Ice Cold (12 page)

“You never know, she may surprise us.” Jane laughed, jittery from too much caffeine and sugar. “She may turn up at work tomorrow, right on time. Tell us that she lost her cell phone or something.” It was a lame explanation, and neither man bothered to respond.

The ringing phone made them all snap straight. Gabriel picked up the receiver. He did not say much; nor did his face reveal what information he was hearing. But when he hung up and looked at Jane, she knew the news was not good.

“She never returned the rental car.”

“They checked with Hertz?”

Gabriel nodded. “She picked it up Tuesday at the airport, and was supposed to return it this morning.”

“So the car’s missing as well.”

“That’s right.”

Jane did not look at Brophy; she didn’t want to see his face.

“I guess that settles it,” said Gabriel. “There’s only one thing we can do.”

Jane nodded. “I’ll call my mom in the morning. I’m sure she’ll be happy to watch Regina. We can drop her off on the way to the airport.”

“You’re flying to Jackson?” asked Brophy.

“If we can find two seats on a flight tomorrow,” said Jane.

“Make it three,” Brophy said. “I’m coming, too.”

M
AURA AWAKENED TO THE SOUND OF
A
RLO’S CHATTERING TEETH.
Opening her eyes, she saw it was still dark, but sensed that dawn was near, that the blackness of night was just starting to lift to gray. In the glow from the hearth, she could count the sleeping bodies: Grace curled up on the sofa; Doug and Elaine sleeping close together, almost touching. Always almost touching. She could guess who had migrated toward whom in the night. It was so obvious, now that she was aware of it: the way Elaine looked at Doug, the way she so frequently touched him, her eager acquiescence to everything he suggested. Arlo lay alone beside the hearth, the blanket molding his body like a shroud. His teeth clattered together as a fresh chill gripped his body.

She rose, her back stiff from the floor, and placed more wood in the fireplace. Crouching close, she warmed herself as the fire crackled to life, bright and fierce. Turning, she looked at Arlo, whose face was now illuminated by the flames.

His hair was greasy and stiff with sweat. His skin had taken on the yellowish cast of a corpse. If not for his chattering teeth, she might have thought him already dead.

“Arlo,” she said softly.

Slowly, his eyelids lifted. His gaze seemed to come from some deep and shadowy pit, as though he had fallen far beyond all reach of help. “So … cold,” he whispered.

“I’ve built up the fire again. It’ll be warmer in here soon.” She touched his forehead, and the heat of his skin was so startling that she felt as if her hand were seared. At once she went to the coffee table, where they had lined up all the medicines, and struggled to read the labels in the dark. She found the bottles of amoxicillin and Tylenol, and shook out capsules into her hand. “Here. Take these.”

“What is it?” Arlo grunted as she lifted his head to help him swallow the pills.

“You have a fever. That’s why you’re shivering. These should make you feel better.”

He swallowed the pills and slumped back, seized by another chill so violent that she thought he might be convulsing. But his eyes were open and aware. She surrendered her own blanket to him, draping yet another layer of wool over his body. She knew that she should check the condition of his leg, but the room was still too dark, and she didn’t want to light the kerosene lamp yet, not while everyone else was still asleep. Already the window had brightened. In another hour or so, it would be dawn, and she could examine his limb. But she already knew what she would find. The fever meant his leg was almost certainly infected, and bacteria had invaded his bloodstream. She also knew that the amoxicillin was not a powerful enough antibiotic to save him.

They had only twenty tablets left, anyway.

She glanced at Doug, tempted to wake him so that he could share this burden, but Doug was still deeply asleep. So she alone sat beside Arlo, holding his hand, stroking his arm through the blankets. Though his forehead was hot, his hand was alarmingly chilled, more like dead flesh than living.

And I know what dead flesh feels like
.

Since her days as a medical student, it was the autopsy room, and not the patient’s bedside, where she’d felt most comfortable. The dead don’t expect you to make small talk or listen to their endless complaints or watch while they writhe in pain. The dead are beyond pain, and they don’t expect you to perform miracles you are incapable of. They wait patiently and uncomplainingly as long as it takes for you to finish your job.

Looking down at Arlo’s racked face, she thought: It’s not the dead who make me uneasy, but the living.

Yet she remained at his side, holding his hand as dawn broke, as his chills gradually ebbed. He was breathing more easily now, and beads of sweat glistened on his face.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” he asked softly, watching her with eyes that were feverishly bright.

