Dead of Winter lk-2

by P J Parrish

  Louis stepped around the desk, blocking Steele’s way. “Look, I need to talk to you. Now!” he said.

  “Make a damn appointment!”

  He brushed by Louis, knocking him aside.

  Louis glared at Steele’s back, debating whether to follow him and shove the damn garbage bag down his throat right in front of the cameras. He saw one of the aides looking at him.

  “What are you staring at?” Louis demanded.

  The suit gave a shrug.

  “When’s your boss coming back?”

  “In the morning.” The aide smiled. “You want to make an appointment?”

  Louis felt his hand curl into a fist. The hell with Steele. He would see this through himself, take the damn evidence wherever he needed to take it, give it to NBC or the fucking FBI, if he had to. They liked to bust cops, too.

  He went back to his desk, tossed down the bag and dropped into the chair. Make a damn appointment. Fuck him.

  Make an appointment.

  He was staring vacantly at Pryce’s doodles on the blotter, the curlicues and numbers fading in and out.

  Make an appointment…

  Slowly, a phone number came into focus in his head. He looked down at the blotter, at the number. He grabbed the phone and dialed it.

  “Michigan State Police. How may I direct your call?”

  Louis swiveled to look out the front window. He could see the chopper lifting off. “Mark Steele’s office, please.”

  “That line is busy. For future reference, the extension is thirty-one.”

  Louis hung up. He unlocked his desk drawer and pulled out Pryce’s small notebook. He flipped through it, stopping when he found the right page.

  C.L. J.L. CIS @ 5661 x 31

  C.L. was Cole Lacey.

  J.L. was Johnny Lacey.

  CIS was Chief Investigator Steele.

  And 5661 X 31 was his phone number.

  Make an appointment…

  That was exactly what Pryce had done. Pryce had found the proof about the raid that he needed to bury Gibralter and the others and he planned to take it all to Steele.

  Louis redialed the state police, asking for extension thirty-one this time.

  “Chief Steele’s office,” a woman answered.

  Louis introduced himself, explaining he was investigating the death of a police officer and needed to track the officer’s last movements.

  “How can we be of help?” she asked politely.

  “I need to know if Thomas Pryce made an appointment with Chief Steele around the end of November,” Louis said.

  He heard pages turning. “No, I don’t see one.”

  Louis started to thank her when she interrupted. “I do have one for December third but Officer Pryce didn’t keep it.”

  Louis thanked her and hung up. His thoughts began to coalesce, coming together with cold certainty. Pryce had found out that something about the raid was dirty and started his campaign to get out of Loon Lake. But something happened to make him change his mind and he decided to go after Jesse and Gibralter.

  Pryce was going to Steele. He had been within days, maybe hours, of taking down four respected police officers for the murders of two kids. But then Lacey surfaced and began his rampage, blowing Pryce away.

  What a stroke of luck for the Loon Lake police.

  Louis felt a chill creep up his back and he turned to see if someone had opened the door. No one was there. The cold spread slowly through him and with it came a horrible new thought. Was it really luck?

  Gibralter’s words came back to him, and the coolness with which he had spoken them.

  Gambit, you know what a gambit is, don’t you? A gambit is when you sacrifice one of your pieces to throw an opponent off…The permanent sacrifice, a move that elevates the game to artistry.

  Had Gibralter somehow found out what Pryce was going to do? Had Gibralter killed Pryce to silence him?

  Louis ran a hand over his forehead. No, no, his mind was outracing all logic now. Gibralter had been involved in the deaths of the Lacey kids but no matter how threatened he felt he would never kill one of his own men.

  Gens una sumus. But Pryce wasn’t one of his men, one of the family. Pryce was an outsider.

  A shadow moved behind the glass of Gibralter’s door. Louis held his breath as his eyes followed it. He felt suddenly nauseous, lightheaded. He rose quickly, picked up the garbage bag and threw Pryce’s notebook inside. Grabbing the bag and his jacket, he bolted for the door.

