Dead of Winter Page 5

  Gibraltar gave him a long look, then looked down at his paperwork. “Dismissed, Kincaid,” he said softly.

  CHAPTER 5

  There was something eerie about sitting at Thomas Pryce’s desk. The contour of his body was still molded into the worn brown vinyl of the chair. The drawers of the desk he had shared with Ollie Wickshaw were still cluttered with little things that had meaning only to Pryce: paper clips twisted into squares and triangles, a worn tube of Chapstick, gnawed swizzle sticks from endless cups of coffee, and several half-rolls of Tums.

  Louis plucked a pen from the plastic holder and chewed on the end as he stared at the ace of spades in the plastic evidence bag. It had already been scrutinized by the experts for prints. There had been none of any use.

  Louis turned over the card. It was a Bee card, in the familiar blue-and-white pattern with the slightly drunken looking insect. It was from a case mass produced by the U.S. Playing Card Company in Cincinnati and sold everywhere. What made this card different, however, were the black marks on it. The lab had determined the ink was not from an ordinary felt-tip pen; the writer had used a laundry marker. Louis wondered if it had been a conscious choice, to use an indelible pen rather than one that would have easily smeared. He studied the odd black scrawl. It looked as if it had been done hastily, almost like a graffiti. There was a badly drawn skull and crossbones and below it: 1 2 3.

  Louis checked his watch. He had been here since 6 a.m., unable to sleep once his mind had begun to churn on the investigation. Now it was almost seven-thirty, briefing was in a half hour and he would have to put the Pryce case aside for the day.

  The door opened and Dale came in. His boyish face was flushed from the cold. He wiggled out of his coat and walked to the fireplace, stooping to toss logs into the hearth.

  “Good morning,” he called out cheerfully.

  “Morning, Dale,” Louis said. He could feel Dale’s eyes on him and he looked up. Dale was staring at the evidence bag.

  “What are you doing with that?” he asked.

  “Chief gave it to me last night,” Louis said. He saw the slight look of distress on Dale’s face. “Is there a problem?”

  “Dale blinked rapidly. “No, I just didn’t know he had it.”

  “What? The card?”

  Dale nodded. “I’m in charge of the evidence room.” He jangled the ring on his belt. “Only me and the chief have keys.”

  Louis nodded.

  “I mean, it’s not that you can’t go in,” Dale went on. “It’s just that I keep things straight around here, and if you don’t log in and out, things get lost.”

  Louis nodded again. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “I’m kind of the administrative assistant here,” Dale said. “The chief never got it officially approved by the city council, so technically I’m a patrolman but I don’t pull street duty.”

  Louis looked up at Dale again. “Well, every well-run office needs a manager.”

  Dale smiled. “You aren’t kidding. You should’ve seen this place before I got ahold of things. Now I do it all, run the computer for the numb-nuts who’re too lazy to learn, make the coffee and do all the filing. By the way, Louis, you need anything from the files let me get it for you, okay? You guys really mess up my system. No offense.”

  “None taken.” Louis turned back to the card, hoping Dale was finished. No such luck.

  “Chief likes things organized, you know,” Dale went on.

  “I got that impression.”

  “By the way, he wants all reports typed. Did he tell you that?”

  “No. Thanks for the warning.”

  “Even your daily log should be typed, if you have time. You can type, can’t you?”

  “Yeah, pretty well.”

  “Of course, that doesn’t apply to Jess,” Dale said with a wry smile. “Jess can barely write let alone type. But then again, not too many rules here apply to Jess.”

  Well, every department has a golden boy, Louis thought. To his relief, Dale busied himself behind the computer, allowing Louis to turn his attention back to the playing card. Dale switched on a radio, tuning it to an easy-listening station out of Alpena. He began to hum along to Perry Como warbling the Beatles’ “Yesterday.” Louis suppressed a sigh but kept quiet.

  “Hey, Dale?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Where’s the other Pryce evidence?”

  “There isn’t much really.”

  “I’d like to see it anyway. And the case file, too.”

