Broken Ice--A Novel Read online

  “Did she rebel?”

  “You could call it that. It’s normal for a kid to individuate from her parents at that age. But this was more than the norm. Anne and Roger weren’t cut out to be parents. And to their credit, they never intended to be. Linnea wasn’t planned, and Anne had her tubes tied during her C-section to make sure there’d be no more surprises.”

  “So Linnea turned to you.”

  “We had coinciding misfortunes. Linnea outgrew her parents, and I lost my husband.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Thank you. His name was Howard. He was a lovely man. Twenty years older than me. Handsome and successful and kind. So very kind. One day he went out for a jog on a warm March morning. He slipped on a patch of ice hidden under a puddle and hit his head on the curb. They couldn’t stop his brain from swelling, and he died six weeks later.”

  The drinks came. I didn’t take my eyes off Mel as the waitress set them on the table. Mel pressed her fingers on the base of her wineglass. She kept her fingernails short and wore no polish. She stared into her wine and said, “He died that May, and Anne and Linnea moved in for a few months.” She lifted the glass and took a sip. Her eyes did not contain even a hint of blue, even next to her royal blue sweater. Eyes sad and warm and honest. “Anne wanted to be there for me. She meant well, but Linnea was our real support. During the summer, she and I grew quite close. To be brutally honest, even closer than I am with my own daughter. For a while there anyway. Linnea confided in me about school and friends and boys. She told me about her dreams.”

  Mel smiled and was quiet for a minute then said, “I should have established stronger boundaries. Guess I didn’t try all that hard because Linnea is like Howard. All heart. Always taking in stray dogs and cats, squirrels that fell out of trees, abandoned baby raccoons, a crow with a broken wing.

  “Last year, a wounded doe wandered into the Engstroms’ backyard up in Warroad during hunting season. It had been shot in the hind leg and was terrified, but the deer let Linnea give it food and water and salt. Linnea led it into the garage and bought some bails of straw from the feed store to make it a bed until the vet could get there. The vet cost Roger twenty-eight hundred dollars. I remember the amount because Roger mentioned it every chance he got then made some stupid joke about not even getting any venison out of the deal.”

  I had questions for Mel Rosenthal, but she was on a roll. I wasn’t about to stop her. Maybe she’d answer some I hadn’t thought to ask.

  “Linnea was the same with people,” Mel said. “She befriended oddballs, artists, a kid with a speech impediment, foreign exchange students, LGBT kids, Guy Storstrand, the star of the Roseau team who was a couple grades ahead of Linnea.”

  “Isn’t Roseau Warroad’s arch rival?”

  “Yep. Drove people in Warroad nuts. Especially since Guy is from Warroad and went over to Roseau to skate for the enemy. He plays for the Montreal Canadiens now.”

  “How did Roger and Anne feel about their daughter hanging out with a guy two years older?”

  “To be honest, Roger and Anne weren’t paying that much attention. Roger was preoccupied with business, and Anne was preoccupied with Roger. Linnea said she and Guy were just friends, but I think she wanted it to be more.”

  “So how does a hockey star qualify as a stray?”

  “Guy has Tourette’s. Hockey is the one place he felt on equal footing with everyone else. Until he met Linnea. She didn’t give a damn that he ticks or that he’s a big hockey star. My guess is he appreciated that.”

  “Is she still in contact with him?”

  “I don’t know. Linnea and I had a falling-out last Christmas.” She looked down and said nothing for what felt like too long then said, “The game is starting. Do you want to go out to the seats?”

  “I’d rather hear what happened between you and Linnea.”

  Mel said nothing happened. They had grown close, communicated three, four times a day, but she started to feel like she was cheating on her own daughter and robbing Anne of the chance to have a better relationship with Linnea. When Mel explained that to her niece, Linnea didn’t take it well. Mel tried to negotiate some lesser version of what they had, but Linnea wouldn’t have it. One day Linnea just cut Mel off. Stopped responding to Mel’s texts. Didn’t answer her calls. Mel talked to Anne a few times a week and knew Linnea was okay, but that was it.

  I said, “You’ve never told Anne about you and Linnea?”

