Under the Ice Read online

  Under the Ice

  A Gus LeGarde Mystery

  Aaron Paul Lazar

  Under the Ice by Aaron Paul Lazar

  This is a work of fiction. All concepts, characters and events portrayed in this book are fiction and any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Aaron Paul Lazar.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except brief extracts for the purpose of review, without the permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

  First Edition, January, 2015

  Cover art by Kellie Dennis, of Book Covers By Design

  Published in the United States of America.

  Dedication

  Dedicated to the brave and indefatigable men and women who helped the citizens of western New York during the famous 1991 ice storm.

  Chapter 1

  Camille threw back the comforter and peered at the alarm clock. “Isn’t she home yet?” My wife had been dozing off and on for the past few hours, and her words were slurred from sleep.

  Lying beside her, wide-awake, I answered in a tight, angry voice. “No, she’s not.”

  She flopped back on her pillow with a loud sigh. “Geez, Gus. It’s almost twelve-thirty.”

  I’d been worrying about my teenage daughter for two hours now, imagining the worst possible scenarios. An accident. Rape. Kidnapping. Dead in a ditch.

  Curfew was ten-thirty, and Shelby was way past late. This wasn’t the first time she’d been in trouble over the past few months. She’d been pushing her limits since she got her license.

  The full moon shone on the floorboards and rays of light bounced off the walls. Max—our half Dachshund/half Husky mutt—snuffled in his sleep, stretched his legs, and thumped his tail against the bedspread. Boris, our longhaired mini-dachshund, snored contentedly; his hot-water-bottle-body warmed my feet.

  “Should we call her?” Camille mumbled.

  “I’ve left four messages already. But I can’t sleep until I know she’s safe.” I reached over to the nightstand to grab my phone. I scrolled down to Shelby’s name and tapped it. It rang. And rang. And rang.

  “Hi! This is Shelby. I’m busy now, but I’ll call ya back. You know the drill.”

  I grumbled into the phone. “Shelby. It’s Dad. You’re over two hours late and we’re worried. Call me.” Scowling, I thumbed it off. “She’s killing me, Camille. I don’t think I can take much more.”

  “Huh?” Camille mumbled. She’d almost fallen asleep again. She flopped an arm over my chest and said, “Didden she pick up?”

  I wiggled my legs in a futile attempt to get comfortable. “No. She’s not answering.”

  Camille finally sat up, yawning. “Wait. Are you sure she’s not already home? Maybe she sneaked in while you were sleeping.”

  I hadn’t been sleeping, but I heaved another sigh, threw back the covers, and stomped to the window. My bare feet froze on the wooden floorboards. I peered out into the dark night through elegant, frosty designs on the cold glass. The familiar shape of Camille’s VW Beetle was conspicuously absent from the snow-covered parking area stretching between the house and the barn.

  “The bug’s still gone.” I let out an exasperated sigh. “Where the hell is she?”

  “Try Alicia’s cell. They went to the movies together.”

  “Okay. But if she doesn’t pick up, I’m going out to look for her.”

  I got back in bed, reached for my cell again, and found Shelby’s best friend’s number. We’d entered dozens of her friends’ numbers since Shelby got her license several months ago.

  “Hello?” Alicia sounded groggy.

  “Hi, Alicia. It’s Mr. LeGarde. I’m looking for Shelby.”

  She hesitated one second too long. “Uh... she’s not here, Mr. L.”

  “When did she drop you off?”

  The bedsprings squeaked in the background, and I imagined the girl rubbing sleep from her eyes and sitting up in bed. There was another pause.

  “Er…I’m sorry, but our plans changed at the last minute. Work needed me to stay late, so I didn’t get out ‘til after the movie started. I’m not sure where she went.”

  Anger and fear vibrated in my chest. I wasn’t sure which was the stronger emotion. “Alicia,” I said with forced calm. “Do you have any idea where she might be? We’re really worried.”

  “I guess she might have gone to the Meyers’ party.”

  “Stan and Lucy Meyers?” I said.

