Broken Ice--A Novel Page 6

  “How did you feel about that?” said Ellegaard.

  “A little weird at first. But then I was okay with it. More than okay, actually. I was great with it. Experience, you know? Same reason Mom lets me have a beer or two when I’m home and not going back out. So I know what it’s like. So when I go to college, I don’t act like some idiot who just got released from prison.”

  “You’re going away to college,” I said. “Does that mean next fall’s the end of The Fiveskins?”

  “We don’t know. They may replace me. They may play without a mando for a while and see how it goes.”

  “You don’t want to be a rock star?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But right now I want to go to college.”

  There’s a tradition of good boys in rock and roll. Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Dave Grohl. Nice kids with nice lives without a lot to rebel against. They just love the music. Ben Haas seemed to be one of those boys.

  Ellegaard said, “What do you know about Haley and Linnea’s relationship?”

  “Haley never talked about Linnea. Ever. They knew each other. Warroad’s a small town. But they weren’t friends, you know?” Ben looked out the window again. “I met Linnea once at a party in Warroad last summer. That was it.” Ben kept his eyes on the window, as if there was something to see out there.

  Maybe Ben Haas wasn’t such a good boy after all.

  8

  Ellegaard drove the Volvo into the loading dock. The old metal bay door had windows of frosted glass and chicken wire. He pushed the button above the rearview mirror. The door lifted, and Ellie drove us into the space I called home. He killed the engine, closed the dock door, then we got out of the car.

  The former coat factory had thirty-foot ceilings and walls of yellow brick. City light filtered in through sections of glass block, each over an awning window that provided dry ventilation even in a downpour. The space was large and open, only the bedroom and bathroom had walls, and neither of those had ceilings. A long stainless steel countertop defined the kitchen. I’d salvaged it and the sink, refrigerator, and dishwasher from a failed restaurant on Nicollet. I mixed in furniture from my old place with Craigslist finds: worn and frayed Oriental rugs, mismatched lounge chairs, and a brown leather couch. A freestanding shelving unit filled with books created a wall between the sitting area and dining table. And who says print is dead? The dining area had a table and chairs made of clear acrylic. I called it my Wonder Woman dining room.

  I had lived there almost a year. A developer purchased the old factory with the intent of converting it into condos, but he’d hit a snag. I could have found out what that snag was but didn’t. I was pretty sure it had something to do with money, asbestos, or lead paint. If I started nosing around, chances were I’d stir up something that got me kicked out, and I didn’t want that. I loved my coat factory. How many people can drive right into their living room?

  I climbed the four steps from the loading dock’s cement floor to the worn wooden planks of the old factory floor and saw Lauren sitting up on the couch under a down throw, an open oncology journal on her lap. Her eyes begged for sleep. She offered neither smile nor word of welcome. She pushed off the throw, pivoted her feet onto the floor, and slid them into slippers that looked like bear’s feet. She said, “Sit,” then walked toward the kitchen, the plastic claws of her bear slippers clicking on the wood floor.

  Lauren grabbed an infrared thermometer off the counter. “In a chair. Now. I’m not kidding.” I sat on the couch and felt the warmth of her vigil. Ellegaard stood silent and unsure, the way a twelve-year-old watches his best friend suffer a parent’s wrath. It’s partly to support your buddy and partly to see the show and partly to feel grateful it’s not you. Lauren sat down next to me and stuck the thermometer in my ear. A few seconds later it beeped—she read the display. “No fever,” she said, her voice tired and angry. “You’re fucking lucky, Nils.” She stood up and turned away from me. I tried to remember if I said I’d be home by 10:00 or 11:00. I looked at my phone—11:33. But still. Her anger was in disproportion to the time. I hoped it was a nurse thing, but hope can be a shiny object to distract you from an unpleasant truth.

  “Well,” said Ellegaard. “I’d better get going. Glad to see Nils doesn’t have a fever.”

  “This one’s an idiot,” said Lauren. “But you know better.”

