Dead of Winter

by P J Parrish

  Louis drained the Dr Pepper and leaned back against the headboard. But Lacey had been busy in prison, real busy. Somehow, he had found out about the raid. Maybe Cole had told him, maybe his mother. But Lacey had found out that his son and daughter had been killed by Loon Lake cops. And for two years, he just sat in his cell, with nothing to do but wait and plan his revenge.

  Louis closed the file. There was a knot in his stomach, the same one he had felt earlier back in Lacey’s room but with a slight nausea creeping in. He knew Lacey now. And Lacey knew them. Lacey knew who he wanted to kill, knew where they lived, when they were on duty, even their call numbers. All Lacey had to do was pick his time.

  Louis slipped off the bed and walked to the window, throwing it wide open. The sound of laughter drew his eyes down to the street. His room overlooked downtown Houghton. The snow was heaped in eight-foot drifts along Main Street, more falling now. But the town was alive with activity, mostly college kids, he guessed. He watched a couple stroll under the window. The woman’s laugh drifted up to him again. They paused to share a kiss.

  He moved back to the bed, staring down at the files spread over the rust-colored spread. He had to get out.

  King’s Tavern was quiet except for a jukebox near the back that was playing “All My Ex’s Live in Texas.” A trio of coeds sat at the bar, heads together, giggling softly. Louis slid onto a stool, laying his coat on the stool next to him.

  He ordered a Heineken and when it came he ignored the glass and gulped it quickly. The beer dripped onto his chin. He started to reach for a bar napkin but one appeared in front of his face.

  Louis looked to see Bjork standing next to him. He accepted the napkin and wiped his chin.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I was sitting in the back and saw you come in,” she said. She wasn’t in uniform. She was wearing jeans and a heavy, cream-colored sweater.

  “Join me?” Louis asked.

  “You buying?”

  “Sure.” He pulled his coat into his lap and Bjork slid onto the stool. She looked different, softer. Her braid was gone and her hair was a red washboard of ripples down her back. She reached up to tuck her hair behind her ears and gold earrings glimmered in the neon lights of the bar. It took Louis a moment to realize they were tiny handcuffs.

  Bjork saw him looking at them. “A gift from my ex,” she said.

  “Was he a cop, too?”

  She shook her head. “Lumber worker.”

  Louis hesitated, wondering if he should get personal. There had been only one woman back at the academy and he never worked with one.

  “What did he think about you being a cop?” he asked. He didn’t know what had prompted the question. Maybe the idea that something in Bjork’s experience could give him a clue about Zoe.

  “Wasn’t crazy about it,” Bjork said. “Guess that’s why he finally split.” She fingered the earrings, smiling. “He got these for me one Christmas. It was a hint after the black nightie didn’t work.” She waved at the bartender. “Ed was not the most subtle guy in the world.”

  Louis stared at her, questions swimming in his head. He looked away, finished off his beer and set it out in the well. Another appeared, along with a Stroh’s for Bjork. She held up her bottle.

  “To catching the son of a bitch.”

  Louis clinked his bottle and took a sip.

  “You finish reading the file?”

  “Almost. I got hungry,” Louis said.

  “Looks to me like you’re drinking your dinner.”

  Louis covered up his mild annoyance with a smile. “Occupational hazard.”

  “Want to bounce a few things off me?” she asked.

  “Like what?”

  Her face grew serious. “Two dead cops. Maybe I can help.” Louis hesitated then looked around the tavern. There was an empty booth and he picked up his beer, motioned for her to follow. He slid in one side, Bjork across from him. Neither said anything for several long seconds. The jukebox launched into Artie Shaw playing “Summit Ridge Drive.”

  “So tell me about how they died,” Bjork said.

  “Both surprised by a shotgun to the chest, both off duty,” Louis said.

  “Ballsy little bastard, isn’t he?”

  Louis nodded. “One was an easy target, a retired old fart who drank a lot. He was out fishing at six a.m. The other was active duty, young, alert and experienced. He carried his gun to his own front door. Lacey was on his porch and blew away the door with him behind it.”

  “Christ,” Bjork said.

