Dead of Winter

The pine trees stood tall and unmoving in their crisp green uniforms with their white epaulettes of snow. He shivered, glancing down at his feet in their old tube sox. His big toe was poking through a hole in the end. He used his other foot to turn the hole under as he pulled the cup from the machine. He stuck the pot back and walked to the table, sliding into the chair. Taking a sip of coffee, he picked up the stack of mail he had neglected for the last three days.

A large manila envelope caught his eye and he stared at the Detroit return address with no name. He opened it.

It was a copy of the Detroit Free Press, the most recent Sunday edition. As he snapped it open, a note floated to the table. He picked it up and read the unfamiliar scrawl.

Thanks. I owe you one. Delp.

P.S. How’s the weather up there?

“Jerk,” Louis muttered.

He looked at the front page. He couldn’t miss the big headline on Delp’s freelance feature story – THE KILLING SEASON. And the small blurb below that: “On a cold winter day, two teenagers were murdered. Five years later, the cops who did it are brought to their final justice.”

It was a long article but he read all of it, and when he put it down he was left with a begrudging respect for Delp. He had done a good job on the article. It was painstakingly researched and written with the sensitivity of a good novel, and between the lines anyone could read the unspoken theme: that the Lacey teenagers were not the only victims.

Louis dumped sugar into the mug and stirred the coffee, thinking about Jesse. He was facing felony murder charges for beating Johnny and conspiracy to cover up Angela’s death. Gibralter was dead, his reputation shattered. Zoe was gone, her life shattered. And he…

Louis sipped the coffee, thinking now of his own fate. Steele had dropped felony charges against him after Cole told the truth and recanted his statement about the Red Oak abduction. But Steele had still made an example of him, telling the TV reporters that “the actions of Louis Kincaid, while technically legal, were still unethical. I intend to pursue a charge of obstruction of justice, if only to ensure Kincaid does not remain a police officer in the state of Michigan.”

Louis poured more sugar into the coffee. It didn’t matter anymore. He had already quit. He would survive. He would survive, he told himself, if his bitterness didn’t eat him alive. He had warned Cole against it but he could see it happening to himself these last couple of days. He had changed somehow, on some very basic level, and it arose from something more than just what had happened with Zoe or even the fear he might never work as a cop again. He felt adrift, his faith in the power of his badge destroyed, the idea of what he was shaken.

Nothing was black and white, as he had believed, especially truth. Truth was nothing but different perspectives, refracted through the prisms of people’s pain. It was ever-changing, unreliable, not to be trusted.

He turned back to the rest of his mail, sifting through the junk flyers and bills. His eyes locked on a small envelope with a Flint return address. It was from Stephanie Pryce. He ripped it open.

The note was short, poignant, an acknowledgment for unraveling the truth about her husband’s death. She had added a postscript, the Churchill quote from Pryce’s funeral plaque. Louis read it, a hand rubbing his brow.

The only guide to a man is his conscience. With this shield, however fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honor.

He put the letter back in its envelope. Rising stiffly, he went to the living room. He stood for a moment, his lassitude threatening to overtake him. He felt something rub his leg and looked down. It was the black cat again.

“Don’t you have someplace to go?” he asked.

It was getting cold. The fire was burning down; he needed to go outside and get more logs. Slipping on an old pair of loafers and a University of Michigan jacket he stepped out onto the porch.

The bright sunlight made his eyes water, the cold air made his chest ache. He stared toward the log pile then paused, his eyes going out to the lake.

It glistened in the sun, its white blanket broken only by the ripple of a lone snowmobile. The sound of its motor drifted in to him, fading as it headed away toward the north shore. He walked down to the shoreline and stood looking out over the flat white expanse, his hands thrust in his pockets.

His fingers closed around something small and hard in his pocket. He pulled it out. It was a black stone, the snowflake obsidian Ollie had given him. He held it up to the sun. It is the stone of purity, that balances the mind, body and spirit.