  “No. Like I said, I felt like I was betraying Anne. I didn’t want to hurt her and I felt guilty. But I thought you should know—maybe it’ll help find her.” Mel Rosenthal picked up her wineglass, but it was empty.

  “Do you think Linnea ran away?”

  Anne nodded. “I fear she found a new surrogate parent who got her into something bad.”

  I said, “Do you want to get out to the game or is it okay if I ask a few more questions?”

  “There are seventy-five TVs in this bar. I won’t miss anything. I don’t even care about hockey. I’m just here to support Ivy.”

  “Do you think Luca Lüdorf’s a stray? Does dating him fit Linnea’s pattern?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t know him. They started dating a few months ago. I’ve asked Anne about Luca. I’ve read about him online. That’s Minnesota for you—no shortage of information about high school hockey players, especially those going on to play at the next level. Other than his hockey skills, he seems to be an average kid. Polite. Well liked. And according to Anne, he’s crazy about Linnea. Sends her flowers. Buys her gifts. Does all that boy-in-love stuff.”

  “Have you told the police everything you’ve told me?”

  “All of it,” she said. “Every bit.”

  The arena erupted. The horn sounded. I looked up at a TV and saw the Wayzata Trojans celebrating in front of the Warroad net, sticks up in the air, helmets pressed together. The band played the fight song.

  “Not my sport,” Mel said, “but Ivy’s loving this.” Mel looked at the TV as the camera panned the Wayzata band. If she saw Ivy, she didn’t say so. She just smiled, and her eyes shined.

  “Nice start for Wayzata,” I said.

  “It’s strange we’re playing Warroad, isn’t it?”

  “Two elite programs. Not that strange. Do you get up to Warroad much?”

  Mel said, “A couple times a year.”

  “I get the sense Roger and maybe even Anne aren’t so welcome in Warroad.”

  Mel shook her head. “No one who knew Roger liked him. Except Anne. After all these years, I have no idea why she loved him so much. It’s like in those stupid sitcoms starring an unattractive, loudmouth husband who’s always causing trouble, but his beautiful wife loves him, so the audience is supposed to think he must be okay. Only with Roger, no one other than Anne thought he was okay.”

  “I only met him once. Why did people dislike him so much?”

  “He was withholding. Never said what he was thinking. Only what he thought he should say. Something about the man was a lie. Actually, Howard used to say, everything about Roger was a lie. He was always trying to get Howard to invest in some new thing or another. And he’d make his pitch just as his current business was crashing into the ground. Howard never bit. But Roger would always find another sucker and pull together some kind of deal. That’s why they moved to Warroad.”

  “You think people didn’t like Roger because his bullshit didn’t work in a place like Warroad?”

  “I’m sure it did. What I heard was Roger hired away some key people from Marvin Windows. Doubled their salary. Gave them stock options. And it created a ripple through Marvin, which has a reputation for being a happy and healthy company. It’s hard to attract good workers up there. A town of under two thousand people that’s six miles south of the Canadian border. It’s not for everyone.”

  “Do you know who funded Roger’s business in Warroad?”

  “NorthTech? No idea.”

  “Does Anne know?”

  “I’m sure s
he does. Not that it mattered to her. Anne believed in Roger. She was his biggest fan. Sometimes two wrong people are somehow right for each other.”

  I thought ain’t that the fucking truth but said, “What’s wrong with Anne?”

  “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “But you did.”

  Mel smiled a sad smile. “I love my sister, but she wants whatever she doesn’t have. And what she has, she doesn’t want.” Mel cocked her head and looked like she might cry. “Maybe that’s why she loved Roger so much—she never really had him.”

  I said, “Did Anne have Linnea?”

  “When Linnea was younger. Absolutely.”

  “And that made Anne an absent parent?”

  “I think so. Unfortunately.” Mel Rosenthal picked up her empty wineglass a second time. I flagged the waitress, ordered Mel another Old Vine Zin and a Grain Belt Nordeast for myself. Mel thanked me and said one more was her limit.

  “Has Linnea made any attempt to contact you or Ivy?”

  “Seriously?”

  “It’s a fair question.”

  “I know it’s a fair question. The police have asked it ten times. You think I’d withhold that information? Especially now that Roger’s dead? My sister’s grieving. Nothing would give her more comfort right now than finding Linnea.”

