P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

Phillip accepted the answer and took another sip of his brandy. “Thanks for the Courvoisier,” he said. “Don’t usually get this kind of good stuff.”

“I bought it for myself,” Louis said with a smile as he poured himself another three-finger shot. Phillip watched him carefully.

“And thank you for the White Shoulders, dear,” Frances chimed in from the stove.

Louis smiled up at her. Booze and perfume weren’t the most original presents, but then Loon Lake wasn’t exactly a Turkish bazaar. “Thanks for the sweater. I needed it,” he said.

She smiled and bent to poke her head into the oven. The smell of baked ham filled the motor home. The radio was playing softly, Christmas carols. Frances began to hum along.

“I’ve been reading about your case in the Free Press,” Phillip said. “Tragic.”

“Yeah,” Louis said, taking a quick drink.

“Are you close to catching anyone?”

“No, not yet,” Louis said. He glanced up at Frances. She had stopped humming.

“You’re being careful, aren’t you?” Phillip asked.

“Of course. We all are,” He took another swift drink. He glanced to his left, out the window, unable to meet Phillip’s eyes. The window was fogged and he wiped it with his shirtsleeve. He could see out across Higgins Lake. It was much bigger than Loon Lake. To the north, he could see gray clouds moving down toward them. Snow clouds.

Frances set a plate in front of him. He looked down at the careful arrangement of crackers around a crock of bright-yellow cheese. He looked up at her.

“Win Schuler’s?” he asked with a smile.

“What else?” she said, smiling back.

He dug a cracker into the soft cheese and took a bite. The tang of the cheese brought back a flood of memories. He had eaten only Velveeta before the Lawrences had taken him to Win Schuler’s for his tenth birthday. He had never seen a salad bar before that, never been to a restaurant. He had been paralyzed with the choices. Frances had coaxed him to try the cheese. He loved it. He still did.

“Have you made any new friends, dear?” Frances asked, going back to her post at the sink.

Louis shook his head slowly, smiling. “You mean women.”

“Well, okay…women,” she said, nodding.

“Fran, leave the man alone,” Phillip said, scooping a cracker into the cheese.

“It’s okay, Phil,” Louis said, still smiling. “Fact is, there is someone.”

Frances smiled. “Oh, Louis! I’m so glad. What’s her name? When can we meet her?”

“Zoe,” Louis said. “And not for a while.”

“Zoe,” Frances repeated. “Is she foreign?”

Louis grinned. “I guess you could say that.”

Phillip reached across the table for a pack of cigarettes and matches. Frances saw him and frowned just at the moment he looked up at her.

He let out a sigh. “Come on, Fran. It’s twenty degrees out there.”

“I don’t care. You’re stinking up my new home with those things.”

Phillip looked at Louis. “You want to keep me company?”

“Sure,” Louis said, picking up his glass.

They put on their coats and went outside. Louis watched as Phillip lit a cigarette and inhaled deeply. He blew out the smoke in a slow stream, ending almost in a sigh.

“You shouldn’t smoke so much,” Louis said.

“You shouldn’t drink so much,” Phillip replied.

Louis looked away out over the lake and then back at Phillip. He leaned against the motor home, holding the glass down at his side. They were silent for several minutes.

Louis raised his glass and drained the brandy. He looked over to see Phillip looking at him.

“It’s bad, isn’t it,” Phillip said.

Louis knew he was talking about the murders, but he didn’t know what to say in response. As much as he loved Phillip, he had never been able to share his feelings with him easily. Even now, their relationship ripened as it was to adult status, he couldn’t bring himself to open a vein and let his fear bleed out for Phillip to see.

“It’s hard on the nerves,” Louis said. “But we’ll get him. I know we will.” He paused. “They put me in charge of the investigation,” he added, a touch of pride in his voice.

“A promotion already?” Phillip asked.

“Not really. Peter Principle more like it.”

“So, have you found anything yet?”

Louis told him about the piece of fabric and the other tenuous clues. He told him about the watch experiment and his theory about the timing of the two murders. Before he realized what was happening, he was spilling out all the details of the case, including his doubts about Jesse’s stability. It felt good. He needed to talk to someone outside the department. And as much as he had wanted to he couldn’t share it with Zoe.

Phillip listened attentively. Finally, Louis stopped, noticing that Phillip was standing awkwardly, a slight grimace on his face.

“Something wrong?” Louis asked.

Phillip rubbed his thigh. “Cold makes the leg hurt, that’s all.”

“You want to go in?”

“Soon as I finish this butt.”

Louis watched Phillip as he rubbed his leg again, holding the cigarette between his teeth. Another teenage memory bubbled up into his head, the first time he had seen the long scars on Phillip’s leg. Phillip had told him how he had gotten the wound in the Korean War, how the doctor had saved his leg, but left him with a lifelong limp. It was Louis’s first indication that the man who had become the most important figure in his life was truly human, less than a god. Not long after that, Phillip had opened a trunk in the attic and shown him his souvenirs from the war. Louis remembered the uniform patch that had caught his eye. It was a soaring eagle on the red background with the words SILVER EAGLES and the numbers of Phillip’s company on it. He had let Louis keep the patch. Louis lost it somewhere years ago. He never told Phillip.

Louis straightened up off the motorhome. Something stirred in his brain, a connection being made.

“Phillip, you remember that patch you gave me?”

“What patch?”

“The one from your uniform,” Louis said. “The eagle?”

“Oh, yeah. What’d you do with it, by the way?”

Louis felt a surge of excitement. God, the human brain was strange, its synapses firing out to make bridges when you were least expecting it. He was thinking of the cloth they had found on the fence by the park, dark green, like army fatigues.

“Platoons, military units, they all had names like that and numbers?” Louis asked.

“Some,” Phillip answered. “Why do you ask?”

“It could be related to one of the things I’m trying to track down in this case,” Louis said. “The killer leaves this clue, a drawing of a skull and the numbers ‘1 2 3.’ Does it mean anything? Could it be military?”

Phillip shrugged. “Maybe. The emblems were unofficial, something the guys created themselves.”

“What about on a playing card?”

“Hell, yes. We bought them at the PX, carried them everywhere.” He smiled. “I lost a month’s pay in Seoul trying to pull an inside straight.”

Louis’s mind was racing. Could it be that simple? Could it be some sort of military symbol? He had to find someone who knew about the military and what the numbers might mean. Was it a company, a squadron? And which war? It could -

“Louis?”

For a second, Phillip’s voice didn’t register. When Phillip repeated his name, Louis looked up at him. He saw the concern in Phillip’s face.

“It’s all right, Phil,” Louis said quietly.

“I’m worried about you,” Phillip said.

“I’m being careful.”

Phillip looked at him for a long time then took a final deep drag on his cigarette.