Snow Blind

6

It was Saturday afternoon and Steve Doyle should have been at home blowing snow so his wife and kids could get into the driveway that night when they came home from Northfield. He should have been cleaning up the sinkful of dirty dishes that had piled up during a week of bachelor dinners. And above all, he should have been on the couch, sipping a cold beer and watching the Gophers’ hockey game. Should have been.

Instead, he was sitting at his desk on a precious day off, reading the nauseating bio of yet another scumbag he was supposed to babysit – all because the damn blizzard had shut down every bus and most of the roads yesterday, so the newly released Kurt Weinbeck hadn’t been able to make it to his Friday-afternoon parole meeting. And for some reason known only to God and the criminal justice system, his supervisor had decided it was a good idea to reschedule and make Doyle come in on a weekend so that he could give his lecture on piss tests, gainful employment, and the halfway house that would be the scumbag’s home for the next several months. As if it would make a difference.

He drained his coffee and poured himself another cup, even though he was already flying on caffeine, and turned his attention back to the file in front of him. The more he read, the more depressed he got. Kurt Weinbeck was a multiple felon with no hope of rehabilitation that he could see – one of those frequent flyers who kept getting regurgitated back onto the streets by a system that wasn’t just blind, it was brain-dead. Doyle had always thought that guys like this should be turned into fertilizer, because they were nothing but bags of manure to start with.

Even though he was barely forty and by all accounts a few years away from total burnout, Doyle was pretty sure he’d already crossed that threshold. His wife had been begging him for two years to change jobs, and he was actually thinking about listening to her for a change. In fact, Kurt Weinbeck might be the very last case he’d ever take, and the thought actually buoyed his spirits a little.

He’d started this job as a young, devout Christian hopeful, believing absolutely that every criminal was merely a misguided victim in his own right, and that single-handedly he and God could reform any sinner. Five years in, he was a cynical agnostic thinking maybe the death penalty wasn’t such a bad idea. Ten years later he was a die-hard atheist with a.357 in his desk drawer, because half of these guys scared him to death. You could only read so many files about creeps who sexually abused their kids and raped strangers and slashed the throats of anybody who got in the way of their next hit of crack before you started thinking that if there really were a god keeping an eye on this world, you didn’t want any part of him. Year after year he’d watched the system that signed his paycheck suck them in, then spit them out so they could do it all over again. Lately he’d been fantasizing about pulling out the big gun and shooting any new parolee who walked through the door, and save the state a lot of money and the world a lot of grief.

Get out of this business, he told himself. Right now, before it’s too late.

He got up and turned on the little TV that was perched on a bracket in the wall, hoping to catch some college hockey while he waited, but instead saw a breaking news bulletin and a live feed showing a lot of Minneapolis cops knocking down snowmen at Theodore Wirth Park. He turned up the volume and felt his stomach flip-flop, wondering if there’d been a terrorist attack – hell, why not take out a park full of children? Of course, it wasn’t a terrorist attack, not by today’s standards – but leaving dead corpses for children to find qualified as terrorism in his book.

When Weinbeck showed up a few minutes later, Doyle turned down the TV, took his place at his desk, and did a quick visual inventory of his newest client. Parolees generally came in three basic models: fat and mean, muscular and mean, or skinny and mean. This one fell into the latter category, with big, bobbling eyes that raced around the room, and a sinuous, slinky body that moved and twitched like a meerkat on crack.

‘You’re thirteen minutes late, Mr Weinbeck. You realize I could have called in a warrant on you.’

‘I’m sorry, sir. It won’t happen again.’

‘Make sure it doesn’t. For future reference, show up early, and if you can’t show up early, show up on time at the latest. That’s one of the rules, and if you follow the rules, we’ll get along just fine.’

‘Yes, sir, I know.’

Doyle made a show of paging through his file. ‘I see that this is your third time on parole. Do you think we can make this your last?’

Weinbeck nodded enthusiastically and launched into his predictable spiel of bullshit about how he was genuinely remorseful, how he’d finally learned his lesson, how grateful he was for another chance, and how he would make it work this time around, blah, blah, blah. Doyle nodded at the appropriate moments, but his eyes kept drifting back to the TV.

‘Something going on?’ Weinbeck asked, following Doyle’s gaze.

‘Nothing that concerns you.’ He slid some paperwork across the desk. ‘This is your bible. It lays out the rules and regs, procedures, where you’ll be staying, where you’ll be working…’

‘… when I can eat, sleep, take a piss… I know the drill.’

‘I’m sure you do, but look it over anyhow. If you have any questions, now’s the time to ask.’

‘When can I talk to my wife?’

Doyle stared at him. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

‘She’s my wife.’

‘She divorced you two years ago. You got the papers. You get within a hundred yards of her, you’ll be back inside before you can take a breath.’

Weinbeck tried for a friendly smile. ‘How the hell am I supposed to do that? Nobody’ll tell me where she is. Besides, I just want to talk to her. A phone call is all I’m asking. They told me you’d have the number.’

‘It’s not going to happen, Weinbeck, and you know it’s not going to happen. You’ve been through this before. You want to just throw in the towel now and head straight back to Stillwater, save us all some trouble?’

Kurt Weinbeck’s manner changed instantly, and so did his countenance, softening into a practiced expression of deference and obedience. ‘No, sir. I certainly don’t. I’m sorry I mentioned it. I just worry about her. I’d like to know that she’s doing okay, that’s all.’

Doyle studied the man’s face for a long moment. Man, he hated these guys, hated the way they thought they could play you with a smile and a pretense of acquiescence, as if you were some kind of idiot. They were all self-serving, deceptive bastards. He really believed that. And yet somewhere beneath his hard-won shell of cynicism, a stupid, irritating flicker of idealism still lingered. He couldn’t get rid of it, which was probably why he was still in this job after all the years of disappointment. His head knew better, but his heart still wanted to believe that the worst scumbag was still a human being, that if the right person offered a little charity at just the right time, he could find his way back. And what would it cost him? Just a single sentence, a few words of reassurance.

‘I talked to your wife myself. She’s doing just fine.’

This time Weinbeck’s smile was genuine, and it made Doyle feel better about himself than he had in months.

‘Thank you, sir. It means a lot to hear that. Are we finished here?’

‘Ten more minutes.’

‘Can I get something to drink? A Coke or something? I saw a vending machine down the hall.’

Doyle pushed a few forms across the desk. ‘I’ll get it. Start signing wherever you see a flag. The sooner you finish, the sooner you’re out of here.’ He picked up Weinbeck’s file to take it with him, pausing as he walked around the desk to make sure Weinbeck was signing in the right place. Some of these guys were so dumb that, red flag or not, they couldn’t figure out where to put their name.

He saw the blade as it slashed up toward him, but not soon enough.