Snow Blind

19

Magozzi and Gino rode in comfortable silence for the first half hour of their trip back to the Cities from Dundas County, which was exactly what they both needed. Magozzi thought that if the discrimination police would let you get away with it, it should be written into department policy. Men partnered with men, women with women.

In his early days on the force, he’d been paired with a savvy female officer as good at the job as anyone he’d known then or since. She could control the bad guys, hysterical victims, her weapon, her career – anything but her mouth, as if silence were some fearful thing she had to keep at bay with constant conversation. There wasn’t anyone he would have rather had watching his back, and still, after about two weeks with her in a closed patrol unit he started to have fantasies about running the car into a tree – on her side.

Sometimes you had to have quiet, to think about things, or stop thinking about them. Women didn’t get that. It was one of the ten million things he’d simply accepted and stopped trying to understand a long time ago. Women’s and men’s minds worked differently. It didn’t make one method better than the other; it just made working with the opposite sex – on the job or in a relationship – a whole lot tougher.

‘Ah, shit,’ Gino said suddenly, and Magozzi smiled. Typical male conversation starter.

‘What?’

‘Damn watch stopped. You know I hate these things. My dad’s watch stopped, he wound it back up. Nowadays you have to make a trip to the store, wait in line for some gum-cracking kid to sell you a battery, wait again while they try to figure out what battery fits and how the hell to get the case apart… crap. How come the dash clock doesn’t work?’

‘Probably because no one had time to read the two-hundred-page manual and learn how to set the thing.’

‘New cars, new watches, and we still can’t make anything work. The world is going to hell.’

‘In many ways.’

Gino let out a noisy sigh, as if he’d been holding his breath for thirty minutes. ‘I gotta tell you, Leo, Bitterroot kind of messed me up. Left me conflicted. I looked at Julie Albright’s face, thought to myself, we’re spitting in the ocean here. A couple days ago we’re all on top of ourselves ’cause we got that woman out of the trunk before she died, and then… Christ, I can’t even remember her name…’

‘Betty Ekman.’

‘Yeah, damnit, and then we find out there’s a whole goddamned town filled with Betty Ekmans and Julie Albrights, and why the hell couldn’t we get to them before they got stuffed in trunks or cut to pieces?’

Magozzi closed his eyes. ‘We do what we can, Gino.’

‘Oh, yeah? Then how come four hundred women had to build a whole damn town to keep themselves safe? Shit. How am I supposed to go home and tell Angela about that? She’ll give me a drink and a plate of pasta to die for, pat my head because I feel bad, but all the time she’ll be giving me that doe-eyed look, the sad one, like I should be able to fix it.’

‘She does not think that, and you know it.’

‘Maybe not, but the thing is, you feel personally responsible for one woman, you start feeling personally responsible for all of them, and Bitterroot was an in-your-face reminder of how goddamned short we fall.’

‘So maybe you skip Bitterroot when you tell Angela about your day.’

‘You’re kidding. Whaddya think? You get to keep this stuff to yourself when you’re married?’ Gino looked immediately contrite. It was getting harder and harder to remember that Magozzi had been married once, and that Heather hadn’t given a shit about Leo’s job. ‘Sorry, buddy. I keep forgetting about Heather.’

‘I wish I could.’

It was barely after five, and already full dark by the time they got back to City Hall. It wasn’t the worst thing about winters in the Midwest, but it came close. Dark when you left for work in the morning, dark when you came home at night. Magozzi wondered if he’d remember what color his house was come spring.

Homicide had cleared out for supper, with the exception of Johnny McLaren, who was barely visible behind the towering piles of paperwork on his desk. The whole place reeked like microwave popcorn and scorched coffee, and trash cans were overflowing with empty soda cans and take-out containers.

‘Did we miss the party?’ Gino asked, poking around for leftovers.

McLaren was bleary-eyed and about as messy looking as his desk, but he was genuinely happy to see them. ‘Yeah. The dancing girls just left.’

‘If Gloria sees this pigsty, she’s going to have your hide, Johnny.’

‘That’s what I’m hoping for.’ He pushed back from his desk and stifled a yawn. ‘Hey, did you guys do a drive-by out front? Is the building still under siege?’

