P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

Cooper stared at the TV screen. But he was seeing Danny Dancer as he had been twenty-one years ago. The quiet blob of a boy who hung around the edges of their clique, who never spoke, never did anything but sit there drawing his pictures while the other kids drank, laughed, made out, and made fun of him.

Retard! Retard!

Leave him alone, damn it. He’s not hurting anyone.

Cooper had always tried to defend him, telling the other kids Danny was harmless. But maybe he had been wrong. He had been wrong about a lot of things that happened twenty-one years ago.

Cooper quickly changed the channel and upped the volume. The quiet was split by the thwamp-squeak-squeak-thwamp of the Pistons-Bulls game.

Cooper started to wipe down the bar. He didn’t realize he was cleaning the same spot over and over until a bright band of sunlight cut across the wood laminate.

He looked up, squinting. A man was standing in the open doorway silhouetted against the white backdrop. He was tall and wearing a heavy parka, but it wasn’t until the door closed and Cooper could see his face that he realized he was black.

He had seen this guy before, seen his face in the newspapers. It was one of the other cops Dancer had shot at.

A second later, light flooded the bar again as another man pushed open the door. The light glinted off a badge hanging around his neck. He said something to the black man and looked to the bar.

Cooper froze.

How had they found him? How did they find out?

The voice in his head screamed before his brain could react.

Run!

Cooper slammed open the door at the waitress station and ran toward the back hallway. He heard one man yell to the other but he kept going.

At the men’s room door he looked back in time to see Nick thrust out a pool cue, and the black man went sprawling to the floor. The other guy had disappeared, but the front door was wide open.

The alley was the only escape.

He vaulted over some liquor boxes and shoved out the heavy back door into blinding sunlight. He flailed his arms to keep his balance as he ran down the icy alley, dodging crates and boxes. But his legs didn’t work so good anymore and he was stumbling, his mind racing with fear.

“Stop! Police!”

Cooper heard the pounding of footsteps behind him, but he didn’t look back. He caught the edge of a Dumpster, trying to hold on as he turned a corner, but lost his grip on the icy metal. He went sliding into a snowbank like a speed skater skidding out.

Someone was on top of him, crushing him, pushing his face into the snow and wrenching his arms behind his back. Cooper struggled and kicked.

“Stop fighting, man!”

He felt the hard pinch of the cuffs on his wrists. Cooper stopped fighting. The black cop grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet.

Cooper gulped in air, icy water dripping in his eyes. A circle of faces and ball caps came into focus. The other cop-the older white guy-thrust out an arm.

“Stay back! Police!”

The crowd was from the bar, his friends, his father’s friends. People he’d known all his life, watching him get arrested. He rubbed his face on his shoulder to dry the snow.

“You Cooper Lange?”

“Yeah,” Cooper said.

“Come on,” the older cop said, taking ahold of Cooper’s shirt. “You’re under arrest. Eluding a police officer and resisting.”

“Coop! Coop!”

It was Nick’s voice.

“Coop, you want us to call your dad?”

“Yeah,” Cooper said. “Yeah, do that, Nick. Tell him they’re taking me to the island.”

* * *

The fwump-fwump-fwump of the helicopter was heavy in his ears. He had forgotten how awful the sound was, like you were buried deep in the earth and your head was filled with dirt. The sound was triggering a cascade of images-the vivid green of the jungle below, the drab green of his uniform as he stared at his knees, the heaviness of the rifle on his shoulder, the stink of fear-sweat coming from the soldier sitting next to him.

Cooper closed his eyes, stuffing Vietnam back in the duffel.

When he opened them he saw white. The helicopter was out over Lake Huron now.

A ragged line of tiny black dots in the white. Christmas trees marking the ice bridge.

Connect the dots. . connect the dots.

How had they found him? What did they know? Why in God’s name had he been so stupid to run?

But he knew why. Because he was guilty. He could pretend all he wanted, hide away all these years, but he couldn’t escape the fact that Julie was dead and he was to blame.

The black man was shouting something to the older cop, but the helicopter noise made it impossible to hear what they were saying. Cooper shifted in the seat, trying to ease the tension on the cuffs behind his back.

The island was coming into view now. It looked weird from way up here, all white and bare of its cover of leaves. He could see the white hulk of the Grand Hotel up on the bluff and the curling wisps of chimney smoke from the small houses in the Village. Then the helicopter took a dip and there through the black lacy trees he saw it.

The lodge.

He hadn’t seen it in twenty-one years. It looked different, a cold and empty place now, nothing like it had been then.

The memories had always been there, as if they were asleep. But now they were awake and they were shouting in his ears. He shut his eyes.

* * *

“So, did you fuck her?”

Cooper looked up at the tall detective.

They had kept him in this small room for an hour now, his right wrist cuffed to the metal loop bolted on the table. He was sweating from the heat pouring out of the ceiling vent and his mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton. He hadn’t told them anything, and now the cop whose name was Rafsky was getting pissed.

Cooper’s eyes slid to the black man-Kincaid, Rafsky had called him. He thought he saw a look of sympathy in Kincaid’s eyes, but he had to be wrong. These men were convinced he had killed Julie. And because he had run he was under arrest. He was trapped.

Rafsky leaned on the table, his face close to Cooper’s. “I asked you if you fucked Julie.”

Suddenly he couldn’t stand it anymore. “Don’t say it like that,” he said.

Rafsky pulled back, moving out of view. “How should I say it?” he said. “How about. . did you bang your little girlfriend? Did you take her to that lodge and pop her little cherry?”

“Shut up!” Cooper shouted.

Rafsky was suddenly back in front of him, hands on the table. “Then talk to us, Lange.”

Cooper hung his head. He heard the scrape of a chair and looked up to see Kincaid sitting across from him.

“You loved her, didn’t you?” Kincaid said.

Cooper hesitated, his eyes sliding up to Rafsky.

Kincaid caught the look. “Detective, I think Mr. Lange would like something to drink.” He glanced at Cooper, who nodded.

Rafsky left and the room was quiet. Kincaid was just sitting there watching him. Despite the heat, the guy didn’t seem to be breaking a sweat. Cooper used his free arm to wipe his brow.

He didn’t know what was going on here. He didn’t know how they had found him or what they knew about him and Julie. The only thing he knew was that he felt a sudden overwhelming weariness. It had been more than twenty years, and he was so tired of carrying this around, so tired of having no one to talk to about it.

As he looked into Kincaid’s calm gray eyes, he saw something that told him it was finally safe, safe to risk a walk across the ice.

“Tell me about that summer,” Kincaid said.

“I met her at the stables,” Cooper said.

Kincaid moved the tape recorder closer and sat back in his chair.

“She was alone and was sort of quiet and shy,” Cooper went on. “She said she wanted to go riding, and I asked her if she knew about horses. She laughed a little and said she used to have one.”