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he started surfing the websites of the local news channels, looking for weather reports. What he found instead were streaming video footage and photos from Theodore Wirth Park, and damned if he didn’tcatch a glimpse of Magozzi and Gino standing in the background of one of the stills.
    ‘Harley. We’ve gotta turn on the TV.’
    Across the Mississippi in a different world, Magozzi pulled the unmarked into a broad driveway carved between two fresh snowbanks and shut it down. He and Gino looked at Tommy Deaton’s house through the windshield, one of the prewar brick two-stories that peppered the back streets of Minneapolis, especially near the lakes. Neither one of them made a move to get out of the car.
    ‘Ten years ago this neighborhood was right in the toilet,’ Gino said.
    ‘I remember. Wonder what these houses go for now?’
    ‘This close to the lake? Quarter of a mil, at least, and all thanks to the MPD. Bump up the patrols, pull the dirt-balls off the street, pretty soon you have cops living in the neighborhood and property values skyrocket. You ask me, the department oughta get a percentage. Isn’t that Polish butcher shop around here somewhere?’
    ‘Kramarczuk’s? Not even close.’
    ‘Kramarczuk’s could be a thousand miles away, and it’s still close enough. Man, you don’t get sausage like that anywhere else in the country. I bring home a package from that place, and as far asAngela’s concerned, I can do no wrong for about a week. We gotta make a run over there one of these days.’
    Magozzi released his seat belt, but didn’t make any move to get out of the car. ‘I can’t believe we’re sitting out here freezing our tails off talking about some goddamn stupid sausage.’
    Gino sighed. ‘We do this every time we have to make a notification. Last time we spent five minutes in the driveway talking about lawn fertilizer runoff.’
    ‘We did?’
    ‘Anything to keep from going in there. You notice the driveway? Somebody did a real nice job with the blower on this one.’
    Magozzi nodded and finally lifted the door handle. ‘Maybe a service. Or maybe Mrs Deaton. We should ask about that.’
    ‘Yeah, and isn’t that a nice touch? “Gee, Mrs Deaton, I’m sorry to tell you your husband is dead, but on a lighter note, who cleared your driveway?” Christ. It’s a damn miracle these people don’t pull out a gun and shoot us.’
    It took a long time for Tommy Deaton’s wife to answer the front door, and the moment he saw her, Magozzi understood why. She was a tiny thing with bruised and blackened eyes, a swollen face, and a big white bandage over her nose. She examined their badges very carefully before letting them inside, andthen their expressions as they tried not to stare at her ruined face. She was a cop’s wife, and knew what they were thinking. ‘New nose,’ she explained with a quick, embarrassed smile. ‘Thirtieth-birthday present from my husband.’
    Magozzi’s thoughts went off on a side track, wondering what the world was coming to when husbands gave their young wives plastic surgery for their birthday. What the hell kind of statement was that? Happy birthday, honey, and, for Chrissake, go get your face fixed.
    Tommy Deaton’s wife was looking at him with polite uncertainty, probably wondering why they were there. She collapsed on the foyer rug when they told her.
    After she came around, Gino and Magozzi helped her make some phone calls, then had about fifteen minutes to ask all the terrible questions they had to ask, while Mary Deaton sat ramrod straight on the sofa, tears running down her face, but answering everything. She knew the drill.
    The normally smart-mouthed, hard-nosed Gino was tender with her, as he always was when he did this kind of thing, his heart sticking out all over the place. ‘So you had no reason to worry when Tommy didn’t come home last night?’
    ‘No. Like I said, he was crazy for cross-country skiing. Him and Toby both, and they’d been