Louis stood up. “He’s been in prison. I’d bet on it. That has to be it.” He turned to Ollie. “Think about it. Some jerkweed’s sitting in jail, stewing about something the cops did to him. Every day, every week, every year, he gets madder and madder and he thinks of a plan. I mean, what else does he have to do? He plans and waits.” Louis took a few quick steps toward Ollie. “Then when he gets out…bang.”
Ollie took a step back, blinking rapidly. His slack face looked gray in the harsh fluorescent light. Louis suddenly wished he could take back his vivid image. For several seconds, they just stared at each other.
Then Ollie turned away, busying himself with packing up the Hot Wheels and putting on his coat. Clutching the bike, he hurried to the door. But he paused, turning.
“Louis,” Ollie called.
“Yeah?”
“Merry Christmas.”
Ollie left and the office was quiet again. Louis rubbed his eyes, focusing his thoughts. He needed to get a list of prison releases. He quickly scribbled a note to Dale, asking him to run a list of every state prisoner released after November 30, 1984. He taped it to Dale’s phone.
“Edna?” he called out.
No response.
“Edna!”
Her round face appeared over the book. “Edna, when Dale comes in would you tell him to leave these files out? He’ll refile them if you don’t. I’m heading home.”
Edna popped the last bit of cookie in her mouth. “Ten-four, Louis.” She nodded to the snoring Jesse. “What about Jess?”
“Let him sleep, I guess.”
Louis yawned and rose, stretching. His thoughts drifted to his cold cabin with its cold bed. He wondered what Zoe was doing tonight. He hadn’t seen her in three days; she had told him she was going home for Christmas. His mind shaped a sudden image of her sitting in a fancy high-rise on Lakeshore Drive, unwrapping a gift of lingerie from some faceless boyfriend. Christ, where had that come from?
He slipped on his jacket. The phone rang and he grabbed it before it woke Jesse up.
“Loon Lake Police, Officer Kincaid.”
“Is Jesse there?” a feminine voice asked.
“Julie?”
“Yes.” She sounded very young.
“Hold on, I’ll wake him.”
“He’s sleeping?” Julie asked. “Where?”
“On his desk.”
“Wait, don’t wake him up.”
Louis frowned. He couldn’t let Jesse sleep in the station on Christmas Eve. “Julie — ”
“Let him sleep, please,” she said quickly.
Louis sensed something anxious in her voice and he wondered if they were having problems.
“Julie,” he said, “I can bring him home.”
“No, he’s safe there,” she said softly. “Let him stay. He’s safe there. He’s safe.”
CHAPTER 15
Dawn. Christmas Day. The world had stopped.
Louis walked slowly down Main Street, past the dark storefronts, past the pillared First National Bank and under the silent marque of the Palace Theater. His eyes caught sight of the bare-chested Sylvester Stallone holding the machine gun above the type: “Rambo: First Blood II”. He hurried on.
The Mustang had refused to start again but this morning the idea of walking to the station hadn’t bothered him. After a night of restless sleep he needed time to think. He could almost feel his brain cells gulping in the chilly air.
He felt stiff, fragile somehow, as if his bones might snap. Funny what lack of sleep did to the body and the mind. His whole body ached, from the constant tension of keeping muscles and senses on alert. Alert for what? The clues that might be lurking in the blotter doodles? Alert for what? A bullet that would come out of nowhere some morning when he opened the door?
Ahead, he saw the glow of the station sign and increased his pace. There was a faint pink in the eastern sky. Above, a few errant flakes floated down in the amber light of the street lamp.
He crossed the street, climbing over the bank of snow. All through the night, between bouts of jagged sleep, his mind had worked. Pieces. Nothing but pieces of a puzzle whose whole he could not yet see.
Lovejoy…a murder probably committed in the afternoon but unnoticed by fishermen. Or committed before dawn when no one went out on the lake to fish.
Pryce…a smart, experienced detective who kept unintelligible notes, scrawled senseless doodles on a blotter and was peppering the state with resumes.
Someone had already shoveled the station walk. He stamped his boots on the concrete and went inside. Dale was at the coffeepot, setting out a box of donuts.
He looked up at Louis. “Do you ever sleep?”
Louis shook his head. “Doesn’t feel like it.”
Dale filled a cup, plucked a sprinkled donut from the box and set them on Louis’s desk. “I got your note. Request for the ex-cons is already sent. I told them I needed it ASAP. They said they’d try but with the holiday and all they couldn’t promise anything.”
Louis thanked him and slithered out of his coat. He saw the stack of case files still sitting on the desk where he and Jesse had left them the night before. He couldn’t face them right now. It could wait until the report came back of the newly released prisoners and they could compare names.
Louis dropped down into his chair, sipping his coffee. His gaze strayed to the desk blotter with its doodles and nonsensical number. He focused finally on several sets of numbers. Seven digits, no hyphens but possibly a phone number. He called Dale over and asked him if he recognized them.
“That’s Ollie’s home phone,” Dale said, pointing. “And that one there is the chief’s.”
Louis pointed to the third, almost obscured in the doodles. “What about this one?”
“Don’t know.”
Louis dialed it. He got a recording that said he needed to dial a “1” for long distance. He tried it again and a woman answered.
“Michigan State Police.”
“Uh, sorry, wrong number.” He hung up.
“What was it?” Dale asked.
“The state police.”
“Figures. They had an ad in the Lansing paper last month for officers.”
Louis pulled open a desk drawer and got out Pryce’s resume file, looking for something from the state police but there was nothing.
“Hey, Louis?”
He looked over at Dale.
“I almost forgot. Mrs. Pryce called yesterday. She asked when you were going to send her file cabinet back.”
Louis picked up the papers. “I’d better pack it up.”
Dale opened the evidence room to let him in. Louis went to the file cabinet, opened a drawer and stuck the resume file back in. He was about to also put in the legal pad when he paused. There it was again — that big sprawling doodle on the back with the number in the center: 61829. Where had he seen that number before?
The notebook…
