P. Parrish - Heart of Ice

The chow chow whimpered, pushing its head under Grasso’s hand. He ignored it, his eyes on Louis.

“The boxes are in the garage out back,” he said, nodding toward the left. “I can’t help you because my hip’s gone, but you’re free to go look. The man-door’s open.”

“Thank you, sir,” Louis said.

Grasso stayed at the door, watching them as Louis and Flowers trudged through the drifts, going around the side of the house.

“When we get back we need to run a search on the brother. Maybe we can get an address through his old company,” Louis said.

“Algoma Steel,” Flowers said. “That’s in Canada.”

There were two Sault Ste. Maries, one in Michigan and the other across the river in Canada, Flowers had to remind him. Maybe that was why they hadn’t found anything on Rhonda yet.

“Remember when Lange said he and Julie were going to run away to Canada?” Louis said. “He said he had a friend there. Maybe it was Rhonda’s brother.”

Louis found a small door on the side of the garage and pushed it open. The interior was dark. Louis couldn’t see a light switch, but as his eyes adjusted he could make out the shapes of a tool bench, a snowmobile half covered by a stiff tarp, broken furniture, fishing poles, and a battered metal canoe suspended by straps from the rafters. A dirty Chevy Fleetside pickup took up the center. The place was stacked with so much junk it was hard to move.

“You see anything?” Flowers asked.

Louis headed toward some cardboard boxes stacked against the far wall near a small window. “Yeah, over here.”

Flowers came over to him. “Shit,” he said, looking up at the stack.

Louis had already started working his way through the boxes. The first two were filled with old linens and clothes. A third held dishes, mismatched glasses, and bowling trophies. The fourth was flattened from the weight of the others. A faded ink scrawl on the top read RHONDA.

Louis pulled it out. The yellowed, cracked tape gave easily. There were clothes on top, and Louis set them aside. He pulled out a small red box with a plastic handle, but it was filled only with old records. Louis glanced at the top one-Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit” single-and handed the box off to Flowers. A battered loose-leaf binder came out next, its blue surface scarred with faded peace signs and other doodles, the inside papers just routine schoolwork.

Louis’s hopes rose when he pulled out a macramé purse, but there was nothing in it but a bottle of Oh! De London perfume that filled the garage with a powdery scent.

Louis tossed the purse back in the box. “That’s it,” he said.

Flowers was about five feet away, tugging on another box buried under two tires. “I found two more with RHONDA on them.”

Louis went to help him drag the top box into the thin light under the window. When he opened the flaps, he let out a long breath. It was filled with papers.

“Maybe we should just take this one with us,” Flowers said.

Louis pointed at the bottom of the box. It was sodden from sitting in a puddle. The second, smaller box, also with RHONDA scrawled on it, was also wet.

“I’ll go ask the old guy for some garbage bags,” Flowers said.

Flowers left. Louis blew on his cold hands and began sorting through the papers in the first box. More schoolwork, tattered copies of ’Teen, Tiger Beat, and 16 Magazine, pages pasted with photographs of fashion models, a Sears catalog, an application for a beauty school in Ishpeming, a crumpled report card from Cedarville High School. Louis held it up to the light, squinting to read it without his glasses. Rhonda Grasso had flunked algebra and science and had skated by English, home economics, and gym with C’s. She had fourteen absences for the six-week marking period. Louis tossed it back in the box and dug deeper, finally unearthing a pack of old envelopes bound with a faded blue ribbon. There were about thirty, all addressed to Rhonda at the Cedarville house, all with a return address on Clayton Street, San Francisco. He opened the top envelope.

It was a single piece of unlined paper, the writing too small and faded for Louis to read-except for the LOVE, DIRK at the end. Louis stuck the letter in his parka. It was the longest of long shots, but maybe Rhonda, like so many other troubled kids, had decamped to Haight-Ashbury in 1967.

Louis dug back into the box, looking for something, anything, that might connect Rhonda to Julie.

Photographs.

He pulled out a handful. They were old snapshots, most faded to orange. He sifted through them quickly, discarding the ones that looked like family pictures or shots from school events. Then, suddenly, there she was.

Not Julie but Rhonda. He didn’t need his glasses to tell it was her. It was a close-up, as if the photographer had surprised her. Her head was thrown back, exposing her neck. She was smiling broadly, blond curls wind-whipped around her face, eyes like blue pilot flames.

Louis stared at the photo, stunned by how accurate Danny Dancer had been in capturing Rhonda’s likeness.

He heard a rustling, and a second later Flowers appeared with a black garbage bag.

“Look,” Louis said, handing him the photo of Rhonda.

Flowers took it and let out a low whistle.

Louis went back to plowing through the box, pulling out more snapshots. There were plenty of other teenagers, many of young men or Rhonda with a young man. None had names on the back.

He dug out another handful. Street scenes, blue water, and horses. The photos were of Mackinac Island. He tossed the landscapes in the box and sorted through the rest. He stopped.

It was a group shot, six teenagers standing in front of a grassy knoll. Louis couldn’t make out their faces. He held it up to Flowers.

“Is that Rhonda?” he asked.

Flowers took the photo. “Yeah,” he said. “This was taken up at Fort Holmes.” He pointed to tiny lettering on the photograph’s edge. “ ‘July 1968.’ ”

Louis stood up. “The summer before Cooper met Julie. Is that Cooper Lange next to her?”

“Looks like him.” Flowers was sniffling from the cold. “Come on, let’s pack this up and get out of here.”

Louis slipped the group shot and the close-up of Rhonda into his parka pocket. Flowers held the garage bag open while Louis dumped in the contents of both wet boxes.

A small metal box missed the bag and fell to the floor. It was an old Band-Aid tin. Flowers was about to throw it in the bag, but Louis stopped him.

“Open it.”

Flowers shook it. “It’s empty.”

“Open it anyway.”

Flowers popped the top and shook the tin over his palm. Six tiny pieces of fabric fell out.

“What the hell?” Louis said.

Flowers fingered them and chuckled. “Fruit loops,” he said.

“What?”

“Man, I haven’t seen these since I was a kid.”

“What are they?” Louis asked.

Flowers paused. “Where’s that group picture?”

Louis fished it from his pocket and held it out. Flowers pointed to one of the boys. “See the shirt this kid is wearing? There were little loops on the back. Girls would cut them off and collect them.”

“What for?”

“Conquests. Guys notched their belts. Girls collected fruit loops.”

Louis was thinking about Danny’s sketch of Cooper. He was almost positive Lange had been wearing a madras shirt. He retrieved his glasses from his parka pocket and held the group photograph up to the window.

Cooper Lange at age eighteen-blond and slender, wearing chinos, a T-shirt, and a confident smile. He looked like the whole world was spread out before him. He looked nothing like the faded man who had sat hunched in the interrogation room.

And Rhonda. .