Dead of Winter

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