Snow Blind (12 page)

The parole office was straight ahead, and the door was wide open. Tinker took a look at the open door and felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. You could lose a pay grade for leaving a government office unlocked, especially a parole office. These places held a lot of information you couldn’t find anywhere else in the system: confidential witness information, victim addresses, and a lot of sealed files, especially on juveniles.

He unholstered his weapon, then felt a little silly when Chalmers followed suit. For all he knew, maybe Steve had been working late, then decided to stay put once the freezing rain started to fall. Or maybe another parole officer was putting in some weekend time to catch up on his workload and they’d walk in with weapons drawn and scare the poor guy to death. Which served him right, Tinker thought, for not at least closing the door.

He looked at Chalmers, sensed that his thoughts were traveling the same road, then the two of them shrugged at each other and moved forward, stopping on either side of the open door, listening. They both flinched at the sudden scurrying sound of
some small animal inside the wall, then grinned at each other a little sheepishly. Truth was, the most alarming thing here was them.

But then they stepped through the doorway into the empty office and saw the first of the blood.

There wasn’t a lot of it; just a trail of drops and streaks that led straight to Steve Doyle’s desk. Officer Chalmers looked at the blood trail and actually scratched his head. ‘So, we got a crime scene here, or a really bad paper cut?’

‘Damned if I know. Too much blood for a paper cut; not enough to send someone hightailing for ER.’

‘Tough call.’

While Chalmers made a slow circuit of the office, Tinker walked over to Steve’s desk and stood very still while his eyes moved to take it all in, and suddenly it wasn’t a tough call at all. There were too many things wrong here. A coffee mug upended on the desk; a pool of liquid eating away at the wood finish. A muted television left on in one corner, its screen showing a raucous studio audience on its feet, shaking their fists, pointing at something or someone, yelling in complete silence. And, most telling of all, Steve’s coat, still hanging on a tree near the desk, the limp, empty fingers of gloves poking out of the pockets.

Chalmers sidled up next to him and looked
around at the TV, the spilled coffee on the desk, the abandoned coat. ‘I don’t like this.’

‘Me either.’ Tinker pushed a blinking light on the phone with the end of the pencil. There were seven messages. Four of them were from someone named Bill Stedman, asking for an immediate call-back. The other three were from Sandy, each one more worried than the last.

‘That his wife?’ Chalmers asked.

‘Yeah.’

‘You want me to give Stedman a call?’

Tinker lifted his head. ‘You know him?’

‘Sure. He runs the halfway house over on Livingston. First stop for a lot of Stillwater’s bad apples when some asshole parole board decides it’s time to turn them loose on the public again.’ Chalmers pulled out his cell phone, pushed a number and handed over the phone.

‘You know his number by heart?’

‘Hell, we all do. Those places are top on our list when we’re shopping for dirtbags. Bastards all repeat, every damn one of them.’

When Bill Stedman answered, Tinker identified himself and his purpose, took notes for five minutes, then closed the phone and looked at Chalmers. ‘You have a roll of crime-scene tape?’

‘In the squad.’

‘I think we need to seal this place off.’

Less than half an hour later Bill Stedman blew into the lobby on a blast of cold air that dropped the temperature ten degrees in five seconds. He was a big man, more muscle than fat, and Tinker caught himself wondering if the man had spent some time on the prison weight benches. ‘Wind’s picking up, mercury’s going down,’ he said, peeling a knit cap that bristled with ice off a shaved skull. ‘And it’s going to dump on us again. How the hell are you, Chalmers? You guys took a real hit yesterday. Damn near broke my heart when I heard it was Deaton and Myerson. I liked them both.’

Chalmers nodded. ‘Everybody did. Detective Lewis here was on scene.’

Stedman turned to Tinker. ‘You think this has something to do with the dead snowmen?’

Tinker concentrated so he wouldn’t wince. Simple truth, he was doing a favor for a missing friend’s wife, but these men were going the extra mile because they thought he might be on the trail of whoever killed Tommy Deaton and Toby Myerson. Tinker was starting to feel guilty. It wasn’t exactly a deception, but it was close. ‘No way of knowing at this point. We aren’t sure what exactly went down here yet, but some of what you told me on the phone gave me a bad feeling about it.’

