Dead of Winter Read Online Free PDF

around her.
    Louis frowned slightly. “Well, ma’am...”
    “I demand you do something!”
    Louis started to take out his notebook, just to shut the woman up.
    Suddenly, Jesse dropped to his knees and laid an ear to the reindeer’s torso. Then he began pumping with both hands on the deer’s chest. After a few seconds, he stopped, sighed heavily and dropped his head.
    “I’m sorry, Mrs. Jaspers, he’s gone,” he said softly.
    She glared at Jesse. “That’s not funny, Officer Harrison.”
    Louis turned away to hide his smile.
    Jesse stood up, brushing the snow from his pants. “Kincaid, do you have rape kit in the car?”
    Mrs. Jaspers set her flabby jaw and wagged a finger. “I’m going to report you, young man. For all the good it does.”
    “Just having a little fun, Mrs. Jaspers,” Jesse said.
    “That reindeer has been in my family for years.”
    “Well, maybe the life insurance can help with the burial expenses.”
    Mrs. Jaspers crossed her arms and began to describe the hoodlums. Jesse pulled the cap of his pen off with his teeth and started to write in his notebook. Louis glanced up and down the street. Kids usually liked to see the results of their pranks and he suspected the culprits were lurking nearby. But his eye was drawn to the white house at the corner.
    It was a pretty house, two stories with green shutters and trimmed evergreens. It was the kind of house you’d expect to see on “Happy Days”. Only this one had yellow crime tape strung on the porch.
    “Jess, you need me here?”
    “What?” Jesse said, scribbling in his notebook. He spun around. “Where you going?”
    Louis crossed the street and stopped at the black mailbox. Across its side it read: THE PRYCES. He heard Jesse come up behind him.
    “What are you doing?” Jesse asked.
    “I’d like to go in,” Louis said.
    “What for?”
    “I’d just like to see the scene.”
    Jesse looked at the house then shrugged. “Go ahead. “We’ve already been through it a hundred times.”
    Louis trudged up the snowy walk and stepped over the crime tape onto the porch. The green wood door was intact but a piece of plywood had been nailed over the hole where the glass window once was. There were black smudges on the edges of the door and the porch railing where they had been dusted.
    “What happened exactly?” Louis asked Jesse.
    “Pryce came downstairs. He was standing behind the door when he was blasted through the window. It was a twelve gauge. Hit him in the chest. We found Pryce’s gun lying on the floor.”
    “He pulled his gun?”
    “Never fired it.”
    “What time?”
    “About three-fifteen a.m.”
    “You get anything?”
    “One boot print. A neighbor heard the shot. Another neighbor thought he saw somebody in the backyard.”
    “Not much to go on,” Louis said, his gaze roaming over the door.
    Jesse let out a sigh. “There was one other thing.”
    Louis turned.
    “We found a card next to the body.”
    “A Christmas card?”
    “No, a playing card, like for poker. It had this weird drawing on the back.”
    “Of what?”
    “A skull and bones, you know, like a pirate flag or a poison bottle.”
    “What number?”
    “Huh?”
    “The card...a number or a face card?”
    “It was an ace.”
    “Of what?”
    Jesse shifted uneasily. “Spades.”
    Louis watched him for a second then looked away. “Think it was symbolic of anything?”
    “I don’t know,” Jesse said. “Maybe it meant something, maybe it didn’t.”
    “You’re sure Pryce wasn’t working on something when he was killed?”
    “I told you, we went through all the stuff in his desk but there was nothing but a routine burglary of a tourist cabin. Other than that, I’ve got no clue what Pryce was doing.”
    Louis turned to face him. “He didn’t talk to you about what he was working on?”
    Jesse picked at an evergreen. “No. He wasn’t big on casual conversation. He never really talked to anybody in the department about much.”
    “How long was