P Tracy - Snow Blind

Maggie Holland nodded. ‘But it is a solution. We haven’t had one violent crime in Bitterroot in the sixty years of its existence. Can you think of one other town in the entire country that can make that claim?’

Magozzi didn’t reply.

‘And when you really think about it, it isn’t that extreme at all.’ Maggie’s eyes shifted to Iris. ‘You live alone, do you not, Sheriff Rikker?’

Iris nodded.

‘Well, in a sense, is what we do here so very different from what you do in your own home? You lock your car doors, you lock the doors to your house when you come home, your ground-floor windows when you go to bed, and you probably don’t admit strangers readily. These are sensible precautions women everywhere employ to keep themselves safe. Bitterroot does the same thing, only on a larger, even more secure scale, because our residents are higher risk.’

‘So you built yourself a prison and put the innocents inside,’ Magozzi commented, sounding much more judgmental than he’d ever intended.

Maggie smiled, but the smile had a real hard edge to it. ‘We may have prison-style security, Detective, but it’s not to keep the innocents inside, it’s to keep the monsters out, and we do that very well.’

And you couldn’t argue with that, Magozzi thought. If Bitterroot really hadn’t had a single violent crime in sixty years, they were doing a hell of a job protecting people he and Gino and Sampson and Sheriff Rikker couldn’t. That kind of failure was a tough admission for any cop, and probably a big part of the reason he was finding it hard not to be defensive. It just all seemed so wrong – the law was supposed to provide refuge, not inspire mass exodus to a high-security facility that probably put San Quentin to shame.

Apparently his thoughts were printed in big type across his forehead, because Maggie Holland was looking straight at him with one of those little smiles people reserve for idiots who just don’t get it. ‘I think it’s time you saw the real Bitterroot,’ she said quietly, but Magozzi wasn’t going for the carrot.

‘We need to speak with Julie Albright. That’s why we’re here.’

‘Of course. But Julie’s daughter has a cold today, so we’ll go to her house instead of having her come here. It isn’t far, and you can see a bit of the village on the way.’ And then her demeanor shifted abruptly from all-business to all-roses, and she looked at each of them with one of those kindly, grandmotherly expressions Magozzi imagined the Big Bad Wolf had used on Little Red Riding Hood. Damn woman was a shape-shifter.

Magozzi, Gino, Sampson, and Iris followed Maggie Holland down a hallway and out a side door into an enclosed parking lot. The only vehicles parked there looked like something Walt Disney dreamed up.

‘What the hell are those things?’ Gino asked. ‘They look like golf carts on growth hormones.’

Maggie laughed politely. ‘You’re very close, Detective Rolseth. They’re electric, like golf carts, but with the large tires and high clearance of ATVs. Enclosed, of course, to allow for our weather, and large enough to accommodate all of us if you don’t mind close quarters for a few moments. They’re the only vehicles allowed in the village.’

She opened one with a key card and settled behind the wheel while the rest of them piled in behind her. There were three rows of two seats, one to a side. Gino and Magozzi took the ones at the rear and automatically looked for seat belts.

‘You won’t need them, Detectives,’ Maggie called back. ‘Top speed on these is fifteen miles an hour, and the streets curve a bit too much to ever go that fast.’

The heaters kicked in immediately – the one and only good thing about electric vehicles, Gino thought, his eyes busy as he watched Maggie open the lot gate with a remote, then head out onto a narrow strip of tar that curved sharply to the right and nowhere else.

‘This is the one and only way into the village,’ he heard Maggie explaining to Iris, who was riding next to her. He felt like he was on a tour bus with one of those annoying, chatty guides. ‘Through the corporate complex with all its security, then the locked parking lot and onto this road. And as you can see, the road is much too narrow to accommodate a standard-sized car.’

Gino was scowling out at the thick stands of mature trees crowding the road that looked more like a bike path. ‘The people who live here can’t drive their own cars to their own houses?’

‘That’s correct. There is no road that connects to this one. It begins and ends at the enclosed parking lot we just left.’

‘So you come back from town with a buttload of groceries and do what? Hoof it all the way through the building to get to the carts? Sounds pretty damn inconvenient, if you ask me.’

Maggie smiled at him in the rearview mirror, a little wickedly, he thought. ‘Not as inconvenient as having your nose broken.’

Gino shut up and looked out the window. They were moving into a residential area that looked like any small town in America about a hundred fifty years ago, before they widened the streets for traffic. It was an idyllic scene of uniform, well-kept homes that could have been transplanted right off the set of Leave It to Beaver, complete with tidy shrubs, charming lampposts, and an ensemble cast of smiling, red-faced children playing in the fresh snow. Without exception, every single one of them stopped what they were doing and waved at the cart as it passed.

Gino nudged Magozzi and said under his breath, ‘When was the last time some kid on the street waved to you for absolutely no reason?’

‘Five years ago. He waved, then chucked a rock at my back window.’

‘That’s what I thought. Does the word Stepford ring any bells?’

Magozzi sighed and watched the scenery roll by: an open, parklike area with a gazebo and playground equipment, and adjacent to that, a larger brick building that looked very much like a school.

‘That looks like a school,’ he heard Iris echoing his thoughts from the far front seat.

‘It is indeed. Multiple grades and fully accredited, for any children who might be at risk on the outside. But just as many attend public school.’

And the school and the houses and the park were just the tip of the iceberg, Magozzi realized as they drove farther into the village. There were businesses, too – a mom-and-pop grocery store, presumably without the pop, a beauty salon, a little coffee shop, even a health clinic. It was the perfect reproduction of a perfect little town; a tranquil snapshot of traditional Americana, at least at first glance. But if you looked a little closer, it was anything but traditional, because this town belonged exclusively to women. For some reason, that made Magozzi very sad.

Julie Albright greeted them at the front door of her little house, and every one of them except Maggie Holland had to concentrate furiously not to wince at the woman’s face, which looked like a jigsaw puzzle put together very badly. It wasn’t as though Magozzi hadn’t seen it a hundred times before, but it always set him back on his heels. She was such a tiny thing – a full foot shorter than he was, at least, with watchful, wary eyes, still haunted by the lingering remnants of terror. He wondered if that look ever went away.

Her eyes finally found his and stayed there. It was a funny thing about abused women, he thought. No matter how many female officers they took on a call, the victims ultimately always sought solace in the very gender that had treated them so badly.

‘Won’t you all please come into the living room and sit down?’

All five of them were crowded onto a small section of tiled floor by the entrance, their boots dripping melted snow.