“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
Jesse had signed the form on the bottom of the page with a sprawling signature boldly underlined twice. Louis closed the file.
“Dale, did Pryce ever mention to you what he was working on in his last few weeks?”
Dale looked up and shook his head. “He never talked about his work. I offered to help, you know, filing, tagging evidence, but he always said no.”
“What about his notebook?” Louis asked. Every cop kept a small spiral notebook and Louis had found nothing in Pryce’s drawer.
“Don’t know. Maybe the chief has it,” Dale said. He looked up at the wall clock. “Whoa, it’s almost eight. Coffee-making time.”
“I already made it.”
Dale went to the coffee machine, looked at the torn sugar packets on the counter then over at Louis. “You take three sugars in your coffee?”
“Yeah, why?”
“No reason.”
Louis watched Dale as he wiped the counter clean. “What? Pryce took three sugars, too?”
“It’s no big deal, Louis. Ollie says it’s got something to do with karma trying to correct itself or something.”
“Right,” Louis muttered. He turned his attention back to the Pryce file on his desk but his eyes went to the blotter. He hadn’t noticed before but it was covered with doodles. He wondered if they were done by Pryce or his night shift desk-mat, Ollie. The doodles were tight, intricate, heavily inked. They sprawled over the blotter, paisleys and amoebas curling around numbers and words. He scanned for the numbers 1 2 3. Nothing.
The door flew open, letting in a whirlwind of snow and Jesse, bundled in a hooded parka. Jesse threw back the hood and struggled out of the jacket as he walked across the office. He paused by the mirror and raked his hair with his fingers.
“Damn weather just ruins a good styling,” he said, as he headed toward the coffee machine. He poured a cup and came up behind Louis, who was still studying Pryce’s blotter.
“What you doing?”
“These doodles…You know if Pryce did them or Ollie?”
“Pryce. Ollie was always bitching about it.” Jesse took a sip of coffee. “You can tell a lot from doodles, you know.”
“Like what?”
“These say that Pryce had an acquisitive mind.”
Louis turned to look at him. “What, now you’re into handwriting analysis?”
“I read a book on it once.” He pointed at a paisley shape.
“Look, see how he tries to contain the numbers with those squiggly shapes? He was trying to organize his thoughts. The guy was a mental pack rat.”
Louis shook his head.
Jesse spotted the Pryce file. “What are you doing with that?”
“The chief gave me the case.”
Jesse fell silent. Louis felt an instant chill in the air. Jesse started to walk away then he turned back. “Sorry. I guess I didn’t see the shit on your nose. Blends with your skin.”
Louis’s head shot up. “What?”
But Jesse had stalked off to the locker room. Louis heard the slam of a door.
“He didn’t mean that,” Dale said from his desk. “His mouth overruns his brain when he gets upset. Jess has been pissed for weeks. Jess and the chief are kind of close and I think Jess is mad the chief didn’t let him work the Pryce case more.”
Louis could feel his cheeks grow warm, signaling a slow-burn anger. Damn it, he wasn’t going to let this slide. He rose and went into the locker room. There were two other officers in there, both looking over their shoulders at Jesse. Jesse slammed the door of his locker, the clang echoing loudly through the tiled room.
Louis waited until the other men had left. He leaned against the far wall, watching Jesse as he yanked on his uniform.
“All right,” Louis said, “what the hell is your problem?”
Jesse glanced at him. “Problem? Who says I’ve got a problem?”
Louis sighed. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
“What?”
“The black-white shit,” Louis said.
Jesse let out a nervous chuckle.
“I’m serious, Harrison,” Louis said. “I put up with this shit in Mississippi. I’m not going to tolerate it here. Do you understand me?”
Jesse buckled his belt. “Hey, I told you, man. Nobody here is like that.”
Louis came forward. “I suppose your little remark back there was just some little test? You want to find out if
