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nodded. “No glove on the right hand. You find it around here?”
    â€œNope.”
    â€œDid you test the hand for GSR?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œHuh. So he never got a shot off, but he sure as hell tried.”
    Jimmy frowned at him. “How do you figure that?”
    Gino poked at his forehead with his big mitten. “I see it right here, that’s how. Two guys skiing together right after the first snow, bad guy jumps out from behind a tree and pops Deaton, Myerson sees his partner buy it, rips his glove off to get at his weapon, but before he can get a shot off, the killer nails him in the shooting arm and he loses his piece.”
    Magozzi rolled his eyes, but Jimmy looked fascinated. “Then what happened?”
    â€œPoor Myerson tries to get away, that’s what, pumping away with his good arm, but he only makes it this far before he bleeds out.”
    Jimmy Grimm looked at Magozzi. “Where does he get this stuff?”
    â€œHe makes it up. Does it all the time. Only this time, I think he’s got something. It makes sense.”
    Grimm nodded solemnly. “Except for one thing. He didn’t bleed out. The arm shot shattered the bone, but it wasn’t lethal.” He walked around the pole Toby Myerson was lashed to and pointed to a small hole in the back of the dead man’s neck. “The son of a bitch chased this man down and put a bullet right through his spine. Doesn’t look like a killing shot, but it probably paralyzed him instantly.”
    Gino frowned. “Then what killed him?”
    Grimm looked away and shrugged. “Who knows? You’ll have to wait until the doc gets inside to find that out. Could have been a heart attack, could have been hypothermia, massive organ failure…”
    â€œJesus,” Magozzi whispered. “Are you saying he could have been alive while they were building a snowman around him?”
    â€œMaybe. Maybe even for a long time after that.”
    Magozzi closed his eyes.

C HAPTER 5
    H ARLEY D AVIDSON’S MANSION LOOKED AS IF it had been styled for a Currier and Ives Christmas card reproduction. Normally it looked foreboding from the street, but dressed with fresh snow and the holiday decorations he had yet to take down, the place looked more like a fairy-tale gingerbread castle than the red-stone lair of Summit Avenue’s biker-ogre. Even the wicked spikes that topped the wrought-iron fence looked whimsical with their white mushroom caps of snow. A tasteful display of twinkle lights sparkled along the eaves of the carriage house, and a lovingly restored, antique sleigh sat in front of the big wooden barn doors, as if waiting for a handsome team of harness horses to be hitched up.
    Except at Harley’s, horsepower had a whole different meaning, and the carriage house was really a tricked-out garage; anybody who looked inside would get the Currier and Ives fantasy blown right out of their mind. But all the priceless cars and motorcycles and the big luxury motorcoach Monkeewrench used as a sort of traveling Crime Stoppers unit were all tucked away under blankets and tarps, waiting for warmer weather and dry roads. And it was driving Harley nuts.
    At the big house, in the third-floor Monkeewrench office, lights were blazing. The leather-clad lord of the manor was stationed at his mammoth desk, polishing off the last of his Carnivore Special from a local pizza parlor, while Roadrunner paced the floor with a clipboard, reading aloud from a punch list. His gangly, six-foot-seven frame was clad in a white Lycra bike suit today, and Harley thought he looked like an origami crane.
    â€œClean up graphics on level two,” Roadrunner recited.
    Harley gave him a distracted nod while he mopped tomato sauce out of his black beard. “I’m working on it now.”
    Roadrunner made a meticulous check mark on his list and continued. “Okay. Fonts are inconsistent on—”
    â€œYeah, yeah, I know.