Dead of Winter

CHAPTER 9

Louis was awakened by the scratchy sound of his radio going off on the nightstand. It was Florence, who informed him it was after eight and he had missed briefing.

Louis fell back on the pillows. Damn, after last night, he expected to get a few extra hours of sleep.

He was zipping up his pants when he heard the squawk of a siren outside. He pushed back the curtain to see Jesse waiting in the cruiser. They went back on routine patrol without hitting the station. Louis sat slumped in the seat, half listening to Jesse’s patter, refusing his offer to share his thermos of coffee. Julie, Louis had quickly discovered, made terrible coffee. At noon, Louis suggested they go back to the station.

Inside, Louis went straight to the coffeepot then sank into his chair, rubbing his bristly jaw. He hadn’t had time to shave and he wondered if Gibralter counted that as being out of uniform.

The phone rang and he picked it up. It was the medical examiner from Cedar Springs. Louis waved at Jesse. “Hey, they’ve identified the stiff,” he called out.

Jesse looked over and started toward Louis’s desk.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. Got it,” Louis murmured, taking notes. After a couple of minutes, he hung up. “The guy was shot.”

“You’re kidding,” Jesse said. “When?”

“They won’t know until tissue tests are done.”

“I told you he was probably a hunter,” Jesse said. “What kind of gun?”

“Shotgun. Twelve-gauge.”

Jesse’s expression shifted subtly, his brows coming together.

Louis was about to ask him what was the matter when it hit him. “Pryce was killed with a twelve-gauge,” he said.

Jesse nodded.

Louis ripped off a paper from his pad and held it out to Dale. “They found a wallet. Dale, run the guy’s name and see if he’s reported missing. Run it out of state, too, in case he was a tourist.”

Dale took the paper and started back to the computer. He stopped. “Jess,” he said, turning.

Jesse looked up at him. “What?”

Dale’s face had drained of color. His eyes went from the paper in his hand to Louis and finally back to Jesse. Jesse came forward and took the paper from Dale.

When he looked up, his eyes were glazed.

“Dale, go get the chief,” he said quietly.

The dead man’s cabin was located on the west side of the lake in a neighborhood of small bungalows and trailers, about an eight of a mile north of where the body had been found. It was, Louis guessed, where Loon Lake’s less well-heeled lived, the gas station attendants, fishing guides and most of the women who waited tables and changed the motel sheets for the tourists.

His name was Fred Lovejoy. He had been sixty-one years old, single, childless and a former Loon Lake cop.

Now there were two. One old, one young. One white, one black. One with a family, one who lived alone. One active, one retired. But both had worn Loon Lake uniforms.

Jesse hadn’t said much on the way over. Louis wanted to question him about local history, possible suspects and anything else Jesse could tell him. But the look on Jesse’s face and the subtle shaking in his hands stopped him. Jesse had lost two coworkers in less than a month. The questions could wait.

Jesse swung the cruiser to the side of the plowed road. Louis got out and paused, looking at the cabin. Lovejoy’s place looked like the others, a small, dark-green box with a few scraggly evergreens out front. Jesse started up the snowy walk.

“Jess, just a minute,” Louis called out. He opened the large metal mailbox. It was crammed with papers. Louis dug it all out and sifted through it. The pile appeared to be nothing but bills, junk mail and one copy each of Field and Stream and Hustler. There were also three thick newspapers, stuffed in blue plastic bags emblazoned with the New York Times logo.

Next to the mailbox was a bright green plastic mail tube with the Oscoda County Argus logo on the side but there were no papers inside. Louis stuffed the newspapers and mail into a bag, tossed it on the seat of the cruiser and followed Jesse to the front door. He noticed a late-model Buick parked in the narrow driveway, covered with a foot-deep layer of snow.

Jesse saw Louis looking at it. “Fred loved his Buicks,” he said. “Bought a new one every other year.”

“Not bad for a retired cop living on a pension,” Louis said.