“Why do you ask?”

“Your job. If anyone ever saw a ghost, it would be you.”

She shook her head. “I’ve never seen one.”

“So you don’t believe.”

“No.”

He stared beyond her, focused on something that she could not see. “But they’re here, in this room. Watching us.”

She touched his forehead. His skin was already cooler to the touch, his fever fading. Yet he was clearly delirious, his eyes tracking the room as though following the progress of phantoms gliding past.

It was light enough now for her to look at his leg.

He did not protest as she lifted the blanket. He was nude from the waist down, his penis shriveled and almost lost in the nest of brown pubic hair. In the night he had wet himself, and the towels they had placed under him were soaked. She peeled off layers of gauze from his wound, and the gasp was out of her throat before she could suppress it. She’d last examined the wound only six hours ago, by the light of the kerosene lamp. Now, in the unforgiving glare of brightening daylight, she could see the blackened edges of skin, the bloated tissues. And she caught the foul whiff of decaying meat.

“Tell me the truth,” said Arlo. “I want to know. Am I going to die?”

She struggled for reassuring words, for an answer she did not truly believe. Before she could say a word, a hand suddenly settled on her shoulder and she turned in surprise.

“Of course you’re not going to die,” said Doug, standing right behind her. “Because I’m not going to let you, Arlo. No matter how much damn trouble you give me.”

Arlo managed a weak smile. “You’ve always been full of shit, man,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

Doug knelt down and stared at the leg. He didn’t have to say it; Maura could read in his face the same thing she was now thinking.
His leg is rotting before our eyes
.

“Let’s go in the other room,” Doug said.

They stepped into the kitchen, out of earshot of the others. Dawn had given way to a blindingly bright morning, and the glare through the window washed out Doug’s face, made every gray hair stand out in his stubbly beard.

“I gave him amoxicillin this morning,” she said. “For all the good it’ll do.”

“What he needs is surgery.”

“I agree. You want to be the one to cut off his leg?”

“Jesus.” He began to pace the kitchen in agitation. “Ligating an artery is one thing. But to do an amputation …”

“Even if we
could
do the amputation, it wouldn’t be enough. He’s already septic. He needs massive doses of IV antibiotics.”

Doug turned to the window and squinted at the brilliant reflection of sunlight on ice-encrusted snow. “I’ve got a full eight, maybe nine hours of daylight. If I leave right now, I might make it down the mountain by dark.”

“You’re going to ski out?”

“Unless you have a better idea.”

She thought of Arlo, sweating and shaking in the other room as his leg bloated and his wound slowly putrefied. She thought of bacteria swarming through his blood, invading every organ. And she thought of a corpse she’d once dissected, of a woman who had died of septic shock, and remembered the patchy hemorrhages in the skin, the heart, the lungs. Shock caused multiple system failure, shutting down heart, kidneys, and brain. Already Arlo was showing signs of delirium. He was seeing people who did not exist, ghosts hovering around him. But at least he was still producing urine; as long as his kidneys did not fail, he had a chance of survival.

“I’ll pack you some food,” she said. “And you’ll need a sleeping bag, in case you don’t make it out by dark.”

“I’ll go as far as I can tonight,” said Doug. He glanced toward the front room, where Arlo lay dying. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave him in your hands.”

G
RACE DID NOT WANT
her father to go. She clung to his jacket as he stood outside on the porch, pleading with him not to leave them, whining that he was her father, and how could he leave her behind, just as her mother had? What kind of father would do that?

“Arlo’s really sick, honey,” said Doug, peeling her hands away from his sleeve. “If I don’t get help, he could die.”

“If you leave,
I’m
the one who could die!” she said.

“You’re not alone. Elaine and Maura will take care of you.”

“Why do
you
have to go? Why can’t
she
go?” Grace pointed at Maura, a gesture so aggressive it felt like an accusation.

“Stop it, Grace. Stop it.” He grabbed his daughter’s shoulders and gave her a hard shake. “I’m the strongest. I’ll have the best chance of making it. And Arlo is
my
friend.”

“But you’re my
father,”
Grace shot back.

“I need you to grow up right now. You have to realize that you’re not the center of the universe.” He strapped on his backpack. “We’ll talk about this when I get back. Now give me a kiss, okay?”

Grace backed away. “No wonder Mom left you,” she said and walked into the house, slamming the door behind her.

