Dead of Winter

by P J Parrish

  Louis started back into the yard. The dogs kept up their cacophony.

  “Louis!” Jesse called out.

  “Come with me,” Louis said.

  “Christ, now what?” Jesse muttered, trudging after Louis.

  Louis hopped the fence into Pryce’s yard and headed toward the park. The long-snouted dog charged the fence as Louis approached.

  “Louis! Where the hell are you going?” Jesse yelled over the noise.

  “Retracing his steps.”

  They wove their way across the yards, avoiding the ones that Jesse said had dogs. At each fence, Louis would stop and brush off the snow on top.

  “What are you looking for?” Jesse said, puffing to keep up.

  “I don’t know.”

  It was dark by the time they reached the last yard that bordered Pine Street. Louis’s boots were sodden and his hands were cold as he hoisted himself over the final section of chain-link. Across Pine Street, the park loomed dark and quiet.

  Jesse was shaking with effort as he climbed over to join Louis on the side walk. His face was red and sweaty. “Now, what the fuck did we do that for?” he demanded, wiping his brow.

  Louis ignored him. He was walking slowly along the fence, gently brushing away the snow. Halfway down the length of the last yard he stopped. He quickly pulled off his glove.

  “Jess, come look.”

  Jesse hurried over. Louis moved so the streetlight fell full on the fence. There, caught on an A-shaped spike, was a small piece of dark fabric.

  “Fuck,” Jesse whispered, staring at it.

  Louis searched his jacket pocket and came up with a paperclip. He used it to pluck the fabric from the fence.

  “Jess, go get the car,” he said.

  Jesse ran off. Louis waited, shivering in the cold, holding the tiny swatch. He turned and looked at the park behind him.

  The entrance was marked by a small sign. The two-lane road going in plunged deep into thick, snow-covered pines. Not a bad place to conceal your vehicle while you committed a murder. Louis scanned the area, wondering where the killer had gone once he left the park. A left turn would have taken him right back to Main Street, exiting close to the station. Not likely. A right turn led him through a residential area and toward the freeway. More logical, but still slow going on unplowed side streets.

  The cruiser pulled up and Jesse jumped out with a flashlight and evidence bag. They bagged the swatch, and Jesse stared at it in the gleam of the flashlight.

  “Green,” he said. “Like an Army jacket.”

  They quickly took some Polaroids and labeled the spot. Jesse was silent as they got in the car.

  “I guess I blew it with Cohick,” he said finally.

  “Witnesses don’t always know what they see or hear is important, Jess.”

  “Well, it’s not like I couldn’t see or hear the damn dogs, is it?”

  “You missed it. It happens.”

  Jesse said nothing, just slammed the cruiser into gear.

  “Jess, pull in the park. I want to check something.”

  Only one lane of the road had been plowed and there were no lights. The darkness engulfed them and Jesse flicked on the brights to illuminate the tunnel of dense pines. The road led to a parking lot, which was heaped with untouched snow banks, then continued into the trees.

  “People use the park much in the winter?” Louis asked?

  Jesse shook his head. “Nothing much in here but the baseball diamond. Kids use the hill by the school for sledding.”

  “I bet this is where he left his car,” Louis said.

  “And I bet he left that way,” Jesse added, pointing to the road.

  “There’s another entrance?”

  Jesse nodded. “It exits on Evergreen, which turns into Highway 44, which is always plowed and usually empty.”

  Louis looked at him. “What does that tell you?”

  Jesse frowned then blinked. “Shit, it means he knew. He knew there was another exit.”

  “He probably knew about the dogs, too.”

  Jesse sat back in the seat, lost in thought. It started to snow lightly and he turned on the wipers. “Whoever killed Pryce knew the town,” he said quietly.

  “Probably,” Louis acknowledged.

  The radio gave out a burst of static. Louis turned it down. Edna’s voice came on. “Loon-13 and 11. What’s your twenty?”

  Jesse answered her. “City Park.”

  “Be advised Loon-1 requests you respond to 181 Lakeside Drive, code three.”

  Jesse looked at his watched and sighed. “So much for tacos.” He clicked the radio on. “Central, what’s the nature of the call?”