Magozzi was at his desk, leafing through message slips. Half of them were from reporters, the other half from garden-variety crazies who claimed they’d seen alien spacecraft, the Loch Ness monster, a yeti, and the ghost of Karl Marx building snowmen in Theodore Wirth Park Friday night. Nothing from Grace. Not that she’d ever leave a paper trail. ‘We parked in the underground lot and snuck in that way. There were still satellite vans on Fourth, though. They’ll probably camp out until the ten o’clock news.’

McLaren shook his head in disgust. ‘I watched the early news – you should hear all the talking heads playing profiler. I didn’t know whether to laugh or puke. They’ve got their hearts set on some diabolical serial killer who was beaten and tortured as a child in front of Christmas cartoons.’

‘Sounds plausible,’ Gino said, sampling a half-eaten lemon bar.

‘Any mention of the Dundas snowman?’ Magozzi asked, dragging a chair up to McLaren’s desk and sagging into it.

‘No. Kind of a miracle, isn’t it? I don’t know how you guys managed to keep that under wraps for this long, but whatever you did, it worked.’

‘Simple – nobody lives in Dundas County,’ Gino said. ‘You could test nukes up there and it would take a month before anybody noticed the tap water was glowing… Johnny, you shouldn’t eat this microwave popcorn.’ He pointed to a stainless-steel bowl brimming with unnaturally yellow puffs. ‘They use that fake butter that stays in your bloodstream for the rest of your life.’

‘No kidding?’

‘That’s what I heard. Hey, where’s Tinker?’

McLaren winced, suddenly remembering that Magozzi and Gino hadn’t gotten the full story when they were up in Dundas. ‘He went to notify Steve Doyle’s wife. He didn’t mention this to you on the phone, but I guess he was a pretty close friend. That’s how he got wind of it in the first place – Doyle’s wife called him at home early this morning in a panic.’

Gino’s hand had stopped halfway to the bowl of poison popcorn. ‘Damnit. I knew he sounded funny on the phone when I told him Steve Doyle was the Dundas snowman. How’s he doing?’

‘He’s taking it hard, and, man, does he want Weinbeck. BCA called in a prelim on the Dundas scene, and so far they’ve got zilch for forensics. Same thing with the body. Nothing that would really point a legal finger at Weinbeck.’

Magozzi frowned. ‘I thought everything pointed a finger at Weinbeck. He had an appointment with Doyle, there’s blood and signs of a struggle in the parole office…’

‘Yeah, yeah, we even got some partials of Weinbeck’s on the remote for the TV up there, but the only tune he has to sing is that he showed for the appointment, he and Doyle talked, watched a little TV, that Doyle was alive and well when he left, and as of now, we can’t prove him wrong.’

‘The file with his ex-wife’s address is missing.’

McLaren shrugged. ‘So Doyle took the file with him, maybe headed up to Bitterroot to talk to Julie Albright, and on the way the psycho snowman serial killer mugged him.’

Gino blew a raspberry. ‘That’s a crock of shit.’

‘I know that. You know that. We just can’t prove it. Hell, we’ve got a prosecutor who thinks circumstantial evidence against jaywalkers should get them the chair, and even he wouldn’t touch this one.’

‘We need to place Weinbeck in Dundas County.’

‘That would help. Finding Doyle’s car up there with Weinbeck’s prints all over it, something like that.’

Gino started fishing for popcorn again. ‘Dundas is looking. At least I hope they are. That new sheriff’s got less experience in the field than my two-year-old. I don’t know what her idea of a dragnet is, but it probably involves setting out a plate of cookies with a net over it.’

Magozzi winced. ‘Ouch.’

‘Come on, Leo, the woman doesn’t have a clue and you know it. She’s probably at home right now watching reruns of NYPD Blue trying to figure out what the hell she’s supposed to do next.’

McLaren looked at Magozzi for confirmation. ‘Is it really that bad?’

Magozzi sighed. ‘She’s brand new, right off the dispatch desk. No field experience. But I don’t know. She might do okay.’

‘Might do okay?’ Gino rolled his eyes. ‘Tell me this man isn’t a total sucker for a pretty face.’

Magozzi glared at him. ‘I didn’t see any pretty face. I saw a sheriff.’

