P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

Tears filled her eyes. “It’s not good,” she said. “They can’t stop the bleeding, and they don’t want to move him until he’s more stable, so right now it’s a rush just to keep his heart going. We’ll know more in an hour or so.”

Clark turned and started back to the other officers. The nurse caught his arm.

“You want to take these, Don?” she asked, holding out the bags.

Clark stared at the plastic bags. Inside were Flowers’s boots, jacket, navy blue pants, utility belt, and, in a separate bag by itself, his uniform shirt. The bloody white fabric was compressed, leaving a red smear on the inside of the plastic.

Clark took the bags but he seemed rooted to the spot, as if he had Flowers himself in his arms.

Louis touched his shoulder. “Separate everything into its own bag, reseal it, and log each piece into evidence,” he said. “Protect the chain of custody and send everything to the Marquette lab.”

Clark nodded slowly.

“I have one more bag,” the nurse asked.

The last bag held Flowers’s badge, keys, loose change, and wallet. Clark looked at it, blinking fast to hold back the tears.

“Someone has to call Carol,” he said softly. “Is there a number in his wallet?”

Louis took the plastic bag and pulled out the worn calfskin wallet. Inside was a driver’s license, ID card, credit card, forty-three dollars, and two pictures in yellowed photo sleeves. One was of the Flowers family when it was intact: Jack, his wife, and his daughters sitting on the sand at the Sleeping Bear Dunes. The other photo was of the twins when they were little, posed in front of a Christmas backdrop offered in mall photography studios.

No phone numbers.

Clark shifted the plastic bags, reached for his radio, and walked away. Louis waited, thinking Clark was going to have the dispatcher make the phone call to Kansas City, but Clark came back a few seconds later with a telephone number written on a piece of paper.

“I’ll do it if you want, Mr. Kincaid,” he said, “but I don’t think I could get through it without breaking down. Plus I really need to keep my head together right now. Would you call her?”

Louis accepted the slip of paper. “Sure.”

“Thank you,” Clark said. “And if you get some news, especially if it’s bad news, would you call me first? I want to be the one to tell the guys. I don’t want them hearing it on the street.”

“I understand.”

Clark walked back to his officers. It took him a minute or so, but he finally convinced them to get on the elevator with him and leave. The door had just closed when Louis heard footsteps behind him.

He turned and watched Joe come down the hall toward him. Her face was scrubbed pink and her hair was damp around the edges. There were smears of blood on her jeans and white shirt as if she had tried to clean the stains with paper towels.

“Where’s your sweater?” Louis asked.

“In the bathroom,” she said. “I threw it away. I couldn’t stand to look at it. .”

Her voice trailed off, and she looked around the hallway, then she closed her eyes in exhaustion. There was no place to sit down, so Louis pulled her into his arms to steady her. She gently eased away from him.

“I have to go back to the hotel,” she said. “I have to change. I feel so. . so. .”

“Okay, okay,” Louis said. “You go ahead. I’ll call you if I hear anything.”

She nodded and moved away. He watched her until the elevator doors opened, wondering if he should go with her. Then he looked down at the phone number in his hand and knew, like Clark, that there were things to do. Joe was tough. She’d be okay in a few hours.

Louis went down the hall to the nurse’s station. A nurse looked up as he approached.

“Any word on the chief?” she asked.

“No. May I use the phone to call his family?” Louis asked.

The nurse set the phone on the counter. “Of course. Dial nine for an outside line.”

Louis dialed the number and turned his back for some privacy. It rang six times before a woman picked up. Van Halen’s “Jump” pounded in the background, and the woman sounded breathless, like she’d been exercising.

“Hello?”

Louis realized he didn’t know her last name. “May I please speak to Carol?”

“This is Carol,” she said. “And who is this calling me on this fine autumn day?”

“My name is Louis Kincaid,” he said. “I’m calling on behalf of Mackinac Island Police-”

“Stop. Stop. Wait.”

The music was suddenly gone, and when she came back on the phone she was still out of breath.

“What’s happened to Jack?” she asked.

Louis wanted to begin with “I’m sorry” or something like that, but she already sensed something was wrong. He just said it.

“Jack’s been shot,” Louis said. “He’s alive, but things don’t look good. They need to move-”

Carol interrupted him. “I’ll be there as soon as I can,” she said. “When I get in, if it’s too late for a ferry, then you make sure I have a way over to that damn island, you understand me?”

Somehow it didn’t surprise Louis that she sounded tough-as-nails. Most cop wives were.

“Yes, ma’am. Is there anything else I can do for you? Do you need to know where-”

“No. No. I know the island. I’ll be. .”

Carol suddenly fell quiet, and he thought for a moment she had hung up, but then he heard her draw a deep breath. He waited, listening as muffled gasps began to fill the line.

“Are you okay?” Louis asked.

“Yes, yes,” she whispered.

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Louis asked.

“No. . yes, there is,” she said. “If Jack’s awake enough to understand, would you make sure he knows I’m coming? Could you do that for me?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “If not me, I’ll make sure someone tells him.”

Again the other end of the phone was quiet except for the hard breathing of a woman trying to hold herself together. Louis waited, not wanting to cut the call short if there was something else she needed to ask him but not sure what else to say. After a long time, her voice came back, clearer and a little stronger.

“I’m sorry, what was your name?” she asked.

“Louis Kincaid.”

“Yes, yes,” she said. “I’m sorry, I need to go get my girls now. Thank you for calling, Mr. Kincaid. Thank you.”

The phone clicked softly as she hung up. He set the receiver down and stood there at the nurse’s station, taking a moment to compose himself before starting back to the trauma center doors.

He was passing the elevators when they opened. He turned, hoping it was Joe, but it was Sergeant Clark. Clark saw him and hurried toward him.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked.

“You need to go to the cabin and take the lead there for me.”

“Why? What’s happened?” Louis asked.

“They found some skulls,” Clark said.

There were hundreds of them. Skulls, covering almost every inch of every surface. Some as small as golf balls, others as huge and horrific as horned gargoyles.

Louis stood in the middle of Danny Dancer’s cabin, trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. What had gone on in this place? What in the hell had Dancer been doing shut up here all alone?

And what in God’s name was that smell?

Louis hadn’t wanted to leave Flowers, but Clark had thrust a police radio into Louis’s hand and promised he would call if there was any news. Clark said he needed to stay in town to direct the evidence logging, oversee Dancer’s custody, and deal with the media. But Louis understood that the young sergeant also didn’t want to be far from his boss.

They decided that there was to be no mention of the skulls at Dancer’s cabin on the police radios, not even to the other officers. With reporters monitoring the frequencies they had to keep this quiet as long as they could.