  “Unknown, Loon-13. The caller was a teenager. He said...” Edna hesitated. “All he said was there was something gross in the lake.”

  CHAPTER 8

  The body was face down, frozen under the ice near the shoreline. It lay in a classic dead man’s float position, the upper back and the outstretched arms visible near the surface and the lower torso and legs blurring down into the icy depths.

  Even through the milky ice, the green parka and red wool cap were plainly visible. So were the hands, frozen close to the surface, with the tip of the left pinky finger poking out through the ice.

  Louis stared at the body. Ollie came up behind him, carrying a 35-mm camera. Without a word, he circled the body and began snapping pictures. Louis recalled the initials “O.W.” on the Pryce crime-scene photos. Apparently, O.W. was Ollie, sergeant, mystic and department photographer.

  Louis surveyed the shoreline. There were only a few cabins and most were dark and shuttered on this stretch of the lake. He zipped up his jacket and nestled down into the fur collar. It was getting ball-freezing cold.

  “We’re going to have to set up some lights,” Louis said.

  “Electric’s bringing them.” Jesse started walking around the body. “We might be out here ‘til fucking dawn.”

  Louis sighed loudly. “Damn.”

  “Hot date?” Jesse asked with a grin.

  “In my dreams, man, in my dreams. You call your wife?”

  “Yeah, she’s pissed. No tacos for moi tonight.”

  Jesse came up to Louis’s side. They stood there, staring down at the body. They had already called the coroner and the fire department. The latter had been Jesse’s idea when Louis broached the problem of how they were going to get the body out of the ice. At first they had considered trying to chip it out with a crowbar but quickly realized how stupid that would be given the foot-thick ice. To say nothing about what damage they could do to the body.

  “Any idea who it is?” Louis asked.

  “Nope. We’re about halfway up the lake. A couple small tourist cabins up here, so it might be an East Egger. They have a habit of getting tanked up, taking out the old Chris-Craft and falling into the lake.”

  “Not in winter,” Louis said.

  “Who’s to say the guy didn’t fall in last summer and just now floated up?

  Louis glanced at him. “He’s wearing a parka.”

  “No shit.”

  They were getting irritable from the cold. Louis felt his stomach rumble with hunger.

  “Well, no matter when he fell in, maybe somebody reported him missing,” Louis said. “You remember anything like that?”

  Jesse shook his head. “That’s what makes me think it was an Egger, maybe somebody who was up here alone. A local would’ve been missed.”

  Louis nodded in assent. He was staring now at the pinky sticking up from the ice. He focused the beam of his flashlight on the hand, picking up a flash of metal.

  “He’s wearing a watch,” Louis said. Gingerly, he stepped down from the shallow bank onto the ice and the ice groaned with his weight. Louis squatted and directed the beam at the frozen body’s wrist. “Looks like a gold one.”

  “Figures.” Jesse trudged back up the bank. “What the hell is keeping the fire guys?”

  Louis moved the flashlight over the body. He was a large m
an and from the style of coat, the light gray hair and the thickness of the neck, probably an older man. Damn, why hadn’t anyone missed him? And how the hell did he get under the ice when the entire lake was frozen?

  “Hey, you know what this reminds me of?” Jesse said suddenly.

  Louis jumped. He hadn’t heard Jesse come back.

  “A movie I saw this past summer,” Jesse went on. “Julie and me went down to the drive-in at Rose City. It was about some caveman they found frozen in the ice of the North Pole. Shit, what was the name of that movie?”

  Louis looked toward the road, hoping to see headlights. “Didn’t see it,” he muttered.

  “That guy was in it, you know, the one that was in the movie about the kid who drowns and the brother tries to slit his wrists?”

  Louis was thinking about Zoe. Maybe she wouldn’t run tonight. It was too cold.

  “Louis, what was the name of that movie?”

  “Shit, Jess, I don’t know.”

  “Mary Tyler Moore was in it. And the guy from Taxi was in it. Played a shrink.”

  “Ordinary People. Judd Hirsch.”

  “Yeah! That’s it. He was in the caveman movie.”

