In the Shadow of the Glacier (32 page)

She stopped talking as the waiter put their lunches on the table. He pulled a gigantic wooden phallic symbol out from under his arm, waved it in front of their faces, and asked if they wanted fresh ground pepper.

They declined.

Smith stabbed her fork into a pile of helpless spinach.

“…a radio station,” she continued. “Ben’s in the rep hockey league and Sam’s making plans to manage his career in the NHL. While Roberta excels at piano.”

“Oh, look who’s here,” Meredith said with a smile so sharp that her salmon might have turned into shark.

A middle-aged man, trim, well dressed in comfortable casuals, enjoying his own self-importance, was walking toward them.

“Meredith. I’ve been looking for you. But don’t let me interrupt your lunch.” His smile was broad and as false as his mouthful of teeth.

Smith dropped her fork. “I’m outta here.” She pushed her chair back.

“Don’t leave on my account,” Rich Ashcroft said. He grabbed a chair from another table, swung it around, and sat down. “Constable Molly Smith.”

“You know who I am?”

“As you obviously know who I am. So let’s not beat about the bush. I’m here to do a profile of your lovely town. I had no idea that you were friends with my colleague, Meredith, but now that we’ve met, I’d like to interview you for my program.”

Smith looked at Meredith. “You must be out of your mind, to think you could trick me into something like this.”

The waiter and the hostess hovered, watching. “Perhaps you could give my viewers background on Trafalgar,” Ashcroft said.

“Hardly.” She headed for the door. What on earth was Meredith thinking? That she’d give a TV interview while dressed in full uniform? She might as well hand in her resignation on the spot. Could Meredith and Ashcroft possibly have believed that she wouldn’t have seen, or even heard about, the CNC program on Trafalgar?

She stepped onto the sidewalk. The sun was bright and in her eyes. She fumbled for her sunglasses.

“I understand that your mother, Mrs. Lucy Smith, who everyone calls Lucky, is one of the leading organizers of the Commemorative Peace Garden, Constable Smith.” Ashcroft had followed her out. He was standing close to her. Much too close. Perhaps she’d pull out her handcuffs and cuff him. That would shut the pompous bastard up. Instead she took a couple of steps backward. He followed her. She could smell his breath, all mint and mouthwash. “As someone charged with the maintenance of law and order you must be concerned about your mother and her group. How does that affect the performance of your job?”

“It doesn’t affect it at all,” she said, aware that she shouldn’t be saying anything. “The Trafalgar City Police have no opinion on the garden.”

“Some folks have suggested that the Trafalgar City Police has an interest, for some twisted reason, in town council approving the peace garden. With your mother agitating, causing trouble, does that put you in a conflict of interest, or are you representing her to the police department?”

“Certainly not.” She had to get the hell out of here. People walking past recognized Ashcroft; they pointed at him and whispered among themselves.

She turned and walked away.

“Constable Smith, please,” Ashcroft called. His voice was low, soft, charming.

She turned.

He stood no more than a couple of feet away from her. He was her parents’ age at least, but still a good-looking man, tanned and fit, with a haircut that probably cost a hundred bucks or more in California.

“Yes?”

“Some might think that your mother and her friends are attempting to actively interfere with the U.S. political situation as it is today. Or is it simply that they can’t let go of memory of things long past?”

Meredith had come out of the restaurant. She held her hands to her mouth, and her face was pale.

“Fuck you, Ashcroft,” Smith said. “How dare you come to our town and try to tell us what to believe. And fuck you too, Meredith,” she yelled, “for all your let’s-remember-the-good-old-days.”

“Please, Constable,” Ashcroft said. His smile was as friendly as those of the gargoyles adorning town hall. “Calm down. Is it true that your father was a draft dodger?”

“He came to Canada because he didn’t believe in the Vietnam War, yes. But, as you said, that was a long time ago. Before I was born, in fact.”

“How much support does your mother, Lucky Smith, have from the Trafalgar City Police?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The police don’t take sides on matters such as this. Leave me alone.” She started to walk away.

