P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

Louis walked over and picked up his glasses. “I thought Florence was the one who cleaned up my desk every night.”

“I’m something of a neat freak,” Ollie said, almost apologetically. “Hope you don’t mind me straightening your stuff. Pryce didn’t like it much.”

“Hey, knock yourself out, man.”

Louis went back to the desk where he had been working on the files. Jesse was hunched over, snoring lightly. Louis sat down and picked up another file. Moments later, he felt someone behind him and looked up to see Ollie.

“Lots of bad karma here,” Ollie said, nodding at the case files.

“But no murderers,” Louis said. “This town doesn’t seem to breed weirdos. Must be something in the water supply.”

Ollie smiled weakly.

“How long you been on the force, Ollie?” Louis asked.

“Twelve years,” Ollie replied. “Only eight years and forty-five days ‘til retirement. But who’s counting?”

“When’s the last time you had a homicide? Before Pryce and Lovejoy, I mean.”

Ollie’s wan face creased up in thought. “Ah, the Swope brothers…1973, no ’74. Got drunk and one stabbed the other.”

Louis shook his head, stacking a pile of folders. “But nobody pissed off at the local cops. Hard to believe.”

“Well, Jesse has had his run-ins. But I can’t think of anybody who would, I mean, to cause this kind of…retribution. It, this isn’t normal, it isn’t…” Ollie’s voice trailed off. He caught Louis’s eye and looked away. He went back to his desk.

Louis glanced at Jesse, envying his deep sleep. Man, he was tired. He was tired of thinking. His brain actually ached.

“Shit, this is nuts,” he said, more to himself than anyone. “We’re never going to find him this way.”

Ollie looked over. “Why not?”

“Whatever it was that pissed the guy off could have happened ten, twenty years ago.”

“But then why did he wait?” Ollie asked.

“What?”

“If it’s an old crime why would he wait so long to kill?”

Ollie had a point. Hatred usually didn’t wait to go unvented. Murder was almost always a violent and immediate reaction to something. What could have forced the killer to wait so long?

Louis sat forward, planting his feet on the floor. “Prison,” he said softly.

Ollie looked over at him blankly.

Louis stood up. “He’s been in prison. I’d bet on it. That has to be it.” He turned to Ollie. “Think about it. Some jerkweed’s sitting in jail, stewing about something the cops did to him. Every day, every week, every year, he gets madder and madder and he thinks of a plan. I mean, what else does he have to do? He plans and waits.” Louis took a few quick steps toward Ollie. “Then when he gets out…bang.”

Ollie took a step back, blinking rapidly. His slack face looked gray in the harsh fluorescent light. Louis suddenly wished he could take back his vivid image. For several seconds, they just stared at each other.

Then Ollie turned away, busying himself with packing up the Hot Wheels and putting on his coat. Clutching the bike, he hurried to the door. But he paused, turning.

“Louis,” Ollie called.

“Yeah?”

“Merry Christmas.”

Ollie left and the office was quiet again. Louis rubbed his eyes, focusing his thoughts. He needed to get a list of prison releases. He quickly scribbled a note to Dale, asking him to run a list of every state prisoner released after November 30, 1984. He taped it to Dale’s phone.

“Edna?” he called out.

No response.

“Edna!”

Her round face appeared over the book. “Edna, when Dale comes in would you tell him to leave these files out? He’ll refile them if you don’t. I’m heading home.”

Edna popped the last bit of cookie in her mouth. “Ten-four, Louis.” She nodded to the snoring Jesse. “What about Jess?”

“Let him sleep, I guess.”

Louis yawned and rose, stretching. His thoughts drifted to his cold cabin with its cold bed. He wondered what Zoe was doing tonight. He hadn’t seen her in three days; she had told him she was going home for Christmas. His mind shaped a sudden image of her sitting in a fancy high-rise on Lakeshore Drive, unwrapping a gift of lingerie from some faceless boyfriend. Christ, where had that come from?

He slipped on his jacket. The phone rang and he grabbed it before it woke Jesse up.

“Loon Lake Police, Officer Kincaid.”

“Is Jesse there?” a feminine voice asked.

“Julie?”

“Yes.” She sounded very young.

“Hold on, I’ll wake him.”

“He’s sleeping?” Julie asked. “Where?”

“On his desk.”

“Wait, don’t wake him up.”

Louis frowned. He couldn’t let Jesse sleep in the station on Christmas Eve. “Julie — ”

“Let him sleep, please,” she said quickly.

Louis sensed something anxious in her voice and he wondered if they were having problems.

“Julie,” he said, “I can bring him home.”

“No, he’s safe there,” she said softly. “Let him stay. He’s safe there. He’s safe.”

Dawn. Christmas Day. The world had stopped.

Louis walked slowly down Main Street, past the dark storefronts, past the pillared First National Bank and under the silent marque of the Palace Theater. His eyes caught sight of the bare-chested Sylvester Stallone holding the machine gun above the type: “Rambo: First Blood II”. He hurried on.

The Mustang had refused to start again but this morning the idea of walking to the station hadn’t bothered him. After a night of restless sleep he needed time to think. He could almost feel his brain cells gulping in the chilly air.

He felt stiff, fragile somehow, as if his bones might snap. Funny what lack of sleep did to the body and the mind. His whole body ached, from the constant tension of keeping muscles and senses on alert. Alert for what? The clues that might be lurking in the blotter doodles? Alert for what? A bullet that would come out of nowhere some morning when he opened the door?

Ahead, he saw the glow of the station sign and increased his pace. There was a faint pink in the eastern sky. Above, a few errant flakes floated down in the amber light of the street lamp.

He crossed the street, climbing over the bank of snow. All through the night, between bouts of jagged sleep, his mind had worked. Pieces. Nothing but pieces of a puzzle whose whole he could not yet see.

Lovejoy…a murder probably committed in the afternoon but unnoticed by fishermen. Or committed before dawn when no one went out on the lake to fish.

Pryce…a smart, experienced detective who kept unintelligible notes, scrawled senseless doodles on a blotter and was peppering the state with resumes.

Someone had already shoveled the station walk. He stamped his boots on the concrete and went inside. Dale was at the coffeepot, setting out a box of donuts.

He looked up at Louis. “Do you ever sleep?”

Louis shook his head. “Doesn’t feel like it.”

Dale filled a cup, plucked a sprinkled donut from the box and set them on Louis’s desk. “I got your note. Request for the ex-cons is already sent. I told them I needed it ASAP. They said they’d try but with the holiday and all they couldn’t promise anything.”

Louis thanked him and slithered out of his coat. He saw the stack of case files still sitting on the desk where he and Jesse had left them the night before. He couldn’t face them right now. It could wait until the report came back of the newly released prisoners and they could compare names.

Louis dropped down into his chair, sipping his coffee. His gaze strayed to the desk blotter with its doodles and nonsensical number. He focused finally on several sets of numbers. Seven digits, no hyphens but possibly a phone number. He called Dale over and asked him if he recognized them.