  “Judd Hirsch was a caveman?”

  “No, no, the kid in Ordinary People,” Jesse said impatiently. “He was the scientist who found the caveman frozen in the ice. I can’t remember how they got him out though.”

  “Chain saws, I’d bet,” Louis muttered.

  They fell silent for several minutes.

  “Iceman!” Jesse said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “That was the name of the movie.”

  They were quiet again. A dog barked somewhere far-off, the sound caroming against the pines surrounding the lake. They stood, staring at the body in its ice coffin.

  “Gives a whole new meaning to the word ‘stiff,’” Jesse said.

  Louis looked up at him. Jesse grinned. Louis started to laugh. Jesse joined in, their cackles echoing in the dark trees. It broke the tension, lessened the irritation. It felt odd, laughing. Louis couldn’t remember the last time he had laughed so hard out loud.

  “Chief’s here,” Jesse said.

  Louis sobered quickly and looked toward the road. Gibralter’s cruiser came to a stop atop the bank. As he was getting out, two other cars and an Oscoda County Electric Company truck pulled up behind. The crewmen began unloading portable spotlights while Gibralter and a second man Louis did not recognize came down to the shore’s edge. A third man, lugging a Nikon and bag, stumbled behind them.

  “Jess, who’s that?”

  “Delp. Little snot-nose from the Argus, the local rag. Thinks he’s Geraldo Rivera or something.”

  “What we got here, Jess?” Gibralter said.

  “I’d bet an East Egger left over from hunting season,” Jesse said.

  “Do we know who it is?”

  “No,” Jesse answered.

  “Who found it?”

  “Some kids ice skating. It was hidden by some snow that was cleared away.”

  Gibralter stared down at the body, his face as hard set as the ice. The thin-faced man with glasses, in a massive hooded parka, pulled out a flashlight and ventured carefully down onto the ice. Louis guessed he was probably the Oscoda County coroner, Ralph Drexler.

  “What you think, Ralph?” Gibralter asked.

  The coroner looked up and shrugged. “No way to tell anything ‘til we get him back to the shop and thaw him out.”

  “We called the fire department,” Louis offered.

  “Fire department?” Drexler said.

  “We figured they’d have the equipment to chip him out, or chain saws or something,” Louis said.

  “Well, be careful,” Drexler said. “I need the body intact. Don’t break off any damn arms. Or fingers. The fingers are important. Be careful with the fingers.”

  The coroner bent back over the body. The reporter began screwing attachments onto a camera. Louis watched the chief as he trudged back up the bank and toward his cruiser. A moment later, he saw the flick of a lighter and the glow of the chief’s cigarette.

  “Man, this is going to make a great picture.”

  Louis turned. The reporter was looking at him, grinning. He couldn’t have been more than twenty and his face was flushed from the cold. He wore a red down vest over a heavy turtleneck sweater. Wild blond hair stuck out the sides of his wool cap. He made his way down toward the shoreline and began to take pictures, his strobe sending surreal flashes into the dark night.

  “Hey, back off a little,” Gibralter hollered from the cruiser.

  The kid looked up at Gibralter then at Louis. “I got enough.” He retreated to the bank to take pictures of the electrical crew unloading lights.

  The six men of the Loon Lake Volunteer Fire Department ambled down to the body and stood gawking, making bad jokes. Louis stuffed his hands in his pockets, growing colder and more irritable. He watched as one man yanked on a chain saw, trying in vain to bring it to life as the others stood silently by, shivering. He looked up at the black sky and let out a long breath, trying to imagine Zoe on the frayed bear rug.

  Two hours later, a six-by-six-foot block of ice was unloosed from the lake and hoisted up by pulleys rigged to a tow truck. It hung there, gleaming and dripping in the harsh glare of the lights. Everyone stood in a semicircle, silently looking at it for several minutes. A flash of light made Louis glance over his shoulder. He spotted the reporter a few yards off, recording the grisly tableau.

  After a half hour of debate it was decided to call Noel Wolfe, who ran the granite quarry, to get a truck big enough to transport the ice block. But when the truck arrived, Ralph Drexler stepped forward.

