Snow Blind (15 page)

‘I hope so.’

‘Come on, don’t be such a killjoy. There’s probably some deep meaning behind it.’

‘Or not.’

‘Yeah, or not. But it’s unique, you gotta give it that. And how often do you see flowers on a water tower? Makes you feel better about drinking the water, right? I mean, White Bear has a bear on their water tower and you can’t help but think about the whole bear in the woods thing.’ Gino heard a muted beep and pulled out his cell phone. ‘Well, glory hallelujah. This piece of crap finally picked up a signal.’

‘Weather’s clearing up. Either that, or we’re close
to what might be the only tower for miles. Better talk fast.’

Gino nodded and pushed speed dial. ‘Got a pile of messages from the office while this thing was in a coma. Maybe Tinker and McLaren solved the case while we were gone and we can go on vacation. Hey, Tinker, we’re on our way back. What’s the word? What do you mean, turn around? We just left, and let me tell you, this place is like a third-world country. Instead of cell towers, they got teapots in the sky and houses in the middle of lakes … all right, all right, hang on.’ Gino pulled out his notebook and a pen and started scribbling while he listened.

The phone call was taking a long time, and Gino was silent for most of it, which was a good sign, as far as Magozzi was concerned – it probably meant that something had broken on the case in Minneapolis. By the time he pulled into the lot of the Swedish Grill, Gino was in the middle of telling Tinker about the snowman on the lake.

‘… still can’t tell if it’s the same doer. This guy’s chest was blown wide open, so it wasn’t a twenty-two, like Deaton and Myerson, and the victim wasn’t a cop, but he was law enforcement. A parole officer out of Minneapolis, name of Steve Doyle. Tinker? Hey, Tinker. You still there?’ Then Gino went silent again and just listened, his expression
grim. ‘We’ll take care of it on this end,’ he said at last. ‘In the meantime, find out where Weinbeck was Friday night, when Deaton and Myerson got hit. I’ll call you back.’ He flipped the phone closed and looked at Magozzi. ‘We’ve got to go back to the sheriff’s office.’

Magozzi raised his brows. ‘You don’t want to eat first?’

‘We don’t have time.’

‘You drive, I’ll talk.’ Gino turned on the roof lights while Magozzi fishtailed out of the parking lot and pushed it as fast as he could on the road back toward Lake Kittering.

‘Steve Doyle’s been missing since yesterday. His last appointment was with an asshole named Kurt Weinbeck, who just checked out of Stillwater for damn near killing his pregnant wife. Weinbeck is a no-show at his halfway house, Doyle’s office is trashed and there’s some blood, and his car is missing from the ramp. The wife’s files and contact info are missing, too, so Tinker figures Weinbeck’s going after his wife, and guess what? She lives up here in Dundas County – someplace called Bitterroot.’

‘So Weinbeck is probably Doyle’s shooter.’

‘He looks good for it.’

‘No way a twenty-two put a hole like that in Doyle’s chest.’

‘Yeah, I know. Which means he probably isn’t
our snowman killer. Tinker said the TV was still on in Doyle’s office when they got there. At the time of Weinbeck’s appointment yesterday the channel was doing wall-to-wall coverage of the park fiasco, so he could have seen it, maybe figured he could pin Doyle’s killing on our killer if he just built a snowman around him.’

‘Maybe. Or maybe he switched guns. Maybe he’s good for them all.’

‘Not likely, but wouldn’t that be roses? All tied up in one neat package. I could be home by six eating Angela’s spaghetti.’

‘We’re dreaming.’

‘Tell me about it. Domestics are the only things on Weinbeck’s sheet. Those yellow-bellied bastards don’t usually go around popping cops, but Tinker and McLaren will look at it anyway. Anyhow, back to Weinbeck’s ex-wife – calls herself Julie Albright now – Tinker gets her on the horn to warn her, and she blows him off, says she’s not worried, if you can believe that.’

‘Maybe she’ll change her mind when we tell her her ex killed his parole officer to get to her.’

‘That would change my mind. So the upshot is he wants us to talk to her in person, try to get her into protective custody, either with the locals or with us. This Weinbeck character isn’t messing around.’

‘She might be harboring him. It wouldn’t be the first time that happened.’

‘That crossed my mind.’

