Icescape

This story is a prequel to my previous submissions, The Night Gathering and Metamorphoses, taken place seventeen years prior.

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A droplet from the overhead condenser fell on the nape of Stephanie Nguyen’s neck, leaving a frosty trail down her shoulder blade while streaking toward the small of her back, reminding her that the walk-in freezer she was hiding in was absorbing moisture through the door left ajar, and frost would soon build up on the food, shelves, her clothes, and eyeglasses. An even worse prospect was the temperature alarm, which would sound off if the freezer gets too warm, attracting unwanted attention.

Stephanie had always thought that cold helps her concentration. During those balmy New Orleans days when she could feel the sweat between her fingers but still had to finish her homework in between washing dishes and busing tables during peak hours in her parents’ restaurant, she would lean her shin against the knee-height metal safe under the restaurant office desk where she did her schoolwork and be calmed by the cool blue steel box, which remained unwaveringly chill when all in its surroundings were melting, evaporating, or set ablaze among the swarming throng of the Vietnamese kitchen, allowing her to focus on Fahrenheit 451, Spanish, and trigonometry.

She went through a mental list of current priorities. The foremost was not to be found. So far, so good.

The second was to prevent the freezer door from shutting completely. Built before a safety release was required by law, the walk-in freezer could not be opened from the inside once the door was shut and the external latch was engaged. If she were locked in, she would not be found until someone opened the freezer again, likely in the evening of the next day. At which time she would be frozen as solid as the beef slab on the rack.

Her dad knocked on the packaged meats to show Stephanie the firmness of frozen foods when they first bought the restaurant. Pieces of beef and pork responded in kind with solidified thuds. The whole chicken, however, produced a deep resonating clunk when struck. The rib cages, dad explained, create empty spaces in bird carcasses, producing a tympanic effect. Then he retrieved a frozen turkey from the shelves and drummed a session of Bossa Nova with his slender fingers. “And on the drums tonight, ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for our man from Saigon by the way of New Orleans, Hans ‘The Fingers’ Nguyen.” In a raspy imitation of Louis Armstrong, he relived the boyish dream of being a blues drummer.

Stephanie reached up and turned the ceiling bulb clockwise to light it, and held it in her hands, allowing the heat from the bulb to soften the rigidity in her fingers. Then she swiveled the bulb off again so the inside of the freezer would remain dark and not attract the attention of anyone passing the 5-inch gap left on the steel door.

Having regained some dexterity, she removed the ribbon her mother tied in her hair that morning while the still droopy-eyed Stephanie giggled when mom’s cold knuckles brushed against her neck. 

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” 

“A ninja assassin.” 

“Well, make sure you are well paid for your jobs and retire early. Nothing is worse than being poor, old, and running from the law.” 

Stephanie wondered if her mother would stop insisting on brushing her hair in the mornings if she ever told her she wanted to be a doctor, which was the answer mom was hankering for, having to give up on that dream due to missed education opportunities as a refugee. 

Through the 5-inch gap of the freezer door, the future ninja looped the ribbon around the latch hook and tied it in a square knot, preventing the latch from fully engaging even if the door was closed, obviating the risk of being locked in.

Next on her to-do list was shutting down the cooling unit to allow the temperature to rise in the freezer, and thereby preventing the eventual frostbites and hypothermia if she were to remain hidden for a longer interval. The freezer control panel was on the wall next to the hinged side of the door, preventing her from using it without exposing herself in full view of the assailants who were robbing her parent’s restaurant. There was, however, a subpanel on the wall three feet away from the opening side of the door. It has always been her job to reset the breakers whenever it was tripped by the simultaneous usage of the dishwasher and activation of the condenser motor of the freezer. But her reach was only two feet long, so she needed an extender.

She warmed her hand on the bulb again and then, from her back pocket, retrieved the Swiss army knife she received from dad for her ninth birthday, recalling the exhilaration of running her forefinger along the cool mirror-finished blade, feeling for the crisply honed edge. 

“You could kill someone with that.” Mom disapproved.

“Not unless you stab them multiple times or if you slice the carotid in the neck. The two and three-quarter-inch blade is too short to reach any major arteries within the body.” She replied, still sounding more like a ninja than a doctor.

She pulled a 5-gallon lard bucket from the bottom shelf, which was now frosting from the humidity let in from the gaping door, and started to cut away at the plastic retainer fastening the hemi-loop galvanized metal handle with the not-so-lethal blade of her birthday gift. Once loose, she removed the metal handle and held one end and extended the other tip out of the gap of the freezer door to reach the subpanel. Any noise she made was suppressed by the metallic clinks from the office where the robbers were attempting to hammer and chisel their way into the blue metallic safe.

She worked as closely to the wall as possible as the angle of the barely opened door covered her from the view from the office by just inches. Her right shoulder was pushed to the edge of the door without leaning on it. Her head was cringed all the way to the right so her right eye, obscured by the fogging on her glasses and running sweat from her forehead, had the subpanel in its line of sight. The right arm was fully stretched to maximize her reach, while the left hand, holding the metal shelf for balance, was already numb, and the only reason the grip was still tight was that the fingers were frigidly stiff. The icy droplet from the condenser still fell on her shoulder and ran down her back, along her own perspiration.

