Ice Run by Steve Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page B

wet a dish towel and tried to rub away the salt stains, but it wasn’t working.
    “Nope, this hat is a lost cause,” he said, then he stopped short when he saw my face.
    When I was done, I thanked the woman and hung up the phone.
    “What is it?” he said.
    “The old man’s dead,” I said. “They found him outside in a snowbank.”
    “Holy God.”
    “She said his name was Simon Grant. He was eighty-two years old.”
    “What happened? I mean, how did he—”
    “He just walked outside. He went down Ashmun Street. They think he must have just got lost or got tired or something. They don’t really know. A snowplow ran over his body this morning.”
    “Nobody should go that way,” Jackie said. “Nobody should freeze to death like an animal.”
    I took the hat from him. “I have to call Natalie,” I said. I dialed the number and waited while it rang.
    “What are you going to do with this hat?”
    “Hell if I know,” I said. Her phone kept ringing.
    “You should turn it in.”
    “What?”
    “It belonged to the old man, didn’t it?”
    I held up my hand to him as Natalie finally answered the phone. When I told her what had happened, she didn’t say anything.
    “You still there?” I said.
    “Yes, Alex. I’m here.”
    “Are you okay?”
    “I can’t believe it,” she said. “Do you still have the hat he left on the floor?”
    “Yeah, I’ve got it right here.”
    “You have to give it back. You know that.”
    “What? How can I—”
    “His family,” she said. “They should have the hat.”
    “I don’t even know how to get in touch with them.” I looked up at Jackie. He nodded his head at me like he knew exactly what she was saying.
    “Take it to the police,” she said. “They’ll give it to the family.”
    “I guess I could do that,” I said. Although driving back into town was the last thing I felt like doing.
    “That poor man. What a terrible night.”
    “Natalie …”
    “I’m sorry, Alex. I gotta go. I’ll talk to you later, all right?”
    “Okay,” I said. And then she hung up.
    “She agrees with me,” Jackie said. “Am I right?”
    “What’d you guys do, talk about this beforehand?”
    “It’s the only right thing to do.”
    That’s how I ended up driving back to the Soo for the second time in two days, with the hat resting on the seat beside me. The sun was finally out, and it made the snow shine so bright it was hard to look at. Not that there was anything to see. The banks were piled five feet high all along the roads, and the plows were still out there trying to catch up.
    When I got to the city, I saw a hundred people with snow shovels, trying to reclaim the sidewalks. I drove by the Ojibway Hotel, but I didn’t see the doorman outside. I kept going, taking the right on Ashmun. This is where it happened, I thought. According to the woman at the hotel, this is where they found him.
    I slowed down as I crossed the little bridge over the canal. A few yards beyond it I could see where they had dug out most of the snowbank, right in front of the bookstore. There were lots of tire tracks and sand and dirt and God knows what else. An empty paper coffee cup blew across the road.
    You could tell that men had been there, working hard at something. But there was no crime scene tape, or anything to suggest that something bad had happened. But then, come to think of it, there had been no crime. It was just an old man who fell into the snow and froze to death.
    Simon Grant. That was his name. I looked down at the hat lying on the seat next to me. Simon Grant, whoever the hell he was, is no more.
    The City County Building was back on the north side of the bridge, over on Court Street. I knew what I had to do next. But instead I kept going. I wasn’t ready yet. On the spur of the moment, there was one thing I wanted to do first.
    Simon Grant. I kept saying the name to myself. Simon Grant.
    When I got to Three Mile Road, I hung a left and drove down to the Custom Motor Shop.