17

Iris was sitting in the oversized leather chair in the sheriff’s office – her office, now – stuffing another bite of a peanut-butter-and-pickle sandwich in her mouth, feeling strangely guilty for eating at all while there was a BCA team on the lake outside her window, addressing the messy aftermath of the violent death of a human being. Every time she closed her eyes she saw the frozen horror of Steve Doyle’s dead face, and still she ate the damn sandwich. There was something wrong with her.

The paper in front of her was filled with the scribbled notes she’d taken during Detective Rolseth’s call. Just looking at them gave her a headache.

The upside was that if this Kurt Weinbeck character really was Steve Doyle’s murderer – and by all accounts, it sounded like he was – her first homicide was already solved. The bad news was, he was still loose, probably somewhere in her county, stalking one of her citizens, and it was ultimately her responsibility to catch him before he could murder anybody else.

Her butt sank so far into the cushy chair that she
felt like she was being swallowed, and her feet didn’t touch the floor. Surely a sign from on high if ever there was one. She didn’t fit in the chair, she didn’t fit in the office, she didn’t fit in the job. The last bite went down like a dry brick, peanut butter sticking to her throat.

By the time she got downstairs Sampson was already in the lobby, and the Minneapolis detectives were coming through the front door. Magozzi gave her a nod of recognition, and Iris nodded back. That, she decided, was the secret to communicating with men. Whenever possible, use signals instead of words. Words just confused them.

Magozzi was thinking that Iris Rikker was looking a little worn around the edges, and small wonder. First day as sheriff of a peaceful rural county, and already she had one body, and maybe a murderer hanging around, trying to raise the count to two. No way she could have bargained for that when she put her name on the ticket.

Sampson, on the other hand, seemed surprisingly nonchalant. He looked up from retying his boots. ‘I called Julie Albright, let her know we were coming.’

Gino was stamping his boots on a doormat that was already soaking wet. ‘Our guy talked to her, said we might have a tough time talking her into protective custody.’

‘You got that right. She thinks she’s safe in Bitterroot.’

Gino’s thoughts went back to the airport parking lot two days ago, when they were pulling a half-dead woman out of a trunk. She’d thought she was safe, too. ‘No place is safe when you’ve got one of these bastards going after a woman, and this one’s worse than most, because he’s willing to kill other people to get to her. We all need to be on the same page when we talk to Julie Albright or we’re never going to get her under the wing.’

Sampson straightened and shifted his utility belt under his parka. ‘The thing is, I’m not so sure we’ve got anyplace half as secure as where she is right now. Take a look at Bitterroot first; see what you think. You ever been out there, Sheriff?’

Iris shook her head, sticking to her new signaling plan.

‘I’ll drive, then. You might want to ride with us, Detectives. It’s kind of tricky to find unless you know the back roads.’

‘Fine by me,’ Magozzi said. ‘How far away is this town?’

‘It isn’t a town, it’s a corporation.’ Sheriff Rikker was having trouble with the zipper on her parka, and it was frustrating her. ‘According to Lieutenant Sampson, some of the employees live on site. Julie Albright is one of them.’

‘Ten minutes as the crow flies,’ Sampson said. ‘Twenty in a car.’

‘You know, I never got that.’ Gino was eyeing a bakery bag sitting on the dispatch counter. ‘If a crow always gets someplace faster, why didn’t they just follow the crows when they were building the roads?’ His stomach growled noisily, making Sampson smile.

‘Too many lakes, too many swamps. Roads up here twist like crazy going around them. Half the time even the locals need a compass to know which way they’re going. Grab that bag, will you, Detective? Sounds like we all missed lunch.’

Gino actually put his hand over his heart, a gesture only food could inspire.

Ten minutes later Sampson was powering the big county SUV down a narrow, curving road with ten-foot snowbanks towering on either side. Sheriff Rikker was next to him, clutching her pocketbook as if it were an airbag; Magozzi and Gino were in the backseat, which was just the way Gino liked it. Way he figured, the people in the front would get it first when they ran smack-dab into one of those snowbanks. He leaned forward and breathed jelly bismarck into the front seat.

‘This is supposed to be a road? What happens if we meet a car going the other way?’

‘Plenty of room.’ Sampson braked hard just
before a sharp curve and they fishtailed for a second. ‘Looks narrower than it is because the snow’s so high.’