  CHAPTER 36

  Louis set down the pen and leaned his head back on the sofa, closing his eyes. For the last three hours the same looped tape had been running through his head and everything on it was leading him to the same conclusion: Gibralter had murdered Pryce.

  It didn’t matter how Gibralter had found out Pryce was on to them. Gibralter had decided that “a permanent sacrifice” had to be made and with Jesse had formulated a plan to kill Pryce.

  But Lacey…that was the ingenious part. However they had found out about Lacey they had used him. Lacey was, after all, the perfect suspect, a wacko vet with a hard-on toward authority. A suspect who would not be able to defend himself because Gibralter had always intended Lacey to be conveniently shot and killed during his capture. That was why Gibralter had not wanted any outside help.

  Louis opened his eyes and looked down at the legal pad in his lap, at the notes he had made in the last couple of hours. He stared at the names at the top of the page: PRYCE…WICKSHAW, LOVEJOY.

  It all fit. Except for one thing. There were three dead cops, not one. Three.

  The theory had come to him only in the last hour, a second theory about the three deaths, a theory so grotesque he had immediately dismissed it. But it wouldn’t go away and he was finally forced to confront it.

  Had Gibralter also killed Ollie and Lovejoy? Had they somehow also become threats? If Gibralter was desperate enough to kill two kids and a cop, why not two others?

  The idea was outrageous, that Lacey didn’t kill anyone, that Gibralter had somehow engineered the murders to make them look like Lacey’s work before Lacey had a chance to make his own move. But it explained why Lacey had gone home to Dollar Bay and complained to Millie that “everything was fucked up.”

  Louis read again the notes he had written under Lovejoy’s and Ollie’s names. What could have happened to make Gibralter turn against them? Did they know Pryce was going to expose them and try to come clean? Or, after five years of keeping the secret, did they just crack?

  Ollie…He could see how guilt could have consumed him, especially if he had, in fact, been the one to shoot Angela, as the reports said. Ollie was a docile man, just trying to slide into retirement. Ollie knew Pryce was troubled and had given him the serenity crystal. Had Pryce confided in Ollie, trying to turn him to his cause? Had Ollie cracked under the pressure?

  Lovejoy…He was different. He was an old drunk living off a medical settlement but he was friendly with Gibralter. Had Gibralter tried to enlist his help in the plan to eliminate Pryce? Had that been the subject of the ten-thirty phone call the night before Lovejoy’s death? And had Lovejoy balked, thereby sealing his own death?

  Louis took off his glasses, rubbing his eyes. If you’re going to move on this, be right, Kincaid.

  Motive…it was there.

  Means…both Gibralter and Jesse carried twelve-gauge shotguns in their cruisers.

  Opportunity…he could see that, too.

  Pryce’s death was clear, the details born from the echoes, scents and ghosts in Pryce’s empty house. Gibralter had been the one to plan everything out, right down to duplicating Lacey’s fatigue jacket and boots. But Louis was sure Jesse had done it, maybe out of some perverse need to impress Gibralter.

  He could see Jesse driving into the darkness of the park, taking the shotgun down from the rack and calmly walking to Pryce’s house. He could see him pulling the trigger and running to the backyard, criss-crossing the yards to avoid the dogs. Only Jesse didn’t jump fences
well and he snagged the jacket on the last fence, leaving the scrap.

  Lovejoy’s death was also easy to imagine. He could see Gibralter going to the fishing shanty at dawn, renewing the argument they had begun the night before on the phone. He could see Gibralter raising the shotgun, holding it low so the trajectory would match Lacey’s height.

  He could almost see the look of confusion on Lovejoy’s face as he realized what was happening. Was the generator on, covering the sound of the shotgun blast? Had Gibralter returned later to put Lovejoy in the ice, thinking that by spacing the deaths over weeks they would appear more like a pattern of a serial killer?

  But Ollie’s death…he couldn’t see it as clearly as the others. Ollie had died from a sniper’s bullet. But who had fired it? How much time had elapsed between the shooting and Gibralter’s first radio transmission? Enough for Gibralter to make it from the field back to his cruiser hidden nearby? Or had Jesse been the shadow he had seen running across the field?

