P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

“How’s the leg?” Louis asked.

Jesse didn’t seem to hear him. He was staring at the fax again. Suddenly, he spun away and kicked the locker. He grabbed his jacket and headed toward the door. Dale opened it just as Jesse reached it. Jesse brushed past him, knocking him against the door frame.

Louis watched him go, a slow anger rising in him. Damn it, he was sick and tired of this. He was tired of dead ends and dirtbags. He was tired of dead cops. And he was really tired of Jesse’s moods.

Dale came forward. “You need to sign this, Louis.”

Louis pulled his eyes from the door and took the paper from Dale. He signed it and gave it back. He noticed Dale was rubbing his arm.

“You okay?”

“Yeah. What’s wrong with Jess?”

“I don’t know,” Louis said. But he did know. Jesse was out of control and in his state of mind he was useless on this investigation. There was no way to put it off any longer. It was time to talk to Gibralter about him.

“Is the chief back yet?” Louis asked Dale.

“Just got in.”

“Thanks.” Louis left the locker room and went to Gibralter’s door, knocking. The chief called him to come in.

“What is it?” Gibralter said, looking up from some papers.

“I need to speak with you, sir,” Louis said.

“Can it wait?”

“Not really, sir. It’s about Jesse.”

Gibralter set the papers aside and picked up his cigarette from the ashtray. “What about him?”

Louis drew in a breath. “I think he might need to be relieved of duty for a while.”

“Explain.”

“We arrested a guy today who we thought might be our killer but it didn’t pan out,” Louis said. “Jesse lost control, sir, lost his temper. I think he’s…losing it.”

“Explain.”

“I think he’s afraid, sir, too afraid to function. I think he will hurt himself, or someone else, if he doesn’t calm down.”

Gibralter took a drag from the cigarette and slowly snuffed it out in the ashtray. “We’re all a little tense right now, Kincaid,” he said.

“I know,” Louis said. “But Jesse can’t control himself. The other day, during a traffic stop, I had to back him off a guy.”

“Back him off?”

“He slammed the guy’s head against the truck.”

“What did you do?”

“I pulled him off him.”

Gibralter rose and came around the front of the desk to stand in front of Louis. “Did this man see you do this?” he asked.

Louis nodded.

Gibralter slapped him, lightly but sharply on the cheek. Louis blinked in shock.

“Humiliated?” Gibralter asked.

Louis refused to even nod.

Gibralter went back around his desk. “I did that only so you’ll know how Jess felt when you stepped in between him and that man. Don’t ever do it again.”

Louis’s jaw flinched.

“You got something to say, Kincaid?”

He had plenty to say but he held it in.

“Sit down, Kincaid.”

Louis looked up, surprised by the sudden softening in Gibralter’s voice. Gibralter was standing by the credenza now, holding one of the pieces from the chessboard. Louis took the chair across from Gibralter’s desk.

“I worked in Chicago before coming here,” Gibralter said. “I worked my way up through the force to captain. I was the youngest man ever to make captain in the city’s history. Before that I was in the army, a first lieutenant, leading a platoon in Vietnam.”

Louis wondered where this was going.

“Both experiences taught me a lot about commanding men in a unit,” Gibralter continued, fingering the chess piece. “I learned that each man has his strengths and that it is the leader’s job to exploit them for the unit’s success.”

Gibralter held out the chess piece. Louis saw it was a pawn.

“Some men are foot soldiers,” Gibralter said. “They are the lifeblood of the game but they have no power on their own.”

Gibralter picked up a rook. “Other men are like rooks, limited and plodding, but valuable if you know how to use them.”

He exchanged the rook for another piece. “And then there is the knight,” he said, holding up the pewter piece. “The knight is the attacker, always ready to charge into battle in service of its king, but you have to be careful with it because it is hard to control.”

Gibralter tossed the piece at Louis. He caught it and looked up at Gibralter.

“Jesse is my knight,” Gibralter said.

Louis turned the piece over in his fingers, trying to figure out a way to say Jesse was acting more like a horse’s ass and that he was getting fed up with Gibralter’s metaphors.

“Has Jesse told you much about his background?”

Louis looked up at Gibralter. “No.”

“That doesn’t surprise me.”

Gibralter came forward and took the knight from Louis. He set it back in its place on the board and returned to sit behind his desk.

“There are some things you should know about him,” Gibralter said. “I don’t normally do this but I’m going to tell you because you seem eager to judge people sometimes, which is not a good quality in a cop. And I don’t think Jesse deserves it.”

Louis stared at Gibralter.

“Jesse’s childhood was hell,” Gibralter began. “His mother was a drunk and his father Len…well, he was just a bastard.”

Lila Kincaid floated into Louis’s mind, and her smell: Evening in Paris and booze. Shit, he had no memories of his father, not even bad ones.

“I met Jesse when he was seventeen, just after he had run away from home. He didn’t tell me every detail but I know Len used him as a punching bag from the time he was about ten. Once, when Jess was about twelve he tried to stop his father from beating his mother and the father attacked Jess with his pocketknife. That’s how he got the scar on his neck.”

Louis thought of the crosshatch of scars on Jesse’s back.

“But the worst thing was the cage,” Gibralter said. “Whenever Jess acted out Len would lock him in the dog cage in the backyard and leave him there for days.”

Louis felt his stomach turn. The cage in Lovejoy’s cabin.

Gibralter paused, watching Louis’s face. “There’s more. Want to hear it?”

Louis drew in a breath. “No.”

“Jesse has a temper. I know that,” Gibralter said. “But I’ve seen him come a long way to become a decent man and a good cop. I can count on him, Kincaid. I wish I could say that about every man who has worked for me.”

Gibralter paused for a long time. “You can go now,” he said quietly.

Louis rose and left the office. He stood outside the door for a moment, his head swimming. He felt anger — at Gibralter for making excuses for Jesse and at Jesse for needing them. He felt humiliation, the sting of Gibralter’s hand still fresh on his face. But more than anything, he felt a suffocating disappointment over losing Lacey as a suspect.

He felt eyes on him and looked up to see Ollie watching him. Ollie…rook or pawn? Jesus.

With a glance at his watch, he went to his desk and snatched up his jacket. He paused, then jerked open a drawer and pulled out the legal pad with his notes on the Pryce and Lovejoy cases. There was half a bottle of Christian Brothers in the cupboard back home. Maybe after it was gone, he could face looking at the cases again.

She was there, standing on the porch, when he got to the cabin. He hurried to her, pulling her to his chest.

“You’re here,” he said.

Zoe fit her body against his, holding him tightly. “I just got back. I came right here.”

He kissed her. Her lips were cold and chapped. He cupped her small face with his hands. “I missed you,” he whispered.

He crushed her to his chest again and closed his eyes.