  “Yeah. Steve threw a big party tonight. His parents are—”

  I interrupted. “Out of town?”

  She was silent.

  “Alicia?”

  “Yeah. I think they’re in Florida or someplace like that. I’m sorry, Mr. L. But I’m sure she’s fine. She probably just lost track of time.”

  I thanked her and hung up. I’d already pulled on my jeans and a shirt when tires crunched against snow in the driveway.

  Chapter 2

  I stomped downstairs and waited in the doorway between the kitchen and the great room, arms crossed and brow furrowed.

  Shelby breezed into the kitchen, pulled open the refrigerator, and grabbed a carton of orange juice. “Hi, Dad.”

  “‘Hi, Dad?” I mimicked, frowning. “Are you kidding me?” I stormed into the kitchen after her. “Where were you? You’re two hours late.”

  She avoided my eyes and poured a glass of juice. “Uh. At the movies. Remember? With Alicia.”

  “Seriously? You’re going to lie about this?”

  She turned an innocent face to me. “What? Why—”

  I took a step toward her. “I just talked to Alicia.”

  Her expression tightened. “What’d she say?”

  “She spilled the beans, Shelby. You’re in big trouble.”

  “Why?” she said, too casually.

  “A party, Shelby? For crying out loud. When the parents aren’t home?”

  “Nothing happened.” Shelby casually leaned against the refrigerator. She took another slug of juice and rolled her eyes. “Curfews are dumb. It’s Friday night. I don’t have school tomorrow.”

  I wanted to give her my standard lecture about privileges and rules and loss of freedom if the rules were broken. But this was the second time in a month she’d flagrantly ignored her curfew, and worse, she seemed unconcerned about the consequences.

  “The rules don’t change for the weekend, you know that. Your mother and I were worried sick.”

  “I don’t know why.” She flounced to the cupboard and reached for a pack of Oreos.

  “You’re grounded.”

  Her eyes flashed in anger, and her lips compressed. She tore open the package of cookies and ate one.

  “This time it’s not just for one day, it’s for a whole week. No car, no phone, no computer, no television, no anything,” I said, just getting warmed up.

  “You can’t do that!”

  “I’m not done,” I said. “The grounding is for breaking curfew. I haven’t punished you for lying to me yet. That translates to a weekend of chores.”

  “What?” She spat the word at me.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know how else to get through to you. You’re using your mother’s car every night. Your attitude is disrespectful. You’re hanging out with kids we don’t even know, who are probably drinking alcohol. God knows what went on at that party tonight. You promised to stick to a schedule, to be home by ten-thirty every night.”

  She rolled her eyes again and took two steps toward me. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re not my real father.”

  She’d stuck me with a proverbial knife and twis
ted it in my heart. I felt it, as authentic as steel, and staggered from the blow.

  Camille padded down the stairs. “Shelby! What’s wrong with you? Gus is the only father you have now. He adopted you, for God’s sake. He’s my husband, and I won’t have you talk to him like that.”

  “But, Mom! He said I can’t—”

  “Whatever Gus said, goes.” She paused for a moment and her voice hardened. “Unless you’d rather go live with your ‘real’ father, in prison?”

  Another low blow.

  Shelby fumed. I walked past her to pick up the glass and put it in the sink. The scent of smoke wafted from her hair. It wasn’t cigarettes. Suddenly, I was transported back to Woodstock. The sickeningly sweet stench of marijuana rose from my sixteen-year-old daughter.

  “You smoked pot?” I yelled.

  Camille leaned over and sniffed Shelby’s hair. Her eyes widened. “My God, is this how you answer our trust? Is this how it’s going to be?”

  Shelby looked wounded. “I can’t believe you’d think I would— Arggghhh! You never trust me. Neither one of you.” She screamed and ran up the stairs. Seconds later, a baby began to wail.

  The sounds of my twin granddaughters’ cries were distinctively different, and I recognized Celeste immediately. I bounded toward the stairs.