  “It gets sicker. He leaves these cards.”

  “What kind of cards?”

  “A military thing, death cards. A sign that was supposed to tell us ‘I was here.’”

  Louis caught the bartender’s attention, circling a finger to indicate another round.

  “Kincaid, what is Lacey after?” Bjork asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why is he targeting your cops?”

  Louis hesitated. “Revenge. Two of his kids, teenagers, were killed by us in a barricade situation five years ago. They fired on the cops and refused to surrender. The girl drew on one of the officers.”

  Bjork took a sip of her beer, digesting his words. “What about Cole?”

  “He’s at Red Oak until he’s twenty-one.”

  “Stiff sentence for a kid.”

  “He pulled a shotgun when they took him into custody.”

  Bjork shook her head. “Well, pardon my bluntness but given what you just told me why did it take you guys so long to name Lacey as a suspect?”

  Louis was glad it was so dark; she couldn’t see his embarrassment. Over what? That Jesse had fucked up? That the DOC was filled with incompetents? That no one bothered to bring up the raid? That Gibralter was too pigheaded to ask for outside help? That he himself had let Lacey go?

  Her question hung in the smoky air, waiting to be answered. Maybe he was embarrassed because he had no idea how to answer. Hell, maybe he was embarrassed because he didn’t know what in God’s name to do next.

  He met her eyes, seeing again the spread of fine wrinkles at the corners, seeing for the first time the depth on the inside. All right, she was a woman. But she was also a cop. A cop with decades more experience than he had. If anyone could understand about his letting Lacey go, she would.

  “We had him once,” Louis said.

  “Lacey?”

  Louis nodded. “Day after Christmas. We picked him up for running from us when we walked into a bar.”

  Bjork waited for more.

  Louis sat back. Just say it. “I cut him loose.”

  “You didn’t check on him? You didn’t put two and two together?”

  “I didn’t know who he was. The name meant nothing. And the DOC had him listed as being in prison. It turned out to be a typo.” Louis let out a breath. “A damn typo.”

  Bjork studied him.

  Louis stared into his beer. “It was Christmas. I tried to do something decent.”

  “Well, Louis, there is decent and then there is dumb.”

  “Thanks,” Louis said.

  “Did you expect sympathy from me?”

  He met her eyes briefly then looked away. “I don’t know what I’m expecting anymore.”

  “How come nobody in the department thought of him, thought the barricade situation would —- ”

  “I have no idea,” Louis interrupted. He stared at a set of carved initials in the tabletop.

  “Louis,” Bjork said. “You will get him.”

  He looked up at her. “Right.”

  She shook her head and glanced at the bar. Her eyes lit up and she waved to someone, who hollered a friendly hello across the room.

  Louis stared at her. “You like it here, don’t you?”

  “I love it. It’s my home,” she said with a smile. “I mean, I’ve traveled some, lived below the bridge for a year even. But I always come back. I belong here.”

  He could almost feel his mind slowing,
slowing as it approached this strange bend in the road. Home. That’s what he had thought Loon Lake would be. A safe place that he could settle into. But it was not as it had first seemed. Nothing was as it first seemed. Loon Lake wasn’t a postcard paradise; it was a place of death. Jesse wasn’t a partner he could count on; he was a coward, his judgment clouded by blind loyalty to Gibralter. And Gibralter, what was he? Certainly not the perfect chief.

  And Zoe...what he had felt with her. What was that?

  “Louis?”

  He glanced at Bjork. “What are you thinking?”

  “About Loon Lake, the job. My chief.”

  “I talked to your chief today. Strange man.”

  “He called you?”

  “Ya, wanted to make sure you arrived okay.”

  “Christ,” Louis said under his breath, looking away.

  They were silent, the laughter and music of the tavern floating around them.

  “What else did he have to say?” Louis asked finally.

  Bjork fiddled with the neck of the Stroh’s bottle.

  “What else?” Louis pressed.

  “He said he was concerned because you, quote, couldn’t find your ass with two hands, unquote.”

  Louis felt the heat creeping into his face but he didn’t look away.

  “Sounds like a hard-ass,” Bjork said.