  Louis shook his head. He couldn’t remember; the details of that night were too blurred. Except for one: the bullet in his own back, stopped by the vest. Who had fired it and why? Did they intend to kill him along with Ollie or had they fired at him just to make it look convincing?

  He closed his eyes. He wasn’t sure. Damn it, he just wasn’t sure about any of it. And he couldn’t accuse Gibralter of murder until he was.

  Gibralter…

  No matter what route his thoughts took they always came back to Gibralter and what kind of man he was. Louis thought about the two events in Chicago. An investigation that had tested Gibralter’s definition of loyalty and a gang attack so humiliating it had driven him from the job.

  What kind of man what he? A cop who put loyalty above anything else? A paranoid who would do anything to avoid crucifixion by Mark Steele? A genius capable of planning the perfect murder?

  And where was Louis’s own place in the plan? Why had Gibralter given him the Pryce case in the first place? There was only one answer. Gibralter needed someone to lead the investigation away from himself and Jesse and right to Lacey.

  He needed a pawn and I was perfect.

  A sudden pounding at the door made Louis turn, his heart jumping against his sternum. He lunged for his belt lying on the counter and pulled out his gun.

  “Louis!”

  Shit, it was Jesse.

  Louis put the gun back in its holster and moved to the door. Jesse hollered for him again and Louis swung open the door.

  “What do you want?” Louis hissed.

  Jesse’s face was red from the cold, his hair flecked with snow. “I wanna talk….Can I come in?”

  Louis’s hand balled into a fist at his side as the stink of whiskey floated up to him. Louis started to close the door in his face but Jesse stuck his arm in the door.

  “Hey! Louis! I wanna talk, man!” Jesse said.

  Louis stared at him. Okay, he wanted to talk and he was drunk. Maybe drunk enough to talk about things he didn’t want to talk about. Louis stepped back and Jesse stumbled in, dropping his keys as he fumbled with the zipper of his parka.

  “I guess I’m a little tipsy,” he said, looking at Louis.

  Louis reached down, picked up the rabbit’s foot and stuffed it roughly in Jesse’s jacket.

  Jesse fell backward. “Hey, man, what’s with you?”

  Louis turned away, going into the living room. He stood, his back to Jesse for several moments, trying to quell his anger. But he couldn’t hold it in.

  “You son of a bitch,” he said, turning.

  “Huh?”

  “I know what you did.”

  Jesse frowned. “What you talking about?”

  “Angela and Johnny Lacey. I know how they really died.”

  For a moment, nothing registered on Jesse’s face. Then, slowly, comprehension penetrated the alcohol fog. He closed his eyes and bent forward slightly as if he were going to vomit.

  “Fuck,” he muttered.

  “Is that all you’ve got to say?”

  Jesse staggered to the sofa and sank down into it. “How did you find out?” he said.

  “That’s not important.”

  Jesse covered his face with his hands. “It was an accident,” he said.

  “It was murder.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Then tell me.”

  Louis waited, fearing Jesse was going to clam up but then Jesse let out a slow shudder. “We were outside the cabin,” he said. “It was really cold and I was antsy, you know?”

  Jesse looked away. “I mean, I had just busted these kids and here they were out again, messing up somebody’s property and life. I was mad going in.”

  When Jesse didn’t go on, Louis resisted the urge to prod him.

  “We were standing out there in the snow, listening to them yelling at us to go fuck ourselves,” Jesse said. “I guess I made up my mind before that back door ever opened that someone was going to get hurt.” He fell silent again, staring at the fireplace.

  “What happened?” Louis said.

  “The back door opened and he took off running so I went after him,” Jesse said. “I jumped him and we fell in the snow. He was a big kid but I got on him and started swinging…”

  “With your gun?” Louis pressed.

  Jesse looked up at him with unfocused eyes. “Gun…my gun.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “Bits and pieces, that’s what I remember,” Jesse said, the words slurred. “I had my gun out, we all did, because they had guns, too. But I don’t remember using it.”

  “You beat him to death with it,” Louis said tightly.

