P. Parrish - Dead of Winter

He went back to his desk, tossed down the bag and dropped into the chair. Make a damn appointment. Fuck him.

Make an appointment.

He was staring vacantly at Pryce’s doodles on the blotter, the curlicues and numbers fading in and out.

Make an appointment…

Slowly, a phone number came into focus in his head. He looked down at the blotter, at the number. He grabbed the phone and dialed it.

“Michigan State Police. How may I direct your call?”

Louis swiveled to look out the front window. He could see the chopper lifting off. “Mark Steele’s office, please.”

“That line is busy. For future reference, the extension is thirty-one.”

Louis hung up. He unlocked his desk drawer and pulled out Pryce’s small notebook. He flipped through it, stopping when he found the right page.

C.L. J.L. CIS @ 5661 x 31

C.L. was Cole Lacey.

J.L. was Johnny Lacey.

CIS was Chief Investigator Steele.

And 5661 X 31 was his phone number.

Make an appointment…

That was exactly what Pryce had done. Pryce had found the proof about the raid that he needed to bury Gibralter and the others and he planned to take it all to Steele.

Louis redialed the state police, asking for extension thirty-one this time.

“Chief Steele’s office,” a woman answered.

Louis introduced himself, explaining he was investigating the death of a police officer and needed to track the officer’s last movements.

“How can we be of help?” she asked politely.

“I need to know if Thomas Pryce made an appointment with Chief Steele around the end of November,” Louis said.

He heard pages turning. “No, I don’t see one.”

Louis started to thank her when she interrupted. “I do have one for December third but Officer Pryce didn’t keep it.”

Louis thanked her and hung up. His thoughts began to coalesce, coming together with cold certainty. Pryce had found out that something about the raid was dirty and started his campaign to get out of Loon Lake. But something happened to make him change his mind and he decided to go after Jesse and Gibralter.

Pryce was going to Steele. He had been within days, maybe hours, of taking down four respected police officers for the murders of two kids. But then Lacey surfaced and began his rampage, blowing Pryce away.

What a stroke of luck for the Loon Lake police.

Louis felt a chill creep up his back and he turned to see if someone had opened the door. No one was there. The cold spread slowly through him and with it came a horrible new thought. Was it really luck?

Gibralter’s words came back to him, and the coolness with which he had spoken them.

Gambit, you know what a gambit is, don’t you? A gambit is when you sacrifice one of your pieces to throw an opponent off…The permanent sacrifice, a move that elevates the game to artistry.

Had Gibralter somehow found out what Pryce was going to do? Had Gibralter killed Pryce to silence him?

Louis ran a hand over his forehead. No, no, his mind was outracing all logic now. Gibralter had been involved in the deaths of the Lacey kids but no matter how threatened he felt he would never kill one of his own men.

Gens una sumus. But Pryce wasn’t one of his men, one of the family. Pryce was an outsider.

A shadow moved behind the glass of Gibralter’s door. Louis held his breath as his eyes followed it. He felt suddenly nauseous, lightheaded. He rose quickly, picked up the garbage bag and threw Pryce’s notebook inside. Grabbing the bag and his jacket, he bolted for the door.

Louis set down the pen and leaned his head back on the sofa, closing his eyes. For the last three hours the same looped tape had been running through his head and everything on it was leading him to the same conclusion: Gibralter had murdered Pryce.

It didn’t matter how Gibralter had found out Pryce was on to them. Gibralter had decided that “a permanent sacrifice” had to be made and with Jesse had formulated a plan to kill Pryce.

But Lacey…that was the ingenious part. However they had found out about Lacey they had used him. Lacey was, after all, the perfect suspect, a wacko vet with a hard-on toward authority. A suspect who would not be able to defend himself because Gibralter had always intended Lacey to be conveniently shot and killed during his capture. That was why Gibralter had not wanted any outside help.

Louis opened his eyes and looked down at the legal pad in his lap, at the notes he had made in the last couple of hours. He stared at the names at the top of the page: PRYCE…WICKSHAW, LOVEJOY.

It all fit. Except for one thing. There were three dead cops, not one. Three.

The theory had come to him only in the last hour, a second theory about the three deaths, a theory so grotesque he had immediately dismissed it. But it wouldn’t go away and he was finally forced to confront it.

Had Gibralter also killed Ollie and Lovejoy? Had they somehow also become threats? If Gibralter was desperate enough to kill two kids and a cop, why not two others?

The idea was outrageous, that Lacey didn’t kill anyone, that Gibralter had somehow engineered the murders to make them look like Lacey’s work before Lacey had a chance to make his own move. But it explained why Lacey had gone home to Dollar Bay and complained to Millie that “everything was fucked up.”

Louis read again the notes he had written under Lovejoy’s and Ollie’s names. What could have happened to make Gibralter turn against them? Did they know Pryce was going to expose them and try to come clean? Or, after five years of keeping the secret, did they just crack?

Ollie…He could see how guilt could have consumed him, especially if he had, in fact, been the one to shoot Angela, as the reports said. Ollie was a docile man, just trying to slide into retirement. Ollie knew Pryce was troubled and had given him the serenity crystal. Had Pryce confided in Ollie, trying to turn him to his cause? Had Ollie cracked under the pressure?

Lovejoy…He was different. He was an old drunk living off a medical settlement but he was friendly with Gibralter. Had Gibralter tried to enlist his help in the plan to eliminate Pryce? Had that been the subject of the ten-thirty phone call the night before Lovejoy’s death? And had Lovejoy balked, thereby sealing his own death?

Louis took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. If you’re going to move on this, be right, Kincaid.

Motive…it was there.

Means…both Gibralter and Jesse carried twelve-gauge shotguns in their cruisers.

Opportunity…he could see that, too.

Pryce’s death was clear, the details born from the echoes, scents and ghosts in Pryce’s empty house. Gibralter had been the one to plan everything out, right down to duplicating Lacey’s fatigue jacket and boots. But Louis was sure Jesse had done it, maybe out of some perverse need to impress Gibralter.

He could see Jesse driving into the darkness of the park, taking the shotgun down from the rack and calmly walking to Pryce’s house. He could see him pulling the trigger and running to the backyard, criss-crossing the yards to avoid the dogs. Only Jesse didn’t jump fences well and he snagged the jacket on the last fence, leaving the scrap.

Lovejoy’s death was also easy to imagine. He could see Gibralter going to the fishing shanty at dawn, renewing the argument they had begun the night before on the phone. He could see Gibralter raising the shotgun, holding it low so the trajectory would match Lacey’s height.

He could almost see the look of confusion on Lovejoy’s face as he realized what was happening. Was the generator on, covering the sound of the shotgun blast? Had Gibralter returned later to put Lovejoy in the ice, thinking that by spacing the deaths over weeks they would appear more like a pattern of a serial killer?