“Do you object to the actions of your mother, Constable Smith?”

Smith turned again. Again Ashcroft was standing in her private space. Rage boiled up behind her forehead, and she fought to keep her eyes from filling up like a pothole in the road in a sudden rainstorm. “Will you leave my mother the fuck alone,” she yelled. A small crowd was gathering. A man spoke to Meredith, and she shook her head.

“No need to get upset, Constable. I’m only asking you some simple questions.”

“You don’t back off, buddy, I’ll arrest you for harassing a police officer.”

“I’m not harassing you, Constable Smith,” he said, in a voice as smooth and sweet as honey. “I only want to know if having a communist, terrorist-supporting harridan for a mother is compromising your ability to serve and protect the people of this town.”

She’d faced down drunks spoiling for a fight after the bars closed, irate motorists who figured that doing a hundred miles an hour on a winding mountain road was well within their rights, and an abusive husband who’d decided that as his wife was out of battering range, a female cop would make a suitable replacement. And she’d handled them all, calmly, as she’d been taught.

She took a step forward, expecting Ashcroft to retreat. Instead he smirked. “Closer, Molly,” he whispered, staring into her eyes. “Come closer. Your mother’s a washed-up old hag trying to relive her glory days, and as for your father, they used to hang….”

A black SUV careened across the street. Brakes protested as it came to a halt, facing the wrong way. A man jumped out, leaving the engine running. Ashcroft’s gaze broke and he stepped back. John Winters pushed his way between them. “What’s going on here?”

Ashcroft gave Smith a long, lingering look, and then turned to Winters. “Sorry,” he said, “I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure.”

Smith was shaking all over. This close. She’d been this close to assaulting a journalist.

Winters pulled his wallet out and flashed his badge. “Sergeant John Winters, Trafalgar City Police. If you’re looking for an official statement from our office, the station is around that corner. Otherwise, please be on your way. You’re creating a disturbance.”

“I might pop by later, thanks,” Ashcroft said. He looked at Smith. His eyes were as cold as the water in Meredith’s ice bucket. “We’ll talk again later, Molly. Count on it.”

“Anything else we can help you with?” Winters said.

“Winters, I’ll remember that name.”

They watched Ashcroft saunter away.

Meredith’s face was white and she tossed Smith a look somewhere between pain and regret and embarrassment before running after Ashcroft. A fat woman stepped out from the group of spectators and handed Ashcroft a pen and scrap of paper, which he signed with a flourish. He looked around, but no other fans approached him. The crowd began to disperse, a few people muttering. Ashcroft waved, and a man stepped out from an alley. He carried a camera on his shoulder; it was pointing at Smith and Winters.

“Oh, God. They were filming it.”

“Get in the car.”

“I’m okay. I can walk.”

“Get in the car, Constable Smith, or that cameraman will get a good shot of you being forced into it.”

She ran around the SUV and wrenched open the passenger door. Winters hit the gas and pulled away with a speed that should have had her giving him a ticket.

He didn’t take her to the station, as she expected; instead, he drove toward the river. He pulled into the parking lot beside the city hall park. “Get out.”

“I’m on duty.”

“Not for another half an hour. Get out.”

“I don’t want to.”

“Get out of the car, Constable.”

She opened the door and stepped out. The sun was warm on her face. As if she were watching a movie, she saw herself pulling out her truncheon and knocking Ashcroft to the ground. She stood over him and kicked him in the ribs. Maybe a kick to the head as well. And it would all have been captured on camera.

Winters walked into the park. Smith followed, because she could think of nothing else to do. The public beach was about two hundred yards away. Parents sat in fold-up chairs and watched children playing in the sand or paddling in the water. Two boys chased a squealing girl, splashing water on her, while their father yelled at them to behave. They paid him no attention and he went back to his book. The benches at this end of the park were empty. Winters sat down and watched the families enjoying the beach.

Smith joined him. Her misery shrouded her like a
burka
. Except that she didn’t even have eye holes to see out of.

They sat in silence.

A mother called her children out of the water to come and eat. They ran toward her, screaming with pleasure.

