Read Online Heart of Ice by P. J. Parrish - Free Book Online Page B

that.”
    The son couldn’t quite hide his impatience. “Don’t start, Mom, please.”
    Edna ignored him, looking at the photograph again.
    “Did you talk to her, Mrs. Coffee?” Louis asked again.
    Edna’s Coke-bottle glasses came up. “Talk? No, just to give her a ticket, that’s all.”
    “How many tickets?”
    Edna stared at him. “One.”
    It had almost come out as a question. Louis closed his notebook.
    “She was a pretty thing, with long dark hair,” Edna said. “She seemed a little nervous-like, especially when I warned her there might not be a ferry coming back because of the lake icing up.”
    “Do you remember if she was with anyone?”
    Edna’s eyes clouded over, and for a moment she looked lost in a haze.
    “Mrs. Coffee,” Louis pressed. “Was she with a man?”
    Edna blinked as she tried to focus on Louis again. “Man? No, there was no man.” She held out the photograph, and Louis took it.
    Flowers had been standing by the fireplace and came forward. “Do you remember if she had anything with her?”
    Edna looked up at him. “Like what?”
    “A suitcase, maybe?”
    Edna stared at him for a moment. “No . . . don’tremember seeing any suitcase . . . but I was in the booth, so I didn’t see much more than her face.” Edna looked upset, like she was disappointed she wasn’t being more helpful. Or maybe because she realized her memory wasn’t as good as she thought.
    She looked at Louis. “You want to see my parakeets?”
    “No, we really have to get back to St. Ignace,” Louis said.
    Edna’s eyes dimmed behind her thick glasses. She stared hard at Louis for a moment, as if she was trying to figure something out.
    Louis rose. “Thank you, Mrs. Coffee. You’ve been a big help.”
    He started to the door with Flowers.
    “She had a monkey.”
    Louis looked back at Edna. “A what?”
    “I remember she had a monkey,” Edna said. “She was carrying a stuffed monkey.” Edna gave him a satisfied grin. “That’s not something you’d forget, is it?”
    “No, ma’am, it’s not,” Louis said. “Thank you again.”
    At the front door, Edna Coffee’s son stopped them.
    “She has Alzheimer’s,” he said quietly.
    Louis and Flowers exchanged glances.
    “She hasn’t remembered anything with clarity for years,” the son said. “The parakeets died five years ago. Some days she doesn’t remember who I am.” He let out a sigh. “I’m sorry. I should have said something before you came all the way up here.”
    Flowers cleared his throat. “That’s all right. We appreciate your letting us talk to her.”
    “She loves having visitors,” the son said. “All her friendsare gone now, and no one comes. Thank you for being nice to her.”
    *  *  *
    Louis and Flowers stood on the St. Ignace dock, silent and shivering as they watched the sun slide into the cloud bank behind the bridge. They had missed the ferry and now had to wait a half hour for the next one.
    “Edna thinks Julie came up here alone,” Flowers said.
    Louis glanced at him. “Her son said—”
    “My mom had Alzheimer’s. Usually they can’t remember what they had for breakfast, but sometimes they can remember every detail about something that happened thirty years back.”
    “You’re dreaming, Chief.”
    “Maybe not.”
    “Okay, let’s go out on a limb here and say Edna really remembers seeing one girl on one ferry twenty-one years ago,” Louis said. “Then let’s go even farther out on the limb and say she’s right that Julie was alone. So why did a seventeen-year-old come up here on New Year’s Eve all by herself? And how’d she get here? According to the missing persons report she didn’t have a license, so she didn’t drive.”
    “We haven’t checked bus tickets.”
    Louis pulled up the collar of his jacket. “I think she was brought here by someone else, no matter what Edna thinks she remembers. I would bet my last dollar on it.”
    Far out on the lake, the ferry was coming into