by P J Parrish
He heard a sound, the door opening and closing. Jesse had left. But after several minutes, there was a thud. Louis opened his eyes to see Jesse kneeling to dump an armload of logs onto the hearth. He watched as Jesse stuffed newspapers into it and slowly prodded a fire to life.
The warmth curled slowly toward him and Louis extended his legs toward it. “Thanks,” he said.
“I wasn’t going to let you lay here in the dark and freeze to death and you’re too shit-faced to go outside and get some wood,” Jesse said.
“Yeah, why make Lacey’s job any easier than it is?” Louis said.
Jesse stared at him for a moment then laughed. Louis joined in. Finally, they stopped.
“You’re one sick mother,” Louis said.
“You’re the one who said it,” Jesse said, falling into the chair and uncapping the Jack Daniel’s. Louis watched him as he drank.
“You scared?” Louis asked softly.
Jesse didn’t look at him. He nodded then took another drink.
Louis rubbed a hand roughly over his face. “I found out some good stuff up in Dollar Bay,” he said.
Jesse looked relieved to talk business. “Like what?”
“He’s got survival skills, learned them as a lurp.”
“A what?”
“Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol,” Louis slurred. “They dropped the suckers from choppers in ‘Nam and they had to find their own way out of the jungle.”
“What, like some kind of test?”
“No, in combat,” Louis said, struggling through the booze haze. “Phillip said they were nuts and —- ”
“Who’s Phillip?”
“My foster father. He said —- ”
“You were a foster kid?” Jesse asked.
Louis yawned. “Bjork said that Lacey was a natural —- ”
“Who’s Bjork?”
“Sheriff in Dollar Bay,” Louis murmured. “Great hair, little gold earrings...”
Jesse stood up, palms up. “I don’t want to hear this. You can tell me tomorrow.”
Louis tried to push himself up from the sofa. Jesse put a hand on his shoulder. “Stay there. And get some sleep. You’re gonna feel like shit tomorrow.”
Louis nodded, closing his eyes.
Jesse reached over and pulled the afghan up over Louis. “See you in the morning, partner.”
CHAPTER 23
Louis pulled the page out of the typewriter, his report on Dollar Bay finished. As he read it over for typos, he realized that his hand was shaking.
He let out a slow breath. That was it, no more heavy drinking like last night. He couldn’t afford to be off his game right now. He started to reach for his coffee but instead went to the water cooler and gulped down his third Dixie Cup of water.
He was crumpling the cup when Gibralter came in, unzipping his parka. Gibralter spotted Louis, gave him a curt nod and headed toward his office.
“Chief?” Dale called out.
Gibralter turned.
Dale hurried forward, holding out several pink slips. “Mr. Steele called again, twice this morning.”
Gibralter took the slips, crumpled them and tossed the wad to the trash. It missed and bounced to the floor. “Jesse here yet?” he asked Dale.
“In the locker room, sir.”
“Tell him I want to see him.” Gibralter looked at Louis. “You, too, Kincaid.” He disappeared into his office.
Louis poured a fresh cup of coffee. His eyes went to the pink paper on the floor and he picked it up. He unfolded it and stared at Mark Steele’s name, wondering what the calls were about. Was Steele trying to offer help in the investigation? Louis tossed the papers in the trash. Any help would be welcome at this point, even from an asshole like Steele. Picking up his coffee he went to the mailbox, pulling out the single paper from his slot. It was Lovejoy’s phone record. It must have come back while he had been in Dollar Bay.
Going to his desk, he put on his glasses. Most of the numbers appeared to be local but two stood out. The first was 578-7770, which Lovejoy had called every day at nearly the same time, 6:35 A.M. The last day he called it was on Sunday, December 1. The other number was 578-3482, a call made at 10:30 P.M. on November 30.
“Dale,” Louis called out, “Could you run these for me?”
Dale came over to peer at the two numbers Louis had underlined. “Don’t have to,” he said. “The first one’s the weather. The other’s the chief’s house.”
“The chief?” Louis said, frowning. “Lovejoy was retired. Why would he call the chief?”
Dale shrugged. “They were kinda friendly.”
He had forgotten; Jesse had told him the chief and Lovejoy went fishing together occasionally. But any cop knew that the last person a dead man talked to was important. Why hadn’t Gibralter mentioned it?
Louis sat back in his chair. At least the call to the weather made sense. It was more evidence that Lovejoy fished in the morning, not at night. But it still didn’t make sense that Lacey had risked killing him in broad daylight.
Louis sat forward suddenly. Unless...Lovejoy was not put in the water at the same time he was killed.
Louis slipped off his glasses, his mind working on this new possibility. Had Lacey shot Lovejoy at night, like Pryce, then returned the next afternoon to stuff him in the ice hole? That fit Lacey’s M.O. at least. But why did he feel he had to conceal Lovejoy when he had left Pryce’s body in the open?
His eyes went to the Dollar Bay report sitting on his desk, and something Millie Cronk had said nagged at his brain. He got out his notebook and flipped to the notes of their conversation. She had said that Lacey came home after his first visit to Loon Lake, that he seemed upset about something. He had told her that “everything is fucked up.”
