“But fifteen minutes? What can he tell about me in fifteen minutes? What did he do with the other candidates?”
“He only saw three,” Dale said. “He kept telling me none of them looked right.”
“What?”
Dale’s eyes drifted to the photograph of Thomas Pryce. Louis followed his gaze.
“He hired me because I’m black?” Louis asked. “What, to fill some quota or something?”
“Hell, no,” Dale said quickly. “Chief doesn’t care about that stuff. You must have just said something in there he liked.” He nodded toward the photograph. “Like him.”
Louis shook his head. “I don’t follow.”
“Thomas Pryce was a good cop,” Dale said. He shrugged, looking for the words. “Somebody you could respect, you know? I think the chief just saw something of him in you, that’s all.”
Louis looked again to the photograph. “How old was he?”
“Thirty-two,” Dale said. “You’re the same height and build. What size shirt do you wear?”
“Sixteen, thirty-four.”
Dale smiled. “See? He won’t even have to buy new uniforms.”
CHAPTER 3
“Raise your right hand.”
Louis lifted his hand and took a deep breath.
“Do you, Louis Washington Kincaid, on this twentieth day of December, nineteen hundred and eighty-four, solemnly swear to uphold and enforce the laws of the United States of America and the great state of Michigan to the best of your ability?”
Louis looked down at the silver shield in Gibralter’s hand.
“With professionalism, integrity and honor?” Gilbralter added.
“I do,” Louis said.
Gibralter slapped the badge in Louis’s palm.
“Welcome to Loon Lake, badge number 127.”
Louis heard soft applause and turned. Five officers stood in a half-circle, all dressed in light blue shirts, dark blue trousers, navy ties and billed Garrison caps. Louis pinned the badge on this shirt.
“McGuire, is Kincaid ready to go?” Gibralter asked.
Dale hustled over. “You sign that gun agreement, Louis?”
Louis nodded, watching the chief as he ambled away to talk to another man. “I signed everything. Didn’t see a union card.”
“You won’t,” Dale said quietly. “And we don’t use that word in civilized conversation in this office, Louis.”
“Read your manual, Kincaid,” Gibralter said, turning back. “Ignorance is not an acceptable excuse here.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Your call number is 11. Loon-11,” Dale said.
Louis would have laughed except for the utter seriousness on Dale’s face.
“Chief, who you want to put him with?” Dale asked.
Louis looked at the officers. Damn, he was getting a training officer.
“Harrison!” Gibralter called out.
A man stepped out of the knot and sauntered over. He was about the same age as Louis. His thick hair was like rich mahogany. He had expressive brown eyes that softened his slightly pitted face. There was a long thin scar down his neck that disappeared into his collar. He looked up at Louis, shaking his head.
“Jeez, Chief,” another six-footer. When you going to give me someone I can look in the eye?”
Gibralter, on his way back to his office, hollered back over his shoulder, “Buy some goddamn elevator shoes.”
Harrison grinned and thrust out his hand. “Jesse Harrison. Welcome to Loon Lake, Kincaid.”
Louis shook his hand. “Thanks.”
“You ready?” Jesse put on his jacket and reached for the car keys on the desk. On the ring was a dirty orange rabbit’s foot. He saw Louis looking at it.
“Don’t say a word about my rabbit’s foot,” he said. “It brings me luck.”
“In this town, why do you need it?” Louis asked as he followed Jesse Harrison out the door.
“Kincaid, I’ve been unlucky all my life. I was born on September 13, my badge number is 113 and when I joined this department, Gilbralter gave me call number 13. If you were me, what would you carry?”
“A gun,” Louis said.
Jesse opened the glass door with his rear end. “I like a man with a sense of humor, Kincaid. We should get along fine.”
The moment Louis got inside the police cruiser he flipped the heater up to high.
“Living down South thin your blood?” Jesse asked as he pulled out of the parking lot.
“My car wouldn’t start. I had to walk in.” He wondered how Harrison had found out so quickly about his stint in Mississippi.
“Where you staying, at the Loon Lake Lodge?”
“No, I rented a cabin on the lake.”
“North or south side?”
Louis thought for a moment. “South. Just outside town.”
Jesse swung the car down Main Street. “Good. You don’t want to be staying up north with the Eggers.”
“What?”
“That what I call the rich tourists. You know, East Egg. You never read
“Saw the movie.”
“Bad movie, great book.” Jesse’s grin had a touch of superiority. “I read a lot. Anything I can get my hands on. Lots of biographies, history books. I like psychology stuff best. The chief says I’m an autodidact. That means I’m self-taught.”
“Yeah, I know.”
Jesse glanced over at him. “You went to University of Michigan, right?”
Again, Louis wondered how Harrison had found out so much about him so fast. “Yup,” he answered.
“That’s great,” Jesse said softly, nodding his head.
They drove on, Jesse offering a lay of the land. The town of Loon Lake was clustered on the southeastern end of the lake. Jesse explained that it was not hard to get the feel for the town’s layout: the small commercial heart was bordered by the residential houses, perfect little square lots with chain-link fences that split the area into a grid. The city park, with its new baseball diamond, sat on a tract of pine-choked land just north of the residential area.
As Jesse drove north up Highway 44, which circled the lake, the homes grew sparser, giving way to bait shacks, trailers and towering pine trees. Up on the north end, Highway 44 was intersected with dozens of narrow roads. They were the driveways of the tourists’ properties, Louis realized. Most were gated or chained with signs that hinted at the humor and hopes of the people who dwelled within: BLISSFUL ACRES, TWIN PINES, THISTLE DEW, THE LOONEY BIN. Louis strained to get a glimpse beyond the thick trees but could see nothing. Jesse told
