P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

By the time Louis arrived at the cabin the place had already been cordoned off with yellow tape, two officers guarding the perimeter. Except for removing the shutters they had obeyed Clark’s orders and done nothing. They told Louis they hadn’t even picked up the casings on the porch from Dancer’s rifle.

Inside, Louis found Pike’s assistant taking photographs. But Pike was nowhere to be seen. Louis stood just inside the door, careful not to touch anything. They were working two crime scenes here at the cabin. One was a cop shooting. And the other?

Louis stared at a deer skull on a shelf. The question pressed forward again. Was Julie Chapman’s skull in here somewhere?

The radio in Louis’s jeans pocket crackled with traffic. One officer stating that a TV reporter and cameraman had just gotten off the ferry. Another officer asking for help on erecting barricades. Barbara the dispatcher telling Clark that the mayor wanted to see him immediately, and Clark telling her he was too busy.

Suddenly a new voice cut in.

“Sergeant Clark, this is Rafsky. I just hit the island. Meet me at the hospital.”

“No need, no news yet,” Clark answered.

“Then I’ll come to the station.”

Louis quickly keyed the radio. “Kincaid to Rafsky. I could use you at Dancer’s cabin.”

“Negative, I’m heading to the station.”

“Detective, I repeat. You need to meet me here at the cabin.”

There was a long pause from Rafsky, and Louis knew he had figured out Louis didn’t want to go public. Then, “I’ll be there in ten minutes, Kincaid.”

Louis stuck the radio back in his pocket. An interior door opened, releasing more of the putrid smell. Pike came out of the room and pulled off a mask. He looked pale and disoriented.

“Did you find anything?” Louis asked.

“Oh yeah,” Pike said softly.

“A human skull?”

Pike wiped a hand over his sweating brow. “No, but I think you’d better come see this.”

Louis followed him into the room. The smell grew stronger. It wasn’t quite the sweet-sour smell of decomposition he was used to. It was something stronger and more vile-dense and wet like vomit-an odor that seemed to wrap itself around him. He stopped just inside the door. He felt his stomach heave and had to go back out into the main room. He retched, but he hadn’t eaten all day, so nothing came up. Finally he drew in a deep breath, covered his nose and mouth with his hand, and went back in.

Pike was standing at a table that held four large plastic bins, like the kind sold at Wal-Mart to store winter clothes. But as Louis drew closer to the nearest bin he saw that something inside it was moving.

Pike removed one of the plastic tops and Louis peered inside.

Oh God.

He pulled back, repulsed. Then he forced himself to look again into the bin. Inside was a huge animal head-but he couldn’t tell what kind of animal because most of its skin was gone. It was covered in thousands of squirming black wormlike things.

“What the fuck is that?” Louis said.

“I’m guessing that’s a deer skull under there.” Pike gestured to three other plastic bins. “There are others. Nothing human.”

The smell was making Louis sick. He motioned to Pike to follow him out into the main room of the cabin. They shut the door. The smell was still bad, so Louis went onto the porch and pulled in several deep breaths of clean, cold air. Pike came up to his side and did the same.

“What the hell is going on in there?” Louis asked.

Pike shook his head slowly. “I think your man Dancer is using bug larvae to clean skulls.”

“What?”

“If you want to clean bones you can boil them, but the fat can make the bones turn yellow,” Pike said. “And you can’t use bleach because it weakens the bones. So you get bugs to eat the flesh away. You’d need to ask an entomologist, but I’m guessing those are dermestid beetle larvae. There’s an aquarium full of adult beetles. It looks like Dancer is raising them. He’s got Tupperware bowls filled with raw meat to feed them and a heating pad under the aquarium to keep them nice and warm.”

Louis shook his head slowly. “But why?”

Pike reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of latex gloves, holding them out to Louis. “That’s your department.”

Pike put his mask back on and returned to the room. Louis waited a moment before he ventured back into the cabin. The smell was everywhere, like a swirling mist. He tried to concentrate on the task at hand.

It was too big a coincidence that Dancer collected skulls and Julie Chapman’s was missing. He had to search not only for her skull but also for any evidence that she might have been here.

His eyes traveled over the kitchenette, the black potbellied stove, the rough-hewn pine table and chair, the old sofa covered with a plaid blanket, and the small bed tucked in the corner. Despite the grotesque displays of skulls and the smell, the cabin was clean and neat.

Louis pulled on the latex gloves and went to a desk by the window. There was a shelf of books above it, but a quick scan of the titles told him there was nothing odd. A second shelf held what looked to be a collection of sketchbooks. Louis pulled one down and flipped through it.

Drawings. . it was filled with drawings of horses, carriages, figures, and places around the island. The style was childish and cheerful. He put the sketchbook back and opened another. More drawings, mostly portraits, but the style was assured and carefully detailed. There were many drawings of an old woman with wild hair and a weathered face. Others looked to be workers and shopkeepers on the island, a man wearing a ferry boat captain’s hat, a lady in a waitress uniform, a cop on a bike.

Louis slipped the sketchbook back among the others on the shelf. There had to be at least forty sketchbooks here. Had Dancer done them? Where had he learned to do this?

He turned his attention to the desk. It held a coffee can of pencils and pens, a box of manila envelopes, and a neat stack of papers. There was a file cabinet tucked next to the desk. Louis opened the top drawer. It was crammed with more sketchbooks.

He closed the drawer and turned to the pile of papers on the desk. Bills mostly, all carefully marked PAID. He focused on a catalog. It was from a company in Wyoming called Skullduggery: “The World’s Leading Supplier of Osteological Specimens.”

Louis flipped through it. It featured every kind of animal skull imaginable for sale-dogs, cats, birds, cattle. There were also human skulls for sale with the disclaimer “Due to stringent regulations, these specimens are only available to medical or educational academic institutions.”

Stuck inside the catalog was an invoice from a company in Alaska called Wild Things. It was for one COLONY STARTER KIT. For forty-five dollars and ten dollars handling, Danny Dancer had bought “an assortment of two hundred live adult beetles, larvae, and pupae.”

There was a second invoice. It was hand-printed on lined school paper. At the top was Dancer’s address. It was made out to a Los Angeles company called Architectural Accents. It was for one DEER SKULL (ANTLERED, LARGE) at a price of three hundred and forty dollars.

“Kincaid.”

Louis turned. Rafsky was standing at the open front door. His eyes swept slowly over the skulls and finally came back to Louis.

“Jesus,” Rafsky said.

Louis held out the invoice. “Dancer is running some kind of business selling skulls.”

Rafsky came forward and gave the invoice a glance before his eyes went back to scanning the room.

“What the fuck is that smell?” Rafsky asked.

“Rotting animal heads. He’s got a skull-cleaning setup in the other room. They haven’t found any human skulls yet.”