are right next to a batch of industrial-sized freezers,” Pippa said. “That might have something to do with it.”

  I shook my head and paused, shivering. “I’m not sure that’s it. I don’t have a good feeling about this, Pippa.”

  She gave me a little shove to get me walking again and I almost lost my footing on the stairs.

  “Pippa!”

  “Sorry! Come on. If you’re feeling creeped out, let’s just get this over with.”

  Athena was already at the bottom of the staircase, with one foot already inside the large concrete room that was below freezing, and apparently contained all the freezers. I shivered again and tried to rub my arms to stay warm. Suddenly a t-shirt and cut-offs were making me feel way too underdressed.

  “Here we go,” Athena said, sticking her head into the cold, dark room while Pippa and I stood back. Athena had to get her phone out and use the flashlight to look around. “Whoops, looks like the light bulbs have all gone out in here.”

  I remained two steps back the whole time, unwilling to brave the cold, dark, forbidding room that Athena was about to go inside. “If you’ll just wait here for a moment,” Athena said, stepping in. “I’ll be back with one of our old model display freezers.”

  I crossed my arms and shot Pippa a look. “I wonder how much cleaning one of these old freezers is going to take,” I said. “It will probably be filled with mold and old insects.”

  Pippa shrugged. “Maybe they will do it for us. They’re not going to deliver a dirty old freezer, are they?”

  I wasn’t sure.

  Athena returned, struggling to push one of the old display freezers out of storage. It was white—or had been once—and still had the Pure Gelatosphere logo on it. She had to use all of her strength to push it through the door. This did not bode well.

  Athena straightened up, a little short of breath. “Wow, I guess I forgot how heavy these older models are!” She dusted her hands off. “The newer models are far sleeker.” She must have seen how I was staring at her. “Don’t worry, we’ll upgrade you as soon as one of the new models is returned. And we’ll have someone to install this one, so that you won’t have to move it yourself. Phew.” She leaned back against the freezer and steadied herself. “I’m gonna have to get someone to help me get it into the industrial lift.” She nodded at us. “I just wanted to show it to you ladies, made sure we had one!” There was sweat on her brow. “You can leave it to me now! I’ll have it delivered to you within three business days.”

  I was about to head back to the staircase when I stopped. Three business days? That was far too long. “But the heat wave might be over by then,” I said. “We were hoping to have the freezer today. Tomorrow at the latest.”

  Athena looked back over her shoulder at the freezer. “We’ll need to get it properly cleaned. That might take a few days.”

  I stomped back over to the freezer. Athena jumped off it to get out of my way. “Oh, how bad can it be?” I asked, pulling up the lid to take a look.

  That was when I stopped.

  It was pretty bad, as it turned out.

  And there had been a good reason Athena had struggled to push it.

  There was a dead body in the freezer.

  A young man, frozen.

  I turned back to Pippa. “I think this one is going to take longer than three business days.”

  Chapter 3

  For once, I was grateful to be out in the sun. The heat took a few minutes to settle and to warm me through; my very bones were chilled after the discovery.

  We were standing a few hundred feet back from the factory, almost back in the woods, while we waited for the police to arrive. I couldn’t figure it out. Had that young man just been on a tour, maybe, and stumbled into the display freezer and gotten locked inside? That didn’t seem likely. It looked more like cold—very cold—blooded murder. Someone had killed that young man and stuffed his body into the freezer.

  But how long had the body been there?

  And who had put it there?

  Pippa shook her head. “Just our luck. Why
couldn’t one of the new freezers have been in stock?” She crossed her arms and leaned against a tree while the blue lights of the police car approached in the distance. I wasn’t looking forward to their arrival.

  “Pippa! That’s not really the point, is it?”

  “Well, we’re still going to need to find a place to stock our ice cream,” she said flatly. “We’ve already filled out our order forms.”

  I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure those will be cancelled.”

  “I don’t see why we need to suffer just because someone else did.”

