Snow Blind by P.J. Tracy Page B

that she was actually being civil to someone. “The detectives are still at the scene, sir. Yes, I certainly will pass that on.”
    She was big and black and sharp-tongued, fastidious about her appearance, and slavish to a wild style that was uniquely her own. They were used to seeing her in anything from tiny braids to colorful turbans; one day in a sari, the next in a miniskirt and platform heels, but this was something entirely new.
    She was standing at the front desk, hands on ample hips, glaring down at all the blinking lights on her phone, looking like a very big, very black Priscilla Presley. Her black hair was glued into some kind of a flip; the rosy dress was full and shiny and made crinkly little noises when she moved. Gino hadn’t seen one like it since his dad showed him his high school prom picture from sometime during the Dark Ages. He opened his mouth to say something, but Gloria glared and pointed a finger at him.
    â€œYou like your balls, Rolseth?”
    â€œI do.”
    â€œBecause this day is too black for wisecracking.”
    Gino nodded. “I was just going to say that so far you’re the best thing in it. You look good in red.”
    â€œHmph.” Her big shoulders relaxed a little. “This is not red, you fool, it’s cherry blossom, and you think this dress is bad, you should have seen the bride. Looked like she was wearing a big fat doily.” She plopped back into her chair with a rustle and a grunt. “The Chief just called. He was halfway to his lake place when the news hit; won’t make it back before the five o’clock news, which might be a good thing. Local media has already been all over the tube with bulletins, and CNN picked it up. They’re runnin’ crawl lines and calling it the Minneapolis Snowman Killing Fields. Bastards think they’re cute.”
    Magozzi felt his jaw muscles tighten. “Goddamn it, we’ve got two dead officers here.”
    â€œYeah, well, cop-killer is a favorite headline, but it takes second place on the hit parade when you’ve got film of a bunch of uniforms knocking down hundreds of snowmen in front of a crowd of crying kids.”
    â€œJesus. They’re showing that?”
    â€œYou bet they are. Local, national, probably international by now. They’ve got the damn thing on a loop. Chief’s doing a live thing with the press at nine tonight; he wants everything you’ve got on his desk by eight so he can cull through it.”
    Johnny McLaren and Tinker Lewis were halfway across the room at their desks, working the phones, already buried in paperwork; otherwise the place was empty. Magozzi and Gino rolled a couple of chairs over to Tinker’s desk, primarily because McLaren’s looked like the inside of a Dumpster during a garbage strike.
    Tinker thanked someone on the phone and gently set it back in its cradle. The man did everything gently—always had, as long as Magozzi had known him, which was a pretty rare demeanor to find in Homicide. He had brown eyes that always looked sad; today they were downright mournful. “Second Precinct is red-lighting over everything they’ve got on Tommy Deaton and Toby Myerson. Recent performance reviews, arrest reports, the private stuff they kept in their lockers, anything that might not be in the master files. Nothing flashy stood out in the Sarge’s mind—not that he’d be able to think of it today, anyway. They’ve all got their brains wrapped in black over there.”
    Magozzi nodded. “We need to tear it all apart, see if this is a cop thing or maybe even a Second Precinct thing.”
    â€œYeah, they’re a little worried about that.” He glanced over at McLaren, who had one ear glued to the phone while he scribbled on a scrap of paper. “Johnny’s talking to one of the guys over there that hung with Myerson off-time. You get anything from Deaton’s family?”
    Magozzi shook his