Snow Blind

2

Traffic on Theodore Wirth Parkway was an unmitigated disaster – the twelve inches of yesterday’s fresh snow had been churned into treacherous slop before the overworked battalion of snowplows had been able to catch up, and when the temperature had plummeted overnight, the slop froze into icy furrows. Instant bobsled track. Magozzi had stopped counting fender-benders long ago.

Still two blocks from the park’s main entrance, he’d been sitting in his car at a dead standstill for almost five minutes, watching enviously as throngs of pedestrians waddled cheerfully and unimpeded past the gridlock in their warmest winter garb, heading for the Winter Fest Snowman Sculpting Competition. There were too many to count, all of them braving the wind and cold and traffic just to watch people play in the snow, and amazingly, they all looked happy about it.

This town was absolutely nuts for winter. Or maybe they were just nuts; Magozzi hadn’t decided. Once there was enough snow on the ground, streets were always blocked off for one thing or another – sled-dog races, cross-country ski marathons, hockey demonstrations, or bikini-clad residents making a big fuss over the idiocy of diving into a frozen lake or river. Every winter sport the world ever thought of had a home base here, and when they ran out of sports, they took art outside.

Give Minnesotans a block of ice and they’ll harvest twenty thousand more from whatever lake is handy and build a palace. Give them a little snow and you’re likely to find a scale replica of Mount Rushmore or the White House on someone’s front yard. Ice and snow sculpture had been elevated to artistry here, and competitors came from all over the world to participate in any number of winter festivals. Who would have thought that a snowman contest that the department sponsored just for kids would attract this much attention?

He moved another half-block by inches, past a wooded section of the park, and got his first glimpse of the open field that fronted the boulevard. Like all the drivers before him, he slammed on his brakes and stared out his window in amazement.

The park opened up here onto a good thirty acres of empty, rolling land that looked a lot like a golf course in summer. Today it looked like a blindingly white battlefield for an invading army of snowmen. Magozzi gaped at what looked like hundreds of them sprouting up every few yards, up and down the hills, staring out at the boulevard with their black lifeless eyes and silly carrot noses.

When he finally got into the park, he pulled into the first illegal spot he could find, between a Channel Ten satellite van and a NO PARKING AT ANY TIME sign. He grabbed his gloves and a thermos from the passenger seat, and stepped out in time to catch a frigid gust of wind square in the face.

Hundreds of spectators were milling around the park, watching piles of snow take shape under frozen hands, and Magozzi wondered how he was ever going to find his partner in such a vast sea of anonymous bipeds swaddled head-to-toe in fur, down, and Thinsulate.

He finally spotted Gino on the far side of the field, his modest five-foot-nine-inch frame cutting a towering figure amid all the crazed, screaming little munchkins who swirled around him in a rainbow of brightly colored coats, scarves, and hats.

Gino, on the other hand, was dressed all in black, as if in mourning, bundled up in a huge down parka so puffy he could barely bend his arms. He had some kind of animal on his head, and his hands were encased in leather snowmobile mittens big enough to be pizza paddles. It was obvious that his mood was even blacker than his outer-wear, because he was planting nasty kicks to the base of his nascent snowman.

‘Nice parka, Gino. How many ducks died for that thing?’

‘It’s about time you showed up. And to answer your question, not enough. I can’t feel my extremities. I think I have frostbite. And hypothermia. Goddamnit, I hate winter, I hate snow, I hate cold. Remind me why I live here again?’

‘Because you love mosquitoes?’

‘Wrong answer.’

‘Must be the change of seasons, then.’

‘No, it’s because every goddamned winter, the brain cells that know how miserable it is here freeze and die. It takes ’em all summer to grow back, and then it’s winter again and the whole ugly process starts all over.’

‘But you look great – most places you just can’t get away with earflaps anymore.’

Gino adjusted the black pelt on his head a little self-consciously. ‘Laugh now, freeze your ass off later, Leo. The wind chill is about fifty degrees below zero, and dressed like that, you’re going to be running for the car in five minutes. What, are you shopping with the Chief now? You look like a mobster.’

Magozzi smoothed the front of his new cashmere overcoat – a Christmas gift from Grace MacBride. ‘I heard it was supposed to warm up. Look, the sun’s coming out already.’

‘When the sun comes out in Hawaii, it warms up. When the sun comes out in Puerto Vallarta, it warms up. When the sun comes out in Minnesota in January, you just go snow-blind.’

‘And therein lies the real truth as to why you live here.’

‘So I can go snow-blind?’

‘No, so you can complain about the weather.’

Gino mulled that over for a good, long time and finally nodded. ‘That’s actually a good point, Leo. The only thing worse than bad weather is boring weather.’ He bent down and swept up a mitt full of dry, powdery snow. ‘You want to tell me how the hell I’m supposed to build a snowman out of this?’