“He drew some big bucks when he retired. Worker’s comp settlement to the tune of thirty grand.”

“For what?” Louis asked as he shoved gently on the door. He was surprised to find the door unlocked. He had to remind himself that unlocked doors were the norm in Loon Lake.

“Shattered disc or something. Got it taking down a drunk.” Jesse’s voice trailed off as they surveyed the inside of the cabin.

It was apparent that, other than the Buick, Lovejoy did not spend his money on any other comforts. The place was a dump.

“Jesus, what’s that smell?” Jesse said, recoiling slightly in the doorway.

“Garbage, I think. I hope,” Louis said. “Just be thankful it’s so cold.”

He took two steps into the tiny living room. The old yellowed shades were pulled down on the windows, casting the room in a murky gold light. The ancient sofa was half covered with a cheap chenille bedspread. The mismatched end tables were heaped with yellowed newspapers, magazines, dirty dishes and Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles. An old Danish-modern Zenith console TV sat in the corner, its top heaped with more papers and trash. Three-foot stacks of newspapers lined the walls, some spilling onto the floor. The green shag carpeting was littered with empty pizza boxes, open tin cans, and what looked to be bones.

Jesse’s eyes widened as he noticed the bones. Louis pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket and slipped them on as he squatted down. He picked up one bone then tossed it down. “Chicken,” he said.

Jesse let out a breath and followed Louis into the kitchen.

“Damn, it’s cold in here,” Louis said.

Jesse stopped at the black potbellied stove. It was dark and cold. “This must be the only heat Fred had.”

They made their way to the kitchen. A large plastic trash can lay overturned in the middle of the linoleum floor, garbage strewn everywhere. A box of Cheerios lay on the counter, most of the cereal shaken out. A set of metal canisters had also been overturned, leaving a blanket of sugar and flour over the counter and floor. All the bottom cupboards had been opened, with the pots and pans thrown across the floor.

“Someone was looking for something,” Jesse said.

“Doesn’t look like he had anything worth a damn,” Louis said.

Jesse headed down the hall. Louis continued to search the kitchen, squatting to peer into the cabinets, then standing up. Strange, the upper cabinets were untouched.

“Oh, shit…”

“What it is?” Louis called out.

“You’d better come back here.”

Louis hurried back to the bedroom. Jesse was staring at something in a corner. Louis went around the rumpled bed and drew up short. It was a dog, a large brown-speckled one, a spaniel of some kind. It was dead, lying on its side, stiff from the cold.

“I forgot Fred had a dog,” Jesse said. He ran a hand over his face. “That explains the smell. There’s dog shit all over the place.”

“It might explain the mess, too,” Louis said. “Maybe the dog was looking for something to eat.”

Jesse grimaced. “You think it starved to death?”

“Maybe.”

Jesse reached down and pulled a blanket off the bed. He carefully laid it over the dog. Without looking at Louis, he hurried out of the room.

Louis looked around the dingy bedroom but it offered no clues about Fred Lovejoy’s death. It was simply a sad testament to a lonely life. He had heard that retired cops sometimes went off the deep end like this. Without the regimen of station or family to give their lives shape, ex-cops drifted into a netherworld of solitary idleness. Louis’s eyes drifted over the piles of unwashed clothes. Something on the dresser caught his eye and he moved to it.

It was a holstered gun. Louis slowly pulled it out and turned it over in his hand. It smelled of fresh Hoppes gun cleaner and the oil left spots on his latex gloves. Even the leather was cared for, like a beloved baseball glove. Louis slipped the gun back in its holster and put it back on the dresser.

He went to the small bathroom. It was filthy, the water in the toilet bowl iced over. Leaving the bathroom, he wandered toward a closed door. He pushed it open slowly. This smell was so strong he drew back. There was a large cage in the corner, with an old blanket in it, layered in dog hair. It was apparently where Lovejoy kept his dog when he was away.

