Dead of Winter

Gibralter took a slow drag on his cigarette. “So,” he said, “what makes you think you can work this case when none of my other men has been able to come up with anything?”

The office was very warm. Louis felt a trickle of sweat make its way down his forehead. Shit, he didn’t want this man seeing him sweat.

“Sir, I wouldn’t think to question the ability of anyone here,” he said. “But I was made aware of the fact that the case isn’t going anywhere and that you have not delegated it to – ”

“Stop with the bullshit, Kincaid. Why do you want the case?”

Louis wet his lips. “I want to see the man caught.”

Gibralter considered him carefully then smiled. “And you can’t see yourself answering calls for lost dogs and downed geriatrics for the rest of your career here.”

Louis felt a small spasm of anger.

“That’s all right, Kincaid,” Gibralter said. “Ambition is good in a man. I wish all my men had ambition.” Gibralter was silent for a moment. “Tell me something,” he asked finally. “Do you think a college degree is a help or a handicap for a police officer?”

Now how was he supposed to answer this one? His eyes darted up to the wall with all the certificates. No nicely framed diploma from Stanford in all that police stuff.

“I think it makes some people suspicious,” Louis said.

“Suspicious? Why is that?”

“Other cops, I mean, sir. They might see it as…unnecessary, given the day-to-day demands of the job.”

“Clear thinking is unnecessary?”

“That’s not what I meant. I meant – ”

Gibralter held up a hand. “I know what you meant.”

Louis waited, hoping the man wasn’t going to ask him why he had decided to become a cop. Sometimes he wasn’t even sure himself. When his foster mother had asked him why, just before he went into the academy, he had laughed it off with a crack about girls liking men in uniforms. But what had really triggered his decision? The kindness of the cop who revived the Patterson baby after he fell in the neighbor’s pool? Or had it been the meanness of the cop who clubbed his roommate after finding pot in his car?

It was something more visceral. Flickering images on the Zenith. Black smoke, black faces. Orange fires, blue uniforms. Had his eight-year-old mind understood the rioting going on so many miles away in downtown Detroit? Probably not. But something about those uniforms had stuck.

A phone rang outside and he heard Edna’s nasal voice answering. The wall clock ticked off the seconds. A twig beat against the window. The silence lengthened. Louis focused on the window, watching a droplet weave a slow pattern through the condensation.

“I want that cocksucker caught,” Gibralter said softly.

Louis looked back at Gibralter.

“I want him caught. I want him put behind bars,” Gibralter said. “This state doesn’t have capital punishment but I’d like to see him strapped in a chair, hear him scream and see him shit in his pants when the smoke pours off his head… I want him to pay.”

Louis was locked by pull of the chief’s icy eyes. Finally, Gibralter blinked and looked away. “I’m putting you on the case,” he said.

Louis nodded. “I’ll give it my best.”

Gibralter stood up slowly. “You’re still green, Kincaid. Two years total as a working officer. And I don’t want you neglecting regular duties. You’ll still pull patrol like everyone else.”

Gibralter’s expression had shifted slightly. His eyes burned like gas-blue flames but there was something slack, almost weary around his mouth. “When one cop dies, we all die,” he said.

Louis nodded once, sensing Gibralter expected no reply.

Gibralter opened a drawer and pulled out a plastic bag sealed with a wide band of orange evidence tape. “You’ll need this,” he said. Gibralter also picked up the photograph of Pryce’s child and handed both items to Louis.

“You’re dismissed, Kincaid,” Gibralter said. He turned his back, looking out the dark window.

Louis slipped the photograph and the evidence bag in his jacket and started to the door.

“Kincaid.”

He turned back. Gibralter was still facing the window. “That other feeling you had when you saw the picture?” Gibralter said. “It was fear.”

Louis paused, hand on the doorknob. “‘If a man hasn’t discovered something that he will die for, he isn’t fit to live,’” he said.

Gilbralter looked up. “Churchill?” he asked.

“No, sir,” Louis said. “Martin Luther King, Jr.”

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.