What had he meant? Had something gone wrong for Lacey? Had he planned a third hit that didn’t come off? Is that why he hadn’t struck again in the last four weeks?
“Hey, you’re alive.”
Louis turned to see Jesse coming from the locker room. “Barely,” Louis said, closing his notebook. “Chief wants to see us.”
“Before briefing? He say why?”
“Not a clue.” Louis picked up the Dollar Bay report as he rose. Several other men were heading toward the briefing room and eyed Louis as they passed. Jesse saw it.
“Let it go,” he said to Louis quietly.
Jesse knocked on the chief’s door and Gibralter called for them to come in. He was standing at the window, back to the door, and turned.
“Anything new on Lacey?” Gibralter asked Jesse.
“We found the wife,” Jesse said. “She’s in Texas, some berg near Austin. Been there for the last three years. Cops down there questioned her but she said she hasn’t heard from Lacey since ’77.”
“That it?”
“We also found out Lacey checked into a motel down near Rose City on November 30 but the search turned up nothing.”
“And since then?” Gibralter asked.
“No sign of him.”
“He’s trained in wilderness survival skills,” Louis ventured.
“How do you know?” Gibralter asked.
Louis quickly summarized Lacey’s military record and the other information from Dollar Bay. “It’s in my report,” he said, holding it out.
Gibralter took it, scanned it and tossed it on the desk behind him. He went to the wall map, studying it. “Lacey isn’t from here. He doesn’t know this area,” he said. “If he’s holed up somewhere he has help.”
Louis’s eyes went to the county map on the wall behind Gibralter, to the large, amoeba-like blob of green that was the Huron National Forest. Lacey was in there somewhere and they would never find him. To them, it was a foreign and hostile place; to Lacey it was shelter.
“What about his son?” Louis asked. “He’s lived here and Lacey visited him at Red Oak. The kid wrote to him, too.”
“Then that’s where you go next, the kid. I want you two up there today to question him.”
“Chief, I have a question,” Louis said. “Are you going to request assistance from the state?”
Gibralter gazed at him through the cigarette smoke haze. “We’ll handle this ourselves,” he said. “That’s what good departments do, they take care of their own problems. They don’t need outsiders.”
Louis could feel a faint pounding in his head, the lingering effect of the booze and the beginning of a headache. He resisted the urge to rub his temples and the urge to say what he was thinking, that this was no time for a territorial pissing match between Gibralter and this guy Steele. Unconsciously, he let a sigh slip.
“Do you have a problem with what I just said?” Gibralter asked.
“No, sir.”
Gibralter’s icy stare seemed to drill into his head, hitting the pounding place in his brain.
“There’s something else on your mind, Kincaid. What is it?”
Louis hesitated. “Lovejoy’s phone records came back.”
“And?”
“They show he made a call to your home at ten-thirty p.m. the night before he was killed.”
“So?”
“So,” Louis said carefully, “I was curious about why you didn’t mention it.”
Louis heard Jesse draw in a slow breath.
“I didn’t mention it because I never got the call,” Gibralter said.
Louis hesitated, knowing he was about to get his head chopped off. Shit, at least it would stop the headache. “Someone got the call,” he said. “It was four minutes long.”
Gibralter’s eyes didn’t waver. “I have a wife, Kincaid. Maybe they chatted for a few minutes.”
Louis lowered his eyes.
“So, if we are done discussing Lacey,” Gibralter said, “I have something I want to take up with you, Kincaid.”
Louis tightened. Now what?
Gibralter went to the credenza and took one of the swords off the wall. “This is a samurai sword,” he said. “Do you know why I have it here, Kincaid?”
Louis felt Jesse shift nervously at his side. “No, sir,” Louis said.
“I keep it to remind myself of what honor is. We spoke of honor once, didn’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Louis said.
Gibralter’s hand traveled over the ornate hilt. “The samurai code was a simple one,” he said. “The business of a samurai consisted of reflecting on his station in life, in discharging loyal service to his master and in deepening the trust and fidelity of his fellow warriors.”
Gibralter looked at Louis. “You think maybe a samurai might have something to teach a cop?”
“I’m sure he would,” Louis said. Where the hell was this going?
Gibralter carefully set the sword back in its holder. “I spoke to a man named Bob Roberts today. Name ring a bell?”
The hairs on Louis’s arms came alive and he was suddenly aware of his heartbeat. It was moving up, mixing with the pounding in his head. “Can we discuss this in private?” he said.
“No. I think this is something Officer Harrison should hear.”
“Sir, this —- ”
“We are under siege, Kincaid,” Gibralter said. “Any man on this force can take a bullet for you at any time. I think they should know how you plan to repay them.”
Suddenly, Louis knew what was coming, and there was no way he was going to be able to explain it.
“Officer Kincaid spent a couple of interesting days in Mississippi federal court last year, didn’t you?” Gibralter said.
“Yes,” Louis said.
“Officer Kincaid testified against another police officer by the name of Lawrence Cutter. What were the charges, Officer Kincaid?”
“Civil rights violations,” Louis said.
“What’d he do, Officer Kincaid? Call you a jigaboo?” Gibralter asked.