Doug stood stunned, staring in disbelief at the closed door. But the outburst should hardly have surprised him. Maura had seen how hungrily Grace vied for her father’s attention, and how skillfully the girl used guilt as a weapon to control him. Now Doug seemed ready to pursue his daughter into the house, which was just what Grace wanted, and no doubt expected.

“Don’t worry about her,” said Maura. “I promise I’ll look after her. She’ll be perfectly all right.”

“With you in charge, I know she will.” He took her into his arms for a farewell hug. “I’m sorry, Maura,” he murmured. “Sorry for everything that’s gone wrong.” He pulled away and looked at her. “Back when you knew me at Stanford, I’m sure you thought I was a fuckup. I guess I haven’t done too good a job of changing your mind.”

“You get us out of here, Doug, and I’ll rethink that opinion.”

“You can count on it.” He tightened the chest strap of his backpack. “Hold the fort, Dr. Isles. I promise I’ll be back with the cavalry.”

She watched from the porch as he headed up the road. The day had already warmed into the twenties, and not a cloud was visible in the sky. If he was going to attempt the journey, today was the day to do it.

The door suddenly opened and Elaine came flying out of the house. She had already said her goodbye to Doug moments earlier, but here she was again, running to catch up with him, running as though her life depended on it. Maura could not hear their conversation, but she saw Elaine pull off the cashmere scarf she always wore and gently drape it around Doug’s neck as a parting gift. They embraced, a hug that seemed to last forever. Then Doug was on his way, climbing up the rutted road that led out of the valley. Only when he’d rounded the bend and vanished behind the trees did Elaine finally turn back to the house. She climbed the porch steps to where Maura was standing but didn’t say a word, just brushed past her and walked inside, shutting the door behind her.

E
VEN BEFORE
D
ETECTIVE
Q
UEENAN INTRODUCED HIMSELF,
J
ANE
would have pegged him as a cop. He stood beside a snow-covered Toyota in the parking lot of the Mountain Lodge, conversing with a man and a woman. As Jane and her party climbed out of their rental car and approached the Toyota, it was Queenan who turned to look at them, watching with the alert gaze that characterized a man whose job was all about observation. In every other way he seemed ordinary—balding, overweight, his mustache streaked with the first hints of gray.

“Are you Detective Queenan?” said Gabriel.

The man nodded. “You must be Agent Dean.”

“And I’m Detective Rizzoli,” said Jane.

Queenan frowned at her. “Boston PD?”

“Homicide unit,” she said.

“Homicide? Aren’t you folks kind of jumping the gun here? We don’t know that any crime’s been committed.”

“Dr. Isles is a friend of ours,” said Jane. “She’s a reliable professional, and she wouldn’t go missing on a whim. We’re all concerned about her welfare.”

Queenan turned to look at Brophy. “And are you with Boston PD, too?”

“No, sir,” said Brophy. “I’m a priest.”

At that, Queenan gave a startled laugh. “A fibbie, a cop, and a priest. Now, that’s a team I haven’t seen before.”

“What have you got so far?” Jane asked.

“Well, we have this,” Queenan said, and he pointed at the parked Toyota where two people stood, watching the conversation. The man was named Finch, and he worked as a security guard for the lodge. The woman was an employee with the Hertz rental car agency.

“This Toyota’s been parked here since at least Friday night,” said Finch. “Hasn’t been moved.”

“You confirmed that on surveillance video?” asked Jane.

“Uh, no, ma’am. Cameras don’t cover this lot.”

“Then how do you know it’s been here that long?”

“Look at the snow piled up on it. We had a big storm on Saturday that dumped almost two feet, which is about what I see on this car.”

“This is Maura’s car?”

The Hertz lady said, “The rental contract for this vehicle was made out to a Dr. Maura Isles. It was booked online three weeks ago, and she picked it up last Tuesday. Paid for it with an AmEx card. It was supposed to be returned to our airport lot yesterday morning.”

“She didn’t call to extend the rental?” asked Gabriel.

“No, sir.” The woman pulled a key ring out of her pocket and looked at Queenan. “Here’s that spare key you wanted, Detective.”

Queenan pulled on a set of latex gloves and unlocked the front passenger door. Gingerly he leaned inside and opened the glove compartment, where he found the rental contract. “Maura Isles,” he confirmed, scanning the papers. He peered at the odometer. “Looks like she put in about ninety miles. Not much driving for a six-day rental.”

