A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series) (13 page)

“I met a kid a while ago whose mother named him Beowulf.”

Keller roared.

“She’s young, but a good mother, I thought,” Winters said. “Good parents can make up for a lousy name.”

“Back to mothers. Cathy Lindsay?”

“By all accounts a nice, normal, middle-class Trafalgar woman. I’ve got a couple of lines to pursue.” Winters filled his boss in on the school rumor about an affair between Cathy and a fellow teacher and the VicPD report of Gord Lindsay’s suspected second life in Victoria. “But really, I can’t see either of those leading to murder. Yes, the husband might have wanted to get rid of her if things were getting rough between them. But they aren’t worth major money, not as far as we’ve been able to tell. So why not get a divorce? Nasty, unpleasant, but not unusual.”

“As well I know.”

“Right. There’s nothing in Gord Lindsay’s background that suggests he’s got the wherewithal to get hold of the sort of weapon that was used to kill his wife, or how to use it with that degree of accuracy. The gun guys tell me it was an expert shot.”

“Any chance they weren’t aiming at Cathy?”

“If not, then what were they aiming at? Nothing’s out there. This close to town, no one should be hunting. If they were aiming for the back window of one of the houses on the ridge, they were at a ridiculously bad angle and distance. As for the rumor of Cathy’s affair, I’ll follow that up when the guy in question answers his darn phone, but same question applies. If he wanted out of the affair, why kill her? Tell her to bugger off. You know as well as I do that domestics are nasty, vicious, sudden things. Pent up anger or overwhelming rage. Nothing like this. It was calculated, cold, planned. Parking his car in such a place that we’d lose it in a maze of tracks.” Winters shook his head.

“A joy killing then?”

“I’ve considered that. Was Cathy a random target? The wrong place at the wrong time? In this town? I just can’t see it. Maybe I don’t want to see it, but my gut says no. For what that’s worth. My gut isn’t telling me anything at all about this one.”

“They get any DNA off the cigarette butt found?”

“We’re waiting for the results from the lab. A DNA sample’s totally useless if there’s nothing to compare it with.” He finished his beer, set the bottle down on the table.

“Get you another?”

“Better not. I’m driving and I’ve got a long day ahead of me tomorrow.”

“One other thing, while you’re here. I had a call from the mayor last week. Someone’s bought the Grizzly Resort site.”

“Who?”

“Fellow by the name of Fernhaugh representing some sort of consortium. The bad news is they plan to go head and develop it.”

Winters leaned back in his seat with a groan. That piece of mountain wilderness had been slated for development a few years ago. The deal had died, the partners withdrew and put the land up for sale. The Trafalgar City Police breathed a collective sigh of relief. Not that the TCP had any objection to development, but the project had been a flashpoint for environmentalists before the first shovel so much as hit the ground.

“I’ve a preliminary meeting with the mayor and this Fernhaugh on Wednesday. Not looking forward to it. We do not need that issue rearing its ugly head.”

“You can say that again.”

“I no doubt will.”

“Have you spoken to Lucky about it?”

“Fernhaugh’s been keeping a low profile. I don’t think she’s heard. Yet. I wouldn’t want to be in the same room when she does.”

Chapter Sixteen

By the time Molly Smith got to
Feuilles de Menthe
, the drunk had been dragged away by his embarrassed wife. He’d had some objection to the degree to which his steak had been cooked. The kitchen would have prepared him another, if he’d asked, the waiter told Smith. But he ate the whole thing without complaint, while consuming two bottles of an excellent Australian Shiraz, and then decided it wasn’t good enough and he wasn’t going to pay.

Smith asked for a description—middle-aged, average height, average weight, brown hair, black leather coat. The waiter shrugged. “Average guy.”

“I’m afraid he’s going to get behind the wheel,” she said. “I don’t suppose you saw which direction they went?”

“As it happens, I did. I wanted to make sure he didn’t decide to come back. They turned left and crossed Monroe Street. You’ll be pleased to hear I saw the wife take the keys out of her purse. And keep them in her hand.”