  The arena erupted a second time. I looked at the TV. Wayzata had scored another goal. The heavily favored Warroad Warriors were trailing 2–0 just ten minutes into the game.

  Mel said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m a little raw right now.”

  I wanted to let Mel off the hook. Tell her it was okay she snapped at me for asking a reasonable question. But, as Mel said, she was a little raw. And Mel’s rawness had yielded me a freighter of information. “Any chance Linnea would contact Ivy?”

  “I don’t think so. Ivy’s such a…” She stopped herself then said, “Goody Two-shoes.”

  “What was that pause? What were you going to say?”

  Mel almost smiled then said, “I almost said Ivy’s such a straight arrow.”

  “Ha!” We laughed, as we should have. Humor is like death. Eventually, it wins.

  18

  Mel said she’d call if she remembered any more specifics or if Linnea contacted either her or Ivy. She returned to the Wayzata section, and I found my seat twenty rows above the opposite blue line. The Zamboni made its final pass, leaving the ice wet and gray and clean. Then two workers opened swinging doors, and the ice resurfacing machine disappeared under the seats. The workers shoveled up the residual snow near the door then pulled the goals back onto the ice and slid them to their spots.

  I got a text from Annika telling me to check my email. She’d forwarded a report from Madison PD. The only nearby business open at the time Linnea Engstrom logged into Starbucks’ Wi-Fi was a tanning salon. It had a security camera, but the footage showed no one resembling Linnea Engstrom. There were offices above Starbucks, but they were closed last night. Linnea Engstrom remained as invisible in Wisconsin as she did in Minnesota.

  The players returned to the ice with scattered applause and cheers. The second period wouldn’t start for seven minutes. Fans still crowded the concession stands and bars and bathrooms and souvenirs shops. Warroad finished the first period down 2–0. Maybe Wayzata’s goalie was hot, or maybe Warroad hadn’t found their groove. Coach Kozjek stood alone on the bench, looking at the far end of the ice where his team skated warm-ups. I put the binoculars on him and saw a reddened, tense expression. He’d lose eleven starting seniors after the season, including Graham Peters and Luca Lüdorf. He wouldn’t get another shot at the state championship for at least two years. Maybe he felt the pressure. Maybe his stress came from somewhere else.

  Kozy kept his hands in his jacket pockets and spit on the floor. If people get reincarnated as inanimate objects, the last thing you’d want to come back as is the rubber flooring under a hockey bench. As if cold hard steel skate blades aren’t bad enough, you’re under a constant barrage of spit, sweat, blood, and snot rockets.

  Parents of the Warroad players and students sat behind the bench. Haley Housh’s family had gone back to Warroad, but I looked for them anyway. I saw no familiar faces, except two.

  St. Paul PD Officer Terrence Flynn sat directly behind the bench wearing plainclothes. He held a plastic souvenir cup. Not a beer. That meant nothing, of course. Maybe he didn’t drink. Maybe he preferred soda. Then again, maybe he was on duty. Nor did it mean anything that Officer Julia Mason, the orange-haired cop with big gums, sat one row behind Flynn and a few seats to Flynn’s left. She wore her hair down in front of her shoulders. That, too, meant nothing. But when Julia Mason lifted her hand to her mouth and spoke, and Terrence Flynn nodded then spoke into his hand, the two had blown their cover. I scanned the stadium and saw other cops both in and out of uniform, including my new friend, Detective Waller from Woodbury, and her colleague with the discount haircut. Woodbury had apparently decided Kozy was their man for the murders on Crestmoor Bay. St. Paul Police concurred. They had chased the shiny object and were in position to take him in for questioning after the game.

  The second period didn’t go any better for Warroad. The great Luca Lüdorf was off his game, missing passes, fanning on a wrist shot, losing races to the puck. Linnea’s disappearance had taken its toll on Luca. Wayzata kept the puck in Warroad’s end. Warroad’s goalie made a few stellar saves, but with four minutes left in the period, Wayzata scored their third goal. I left my seat to use the bathroom before the period ended to avoid the long line of full bladders. When I returned, nothing happened. I saw no one. I spoke to no one. The Zamboni resurfaced the ice. I sat and waited for the third period and wondered when and where the police would take Kozjek.

