Dead of Winter

“What can I help you with?” The smile was genuine. He had perfect straight teeth and close-cropped hair. His skin was smooth and pink, and combined with the powder-blue police shirt, he looked like a baby shower gift. His silver nameplate said DALE MCGUIRE.

“I saw the ad in the paper,” Louis said.

The officer’s eyes moved over Louis’s blue blazer and he reached under the counter and produced an application form and several other papers. Louis moved the tray of cookies and turned the papers so he could read them.

“You have to do the app here. Chief wants to make sure you can read and write,” the officer said.

Louis nodded, reaching for his pen. “Have you had many applicants?”

“A few, but you’re the last. Chief says the deadline is five, he means five.”

Louis glanced at the empty chairs, debating whether to take a seat. His eye was drawn to a framed photograph on the wall. It had a small black ribbon across the top corner. The handsome black officer in the photograph was named Thomas Pryce. The plate beneath the photo said: IN MEMORIUM JUNE 12, 1952-DECEMBER 1, 1984.

Two weeks ago.

Louis turned to see McGuire staring at him.

“Is there something wrong?” Louis asked.

McGuire smiled. “No, nothing. Would you like a cookie?”

Louis nodded and picked up a cookie, munching on it as he completed the forms.

“L-17 to Central, we’re back in service.”

The sound of the officer’s voice on the radio drew Louis’s attention to the dispatch desk in the corner. The dispatcher was a walrus of a woman with a jet-black bouffant and Fifties-style cat-eye glasses. With a sigh, she lowered her paperback and keyed the microphone.

“Ten-four, seventeen. I have a message for you. Your wife requests that you stop and pick up egg nog on the way home.”

“Ten-four, Central.”

McGuire nodded toward the dispatcher. “That’s Edna.”

Edna gave a wave from behind her Danielle Steel novel without looking up at Louis.

More calls trickled in and Louis listened as he filled out the forms. A lost dog. An officer stating he was checking in on an elderly woman who lived alone. Another requesting jumper cables for a stranded motorist.

All his life, Louis had set his sights on working for a big city department with plenty of action. But here he was. What did this town even need cops for?

He glanced at Dale McGuire, who was re-taping the tinsel around his computer screen. Still, there was something about this place. Something in the air, something…sweet and clean that was more than just pine and gingerbread. He had felt it the moment he drove into town. He remembered something his foster mother Frances once said, something about people having places on earth where their souls felt comfortable. Places where, as soon as you set foot in them you felt at home. He had never felt that special pull to any one place.

“You know,” McGuire said, interrupting his thoughts, “the Chief hasn’t found anyone he liked yet. When you get done with that he’ll want to see you.”

See him? Now?

“He’s anxious to fill the job. Doesn’t like working short-handed,” McGuire said.

Louis glanced at the Chief’s door. He saw his cold ugly apartment back in Detroit and felt the sting of lonely nights there.

God, he wanted this job. He wanted it bad.

“The Chief will see you now.”

Louis looked at his watch. He had been waiting for two hours. He had read every flyer and wanted poster on the bulletin board and thumbed through the four old National Geographics three times. He stood up, smoothing his jacket. Dale McGuire led him to the Chief’s door and knocked. They waited until a commanding voice summoned them in.

There was no one in the office. Louis was wondering where the chief was when he heard the flush of a toilet behind a closed door to his right. Taking a breath to relax, he looked around.

He was standing on blood red carpeting, vacuum tracks visible around the perimeter. The walls were covered with framed photographs, certificates, plaques and newspaper articles. On the credenza behind the large desk was a handsome pewter chess set. Louis’s eyes were drawn to two swords mounted over the credenza. One was gleaming steel with gold cording. The other was old, foreign looking. Louis stared at it. Good God, was it a samurai sword?

The sound of running water came from the bathroom. The man was taking his time. Louis went to the credenza and picked up one of the chess pieces. It was a pawn, in the shape of a soldier.

“You play?”

Louis turned. The man was about six feet, trim but broad-shouldered in his starched baby-blue shirt. His short hair was silver-blond and his ruddy clean-shaven face was that of man in his late thirties.

“Some,” Louis said with a smile. “But I’m no good at it.”

“Maybe because you think of it only as a game,” the man said. “It’s more than that. It’s science, poetry, mystery. Just when you think you are solving its secrets, it thwarts you.”

“I never learned the strategy, I guess,” Louis said.