Snow Blind by P.J. Tracy Page B

screen.
    â€œJeez, she’s touchy,” Gino grumbled. “Like talking to a porcupine.” Then both he and Magozzi stared at the digital image for a long moment.
    â€œOh, 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?”
    â€œThe BCA was my next call.”
    â€œLet us do that. I’d like the same guys who worked the park snowmen.”
    â€œCertainly, 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.
    â€œDoesn’t sound like any cop I ever met,” Gino remarked after the Chief had closed the call.
    â€œIn point of fact, she was an English teacher before she entered law enforcement,” Malcherson said.
    â€œNo 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.”
    â€œNo 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?”

    U P 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 doorframe 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….
    â€œThat 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