P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

The officer went to an office at the rear of the room. Louis could see Flowers inside at his desk.

Louis looked down at the file folder he was carrying. It was the Bloomfield Hills case file. He and Flowers had stayed at the Mustang until after dark. Flowers had switched to soda water, and while he ate his dinner he read the file, scribbling notes on bar napkins.

Around eight, he’d received a radio call for a domestic fight in the village and had told Louis he needed to answer this call personally because he knew the couple. He slid the case file to Louis and asked if he wanted to take it back to the hotel and give it a look.

Louis had taken it, knowing Flowers wanted backup ready in case Edward Chapman started asking some tough questions.

It appeared the Bloomfield Hills cops had done a good job. The story that unfolded was a simple one. It was the weekend before New Year’s Eve 1969. The parents were out of town; the housekeeper was visiting family in Grand Rapids; and the older brother, Ross, was at the University of Michigan. Julie had declined to go with her parents to California, telling her father she wanted to spend the holiday with her brother. Ross reported she had not told him of her intent to come to Ann Arbor and that she had never arrived.

The police had investigated her family, compiling a complete dossier. They had also talked to Julie’s friends-of which there were few-and investigated Detroit-area sex offenders. They had followed hundreds of leads and had received tips of sightings as late as 1977. But in the end, despite the family’s high profile, the case had gone cold.

The officer appeared back at the Dutch door. “The chief will see you now.”

The officer buzzed the door open, and Louis started back to the chief’s office. A black woman sitting in a chair in the corner gave him a long once-over before returning to her paperback.

Flowers’s office was tiny, with none of the usual plaques and commendations hanging on the walls. Instead, there was a map of Michigan, some sepia photographs of the island, and a prominent picture of the five-man Mackinac Island Police Department on bicycles.

It was only after Flowers had closed the door that Louis noticed the old man.

He was sitting in the corner, a frail man with sparse gray hair and pale skin, almost lost in the bulk of his blue sweater. There was a tiny breathing device in his nostrils with thin tubes running back behind his ears. Louis saw the portable oxygen canister near the chair and looked to Flowers.

“Kincaid, this is Edward Chapman, Julie’s father,” Flowers said. “Louis Kincaid is the man I was telling you about, Mr. Chapman.”

The old man extended his hand, and Louis shook it. Given his appearance, the man’s grip was surprisingly strong. Louis remembered a detail from the family dossier, that Edward Chapman had been an executive vice president with Ford, in charge of overseeing the company’s European operations. The Chapmans had led a high-profile life in Europe when Julie was very young. But Edward Chapman had taken an early retirement not long after his daughter disappeared. As Louis considered the fragile man before him, he thought-not for the first time in his career-about the toll murder took on those left behind.

Flowers shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. “I was just telling Mr. Chapman that it was, well, premature of me to have called him because we are not sure the remains are those of his daughter,” Flowers said.

“And I was telling the chief that it doesn’t matter,” Chapman said quickly. “If there is even the smallest chance that this is Julie, then I want to be here.”

The smallest chance.

Since last night in the bar, Louis had been thinking about pushing for DNA analysis to identify the bones but had decided to wait. He wondered how much Flowers knew about the technology. His own exposure was limited to what he had read and the one case he had worked recently in Palm Beach. The remains of an illegal immigrant worker had been found and there were no records or family to identify him. They had talked about using DNA to identify him, but the police department had no interest in footing the high cost of the test. Louis suspected money would be no such barrier to a man like Edward Chapman. But he had to talk to Flowers about it first.

“You said you had Julie’s ring,” Chapman said.

“We think it is her ring,” Flowers said. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a small manila envelope. He took out the ring and set it on the desk.

Chapman reached beneath his sweater and pulled out a pair of glasses, slipping them on. He peered at the ring for a long time, then set it down on the desk. “I don’t know if this is hers,” he said softly. He looked up at Flowers. “Do you have anything else, maybe her clothes?”

Flowers glanced at Louis before he answered. “We didn’t find any clothes with the remains. I’m sorry.”

Chapman stared at Flowers, then his eyes closed. For a long moment the only sound in the room was the soft hiss of his oxygen. He opened his eyes. “I brought her dental records. We can use those, can’t we?”

“We didn’t find her skull,” Flowers said. “Again, I am so very sorry about this, Mr. Chapman.”

Louis realized the black woman out in the reception area was watching them intently.

“Can I see Julie?”

Louis’s eyes shot back to Mr. Chapman and then to Flowers.

“Mr. Chapman, I don’t think-”

“I want to see her,” Chapman said. “I want to see my daughter. Even if there’s only bones.”

Flowers drew in a breath. “We had to send the remains to a lab in Marquette. We will have them back soon.”

Chapman took off his glasses with shaking hands. He stared at the small gold ring on the desk, then looked up at Flowers with brimming eyes. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

Louis looked to Flowers, who gave him a silent signal that it was okay to take the lead.

“You can help by telling us about Julie,” Louis said. When Chapman hesitated Louis went on. “Let’s start with the day she disappeared. We have the police report, but sometimes family members can provide details that might have been missed.”

Chapman wiped at his eyes. “It was the holidays, the week after Christmas,” he said. “Her mother, Ellen, had been in ill health, and I thought a vacation somewhere warm would be good for her, good for the whole family, really. We decided to go to Pasadena. Michigan was playing in the Rose Bowl, and we were alums, you see, so we thought it might be good for us.”

He stopped, shaking his head. “But the kids. . well, neither of them wanted to go. Ross was studying for finals and didn’t want to be away. Julie told me she would go stay with Ross in Ann Arbor and they would watch the game on TV. So I didn’t worry about her.”

“Ross was nineteen at the time?” Louis asked.

Edward Chapman nodded.

“He’s a state congressman now,” Flowers said to Louis. “He’s running for U.S. senator.”

The Senate. The case had attracted only local interest so far, but that was going to change fast. “Is your son coming to the island?” Louis asked.

Chapman’s eyes were slow to focus on Louis. “Yes,” he said. “He’s been busy with his campaign, but he told me he’d be here as soon as he could.”

“That weekend you went to California,” Louis said. “When did you realize your daughter was missing?”

“Not until we came home,” Chapman said. “Until we called Ross we didn’t know she had never even made it to Ann Arbor. Ross said Julie never called him about coming.”

Louis had read this detail in the report last night, and it had struck him then that maybe Julie Chapman had lied to her parents about her plans. It didn’t mean she wasn’t abducted, but it raised questions.