  Camille turned off the kitchen light, followed me upstairs, and continued down the hall to our room. Shelby’s door slammed at the far end of the house. I snorted in frustration and then peeked into Freddie’s bedroom. My daughter lay sound asleep on her queen-sized bed. Her wispy gold hair covered her face. The poor thing had worked extra long hours this week at her veterinary clinic and was exhausted. I pulled her door closed and hurried to the twins’ bedroom.

  Celeste sat up in her crib, her copper-colored hair curled in tight ringlets and her peaches and cream cheeks damp with tears. “Opa. Binky.” She pointed to the blue pacifier she’d thrown on the floor.

  It landed nub up, so I grabbed it and handed it back to her.

  She tossed it aside and lifted both arms to me. “Uppy.”

  I picked her up. She snuggled into my neck, collapsing against me. I grabbed the pacifier, one more time. This time, she accepted it. I settled in the rocking chair with her, rubbing her back. The wooden slats creaked as we rocked on the hardwood floor. Back and forth. Back and forth. I hummed “Rock-a-bye Baby,” feeling her warm breath on my neck.

  Marion, Celeste’s dark-haired twin, slept quietly in her crib, sucking on her pacifier as it moved in and out of her rosebud mouth. Her cherubic face was lit by the glow of the tiny night-light.

  Ten minutes later, Celeste’s breathing slowed and she relaxed in my arms. I kissed her soft cheeks and lowered her into the crib. She squirmed, lifted her head for a moment, and flopped back on the mattress. I held my breath and said a little prayer, then crept backwards out of the room.

  If only they didn’t have to grow up.

  I wearily shuffled down the hall and leaned into my grandson Johnny’s room. I watched his chest rise and fall several times. He lay on his back, with both arms and legs spread-eagled. A soft snore escaped him. The purple balloons from his birthday party last Thursday bobbed on the bedpost. They’d lost air and were wrinkled. I couldn’t believe he was already five.

  When I finally crawled into bed beside Camille, I collapsed onto my pillow. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, I finally drifted off to sleep, fretting about the teenage condition and worrying about what lay in store for us tomorrow.

  Chapter 3

  I woke at six o’clock, wondering how the rest of the night had passed so quickly. Had I even slept?

  I must have, because I started to recall a weird dream where Shelby fired me as her father. I’d been crushed. And then I’d floated out to Sig’s carriage house and we’d played Scrabble, where all my letters were x’s, y’s, and z’s.

  Max jumped off the bed and trotted to the door. He wagged his tail and whined.

  “Okay, okay. I’m getting up.”

  Except for the sound of my pal’s toenails clicking on the pine floorboards, the house was silent; everyone upstairs was still sleeping. Boris raised his nose in the air and thumped his tail on the comforter. He wanted to go out, too, but his legs were too short to jump down.

  “Coming, buddy,” I whispered, lowering him gently to the floor.

  He shook and stretched, then followed Max to the top of the stairs, wagging his red plume tail.

  I pulled on some socks and slid quietly past the rest of the bedrooms, hoping not to disturb the sleeping brood.

  After I let the dogs out onto the snow-covered porch, I started a pot of coffee. While I waited for it to drip into the carafe, Siegfried ducked into the kitchen.

  He’d just crossed the snowy driveway from the carriage house. “Guten Morgen, Professor.”

  He brushed the snow from his coat and stomped his boots on the mat. Siegfried, devoted great-uncle to the children and twin brother to my deceased wife, Elsbeth, works in Freddie's veterinary clinic. In spite of his diminished mental capacities resulting from a boating accident when he was twelve, he is my best friend and a staunch family guardian.

  He unbuttoned his canvas coat, removed his hat, and placed a basket of eggs on the table.

  I did a double take, for his usual healthy complexion seemed flushed. “Morning, Sig. Nice eggs. How many did we get today?” I studied him carefully. Something was definitely off.

  “Ten,” he said, in an uncharacteristically flat tone.

  “You okay, buddy?”

  He flopped onto a chair, wiped a drop of perspiration from his forehead, and rested his cheek on his hand. “I fed the animals, but I did not clean the stalls. I am sorry.”

