P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

On Cadotte Avenue, heading down toward town, he saw only one other person, a bicyclist pulling a cart filled with cords of firewood heading toward the Village.

He turned onto Main Street, walking down the middle of the empty road, passing men on ladders taking down the baskets of geraniums from the lampposts. Many of the stores had already closed, and the few that were open had signs in the windows-EVERYTHING MUST GO.

Almost overnight the island had changed. It looked like a deserted amusement park, and in that moment Louis realized his memories of this place had been distorted, refracted through his need to believe that the real world stopped at the ferry dock, that all ugliness could be forgotten and all hurts could be healed.

Everything did have to go, even illusions.

The wind coming off the lake had the feel of winter. He turned up the collar of his jacket and headed toward his hotel.

It was near three by the time Louis met Flowers at the docks. They took the ferry to St. Ignace. It was a good-size town, sitting in the shadow of the magnificent suspension bridge that linked the lower part of the state to the Upper Peninsula. Unlike Mackinaw City, its gaudy tourist-trap cousin on the southern end of the bridge, St. Ignace had the feel of a real town, with modest homes and a downtown of mom-and-pop restaurants and taverns where HUNTERS WELCOME signs hung in the windows. Unless you lived in St. Ignace or had a summer home there overlooking the lake, there was no real need to detour off I-75.

After Flowers picked up a loaner car from the state police post they headed out, bound for a map-speck place sixty miles north called Paradise.

They had spent most of the morning working the phones, talking to the captains of the ferries who had serviced the island twenty-one years ago. The men were easy to locate through the company records and the mariner’s union. Finally, one of the captains pointed out to them that they should probably talk instead to the ticket-booth attendants.

Flowers’s dispatcher, Barbara, had been able to locate addresses for only nine. None of them recalled anything special about New Year’s Eve 1969 except that it had been a particularly brutal winter.

The last woman on the list was Edna Coffee. On the phone she told Louis that she vaguely remembered a young girl traveling alone one winter, but she wanted to see a photo to jog her memory. So Louis and Flowers made the ninety-minute drive through the woods of the U.P. to Paradise.

Edna Coffee was eighty-six and living with her son. She seemed delighted to see them and demanded that her son, Jeff, bring out cookies and tea. Jeff stoically retreated to the kitchen while Edna jabbered about the weather, her arthritis, and her two parakeets, Basil and Birdie. After Jeff returned with the tray, Louis and Flowers politely drank tea and ate cookies before Louis was finally able to turn the conversation to the purpose of their trip.

When he showed Edna Julie’s photograph, she stared at it for a long time, then nodded.

“I remember her,” she said, stabbing a finger at the photograph.

“How can you be so sure, Mrs. Coffee?” Louis asked.

“It was Christmas Eve, I remember that.”

Flowers came forward. “You mean New Year’s Eve?”

Louis shot him a look to be quiet.

Edna’s eyes went from Louis to Flowers and back to Louis. “Yes, that’s right. It was New Year’s Eve. And it was really cold.”

Louis pulled out his notebook. “Did you talk to her?”

Edna was nodding. “Really cold, colder than normal. I remember the captain coming into the booth and telling me the straits were freezing over and to be sure to tell anyone who was going over that they might not be able to get back.”

“You have a good memory,” Louis said.

Edna looked up at her son lingering by the door. “Tell him that.”

The son couldn’t quite hide his impatience. “Don’t start, Mom, please.”

Edna ignored him, looking at the photograph again.

“Did you talk to her, Mrs. Coffee?” Louis asked again.

Edna’s Coke-bottle glasses came up. “Talk? No, just to give her a ticket, that’s all.”

“How many tickets?”

Edna stared at him. “One.”

It had almost come out as a question. Louis closed his notebook.

“She was a pretty thing, with long dark hair,” Edna said. “She seemed a little nervous-like, especially when I warned her there might not be a ferry coming back because of the lake icing up.”

“Do you remember if she was with anyone?”

Edna’s eyes clouded over, and for a moment she looked lost in a haze.

“Mrs. Coffee,” Louis pressed. “Was she with a man?”

Edna blinked as she tried to focus on Louis again. “Man? No, there was no man.” She held out the photograph, and Louis took it.

Flowers had been standing by the fireplace and came forward. “Do you remember if she had anything with her?”

Edna looked up at him. “Like what?”

“A suitcase, maybe?”

Edna stared at him for a moment. “No. . don’t remember seeing any suitcase. . but I was in the booth, so I didn’t see much more than her face.” Edna looked upset, like she was disappointed she wasn’t being more helpful. Or maybe because she realized her memory wasn’t as good as she thought.

She looked at Louis. “You want to see my parakeets?”

“No, we really have to get back to St. Ignace,” Louis said.

Edna’s eyes dimmed behind her thick glasses. She stared hard at Louis for a moment, as if she was trying to figure something out.

Louis rose. “Thank you, Mrs. Coffee. You’ve been a big help.”

He started to the door with Flowers.

“She had a monkey.”

Louis looked back at Edna. “A what?”

“I remember she had a monkey,” Edna said. “She was carrying a stuffed monkey.” Edna gave him a satisfied grin. “That’s not something you’d forget, is it?”

“No, ma’am, it’s not,” Louis said. “Thank you again.”

At the front door, Edna Coffee’s son stopped them.

“She has Alzheimer’s,” he said quietly.

Louis and Flowers exchanged glances.

“She hasn’t remembered anything with clarity for years,” the son said. “The parakeets died five years ago. Some days she doesn’t remember who I am.” He let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. I should have said something before you came all the way up here.”

Flowers cleared his throat. “That’s all right. We appreciate your letting us talk to her.”

“She loves having visitors,” the son said. “All her friends are gone now, and no one comes. Thank you for being nice to her.”

Louis and Flowers stood on the St. Ignace dock, silent and shivering as they watched the sun slide into the cloud bank behind the bridge. They had missed the ferry and now had to wait a half hour for the next one.

“Edna thinks Julie came up here alone,” Flowers said.

Louis glanced at him. “Her son said-”

“My mom had Alzheimer’s. Usually they can’t remember what they had for breakfast, but sometimes they can remember every detail about something that happened thirty years back.”

“You’re dreaming, Chief.”

“Maybe not.”

“Okay, let’s go out on a limb here and say Edna really remembers seeing one girl on one ferry twenty-one years ago,” Louis said. “Then let’s go even farther out on the limb and say she’s right that Julie was alone. So why did a seventeen-year-old come up here on New Year’s Eve all by herself? And how’d she get here? According to the missing persons report she didn’t have a license, so she didn’t drive.”

“We haven’t checked bus tickets.”

Louis pulled up the collar of his jacket. “I think she was brought here by someone else, no matter what Edna thinks she remembers. I would bet my last dollar on it.”