  Dale went to the evidence room, signed the log, unlocked the padlock and went inside the grating. He emerged with a manila file and another plastic bag bound with an orange evidence tape. He handed both to Louis and returned to Windexing his computer.

  The bag contained a photograph of the boot print. Nothing special. Louis turned to the report, skimming through it. He stopped at a second photograph. It showed Pryce’s body lying on the bottom stairs of his foyer. Louis stared at the gruesome photo, with its tagline date and the photographer’s initials, an ironic “O.W.” he stuffed the photo back in the file and turned to the witness statements.

  The first was from Pryce’s next-door neighbor, Leonard Moss, who heard the shots and called the police. The second statement was from a man named Moe Cohick, who lived in the house directly behind Pryce’s. He reported seeing a shadowy man running across his yard at 3:15. Louis turned to the last witness statement. It was from Stephanie Pryce. It was handwritten, in bold, sharply slanted strokes that he had a hard time reading.

  Statement of Stephanie Pryce

  As given to Officer Jesse R. Harrison

  December 1, 1984

  04:22 hours

  Subject Stephanie Pryce stated she woke up when the gun went off. Mrs. Pryce stated it was very loud. Mrs. Pryce stated “Tom wasn’t in bed. There is no phone in the bedroom.” Mrs. Pryce stated she sat in bed maybe a minute then walked to the door. Seeing no one in the hall she crept to the children’s room. They were crying so Mrs. Pryce took them back to the master bedroom. Mrs. Pryce stated she was too frightened to go anywhere else for several minutes and called for her husband. There was no answer. Mrs. Pryce stated she went back to the hall and could feel a cold breeze. She stated she thought Thomas Pryce might be outside. She stated she walked to the top of the steps and saw Thomas Pryce lying at the bottom. Mrs. Pryce stated she wanted to call the police but couldn’t. Mrs. Pryce stated she could not get to a phone because she would have had to step over her husband’s body. NO MORE THIS REPORT.

  Jesse had signed the form on the bottom of the page with a sprawling signature boldly underlined twice. Louis closed the file.

  “Dale, did Pryce ever mention to you what he was working on in his last few weeks?”

  Dale looked up and shook his head. “He never talked about his work. I offered to help, you know, filing, tagging evidence, but he always said no.”

  “What about his notebook?” Louis asked. Every cop kept a small spiral notebook and Louis had found nothing in Pryce’s drawer.

  “Don’t know. Maybe the chief has it,” Dale said. He looked up at the wall clock. “Whoa, it’s almost eight. Coffee-making time.”

  “I already made it.”

  Dale went to the coffee machine, looked at the torn sugar packets on the counter then over at Louis. “You take three sugars in your coffee?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “No reason.”

  Louis watched Dale as he wiped the counter clean. “What? Pryce took three sugars, too?”

  “It’s no big deal, Louis. Ollie says it’s got something to do with karma trying to correct itself or something.”

  “Right,” Louis muttered. He turned his attention back to the Pryce file on his desk but his eyes went to the blotter. He hadn’t noticed before but it was covered with doodles. He wondered if they were done by Pryce or his night shift desk-mat, Ollie. The doodles were tight, intricate, heavily inked. They sprawled over the blotter, paisleys and amoebas curling around numbers
and words. He scanned for the numbers 1 2 3. Nothing.

  The door flew open, letting in a whirlwind of snow and Jesse, bundled in a hooded parka. Jesse threw back the hood and struggled out of the jacket as he walked across the office. He paused by the mirror and raked his hair with his fingers.

  “Damn weather just ruins a good styling,” he said, as he headed toward the coffee machine. He poured a cup and came up behind Louis, who was still studying Pryce’s blotter.

  “What you doing?”

  “These doodles...You know if Pryce did them or Ollie?”

  “Pryce. Ollie was always bitching about it.” Jesse took a sip of coffee. “You can tell a lot from doodles, you know.”

  “Like what?”

  “These say that Pryce had an acquisitive mind.”

  Louis turned to look at him. “What, now you’re into handwriting analysis?”

  “I read a book on it once.” He pointed at a paisley shape.

  “Look, see how he tries to contain the numbers with those squiggly shapes? He was trying to organize his thoughts. The guy was a mental pack rat.”

