A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series) (27 page)

Chapter Thirty-four

“Give me some good news,” John Winters said as he came through the office door, thoroughly discouraged after his chat with Gar O.

“Two things,” Lopez said, swiveling his chair. “First, Mark Hamilton. I’ve got his army medical records.”

“Thank heavens,” Winters said, throwing himself into his chair, “for interservice co-operation.”

“Nothing’s amiss. He got a clean bill of health when discharged. He was never wounded, and there’s no record of him receiving, or needing, psychiatric care. All negatives, from our POV.”

“Negatives can be positive,” Winters said. “You saw him at the funeral. The man looked like the devil and all the hounds of hell were after him. Total panic. What brought that on? I heard no loud noises, no unexpected screaming or shouting that might have prompted a flashback to a firefight.”

“Can’t hang a man for being upset at a funeral.”

“Keep digging. The teachers say Cathy was irritating Hamilton. He tried to avoid her when he could. She appeared not to want to take no for an answer.”

“So he gave her a no she had to accept?”

“Perhaps. I’d like to talk to one of his commanding officers. See if you can find someone for me.”

“He’s been out of the army a good few years. Gone to university, become a teacher, moved here.”

“He didn’t learn to shoot at teacher’s college, and he didn’t go into a full-blown panic attack because the church was full of well-behaved high school students.”

“I see your point. In my spare time,” Lopez grimaced, “I’ve been working on the ViCLAS report. I sent it on Friday after you thought about the serial killer connection, while, I might add, Madeleine tapped her toes and waited for me to finish before we went to her friend’s for dinner.” ViCLAS was the Canadian police interagency communication tool used for finding links between crimes in distant jurisdictions. Not easy to use, time consuming, but a lot better than the old days when they’d often not even know about a similar incident a few miles away if it had been committed in another province or state. “Someone must have had time to kill on the weekend, because I got a report back. They might have found something.”

“Tell me about it.”

“From 1986-1997 there was a series of sniper shootings in Arizona. A place a lot like Trafalgar from what I can tell. Small town in the wilderness, lots of tourists, full of arty types, and transients,” Lopez wiggled his fingers in the air, “in search of their spirituality. Over the eleven years in question
there were
six sniper killings. All the victims were female, all of them white, all in the thirty to forty-five age group. Otherwise they had nothing in common, not religion, income group, marital status. Nothing. The victims were either hiking in the wilderness or walking in a sparely populated residential area when they were shot. The shooter always maintained a good distance from the victim, and he used a variety of weapons, various types of rifles or shotguns. Never a handgun.”

“Indicating the perp disposed of the firearm after the killing.”

“Right. Then in July of 1997, it ended. Not a single incident since.”

“Grendel,” Winters said.

“What?”

“Reminds me of a story. They have any suspects?”

“A few, but nothing concrete and nothing that would tie anyone to more than one of the victims, other than the fact that, like Trafalgar, a small town’s a small town. No one was ever charged. Law enforcement came from all over to help out. And then it ended. The police pretty much assumed the perp had died or left town and that was the end of that. They were looking for a serial killer, but this case had none of the normal serial killer indicators. No trophies taken, no taunting the police, no cryptic notes to the press. Believe it or not, other than in police circles and the town itself, the case had a pretty low profile. Didn’t get much national attention.”

“The days before the Internet.”

“Over the years, officers have questioned men arrested for similar shootings, but no one they came across had a connection to the Arizona business.”

“That’s interesting, but I doubt it has anything to do with our guy. Just another shooter.”

“We can only hope. God help us if this was the first.”

“First of what?” Barb Kowalski asked.

“Nothing,” Lopez said quickly.

Barb stood in the doorway, carrying an ominous-looking envelope. She shook it and coins jingled. “I’m collecting. Marlene Hardcastle’s retiring.”

“Who the heck is Marlene Hardcastle?”

“The law clerk at the RCMP detachment. I have a card for you to sign, too.”

Winters grumbled and pulled out his wallet.

***

Men chased each other around the ice. The puck skidded from one side of the rink to another. Sticks flew, bodies collided, the crowd roared their approval.

Gord Lindsay saw none of it. He sat in his favorite chair, an untouched bottle of beer and an empty bowl of chips on the table beside him. Renee had been through here a few minutes ago, dusting and tidying. She must have thought gremlins had snuck into the house while they were at the funeral—at Cathy’s funeral—to mess up the TV room.

“Sure you don’t want to come?” Ralph said. “Doesn’t do you any good, sitting here brooding.”

“I’m not brooding,” Gord said. “I’m watching the game.”

“Yeah. Right. Suit yourself.”

Jocelyn dashed around her grandfather. She’d changed out of the skirt and blouse she’d worn to her mother’s funeral and put on a well-worn pair of jeans and a long-sleeved T-shirt with sparkly lettering across the front. The sleeves were too short and the hem of the jeans rose above her thin ankle bones. She was growing fast; she’d need new clothes soon. Cathy would…No, Cathy was dead. Gord would have to be the one to take his daughter shopping.

“Please come, Daddy. Please.”

“I’ll be here when you get back, honeybunch. Off you go now, your grandmas are waiting.”

“Please.” She grabbed his arm, started to pull. “Please come.”

He jerked his arm away. “Will you stop that goddamned whining. You’re not five years old any more.”

The girl’s face crumpled and she burst into tears. Ralph muttered soft words, put his arm around her shoulders, and led her out of the room, throwing Gord a look that could sour milk.

“Everything all right?” Renee called.