  Ellegaard nodded, taking his scolding as I had. “I’ll get a Lyft and talk to you tomorrow, Nils.”

  “No,” said Lauren, “take Nils’s car. He shouldn’t go anywhere tomorrow other than back to the hospital. But if he does, you’re driving him.” Ellegaard looked at me for permission. My half smile gave it. He got in the Volvo, opened the garage door, and started the car. A wave of cold filled the space. With its thirty-foot ceiling and old single-paned windows and garage door opening to the elements, the place was as energy efficient as a paper box. Ellegaard backed out and drove off as the garage door returned to the ground. An eighty thousand BTU natural gas heater kicked in but did nothing to warm Lauren’s demeanor.

  “Take off your shirt,” she said. “I have to change your dressing.”

  She went into the kitchen and returned with the bag of supplies Micaela had carried out of the hospital. I had put my jacket on my right arm en route to Woodbury and wore the left side like a cape over my sling. I hadn’t taken it off since. I stood, held my right arm straight down and arched my back, hoping it would slip off my shoulder. It did not. Lauren sighed then proceeded to help. She stretched the elastic of my right cuff, then pulled the jacket off and held it up for me to see. The inside of the left shoulder was wet. “Goddammit, Nils.” A clear, thick liquid had soaked through my shirt and the dressing underneath.

  “Is that bad?” I said.

  “Not if it’s clear all the way down to the wound—it’s your body healing itself. Despite the stupidity of its owner.”

  She unbuttoned my shirt down the front and at the wrists then removed it from my right shoulder and arm. With half the shirt off, Lauren focused on my left shoulder. She peeled the shirt away, as if trying to pull the label off a sweaty beer bottle in one piece. She separated my shirt from the dressing below. An odor reached my nostrils that I was in no hurry to smell again. She dropped the soaked shirt to the floor, opened a sealed plastic bag of scissors, and cut off the bandages.

  “You may not want to look at this,” she said.

  I looked. The wound was buried under a gelatinous ooze that was clear to the skin. I could make out black stitches and burn marks from the hot coat hanger. Seeing the mess swirled my stomach. I focused on the open ceiling and let Lauren clean and redress the wound. When it was done she handed me a dull white pill shaped like a submarine, and a glass of water. “Take this.”

  “What is it?”

  “Your antibiotic.”

  I washed down the pill.

  “I picked up a carton of acidophilus. It’s in the fridge. I’d drink some if I were you. And sleep with your shirt off. Give the wound as much air as possible.” She packed up the supply bag and returned it to the kitchen. “I’m going to bed,” she said. “You should take some Vicodin. I put the correct dosage on a paper towel near the sink. If you take it, no Irish. If you don’t take it, drink all the Irish you want.”

  The bear claws clicked toward the bedroom. I let her get halfway then said, “Where did you and Micaela go to dinner tonight?”

  She stopped and looked back at me. “Who told you we went to dinner?”

  “Your bedside manner.”

  The heater’s flame hissed above. Headlights swept through the frosted glass bay door. “Bravo, Detective. Bravo.” Lauren turned then continued into the bedroom and shut the door behind her.

  I stood and felt the arrow return to my shoulder. I made it to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of acidophilus. I rejected the Vicodin on the counter and opened a bottle of fifteen-year-old single pot Redbreast.

  A client had given me the bottle for tailing his wife for a month only t
o discover that all her excuses for being absent—triathlon training, extension courses at the U of M, volunteering at the Humane Society—were all true. I gave him a packet of photographs and time logs verifying her whereabouts. After reviewing them, he asked his wife why she chose to spend so much time out of the house.

  She said she was disappointed in the man he turned out to be. She wasn’t cheating on her husband. She simply wanted nothing to do with him. When he asked if she wanted a divorce, she said no. Their marriage had its function, and at fiftysomething years old, she didn’t want another chance at love. If he wanted a divorce then fine, they’d get divorced. Otherwise, she was content doing what she was doing. The man was still in love with her, despite knowing the love would never be returned. So he kept her like I keep books, loving them but knowing I’ll probably never open them again. He gave me the bottle of Redbreast as a departing gift with a note that said “When you need a warmth you can count on.”

