Dead of Winter

by P J Parrish

  He was pulling on a sweatshirt when the door slammed open with a bang. Louis looked up. Jesse rushed in, waving a paper.

  “Where is the motherfucker?” he shouted.

  Louis frowned. “Who?”

  “Lacey!” Jesse said, jabbing at the fax. “Lacey. Fucking Lacey. I don’t believe this! We got him! Where is he? Where’s Lacey?”

  “I let him go,” Louis said.

  Jesse’s mouth dropped open. “What? You let him go? Why?”

  “Because he was in prison during the time Pryce and Lovejoy were shot,” Louis said.

  Jesse stared at Louis. “What? He couldn’t have been!”

  “Read the release date from prison,” Louis said.

  Jesse read the fax. Slowly, the information registered and Jesse blinked rapidly. “Fuck,” he whispered. He crumpled the paper in anger and dropped down onto the bench.

  Louis sat down next to him. His own disappointment prevented him from saying anything of comfort.

  Jesse uncrumpled the paper and stared at it again. “This has to be wrong,” he said.

  “Jess...”

  Jesse jumped up. “I’m going after him. This has to be — ”

  Louis grabbed Jesse’s arm. “Jess, listen to me,” he said firmly. “I talked to his P.O. Lacey was in Marquette when Pryce and Lovejoy were killed. It’s not him!”

  Jesse’s face went slack, the mix of fatigue and bitter disappointment finally taking hold. Louis glanced at his pant leg, which had been cut off at the knee. A six-inch-long track of small black stitches was outlined against the fresh gauze wrapping.

  “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.

  CHAPTER 17

  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.

  She pulled back to look at his face. “Something’s wrong?” she asked.

  “Things are tense at work,” he said.

  She smiled again. “Trees make you tense?”

  He laughed but it was to cover his guilt more than anything. He had made up a lie about what he did, a lie he had told her on their second night together. He told her he was working for the Forestry Office, a temporary assignment connected with the University of Michigan.

  “My boss is a prick,” he said.

  “You need to reduce your stress level.”

  “Oh yeah? Got any ideas?”

  “Well, in fact, I do. You own a pair of running shoes?”

  “What?”

  “You can come run with me.”

  He smiled to hide his weariness. “I had a different form of exercise in mind.”

  She laughed. “Go get dressed. We’ll run to my place.”

  They went into the cabin. He didn’t really want to go anywhere but played along, dressing quickly.

  They struck off through the snow. Louis was chagrined that Zoe slowed her pace for his sake but as they rounded the east end of the lake he forgot his discomfort. He almost forgot, too, about Gibralter, the cases and everything, losing himself in the simple pleasure of running. He had forgotten how exhilarating it felt to run. He glanced at Zoe. And how good it felt to be in love. The realization struck him like a laser. How could he be in love after only a few weeks? No, it wasn’t love. It was lust, pure and simple. But then why had he missed her so much?

  After an hour they came to a hill and walked up to a small log cabin set down in a stand of tall pines. Below, the lake was an opaque white expanse in the moonlight, rimmed with the yellow lights of cabins and a cluster of brightness where the town sat down on the south end.

  “You’re really isolated here,” Louis said.

  She held open the door for him. “I like it that way.”

  Louis stepped inside. He was struck immediately by the smell, something sweet that transported him immediately back to college. Patchouli incense.

  “Leave your shoes there,” Zoe said, pulling off her jacket and shoes. “I’m going to change.”

  Louis slipped off his sodden Nikes and jacket, his eyes taking in the small room. From the outside it was a log cabin, much like his. But inside it looked like an exotic brothel. The log walls were draped with swags of gauze in peach and orange. There were brass candlestick holders on the mantel, the windowsills and the tables. A large rough-hewn wood coffee table dominated the room, filled with more candles and flanked by a Victorian sofa, upholstered in paisley. The floor was covered by an Oriental carpet and dotted with dozens of pillows, all in a riot of colors, fabrics and patterns.

  Louis’s gaze traveled around the incredible room. There were no pictures, except for one large print in a heavy gilt frame above the fireplace. It showed two men and a woman having a picnic in the woods. The men wore formal nineteenth-century dress and the blissfully blank expression of cows. But the woman was nude, gazing out nonchalantly at whoever looked at the painting.

  Louis was staring at the painting when Zoe came back in. She was barefoot, wearing a red caftan and carrying two brandy snifters. She smiled as she handed one to Louis and then set about lighting the candles.

  “I’ve seen this painting before,” he said.

  “Manet. Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe,” she said, going to sit on the sofa.

  “’Lunch’...” Louis began then shook his head.