“Good. Thanks. If he comes back…”

“I’ll let you know.”

She left, stomach rumbling. What with stopping in at the store for new gloves, and then waiting for Winters to arrive and hear Lucky’s story, Smith hadn’t eaten since lunch at the lodge. She was starving, and it didn’t help standing on the street outside Trafalgar Thai while the scent of spices and aromatic herbs drifted out the door every time it opened. Or being here while waiters passed bearing plates piled with braised ribs or grilled salmon.

Anyplace she might be able to grab something quick that she could eat standing up—the bakery, the coffee shops—was closed at this time on a Monday night.

Wasn’t there a snack bar at the rec center? Indeed, she thought with an inner smile, there was.

The nightlife district of Trafalgar was a small one. The rec center wasn’t far from the east end of Front Street, next to the tourist info place. Peterson had warned her not to be spending her time investigating murders she wasn’t assigned, or qualified, to investigate. He couldn’t object to her getting something to eat, could he?

Better than her fainting on the street from hunger.

That sort of thing reduced the citizenry’s confidence in the professionalism of their police service.

Happy with her logic, she set off down the street. She’d arrive about quarter to eight. In time to catch Mrs. Grady, her old teacher, before her game.

The parking lot of the rec center was almost full. Lights spilled from doors and windows. Little kids followed parents lugging enormous hockey bags; women with coats tossed over fashionable yoga pants headed for their cars, while women in shorts and carrying athletic shoes walked into the building.

The industrial-strength carpeting in the entrance was wet and dirty with rapidly-melting snow, the building filled with the acrid scent of generations of sweat-soaked shirts, damp socks, overly-stewed coffee, and stale popcorn. The floors reverberated with the tread of cleats and skate protectors. Children’s laughter and parents’ cheers bounced off the walls and the glass shield surrounding the ice rink. Smith knew her way around this place, and she headed for the gym. At the snack bar, pink hot dogs turned slowly on the grill and popcorn bounced in the machine. Business first and then a couple of those hot dogs. She hadn’t had a proper hot dog, drenched in mustard and relish, in years.

In the gym, women were leaning against walls stretching, standing in small groups chatting, or kicking soccer balls back and forth. A few glanced over at the arriving policewoman, but most carried on with their warm-up.

Smith wondered if Cathy Lindsay had come here. That might be an avenue to explore. Although she couldn’t imagine the woman had offended someone in aerobics class or Pilates so severely they’d take out a contract on her.

She spotted her quarry alone by the far wall, rhythmically doing squats. Smith made her way across the gym floor, highly overdressed in her winter jacket, uniform, equipment belt, and black boots among these sleek women wearing shorts, T-shirts, and running shoes.

“Hi, Mrs. Grady, how are things?”

“Moonlight, nice to see you. Is there a problem?”

“I remembered you play here on Monday, and I wanted to ask you some questions. It won’t take long.”

Mrs. Grady—Smith didn’t even know her first name—glanced at the round white clock high on the wall. Five to eight. “What’s this about?”

“Cathy Lindsay.”

The teacher’s face settled into dark lines. “Bad, bad business. I don’t know what I can tell you.”

“She taught at TDH I hear. Did you know her?”

“I knew her to see her. To say hi if I ran into her in the grocery store. I never had anything social to do with her, nothing outside of school.”

“The first forty-eight hours are absolutely critical in a police investigation,” Smith said.

“So they say on all the TV shows.”

Smith tried not to grimace. “In this case, Mrs. Lindsay’s place of employment is closed for another week. Sergeant Winters, the detective in charge, wants to speak to people who worked with her, but most of her colleagues are away or can’t be reached. I remembered seeing you here the other day, and said I’d ask.”

“I don’t know how I can help you, Moonlight.”

“It’s come to our attention that rumors about Cathy Lindsay were circulating at the school.”