  Bjork reached across the table and touched his hand. Louis looked down at her hand. Her nails were short with chipped, rose-colored polish. There was one of those mother’s rings on her finger with three little gemstones. He withdrew his hand and dropped it in his lap.

  Bjork sat back, looking at him. Then she quickly raised her bottle and drained it, setting it down loudly.

  “Well, I need to call it a night. How about you? You okay?”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Bjork stood up, looking down at him. Her eyes were watery in the neon light and he wanted to believe it was from the booze, no veteran-to-rookie sympathy. Or worse, some woman-to-man thing. Christ, he had started the night thinking about what Bjork might look like handcuffed to a bed and now she was looking at him like he was her kid.

  “Lieutenant Byrd will have your evidence ready for you tomorrow morning,” she said. “Swing by and pick it up.”

  Louis nodded.

  Bjork hesitated then extended a hand. “It was a pleasure, Officer Kincaid.”

  Louis took her hand. “Thanks, Bjork,” her said softly. “Thanks for everything.”

  CHAPTER 22

  No doubt about it. He was drunk.

  On the drive home from Dollar Bay he had stopped off at the grocery to pick up a six-pack of Heineken. It had taken only two hours to go through that and then he had moved on to the Christian Brothers.

  Now he was sprawled on the sofa, staring into the dying fire in the hearth. Something in his fogged brain was telling him to go outside and get more logs but he was too tired to move.

  With a grunt, he turned and reached for the bottle on the floor. He brought it up to his eyes, squinting. Empty. He stood and stumbled to the kitchen, jerking open the cupboard. Empty. No booze, no food, no woman, and soon, probably no job. What a shitty week.

  Going back to the sofa, he grabbed a hooded sweatshirt, jerked open the door and headed to the lake. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe to just cut a hole in the ice and jump in. Hell, they wouldn’t find him until spring unless, of course, he floated up under some kid’s ice skate like Lovejoy had. That would be just his luck.

  He was halfway to the shoreline when it occurred to him that he could be a walking target for Duane Lacey’s rifle. At least he was too drunk to feel the bullet.

  Leaning heavily against a tree he stared blankly out at the dark lake. He had to stop this. He had to stop drinking so much. An image flashed into his head, his mother’s sunken face, leathery against the white pillow of her deathbed. For the first time he was beginning to understand how people could drink themselves to death. He ran a shaky hand over his face. No, he was just, what? Stressed out? Under pressure? Shit, all cops drank too much, didn’t they? He wasn’t like her. He wasn’t going to die like she did, liver eaten away, alone and scared.

  He looked up. The moon was a sliver scythe in the black sky. Louis squinted across the lake, trying to make out the specks of lights, wondering which one was Zoe’s cabin, thinking about Jay Gatsby. Gatsby, the stupid putz who stood around mooning out at Daisy’s dock.

  “Kincaid,” he said, “how in the hell could you be so stupid about so much?”

  He heard a noise and spun around, trying to focus on the cabin. He saw a car and wondered why he hadn’t heard it pull up. He let out a breath when he saw Jesse heading to the cabin’s porch. Fucking traitor.

  Jesse knocked, waited, knocked again. He started back toward his truck.

  “Hey!” Louis called.

  Jesse turned and Louis stepped out of the shadows. Jesse trudged out to him. “What you doing out here?” he asked.

  “Looking for UFOs,” Louis said.

  Jesse looked up, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his parka. Louis watched him from the corner of his eye. He was wearing a turtleneck and jeans, and his hair blown down across his forehead. Out of uniform, he looked like a teenager.

  “What are you doing here?” Louis said.

  Jesse shrugged. “I just wanted to know how it went in Dollar Bay.”

  Louis eyed him coldly. “You can read the report.”

  Jesse’s sigh came out in a long white vapor. “Look, Louis, I came here...Shit, I guess I wanted to apologize.”

  “For what?”

  “The chief was kind of rough on you the other day.”

  “Aw gee, thanks for your support,” Louis muttered, starting back to the cabin.

  Jesse hesitated then followed. “Maybe I should have said something, Louis, but it’s hard with the chief, the way he is about things. I mean, it’s a small department and I —- ”

  “You left me hanging out there by my balls.”

