Ice Cap by Chris Knopf

head. “How we gonna do that?”
    â€œWhy were your fingerprints on that big chunk of ice?” I asked.
    â€œIt was sitting there next to Tad’s head. I just tossed it to get it out of the way. I tossed a bunch of ice out of the way.”
    â€œYou told me you had your gloves on the whole time.”
    â€œI had to take the right glove off to check Tad’s pulse, right here on his neck.” He demonstrated on himself. “That’s an easy thing to forget.”
    â€œWhat else did you forget?” I asked.
    â€œI don’t know. I’m not trying to forget anything.”
    My experience told me that people didn’t have to try very hard to forget things they didn’t want to remember, but I put that aside.
    â€œTell me about Zina,” I said. “How did she and Tad get along?”
    He winced at her name, but it also seemed to open him up a little.
    â€œJust because everybody thinks something is true doesn’t mean it isn’t,” he said. “Sometimes the obvious is the obvious.”
    â€œZina and Tad weren’t exactly lovebirds,” I suggested.
    â€œTo be honest with you, I don’t know how he felt about her. I just knew how she felt about him. Which wasn’t that great. Come on, just look at her, then look at Tad. The man was a big ugly bull.”
    â€œHe mistreated her,” I said, a question in the form of a statement.
    â€œThat’s not what I mean,” said Franco. “I never heard him say anything unpleasant to her, much less smack her around or anything. It was just the way he was in the world. Intense, busy all the time, in a way just this side of crazy. Zina’s nothing like that. She’s subtle, and likes things calm and steady. And she’s kind of refined.” He looked slightly embarrassed, as if caught betraying his own romantic illusions. “Ah, hell, I don’t know what I’m saying. It just didn’t make sense, the two of them, that’s all.”
    â€œA number of people saw Zina’s motives as purely mercenary,” I said. “That she was only in it for the money, and the American citizenship.”
    He frowned. “Of course they’d say that. And I wouldn’t blame her if it was true. But I never heard her say marrying Tad was just a scam to get into the country.”
    â€œShe said there was nothing for her. That she had nowhere to hide. What’s that about?”
    He rubbed his goatee and sighed. “I don’t know, except she always seemed a little lost and alone. Resigned, maybe? I tried to get more out of her, but to be completely honest with you, not that I haven’t been honest in this particular conversation, we didn’t speak that much about anything. It wasn’t what you’d call a speaking kind of relationship. I tried, you know, to make something more out of the situation, to get to know her better, but that wasn’t what she had in mind.”
    I struggled with the image of Franco Raffini as the beautiful Katarzina’s boy toy—to be felt but not heard—but that was what it sounded like.
    â€œEverybody can get lonely, Jackie,” he said. “Doesn’t mean they always want to become your soul mate.”
    I allowed how that could be true without copping to any experience in the matter. The thought of Harry leaped involuntarily to mind. Soul mate? I shoved the thought back in its hole.
    â€œIf Zina didn’t marry Tad out of expedience, why did she marry him? It doesn’t sound like she liked him, much less loved him.”
    Franco took some time before answering the question. It wasn’t evasion; he seemed to be working hard on the answer. Then he gave up.
    â€œI don’t know. Honest, Jackie. I don’t know. There’s something really distant about Zina. I never got the feeling she was completely there—more that she was mostly somewhere else. ‘Distracted’ is maybe a better