DEAD OF WINTER (Louis KincaidJoe Frye mystery series) by PJ Parrish

Author:PJ Parrish [Parrish, PJ]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Our Noir Publishing
Published: 2012-11-11T16:00:00+00:00

Dear Dad,

I saw it on TV! I am proud of you. I can’t wait until you come see me Sunday. Man that was so cool. Everyone here was talking about how that nigger cop got blowed away. I bet that fucking Gibralter guy is pissed. And scared too now. Right? You must be feeling real good right now.

Louis handed her the letter. She read it quickly. “Bastard,” she whispered, moving away.

Louis felt a tightening in his stomach. He had known when he set out for Dollar Bay that Lacey was the killer. But being here, in his room, breathing his air, made things different. It made Lacey real, more real even than he had been that day in the bar. He slipped the letter into his pocket with the Radio Shack paper.

“So, what’s your area of search?”

Louis looked up at Bjork. She was leaning against the door frame, arms folded over her chest.

“What?” Louis asked.

“Where you looking for him?” she asked.

“I don’t know exactly,” Louis said. He looked away, not liking the question he saw in her eyes, namely, “Why the hell aren’t you down there looking for him?”

“I’d bet he’s holed up in the woods somewhere,” Bjork said, pushing off the door.

“He’d freeze,” Louis said.

Bjork shook her head. “Lacey lived outdoors all his life. When he was a kid he built a shack out in the woods. He used to hide in there when Millie went off the deep end on one of her binges.”

“You check it?”

“First thing. No sign of life.”

Louis rose slowly from the bed. He glanced around the room, unsure where to go next. “I don’t get it,” he said.

“Get what?” Bjork said.

“How’d his kids get to Loon Lake? Lacey never lived there.”

“His wife did. She was from there.” Bjork frowned. “Shoot, can’t remember her name...”

“But Lacey never lived there?” Louis pressed.

Bjork shook her head. “No, but after his wife finally got fed up and put him in jail for battery she went back down there to stay. That was in early ’77, I think. Then when Duane went up for the assault she left here for good.”

“Any idea where she is now?”

Bjork shook her head. “I had my men check but we can’t find her.”

“Think she’ll come back?”

“Would you?” Bjork paused. “I feel sorry for Cole. My daughter went to school with him.”

Louis gave a derisive sigh. “Oh yeah, Cole’s a real upstanding young man. Real proud of his dad for blowing away a nigger cop.” Louis shut the drawer of the nightstand roughly.

Bjork said nothing. She turned and went to the window. “I was here that first time we came out on the child-abuse complaint,” she said. “I was a rookie.”

Louis turned to look at her. She was staring out the window.

“Cole was only five,” she said. “He had all these little red circles on his back. He was crying and I remember thinking it was chicken pox. Turned out to be cigarette burns. Duane burned him because he wet his bed.”

Louis waited, not knowing what to say.

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