Deep Freeze (Virgil Flowers #10)(39)
“You ask the right question: why?” Virgil said.
Johnson slapped the tabletop and said, “Because he knew the river. It was the first thing that popped into his head.”
“Why would he think that? The river’s locked up.”
“Because he’s a river rat. Because he’s got an ice-fishing shack out there, and a ten-inch auger. Cuts a couple three holes, hooks them up with a chisel, shoves her under. Like a hole you cut when you’re pike fishing. Hopes she doesn’t show up until spring, down in Dubuque. Or maybe never.”
“If you did that, somebody might still be able to see that big hole, right?” Virgil asked. “If somebody looked? Like us?”
“If I were doing it, I’d cut nice clean holes, the smallest that would take the body. I’d shove her as far down as I could, so the body wouldn’t get stuck under the ice right away. You could do that with the ice chipper, do it right, not afraid to get your arm wet, you could get her eight feet down. I’d let the holes freeze over. The river water wouldn’t come right to the top of the ice, so you’d have to pour more water in after the first freeze. Scuff some broken ice over it, drill another hole or two . . .”
“Probably still see where it was,” Virgil said.
“Not after you scuffed it up a little, packed some snow on it, got some fish blood on it. Drag some fishing stools over it . . .”
Virgil thought about it for a couple minutes, then asked, “You still got those sleds?”
“Absolutely. When do you want to go?” Johnson asked.
“This afternoon? I’m gonna have to get some warmer gear on. How many shacks out there?”
“Maybe fifty, in two groups, and a few scattered,” Johnson said. “Some of them will be locked up. Most of them not. Won’t be too many people out there in the afternoon—things don’t really get going until after dark.”
“Let’s do what we can. I gotta think if the guy’s a river rat, and if he has a shack, he’d have used his own place . . .”
“Meet you at the cabin,” Johnson said. “Hot dog. This is gonna be fun. I’ll bring my .45.”
“Johnson . . .”
“Fuck you, I’m bringing it. I got a concealed carry permit now.”
“That’s . . . really good,” Virgil said.
“I thought so,” Johnson said. “Gives me a certain status.”
—
They rendezvoused at the cabin, Johnson trailering in two Polaris snowmobiles. Virgil, now dressed in his camo deer-hunting suit with ski gloves and a hood, let Johnson unload them. Johnson handed him a helmet, said, “All gassed and ready to go. Follow me out, but try not to run over my ass.”
“I’ll do that,” Virgil said. His suit’s hood wouldn’t fit over the helmet, so he pulled the helmet on and yanked the drawstrings of the hood tight around his neck, making a seal around the bottom of the helmet. As he settled onto the sled, which was already turning over, he hooked the kill switch cord to his suit belt. Johnson lurched down the bank and onto the frozen river, made a wide left turn, and leaned on the throttle.
Virgil followed, and they settled into a steady sixty miles an hour over the relatively smooth, snow-covered ice. The sky was a brilliant pale blue to the east, over Wisconsin, with a sullen gray cloud bank moving in over the bluffs above Trippton, to the west. A good day to ride, but maybe not a good night.
A mile north, they turned out onto the main river, where the ride got rougher, with windrows of snow like soft speed bumps running perpendicular to their tracks. Virgil opened up the machine a bit more, pulled even with Johnson, a hundred feet to one side, as they headed toward a cluster of ice shacks three or four miles downriver.
Though the day was still bitterly cold, he was comfortable enough with the heated handles and the windproof suit; the ride was exhilarating, and he could have done a few more miles, almost regretting it when Johnson swung into a circle that would slow them into the first fishing village.
And it was a village, maybe like something that would have been built on the frontier a hundred and fifty years earlier. There were several shacks that were built as mock upscale houses, with porticos and pillars; a few like tiny barns, a couple with quarter moons like outhouses; one painted to resemble a brick house, another a bar, and a dozen that were unpainted plywood boxes. There were several tents. There was also an ordinary travel trailer with a couple of tubes extending down from its floor to surround the ice holes beneath; it had a TV antenna on the roof. As they came in, two snowmobiles headed downriver, away from them, and they could see a third one coming out from the direction of the Trippton marina.
Johnson steered them to a shack built to look like a log cabin, with smoke coming out of a narrow tin smokestack, and dismounted and killed the engine. Virgil got off his snowmobile, and Johnson said, “We get out of here early enough, we ought to make a run up the river. For the ride.”
“Good with me,” Virgil said.
As they walked toward the shack, Virgil noticed a small person—couldn’t tell if it was a man or woman—walking toward a semitransparent plastic tent. The person glanced at them once, and again, and again, and disappeared inside the tent, though Virgil could see the body shape moving around behind the plastic sheeting.
Johnson said, “Hey.”
Virgil turned back and found he’d left Johnson behind at the door of the log cabin. “Sorry. Got distracted,” he said, as he crunched back across the ice. “Who’s this?”