  Louis shook his head.

  Jesse spotted the Pryce file. “What are you doing with that?”

  “The chief gave me the case.”

  Jesse fell silent. Louis felt an instant chill in the air. Jesse started to walk away then he turned back. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t see the shit on your nose. Blends with your skin.”

  Louis’s head shot up. “What?”

  But Jesse had stalked off to the locker room. Louis heard the slam of a door.

  “He didn’t mean that,” Dale said from his desk. “His mouth overruns his brain when he gets upset. Jess has been pissed for weeks. Jess and the chief are kind of close and I think Jess is mad the chief didn’t let him work the Pryce case more.”

  Louis could feel his cheeks grow warm, signaling a slow-burn anger. Damn it, he wasn’t going to let this slide. He rose and went into the locker room. There were two other officers in there, both looking over their shoulders at Jesse. Jesse slammed the door of his locker, the clang echoing loudly through the tiled room.

  Louis waited until the other men had left. He leaned against the far wall, watching Jesse as he yanked on his uniform.

  “All right,” Louis said, “what the hell is your problem?”

  Jesse glanced at him. “Problem? Who says I’ve got a problem?”

  Louis sighed. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

  “What?”

  “The black-white shit,” Louis said.

  Jesse let out a nervous chuckle.

  “I’m serious, Harrison,” Louis said. “I put up with this shit in Mississippi. I’m not going to tolerate it here. Do you understand me?”

  Jesse buckled his belt. “Hey, I told you, man. Nobody here is like that.”

  Louis came forward. “I suppose your little remark back there was just some little test? You want to find out if I can ‘lighten up’ like Pryce?”

  Jesse was silent. Louis waited, watching as he fumbled with his service pin. He dropped the clasp and jerked the bar from his shirt and looked at Louis.

  “All right. I’m sorry,” he said. “It slipped out.”

  “Freudian slip?” Louis said.

  “Give me a fucking break, Kincaid. It’s not like I called you a nigger or something.”

  “Well, actually it is like you called me a nigger or something. You’d be surprised how many people don’t quite catch that subtle distinction.”

  Jesse looked away, trying again to force the clasp on the pin under his shirt. His face was red, whether from anger or embarrassment, Louis couldn’t tell.

  “Look,” Jesse said, “I got a real bad habit of using my mouth to hurt people. I didn’t mean anything.”

  “Right.”

  “Cut me a little slack here, Kincaid. The only black people in this town are a couple of maids over at the lodge and old Elton at the bait shop. I never worked with a black man before Pryce got here.” He dropped the clasp again and bent to pick it up. He still couldn’t fix it to the back of the pin. “Christ, my own father used to call black people porch monkeys.”

  Louis stared at Jesse, but Jesse couldn’t look at him.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Jesse repeated, finally facing Louis. “Okay?”

  Louis hesitated then nodded. “Okay.”

  Jesse got the last pin on and went to a mirror.

  “Look,” Louis began. “About this Pryce case. I’m not trying to show anyone up. I think the chief just thought I might bring a fresh eye to it.” He paused. “You could help, you know.”

  Jesse let out a grunt. “The chief doesn’t think so. Sometimes I get the feeling he thinks I’m stupid. Well, I’m not stupid. I may not have a college degree and I can’t play chess or spout out quotes and shit, but I’m not stupid.”

  Louis decided to let that one lie. He didn’t want to get involved in Jesse’s relationship with the chief, whatever it was.

  “Jess,” Louis said. “I need your help.”

  Jesse turned to Louis, studying him. “All right,” he said, “what do you want to know?”

  “For starters, I need to know more about Pryce. You think he might have kept a case file to himself for some reason?”

  “Shit, maybe. Pryce hated having anyone looking over his shoulder, that’s for sure.”

  “It’s got to be a former perp,” Louis said.

  “I told you, we looked. We went through every file in his desk.”

  “Did you ask Mrs. Pryce if he kept any files at home?”

  Jesse’s face colored slightly. “No. We’re not supposed to take files out of here.”

  Louis leaned against the locker, folding his arms, looking at Jesse.

