P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

“That’s Ollie’s home phone,” Dale said, pointing. “And that one there is the chief’s.”

Louis pointed to the third, almost obscured in the doodles. “What about this one?”

“Don’t know.”

Louis dialed it. He got a recording that said he needed to dial a “1” for long distance. He tried it again and a woman answered.

“Michigan State Police.”

“Uh, sorry, wrong number.” He hung up.

“What was it?” Dale asked.

“The state police.”

“Figures. They had an ad in the Lansing paper last month for officers.”

Louis pulled open a desk drawer and got out Pryce’s resume file, looking for something from the state police but there was nothing.

“Hey, Louis?”

He looked over at Dale.

“I almost forgot. Mrs. Pryce called yesterday. She asked when you were going to send her file cabinet back.”

Louis picked up the papers. “I’d better pack it up.”

Dale opened the evidence room to let him in. Louis went to the file cabinet, opened a drawer and stuck the resume file back in. He was about to also put in the legal pad when he paused. There it was again — that big sprawling doodle on the back with the number in the center: 61829. Where had he seen that number before?

The notebook…

Taking the legal pad, he went back to his desk and retrieved Pryce’s pocket notebook from a drawer. He flipped slowly through the pages, searching for the number.

There it was — 61829. But this time with the words in front of it: SAM YELLOW LINCOLN. Sam…Yellow…Lincoln. Damn, Pryce wasn’t referring to a car or a plate; he was using standard radio code: SYL61829. Was it a serial number for a gun? He jotted it on a paper and went over to Dale’s computer.

“Dale, I need you to run a gun check.”

“Sure. No prob.”

Louis glanced at his watch. Shift was starting soon; he had to get into uniform. He hurried off to the locker room. Dale was watching the report print out as Louis came back into the office, buckling his belt.

“It’s a Beretta 9-millimeter,” Dale said, ripping off the printout. “It’s registered to Calvin Hammersmith, 4578 Pine Bluff Road, Kalkaska, Michigan.”

“Check an arrest record,” Louis said, his heart quickening.

Dale started punching in numbers. Louis sat down at his desk and stared at the name on the printout. Who the hell was this Hammersmith guy? And why did Pryce care about his gun?

“Hammersmith was arrested a bunch of times,” Dale called out a few minutes later. “The last time was in 1975 for assault. And it was right here in Loon Lake.”

Louis jumped up from his chair. “Here? You’re kidding.”

“He served two years.”

Louis came over to the computer to read the report. “Nothing after that? Nothing since ’77?”

Dale shook his head.

Louis began to pace. “I need to know more about this guy.”

Dale picked up the phone. “I’ll call the sheriff over there.”

Louis returned to his desk and picked up Pryce’s notebook, staring at the gun serial number. The radio crackled and he listened while Flo gave directions to a traffic accident.

Dale hung up. “Well, I have some bad news and some good news,” he said. “Hammersmith was a badass. Disabled vet with a history of violence and alcoholism.”

Louis’s heart skipped. “And?”

“He died in 1980. Motorcycle accident.”

Louis tossed the notebook on the desk. “Shit!”

“What’s the matter?” Dale asked.

Louis looked over at him, shaking his head. “I was just hoping for a nice Christmas present.”

He picked up the notebook again. Pryce had written the number down twice. It had to mean something. Or did Hammersmith, even though he was dead, have some connection? He stared at the number, locking it away in his memory. It had to mean something.

“Did you get anything for Christmas?”

Jesse looked at Louis from behind his sunglasses. “I got laid.”

“I meant presents. What the hell’s wrong with you?”

The light changed and Jesse moved the cruiser down Main Street. “Sorry. Julie’s on my ass. Says she’s scared for me. Neither of us is getting any sleep.”

“Well, it seems you found an acceptable substitute.”

Jesse smiled weakly. “Right. Actually, she got me a cool present, a compact disc player. You ever seen one?”

“Sure. What kind of music you like?”

“Good old-fashioned rock and roll, man. I like the Stones best. How about you?”

“I like lots of different music.”

“But what do you listen to at night, you know, when you’re alone?”

“Rhythm and blues…Chuck Willis, Sam Cooke, Clyde McPhatter. You know them?”

Jesse shook his head. “Don’t like that old shit.”

“You should try it. The Stones are really just repackaged R amp;B.”

“The Stones are rockers, Louis.”

“You know their song ‘Time Is on My Side’?”

“Sure. 12 X 5, fifth cut, first side. Great album.”

“It’s an old blues song by Irma Thomas.” Louis smiled. “Your boy Mick is rock’s blackest white boy.”

Jesse frowned, digesting the information as Louis laughed.

Louis reached for the computer printout on the seat between them. It listed the seventy-one red Ford pickups in the tri-county area but when cross-referenced with felons they still had eight names to check out. They had already done two with no results.

“Who’s next?” Jesse asked.

Louis read off the address, and Jesse took a right at the next corner and they headed out of town. They passed the Sunoco station and rounded a curve. Ahead of them was a log building set down in thick pines. Louis had seen Jo-Jo’s Tavern once before on a drive during a sleepless night. He had considered stopping in for a drink but the place had such a foreboding aura that he had passed it by and gone home. He scanned its exterior now. It seemed more benign in the daylight, with its red Budweiser signs in the windows, smoke curling from the chimney and scattering of cars in the muddy lot.

Jesse hit the brakes.

“What the — ” Louis spat out, bracing against the dash.

Jesse slammed the cruiser into reverse, backed onto the shoulder and turned around. “There’s a red Ford. An old one.”

As Jesse swung in the parking lot, Louis squinted at the truck. It was an older model, the paint fading, the lower sides pocked with rust. They parked behind the truck and got out. Louis circled the truck, peering in the dirty windows while Jesse ran the plate.

“It returns to a Mildred Cronk of Dollar Bay, Houghton County,” Jesse said, coming up to his side.

“Where’s that?” Louis asked.

“Upper Peninsula.”

“Long way from home.”

“No warrants.”

Louis looked at the bar. “Well, guess we better go find Millie.”

Inside Jo-Jo’s, a fetid brew of smells greeted them — beer, cigarettes, fried fish and urine. From a dark corner came Freddie Fender’s twangy basso singing “Wasted Days and Wasted Nights.” Jesse plunged into the murk, heading toward the bar. Louis stood just inside the door, blinking to get his pupils dilated enough to see.

At first, he saw only spots of color. A flicker of purple neon over the bar. The green glow of the pool table lighted by the plastic stained-glass Stroh’s sign above. The rainbow of the jukebox. Shadows gradually turned into men. The burly bartender, three men standing around the pool table, a cluster huddled at a table. They were all standing motionless and mute, watching, waiting. He felt his heart quicken. Something felt weird about this.

“Turn off the music,” Jesse called out.

The shadow behind the bar didn’t move.

“Turn off the damn music,” Jesse repeated.