‘Yeah, right,’ Gino grunted. ‘Anyway, you ask me, I’m having a hard time connecting the snowman up in Dundas to the two we had in the park, which means we got two cases, and we just wasted a whole damn day on the wrong one. You know, the minute things started to look good for Kurt Weinbeck murdering Doyle, I got this really cool dream scenario that we’d find him up there with Doyle’s blood all over him and Deaton’s and Myerson’s sidearms in his pockets, but I gotta tell you, it just doesn’t fit. The snowmen didn’t match, the weapons didn’t match, and the truth is, yellow-bellied wife beaters don’t go around offing cops. I’m betting Weinbeck saw the thing in the park on TV and decided to make it look like our killer did it by sticking Doyle into a snowman of his own.’

‘I’m with you.’ Magozzi was leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest, eyes closed. He didn’t open them when he talked. ‘Two cases. Weinbeck killed Doyle, and Dundas is the lucky winner of that one; somebody else killed Deaton and Myerson, and we better get our asses in gear on that one, or Sheriff Iris Rikker is going to solve her case before we solve ours.’ He opened one eye at Gino. ‘Who would be the yokels, then?’

‘Don’t give me that crap. We solved her case. We told her who did it. All she has to do is catch the guy.’

McLaren talked down to the doodle he was creating on a well-used paper napkin. ‘Or… maybe your dream scenario wasn’t such a bad call, Gino. Maybe Kurt Weinbeck is a little more than your average yellow-bellied wife beater.’

Magozzi opened both eyes and looked at him. ‘You got something?’

McLaren looked uncomfortable. ‘Hell, I don’t know. I don’t like Weinbeck for killing two cops, either, but stuff keeps cropping up.’ He kept scribbling on the napkin and Gino leaned forward to see what he was writing. Turned out it was an alligator in a dentist’s chair, having a tooth pulled. Christ. Sometimes he thought McLaren was a hell of a lot scarier than most of the guys they yanked off the street. He flopped back and gave his bruised stomach a rest while McLaren kept talking.

‘So this afternoon I get a call from Narc about a drug dealer about to go down to the deep cells for three counts of attempted murder. Trial’s next week, and Prosecution’s got four star witnesses that should get them a slam-dunk. Two of them are the dirtbags he tried to kill along with the guy who’s still in a coma. They cut a deal on the drug charges in exchange for testifying against the big guy. You want to take a stab at who the other two witnesses were?’

Gino threw up his hands. Getting information out of an Irishman was never easy. ‘Christ, I don’t know, Mr Mustard and Miss Scarlett.’

McLaren was grinning. ‘I’ll give you a hint. Two guys in blue outfits, first on the scene, caught the dealer reloading for a killing shot, a-a-nd… they liked to ski.’

‘Deaton and Myerson?’

‘Bingo. You win the canned ham. Now guess the street name of the sleazebucket going to trial.’

Gino glared at him. ‘How about you guess how long it’ll take me to strangle you if you don’t spit out whatever the hell you’re trying to tell us.’

McLaren didn’t look a bit worried. ‘They call him the Snowman.’

Gino and Magozzi just stared at him for a minute while they thought it through. It always made Johnny uncomfortable when they did that, and they did it a lot when they were working a case hard, and somebody said something that shot their minds off in a different direction.

Gino finally looked away, scrubbing at his blond brush cut, hoping to coax some more brain cells to life. ‘Okay. So this Snowman character is up for trial, and suddenly two of the witnesses against him end up dead.’

‘Packed in snowmen,’ Johnny reminded him, as if he could forget such a thing. ‘And the other two bailed on the testifying deal about ten seconds after the Chief went public with Deaton’s and Myerson’s names today. Said even if the cops didn’t get the Snowman’s message, they sure as hell did, and the way they figured, getting fitted for a prison jumpsuit was a hell of a lot better than getting fitted for a coffin.’

Magozzi was trying hard not to swallow the bait right off the bat, just in case there might be a hook inside. ‘Okay, so I’m guessing you’ve either got the Snowman locked in a holding cell somewhere, or else there’s a wrinkle.’

Johnny nodded. ‘A little one. The guy’s in Stillwater serving five on the drug charges while he waits for the attempted murder trial.’