  “There was nothing I could do!”

  “Bullshit.”

  “What?” Jesse asked, throwing his arms up. “What was I supposed to do?”

  Louis faced him. “You could’ve told me about the raid. You could have told me about those kids. You could’ve told me about their fucking father!”

  “I didn’t know he was out!”

  “You should have! It was your job to know.”

  Jesse spun away suddenly and started toward his Bronco. Then he stopped and turned, looking down at the snow. For several seconds he said nothing. “All right,” he said finally. “I should have known. I should have double-checked the fucking record.”

  Louis shook his head in disgust. “Get out of here. I’m done listening to your bullshit excuses.”

  Louis staggered past him to the porch. Jesse hesitated then caught up, grabbing Louis’s arm. Louis jerked away and pushed open the door. Inside, he kicked off his wet shoes and went to the sofa, dropping down onto it. He heard the door close and knew Jesse had followed him.

  “Look,” Jesse said slowly, “I know I should have said something in your defense but if I had opened my mouth Gibralter would have canned me. And I couldn’t take it if I couldn’t be a cop anymore.”

  Louis looked up at him. “What makes you think you ever were one?”

  Jesse stared at him. “You know, I’ve had about enough of your shit,” he said.

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Come on, man! Cut me some slack!”

  “You fucked up!”

  “So did you!” Jesse yelled.

  Louis closed his eyes. It was quiet. He heard a squeak of the floorboards and opened his eyes. It took him a moment to focus on the bottle in front of his nose. His eyes went up to Jesse’s face above him.

  He took the bottle of Jack Daniel’s from Jesse, unscrewed the cap and took a swig. He grimaced and handed it back to Jesse. Jesse retreated three feet to perch cautiously on the arm of a chair. In the long silence, Louis felt the w
hiskey burn a path down his throat to his empty stomach. For a moment, he thought he was going to vomit. He opened his eyes to see Jesse holding out the bottle again. He waved it off.

  “Why didn’t you quit?” Jesse asked quietly.

  Louis shook his head. “Can’t...”

  “Why?”

  “He’s still out there.”

  They fell silent. Luis shivered and reached down to pull the afghan over his chest.

  “You got any wood?” Jesse asked, glancing at the cold fireplace.

  Louis shook his head. Jesse waited for Louis to say something. Finally, he rose. “I gotta go,” he said. “Julie’s waiting up.”

  Louis looked up at him, frowning. “Huh?”

  “Julie. She was the one who told me to come over here, said she was tired of listening to me bitch about it.”

  Louis squinted at Jesse. “Any more of that shit left?” he asked, nodding toward the bottle.

  Jesse handed him the Jack Daniel’s. Louis took a drink and handed it back. Jesse took a swig.

  “Whiskey’ll kill you,” Louis mumbled.

  “Better than that cough syrup you drink,” Jesse said, nodding toward the empty Christian Brothers on the floor.

  Louis pulled the afghan up to his chin and shivered. For a long time the cabin was quiet.

  “Julie...” Louis said. “She like you being a cop?”

  When Jesse didn’t answer, Louis looked over at him. He was still perched on the arm of the chair, picking at his fingers.

  “I guess,” Jesse said. “I met her giving her a ticket. The first time we did it she made me leave my uniform shirt on. Said it made her feel like she was doing something criminal.”

  Louis laughed softly.

  “Why’d you ask about that?” Jesse said.

  “No reason.”

  “Shit, everything you said or do has a reason attached. You seeing someone?”

  Louis shook his head. Jesse took another drink and held out the bottle. Louis waved it away.

  “Can you talk to her?” Louis asked. “About the job, I mean.”

  Jesse paused then nodded. “Yeah, most of the time.”

  They fell silent again. Louis knew the booze had pushed him past his limit and that he was dangerously close to getting sloppy. But as much as he needed someone to talk to, he wasn’t about to let Jesse see him that way. As much as he needed to talk about Zoe he wasn’t ready to tell Jesse. He closed his eyes, drifting, drifting down...to sleep, he hoped, to blessed sleep.