  “We need to go back inside,” I said decisively. “Before the police get here. After that, we won’t get a chance. We need to go back down into the belly of the factory. We need to go back into the freezer.”

  The sirens were getting closer so I began to run. The lobby of the factory was empty and there was no sign of Athena. I remembered the way so I headed for the dark corridor. The scary staircase wouldn’t take long to reach if I kept running.

  “I thought you said that place creeped you out?” Pippa said, running after me.

  “And with good reason!” I called out. “But we can’t leave now.” Not without finding out what was going on.

  It was dark, but I found the railing of the staircase and gripped it while I made my way down. I was hoping we’d be alone by the time we reached the bottom.

  I saw a figure standing there and slowed down. I quietly hushed Pippa.

  Shoot. Not alone, then. At least we would have a chance to ask a few questions before the police detectives arrived. I knew that if they—well, one of them in particular—saw that Pippa and I were there, they’d take it as being very suspicious. We always seemed to be hanging around when dead bodies were found. It was Detective Jackson Whitaker that I most wanted to avoid. I was glad that we’d parked the car around the side of the factory. If he headed straight inside, he wouldn’t even spot it.

  Athena was white by the time we arrived back in the underground cellar of the ice cream factory.

  “Did you know that man?” I asked her.

  She spun around in shock. Clearly, she hadn’t been expecting us back. I had to assume she was the one who called the cops, though. I could hear the screech of tires overhead and car doors slamming. We didn’t have long to ask her questions before they arrived and took over.

  Athena shook her head. “No… No, I don’t think so.” She was on the verge of tears, her bottom lip shaking. She stared at the display freezer like it had betrayed her. “I don’t exactly want to go back for a second look to make sure.”

  I stormed over to the freezer myself. I didn’t have the same hesitations. I’d rather take a second look and be sure. What if I recognized him?

  It was kind of hard to make out the body, let alone the face. It was a young man, but he had been frozen in place for goodness only knew how long. His face was icy and warped from the frost.

  “He’s young,” I called out to Athena, who was still refusing to turn around. “Or, he was. Probably no older than twenty-five.”

  “I have no idea!” Athena said, throwing her hands in the air. Until then, she had been all sunshine with us, wanting our patronage, wanting us to walk away with hundreds of dollars of ice cream, but now she was suddenly on the defensive. “It’s been at least two years since we’ve had to use any of the old freezers. If you wait here, I can go upstairs and get the records.”

  She didn’t wait for an answer, but I was more than happy for her to get the records if that was actually what she intended to do.

  She hurried up the stairs and sighed as I watched her run, taking two stairs at once. She tripped several times in her heeled boots, which were really too high for the job. The police would probably be here by the time she got back, assuming she didn’t try to escape beforehand.

  Pippa crept over to the door of the freezer room and took a teeny peek inside it before backing off. “What do you think?” she asked. “You think Athena is trying to hide something?”

  I shrugged. “Hard to say. She’s rattled, but rightfully so. This can’t be very good for business. Though, during hot weather like this, not even a dead body is going to stop people from eating ice cream. She’s just lucky we didn’t make this discover in the dead of winter.”

  “Maybe no one is to blame. Maybe he just fell into the freezer and got trapped. Froze to death.”

  I didn’t want to admit that I had briefly considered that possibility myself, so I just stared at her. “In that position?” I shook my head. “That sounds a little farfetched. He was not lying in any natural position. His body was put there on purpose, by somebody else.”

  Pippa watched the stairs. I think we were both wondering if Athena was ever going to come back with those so-called records. “She probably wouldn’t have brought the freezer out if she knew the body was there.”

  “Or she got it mixed up with another freezer,” I said, straightening when I heard footsteps. They were heavy and there were many of them. “Shoot, it’s the police,” I said. “We should hide. Listen in to what they’re saying.”

  “Where are we going to hide down here?”

  After a few seconds of panic, we had no choice but to run into the cold freezer room where Athena had originally dragged the freezer out of. We left the door slightly ajar so that we could hear what they were saying, but also so we didn’t freeze to death.

