P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

The bartender still didn’t move. Jesse went to the jukebox and gave it a sharp kick. The needle ripped across the record and stopped, plunging the tavern into silence.

“Who’s driving the red Ford pickup outside?” Jesse demanded.

No one moved.

“Look, you stupid motherfuckers, I asked you a question.”

A soft rumbling came from the men at the pool table. Jesse started slowly toward them and Louis suppressed a sigh, his muscles tightening in anticipation. A crazy image flashed into his head: Dean Martin in “Rio Bravo”, just before he shot a guy hiding in the rafters.

“Anyone in here named Cronk?” Jesse asked, his voice rising. When no one answered Jesse turned to Louis and started to say something but he stopped. Louis saw Jesse’s eyes flick to something behind him.

Suddenly, Jesse bolted past him and disappeared into a dark hallway.

“What’s down there?” Louis yelled to the bartender.

“Just the can,” the man said. “And the back door!”

Louis ran down the hall. He heard a crash and knew Jesse had kicked open a door. He came to a stop as a rush of cold air hit him in the face. The rear door hung open. Jesse and a man were slogging through drifts, heading toward the woods. Louis ran after them, grabbing his radio from his belt.

“Central! Central! This is L-11. We are in a foot pursuit of a white male — ”

The suspect was heading toward a barbed-wire fence that ran the length of the field. No way the man could get away now. But then Louis watched in dismay as the man hurdled the fence and kept going toward the woods. Jesse tried to jump the fence, caught his pant leg and tumbled to the snow on the other side, his feet tangled in the wire.

Louis caught up, grabbed the top wire and swung his legs over. The man was almost to the woods. Louis drew his gun.

“Stop!” he shouted. “Stop or I’ll shoot!”

The suspect froze and threw his hands in the air. Louis hurried over to the man. “Don’t move,” Louis ordered.

Jesse trotted up, limping and panting.When he grabbed the man’s hand to cuff him and the man started to struggle.

“Don’t fight me, asshole,” Jesse said, twisting his arm.

“I’m not.”

An army jacket hung loosely on the man’s small frame. He had stringy yellow hair and tight leathery skin lined with fine wrinkles. Narrow, pale gray eyes stared back at Louis.

Jesse shoved him and the man fell. “Who are you?”

The man stared up at Jesse coolly.

“Answer me!”

“Jess, check for a wallet,” Louis said.

Jesse patted him down. He pulled out a paper and a set of keys but no wallet. He handed them to Louis.

Louis unfolded the paper. It looked to be a letter. Louis stuck it in his back pocket with the keys.

“Where’s your ID?” Louis asked.

“Don’t got one,” The man mumbled.

“What’s your name?” Louis asked.

“Maybe I ain’t got one of those either.”

“Don’t play games!” Jesse said, reaching for the man’s collar.

Louis quickly stepped between them. Louis’s radio went off. Florence calling for a status check. “Jess, answer that,” Louis said.

Jesse reluctantly called back that they had the subject in custody and clicked off. Louis had the man firmly by his arm and was guiding him toward the cruiser. He noticed Jesse’s ripped pants.

“You’re bleeding,” Louis said, nodding toward Jesse’s thigh.

Jesse looked down at the six-inch gash in his pants. It was soaked dark red. Suddenly, he hit the man’s shoulder, sending him stumbling forward out of Louis’s grasp and down into the snow.

“You asshole! See what you did?”

“Jess!” Louis grabbed the suspect’s arm and pulled him to his feet. He could feel the man’s arm through the jacket, sinewy with muscle.

“What’s your name, you stinkin’ piece of shit?” Jess demanded.

“Harrison!” Louis said sharply.

Jesse glared at Louis.

“You’re bleeding.” Louis said slowly, enunciating each syllable. “Go back to the car.”

Jesse didn’t move.

“Now,” Louis said.

Jesse held Louis’s eyes for a second longer then he turned and limped off through the snow.

Louis gave the man’s arm a jerk. “Name,” he demanded.

“John Smith.”

Louis sighed and shoved the man toward the parking lot. “Okay, John Smith. Let’s go.”

Jesse was in the cruiser, trying to wrap his leg with a roll of gauze from the first-aid kit. Louis put the suspect in the back and got in, starting the car. He looked down at Jesse’s leg. The barbed wire had left a deep gash several inches long in his thigh. Jesse was sweating.

“You want me to call EMS?” Louis asked.

“Fuck, no,” Jesse said, not looking up. “Just get me to the damn emergency room.”

Louis pulled out of the lot, radioing they were coming back with the suspect. Jesse sat stone-faced, occasionally pulling off new sections of gauze to dab at his cut. Louis looked in the rearview mirror and caught the eyes of the suspect. The man’s face was dirty, his hair was wet from the snow.

“Why the hell you arrest me?” he demanded. He had a weird accent, even stranger than the usual Michigan twang.

Louis didn’t answer.

“I ain’t done nothing.”

Jesse turned to glare at him. “Listen, you stupid Yooper, you shut that fucking trap of yours or you’re gonna be eating those teeth.”

Louis watched the man’s face in the mirror. The man stared at Jesse for several seconds then slumped down in the seat, turning his face away to stare blankly out at the snow.

Louis dropped Jesse off at the emergency room entrance of the hospital. When he reached the station five minutes later, Dale was waiting for him just inside the front door. He watched as Louis helped “John Smith” out of the cruiser and trailed behind as Louis led the suspect inside.

“Who is it?” Dale asked.

“I don’t know yet.” He told him to send someone out to retrieve the red Ford truck in Jo-Jo’s parking lot.

“Red truck?” Dale asked. “You think — ”

“Don’t know yet,” Louis said.

“What do I book him on?” Dale asked, his gaze sliding uneasily over the suspect.

“Attempting to elude, for now.”

As Dale led the man to the back, Louis shrugged out of his jacket and went to his desk. He fell into the chair and took a deep breath. The idea that they had lucked into finding the right truck was too much to hope for. But the description fit, and the man was about five-foot-nine, the estimated height of Lovejoy’s killer.

Louis glanced toward the glass that separated the booking room from the office. Smith had taken off his army jacket. Louis was surprised to see how small he was underneath. He looked like someone had placed a hand on his head and squashed him down a few inches. His legs bowed outward, but his chest and shoulders, outlined beneath his thin T-shirt, were rock hard with muscle.

Louis rose and went to the booking room door, crossing his arms. Smith glanced at him as Dale took his prints.

“I ain’t done nothing,” he said.

“Then why’d you run?”

Smith shrugged.

“You’re not scoring very high on the brain meter here,” Louis said. “Why won’t you tell us who you are? You got warrants?”

Smith shook his head as Dale rocked his inky fingers on the print card.

“We’re going to find out anyway.”

Smith sighed. “Okay, okay. Can we talk alone?”

Louis nodded to Dale to leave. “Okay, talk,” Louis said, closing the door.

“My name is Duane Lacey. I’m on parole. I’m not supposed to be out of Houghton County without permission.”

“Who owns the truck?”

“My mother.” He wiped a strand of dirty blond hair off his forehead. “I thought you guys wanted me for parole violation.”