Louis drew his arm over his nose and stared at the cage. It was clear that Lovejoy had not intended to be away from his cabin long or he would have caged the dog. Had his killer come to the cabin? Had Lovejoy been murdered in his own home and then dumped in the lake? Louis frowned. But how did you dump a body in a frozen lake? And where was the blood? Louis had never known of a shotgun blast that didn’t leave a drop or two. But if he wasn’t killed here, then where?

Jesse came down the short hall. “Hey, Louis, I think I — ”

He came to an abrupt stop in the doorway. His eyes locked on the cage. His expression went suddenly dead, his skin ashen.

“Listen, Jess,” Louis began, “we’re going to have to — ”

Jesse bolted from the room.

“Jess!”

Louis stuck his head around the door frame but Jesse was gone. A moment later, he heard the slam of the front storm door.

“What the hell?” Louis muttered. He went back out into the living room. Through the open front door he could see Jesse leaning against a tree. His head was down and his ragged breath formed white clouds in the cold air.

Louis came up behind him. “Jesse? What’s the matter?”

Jesse shook his head. Then slowly, he drew two deep breaths and straightened. His face was sweaty.

“I don’t know. I felt sick,” he said. “The smell got to me, I think. And that damn dog.” Finally, he looked at Louis, his brown eyes glistening. “I’m sorry, man. Don’t…don’t tell the chief, okay?

Louis stared at him for a moment then awkwardly patted his shoulder. “No problem. It never happened.”

Jesse wiped his brow and stared off toward the lake. “Shit, I just remembered something.”

“What?”

“Fred was a fisherman.”

So?”

“An ice fisherman. You know, shanties, holes in the ice.”

Louis stepped around the tree and followed Jesse’s gaze out at the lake. “Like that one?” Louis asked, pointing to a small wooden structure about thirty yards out on the frozen lake.

“Yeah, just like that one.”

Louis turned up his collar and started across the snow. Jesse pushed himself off the tree and trailed after him.

“Maybe we should call the chief before we go out there,” Jesse said.

Louis pulled his radio out and hailed Florence. He advised her to notify the chief, and on a hunch, the county crime-scene unit. He stuffed the radio back in his belt just as they reached the fishing shanty door. A gray layer of haze drifted over the lake, casting smoky shadows that glittered with light snow. Damn, it was desolate out here.

“You going to open it?” Jesse asked.

Louis pushed open the thin door. The wind whipped in from behind him and he could hear a flutter of papers inside. The shanty was dim and Louis reached for the flashlight on his belt, shining it around the inside.

It was small, about ten feet by ten feet, made of cracked wood. Directly in the center, next to a hole in the ice, sat an old wing-backed chair. Next to it was a TV tray table holding a Coleman lantern. A generator-fueled space heater occupied one corner, a warped Styrofoam cooler another. The ice floor was covered with green Astroturf, littered with cigarette butts, beef jerky wrappers and Pabst cans.

Louis went in, swinging the flashlight up over the walls. They were festooned with fishing gear. There was also a Black and Decker chain saw, an Indian blanket and a sheepskin bota.

“Louis, look.”

Louis turned the light on Jesse, who was kneeling by the fishing hole. On one jagged edge there were dark stains.

Louis knelt, shining the light on the hole. It was blood. He trained the light back up on the chair. There was a small stain on the seat, as black as the water in the ice hole.

“This is where he was shot,” Louis said.

“Here? But he was found up near the shore,” Jesse said.

Louis stood up and pointed the flashlight at the chair and then down at the hole. “See the blood pattern? He was shot sitting in that chair. Then my guess is he was put down that hole.”

Jesse stared at the ice hole. “Goddamn,” he said. “Someone shot him and stuffed him down this fucking hole. Just stuffed him down there. Jesus H. Christ.” He turned abruptly and stood at the door, facing outward.

“Jess? What’s that?”

Jesse turned in the direction of Louis’s flashlight beam. It had picked up an iron bar lying by the chair.