The family was going out to dinner. Renee and Ann said they didn’t have the energy to cook, not after the funeral. Gord simply couldn’t face going with them. Squeezed into a booth at the Chinese buffet between his mom and Renee, both of them thinking they were keeping his spirits up by chattering away like a couple of birds who didn’t see the tornado building on the horizon. Ralph shoveling in orange-tinged chicken and ribs coated in sauce the consistency of wallpaper paste.

Jocelyn’s large sad eyes, watching her father, waiting for him to take all the pain away.

Bradley had been coaxed out of his room, away from the ever-present computer games, by his grandmothers and talked into accompanying them to dinner. Gord hated to think it took the death of his mother to turn the kid into a half-normal human being.

He flipped through the channels. Nothing worth watching. He continued flipping.

The doorbell rang.

He ignored it. Another well-meaning neighbor bearing a casserole or homemade cake. A stream of which were arriving at the house. Renee put it all in the freezer, provision against the day when they’d be gone and Gord would have to feed his children himself.

The bell again. Longer this time, as if someone were leaning against it.

It stopped.

His cell phone buzzed.

He glanced at the display. Oh god, Elizabeth. He hadn’t been at all pleased to see her at the funeral. Dressed so no one could fail to notice or remember her.

He hesitated. He didn’t want to talk to her. He didn’t want her here, but she could be mighty persistent. Elizabeth could be counted on to stand her ground until she got her way. Once, he’d thought that an admirable trait.

“I can’t talk now,” he snapped into the phone. “My daughter’s calling for me.”

“No she isn’t,” Elizabeth replied. “She just left. The whole happy family, minus the grieving husband, piled into a van and drove down the hill.”

“Where are you?”

The doorbell rang.

He scrambled out of his chair, bolted down the hallway, and threw open the door, Spot hot on his heels.

Elizabeth stood there, smiling, dressed as she’d been at the funeral.

“For god’s sake, are you out of your mind? You can’t come here.”

“Why not?” She stepped forward. He didn’t move. She took another step until they were almost bumping chests. Gord glanced around, down the street, at the neighbors.

He stepped back, and Elizabeth walked past him into the living room. Spot followed, sniffing at her ankles. Elizabeth scanned the room, ignoring the curious dog. “Nice house.”

All neat and tidy. Nothing at all like the home Cathy had lived in. Gord shifted a china figurine so the arrangement was off center, just because he could.

“I don’t want you here, Elizabeth. Please, this is Cathy’s home. I live here with my children.”

She plucked a picture off a side table. Gord and Cathy on their wedding day. Cathy: so beautiful, so happy.

“She was pretty,” Elizabeth said in her deep, sexy voice.

“Yes, she was.”

“Don’t worry, Gord. I don’t want to move in. I don’t want to be a new mommy to your kids. Perish the thought.” She shoved Spot away with the toe of her boot. “I certainly don’t want to have to pick up after your dog. I don’t want to cause you any trouble.”

A great weight lifted off Gord’s chest. “What do you want then? Why are you here, Elizabeth? Go home and I’ll call you next week.”

“What do I want? Thank you for asking. Twenty thousand dollars should do it. Then I’ll never bother you again.”

“What? Why the hell should I give you anything?”

She dropped into a wingback chair. Her coat fell open, exposing the long legs, sleek stockings, high-heeled boots. “Now that your wife’s dead, you don’t need to sneak around any more. You can live openly with another woman, once a suitable mourning period is over, of course.”

“I don’t want to discuss our future now. I…”

“See, Gord, it’s like this. I don’t want that woman to be me.”

“What?”

“I don’t want you, Gord, not now that you’re single, but I have expenses. I have a house to maintain and a life to live. Twenty thou will see me okay for a while.”

Gord stared at her. He’d been afraid Elizabeth had come here because she wanted their relationship to be more open. Permanent. Recognized. He’d been wondering how he was going to dump her.

She was not only dumping him but asking to be paid for it.

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“Consider it a farewell gift to an old friend.”

“No. Even if I had that kind of money, which I don’t, I’m not going to give it to you.”

“You have life insurance, I’ll bet. Cathy did, I mean. You’ll be clearing a nice sum.”

“That money, if I ever see it, is for our children. So I can pay for things Cathy did for them. What about that jewelry I bought you?” He almost groaned. When he’d first met Elizabeth he’d taken money out of the company accounts and splurged on some pretty—and pretty expensive—baubles trying to impress her. “You got insurance money from the theft of the jewelry, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, I did. That’s why I’m not asking for more. Twenty thousand by the end of the month, and you’ll never hear from me again. You have my bank account details. If the money’s not there, I’ll be back. Your mother-in-law looks like a right battle-ax. Wonder how she’d take it when I come crying to her, saying you were about to ask Cathy for a divorce. And here, I’d paid all sorts of money on my house, to make a nice home for you and a second home for your dear sweet kids. Sniff sniff.”

“She won’t believe you.”

“She will when she sees the photographic evidence.”

“You filthy bitch. I didn’t know you had it in you.”

She threw back her head and laughed. “Yeah, Gord. I screwed you because you’re
soooo
attractive. Such a hunk of a man. Get real. When I lost my voice, I lost any chance to make a decent living for myself. When I ran into you again, my money was running out, my bills and expenses climbing. It was you or the streets, a job see, like a housekeeper with benefits. I’m quitting, and I want severance pay.” She got to her feet and put the wedding picture carefully back on the side table so Cathy faced Gord. He turned away.