  Jesse squeezed his eyes shut. “I see his face….I see it and it’s changing, getting redder and redder….”

  The room was silent again, except for the crackle of the fire. “What happened next?” Louis demanded.

  “Someone pulled me off him,” Jesse said softly. “I had…blood…I had blood all over me.”

  “He was dead?”

  “I don’t know. The chief said he was.”

  “Then you shot his face off?”

  Jesse shook his head. “I remember the chief ordering Ollie to do it and Ollie yelling back that he wouldn’t. It happened so quick. I didn’t see who did, just heard the shot.”

  “Where was Angela?” Louis asked.

  Jesse voice dropped to a whisper. “I looked up and I saw her standing on the deck. Then they were cuffing her and she was screaming.”

  “Who shot her?”

  Jesse turned his head. “The chief.”

  Louis walked slowly to the dark kitchen, unable to look at Jesse another second. He heard Jesse sniffling.

  “Why did you let him do it?” he asked without turning.

  There was no response. Louis turned. “Why, goddamn it?” he demanded.

  Jesse was crying. “I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  Louis came back to stand in front of him. “You know!” he yelled in his face.

  “I was scared!” Jesse said. “I was scared, all right? He said I’d go to prison. He said my life would be over!” He shook his head slowly. “And he was the chief! All my life, all my fucking life, no one treated me like he did. He fixed it and I let him.”

  Louis glared at him. Jesse shielded his eyes with a trembling hand.

  “I’m sorry,” Jesse said hoarsely. “Christ, I’m so sorry that girl had to die.”

  “Her name was Angela.”

  “Okay! Angela!” Jesse shouted. “I know she had a name, I always knew her name. It was Angela Lynn. I know who she was!”

  Louis backed off and Jesse slumped into the cushions.

  “Gibralter wrote your report, didn’t he?” Louis said.

  Jesse nodded.

  “And the others, too?”

  Jesse nodded again.

  “Who investigated this?” Louis asked.

  “We did and then the city council had a hearing. It was a joke. We told them what happened and they bel
ieved us. They always did.”

  “What about the kids’ mother?”

  “Mother?”

  “She didn’t try to do anything about it?”

  Jesse shook his head. “I saw her at the hearing but she never said anything the whole time, just sat there listening with this weird look on her face. She left town a while later, after Cole went to Red Oak.”

  “What about Cole? Did he see what happened?”

  Jesse shook his head again. “I don’t know. Ollie and Fred found him hiding upstairs.”

  “What about Pryce? Did he see anything?”

  Jesse looked up. “Pryce?”

  “Did he see what you did?”

  Jesse shook his head.

  “You’re sure?”

  Jesse looked up at him. “He was out front…he…I don’t know, I don’t know.”

  Louis stared at Jesse, trying to read his reddened eyes. They were filled with confusion — or was it fear? Jesse looked away. Louis pressed closer to the sofa. He had to find out how far they had gone to cover up the mess.

  “You knew Pryce suspected you, right?” he said.

  Jesse wouldn’t look up at him.

  “Pryce suspected something was dirty and you all knew it,” Louis said.

  “Pryce was — ” Jesse stopped himself.

  “Pryce was what?”

  Jesse stared into the fire, his face streaked with sweat and tears.

  “Pryce was going to expose you,” Louis said. “He knew about Johnny and Angela and he was going to turn you all in.”

  Jesse frowned, his eyes locked on the fire.

  “Pryce was going to take everything to Steele and Gibralter knew it and told you,” Louis said. “So you killed him.”

  Jesse’s eyes shot to Louis.

  “You found Lacey — ”

  “Lacey?” Jesse interrupted.

  “You planned it all out so he’d take the rap.”

  Jesse was shaking his head, his mouth agape.

  “You killed Pryce, you and Gibralter,” Louis said, leaning down on the arm of the sofa. “How’d you do it? How’d you find Lacey?”

  A glimmer of comprehension registered in Jesse’s eyes. “Wait, wait,” he said, holding up a shaking hand.

  Louis knew he should just shut up and let Jesse talk but his anger was pushing him forward now.