  “You think Pryce might’ve taken stuff home?” Jesse asked.

  “It’s possible, given what you’ve told me about him.”

  Jesse let out a long sigh. “I guess we’re going to have to go to Flint.”

  “I’ll drive,” Louis said.

  “No fucking way.”

  They started out of the locker room. Jesse stopped and turned. He patted his pins. “Straight?”

  “Damn straight,” Louis said.

  After shift was over, they made the three-hour drive down to Flint. Stephanie Pryce had moved back to her mother’s home, a simple shingled house on the outskirts of the city. When Jesse pulled the Loon Lake cruiser into the drive, the front door opened and a woman came out. She rubbed her hands on her apron as she watched the two officers get out of the car. Louis assumed she was the mother. A small child burst from the door and wrapped chubby arms around the woman’s legs. Louis recognized him from the photo. Louis put his cap on and walked to the door, Jesse behind him.

  “Mrs. Reanardo?” Louis asked, hoping he had pronounced it properly.

  The woman nodded. “Officers. You made good time. Stephanie is in the kitchen. Come on in.”

  The house was warm and filled with the smell of chocolate chip cookies. The child hopped off to the kitchen and Mrs. Reanardo motioned for them to sit. Both men politely declined as she disappeared into the kitchen.

  Louis wandered to the bookshelf. His eyes locked on a frame that encased Pryce’s badge against blue velvet. There was a plate with an inscription from Winston Churchill: “The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. With this shield, however fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.”

  Jesse saw him looking at it. “The chief gave that to Mrs. Pryce at the funeral,” he said.

  Next to the framed badge was a large piece of lavender quartz sitting on a tripod. Louis picked it up, turning it over in his hands.

  “I’m sorry I — ” someone said.

  Louis turned, the quartz still in his hand. Stephanie Pryce was staring at him, her hand at her throat. The expression on her pale face was so strange Louis couldn’t immediately speak.

  Jesse spoke for him. “Mrs.
Pryce, I’m Officer Harrison. This is Louis Kincaid, my partner.”

  Louis came forward and she held out her hand. “Is there something wrong?” Louis asked.

  She shook her head. “No. It was just...just the uniform. From the back...”

  Her eyes went to the crystal in Louis’s hand.

  “Oh, sorry,” he said, holding it out.

  She hesitated then took the quartz from Louis, carefully placing it back on its tripod. She walked back to the sofa and sat down. Louis was sure that in better times she was quite lovely. But today she wore an oversize shirt that probably had belonged to her husband. Her straw-colored hair was pulled back in a haphazard ponytail and there were dark circles under her blue eyes. She started chewing on her already bitten-down nails.

  “You drove a long way to see me,” she said. “What do you want?”

  “Do you feel up to talking with us about your husband, ma’am?” Louis asked.

  “I don’t know what I can tell you.” She ran a hand over her hair. “Please, sit down.”

  Louis waited until after Stephanie Pryce’s mother brought coffee. He cleared his throat, edging forward on the sofa.

  “Mrs. Pryce, we’re looking for some files,” he began. “Did your husband ever bring work home from the office?”

  “Occasionally,” Stephanie Pryce said.

  Louis glanced at Jesse.

  “Did he ever mention anything specific he was working on?”

  She shook her head. “He didn’t talk to me about what went on at work.”

  “Do you ever remember seeing any files like this around the house?” Louis held out a manila file with a case number printed on the front.

  She looked at it then shook her head. Louis handed the file to Jesse. He wasn’t sure where to go now; he had been banking on Stephanie Pryce simply handing over a batch of files. He glanced at Jesse, who seemed equally perplexed. Louis thought suddenly of the bits of paper in Pryce’s desk and Jesse’s comment about his doodles.

  “Mrs. Pryce,” he said finally, “was your husband the type to keep things — papers, documents and the like?”

  She smiled slightly, nodding. “He kept everything. He had one of those minds, you know, always moving. He was always writing notes to himself, stuffing them in drawers, his pockets, then forgetting them. I used to put these little baskets all over the house, trying to get him to throw his stuff in them. It didn’t really work.”