  I quarter-filled a lowball and returned to the couch. I could have repaired the damage with Lauren. I could have gone into the bedroom and scooched up next to her. I could have told her I was sorry and that I loved her. I could have thanked her for taking care of me and putting up with me. But that would have just prolonged the breakup that was sure to come. We’d had a good first six months. But the last six we’d grown distant. Or maybe just I had.

  I don’t know what happened at dinner with Micaela, if Micaela said something or Lauren intuited it. Either way, Lauren walked out of that dinner realizing I wasn’t all-in. I was capable of it, just not with her. So now I was the bad guy for fanning an ember that would never become a flame. The couch was the place for me. And I couldn’t argue with that.

  The whiskey warmed my body and calmed my head. After a day of looking for Linnea Engstrom, I knew little about her and a hell of a lot about Haley Housh. If my assumption was wrong, if Linnea’s and Haley’s disappearances were coincidental, then I’d wasted the crucial first day of the investigation. Linnea could have been anywhere, in a shallow grave in Swede Hollow Park or happily driving toward either coast.

  This was a case for the police. They had the personnel to question everyone who knew Linnea both in Warroad, where she had lived the past five years, and in Minneapolis, where she had lived before that. The police had her cell phone records, her browser history, and would know the moment she used a credit or debit card and the exact location where it was used. St. Paul PD would gather all the puzzle pieces and put them together. They had smart people and less smart people, but it added up to a wealth of brainpower. And the police had incentive. A missing seventeen-year-old girl. White and pretty and from Hockeytown USA. Along with Haley’s death, it was a stain on the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament, the biggest event of the year in St. Paul. But the police were in a position to clean that stain. No sense sharing the glory with a private. I’d get no cooperation from my friends in blue.

  Whoever launched the arrow into my shoulder was still out there. Maybe waiting for me to walk out my door. I could take precautions within reason. But I wasn’t going to hide in my factory. If someone wanted to finish the job, sooner or later, they would. Another reason to walk away and let the police do their job.

  I fell asleep knowing that wouldn’t happen. I woke at 6:15 A.M. to a stiff, painful shoulder, full bladder, and a text on my phone.

  Hello, Nils. It’s Winnie Haas, Ben’s mother. I would like to talk to you without Ben present. Please call me when you have time.

  I went to the bathroom and saw the bedroom door was open. Lauren had left for work. There was a note on the stainless steel counter. “Take your temperature. Call me if you have a fever.” No “Love, Lauren.” No x’s or o’s. No smiley faces with puckered lips.

  9

  I made toast and two eggs sunny-side up because flipping them would’ve hurt. I spread butter and blueberry jam, ground salt and pepper, and dropped a purple capsule into the Nespresso machine. I ate standing up, put the plate in the sink, sat on the couch to finish my coffee and respond to texts. Then I fell back asleep until 8:00 when I woke to a pounding on the bay door.

  I sat up and saw a figure standing on the other side of the frosted glass. The level of its head was above mine. The loading dock lay four feet lower than the factory floor, and I was sitting up on the couch. That put my visitor somewhere just shy of seven feet tall. Maybe it was Char Northagen in eight-inch heels, but I doubted it.

  The figure pounded on the bay door again. I managed a dry-throated “Give me a minute” that had no chance of carrying outside. I walked over and lowered myself down the loading dock steps, leaning on the cold metal railing of chipped brown paint over safety yellow. I flipped the bolt on the service door and stuck my head outside and looked to the left.

  “There you are,” said a deep baritone from a black face under a mop of twisted curls and a fur-lined cap that had more flaps than an advent calendar. His cheeks puffed like dough left on the counter overnight and sandwiched his eyes under heavy lids. He had full lips over Crest Whitestrips–white teeth. Shaving bumps splattered his jaw and what I could see of his neck. He wore a Windex-blue jacket with narrow horizontal quilting, gray sweatpants, and chestnut man Uggs on his feet. “Oh, Micaela said you was cute and she wasn’t foolin’! Sorry about all the poundin’ but she said it’s the only way to wake that boy up.” He laughed. “Looks like she was right! You got sleepies in your eyes.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “You can let me in so I can do something for you.” He patted a red canvas duffel that hung from his shoulder.

