‘This is Sheriff Iris Rikker from Dundas County.’
Gino nodded, recognizing the name from the papers a few months back. ‘The green-as-grass deputy who skunked the sitting sheriff.’
‘Correct. She may have a snowman of her own. You need to listen to what she has to say.’ He pushed SPEAKER and nodded at Magozzi, who inched closer to the phone.
‘Leo Magozzi here, Sheriff Rikker. The Chief tells us you’ve got another one of our snowmen up there.’
‘As I told your chief, I’m not entirely certain, Detective. From what I saw on the news last night, it doesn’t look precisely like the ones you discovered in Theodore Wirth Park yesterday, although it may have originally. It’s difficult to assess that at this point.’ Magozzi frowned, trying to sort the relevant from all the words she’d spewed out. It was like talking to an FBI agent. ‘Explain, please.’
‘Your snowmen looked very carefully crafted; almost artistic, in fact.’
‘And yours?’
‘Well, we’ve had freezing rain here this morning, then sleet, and now snow…’
‘Same here.’
‘… so even if this had started as a recognizable duplicate, the weather conditions would have altered it considerably. I’ve sent a photograph to your chief so you can make an assessment for yourself.’
Magozzi saw Chief Malcherson at his computer on the credenza behind the desk, downloading a file from online.
‘In the meantime,’ Sheriff Rikker went on, ‘we are preserving the scene as well as we can under the circumstances, which of course means we haven’t begun to dismantle the snowman yet, and without at least rudimentary examination of the deceased, we haven’t yet determined with any degree of certainty that this was a homicide.’
Gino yawned noisily, and even Magozzi was getting a little impatient. ‘You are sure there’s a body in there, right?’
He could almost hear a backstep in the pause that followed, and then a snippiness in her speech. ‘I’m very sure, Detective. His hands were exposed. You’ll see that in the photograph.’
‘Any chance it could just be someone who got caught out in the storm and then covered with snow?’
Another long pause, and Magozzi sensed a little temper in there somewhere. That was the trouble with a lot of woman cops, in his experience, especially women in power spots. They couldn’t take a little good-natured ribbing like a man could. ‘There is a very definite structure to this form, Detective. Whether or not it was perfectly executed, and in spite of the weather damage, it was obvious to all of us that someone constructed a snowman around this body. Whether or not it relates to your case remains to be seen. From our perspective at least, this was a courtesy call. After you’ve examined the photograph, you may be able to better determine the necessity of sending your people up here in these weather conditions.’
… better determine the necessity…? Who the hell talked like that? Magozzi rubbed at his temple and saw Gino doing the same thing, a pained expression on his face. The woman was giving them both a headache.
‘Fine, Sheriff Rikker. I see the Chief has your photo loaded now. Can you hold a moment while we take a look?’
‘Certainly.’
Malcherson pushed the hold button, then stepped aside so Gino and Magozzi could see the computer screen.
‘Jeez, she’s touchy,’ Gino grumbled. ‘Like talking to a porcupine.’ Then both he and Magozzi stared at the digital image for a long moment.
‘Oh, man,’ Gino said. ‘We got another one.’
Magozzi leaned over and punched the speaker button on the Chief’s phone. ‘Sheriff Rikker? Sorry to keep you waiting. Detective Rolseth and I will be up there as soon as we can. You have any problem with BCA handling the scene?’
‘The BCA was my next call.’
‘Let us do that. I’d like the same guys who worked the park snowmen.’
‘Certainly, sir.’
Magozzi raised his brows. First she was snippy, now she was calling him ‘sir,’ and then she made nice by giving them detailed driving directions and closed with thanks to all of them – at least that was what Magozzi thought she was doing. All very polite and proper and way too long, mentioning them each by name as if reading from her notes, which she probably was. If she was a cop, Magozzi was a bowl of cornflakes.
‘Doesn’t sound like any cop I ever met,’ Gino remarked after the Chief had closed the call.
‘In point of fact, she was an English teacher before she entered law enforcement,’ Malcherson said.
‘No kidding? Well, that explains it. Only an English teacher would take five hundred words to say what she could have summed up in four. I’d hate to get Mirandized by her – she’s probably got her own ten-page version.’
Malcherson gave him a sour look. ‘I happen to find her linguistic precision refreshing. And I’m certain I don’t have to remind both of you to treat Sheriff Rikker with the same respect you would afford any other elected official and fellow law enforcement officer, elocution notwithstanding.’
‘No problem, Chief. She has my respect until she screws up, and so far, she seems to be handling things okay. I just wish she’d get to the point a little faster. Most of the stuff we do on the job is time sensitive, you know?’
Up in Dundas County, Iris Rikker hung up the phone, closed her eyes so she couldn’t see the office she was sitting in, and replayed the conversation in her mind, trying to shake the feeling that the Minneapolis detective thought she was a total idiot.
A cursory rap on the door frame interrupted her thoughts, and Lieutenant Sampson stomped in, throwing back the hood on his parka and scattering snow all over the place. ‘MPD coming?’
Iris mentally added a verb and prepositional phrase so that she could understand the question. ‘Detective Magozzi and Detective Rolseth are on their way. They’re also sending the same BCA team that processed the Minneapolis scene.’
Sampson flopped down in a big leather recliner and jerked up the foot rest. ‘Good deal.’
She got up and looked out the wall of windows over the lake, thinking how convenient it was to have a crime scene right outside the sheriff’s window. She couldn’t see much through the thickening snowfall, and was glad of that. ‘We need to put up some sort of plastic sheeting to preserve as much of the scene as possible. Do we have such things in the building?’
Sampson didn’t say anything for a second, so she turned around and looked at him. She didn’t like him lying back in the recliner as if he were in his own living room. It was disrespectful, wasn’t it? And if she ever intended to take charge of this office and do the job well, it was important that she establish the ground rules of respect right at the beginning, and now was as good a time as ever to start…
‘That was good thinking about the plastic sheeting,’ he said, messing up the mental speech she was planning about behavior modification, thoroughly confusing her because she thought he may have actually said something nice to her. ‘But a little slow. I already had some boys pick up a tent from the rental shop. They’re putting it up now. Christ, what a morning. You going to put lace curtains up in here or what?’
Iris just stared at him for a minute, finally deciding that she had a better chance of modifying the behavior of an earthworm. The truth was, a man like Sampson belonged in this office more than she did. He looked different with the hood pushed back. Dark hair, which seemed appropriate for some reason, squinty dark eyes, and the scruff of a weekend beard. Precisely the appearance of a man you’d expect to find in a wood-paneled office with a flat-screen television, leather recliners, and a stack of Playboys on a table.