Dead of Winter

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.

CHAPTER 10

It was almost eleven. Still no sign of her.

He had stood out on the porch for an hour, waiting for her to emerge from the fog that covered the lake. Finally, he went in. Now he sat slumped on the worn sofa, staring into the dying fire. A yellow legal pad lay on his lap, filled with notes about Pryce and Lovejoy.

He couldn’t get the images out of his head. Fred Lovejoy’s face as he lay frozen in the ice. Pryce’s face as he lay dead on the stairs, captured in the crime-scene photo.

And Jesse face. He couldn’t shake off that look on Jesse’s face after he had run from the cabin. Some cops were lucky enough to go their whole careers without pulling a gun or seeing a corpse, and living in a place like Loon Lake Jesse had probably never seen a dead man before Pryce. No, not just a dead man – a dead cop.

Louis let out a breath, thinking now of Gibralter. No matter how distraught he was about his friend Lovejoy he had been too hard on Jesse. Jesse had a right to be afraid. Hell, they all had a right to be afraid.

He stared vacantly at the television. The sound was off, the images throwing flickering shadows over the walls. He pulled the afghan up around his shoulders but nothing seemed to warm him. The cold came from somewhere inside him. It had started in Lovejoy’s cabin when he had seen that dog. It had built in the shanty when he saw the bloody jagged hole in the ice. And it had finally overtaken him as he stood in the bitter cold and listened to Gibralter’s command.

Find him.