Gino snorted, not believing that for a minute. To a pair of eyes used to a six-lane city freeway, it looked like they were driving down the white throat of some enormous monster.

‘And it’s a good road,’ Sampson added. ‘Gross-weight standards up for eighteen-wheelers, what with all the shipping they do out of here.’

‘You’re telling me we could meet a semi on this cow path?’

‘Probably not on a Sunday.’

‘Seems like a pretty out-of-the-way location for a business. You’d think they’d locate on a major road, instead of back here in the toolies. Anybody want to split the last bismarck?’

Ten minutes later the road uncoiled a little and Magozzi and Gino could see a tall cyclone fence that stretched as far as they could see in either direction. It was even more interesting when they got closer.

Magozzi nudged Gino with his elbow. ‘Look at the top of that fence.’

Gino leaned over his partner and peered out the window. ‘Huh? What are those thingamajigees?’

‘Looks like the cameras Grace has mounted all around her place.’

‘Oh, great. A whole corporation as paranoid as Grace MacBride. What the hell do they make here, Sheriff?’

Iris was staring out at the fence and the cameras mounted every twenty feet or so, mystified by all the security. ‘As far as I know, organic products. Food, cosmetics, things like that. I’ve ordered a few things from their website.’

‘Looks more like a military installation, if you ask me. Or maybe a prison … Jesus, look at that.’ They were pulling up to an enormous pair of gates with a brick guardhouse on the left. A small woman in boots and a big parka exited the little building and headed for the car. ‘That woman’s carrying, Leo.’

‘I see that.’

‘They’ve got their own security force.’ Sampson rolled down his window. ‘All of them have permits to carry.’

The female guard pushed back the hood on her parka and bent toward the car window, looking past Sampson as if he weren’t there. ‘Sheriff Rikker?’

‘That’s right.’

The woman grinned. ‘Congratulations on the election, Sheriff. Great pleasure to meet you.’

Magozzi thought Iris looked a little flummoxed by the greeting. Or maybe it was the congratulations.

‘Thank you very much.’

‘And will you vouch for your passengers?’

‘Yes, this is Lieutenant Sampson –’

‘Aw, come on, Liz,’ Sampson interrupted. ‘Don’t give me a hard time. The two guys in the back are Minneapolis PD, and they won’t give you their weapons, either. I’ll let you frisk me, though, if you want.’

‘Tempting, but I’ll pass. Straight to the office,’ she reminded him.

‘I know the drill.’ He closed the window, waited while one of the electronic gates swung open, then pulled through.

Gino was puzzled. ‘I don’t get it. They knew we were coming, they could see it was a county car, and they stopped us anyway.’

‘They stop everybody. Drives me nuts, but they’re pretty strict about it. Except for Liz. I think she does it just to piss me off.’

‘So every time you get an emergency call out here you’ve got to stop while they check the car? That’s just plain crazy.’

‘Well, the thing is, we never get called out here. Not one call as long as I’ve been on the job, and that’s fifteen years. Only reason I’m a familiar face is that I’ve got a friend who lives here in the residential neighborhood around the back of the complex.’

As they drove inside the gates, all that could be
seen in any direction were woods and fields, all buried under snow. ‘What complex?’

‘Over the next hill.’

And indeed it was. A cluster of modern buildings with a courtyard and landscaped parking lot. It looked like a dozen other corporate complexes that grew like weeds all over the Minneapolis suburbs. Except this one was out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by a ten-foot-high cyclone fence with armed guards at the gate. It wasn’t the first time Magozzi had seen elaborate corporate security, but this seemed a little over the top for a place that made jelly and face powder. So did the metal detector and second armed guard at the building entrance.

A woman Sampson introduced as Maggie Holland was waiting for them in a large office just off the lobby. She could have been anywhere from forty-five to sixty-five years old – Magozzi was finding it harder and harder to tell these days – but it was an age span that made him a little uneasy, probably because a lot of women in that group were long past the time when they expected anything extraordinary from men.
Fractured fairy tales,
he thought.
We all take the rap for that
.

Ms Holland greeted them all cordially enough, but made a particular fuss over the new sheriff, just as the guard at the gate had. Iris Rikker apparently
had a fan club out here she didn’t know about.

After the pleasantries, she slipped straight into no-nonsense mode. ‘Julie Albright will not go with you.’