Stedman eyed the yellow tape crisscrossed over the doorway to the parole office. ‘I surely don’t like
the looks of that.’ He walked over and looked into the office.

‘So far, it’s just a precaution. Like I told you, there’s not a lot of blood. Might not even be a crime. Maybe an accident of some kind.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Stedman looked grim. ‘Let me tell you how this works. When these guys get out, we tag-team them pretty close for a while, especially the repeats running through the system for the second or third time. You never know what those guys are going to do, which means we do everything by the book, and then some. If he hadn’t shown up for the meet yesterday, Doyle would have called me, right after he called out a warrant. Plus, Weinbeck never checked into the house by curfew last night – another automatic for a warrant, which was why I was trying to reach Doyle. Trust me, the man was here, he’s running now, he’s got a history of violence, and this doesn’t look good.’

Tinker kept his face expressionless. He was just hearing what his gut had told him all along, but didn’t much like hearing it out loud. He looked at the soft case Stedman was carrying. ‘Thanks for bringing that over. Hell of a day to ask a man to come outside.’

‘No sweat. I’ve been locked in a house for two days with sixteen stir-crazy ex-cons. I need to see your creds before I show you this.’

Tinker handed over his badge case and watched the man’s eyes shift from the ID to his face, then back again. ‘Okay, Detective. Did you get a chance to look around for Doyle’s copy of the file?’

Tinker nodded. He’d spent the last twenty minutes in latex gloves going through every piece of paper and every file in and on Steve’s desk, including the locked drawers. ‘There’s nothing here with Weinbeck’s name on it, except a notation in Steve’s day planner for yesterday’s meet.’

Stedman sighed and headed for a padded bench on one wall. He sat down, put his case on the floor between his feet, and pulled out a fat file folder. ‘Kurt Weinbeck, did three out of five in Stillwater. They cut him loose Friday on a conditional release – six months with me and my boys.’

Tinker asked, ‘What was he in for?’

‘This.’ Stedman handed him a sheaf of photos.

Even Officer Chalmers recoiled when he saw the one on top. ‘Jesus. What is that?’

‘That,’ Stedman replied, ‘is what his wife looked like last time he was through with her. Seven and a half months pregnant.’

Tinker took a closer look at the photo. He could recognize it as a person now that he knew what he was looking at, but just barely. He glanced at the rest of the photos of a ruined face, then turned
them upside down on the bench. ‘Are you telling me he only did three for a double?’

Stedman sighed and started thumbing through the rest of the papers in the file until he found the wife’s hospital records. ‘Believe it or not, she and the kid lived through it. Six months in the hospital, and about a million surgeries over the next two years to put her back together again. She’s the reason I wanted you to tear this place apart looking for Doyle’s copy of this file. That’s the one and only place you’ll find this woman’s address.’

‘You don’t have it in yours?’

‘Nobody has access to the addresses of victims trying to stay out of sight, not even the court. Doyle had it because she had to be notified when her ex was released, and you can bet your ass he wouldn’t let that file out of his sight.’

‘So he wouldn’t have left it at home.’

‘I’ve worked with the man a long time. He wouldn’t even
take
that file home with information like that inside. He’d keep it here under lock and key with all the other confidential stuff. You sure you hit all the locked cabinets?’

Tinker held up a jangling key ring. ‘Every one.’

‘So we’ve got a missing parolee, a missing parole officer, and now a missing file with a victim’s address in it.’ Stedman pulled out a cigarette, leaned forward on the bench, and lit it. No one mentioned
the laws against smoking in public buildings. ‘I’ve got copies of the public court documents. She took back her maiden name after the divorce. Julie Albright. That’s all I know, that’s all I can give you, except a hell of a lot of experience with guys like Weinbeck.’ He turned his head and looked Tinker in the eye. ‘He’s going after her, Detective.’

14

Sheriff Iris Rikker looked tiny behind the wheel of the big SUV, and Magozzi hoped she was tall enough to reach the pedals. He took the passenger’s seat and let Gino slide into the back – that way, his view out the windshield would be obstructed, and he’d have less opportunity to anticipate the worst. His nonstop commentary on the way up here had nearly driven
him
crazy, and he was used to it. He figured the sheriff didn’t need the extra stress this morning.