  During the break, Warroad found its soul. They returned to the ice with yells and grunts audible far above the glass. Luca Lüdorf approached the center-ice face-off with his chest out and bumped the Wayzata player getting in position. Down 3–0, it appeared Kozjek’s strategy was to intimidate Wayzata through ferocity.

  Hockey can be a display of speed and agility and grace, a dance on ice, like electrons whipping around a nucleus to make one atom of glorious motion, the way the Europeans play the game. But hockey can be far from that in the American and Canadian game, where speed submits to mass and grace is destroyed before it can form.

  That’s the game Warroad played in the third period. Some of it was within the rules and some of it wasn’t. Warroad served two, two-minute minors, but killed both penalties without yielding a fourth goal.

  The score changed eight minutes into the third period when Graham Peters checked a Wayzata winger off the puck near the Warroad net, a hard but clean hit that dropped the Wayzata player to the ice headfirst. Graham picked up the puck and flicked a board pass to Luca who had started toward the Wayzata end. Luca had a clean breakaway, the closest defender trailed by ten feet. Luca approached the net at full speed, faked with his wrist then backhanded the puck over the goalie’s left shoulder and into the back of the net.

  Warroad trailed Wayzata 3–1.

  The Wayzata player still lay on the ice. Ten minutes later, emergency medical personnel slid a wooden board under his back, taped down his body and head, then carried him away. The entire arena applauded, but the Wayzata Trojans felt a cold called fear. Warroad was out for pain.

  The next few minutes featured elbows and shoves and one-handed cross-checks. The refs pulled players apart, blew quick whistles, but couldn’t get the game under control. They called a prophylactic penalty on Warroad when a Wayzata winger slipped during routine jostling for the puck. Kozjek and his assistants screamed foul. A ref skated over to Kozjek and appeared to administer a warning. Graham Peters showed his dislike for the call with a risky move to intercept a cross-rink pass. The risk paid off. He broke toward the Wayzata goal undefended. But Graham couldn’t match Luca’s speed, and the defender was catching up. So Graham unleashed a wounded duck outside the blue line. It landed a foot
in front of the goalie and bounced between his legs. Warroad trailed 3–2.

  There were over six minutes left in the game, plenty of time for Warroad to score a tying goal. The Warroad band blared its fight song sloppy and energetic. The Warroad fans refused to sit. Choreographed chants pounded the Wayzata fans across the arena. Warroad won the ensuing face-off. Graham dumped the puck into the Wayzata end. Luca raced a Wayzata defenseman into the corner. Luca won the race, but the Wayzata player made no attempt to stop. He skated full force into Luca, sending him into the boards face-first.

  The penalty is called boarding. It’s a five-minute major, but the referees didn’t call it. Wayzata picked up the loose puck and skated toward the Warroad end.

  An avalanche of boos tumbled toward the ice. Coach Kozjek reached over the boards and banged with his fist as play went on. Luca Lüdorf got back on his feet. He flew toward the Warroad end, feet spread, carving the ice with each stride. Luca dropped his stick at center ice. His gloves fell a second later. He hit the Wayzata cross-checker full speed and tackled him to the ice. Before the refs or anyone else could stop Luca, he ripped off the Wayzata player’s helmet and threw four hard lefts into the kid’s face. Blood burst from what used to be his nose, staining his white Wayzata jersey, Luca’s fist, and the snowy ice. It took all three refs to pull Luca off the kid. The benches cleared.

  The referees lost control. Players fought in twos and threes and fours. Coaches from both benches slid onto the ice in street shoes, shouting at and shoving each other. A few fans had climbed the glass and hung ready to flip over and onto the ice. It takes a lot for stoic Minnesotans to lose their shit. But when they do, watch out. Most have little experience yielding to their passions. They don’t know how to manage that level of emotion. They have a child’s meltdown in a grown-up’s body.

  Security personnel armed with walkie-talkies and yellow jackets jumped onto the ice joining several dozen uniforms from St. Paul PD and the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Deputies. They spread themselves along the boards. The drunkest and dumbest of fans dropped onto the ice. Six or seven, I counted. Police wrestled the trespassers to the ice and bound their hands with cable ties.