  I laid the back of my hand against Siegfried’s forehead. “My God. You’re burning up.”

  Sig smiled half-heartedly. “Ja. I am a little bit tired, too.”

  “I’m taking your temperature. Wait right here.”

  I flew up the stairs, grabbed the thermometer and a clean plastic sleeve from our medicine chest, and hurried down again. “Here, under your tongue. Are you up for coffee? No, that’s not a good idea. How about some tea?”

  He tucked the thermometer under his tongue and nodded when I mentioned tea. I started the teakettle and found the green tea in the cabinet.

  “Want some honey in it, buddy?”

  Siegfried had what my mother used to call “fever eyes.” They looked glazed and he squinted when he looked into the light. He nodded, resting his head against his palm again.

  I dropped the teabag into the cup, swirled in some honey, stirred it, and set it before him. The thermometer beeped. I took it from him, discarded the disposable sheath, and read the display.

  “Cripes, Sig. It’s 103.1.”

  “I am sick?” he asked. He looked dazed.

  “Very.”

  “I have work to do,” he said, but his voice weakened and trailed to a whisper. He lay his head on the table.

  “Not today, you don’t. Come on. I’m putting you in Mrs. Pierce’s room. She won’t be home ‘til tomorrow night. This way I’ll be able to keep an eye on you. Here,” I said, twisting open a bottle of Advil from the counter. I filled a small glass with water. “Take these. It’ll bring down the fever.”

  Siegfried dutifully took the pills. I ushered him into our housekeeper’s first floor bedroom suite. We’d transformed this small wing of our 1811 farmhouse into a convalescent room for my wife, Elsbeth, when she had come home to die from the cancer. Mrs. Pierce had joined the household to help with Elsbeth. After my wife passed, we’d asked Mrs. Pierce to stay on as a housekeeper and nanny. The room worked out well for our mother hen, and she’d made it quite homey.

  I placed the mug of tea on the night table and motioned for Sig to sit on the ladder-back chair beside the window.

  “Sit there while I change the sheets. It’ll just take a sec.”

  As I ripped apart the double bed, Shelby wandered into the room looking bleary
-eyed. She was still in her pajamas, and I was shocked to see her up so early.

  “What’s going on?” she asked with a yawn.

  Tossing the pillows on the free chair, I stretched a fresh fitted sheet over the mattress. I was still mad at her. “Your uncle’s sick. He has a high fever.”

  She looked at him with sympathy. “Oh, poor Uncle Sig. I’m sorry. Can I get you anything? Do you want me to bring Sheba in here for you?”

  I looked at her in surprise. It was as if my wife’s personality had suddenly infused into Shelby. The intonation, the words, and the facial expressions were all Camille’s. The raving she-wolf from the night before had vanished. Vamoosed.

  “Ja. Sheba,” he mumbled.

  Siegfried and I had rescued the golden retriever from a hunter’s trap two years earlier. Siegfried and the sweet canine had adopted each other. She slept on his bed every night.

  He closed his eyes again. “Danke.”

  Shelby smiled, pushed dark locks from her eyes, and trotted out to the mudroom to get her coat.

  “Be back in a jiffy,” she said.

  I stared after her in surprise.

  Siegfried spoke with his eyes still closed. “She’s like her Mama, Ja?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s so bizarre. One minute she’s tearing my head off, and the next minute…”

  “She is a teenager,” he whispered.

  I helped him walk to the bed. “I don’t remember Freddie being this bad.”

  “She was a good girl,” he mumbled. He slid beneath the sheets and nestled into the pillows.

  I laughed and pulled the comforter up to his chin. “You’d think I would have learned something about teenagers, having raised Freddie.”

  He smiled and turned on his side. “Ja. But she was different. And Shelby had a very hard start.”

  He was right. Freddie gave Elsbeth and me a few rough moments when she was growing up, but it had been relatively painless. I never realized how lucky we were. Poor Shelby had lost her biological father to prison due to his repeated abuse of her mother. In addition, she had been in a coma for many years after a delivery truck nearly killed her. It hadn’t been an easy life for a young girl.