Gino poked his head between the front seats. ‘You got the four-wheel engaged on this thing?’

Iris nodded. ‘The four-wheel is always engaged.’

‘Yeah? Are you sure? Because I think there should be a little light on the dashboard or something that tells you the four-wheel drive is on, right?’

‘I suppose there is.’ She put the truck into drive and eased forward out of the parking lot.

‘I don’t see it.’

‘What?’

‘The four-wheel-drive light.’

Iris glanced over at Magozzi, who was trying not to smile.

‘It’s right there, Gino.’ Magozzi pointed to the center console.

Gino slumped back in his seat.

As they crawled down the hill toward the lake, the crime scene and surrounding activity materialized out of a blurry white mist of snow: there were county cars, state patrols, the BCA vans, and a few civilian vehicles that Magozzi hoped belonged to off-duty cops and not the general public. No media yet, thank God. But most notable was a garishly colorful tent with stripes and polka dots and smiling clown faces plastered all over it erected out on the frozen lake itself.

Gino leaned forward again. ‘What the hell is that? Is the circus in town, or what?’

‘That’s the crime scene,’ Iris replied.

‘Nice tent,’ Gino remarked. ‘Really sets the mood. Are you handing out candy, too?’

As far as Iris knew, she didn’t even have a temper. Cats threw up on her, men cheated on her, the high-schoolers she taught used to ignore her most of the time, and not once had she felt the compulsion to fire back an answering shot. Maybe it was because she placed cats, husbands, and high-schoolers on the same mental level – all creatures who were incapable of change, biologically mandated to behave
a certain way. Or maybe it was because fighting back simply wasn’t in her nature. She had the feeling that Detective Gino Rolseth was going to change all that, because she had to struggle to keep her tone even. ‘Bob’s Party Rental on Main Street was kind enough to donate it. It was all we could get on short notice.’

Gino grunted. ‘Great. We’re gonna have every kid in the county swarming the place, trying to buy tickets.’

‘Perhaps we could leave you at the entrance and you could hold them off with your big gun,’ Iris said sweetly, and then snapped her mouth shut, wondering where that had come from.

‘Yeah, well I took a look, and your gun’s bigger than mine. Besides, from what I hear, dealing with kids is what you’re trained for.’

Magozzi slid down in the passenger seat a little and covered his eyes.

Iris skidded into an empty space at the landing and slammed the truck into park. So that’s what this was about. Not just the pompous city cop looking down his nose at the county cops. This was all about her, the English teacher wearing the sheriff’s badge. The
woman
wearing the sheriff’s badge. He probably hated all women. Sexist pig. Then again, he could just be a conscientious detective who didn’t want an important investigation fumbled by
someone as inexperienced as she was. Lord knows she couldn’t blame him for that. If there was one thing Iris knew, it was the extent of her own incompetence.

She sighed and turned in her seat to face him. ‘The only alternative to that tent would have been to drive stakes into the ice to support a tarp, but with the ice in such poor condition, we didn’t want to risk it.’

Gino frowned at her. ‘What do you mean the ice is in poor condition? It’s the middle of January.’

‘You might recall that we had a very mild winter until just last week, and the lakes around here are all spring fed, so there’s still some open water and weak spots. Be careful.’

‘Are you telling me this ice isn’t safe?’

‘Well, they told me it was. By the way, if you hear the ice cracking under you, don’t panic. That happened a lot when I went out there earlier, but they said not to worry.’

When he reached the landing’s edge, Gino stopped dead, his eyes wide and busy as he examined the ice. ‘There’s a crack – a big, zigzaggy crack right there.’ He pointed it out to Iris. ‘What’s that mean?’

Iris looked at it worriedly. ‘I didn’t see that before. Try not to step on it.’

They watched her walk gingerly out onto the ice, careful to skirt the crack. ‘Let’s go,’ Magozzi said.

‘Just a minute. I want to see if she falls in.’

‘Come on, Gino, look at all the fish shacks out there. If the ice can hold them, it can hold us.’

‘So says you. When was the last time you were tromping around on a spring-fed lake after a warm snap?’

Magozzi shrugged. ‘Never.’

‘Goddamnit,’ Gino muttered.