Mrs. Grady’s eyebrows pulled together and her face tightened. For a moment Molly Smith feared she was going to be chastised for doing a substandard job on her essay on the Brontë sisters. Gosh, that had been so awful. She minded Mrs. Grady’s disapproval far more than she minded the D she got on that paper, or what her mother said when she saw it. Mrs. Grady’s disappointment, as well as the smirk on Meredith Morgenstern’s face when she was asked to come to the front of the class and read from her A+ paper on Wordsworth, rankled for a long time.

Smith pulled her head back to the present. She tried to look like a police officer interviewing a potential witness. It wasn’t easy.

“Watch out,” Mrs. Grady cried, leaping back. An out of control black and white soccer ball bounced off Smith’s right leg.

“Sorry.” A woman chased after the errant ball.

A whistle blew and the women fell into order. Mrs. Grady glanced at them.

“Cathy Lindsay?” Smith nudged.

“You’re asking about a rumor?”

“Some students have said she was involved with another teacher.”

“I don’t know about
involved
.” Mrs. Grady let out a sigh as she gave in. “Yes, Cathy is certainly at the center of the rumor mill lately. I guess I should say she was. Terrible, terrible business, what happened to her. She has…had…a, I scarcely know how to say it, a crush on one of the male teachers.”

“A crush?”

“That seems to be the best word I can use. It was becoming embarrassing. She’d arrive at staff meetings late so she could pull up a chair beside him. She brought cookies and cupcakes she’d baked, saying she had a few extra and
she knew
a single man—emphasizing single—didn’t get much home cooking. She asked him to give her a hand carrying things to her car or to class. The sort of thing she’d never needed help with before. In short, she mooned around like one of our grade-nine girls with a crush on the football team’s quarterback.”

“This man, how’d he react?”

“He was hideously embarrassed. We were all embarrassed. For the both of them. He leapt to his feet at one of the staff meetings when she came in late, offered her his chair, and ran to the other side of the room to stand against the wall. With his arms crossed so defensively he might as well have hung a no-trespassing sign around his neck.

“It’s difficult sometimes for a male teacher, in such a female-heavy environment. And they have to be so careful about never being in a possibly compromising situation with the teenage girls. I’m sure he didn’t need this complication. To be honest, Moonlight, I felt sorry for him. I was walking with him to our respective classrooms about a month or so ago when he said he’d forgotten something and whirled around and dashed off down a side corridor. Sure enough, who was heading our way but Cathy. She even started dressing better.”

“Better how?”

“Better quality clothes, jewelry, high heels. Just nicer. Thank God, she didn’t try to dress sexy.”

“What’s this man’s name?”

“Moonlight, he didn’t
do
anything. He didn’t kill her because she was embarrassing him. If anything, I’d suspect she’d be more likely to kill him because he rejected her.”

“Did he reject her? Tell her to piss off, I mean?”

“That I don’t know.”

“His name?”

“I don’t want to get anyone in trouble, Moonlight. My game’s started. We’re short-handed as it is.”

“I know his name, Mrs. Grady. I just want confirmation.”

“You can call me Alice now.”

Never
.

Mrs. Grady surrendered with a reluctant sigh. “Mark Hamilton. He teaches math. And he’s a very, very nice man.”

“Thanks.”

“I was pleased when you came back to Trafalgar, Moonlight. Pleased to see you became a police officer. We need young women like you, doing well in the traditional men’s jobs.”

Smith shifted her boots. They’d deposited a large wet puddle on the gym floor. “Thanks, Mrs. Grady.”

The teacher ran onto the floor and sent a ball flying into the far wall with a well-placed kick.

It was ten after eight when Smith left the gym. The snack bar was dark, the glass window pulled across the counter, the hot dog cooker switched off, the popcorn machine silent, the coffee pot empty.

Smith groaned.

“I didn’t do it!” A teenage boy shouted, raising his hands in the air. “It wasn’t me. It was him. He did it all.” His companion smacked him on the side of the head as they passed, laughing uproariously at their own joke.