Magozzi gestured toward a group of kids who were working with spritzer bottles full of water. ‘Watch and learn. You use the water like glue.’

‘Okay, Michelangelo, go pull your gun on them and requisition a water bottle for the MPD.’ He looked hopefully at the thermos Magozzi was carrying. ‘Tell me you got schnapps in that thing.’

‘Hot chocolate. You’re not supposed to drink in the cold. It dilates your blood vessels and you get hypothermia faster.’

‘I already have hypothermia, so what’s the difference?’ Gino turned back to his misshapen, pathetic half-snowman that was shedding vast portions of its body with each gust of wind. ‘Christ, look at this. This is the worst snowman in the whole contest.’

Magozzi took a few steps back and eyeballed it. ‘Maybe there’s a conceptual-art category. You could enter it as Snowman with Psoriasis.’

‘You’re just full of wisecracks today, aren’t you?’

‘I’m trying to cheer you up. Aren’t Angela and the kids coming?’

‘Later, for the judging. And I want to get at least an honorable mention, so help me out here.’

‘Okay, I’m ready. Where do we start?’

‘I think we need a theme.’

Magozzi nodded. ‘Good plan. Like what?’

‘Hell, I don’t know. Maybe we should do something cop-related, since we’re cops.’

‘I’m with you. I think a cop snowman would be appropriate.’

‘But nothing too flashy. See that one over by the woods?’ Gino pointed to a nearby snowman that had cross-country skis sticking out of its base, ski poles propped against its torso, and a pair of Elvis-style reflective sunglasses perched atop a carrot nose. ‘It’s too skinny if you ask me, but nice execution overall. I’m thinking we could use it as a template.’

‘Whatever you say. You’re the visionary, I’m just the free labor. Tell me what to do.’

‘Make me a head that won’t fall apart.’

Gino and Magozzi started working fast, rolling and molding and shaping. The sun was on their side, because it was bright and high in the sky now, softening up the snow and making it easier to work with. A half hour later, they had a respectable-looking basic snowman.

‘That’s a damn fine start,’ Gino said, stepping back to admire their handiwork. ‘A few details, maybe a couple trimmings, and we’ll have ourselves a contender. What do you think?’

‘I think its butt looks fat.’

Gino rolled his eyes. ‘Snowmen are supposed to have fat butts.’

‘Maybe some arms would balance him out a little.’

‘Great idea. Go get some twigs from those bushes over there.’

‘It’s illegal to pick foliage in parks.’

‘I don’t give a shit. I’m not signing off on this thing until it has some limbs. And don’t make any smart-ass remarks about the Disability Act.’

Magozzi wandered over to the straggly thicket that bordered a margin of woods, stopping to look at the skiing snowman on the way. The sun was hitting it full-on now, and its left side was starting to look glazed and a little mushy. With any luck, it would melt before judging and they’d have one less competitor.

‘This yours?’

Magozzi looked down at a little red-haired kid who’d suddenly appeared at his side.

‘No.’

The kid couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, but he was circling the snowman with the critical eye of a seasoned judge. ‘It’s pretty good. Better than that one the fat guy’s working on.’ He pointed to Gino.

‘That’s my partner you’re talking about.’

The kid looked up at him, nonplussed. ‘You don’t look gay.’

The ever-evolving English language, Magozzi thought. Seemed like every word had multiple meanings nowadays. Somebody was going to have to make up some new ones eventually. ‘Not that kind of partner. We’re cops.’

Now the kid was impressed. ‘Did you ever shoot anybody?’

‘No,’ Magozzi lied.

‘Oh.’ Disappointed, the kid turned back to the skiing snowman, dismissing Magozzi as quickly as he’d engaged him. Clearly, inanimate objects were more interesting than cops who didn’t shoot people.

Magozzi looked around to make sure Park Service wasn’t hovering in the bushes, waiting to ambush him, then started harvesting illegal arms for their snowman.

A few seconds later the screaming started. Magozzi spun toward the source, his hand on his holster even before the pivot, and saw the red-haired kid standing in front of the skiing snowman, staring up at it with wide blue eyes and an impossibly wide mouth.

He was at the kid’s side in seconds, looking at the carrot nose tilting downward in the melting face, the sunglasses sliding down the carrot, and the big, terrorized milky eyes the sunglasses had been hiding. The real nose behind the carrot was a waxy white, right off the color palette of the dead.

Oh. Shit.

The kid was still screaming. Magozzi put his hands on his shoulders and turned him gently away from the snowman that wasn’t a snowman, toward the red-haired man and woman running frantically toward their terrified son.