Arrluk crawled out of the entry and rose to feet. "A little baroque for my taste, but nothing out of the ordinary in there." I traced a joint between two blocks of ice and licked it. It was clean tasting with just a hint dust mixed in it. My partner and I found ourselves seventy-five miles outside of Scottsdale, Arizona. What can I say. You go where the job takes you. So, there we stood under the glare of the mid-day sun checking out what appeared to be a simple case of an igloo not built to code.

A flatfoot with the Arizona Adobe Commission showed up just then asking for identification. I pulled out my badge. He looked at it distainfully. "You're a little out of your territory aren't you Pal?" I looked past him. "I could say the same thing about you. Shove off. Don't you have a mud puddle or something that needs your attention." He raised a fist, but I was fast with a left and knocked him to the ground. He scrambled to his feet. "Oh, you've gone and done it now. You have no idea who you're messing with." I laughed. "You? A two-bit clay slinger." He shook his head. "Not me, you fool. Do you know who this here house belongs to?" "Enlighten me, Mudhen." A look of terror passed over his face. "Mr. Nanook don't take kindly to people poking around his house." I swollowed hard trying not to betray my surprise. Fifteen years had passed, but not a day went by when I wasn't haunted by the smirk of that criminally negligent builder. Many a night I lay awake wondering how he had managed to slip through my fingers and vanish into thin air. I turned to my partner. "Arrluk, get on the horn. Start calling every ice sculptor within a hundred mile radius of this place."