The fourth breaker down from the top, Stephanie recalled, counting with the tip of the metal handle by feeling each of them just to be sure, as due to the severe angle, she cannot see the breakers directly, and shutting the power to the wrong part of the building may alert the intruders and prompt an unwelcome search. Eventually, she found the right switch and popped it with a firm nudge.

The overhead condenser motor slowed to a whining halt as Stephanie massaged and blew hot air onto her left hand which slowly regained some tingling sensation and movement, followed by burning pain in the fingertips.

As the warmth of the environs continued to seep in through the crack in the door and the frost on her glasses liquefied, a fervent argument can be heard, with the bandits blaming each other for their fruitless attempt at the safe. The argument waned into the parking lot and dissipated with the sound of an engine.

Stephanie pushed open the steel door and crawled out of the freezer, allowing herself the much-deserved collapse on the tile floor of the kitchen, which felt icy in her memory, but now substituted for a heating blanket. 

Once she was limber enough, she staggered to the office and put her hands on the safe. The perps had done almost no damage. Only some chipping of the royal blue paint was noted on the solid block of permanency. She remembered her dad set the combination to 12-30-28, Bo Diddley’s birthday.

*****

Lieutenant Amanda Raines of the NOPD robbery and homicide division furrowed her forehead and raised her hand to signal to the patrol officer that it was OK to let the crying girl hold onto her pink Hello Kitty school bag, which she was clutching as a security blanket and refusing to give it up for a search as per protocol. She sat across a table from the weeping kid at a quiet corner of the restaurant amidst the bustling police crime scene, listened with sympathetic nods, believing that the bereaved girl who had just witnessed the shooting of her parents in a robbery was hallucinating from shock when she claimed that two police officers had committed the crime.

“Of course, I believe you, honey, and trust me, I will not rest personally until they are punished.” Raines uttered in patronizing reassurance, still trying to cross all the T’s before she could start her formal report of the case which she hoped to finish before the morning roll call. “But the time between when the robbers left and you came out of the freezer and when you called the police was 45 minutes. Do you remember what happened during that time, hon?”

Then the girl started to recite names and badge numbers of the assailants, sending a glacial paresthesia down the senior detective’s spine.

Juliette Ernst, badge number 39281, and Maurice Kahlo, 73201. The five-digit number indicated they were cadets, both were known to the lieutenant for their excellent performance.

Then the sniveling girl led her alone to the storage room to view the recordings from the security cameras, a security feature the marauders neglected to notice. A frigid stupefaction emanated from R&H detective’s tingling nerves and spread along her petrified veins. Raines froze, but only momentarily, as the girl squeezed her hand hard to get her attention.

“Cadet Ernst has just arrived in a patrol car behind you.” said the girl, peering over the detective’s shoulder.

Detective Raines took a deep breath to stop her shivering, texted her detective partner and two of the senior patrol officers on the scene to gather in the storage room. Under the ghastly light of the storage with its door closed, they listened to the history, reviewed the tape again, and devised their plan.

First, a list of people needed to be called immediately - the commissioner, the chief, the deputy chief of internal affairs, and deputy superintendent of the standard and accountability bureau to inform the federal government, since the NOPD was still under a consent decree, were divided among themselves and to be done immediately.

“And call Ramirez at public affairs. It won’t be long before the onslaught of public interest.” Raines reminded them.

“More likely a media feeding frenzy,” Her partner replied. “You figure we got a day before this blows up?”

“More likely by this evening.” Stephanie chimed in. “You asked me what I did during that 45 minutes. I made multiple copies of the crime scene recordings and sent them to WDSU, WWL, and New Orleans Times-Picayune by dropping them off at various mailboxes on my bicycle, which should be collected by mail carriers now. They will likely reach their destination this evening, and city desk managers will not wait until the morning to call your bosses.”

The four befuddled cops had to acknowledge and digest this information in short order because of the need of moving on with the more urgent matter of detaining Juliette Ernst.

“I will signal her to come to me in the dining area as if I need to show her some details at the crime scene. You guys follow behind her quietly. Once I tell her she is under arrest, two of you will restrain each of her arms, and the third person will cover her holster with your hand so she cannot draw her service pistol.”

“She also has an ankle holster with a backup revolver. That was the gun she used during the robbery.” Stephanie reminded them, then stayed in the storage through the tumult of the police arresting one of their own.

Amanda Raines returned after the ruckus was over and sat next to the young girl on the floor. “We got Ernst in the cuffs. I was also just informed that they have apprehended Kahlo as well. So what’s going to happen now is that I am going to keep you in my vest pocket until I know you are completely safe and taken care of. If needed I will take you home with me and have you sleep in the bunk bed with my daughter.”

Stephanie nodded and handed over her pink Hello Kitty backpack. “There is a fully loaded Beretta 92 in the bag, my father’s service sidearm when he was in the South Vietnamese Special Forces, which he kept locked in the office safe.”

The astonished officer retrieved the said weapon, dropped the magazine, cleared the chamber, and inserted the empty gun under her belt, and gave the bag back.

“So your plan was what? Shoot the perpetrator yourself?”

“If the police refuse to believe me or try to cover it up.”

“So that was part of the reason you distributed the videotapes as well.”

“I was afraid that you may bury or destroy the evidence if there was only one copy seen by a few people. I was not even going to tell you guys about them until I was sure that you would do the right thing.”

Stephanie paused, exhaled in exhaustion, and said. “Excuse me, but I think I will start to cry for real now.”

Raines wrapped her arm around Stephanie’s skinny shoulders.