Louis went rigid. “Larry Cutter —- ”
“Shut the fuck up when I’m talking to you!” Gibralter shouted.
Louis felt a tremor rush through his body, a signal of the rage building inside. He didn’t want Jesse to hear this without knowing the truth. He turned to him.
“Jess, the man tried to kill me. He tried to hang —- ”
“I don’t care what he did!” Gibralter interrupted. “You turned on your own and cops don’t turn on their own!”
“Sir, I think —- ” Jesse said quietly.
“No, you don’t!” Gibralter snapped.
Louis glared at Gibralter. “Are you firing me?”
Gibralter shook his head. “I have no intention of making it easy for you. If you leave here it will be because you quit or because your stupidity gets you killed.”
“Jesus, Chief,” Jesse whispered hoarsely.
“That’s enough.”
For a long moment it was quiet in the office. From outside came the murmur of the other morning-shift men, punctuated by the ring of the telephone. Finally, Gibralter turned away from them.
“Dismissed,” he said.
CHAPTER 24
They rode in silence. Louis drove, his hands locked on the wheel, his eyes never wavering from the road. The snow had given way to sleet and Louis flicked on the wipers to keep the windshield from icing over. For a half hour, the silence between them built, like ice on glass. It was Jesse who finally broke it.
“Tell me about this cop.”
Louis shook his head. “Forget it. It was a thousand miles away, a thousand years ago.”
“Louis, for crissake, tell me.”
“I said forget it. I have.”
“Right. That’s why the veins are popping out of your temples. Tell me, damn it, why’d this guy try to hang you?”
“You heard enough.”
Louis stared straight ahead. They were heading southwest, passing through farmlands, flat acres of white nothingness that blended with the slate-gray sky.
“What? You think because I’m white I can’t understand? Is that it?” Jesse asked.
Louis glanced at him then looked back at the road.
Jesse let out a snort. “Man, you’re fucked up, you know it? You’re emotionally constipated and it’s fucked up your head and now you’re transferring your anger.”
“Spare me your psycho-crap,” Louis said.
“You’re angry at the chief and you’re transferring it to me.”
“Bullshit.”
Louis turned the wipers up a notch. They rode in silence for another ten miles until Jesse gave him directions to turn.
“Chief has ordered us all to double up,” Jesse said.
“On patrol?” Louis asked.
“Yeah. Did it while you were away. Says he doesn’t want anyone riding alone right now.”
Louis nodded. At least Gibralter was finally taking precautions to protect his men. He glanced at Jesse, wondering if he should try to explain about Larry Cutter. What was the use? Even if Jesse understood the other men wouldn’t. And Gibralter would make sure every last man on the force found out. What the hell was the matter with the man? Was this part of some plan to break him just because he had let Lacey go? Or was it just because he had challenged him on the Lacey kids, the call from Lovejoy and about getting outside help?
“Somebody said you found letters from Cole,” Jesse said, interrupting his thoughts.
“Yeah, in Lacey’s room,” Louis said.
“What did they say?” Jesse asked.
“Not much. He’s proud of his dad for, quote, killing that nigger, unquote.”
Jesse shook his head. “Guess the kid hasn’t gotten any smarter.”
“What you mean?”
“I busted him once when he was about eleven for shoplifting. He had a smart mouth then, too.”
Louis tried to conjure up an image of Cole at eleven. The only thing that came to him was the five-year-old Cole with the cigarette burns on his back.
“He w
as abused. Did you know that?” Louis asked.
“So what? Plenty of abused kids turn out okay,” Jesse said.
“Well, it kind of puts a different spin on —- ”
“It’s no excuse for being an asshole,” Jesse said. He shook his head. “I hate that kind of talk. It’s crap, like the chief said about the vets blaming everything on post-traumatic stress. It’s like nobody wants to take responsibility for their actions anymore.”
Louis bit back his thought, that Jesse could be talking about his own temper.
They survived the rest of the drive on a diet of small talk about the case. It was eleven-thirty by the time Louis turned the Bronco under an iron arch that said RED OAK CORRECTIONS FACILITY FOR BOYS. The road cut a wet black ribbon through the high drifts, leading to an ugly Kleenex-box building in the middle of a treeless field of snow. The compound was surrounded by a high chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. In the distance were some basketball hoops. Jesse looked back at the gate as it closed behind them.
At the entrance, Louis pushed the button. The guard peered at them through the glass door and he buzzed them in. After signing them in the guard directed them down a gloomy corridor to a door marked WARDEN LITTLE.
“Officers Kincaid and Harrison to see Warden Little,” Louis told the secretary. “He’s expecting us.”
She buzzed, and a moment later, a small bald man in a gray suit came out of his office.
“Officers,” Warden Little said, greeting them with a weak smile and weaker handshake. “Can I offer you some coffee?”
“No, thanks,” Louis said. “We’d like to see Cole Lacey.”
“No problem. I’ve secured Cole in our visitor lounge. We find it’s more conductive to getting the boys to relax. It’s comforting to them to have some homey surroundings.”
“Cole Lacey’s comfort level is no concern of ours, Warden,” Jesse said, following Little down the hall.