Excerpt from Dead of Winter by P.J. Parrish, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

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 pewter pawn, in the shape of a soldier.

"Do you play?"

Louis turned. The man was about six-foot, trim but broad-shouldered in his starched baby-blue shirt. His short hair was silver-blonde and his ruddy, clean-shaven face was that of a man only thirty-eight, maybe forty at the most.

"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.

The chief came forward to take the pawn from Louis’s hand. "Anyone can learn strategy. Courage is what really counts, courage to use original moves that surprise your opponent."

Louis nodded as if in understanding.

"Like a Marshall swindle, or a Lucena position," the chief went on. He said the blank look on Louis’s face and smiled. "Or a gambit. You know what a gambit is, don’t you?

Louis shook his head.

"The gambit is when you sacrifice one of your pieces to throw an opponent off," the chief said. "There are many different kinds, the Swiss gambit, the permanent sacrifice, the classic bishop sacrifice, the Evans gambit. These moves are what elevates the game to artistry."

Louis nodded in acknowledgementg, half-expecting the man to ask him to play as part of the interview.

The chief turned, picking up Louis’s application from the desk. Louis found himself staring at the man’s face. It was chiseled, with a jutting jawline, broad forehead and strong brows shielding eyes the color of pale sapphires. Louis thought of a photograph in the National Geographic he had seen outside, a photograph of the mysterious ancient stone statues on Easter Island with their massive, powerful heads. His eyes went to the desk, looking for a nameplate. There was none.

"So, why'd you leave your last job?" the chief asked, looking up.

"It was personal. It just didn’t work out."

"I called down there, you know, to your little town in Mississippi."

Great, Louis thought. "Who did you talk to?"

"A man named Junior Resnick."

Louis kept his face impassive. What a reference.

The chief gave an odd smile. "The man’s obviously an idiot, but he likes you. Says that you’ve got no sense of humor, but you’re a smart guy."

Louis stifled a smile. "I’m surprised. We had our differences."

The chief gazed at Louis, as if taking his physical measure. "Investigator," he said, tossing the application on the desk. "Impressive title for someone who hasn’t seen his thirtieth birthday."

"That’s all it was, a title."

"Well, when we give titles here, it means something. That’s why we have so few." He held up the pawn and smiled. "But even a pawn can win a promotion, maybe become a knight or bishop, right?"

Louis nodded. The chief went back to the chess set and carefully set the pawn back down in its square.

"Tell me," he said, turning. "Did you get the respect you deserve down there or was it as hard as I would suspect?"

Well, that was a unique way to ask if being a black cop in the South was a problem. "Respect didn’t come automatically with the uniform down there," Louis said.

"It does here," the chief said. He went back to his desk and pulled a pack of Camels out of a drawer. He lit one and took a quick drag as he heft a hip on the desk. Louis noticed how sharply creased his pants were. You could cut bread on them.

"Il n’existe que trois etres respectables: le pretre, le guerrier, le poete. Savoir, tuer et creer."

Copyright P.J. Parrish 2001. All rights reserved. Reprinted with the permission of the author, PJ Parrish