“She was here for a medical conference,” said Jane. “And she was staying at this hotel. She probably didn’t get much of a chance for sightseeing.” Jane peered through the window, careful not to touch the glass. Except for a folded
USA Today
lying on the front passenger seat, the interior looked spotless. Of course it would be; Maura was a neatness freak, and Jane had never spied so much as a stray Kleenex in her Lexus. “What’s the date on that newspaper?” she asked.

Queenan unfolded the
USA Today
. “It’s last Tuesday’s.”

“The day she flew here,” said Brophy. “She must have picked it up at the airport.”

Queenan straightened. “Let’s take a look in the trunk,” he said. He circled to the rear, brushed off the snow, and pressed the unlock button on the remote. They all gathered around to watch, and Jane noticed Queenan hesitate before reaching down with a gloved hand to lift open the trunk. The same thought was probably going through all their heads at that moment.
A missing woman. An abandoned vehicle
. Too many surprises had been found in car trunks, too many horrors folded like embryos inside steel wombs. In these freezing temperatures, there would be no odors to alert anyone, no olfactory clues of what might lie inside. As Queenan lifted the trunk, Jane felt her breath catch in her throat. She stared into the now revealed space.

“Empty and clean as a whistle,” said Queenan, and she heard relief in his voice. He looked at Gabriel. “So we have a rental car that looks to be in good shape, and no luggage. Wherever your friend went, she took her stuff with her. That sounds like a planned jaunt to me.”

“Then where is she?” said Jane. “Why isn’t she answering her cell phone?”

Queenan looked at her as though she were merely an irritating distraction. “I don’t know your friend. Maybe you have a better handle on that answer than I do.”

The Hertz lady said, “When can we get this vehicle back? It’s part of our fleet.”

“We’ll need to hold on to it for a while,” said Queenan.

“How long?”

“Until we decide if a crime has actually been committed. At the moment, I’m not sure.”

“Then how do you explain her disappearance?” said Jane.

Once again, that flicker of irritation passed through his eyes when he looked at her. “I said I’m not sure. I’m keeping an open mind, ma’am. How about we all try doing that?”

“I
CAN’T SAY
I really remember this particular guest,” said Michelle, a desk clerk at the Mountain Lodge. “But then, we had two hundred doctors, plus their families, staying here last week. There’s no way I could have kept track of everyone.”

They had crowded into the manager’s office, which was barely large enough to hold them all. The manager stood near the door with his arms crossed as he watched the interview. It was his presence, more than the questions, that seemed to make Michelle nervous, and she kept glancing toward her boss, as if afraid he’d disapprove of her answers.

“Then you don’t recognize her picture?” Queenan asked, tapping on the official photo that Jane had printed off the Massachusetts medical examiner’s website. It was an image of a somber professional. Maura gazed directly at the camera, her mouth neutral and unsmiling—appropriate for the line of work she was in. When one’s job involved slicing open the dead, a broad grin would be unsettling.

Michelle studied the photo again with self-conscious diligence. She was young, in her midtwenties, and having so many people watching would make it difficult for anyone to concentrate. Especially when one of those people was your boss.

Jane said to the manager, “Would you mind stepping out, sir?”

“This is my office.”

“We only need to borrow it for a short time.”

“Since this business involves my hotel, I think I should know exactly what’s going on.” He looked at the clerk. “Do you remember her or not, Michelle?”

The young woman gave a helpless shrug. “I can’t be sure. Are there any other pictures?”

After a silence, Brophy said quietly: “I have one.” From the inside pocket of his jacket, he produced the photo. It was a casual snapshot of Maura seated at her kitchen table, a glass of red wine in front of her. Compared with the somber photo from the ME’s office, this looked like a different woman entirely, her face flushed with alcohol and laughter. The photo was worn around the edges from repeated handling; it was something that he probably always carried with him, to be brought out and gazed at in lonely moments. For Daniel Brophy, there must be many such moments, torn between duty and longing, between God and Maura.

“Does she look familiar?” Queenan asked Michelle.

The young woman frowned. “This is the same woman? She looks so different in this picture.”

Happier. In love
.

Michelle looked up. “You know, I think I do remember her. Was she here with her husband?”

“She’s not married,” said Jane.

“Oh. Well, maybe I’m thinking of the wrong woman, then.”

“Tell us about the woman you do remember.”

“She was with this guy. A really cute guy with blond hair.”

Jane avoided looking at Brophy; she didn’t want to see his reaction. “What else do you remember about them?”

