In the Shadow of the Glacier (20 page)

“You can guarantee that, can you, Sergeant?”

“Of course I can’t, Mr. Smith. But I can guarantee that the Trafalgar City Police will be keeping an eye on your property until we find this person.”

“My property, fine. What about my family? What about my wife?”

“Oh, stop, Andy,” Lucky said. She walked around her desk and sank into the chair. She adjusted the back support. A bit of color was returning to her face. “They’ll do what they can.”

“We’ll close the store for the rest of the day,” Andy said.

“We’ll do nothing of the sort. I won’t be chased out of our business by a poisoned-pen writer.” She took a deep drink of her tea. “Duncan, unlock the door.”

Winters said, “You’ll let us know if anything even the slightest out of the ordinary happens?”

“Yes.” She began rummaging through the mountain of paper on her desk.

Duncan preceded the police to unlock the door. “Do you have a moment, Mol?” he asked, flipping the sign to Open.

“My car’s right outside,” Winters said. The bell jangled as he left.

“If you know something about this letter, Duncan, you need to tell Seargant Winters, not just me.”

“It’s not about that. I’ve been wanting to ask you a question for a long time, Mol.”

She looked outside. The lights of Winters’ SUV flashed as he flicked his remote. “So ask.”

“I’m going to Vancouver on Tuesday. I’ve got tickets for the Pearl Jam concert. Do you wanna come with me?”

It took Smith a good few seconds to understand what he was saying. “You want me to go to a concert with you?”

“It’s been sold out for months. Get outa town, see Pearl Jam, eh? Sound good?”

“Duncan, I’m here, right now, as an investigating officer. I can’t make a date with you.” Winters was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. She wouldn’t put it past him to drive away without her. “I have to go.”

Duncan’s face tightened and the lines between his eyebrows came together. “It’ll be fun, Molly. You can stop being a cop for a while.”

“I don’t want to stop being a cop.”

“You’re acting as if I’ve insulted you. And I don’t want you to stop being a cop, anyway. Tell me you’ll think about it.”

“I can’t think about anything but this case. And now my family’s been threatened.” He was pretty cute, Duncan. Usually easygoing, cheerful. But right now he just looked angry. Some guys just couldn’t take rejection. “BC-DC’s playing at the Regal on Saturday. If, and it’s a big if, I’m free, I’d like to go. If I do, do you want to come?”

“Pearl Jam’s the real deal, Molly.”

“Pearl Jam isn’t going to happen.”

Winters leaned on the horn.

“I have to go,” she said. “See you, Dunc.”

“Okay. Saturday then.”

She ran into the street and jumped into Winters’ vehicle, instantly forgetting Duncan Weaver and the BC-DC concert.

“It’s most likely an empty threat, you know that, don’t you?”

“Oh yeah. Fuckin’ coward’s threatened my mom, my dad, their livelihood. And I’ve got to pretend it doesn’t really matter.”

“I’m not asking you to pretend anything.” Winters pulled into the parking lot at the police station. He switched the car off, but didn’t move to get out. “But I have to ask you if you can be a professional about this. And give me the help I need.”

“No one’s ever challenged my professionalism before, John.”

“So I’ve been told.”

“But no one’s ever threatened my mom before!” The red and white maple leaf flag above the police station snapped in the warm breeze.

“Anyone dropped a poisoned-pen letter addressed to Eliza, my wife, through my mail box, I’d be out for blood too, Molly.”

The leather headrest felt cool against the back of her head. Smith closed her eyes and remembered that she hadn’t had much sleep last night. “You think this had something to do with that goddamned CNC TV program. What’s it called, Filthy Column?”

“
Fifth Column.
Strange name for a program that follows the governing party’s line so closely. Anyone threatened your family before?”

Smith’s eyes flew open. “Of course not. You think I’d keep that a secret?”

“Just asking, Molly. Just asking. I’m just a dumb cop, but even I have to wonder. An incendiary TV program mentions both the Commemorative Peace Garden and your mother. Remind me, did the show say anything about your parents’ business?”

