Dead of Winter

by P J Parrish

  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&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.

  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.

  Jes
se 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.”

  “What are you doing down here?”

  “Seeing my kid.”

  “Where’s he?”

  “Red Oak juvie center. That’s a few miles — ”

  “I know where it is. When did you get here?”

  “Yesterday. I was heading there this afternoon. They only let you visit afternoons.” Lacey moved to the bench and sat down. “I ain’t seen him in years. His mother took him.”

  “Sad story,” Louis said.

  “Look, I’m telling you the truth. Look at that letter you took off me. It’s from my kid.”

  Louis reached in his back pants pocket and took out the page of loose-leaf paper which began: Dear Dad.

  Louis opened the door to look for Dale, wanting him to run Lacey’s name for warrants. Dale was nowhere to be seen.

  “Who’s your parole officer?” Louis asked. and

  “Bill James,” Lacey answered.

  Louis pulled a pen from his pocket. “All right, Lacey, give me your social security number.” Lacey rattled it off and Louis started for the door.

  “You ain’t gonna reach James at his office,” Lacey called after him. “It’s the holidays, you know.”

  Louis picked up Lacey’s army jacket and left, locking the door. He gave Lacey’s number to Florence to run for outstanding warrants then went to his desk and dialed Dollar Bay information to get a home phone number for William James. Louis called him, and after apologizing for bothering him on the day after Christmas, he told him about Lacey.

  James gave a short bitter laugh. “He ran on you? Doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s paranoid. Tells me all the time everybody’s out to get him. Hold on, gotta turn down the TV.”

  Louis waited until he heard James pick up the phone again. “So, what did he do now?” James asked.

  “Ran a light,” Louis said, deciding not to involve James until he had reason to.

  James sighed. “Idiot’s not supposed to be out of Houghton. What’s he doing down there?”

  “Says he’s visiting his son,” Louis said.

  “Son? Oh, right, forgot. Lacey’s new to me so I don’t have all the background. I can tell you, though, he’s been a model citizen since he got out of prison.”

  “When was that?”

  “Real recent, but I’d have to check.” Louis sensed impatience in James’s voice, as though he wanted to get back to his television.

  “What was he sent up for?” Louis asked.

  “Tell you what. I’ll call the local P.D. and have them send you his sheet. The chief’s my cousin. What’s your fax number?”

  Louis gave it to him. “One last question. Is Lacey dangerous?”

  “Well, he’s weird,” James said, “but he’s always been polite to me. It’s Christmas, he probably just wanted to see his kid.”

  Louis thanked him and hung up. He glanced at the letter in his hand and then looked back at Lacey, sitting quietly in the booking room. Turning his back, he unfolded the letter.

  Dear Dad,

  I know you haven’t probably gotten no letters from me since you went up but I was thinking maybe now that you was out maybe you might want to come and see me. I don’t know where mom went to. The last time I saw her she said she would give grandma her address so when I got out I could maybe come there. She said something about Florida. But I ain’t heard from Grandma neither. I understand maybe you won’t want to come all the way down here because its such a long drive and that’s cool if you don’t. Grandma never wanted to come neither and I’m really doing okay here. I mean I’m still alive so far. It sucks bad though.

  Louis refolded the letter. While he waited for the fax, he carefully examined Lacey’s jacket for any tears. It was old but intact.

  The fax machine began to purr and he went to it, pulling off the papers as they dropped off the end.

  Duane Herbert Lacey had been a criminal from the age of eighteen. Shoplifting, grand theft auto, joyriding, burglar
y, possession and assault on his wife. In February 1977, he was arrested for assault with a deadly weapon and sentenced to twelve to fifteen in Marquette State Prison.

  Louis glanced back at Lacey. What the hell was he doing out after only seven years? Then he saw it. Duane Lacey had been paroled on the governor’s early release program earlier in the month, on December 10, 1984.

  Louis lowered the paper slowly, a wave of disappointment washing over him. Pryce and Lovejoy had been killed on or around the first. This guy could not be their killer.

  When he went aback to the booking room and unlocked the door, Lacey’s head jerked up.

  “You reach James?” he asked.

  Louis nodded. “The assault. What happened?”

  Lacey looked away, shaking his head. “It was a bar fight. I drew a knife.”

  “You were just defending yourself, right?” Louis said flatly.

  “That’s right,” Lacey answered, meeting his eyes.

  Louis stared into Lacey’s eyes. They were like water, colorless and shallow, as though nothing stirred beneath. Finally Lacey looked away.

  James was right, there was something weird about the guy. But no more strange than a hundred other lowlifes who were wound a little too tight. It would be easy to call Red Oak to verify Lacey’s story about his kid but why bother? Duane Lacey had been five hundred miles away, behind bars, when Pryce and Lovejoy were killed. Besides, if he booked him now for running, the guy would go right back to Marquette on parole violation.

  Florence called to him. “No warrants, Louis. He’s clean.”

  Louis watched Lacey’s watery eyes for a reaction. But nothing registered, not even relief.

  Louis tossed the fatigue jacket at Lacey. “Go on. Get out of here,” he said, holding out the letter and the keys to the truck. “Get your ass back to Dollar Bay.”

  Lacey rose slowly, took the letter and keys and put on his jacket. “You don’t know how much I appreciate this, officer, I really do,” he said quickly. “I don’t wanna end up back in jail just because I wanted to see my kid.”

  Louis turned away, and on his way to the locker room asked Florence to cancel the truck’s tow. He pushed open the locker room door.

  It was cold inside and he shivered as he passed the first row of lockers. God, he was discouraged. So damn close. First Hammerstein or Hammersmith or whatever the hell his name was. Now this pathetic jerkweed who risked jail to see his delinquent son on Christmas.