P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

Louis went upstairs. The door to the first bedroom was open, and the room was dark except for an orange glow. It took Louis a moment to realize what it was-a space heater positioned near the bed. As he ventured closer, Louis saw Edward Chapman lying in the bed, a small bump amid the snowy white mountains of blankets.

Louis heard a mewing sound and turned. It was Maisey, sitting in the shadows. The chair creaked as she got up and came to him. They stood side by side, staring down at Edward Chapman.

“I couldn’t leave him cold like that,” Maisey whispered. “I put the blankets over him and brought the heater in.”

Her eyes glistened in the orange glow, and her face was streaked with tear tracks. Louis stepped between her and the bed and put his hands on her shoulders.

“You need to go downstairs now, Maisey,” he said. “The doctor’s coming. We’ll take care of Mr. Edward now.”

“I can’t leave him alone,” she whispered.

“It’s all right,” Louis said. “I’ll stay here with him. The best thing you can do for Mr. Edward now is to go downstairs and wait for the doctor. Bring him up when he gets here, okay?”

Maisey was straining to look beyond Louis to the bed, but he tightened his grip on her shoulders. “Maisey, please. You have to do what I say, okay?”

Her body seemed to give suddenly, as if she were exhaling every bit of air from her lungs. Eyes glistening, she turned slowly and left the room. Louis went back to the bed. Except for his mouth hanging slightly open, Edward Chapman looked as if he were asleep. His eyes were closed, and his arms were at his sides under the blankets Maisey had put over him. The plastic tubing was still in his nostrils, and Louis could hear the faint hiss of the oxygen.

A sudden stab of a buried memory came to him-his own mother, Lila, lying motionless in her bed, her body wasted from alcohol poisoning, her skin yellowed with hepatitis, her face frozen in a death grimace. There had been nothing peaceful about her leaving, nothing much peaceful about her life, in fact. At least Edward Chapman looked like he hadn’t suffered, in death or life.

Louis heard a sound and turned to see a short, round man coming into the room. He carried a black doctor’s satchel.

“I’m Dr. Mitchell from the island health center,” he said, nodding to Louis. His glasses caught the glow of the space heater as he looked down at Edward Chapman.

Louis took a step back and watched as the doctor examined Edward Chapman’s eyes, prodded his limbs, and then checked the oxygen tank and every pill vial on the nightstand. With a glance at Louis, the doctor looked up something in a black notebook and then picked up the phone and dialed Chapman’s personal physician in Bloomfield Hills. The conversation was short, and it seemed Mitchell was not alarmed by Chapman’s death.

As Dr. Mitchell hung up, Ross appeared in the doorway.

“It looks like your father died from natural causes,” Dr. Mitchell said to Ross. He glanced at Louis. “Mr. Chapman had an atrioventricular septal defect.” When he saw Louis’s blank expression he added, “It’s a large hole in the middle of the heart. He was born with it.”

“He had surgery when he was just seven,” Ross said. “And open-heart surgery five years ago.”

Dr. Mitchell reached down and turned off the oxygen. “I’m surprised he lasted this long.”

“I’d like to take him home as soon as possible,” Ross said.

Dr. Mitchell nodded. “You can make arrangements. I’ll have a death certificate for you in a couple of days.”

“Thank you,” Ross said quietly.

Dr. Mitchell pulled a card out of his pocket and held it out to Ross. “This is a funeral home in St. Ignace. They can take care of everything for you.”

Ross took the card and pulled the doctor aside to talk privately. Louis used the moment to head back downstairs. Rafsky and Joe were waiting in the parlor. The room was full of bright light, the slanting morning sun falling full and warm through the big windows.

“What’s it look like?” Rafsky asked.

Louis shook his head. “Natural death. He had a hole in his heart.”

Rafsky got up from his chair and picked up his coat. “Then we’re finished here. Where’s Clark?”

“He went outside,” Joe said.

Rafsky left, presumably to find Clark and get a ride back to town. Joe stayed in her chair, looking at Louis.

“I need to get going, too,” she said. “Not just from here but back to Echo Bay.”

Louis was quiet. It had been pulling at him for days now, this feeling that things were coming to an end. The season here on the island, the search for Julie’s killer, his chances to fix things with Joe. If he wasn’t careful, his moment would be lost.

He looked around the room. “Where’s Maisey?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” Joe said.

Louis was wondering if she had gone back upstairs when he saw a blur of green move past the window. Maisey was out on the porch. He excused himself from Joe and went outside.

Maisey was standing on the far end of the porch, staring out at the lake. It glistened in the bright morning sun like a broad, flat mirror. Not a wave in sight, not a cloud on the horizon.

Louis moved to her. She didn’t seem to see him. She was wearing a green plaid overcoat but hadn’t even bothered to button it. She had just wrapped herself in it as if she were trying to retreat into a cocoon. He touched her arm.

“I know you cared for him,” Louis said. “I’m sorry.”

Maisey didn’t look at him. “I loved him,” she said. “We loved each other.”

Louis looked out at the lake. He wondered what would happen to her now, if Ross would keep her on. Where did a sixty-something caretaker find a new home? Where did you fit in when your family had broken apart?

“Mr. Kincaid, I’d like you to do something for me,” Maisey said.

“Anything.”

“When they get Mr. Edward back to Bloomfield Hills, I want you to ask his doctor there to make sure he died naturally.”

“What?”

“I need to know.”

“Know what, Maisey?”

She faced him. “I need to know Mr. Ross didn’t do something to him.”

Louis was stunned into silence.

“Before Mr. Ross went back to Lansing, they had words,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Louis asked.

“Mr. Ross and Mr. Edward. They had words about Julie.”

“What did they say exactly?”

“I don’t know for certain because Mr. Ross sent me out of the room, but I know it upset Mr. Edward.”

Her eyes suddenly darted past Louis. He turned to see Ross standing just outside the door.

“Maisey,” Ross said, “I need your help, please.”

With a glance at Louis she went inside. Louis stayed on the porch, thinking about what Maisey had said. Edward Chapman had been near death, so why would Ross take the chance of killing him amid the media glare of Julie’s investigation and his own campaign?

But Maisey, by her own admission, loved Edward. Maybe she just needed someone to blame.

Something caught Louis’s eye and he turned to the window. Ross Chapman was standing inside looking out at him, his figure a rippled blur behind the old glass.

The interior of the Mustang Lounge was as dark as a tomb and deserted except for one man sitting at the bar. It took Louis a moment to realize it was Rafsky. He hesitated, thinking he’d go back to the hotel and wait for Joe. But she told him she had at least an hour of phone calls to catch up on and that he should go on without her.

The smell of frying meat drifted over to Louis. Finally hunger overcame any trepidation he had about having to make lunchtime small talk with Rafsky and he went to the bar.