“What happened there?” he said at last.

“I’d rather not talk about it.” It was bad enough just watching the scene play over and over in her head, never mind having to tell him about it.

“I’m not asking, Smith. I’m ordering you. What happened there?”

She swallowed bile. “I was set up. Meredith Morgenstern from the
Gazette
invited me to lunch. I knew her in school.”

“Yes, you told me, go on.”

“It was a trap. That Ashcroft asshole arrived, all false charm. I walked out. I don’t think Meredith paid the bill.”

“If not, they’ll find her. Go on.”

The tears that had been building up behind her eyes ever since her best friend had told her to leave the hospital began to flow like the river at break-up. She sat on the park bench, hot salty tears running down her face. She made no move to wipe them away. “I screwed up, okay. I screwed up big time. Christ, I can handle the tough guys, but that smarmy bastard.” Her chest closed up, and her shoulders shook, and regardless of how hard she might try not to let it happen, she sobbed. Winters made no attempt to comfort her; he didn’t put his arm around her shoulders, mutter platitudes or even offer her a tissue. And she knew that her career was finished.

“Lots of smarmy bastards in the world, Molly,” he said at last. “And I’m sure you’ve met some of them. Why’d this one get your goat?”

She dug in her pocket for a tissue and blew her nose. “My mom. He said things about my mom. And my dad. My parents are good people. Really good people. Dad only wants to keep the store going, and to get along with everyone. Mom might be living in the past sometimes, but the things she believes in are so important to her.”

“I thought as much. It’s tough, doing our job in a town this small. Where everyone knows everyone else. Where we have family, childhood friends, neighbors. But we’re still the police and we have a responsibility.”

The word “we” sounded nice in her ear. But it wouldn’t be long before she was no longer part of Winters’
we
. She started crying again. A young couple passed, holding hands, smiling at each other with that stupid smile that told everyone in the world that they were newly in love. They paused in front of the bench and then scurried on. In other circumstances, Smith might have laughed to imagine what they must be thinking to see a police officer crying her heart out in the summer sun.

“He filmed it,” she said.

“I noticed. It’s going to be bad, Molly. Probably very bad. I’d tell you that you shouldn’t have said a word and just walked away, but you know that. If someone like Ashcroft insulted Eliza, and I knew he was planning on slandering her all over national TV, I’d probably deck the guy. So I won’t criticize you.”

“Thanks,” she mumbled. She twisted her sodden scrap of a tissue between her fingers.

“It’s ten to three. Mop your face and gird your loins, as I believe they say in the classics. You have to tell the chief what happened.”

“I can’t.”

Winters stood up. “Whether you can or not is irrelevant. You will tell him the moment you walk into the station. You want him to see you on TV tonight without being prepared?”

“No.” She got to her feet. Her boots felt like lead weights holding her down. Perhaps she should just go home now. Crawl into bed, grab Jenny, the Cabbage Patch doll she’d been given for Christmas when she was ten, pull the covers over her head and never come out.
Why, why did I ever think I could be a cop?

“Let’s go,” Winters said.

She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I would have punched that asshole into the ground if you hadn’t shown up. They’re going to show it tonight, so what does it matter what I say to the Chief. You can prepare him.”

“If that’s what you want,” Winters said. “I’m going back to my car. I have work to do. I’ll drop you at home, or I’ll take you to the station. Or I’ll leave you here. Your choice, Molly, your choice.”

He walked up the hill to the parking lot. A colorful beach ball tumbled across the lawn toward him. He scooped it up and tossed it to a little girl with her finger in her mouth. She grabbed the ball and ran.

Smith took a deep breath and followed him. Might as well face the chief today. He’d be firing her once he’d seen
Fifth Column
.

Chapter Twenty-six

A list of bike thefts in the area was waiting on his computer. Smith had stopped crying on the drive back and had scuttled off to the washroom to wash her face and compose herself before going to see the Chief Constable. Jim Denton had given her a quizzical look and been about to say something, but Winters shook his head behind Smith’s back, and the question changed to a greeting.