P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

“Any idea who it is?” Louis asked.

“Nope. We’re about halfway up the lake. A couple small tourist cabins up here, so it might be an East Egger. They have a habit of getting tanked up, taking out the old Chris-Craft and falling into the lake.”

“Not in winter,” Louis said.

“Who’s to say the guy didn’t fall in last summer and just now floated up?

Louis glanced at him. “He’s wearing a parka.”

“No shit.”

They were getting irritable from the cold. Louis felt his stomach rumble with hunger.

“Well, no matter when he fell in, maybe somebody reported him missing,” Louis said. “You remember anything like that?”

Jesse shook his head. “That’s what makes me think it was an Egger, maybe somebody who was up here alone. A local would’ve been missed.”

Louis nodded in assent. He was staring now at the pinky sticking up from the ice. He focused the beam of his flashlight on the hand, picking up a flash of metal.

“He’s wearing a watch,” Louis said. Gingerly, he stepped down from the shallow bank onto the ice and the ice groaned with his weight. Louis squatted and directed the beam at the frozen body’s wrist. “Looks like a gold one.”

“Figures.” Jesse trudged back up the bank. “What the hell is keeping the fire guys?”

Louis moved the flashlight over the body. He was a large man and from the style of coat, the light gray hair and the thickness of the neck, probably an older man. Damn, why hadn’t anyone missed him? And how the hell did he get under the ice when the entire lake was frozen?

“Hey, you know what this reminds me of?” Jesse said suddenly.

Louis jumped. He hadn’t heard Jesse come back.

“A movie I saw this past summer,” Jesse went on. “Julie and me went down to the drive-in at Rose City. It was about some caveman they found frozen in the ice of the North Pole. Shit, what was the name of that movie?”

Louis looked toward the road, hoping to see headlights. “Didn’t see it,” he muttered.

“That guy was in it, you know, the one that was in the movie about the kid who drowns and the brother tries to slit his wrists?”

Louis was thinking about Zoe. Maybe she wouldn’t run tonight. It was too cold.

“Louis, what was the name of that movie?”

“Shit, Jess, I don’t know.”

“Mary Tyler Moore was in it. And the guy from Taxi was in it. Played a shrink.”

“Ordinary People. Judd Hirsch.”

“Yeah! That’s it. He was in the caveman movie.”

“Judd Hirsch was a caveman?”

“No, no, the kid in Ordinary People,” Jesse said impatiently. “He was the scientist who found the caveman frozen in the ice. I can’t remember how they got him out though.”

“Chain saws, I’d bet,” Louis muttered.

They fell silent for several minutes.

“Iceman!” Jesse said suddenly.

“What?”

“That was the name of the movie.”

They were quiet again. A dog barked somewhere far-off, the sound caroming against the pines surrounding the lake. They stood, staring at the body in its ice coffin.

“Gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘stiff,’” Jesse said.

Louis looked up at him. Jesse grinned. Louis started to laugh. Jesse joined in, their cackles echoing in the dark trees. It broke the tension, lessened the irritation. It felt odd, laughing. Louis couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard out loud.

“Chief’s here,” Jesse said.

Louis sobered quickly and looked toward the road. Gibralter’s cruiser came to a stop atop the bank. As he was getting out, two other cars and an Oscoda County Electric Company truck pulled up behind. The crewmen began unloading portable spotlights while Gibralter and a second man Louis did not recognize came down to the shore’s edge. A third man, lugging a Nikon and bag, stumbled behind them.

“Jess, who’s that?”

“Delp. Little snot-nose from the Argus, the local rag. Thinks he’s Geraldo Rivera or something.”

“What we got here, Jess?” Gibralter said.

“I’d bet an East Egger left over from hunting season,” Jesse said.

“Do we know who it is?”

“No,” Jesse answered.

“Who found it?”

“Some kids ice skating. It was hidden by some snow that was cleared away.”

Gibralter stared down at the body, his face as hard set as the ice. The thin-faced man with glasses, in a massive hooded parka, pulled out a flashlight and ventured carefully down onto the ice. Louis guessed he was probably the Oscoda County coroner, Ralph Drexler.

“What you think, Ralph?” Gibralter asked.

The coroner looked up and shrugged. “No way to tell anything ‘til we get him back to the shop and thaw him out.”

“We called the fire department,” Louis offered.

“Fire department?” Drexler said.

“We figured they’d have the equipment to chip him out, or chain saws or something,” Louis said.

“Well, be careful,” Drexler said. “I need the body intact. Don’t break off any damn arms. Or fingers. The fingers are important. Be careful with the fingers.”

The coroner bent back over the body. The reporter began screwing attachments onto a camera. Louis watched the chief as he trudged back up the bank and toward his cruiser. A moment later, he saw the flick of a lighter and the glow of the chief’s cigarette.

“Man, this is going to make a great picture.”

Louis turned. The reporter was looking at him, grinning. He couldn’t have been more than twenty and his face was flushed from the cold. He wore a red down vest over a heavy turtleneck sweater. Wild blond hair stuck out the sides of his wool cap. He made his way down toward the shoreline and began to take pictures, his strobe sending surreal flashes into the dark night.

“Hey, back off a little,” Gibralter hollered from the cruiser.

The kid looked up at Gibralter then at Louis. “I got enough.” He retreated to the bank to take pictures of the electrical crew unloading lights.

The six men of the Loon Lake Volunteer Fire Department ambled down to the body and stood gawking, making bad jokes. Louis stuffed his hands in his pockets, growing colder and more irritable. He watched as one man yanked on a chain saw, trying in vain to bring it to life as the others stood silently by, shivering. He looked up at the black sky and let out a long breath, trying to imagine Zoe on the frayed bear rug.

Two hours later, a six-by-six-foot block of ice was unloosed from the lake and hoisted up by pulleys rigged to a tow truck. It hung there, gleaming and dripping in the harsh glare of the lights. Everyone stood in a semicircle, silently looking at it for several minutes. A flash of light made Louis glance over his shoulder. He spotted the reporter a few yards off, recording the grisly tableau.

After a half hour of debate it was decided to call Noel Wolfe, who ran the granite quarry, to get a truck big enough to transport the ice block. But when the truck arrived, Ralph Drexler stepped forward.

“That body will break into pieces if you hit a bump. We need something to cushion it,” he said.

Gibralter looked at Jesse. “Go find a cushion,” he said.

“Where the fuck…?” Jesse pulled off his cap. “Okay, Chief. It’s only fucking midnight. We’re in the middle of nowhere and you want a fucking pillow for this stiff? Jesus Christ, in another hour, you’re going to have to chisel all of us out of the damn ice.”

“Harrison!” Gibralter bellowed, silencing the crowd. “I have given you a directive. Now follow it!”

Jesse stared at the chief, his mouth agape. Louis watched, sensing that Gibralter’s reprimand was totally unexpected. Apparently, under better circumstances, Jesse was allowed his little fits of temper. But not tonight.