  “’On the lawn,’” she finished.

  “Can’t run anymore, can’t remember my college French,” he said, coming to sit next to her.

  She smiled and took a sip of brandy. “The real one is in Paris. I want to go see it someday. It’s one of my favorite paintings.”

  “Why?”

  “The woman,” she said, nodding at the painting. “Look at her. She’s naked but she’s obviously the one in charge.”

  Louis took a drink of the brandy, tilting his head and closing his eyes. He let the soft, warm liquid trickle down the back of his throat. He heard a gentle tinkling sound and looked back at Zoe. She had shifted to face him, folding her legs up under her on the sofa. She was wearing earrings, intricate little gold things with tiny bells.

  “I like your place,” he said. “It’s very...”

  “Overwrought?” she said with a smile.

  “Romantic.”

  “If you like early Turkish brothel.”

  “I feel like I should be listening to ‘White Rabbit’ and stuffing towels under the door.”

  She laughed. He felt so good, as if he were drifting in a warm ocean somewhere, surrounded by the smell of flowers. It was the patchouli and her perfume. She had moved closer to him, leaning back into the pillows, swirling the brandy in the glass.

  “Well, I’m just an old hippie at heart,” she said.

  “How old?”

  “Thirty-five.”

  He cocked a brow. “I’ve never been out with an older woman before.”

  A black cat jumped up on the sofa and settled into Louis’s lap. Zoe reached to brush it away but Louis stopped her.

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind,” he said. The cat began to knead his belly, stretching its paws and purring loudly.

  “She likes you,” Zoe said.

  Louis rubbed the cat’s head. “What’s her name?”

  “Isolde.”

  “Come again?”

  “Isolde.” She pointed to a white cat cowering behind a chair. “That’s Tristan. You know, Wagner?”

  Louis gave her a puzzled shrug.

  “Tristan and Isolde. It’s an opera about two doomed lovers.” She paused, smiling. “Louis, don’t tell me you’ve never heard Wagner.”

  “Sure. He wrote that music in “Apocalypse Now,” the part where Robert Duvall is in the helicopter talking about how much he loves the smell of napalm in the morning.” He sobered. For all he knew, her mother had been killed by some soldier in Korea.

  But to his relief she didn’t seem to get it. She rose and went to the stereo, putting on a tape. Moments later, the music began, so softly he barely heard it. Zoe came back, fitting into the crook of his arm, laying her head back on his shoulder.

  “This is Liebestod,” she said.

  “Nice,” Louis said.

  “It means ‘Love Death.’ It’s Isolde’s song of ecstasy, just as she’s getting ready to jump into the fire to meet Trista
n in death.”

  “Oh, those wacky Germans.”

  Zoe closed her eyes. “Now, just listen to it. It starts out so slow, so sensual.”

  Louis set the brandy aside and shut his eyes.

  “Listen,” she whispered. “Hear how it builds?”

  “Hmmm.”

  “This part...listen to this. Louis? Are you listening?”

  The music was growing louder. Zoe’s voice was at his ear. “Here,” she said. “The climax begins. It comes in waves, hear it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And now, just when you think it is over — ”

  “Zoe.”

  “It builds again.”

  “Zoe...”

  “Hang on, it’s only seven minutes long.”

  “That’s not the problem.”

  The music came to a crescendo then became quiet again, trailing off as it had begun. The only sound was the cat purring in his lap. Zoe kissed his cheek and he opened his eyes.

  “I like opera,” he said.

  “I knew you would.”

  “But I don’t think I should stand up just yet.”

  She laughed and went to put on another tape. It was Billie Holliday. He listened to “Trav’lin’ Light” and “Gimme a Pigfoot and a Bottle of Beer,” a small smile tipping his lips. Zoe was tapping out the tempo lightly on his thigh. It turned to a caress as Billie Holliday moved on to “What a Little Moonlight Can Do.”

  The next song began, “Strange Fruit.” Zoe’s hand stopped moving. They sat motionless through the images of magnolias and black bodies hanging from trees. Neither moved until the tape went on to the next cut.

  “When I was living in Mississippi I started listening to her stuff a lot more,” Louis said. “But I couldn’t listen to that song.”

  Zoe leaned in and kissed him, her hand cupping his cheek. She pulled back, her dark eyes locked on his.

  He wanted suddenly to tell her. To tell her the truth about himself, about what he was. He wanted to tell her everything, about what happened down in Mississippi, about the bones of the black man he had found in that grave under the tree, about how he had felt when he finally found the man’s murderer. He wanted to tell her about the terror he had felt in that cell when Larry Cutter put that rope around his neck.