Snow Blind

1

Minneapolis hadn’t had much of a winter. Every promised storm had veered far to the south, dumping Minnesota’s fair share of snow on states that neither wanted nor deserved it, like Iowa.

Meanwhile bitter Minnesotans watched their lawns green up in the occasional rain, and their snowmobiles gather dust in the garage. A few diehard riders made the short trek to Iowa to try out new machines, but they never talked about it at the water cooler on Monday morning. It was simply too humiliating.

Today was going to change all that, and the whole state was giddy with anticipation.

The snow started at ten o’clock in the morning, falling with a gentle vengeance, as if to apologize for its late arrival. Within an hour there wasn’t a blade of grass visible in the whole city, the surface streets were slick with new snow hiding the black ice beneath it, and the average freeway speed had dropped to seven miles per hour. Reporters’ mini-cams picked up shots of lunchtime drivers behind the wheels of cars barely inching along in the kind of stop-and-go traffic that normally fosters road rage, but all the drivers were smiling.

In City Hall, Detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth were totally oblivious to the little surprise nature was cooking up outside. They sat at their facing desks in the back corner, grinning at each other. It wasn’t the kind of picture you saw often in Minneapolis Homicide, but this was a banner day.

Gino propped his feet on the desktop and laced his hands behind his head. ‘We are never going to have another day this good. Not on the job, anyway.’

Magozzi pondered that. ‘Maybe we should retire right now. Go out in a blaze of glory, get jobs as golf pros on some course in Hawaii.’

‘Golf pros never get a high like this.’

‘Probably not.’

‘And neither one of us knows how to golf.’

‘How hard can it be? You hit a little ball into a little hole. Pinball on grass, is what it is.’

Gino’s grin widened. ‘We are probably the only homicide detectives in history where the homicide victim lived.’

‘Nah. Must have happened a hundred times before.’

Gino made a face. ‘Yeah. I suppose. But not in this department. And she could just as well have died, if it weren’t for the two greatest detectives on the planet.’ He shook his head in happy disbelief. ‘Man, this is almost better than sex.’

Magozzi thought that was a load of crap, but he was feeling too good to take issue with it.

They’d been called out on a probable homicide four days ago. Bloody bedroom, drunken ex-husband with a history of abuse and assault, and a missing woman who’d had a restraining order against the dirtbag ever since the divorce. Magozzi and Gino had found her early this morning, locked in the trunk of a car in the long-term lot at the airport, barely breathing. The docs at Hennepin General said she was going to make it, and they’d been floating ever since.

Gino rolled his chair around to face the window, and his silly grin turned upside down. ‘Oh, crap. That stuff’s still coming down.’

‘Good. People hardly ever kill each other when it’s snowing.’

‘Oh, yeah? Homicides were up six percent last quarter.’

‘Because there was no snow. It’ll get better now. Man, look at it come down.’ Magozzi walked over to the window and looked down at the mess the storm was making of the street.

Gino joined him, shaking his head. ‘Those homicide stats never made sense to me. Should be the other way around. Winter in this state is enough to make anyone homicidal. Boy, this better stop soon.’

Magozzi shoved his hands in his pockets and smiled. ‘We’re supposed to get at least a foot.’

‘Aw, jeez, come on, don’t tell me that.’

‘Sorry, buddy. Looks like there’s going to be a Winter Fest after all. Baby’s got snow.’

‘Goddamnit.’ Gino’s happy-camper mood was officially deceased. ‘So I’m going to end up spending one of my two days off building a stupid snowman for a stupid kids’ festival in the freezing cold. Those so-called computer wizards at Monkeewrench ever get a lead on who the hell is doing this to me?’

Gino was the very reluctant fall guy for every charity gig the MPD sponsored, thanks to some anonymous donor who kept doubling the proceeds on the condition that Gino had to participate.

‘I don’t think so.’

Gino narrowed his eyes. ‘Well, that’s pretty interesting, if you ask me. We’ve got four geniuses who developed the most sophisticated crime-solving software in the world, can hack into the NSA database with their brains tied behind their backs, and yet they can’t put a name to a bank routing number. That smells, and you know it. Monkeewrench is behind this. Specifically, Miss Grace MacBride herself.’

Magozzi smiled a little at the mention of Grace. ‘Now, why would she want to do that? She likes you.’

‘Well, gee, let me think. Maybe because in the past I’ve been a little negative about you two trying to have a relationship. She’s still mad about that.’

‘Grace doesn’t get mad.’

‘Tell me about it. She gets even.’

By noon there were five inches on the ground, most of the city schools had started bussing the kids home, and people were cross-country skiing on side streets the plows hadn’t hit yet. By mid-afternoon four more inches had fallen, along with the mercury, and the freeways were at a dead standstill, clogged with remorseful commuters who’d made the bad decision not to leave work early.

By nightfall the storm was still dumping its load of white at the rate of an inch an hour. The streets were a mess, and most of the city had locked itself down for the night. Tommy thought of all the fools sitting in front of their fireplaces sipping hot toddies or whatever it was such people drank, missing the first real snow of the season and the sights and silence of a big metropolis that had ground to a halt.

It was spooky, in a way, to be in the park when it was this empty. As far as he could tell, the only people around were over on the lighted sledding hill, all the way across the big field. They looked like colorful ants from this distance, and he could barely hear them. Even though it was the first time in this long, snow-free winter that the city had opened the cross-country ski trails, all but the die-hards would wait for daylight and perfectly groomed trails before snapping on the skids. Tomorrow the trails would be jammed, but tonight they were his.

Even in perfect conditions, not many skiers used the higher, wooded trails in the park, especially after dark, which was why Tommy liked them. No shuffling kids, no pokey old-timers to block the narrow passageways through the big trees, break his rhythm, and slow him down.

