Snow Blind by P.J. Tracy

Author:P.J. Tracy [Tracy, P.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Mystery, Suspense
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 2006-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

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.

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