  “That body will break into pieces if you hit a bump. We need something to cushion it,” he said.

  Gibralter looked at Jesse. “Go find a cushion,” he said.

  “Where the fuck...?” Jesse pulled off his cap. “Okay, Chief. It’s only fucking midnight. We’re in the middle of nowhere and you want a fucking pillow for this stiff? Jesus Christ, in another hour, you’re going to have to chisel all of us out of the damn ice.”

  “Harrison!” Gibralter bellowed, silencing the crowd. “I have given you a directive. Now follow it!”

  Jesse stared at the chief, his mouth agape. Louis watched, sensing that Gibralter’s reprimand was totally unexpected. Apparently, under better circumstances, Jesse was allowed his little fits of temper. But not tonight.

  Jesse disappeared into the darkness and Louis watched as he flipped on the lights and ran code three back to town. Again, the men fell silent, a few going back to trucks to turn on heaters and thaw out. Louis went to the truck and ducked under the hoisted block of ice, shining his flashlight on the man’s face.

  It was distorted by ice, grotesque and pale. The man was caucasian and chubby, his clean-shaven face clearly visible beneath the crystal pattern of the ice. His eyes were open, two little holes burnt in the ice, with a mild look of bewilderment. His mouth was open, and the upper plate of his dentures had worked its way loose.

  A flash of light went off next to him. The damn reporter had ducked under the block with him and taken a picture.

  “This one’s not so bad,” he said, looking at Louis.

  “What?” Louis said.

  “Pryce. Pryce was still warm when I got there.” The young man thrust out a hand. “Delp,” he said with a smile. “Doug Delp. Oscoda County Argus.”

  Louis stared at the man’s bare red hand for a moment then reluctantly shook it.

  “You’re the guy who replaced Pryce, right?” Delp asked.

  “Yeah,” Louis said. “Excuse me, will you?”

  Ollie was peeking in at them. “Is it worth coming under there to take photos? Or should I wait?” he asked hopefully.

  “Wickshaw! Kincaid!” Gibralter yelled. “Get out of there before that damn block of ice falls and kills you both.”

  Ollie backed off, followed by Louis and Delp. Louis walked up th
e bank to the cruisers.

  Thirty minutes later, Jesse returned with a queen-size mattress tied to the roof of the cruiser. The mattress was placed on the flatbed truck and the ice-encased body gently lowered onto it. Once the block was secured with rope, bungee cords and straps, the electrical crew and firemen began to quickly pack up their gear. No one wanted to linger a moment longer than necessary in the freezing night. Even the reporter had long since hit the road.

  “Where will they take it?” Louis asked Jesse.

  “Cedar Springs. They have a county lab up that way. It’s about twenty miles.”

  “Thank God. We might get home by dawn.”

  Gibralter came toward them, tossing aside a cigarette. He watched the firemen finish with the final straps, then looked at Louis and Jesse. “Wickshaw will follow you in the cruiser.”

  Louis looked at the body, then back at Gibralter, who was walking away. “He expects us to ride with the stiff?” Louis asked Ollie.

  Ollie shrugged. “That’s what I heard. Isn’t that what you heard?”

  Jesse was already climbing on the flatbed. Louis started to protest again but Jesse cut him off, extending a hand.

  “Louis, get up here,” Jesse said.

  Shaking his head, Louis climbed onto the flatbed, over the block of ice and sat down next to Jesse, who had settled into a corner against the truck’s cab.

  “This is ridiculous,” Louis muttered.

  “Look at it this way. We’re protecting the chain of custody.”

  The truck kicked into gear and Louis grabbed the edge of the truck. Jesse looked toward the road and watched as the chief climbed into his Bronco. The flatbed pulled slowly up the bank and onto the road. Ollie swung his cruiser in behind.

  “Chief seemed kind of tense,” Louis said after a moment.

  “He’s just pissed at me,” Jesse said tightly. “I shouldn’t have spouted off to him like that.”

  Louis shivered as the wind began to whip around them. “Not a real smart move.”

  “He’s never yelled at me like that for just mouthing off.”