Frozen Solid A Novel

9




THE IDEA OF SLEEPING IN THE BUNK WHERE EMILY HAD BEEN TORTERED and killed revolted Hallie. She sat on the floor, in the dark, sick and seething, full of feelings she had never experienced before. Feelings without names, animal and raging. Far beyond those even her father’s death had aroused. But that one had been natural.

She had just witnessed a murder.

A murder by torture.

Of a friend.

By someone who might be living in the next room, for all she knew.

On Denali, climbing with Emily, she had been buried by an avalanche. One second she was leading a pitch on the Cassin Ridge route; the next, the avalanche had swept her away, consolidated around her, and encased her like cement. Only her tongue and one eyelid could move. She could not even struggle.

That was how she felt now, on the floor in the dark.

So many questions. Why was there a surveillance camera in the room? Emily must have placed it herself. If someone else had put it there, they surely would have removed it before Hallie arrived. What reason could Emily have had for doing something like that? She must have been afraid, but why, and of what? Of whom? Hallie knew that Emily had been an inveterate video blogger. Maybe she just wanted to record time spent in the room without having to activate a camera every time she returned.

What should she do now? Tell somebody? Who? Not tell anyone? But then what? Was the killer still here in the station? Killers, plural? Who else was in danger? Was concealing evidence of murder a crime in its own right?

She was suddenly, intensely claustrophobic. A very experienced cave explorer, she had not felt that way for years. She did now, squeezed into the tiny room, gripped by the dark station, trapped by the wasteland that stretched a thousand miles in every direction. Ironic in a way, feeling like that in a place with more empty space around it than any habitation on earth. Like an outpost on Mars, Graeter had said. Just words at the time. Not any longer.

She awoke where she had fallen asleep, sitting on the floor, back against the wall, feeling no less confused and exhausted. She stood, breathed deeply, and the licorice smell, faint before, now was stronger, heavy and cloying. Almost as unpleasant as the smell of her own body after five days without bathing. In gray sweat clothes, towel in hand, she stepped into the hall and nearly ran into a bulky man. He had long, greasy hair and needed a shave. He wore black bunny boots and Carhartt coveralls that had been tan when new but were now dark with oil and hydraulic fluid.

He looked her up and down, with bloodshot eyes, as though she were stark naked.

“Lookee here. A new girl Beaker. Whooeeee.” His voice was rough, his breath heavy with liquor. It was not yet eight A.M. She was very aware of being alone in the hall with him. As far as she could tell, there were no surveillance cameras in the station. She took a step back.

“Excuse me?”

“Escuse me. Escuse me.” He laughed as if those were the funniest words he had heard in months. “They ain’t no ’scuses here, fungee.” She could see the hunger in his eyes. The tip of his tongue peeked from between his teeth, flattened, a third lip. Her stomach twitched. She started to walk around him. He sidestepped, blocking her path.

His tongue slid out like a thick, pink-skinned eel and kept coming until its tip hung even with his chin. He gave a slow, leering lick to something Hallie could not see but had no trouble imagining. The man reeled his tongue back in, winked, and lurched off.

She watched him go, her heart racing and hands shaking from the adrenaline surge.

Was it him?

If only there had been sound, or better image quality, or just one good look at the killer’s face. From now on she would wonder the same thing about every man she met here.

In the women’s shower room, she lifted her face to steaming spray, washed her hair, stepped out of the stream to work up a soapy lather all over her body. Before she could rinse, the water stopped.

“What the hell?”

“Two minutes is all you get,” said Rockie Bacon, just entering.

“How could you stay clean showering two minutes a day?”

“Two minutes a week.”

“You’re screwing with a fungee, right?”

“Takes a lot of energy to melt ice. That shower will reactivate after five minutes, but there’s an honor system.” She gave Hallie a long look. “You got soap all over. Take some of my time to rinse.” Hallie wasn’t sure she had heard right. But Bacon said, “C’mon, c’mon,” and Hallie went.

Afterward, while they were toweling dry, Hallie thought, Tell her? but decided, Not yet. Instead, she related what had happened outside her room.

“That was Brank. Total, dead-end, a*shole loser. And a mean drunk. He put two Draggers in the hospital a month ago. One was a woman. Stay clear of him.”

“Why is he still here?”

“Ever try finding normal people willing to spend a year in Alcatraz on ice?”

“The money’s supposed to be great.”

“Yeah. But a year here is …” She shook her head, as if unable to find the right words.

“What does he do?”

“As little as possible.”

“He has the longest tongue I ever saw on a human.”

Bacon chuckled. “His most prized possession.” She considered that for a moment. “Well, probably the second most.”

Hallie was thinking: Put a woman in the hospital. And: Why did he just happen to be walking past my room?

“You want eggs with them waffles?” The galley server was about five-five, with a ferret face and a voice like squeaking hinges.

“Sure,” Hallie said.

He deposited a soft yellow pile.

“Are those fresh?” she asked.

He grinned around spotted teeth. “Honey, the only fresh thing around here is the tube steak.”

“The what?”

He pointed his spoon at a discernible bulge and waited for her reaction, which was to say, “Mouse in your pocket?”

Hallie sat by herself. The eggs and waffles and coffee all tasted of chlorine. It felt utterly bizarre sitting there eating breakfast, or trying to, overhearing snatches of conversation, taking in the new surroundings, all the mundane trappings, while carrying around the secret of a horrible, violent death. It occurred to her that a spy would have it this way, hoarding secrets and telling lies, fear a constant shadow. It would have to corrode your soul. She’d been carrying her secret around for only a few hours and it was already starting to feel like some live thing wanting to claw out of her.

She understood, suddenly, that this must be exactly what the killer himself was experiencing—unless he was one of those monster psychopaths who felt nothing, including remorse. Regardless, he and she were connected by Emily’s death, although only she knew that.

An odd sensation came over her, and she glanced around. It felt like people in the galley were looking at her. It had to be her imagination, of course, another side effect of the secret. Or some weird form of Pole-induced paranoia. But then, working her way through the awful food, glancing up now and then, she realized it was not her imagination. People really were looking at her strangely, some staring, others peering out of the corners of their eyes. A couple even pointed. Four men in particular, at a table halfway across the room, were making no attempt to hide their interest. Then one of them rose and walked over.

“Hey.” He was smiling—smirking, actually—and standing with his head cocked to one side. He wasn’t bad-looking, but his eyes kept flicking around, scanning for something or someone more important. She was surprised to see eyes like that down here. In Washington they were as common as flies.

“Hi,” she said.

“Maynard Blaine.” She took his extended hand and, eventually, had to pull her own free.

“I might need that someday.”

“Need that someday. Ha, ha.” His laugh was like two little coughs. “So you are Dr. Holly Leland, replacement for Emily Durant and the newest addition to our distinguished team of Beakers.”

“How did you know that?”

“Are you kidding? Fresh face, you stick out like a sore thumb.”

That was why people had been looking at her. “It’s Hallie, not Holly. You knew Emily?”

He hesitated, then shook his head. “No. Well, just to say hello.”

“I knew her.” Hallie was surprised at how surprised he looked.

“You did?”

“Very well.”

His features became disarranged, like a turned kaleidoscope. Putting them back in order took a few moments. “Tough break,” he said.

“For me or her?”

“Both. But I meant her dying like that.”

“Like what?”

He shook both hands beside his head, like a man warding off bees. “Enough about her. I came over here to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

“Like what?” Hallie wanted to learn what he knew about Emily’s death, but he misunderstood. He thought she was very eager to hear his offer.

“How would you like to be my ice wife?”