  “You a doctor?”

  “Nurse practitioner.” He turned the bag toward me. It had the medical symbol with two snakes wrapped around a pole topped with wings. It had a big N for Nurse on the left side of the pole and a big P for Practitioner on the right. Some company full of Herman Miller chairs probably got six figures to conceive that logo. I wish someone had told me that was a job when I was eighteen and looking for a way to coast through the rest of my life. He patted the bag and said, “I got everything you need right here.”

  “Come on in.”

  The giant approached, handed me his card, and said, “That’s for future needs. You call me anytime, day or night. I’m five minutes away.” He removed a gray, fleece glove and extended his massive hand. I took it. It felt like a pillow with bones inside. “Jameson White. Pleased to meet you, Mr. Shapiro.”

  “I like anyone named Jameson,” I said.

  “Ha! I’ve heard that one before. And I like it. But I assure you, friend, I don’t got a drop of Irish blood in me.”

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Then we already have something in common.”

  He walked inside. I was about to shut the door when I noticed a Latino kid on the sidewalk near the edge of my building. He sat on an overturned white plastic bucket with his back against the brick wall. Twenty at the oldest, wearing a Carhartt hooded jacket and jeans and yellow work boots. The hood was up and his hands were in his pockets. When I locked on his brown eyes, he looked away. No breath condensed in front of his hood. Another warm March day.

  I went back inside and locked the service door behind me. Jameson White labored up the loading dock steps. “Pardon the creaky knees. Too many years on artificial turf.” I tried to remember if there were any Minnesota Vikings named Jameson White but none came to mind.

  He removed what must have been a size 5XL jacket, set it on the kitchen counter, and looked around. He wore a gray hooded sweatshirt that matched his sweatpants, the thick cotton kind that doesn’t shrink and costs as much as cashmere. “You live in a factory. What do you make?”

  “Trouble.”

  “How’s it pay?”

  “Not so good.”

  “Someone’s got to do it though, right?” He laughed and sat me on the couch, kneeled on the floor, removed sanitary scissors from his bag, and began cutting at my bandages as if he were making a dress pattern.

  “Who dr
essed this wound?”

  “My girlfriend. She’s a nurse at Park Nicollet.”

  “She did this just right. It’s all about getting the blood moving under your skin and getting the air moving over it. Yes, sir. This is good. You hold on to that woman.”

  “I’ll try,” I said. Then I asked him how he knew Micaela. He said he didn’t. She had called a doctor friend at Hennepin County Medical Center and asked who was the best trauma nurse in town. The doctor told her it was Jameson White.

  “She asked me how much it would cost for me to take a two-week vacation and work full-time for you. I told her. She agreed, then put me up at the Loews Hotel a few blocks up on First Avenue and gave me a hundy a day for food. How rich is she?”

  “Pretty fucking rich. And self-made. The tech industry.”

  “The goddamn tech industry. Wish I would’ve seen that comin’! I’d be rich, too!” He laughed then said, “You’d better write that Micaela a thank-you note. I am at your service twenty-four/seven for the next fourteen days.” I couldn’t see the expression on my face, but Jameson White got a kick out of it. “Oh, you got a stupid grin on your face, boy. She the girlfriend who dressed this wound?”

  “No. She’s my ex-wife.”

  “Oh no, that is precious. Precious! Oh, brother. She wants you to walk down that aisle with her again. That’s what happened with my aunt Betty. Married the same man three times.”

  “How many times did she divorce him?”

  “Two.” He looked me in the eye then said, “Third time? She shot him.” Jameson White exploded with laughter so contagious I almost smiled. “I’m kidding! I’m kidding. I just couldn’t resist!”