P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

Jesse came down the short hall. “Hey, Louis, I think I — ”

He came to an abrupt stop in the doorway. His eyes locked on the cage. His expression went suddenly dead, his skin ashen.

“Listen, Jess,” Louis began, “we’re going to have to — ”

Jesse bolted from the room.

“Jess!”

Louis stuck his head around the door frame but Jesse was gone. A moment later, he heard the slam of the front storm door.

“What the hell?” Louis muttered. He went back out into the living room. Through the open front door he could see Jesse leaning against a tree. His head was down and his ragged breath formed white clouds in the cold air.

Louis came up behind him. “Jesse? What’s the matter?”

Jesse shook his head. Then slowly, he drew two deep breaths and straightened. His face was sweaty.

“I don’t know. I felt sick,” he said. “The smell got to me, I think. And that damn dog.” Finally, he looked at Louis, his brown eyes glistening. “I’m sorry, man. Don’t…don’t tell the chief, okay?

Louis stared at him for a moment then awkwardly patted his shoulder. “No problem. It never happened.”

Jesse wiped his brow and stared off toward the lake. “Shit, I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“Fred was a fisherman.”

So?”

“An ice fisherman. You know, shanties, holes in the ice.”

Louis stepped around the tree and followed Jesse’s gaze out at the lake. “Like that one?” Louis asked, pointing to a small wooden structure about thirty yards out on the frozen lake.

“Yeah, just like that one.”

Louis turned up his collar and started across the snow. Jesse pushed himself off the tree and trailed after him.

“Maybe we should call the chief before we go out there,” Jesse said.

Louis pulled his radio out and hailed Florence. He advised her to notify the chief, and on a hunch, the county crime-scene unit. He stuffed the radio back in his belt just as they reached the fishing shanty door. A gray layer of haze drifted over the lake, casting smoky shadows that glittered with light snow. Damn, it was desolate out here.

“You going to open it?” Jesse asked.

Louis pushed open the thin door. The wind whipped in from behind him and he could hear a flutter of papers inside. The shanty was dim and Louis reached for the flashlight on his belt, shining it around the inside.

It was small, about ten feet by ten feet, made of cracked wood. Directly in the center, next to a hole in the ice, sat an old wing-backed chair. Next to it was a TV tray table holding a Coleman lantern. A generator-fueled space heater occupied one corner, a warped Styrofoam cooler another. The ice floor was covered with green Astroturf, littered with cigarette butts, beef jerky wrappers and Pabst cans.

Louis went in, swinging the flashlight up over the walls. They were festooned with fishing gear. There was also a Black and Decker chain saw, an Indian blanket and a sheepskin bota.

“Louis, look.”

Louis turned the light on Jesse, who was kneeling by the fishing hole. On one jagged edge there were dark stains.

Louis knelt, shining the light on the hole. It was blood. He trained the light back up on the chair. There was a small stain on the seat, as black as the water in the ice hole.

“This is where he was shot,” Louis said.

“Here? But he was found up near the shore,” Jesse said.

Louis stood up and pointed the flashlight at the chair and then down at the hole. “See the blood pattern? He was shot sitting in that chair. Then my guess is he was put down that hole.”

Jesse stared at the ice hole. “Goddamn,” he said. “Someone shot him and stuffed him down this fucking hole. Just stuffed him down there. Jesus H. Christ.” He turned abruptly and stood at the door, facing outward.

“Jess? What’s that?”

Jesse turned in the direction of Louis’s flashlight beam. It had picked up an iron bar lying by the chair.

“It’s a spud bar. You use it to chisel a hole in the ice.”

Louis knelt to examine the bar. Fred Lovejoy had weighed well over two hundred pounds. Chances were the killer hadn’t had the patience to use this to hack out a hole big enough for a body. Louis focused the light up on the chain saw hanging on the wall. “And that?”

Jesse glanced at the saw. “Lazy guys use a saw. It’s cleaner.”

“And faster,” Louis said dryly.

Jesse was staring down into the hole. “I don’t get it. Why in hell would someone bother to do this? I mean, why not just leave the body here?”

“Maybe to buy time,” Louis said. “By spending ten extra minutes cutting the hole, he bought himself enough time for evidence to decay, witnesses to begin to forget. The trail goes cold and the case gets harder to solve.”

Louis walked to the door and faced the bloody chair, forming and imaginary shotgun in his arms.

“Think he knew his killer?” Jesse asked.

Louis lowered his arms. “Hard to say. I think the killer walked right up on him just like with Pryce.” Louis shook his head. “But Lovejoy was a trained cop. How could somebody get the drop on him so easily?” He paused. “Maybe he did know him.”

Jesse picked up a beer can by the small opening. “Or maybe Fred was too drunk to react. Fred did like to drink. And people around here don’t expect trouble. Not even us.”

“Well, Pryce did,” Louis said. “He had his gun drawn.”

They were silent for several moments. Then Louis began a slow sweep of the floor with his flashlight.

“What you looking for? A shell?” Jesse asked.

“No, a card.”

Jesse stared at him for a moment then reluctantly began to do the same. For several minutes there was no sound except for their breathing.

“Damn, it has to be here,” Louis said.

“Maybe it’s up in the house,” Jesse said.

Louis shook his head. “He left the other one right by Pryce’s body.”

“Maybe it fell in the hole.”

“That would be just our luck.” Louis spotted a magazine near the far wall and bent down to look at it more closely. It was the Sunday magazine of the New York Times, dated November 24. It was open to the crossword, which was nearly finished.

“He was doing a crossword puzzle when he was shot,” Louis said.

Jesse looked over at him. “Fred was a crossword freak. He was always working on those damn things.”

Louis knelt and used the end of his flashlight to flip the magazine aside. “Bingo,” he said.

The card was lying face down. Louis guessed it had been swept against the wall with the magazine when he opened the door. Fishing a pen from his jacket, he used it to turn the card over.

“Ten of hearts,” Louis said. He rose, his gaze traveling around the shanty. “There’s got to be a connection,” he said.

“Connection?” Jesse asked.

“Pryce was an active cop, but Lovejoy was retired. What’s the connection?”

“They’re both cops,” Jesse said.

“It’s got to be more than that,” Louis said. “We’ve got to search that cabin, top to bottom.”

He turned. Jesse was shaking his head.

“It’s there, Jess. All we have to do is — ”

“I’m not going back in there,” Jesse interrupted, turning away. He took a deep breath. “I’m not going back in there.”

The sound of a siren drew Louis’s attention before he could reply.

“Chief’s here,” Jesse said quickly, leaving the shanty.

Louis emerged just as the Bronco pulled up in front of the cabin. Gibralter got out and started toward the front door.

“Chief! Out here!” Jesse called.

Gibralter stopped and turned, peering toward them. He started down the snowy bank and across the ice.

“How long was Fred retired?” Louis asked as they waited.