“It’s a spud bar. You use it to chisel a hole in the ice.”

Louis knelt to examine the bar. Fred Lovejoy had weighed well over two hundred pounds. Chances were the killer hadn’t had the patience to use this to hack out a hole big enough for a body. Louis focused the light up on the chain saw hanging on the wall. “And that?”

Jesse glanced at the saw. “Lazy guys use a saw. It’s cleaner.”

“And faster,” Louis said dryly.

Jesse was staring down into the hole. “I don’t get it. Why in hell would someone bother to do this? I mean, why not just leave the body here?”

“Maybe to buy time,” Louis said. “By spending ten extra minutes cutting the hole, he bought himself enough time for evidence to decay, witnesses to begin to forget. The trail goes cold and the case gets harder to solve.”

Louis walked to the door and faced the bloody chair, forming and imaginary shotgun in his arms.

“Think he knew his killer?” Jesse asked.

Louis lowered his arms. “Hard to say. I think the killer walked right up on him just like with Pryce.” Louis shook his head. “But Lovejoy was a trained cop. How could somebody get the drop on him so easily?” He paused. “Maybe he did know him.”

Jesse picked up a beer can by the small opening. “Or maybe Fred was too drunk to react. Fred did like to drink. And people around here don’t expect trouble. Not even us.”

“Well, Pryce did,” Louis said. “He had his gun drawn.”

They were silent for several moments. Then Louis began a slow sweep of the floor with his flashlight.

“What you looking for? A shell?” Jesse asked.

“No, a card.”

Jesse stared at him for a moment then reluctantly began to do the same. For several minutes there was no sound except for their breathing.

“Damn, it has to be here,” Louis said.

“Maybe it’s up in the house,” Jesse said.

Louis shook his head. “He left the other one right by Pryce’s body.”

“Maybe it fell in the hole.”

“That would be just our luck.” Louis spotted a magazine near the far wall and bent down to look at it more closely. It was the Sunday magazine of the New York Times, dated November 24. It was open to the crossword, which was nearly finished.

“He was doing a crossword puzzle when he was shot,” Louis said.

Jesse looked over at him. “Fred was a crossword freak. He was always working on those damn things.”

Louis knelt and used the end of his flashlight to flip the magazine aside. “Bingo,” he said.

The card was lying face down. Louis guessed it had been swept against the wall with the magazine when he opened the door. Fishing a pen from his jacket, he used it to turn the card over.

“Ten of hearts,” Louis said. He rose, his gaze traveling around the shanty. “There’s got to be a connection,” he said.

“Connection?” Jesse asked.

“Pryce was an active cop, but Lovejoy was retired. What’s the connection?”

“They’re both cops,” Jesse said.

“It’s got to be more than that,” Louis said. “We’ve got to search that cabin, top to bottom.”

He turned. Jesse was shaking his head.

“It’s there, Jess. All we have to do is — ”

“I’m not going back in there,” Jesse interrupted, turning away. He took a deep breath. “I’m not going back in there.”

The sound of a siren drew Louis’s attention before he could reply.

“Chief’s here,” Jesse said quickly, leaving the shanty.

Louis emerged just as the Bronco pulled up in front of the cabin. Gibralter got out and started toward the front door.

“Chief! Out here!” Jesse called.

Gibralter stopped and turned, peering toward them. He started down the snowy bank and across the ice.

“How long was Fred retired?” Louis asked as they waited.

“About two years,” Jesse said. “Fred trained me. I liked the guy. Everybody did. Even the Chief.”

“The chief?”

Jesse nodded slowly. “They were friends, sort of. After Fred retired, they went fishing together sometimes.”

They fell silent.

“Jess, about the cabin,” Louis began.

“Drop it,” Jesse said sharply, and walked off toward Gibralter.

