P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

Jesse disappeared into the darkness and Louis watched as he flipped on the lights and ran code three back to town. Again, the men fell silent, a few going back to trucks to turn on heaters and thaw out. Louis went to the truck and ducked under the hoisted block of ice, shining his flashlight on the man’s face.

It was distorted by ice, grotesque and pale. The man was caucasian and chubby, his clean-shaven face clearly visible beneath the crystal pattern of the ice. His eyes were open, two little holes burnt in the ice, with a mild look of bewilderment. His mouth was open, and the upper plate of his dentures had worked its way loose.

A flash of light went off next to him. The damn reporter had ducked under the block with him and taken a picture.

“This one’s not so bad,” he said, looking at Louis.

“What?” Louis said.

“Pryce. Pryce was still warm when I got there.” The young man thrust out a hand. “Delp,” he said with a smile. “Doug Delp. Oscoda County Argus.”

Louis stared at the man’s bare red hand for a moment then reluctantly shook it.

“You’re the guy who replaced Pryce, right?” Delp asked.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “Excuse me, will you?”

Ollie was peeking in at them. “Is it worth coming under there to take photos? Or should I wait?” he asked hopefully.

“Wickshaw! Kincaid!” Gibralter yelled. “Get out of there before that damn block of ice falls and kills you both.”

Ollie backed off, followed by Louis and Delp. Louis walked up the bank to the cruisers.

Thirty minutes later, Jesse returned with a queen-size mattress tied to the roof of the cruiser. The mattress was placed on the flatbed truck and the ice-encased body gently lowered onto it. Once the block was secured with rope, bungee cords and straps, the electrical crew and firemen began to quickly pack up their gear. No one wanted to linger a moment longer than necessary in the freezing night. Even the reporter had long since hit the road.

“Where will they take it?” Louis asked Jesse.

“Cedar Springs. They have a county lab up that way. It’s about twenty miles.”

“Thank God. We might get home by dawn.”

Gibralter came toward them, tossing aside a cigarette. He watched the firemen finish with the final straps, then looked at Louis and Jesse. “Wickshaw will follow you in the cruiser.”

Louis looked at the body, then back at Gibralter, who was walking away. “He expects us to ride with the stiff?” Louis asked Ollie.

Ollie shrugged. “That’s what I heard. Isn’t that what you heard?”

Jesse was already climbing on the flatbed. Louis started to protest again but Jesse cut him off, extending a hand.

“Louis, get up here,” Jesse said.

Shaking his head, Louis climbed onto the flatbed, over the block of ice and sat down next to Jesse, who had settled into a corner against the truck’s cab.

“This is ridiculous,” Louis muttered.

“Look at it this way. We’re protecting the chain of custody.”

The truck kicked into gear and Louis grabbed the edge of the truck. Jesse looked toward the road and watched as the chief climbed into his Bronco. The flatbed pulled slowly up the bank and onto the road. Ollie swung his cruiser in behind.

“Chief seemed kind of tense,” Louis said after a moment.

“He’s just pissed at me,” Jesse said tightly. “I shouldn’t have spouted off to him like that.”

Louis shivered as the wind began to whip around them. “Not a real smart move.”

“He’s never yelled at me like that for just mouthing off.”

“It’s the circumstances, Jess. It’s freezing-ass cold. The chief’s got a dead body that everyone’s making jokes about and all these civilians watching. He was doing a little chest beating, that’s all.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

Louis scooted toward Jesse for warmth. “If I freeze and die out here tonight tell them I died with honor, okay?” he said.

“You’re not going to die. The human body can endure temperatures much colder than this.”

Louis nodded toward the body. “Tell that to him.”

They quickly fell silent in the biting cold of the open highway.

“Louis?” Jesse said, breaking the silence.

Louis grunted.

“Have you ever been, like, suddenly transported back in time? You know, by something that happens to you now?”

“Deja vu?”

“No, more like you’re a kid again and something that happened to you happens all over again?”

Louis looked at Jesse. In the wind, his voice had sounded small. And his face, caught in the headlight beam of Wickshaw’s cruiser following behind, looked different. The wind whipped his dark hair over his forehead and his eyes were teary from the cold. He looked ten years old.

“My father used to make me ride in the back of his pickup,” Jesse said.

“In the winter?”

“Winter and summer. Rain or shine.”

“Why?”

Jesse blinked. “Said there wasn’t enough room in the front seat for me and my uncle both.”

Louis shivered and pulled his knees closer. “Excuse me for saying this, Jess, but he sounds like a real ass.”

“He was,” Jesse said. “But in a way, he made me what I am.”

“What do you mean?”

“If he hadn’t kicked me out of the house when I was seventeen, I wouldn’t have become a cop.”

Jesse glanced at Louis and saw he was waiting for more. “I met Gibralter right after that, and man, suddenly it all got clear. I wanted to be a cop. I had to be a cop. Know what I mean?”

He didn’t, but Louis nodded anyway.

They were quiet the rest of the way to Cedar Springs. When the truck pulled into the county morgue parking lot, Louis and Jesse went inside to log in the body. A few minutes later, they were walking back to Ollie’s cruiser.

“Let’s get out of here.” Louis opened the passenger door of the cruiser and started to get in. Jesse grabbed his arm.

“Let me ride in front.”

Louis shrugged. “Sure.”

Louis got in back and closed his eyes. “Don’t expect me in ‘til later,” he muttered. “I’m sleeping in.”

Jesse shot him a look over his shoulder through the metal screen that separated the front and backseats. “At least you got a place to sleep.”

“What do you mean?” Louis asked.

Jesse nodded back toward the morgue. “That fucker used my bed.”

Louis was awakened by the scratchy sound of his radio going off on the nightstand. It was Florence, who informed him it was after eight and he had missed briefing.

Louis fell back on the pillows. Damn, after last night, he expected to get a few extra hours of sleep.

He was zipping up his pants when he heard the squawk of a siren outside. He pushed back the curtain to see Jesse waiting in the cruiser. They went back on routine patrol without hitting the station. Louis sat slumped in the seat, half listening to Jesse’s patter, refusing his offer to share his thermos of coffee. Julie, Louis had quickly discovered, made terrible coffee. At noon, Louis suggested they go back to the station.

Inside, Louis went straight to the coffeepot then sank into his chair, rubbing his bristly jaw. He hadn’t had time to shave and he wondered if Gibralter counted that as being out of uniform.

The phone rang and he picked it up. It was the medical examiner from Cedar Springs. Louis waved at Jesse. “Hey, they’ve identified the stiff,” he called out.

Jesse looked over and started toward Louis’s desk.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Got it,” Louis murmured, taking notes. After a couple of minutes, he hung up. “The guy was shot.”

“You’re kidding,” Jesse said. “When?”

“They won’t know until tissue tests are done.”