“There was a shot of the sign and the front windows. It might as well have been captioned, ‘Aim your rocks here.’ Bastards.”

“And within hours of the program airing we have arson at the project site and a threatening letter to one of the sponsors. Coincidence? Unlikely. Let’s get this letter to forensics, perhaps they’ll find something. You’d be surprised at how stupid most criminals can be. We wouldn’t catch many of them if they had half a brain cell to rub together.”

“Half of anything can’t rub against nothing.”

□□□

Talk at the coffee shop was all about the CNC program. It had been rebroadcast across the United States that morning on the network’s breakfast show.

“I wouldn’t of thought many people in town watched CNC.” Christa joined the conversation in the bagel line.

A young woman with hair cropped to her scalp, a short T-shirt, and low-slung cut-off jeans shrugged. “Word got around that there was going to be a piece on Trafalgar, so people tuned in. Hoping to see themselves in the background.”

“Fellow came in already,” Jolene, behind the sandwich bar, said, as she sliced a pumpernickel bagel, popped it into the toaster oven, slipped an onion one out, and slathered it with cream cheese. “Told me he’d driven up from Oregon and wanted to know where he could go to protest the peace garden.”

“What’d you say?” the short-haired girl asked.

“Sent him to Nelson.”

Everyone laughed.

“Dill and garlic on whole wheat, please.” Christa shuffled down the line. She’d been up all night, working on her paper. As the sun touched the top of the mountains, she’d pressed the Outlook Express send/receive button and sent it on its way. She’d done a good job and deserved a treat. On a nice morning like this sometimes it seemed as if everyone in Trafalgar passed through Big Eddie’s.

“Excuse me,” a middle-aged woman said from the back of the line, “but are you people talking about the Commemorative Peace Garden?”

The line ground to a halt as the locals turned and looked at her. Even Jolene stopped in the midst of slicing a bagel.

“My friends and I flew in from Vancouver. We heard about the program and wanted to let you know that you have our support.”

Like an assembly line that had been re-started after an accident, the bagel line shifted into motion again. “That’s nice of you,” a tall young man said. “But the show was only on last night.”

“We can move quickly when we have to. I’m with the Vancouver Women’s Peace Alliance.”

“Not everyone’s going to be happy to see you.” A man walked past, balancing coffee and bagel bag. He was dressed in a suit and tie. You didn’t see that much in Trafalgar, and certainly not in high summer. “O’Reilly donated the land and asked for a park to be dedicated to him and his buddies, so I figure they should respect his wishes. But we don’t need strangers stirring up trouble.” He glared at the woman from Vancouver.

Christa poured herself coffee and moved further down the line to pay.

“Some people aren’t in favor of the garden,” a woman in tennis whites, pushing a stroller, said. “Like the old World War Two vets. They say it disgraces their memory.”

“But the garden has nothing to do with World War Two. My grandpa lost an eye in Italy and he….”

Eddie took Christa’s money. “I don’t take sides,” he said, handing Christa her change and the warm bagel bag. “Have a nice day.”

The tables inside and out were all taken; people were propped on the short brick wall around Eddie’s’s property, and the line snaked down the street. With one or two exceptions there were no North-American-wide fast-food restaurants or coffee chains in Trafalgar. The citizens were active and vocal, and kept the corporate biggies out.

Christa sipped coffee through the hole in the lid. Perhaps she’d go to the beach later, spend a lazy day in the sun. It would be nice if Molly could come, but she was probably working, unless they’d solved this murder. In a million years Christa would never have guessed that Moonlight Smith would become a cop. But when Graham was killed, a lot of things changed with her friend. Molly had been working toward her MSW, Master of Social Work, at University of Victoria. Graham had finished ahead of her and had a job in Vancouver. Their wedding date was set for the following summer. But he’d been killed days before Christmas, stabbed and left to die in a garbage-strewn alley in the Downtown Eastside by one of his spaced-out clients. The doctor told Molly, foolishly in Christa’s opinion, that if someone had just called 911, Graham would have lived. But people passed him in the alley all night and no one called for help until morning. Molly quit the MSW program, came home to Trafalgar and wrapped herself in mourning and loneliness. She took an office job in Calgary, at her brother Sam’s law firm, two days before what should have been her wedding day. Six months later she was back in Trafalgar, and shortly after that announced that she’d been accepted as a recruit by the Trafalgar City Police. Her parents, Lucky in particular, were vehemently opposed to the very idea. But Molly didn’t argue, simply told them that she’d decided this was what she was going to do and they could accept it, or not. Sensibly, they accepted it.