Louis frowned as he watched him go. What was going on here? What had caused Jesse’s reaction in the cabin? And why was he refusing to go back in? Then it came to him. Jesse hadn’t been sick from the smell. He was scared. Two of his colleagues had been gunned down. And for all any of them knew, whoever had done it wasn’t finished.

Gibralter and Jesse came back to Louis. “What’s going on?” Gibralter said, his eyes scanning the shanty.

“This is where Lovejoy was shot,” Louis said.

Gibralter’s eyes registered surprise. “Here? How do you know?”

But he didn’t wait for an answer. He stepped around Louis and looked inside the open door of the shanty. “Kincaid, hand me your flashlight,” he said.

Gibralter stepped inside, directing the flashlight over the chair and the jagged hole with its bloody edge. Then he slowly backed out of the shanty and turned to face Jesse and Louis.

“Fred was a good man. I could count on him,” Gibralter said tightly. He looked away abruptly, his eyes going back to the cabin, then up at the pines rimming the lake.

Louis watched him carefully, looking for a reaction, not just of a chief for a downed comrade but for a man mourning a dead friend. But Gibralter’s face remained composed and Louis didn’t know whether to feel pity or admiration.

“I want this entire area secured and searched thoroughly,” Gibralter said. “From the cabin to those trees.”

Louis scanned the shoreline. The area had to be at least a mile square. He caught Jesse’s eye and knew he was thinking the same thing. Gibralter was grasping at straws.

“Harrison, has Cedar Springs been notified?” Gibralter said.

“Yes, sir.”

Gibralter knelt and brushed a layer of powdery snow away from the ice. Visible on the surface were a few dark spots Louis thought at first might be blood. Gibralter stood, took a deep breath and blew it out in a white vapor. He looked at the sky.

“Anyone know the weather forecast?”

“Six inches by midnight,” Louis said.

“Well, we damn well better try to preserve something,” Giubralter said sharply. “I need these spots intact. Harrison, go get a broom from the cabin. I want the snow around this shanty carefully removed and the ice checked for evidence all the way to the shore.”

Louis was going to say that there had been two hard snows in the last week. But judging from the look on Gibralter’s face, logic wasn’t going to go very far.

“Want me to go get a fucking tent, too?” Jesse said.

Louis glanced at him, stunned by his sarcasm.

Gibralter glared at Jesse. “Do what I say, Harrison.”

Jesse trudged off across the ice.

“And watch where you step!” Gibralter hollered, standing and brushing the snow from his hands. He turned and peered back in the shanty’s door.

“Was there a card?” he asked after a moment.

“Yes.”

“Where was it?”

“Next to his chair, under the crossword.”

“What?”

“He was working the crossword puzzle, sir, when he was shot.”

Gibralter’s eyes grew distant. “Crossword,” he said softly. He turned away, his gaze wandering out over the lake. Louis watched his profile. Whatever emotion Gibralter was allowing himself to feel he wasn’t going to let anyone else see it.

After a moment, Gibralter turned back to face Louis. “Anything else?” he said brusquely.

Louis hesitated.

“You’ve got something on your mind, Kincaid. What is it?”

“It’s Jesse, sir,” Louis said.

“What about him?”

“When we were searching the cabin, Jess got pretty shaken up. I just think he — ”

“I know Harrison better than you do, Kincaid,” Gibralter interrupted.

Louis nodded. “I know. It’s just that, well, I think he’s scared by all — ”

“Scared?” Gibralter shot back. “He can’t afford to be scared. None of us can right now, Kincaid. There’s a fucking cop killer out there.”

“Chief, with all due respect, I don’t think you can fault a man for being — ”

“Two men, two of my men are dead!” Gibralter yelled. “I want this fucker found now! I don’t care what it takes! If it means Jesse gets down on his hands and knees and examines every fucking inch of this ice, or you climb every fucking pine tree in those woods then you’ll do it, you hear?”

“Yes, sir,” Louis said.

Gibralter turned and started back to shore. He stopped and turned to Louis.

“Find him, Kincaid,” he said.