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did.” He drifted off without another word, no doubt contemplating his own mortality for the first time.
    Magozzi and Gino followed, and ran into Jimmy Grimm halfway.
    â€œI was looking for you guys. We’ve got the first one uncovered. Come over and take a look.”
    The first thing they noticed was that Tommy Deaton’s body was lashed to a wooden ski trail marker with common yellow synthetic rope—the kind you could find just about anywhere, from gas stations to grocery stores. His chin had dropped to his chest without the packed snow to brace it up, and Gino thought it was the saddest thing he ever saw.
    â€œOh, man, can’t you cut him down?”
    â€œNot until Dr. Rambachan sees it in place. He got caught behind a twenty-car fender-bender on 494, but he should be here soon.”
    â€œThere’s the answer to your question, Gino,” Magozzi said.
    â€œWhat question?” Jimmy wanted to know.
    â€œHow you get a dead body to stand up straight so you can build a snowman around it.”
    Jimmy nodded. “And the skis weren’t just a prop. This guy was hard-core. That suit he’s wearing goes for six hundred bucks minimum, add another thousand or so for the skis and poles.”
    â€œYou been watching the Home Shopping Network again?”
    â€œI wish. Three kids, two of them on the ski team, and I’m broke every Christmas. Been trying to talk them into something cheaper, like the debate team, but no joy.” He walked over to Deaton’s body and pointed at the side of his head. “One shot, small caliber, probably dropped him on the spot. No exit wound, so we should get a slug out of the autopsy. And there’s stippling on the scalp, so it was real close.”
    He stooped down in front of a tray of neatly arranged evidence bags and plucked one out that held a tooled leather wallet. “I just pulled this off him. ID, credit cards, two hundred seventy-eight bucks cash.”
    Magozzi’s eyes drifted down to Tommy Deaton’s belt holster, where his service piece should have been but wasn’t. “But no weapon.”
    â€œRight.”
    â€œHow about Myerson? Is he uncovered yet?”
    â€œI’ve got a team over there now. Let’s take a walk while my guys get the shots of Deaton without the snowman.”
    They were careful to give wide berth to the crime-scene tape that cordoned off the ski trail that wound through a sparse patch of woods—the only trail that drew a line directly from Tommy Deaton to Toby Myerson. Of course the hundreds of people tromping through here before the tape went up hadn’t been so careful, and Magozzi knew the chance of getting any tracks was beyond hope; but there were a couple BCA guys in the woods proper, and they were crouched by a skinny maple, carefully collecting shredded bark with pairs of tweezers—a good sign.
    â€œDid you find something?” Jimmy asked hopefully.
    â€œMaybe. We’ve got lots of fresh bark confetti, and as far as I know, beavers hibernate, so we’re hoping for a slug.”
    â€œPull some guys from the field and widen the grid around the trail a few hundred yards. Take a look at every tree.”
    â€œThey’re on their way. We’ll keep you posted.”
    Toby Myerson looked very much like his Second Precinct partner, right down to the skis and the yellow rope that held him upright against another trail marker, but this man’s right arm hung at an awkward angle, and the sleeve of his ski suit was shredded and stained almost black.
    Magozzi stood quietly, moving only his eyes, taking it all in. “That arm wound had to have bled like crazy. So where’s the blood?”
    Jimmy actually smiled at him. “Good question, Grasshopper. We uncovered a little that filtered down through the snow, but not enough. My guess is he didn’t take the arm shot here. We’re looking for a blood trail between the two snowmen.”
    Gino