The groomers had hit the trails once today after the first six inches, but since then another several inches had fallen, and he liked the challenge of muscling the long skis through it, making his marks the first in the new snow.

The big hill up to the woods had been a bitch, though, and Tommy could already feel the strain in his thighs and shoulders, and they’d only been skiing for an hour. His daily workouts at the gym kept him tight and strong, but there was no way those stationary ski machines could prepare you for the real thing, no matter how high you set the resistance. They couldn’t duplicate the jittering bumps of a rough trail, or a skid on a slick spot that tugged your legs sideways instead of forward, using a whole different group of muscles. Maybe he’d invent one, make a million dollars.

He stopped for a breath, shook out his legs and hands, then went still for a moment, listening for the shushing sound of Toby’s skis behind him. He was back there somewhere, probably struggling on the incline up into the woods, which was pretty much the story of Toby’s whole life. He’d always been a little slower, a little weaker, and some kind of bull’s-eye for just about every bad shake that can hit a guy. Best thing that ever happened to him was hooking up with Tommy way back in the fourth grade, when every other kid wanted to beat the crap out of him just because they could. Tommy fought off the bullies, Toby idolized him, and it was still that way, all these years later. The bullies were bigger and meaner, but Tommy was still fighting Toby’s battles for him, whether they were with guys on the street or their superiors at work, and that was just fine with him. He liked being the hero, and most of all, he liked the hero worship that went along with it. He supposed it didn’t matter if your battles were on a playground, in a war, or on the street, they made a bond between men that couldn’t be broken. Women just didn’t get that.

He’d been still for too long, and the cold was starting to seep in through his Gore-Tex suit. He was just opening his mouth to holler back at Toby when he finally heard the shush of skis heading toward him. He listened for a second, frowning, because the sound wasn’t coming from the trail behind; it was moving toward him sideways, through the woods. And then he saw the little beams from skier headlamps, jittering through the big tree trunks.

He snorted out a plume of frost, irritated that he’d have company on the trail in a few seconds, and unreasonably angry that he was no longer the best, strongest, and fastest skier in the park. Skiing off the trail through unmarked woods with nearly a foot of new snow took a lot of strength and endurance – more than he had – and nothing pissed off Tommy more than being second best.

He thought about shooting off down the trail while he still had a little head start, then thought about the humiliation of skiers that strong passing him. No way he was going to let that happen. I’m just waiting for a friend to catch up, he’d tell them, standing there casually while they skied away, as if he could have taken them if he really wanted to.

He side-stepped off the trail to give them space, then watched them come, his own headlamp showing a glimpse of black suits and ski masks moving steadily toward him. They might be strong, but they sure were stupid, he thought, wearing ski masks when they were working up a sweat like that.

Twenty feet back on the trail, Toby was shoving himself along by the poles, trying to keep his skis in Tommy’s tracks to make the going easier. He didn’t have his ski legs yet this winter, and the trip up the long hill into the woods had left his thighs weak and quivering.

It surprised him a little when he spotted more than one headlamp through the snow just ahead, especially since he’d been following only one set of tracks. A few feet closer and he could make out Tommy, standing loose and casual off the trail, watching other skiers approach from the woods. He shook his head at the foolhardy souls who’d ventured off the trail at night, dug in with his poles, and gave a last, strong push that sent him gliding toward them. In the middle of his glide, he saw the first skier out of the woods slide in close, raise a gun to Tommy’s head and pull the trigger.

Toby Myerson kept drifting in and out of a delicious sleep, and each time his eyes fluttered open, the landscape changed, as if someone had pushed fast-forward on a movie.

Earlier, the big sledding hill across the field had been a rush-hour kiddie freeway, jumbled with the primary colors of a hundred miniature snow-suits, and the air had been sweet with the delighted squeals of children. Happy music that warmed him from the inside out.

Toby loved watching the little bodies sailing down the snowy hill, tumbling off saucers and sleds and the occasional toboggan at the bottom. They rolled like balls and then skittered up the slope like colorful insects; so animated and tireless, so very alive. Occasionally he would focus on one child who seemed a little taller and more coordinated than the others, and he would wish with all his heart that the child would cross the stretch of open parkland and walk up to greet him. He was feeling a bit strange at that point, and worried that he might seem intimidating. Youngsters frightened so easily, and if they were frightened, they would run from him, and Toby thought he would just die if that happened, because he had to tell someone about… something… something bad. He just couldn’t remember what it was.

Things seemed darker when he opened his eyes again. At first he thought the park lights had been turned off, but that couldn’t be it, because when he moved his eyes up to look at them he could still see pinpoints of brightness, as if none of the light could get out of the bulbs. Odd.

Only a few shadowy stragglers remained on the sledding hill now, and the only sounds he heard were the shouts of the last parents calling their kids up the hill, home to bed, because the park was closing.

Don’t go. Please don’t go.

And then Toby realized he was very, very cold. He’d been still for so long, watching the children. Probably hours. My God, what had he been thinking? He had to move, get the blood flowing, get home and warm.

Funny how the scenery remained exactly the same, no matter how far he went. And the really funny part was that his mind recorded every movement of his legs and arms, and yet he couldn’t feel the snow sliding beneath his feet or the good stretch of his triceps.

That’s because you’re not moving, Toby.

Oh, my God.

There was a brief flutter of heat as his body tried to find some adrenaline to send to his heart, and he concentrated on not blinking, on screaming as loud as he could to the last kid climbing up the hill, omigod he was almost to the top, screaming, screaming, splitting the silence with terror and outrage because now he knew he was dying and he couldn’t move and Why didn’t the kid turn around?

At the top of the hill, the last child grinned up at his father, and the two of them turned to look out over the empty, absolutely silent park.