Christa fumbled in her pocket for her key. A day at the beach would do Molly a world of good. It had to be tough, working on this murder case. She was still a rookie, and although she hadn’t said so, Christa sensed that Molly wasn’t getting on with the sergeant guy all that well. Even if she were working all day, she should be able to get away for a couple of hours later. They’d borrow Lucky’s car, take fold-up chairs, big straw hats and trashy magazines, and wine hidden in a thermos, and have fun. Like when they were kids.

The key slipped out of her fingers. She balanced the coffee cup, tucked the bagel bag under her arm, and bent over to retrieve the key.

“Let me help.” An arm knocked her against the wall, and long fingers grabbed the keys.

“I can manage, Charlie.”

“I’ll just help you take your things upstairs, okay?”

He unlocked the door.

“I don’t want your help. Good-bye.” She held out her hand. “Give me the key.”

“Don’t be like that. I’m trying to help you, aren’t I?” He reached for the coffee cup.

She pulled it out of the way. The brown bag fell to the ground. “I’m calling the cops.” She thrust her hand into her shorts pocket seeking her cell phone. Oh, no. She’d left it behind, thinking that it wouldn’t be needed on a quick walk to the coffee shop on a pleasant summer’s day.

He pushed his body up against hers, forcing her inside. His breath was rancid, like he’d been drinking all night and hadn’t brushed his teeth. The front hall was small, barely large enough for one person. He slammed the door behind him and they were plunged into near darkness, the only light coming from the small, dirty window in the top of the door. Christa fell onto the bottom step and scurried up the stairs, backward, on her butt. Hot coffee soaked the front of her tank-top.

“I’ve had enough of you and your shit,” Charlie yelled. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Chrissie?”

White hot pain streaked across her face. Her head felt as if it were flying off her neck.

“I don’t want to do this, but you just won’t listen to reason.”

He lifted his foot.

Chapter Sixteen

“Call for you, John. Rosemary’s Country Kitchen.”

“Sergeant Winters.”

“Hi, Mr. Winters. It’s Emily here, from Rosemary’s Country….”

“Have you heard from Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

“Constable Evans told me to let you know soon as she called. Her son in Toronto’s had a heart attack. She’s flying straight there. She said it sounds bad. I don’t know how I’m going to manage this store on my own. I’ve been run off my feet this morning.”

“Did you tell Mrs. Fitzgerald that I want to speak with her?”

“She said she can’t be bothered with that now.”

“Did you tell her why?”

“I didn’t get a chance. She said she wondered how you’d heard what’d happened, but she’ll phone the station when she gets back.”

Winters spluttered. “How I’d heard….Do you have a number where she can be reached?”

“She told me to call her on her cell phone.”

“What’s the number?” He jotted it down on a pink Post-it note.

“Something up?” Smith stood in the doorway.

“Fitzgerald’s left the building.” He dialed the number. A pleasant voice answered, asking him to leave a message at the beep. He did so. If she was in the air, then rushing to her son’s side, perhaps in the hospital all day, she might never turn her phone on.

“You think Rosemary’s got something to do with this?”

“No, I don’t. But it bothers me to have stones unturned. She said something odd to her assistant, although I suspect the assistant got the message mixed up. If she doesn’t call by tomorrow, I’ll ask the Toronto Police to track her down; her son’s in the hospital, so they should be able to find him. Oh, God, I hope the son’s name is Fitzgerald. It might not be. Whatever happened to the days when a son could be expected to have the same last name as his mother, eh, Molly?”