  After a few moments, I was already shivering. There was apparently a good reason for humans not to hide in rooms that were set to below freezing temperatures. Especially when they were wearing shorts. I wasn’t sure how long I was going to be able to take it. I only knew that if Jackson saw us—if any of the police saw us—we’d be asked to leave immediately. Then we would have no chance of finding out what they knew. We’d be on our own.

  “Oh, they were here a few minutes ago,” Athena said, spinning around and looking confused.

  “Who were?” Jackson jumped all over her statement.

  “The two young women,” Athena said. “The ones who discovered the body.”

  I shivered and tried to silently plead with Athena not to give our names away.

  “Did you get their names?” Jackson asked.

  Athena shook her head. “No… Well, I can’t remember.”

  I let out a little sigh. Good. Good, Athena. I was pretty sure we’d never actually told her our names.

  “Oh wait, one of them gave me their business card!” she cried out.

  Oh, that was just great. Why did I have to hand her a business card?

  She handed it to Jackson and I watched his face change as he spun around, inspecting every corner of the room. “Where are they now?”

  “They-they must have left,” Athena said. “I’m sorry.”

  He sighed. “Okay, what can you tell me about this display freezer then? You said you had the records?”

  Athena handed him the sheet of records she had left us to find. “This shows the rental history of each freezer,” Athena stated. She reached over and pointed to something, but we couldn’t see precisely what, from our hiding place. “This is the registration number for that freezer. Look at the dates,” she said, pointing to another item a little further right. “The freezer hasn’t been rented out for just over two years. That was when it was last returned to us.”

  “Right,” Jackson said, writing something down. He was still keeping one eye peeled though, looking around, probably expecting Pippa and I to reappear at any stage.

  “I can’t feel my toes,” Pippa whispered. Her lips were starting to turn blue.

  “Just hold on. Just a little while longer now,” I tried to reassure her. I just wanted to hear the end of this conversation. I wanted to know exactly what the cops knew.

  Jackson was still staring at the list of records, but he didn’t seem entirely convinced by what Athena was saying. “But I assume that you check the freezers when they come back in.”

  Athena spun around and looked at the bulky old model. “We retired these on
es two years ago,” she explained. “They probably just got packed away without anyone looking inside.” She looked up at Jackson with a pleading expression. “Please, you don’t mean to imply that somebody from here had anything to do with this?”

  Jackson made a few notes on his notepad. “We’re going to have to figure out who this young man is first. See if he has a connection to you. Or anyone else who works here.”

  I was starting to feel my own toes go numb. My fingers as well. I was having trouble holding on to the doorframe, to try and keep myself up right without falling over. How long did it take for hypothermia to kick in?

  “Who was the last person to rent this freezer?” Jackson asked, pointing to the records. “I can’t make out the name.”

  Athena peered at the list. “Misty’s Ice Cream Parlor,” she said. She was about to say something else when she was stopped. Suddenly the room was filled with screaming. “I can’t take it anymore!” Pippa yelled as she fell out of the freezer onto the ground. She then stood up and started running, probably to get the blood racing through her veins again.

  “Oh no…” I stood up, trembling with the cold myself, and stepped back into the room. No sense hiding now, our cover was blown. Jackson crossed his arms and managed to look amused and annoyed at the same time.

  “You two could have gotten into serious trouble hiding in there.”

  I still couldn’t feel my toes as I tried to step forward. I almost fell over, but Jackson caught me. “You two better get out of here now.”

  Even in the ninety-degree heat, we had trouble getting warm for a few minutes after our troubling experience in the arctic. “At least we got what we needed,” I said as we headed back to my car. “We know that the body had most likely been there for two years, and that the last known location of the freezer was Misty’s Ice Cream Parlor.” I frowned. “Do you remember that place?”

  Pippa nodded, but her whole body was shaking as well. “Yeah, we used to go there for birthday parties when we were kids. I think I went to a couple of yours there. Haven’t been there for years, though.”