“They were going out to dinner together. I remember they stopped at the desk, and he asked for directions to the restaurant. I just assumed they were married.”

“Why?”

“Because he was laughing and said something like, ‘You see? I
have
learned to ask for directions.’ I mean, that’s something a guy would say to his wife, right?”

“When did you see this couple?”

“It would have been Thursday night. Because I was off duty on Friday.”

“And Saturday, the day she checked out? Were you working that morning?”

“Yes, but a lot of us were on duty. That’s when the conference ended and we had all those guests checking out. I don’t remember seeing her then.”

“Someone at the desk must have helped her check out.”

“Actually, no,” the manager said. He held up a computer printout. “You said you wanted her room bill, so I ran off a copy. Looks like she used the in-room checkout feature on her TV. She didn’t have to stop at the desk at all when she left.”

Queenan took the printout. Flipping through the pages, he read aloud all the charges. “Room tax. Restaurant. Internet. Restaurant. I don’t see anything out of the ordinary here.”

“If it was an in-room checkout,” Jane said, “how do we know she actually did it herself?”

Queenan didn’t even bother to suppress a snort. “Are you suggesting that someone broke into her room? Packed up her stuff and checked out
for
her?”

“I’m just pointing out that we don’t have proof she was actually here on Saturday morning, the day she supposedly left.”

“What kind of proof do you need?”

Jane turned to the manager. “You have a security camera mounted over the reception desk. How long do you keep the recordings?”

“We’d still have the video from last week. But you’re talking about hours and hours of recordings. Hundreds of people walking through the lobby. You’d be here all week watching those.”

“What time did she check out, according to the bill?”

Queenan looked at the printout. “It was seven fifty-four
AM.”

“Then let’s start there. If she walked out of this hotel on her own two feet, we should be able to spot her.”

T
HERE WAS NOTHING
in life so mind numbing as reviewing a surveillance video. After only thirty minutes, Jane’s neck and shoulders were sore from craning forward, trying to catch every passing figure on the monitor. It did not help matters that Queenan kept sighing and fidgeting in his chair, making it clear to everyone else in the room that he thought this was a fool’s errand. And maybe it is, thought Jane as she watched figures twitch across the screen, groups gathering and dispersing. As the time stamp moved toward eight
AM,
and dozens of hotel guests converged on the reception desk for checkout, her attention was pulled in too many directions at once.

It was Daniel who spotted her. “There!” he said.

Gabriel froze the recording. Jane counted at least two dozen people captured in that freeze-frame of the lobby, most of them standing near the desk. Others were caught in the background, clustered near the lobby chairs. Two men stood talking on their cell phones, and both were simultaneously looking at their watches. Welcome to the era of the compulsive multitasker.

Queenan said: “I don’t see her.”

“Go back,” said Daniel. “I’m sure it was her.”

Gabriel reversed the sequence, frame by frame. They watched as people walked backward, as groups broke apart and new clusters formed. One of the cell phone talkers twitched this way and that, as though dancing to some erratic beat coming through his receiver.

“That’s her,” Daniel said softly.

The dark-haired woman was at the very edge of the screen, her face caught in profile. No wonder Jane had missed seeing it the first time: Maura was weaving through the lobby with half a dozen people standing between her and the camera. Only at that instant, as she walked past a gap in the crowd, did the lens capture her image.

“Not a very clear shot,” said Queenan.

“I know it’s her,” said Daniel, staring at Maura with undisguised yearning. “It’s her face, her haircut. And I recognize the parka.”

“Let’s see if we can get any other views,” said Gabriel. He moved the recording forward, frame by frame. Maura’s dark hair reappeared, bobbing in and out of view as she moved past. Only at the very edge of the screen did she emerge again from the crowd. She was wearing dark pants and a white ski parka with a furred hood. Gabriel advanced one more image, and Maura’s head moved beyond the frame, but half her torso was still visible.

“Well, look at that,” said Queenan, pointing. “She’s wheeling a suitcase.” He looked at Jane. “I think that settles the issue, doesn’t it? She packed her own bag and checked out. She wasn’t dragged from the building. As of Saturday, eight oh five, she was alive and well and leaving the hotel on her own steam.” He glanced at his watch and stood. “Call me if you see anything else worth noting.”

“You’re not staying?”

“Ma’am, we’ve sent her photo to every newspaper and TV station in the state of Wyoming. We’re fielding every call that comes in. The problem is, she—or someone who looks like her—has been sighted just about everywhere.”