MYSTERY: "Thin Ice"

“Here she goes, boys!” Tom Carlson called, turning on the hose and letting the water loose. He triumphantly swept the hose back and forth, spraying water onto the plastic liner of the hockey rink he’d built in his own backyard with the help of his son, Tom Junior.

The rink was 1/4 scale of an NHL rink, complete with wooden boards, Plexiglass partitions, floodlights and even an electronic scoreboard mounted at one end. It had taken the two Toms all summer and fall to build, and now, with temperatures plummeting, it was finally ready to be put into operation.

“Just think,” Tom Sr. said, throwing an arm around his son’s shoulders, as he guided the hose with the other, “you’ll be able to practice and play all winter long, right here in your own backyard. Just like Wayne Gretzky when he was your age!”

“Super, Dad!” Tom Jr., known as TJ, enthused. The spunky eleven year-old was an even bigger hockey aficionado than his father, following the local AHL team, the Manitoba Moose, with true fan fervor.

“Yep, you are one lucky pucky,” Mikey Chanowski marveled. “My dad won’t even let me play badminton in our backyard.” Mikey was one of TJ’s friends, over to watch the big hose down.

“Well, you can come over and play with TJ anytime you want,” Tom said, “between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m.”

“How long before the ice freezes properly and we can start skating on it, Mr. Carlson?” Shea Callaghan, another of TJ’s friends asked.

“Well, it’s supposed to go down to minus twenty tonight – warm for this time of year in Winnipeg, but still cold enough – so it should be frozen solid by morning for sure.”

“Awesome!” Shea yelped. “What’s the time now, Mr. Carlson? My parents can’t afford a backyard hockey rink, but they’re taking me to the game tonight. Maybe the Moose will finally break out of their losing streak.”

Tom flipped his wrist and glanced at his watch, accidentally giving Mikey an ice-water face-wash in the process. “Whoops! Sorry, Mikey. Uh, it’s almost six-thirty, Shea.”

“Gotta go,” the skinny youngster in the Winnipeg Jets jersey said. “See you around, TJ.”

“Yeah,” Mikey said, “I guess I better get going, too.” He sneezed, wiping his nose on the same Boston Bruins’ parka sleeve he’d just dried his face on.

“Meet you back here to walk to school in the morning, like usual?” TJ asked. Mikey lived just down the street, Shea a couple of blocks over. “You can check out the rink with the ice all in.”

“Sure.” The ear muffed redhead let loose another sneeze. “Later, gator!”

Father and son stood watch, as the streaming, steaming water flooded the rink, slowly crystallizing their dreams of backyard shinny.

“So, you two hosers are actually going ahead with it, eh?”

Tom and TJ glanced at their next-door-neighbor, Joe Tucker, who’d wandered into their yard uninvited. Joe ‘Blow’ (as Tom called the whining windbag) had groused his concerns many a time previous about the prospective noise level from having a bunch of kids playing hockey so close to his property and about the possibility of frozen pucks flying into his yard and maybe through his windows. He sniffed at the swirling water, nose held high.

“Yup, we’re almost ready to face-off for the first time,” TJ bragged, beaming up at his dad.

“Humph!” Joe harrumphed. “Just keep the noise and the pucks down, is all I ask. Or I’m calling the cops.” He turned to leave, and slipped on a puddle of ice, landing on his amply padded rear end with a thump.

“Ooohhh!” he moaned, as TJ rushed over to help him back to his feet. Tom kept right on watering the rink. “That’s just great for my aching back,” Joe groaned, “I already can hardly lift a thing at work!”

“That reminds me, Dad,” TJ said, “I better go sand Mrs. Lacombe’s steps before she goes out to get the paper in the morning. It’s pretty icy around here.”

“Merci, TJ!” Hortence Lacombe called from over the neighboring fence on the other side, where she’d been watching the proceedings. “You’re such a good boy to remember an old lady. You’re going to grow up to be another Maurice ‘Rocket’ Richard with your new hockey rink, no?” Rocket Richard was Hortence’s favorite hockey player – her father had taken her to see the hall-of-famer play at the old Montreal Forum when she was just a child, many, many years ago.

“More like Alexandre Bolduc,” TJ replied, naming his favorite player on the current Moose roster.

*

TJ was up at the crack of dawn the following morning, anxious to see the new ice on the new rink. He listened to the sportscast on the radio as he threw on his clothes, cheering when he heard that his beloved Moose had finally broken out of their slump with a late goal in overtime. Then he pulled on his boots and parka and raced out into the backyard.

His father was standing by the hockey rink, his shoulders slumped. “Someone vandalized our new rink last night,” the man groaned. “Poured salt all over the ice – ruined it!”

TJ stared at the cratered and pockmarked ice surface, where the salt had melted through it, at the empty twenty-five pound bag of road salt that had blown into a corner of the messed-up rink. The salt was a commonplace brand that people all over Manitoba used on their driveways and walkways and steps in the wintertime to melt ice and improve traction.

“Telephone, TJ!” his mom called from the backdoor.

It was Mikey Chanowski’s mother, informing TJ that Mikey wouldn’t be stopping by his house to walk with him to school, since he was sick in bed with the flu.

“That’s tough,” TJ responded.

“Yes, it is,” Mikey’s mother agreed. “He was sneezing and coughing so badly when he got back from your house last night, I had to put him straight to bed.”

No sooner had TJ hung up, than the phone rang again. This time it was Shea, asking when he could come over to play hockey.

“Cool your jets, Golden Jet,” TJ replied dejectedly. “Someone ruined the ice.” He sighed. “How was the Moose game, anyway?”

“Ruined the ice!” Shea shrieked over the phone. “Ah, man, that reeks! The Moose game wasn’t bad – same old, same old, ya know.”

TJ hung up for a second time. Then he wandered back out into the backyard to stare at the scarred and pitted ice surface with his father again. “If it’s any consolation, Dad,” he said, “I know who did this.”

Tom glanced down at his son, surprised. “You do? Who?”

.................................................................................................................. SOLUTION: The de-icer had to be one of the four who knew that Tom Carlson and his son had flooded their new hockey rink the previous evening, as the chances of a random vandal walking around outside on a cold night with a twenty-five pound bag of road salt would be slim. It wasn’t Joe Tucker, because his bad back meant there was no way he could lift a twenty-five pound bag of anything. It wasn’t Hortence Lacombe, because she had no salt – she relied on sand from TJ to keep her steps from being slippery. And it wasn’t Mikey Chanowski, because he was sick in bed with the flu all of the previous evening and following morning. Shea Callaghan claimed that he’d gone to the hockey game with his parents the night of the crime. But in his phone call to TJ the next morning, he proved that he’d lied about that: he indicated that the Moose had boringly lost again, when, in fact, they’d actually won an exciting game, as TJ had heard on the radio, and as anyone actually at the game would’ve known. He had no reason to lie about attending the hockey game, unless it was to cover up his attendance at the crime scene. .................................................................................................................

Posted in: Mysteries