‘Kind of a big wrinkle.’

‘Wouldn’t be the first time a doer called for a hit from prison.’

‘Risky stuff. Somebody always talks, and those guys go down like bowling pins. Unless they’ve got some kind of a family network working the outside. How big is this guy?’

‘Not that big. Kind of new on the Minneapolis scene when they nailed him, but he’s Russian, and a lot of them think The Godfather was a documentary, and that putting out a hit in America is cake. So I was checking with Stillwater just before you came in, asking about the Snowman’s prison buddies, visitors, like that. Turns out he had the same cellmate for the past two years, your friend and mine, Kurt Weinbeck.’

Gino didn’t like the coincidence, but he didn’t like the leaps McLaren was taking, either. ‘Your threads are getting down to gossamer, McLaren.’

‘You gotta think outside the box. Sure, Weinbeck might not be your first choice to hit a couple cops, but the trial’s coming right up and maybe the Snowman’s desperate. So he offers his buddy the amateur some fast dough to take care of two of his witnesses and send a warning to the other two. Weinbeck takes care of the Snowman’s business, then forces Doyle to drive him up to Dundas so he can take care of his own. I know it’s all paper-thin, but we got too many threads here. I think we got to take a look at it. Only thing I can’t figure out is why Julie Albright is still alive. He had plenty of time to get to her after taking care of Doyle.’

Gino and Magozzi looked at one another. ‘The storm might have stopped him, or maybe Bitterroot,’ Magozzi said. ‘He wasn’t counting on the security.’

‘What security?’

Gino got up out of his chair. ‘You tell him. I’m going to call Dundas and give them a few pointers.’

‘What?’

‘She doesn’t know what she’s doing, Leo, and you know it. And we’re going to just sit here while one case for sure and maybe two hang on whether or not she can figure it out?’

‘You can’t do that, Gino.’

‘I’ll be tactful.’

‘You for sure can’t do that. Sit down. I’ll call.’

‘Fine by me. Tell her to slap Weinbeck’s photo on every cow.’

Magozzi walked over to his desk and picked up the phone.

‘… and to get every unit she’s got on the road looking for Doyle’s car, and not to touch the damn thing if they find it…’

Sheriff Iris Rikker was tired. Magozzi could tell, because it only took her one word to say hello.

‘Hi, Sheriff. Leo Magozzi here. Listen, a couple things came to light today on the investigation into the two snowmen in Theodore Wirth Park that we thought you should know. We’re still at the coincidence stage, nothing solid, but there’s a real slim possibility Kurt Weinbeck might be involved.’

‘I see.’

Wow. All he got for that was two more words. Gino wasn’t going to believe this. ‘So a couple of points: First, Weinbeck may be a lot more dangerous than we thought, to anyone, not just his ex-wife.’

‘He’s probably killed at least once, Detective; he’s most certainly on the run, and he’s armed. We already thought he was pretty dangerous.’

Magozzi closed his eyes. Either he was duller than he thought, or she was sharper than Gino thought. ‘I know that. Just an extra take-care for your men.’

‘Thank you.’

‘The other thing is, we really want to talk to this guy about our snowmen, so if you get a handle on him, we’d appreciate a heads-up.’

‘Of course.’

Magozzi hunched over the phone and frowned. Now came the hard part. How the hell did you tactfully ask if she was doing all the things that any cop was supposed to do? ‘Uh… any luck finding Doyle’s car?’

A low chuckle came over the wires, and Magozzi’s frown deepened into a scowl. What was so funny about that?

‘I would have called you if we’d found Mr Doyle’s car, Detective Magozzi. We’ve called in all the shifts, and we’re covering the roads mile by mile, but we’ve got a lot of them, and it’s going to take some time. We also ran copies of Kurt Weinbeck’s mug shot and put them up on every vertical surface in the county – the local city p.d.’s are helping with that – plus we have four units doing continuous-circle patrols on the road around Bitterroot, and officers calling personally on all the adjacent landowners. Does that answer your question?’

‘I just asked if you found the car.’

‘That’s what you asked out loud. It isn’t why you called.’

He could hear the smile in her voice, and for some reason it pissed him off. It also made him feel like a jerk.