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 résumé 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 résumé 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…
Taking the legal pad, he went back to his desk and retrieved Pryce’s pocket notebook from a drawer. He flipped slowly through the pages, searching for the number.
There it was – 61829. But this time with the words in front of it: SAM YELLOW LINCOLN. Sam…Yellow…Lincoln. Damn, Pryce wasn’t referring to a car or a plate; he was using standard radio code: SYL61829. Was it a serial number for a gun? He jotted it on a paper and went over to Dale’s computer.
“Dale, I need you to run a gun check.”
“Sure. No prob.”
Louis glanced at his watch. Shift was starting soon; he had to get into uniform. He hurried off to the locker room. Dale was watching the report print out as Louis came back into the office, buckling his belt.
“It’s a Beretta 9-millimeter,” Dale said, ripping off the printout. “It’s registered to Calvin Hammersmith, 4578 Pine Bluff Road, Kalkaska, Michigan.”
“Check an arrest record,” Louis said, his heart quickening.
Dale started punching in numbers. Louis sat down at his desk and stared at the name on the printout. Who the hell was this Hammersmith guy? And why did Pryce care about his gun?
“Hammersmith was arrested a bunch of times,” Dale called out a few minutes later. “The last time was in 1975 for assault. And it was right here in Loon Lake.”
Louis jumped up from his chair. “Here? You’re kidding.”
“He served two years.”
Louis came over to the computer to read the report. “Nothing after that? Nothing since ’77?”
Dale shook his head.
Louis began to pace. “I need to know more about this guy.”
Dale picked up the phone. “I’ll call the sheriff over there.”
Louis returned to his desk and picked up Pryce’s notebook, staring at the gun serial number. The radio crackled and he listened while Flo gave directions to a traffic accident.
Dale hung up. “Well, I have some bad news and some good news,” he said. “Hammersmith was a badass. Disabled vet with a history of violence and alcoholism.”
Louis’s heart skipped. “And?”
“He died in 1980. Motorcycle accident.”
Louis tossed the notebook on the desk. “Shit!”
“What’s the matter?” Dale asked.
Louis looked over at him, shaking his head. “I was just hoping for a nice Christmas present.”
He picked up the notebook again. Pryce had written the number down twice. It had to mean something. Or did Hammersmith, even though he was dead, have some connection? He stared at the number, locking it away in his memory. It had to mean something.
“Did you get anything for Christmas?”
Jesse looked at Louis from behind his sunglasses. “I got laid.”
“I meant presents. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
The light changed and Jesse moved the cruiser down Main Street. “Sorry. Julie’s on my ass. Says she’s scared for me. Neither of us is getting any sleep.”
“Well, it seems you found an acceptable substitute.”
Jesse smiled weakly. “Right. Actually, she got me a cool present, a compact disc player. You ever seen one?”
“Sure. What kind of music you like?”
“Good old-fashioned rock and roll, man. I like the Stones best. How about you?”
