In the Shadow of the Glacier (2 page)

The words slipped out. “You are so beautiful.”

“Oh, John, how you do go on.” She looked at him through sea-green eyes over the rim of her glass.

He was the luckiest man in the world. While most of his colleagues sat at home with their dumpy
hausfrau
wives, he was dining in one of the best restaurants in the area with a woman who was regularly photographed for women’s magazines. If his credit card could take the load of this dinner, he’d be scoring tonight.

The waiter cleared the appetizer dishes. He was young, blond, buff, handsome, yet he almost melted under the force of the smile from John’s date.

Their main courses arrived. She’d chosen the poached wild salmon; he’d wanted the filet mignon but at forty bucks a pop it was too much, so he settled for a T-bone. Potatoes and vegetables cost extra; the cash register in his brain clicked up the numbers. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about how much this meal was costing? He looked into the woman’s deep décolletage. That took his mind off the price of the meal. “Shall I order another bottle of wine?”

“I’m game if you are,” she said. She winked.

Winters’ arm shot up to summon the waiter. At the same moment his jacket rang.

“Oh, no,” he said.

“John,” she said. “Not tonight.”

He pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket and pointed to the empty bottle of wine in the cooler as the attentive waiter slid up to their table.

“Winters.”

The woman across the table threw sea-green daggers at him.

He put the phone back without daring a glance at her. “If you want dessert,” he mumbled, picking at mashed potatoes running with yellow butter, “we should have time. I told them I’ve been drinking so they’re sending someone to pick me up.”

“John…”

“Oh, by the way, I bought this.” He fumbled in his pocket for the small blue box, and handed it across the table.

She took it in perfectly manicured fingers.

“It’s for you,” he said.

She gave him a soft smile. A smile full of love, yet tinged with disappointment at the failure of their evening. She opened the box.

His phone rang again. He said no more than two or three words before hanging up. “The car’s here already, there was someone nearby.” He got to his feet and walked around to her side of the table. “Enjoy your dinner, have dessert, call a cab, you’ve had as much to drink as I have. Take your time, and know that I love you.” He pulled out his credit card. “I’ll tell them to cover anything.”

She laughed. “I wouldn’t trust that card to pay for a pack of gum. Now get going. I haven’t finished my meal yet. Call me when you get a chance.”

He bent over and kissed her.

Another promising night ruined. “Sorry,” he said.

Eliza Winters watched the man she’d been happily married to for twenty-five years walk out of the restaurant. How much longer, she wondered, would he be able to keep at his line of work? Retirement was getting closer, even as he tried to ignore the passing of time. They’d moved to Trafalgar because he was burning out, fast, in Vancouver. Crushed by the despair of life in the Downtown Eastside. Consumed by guilt at what he saw as failure. Drinking far, far too much. The move had been good for him; the old John was coming back to her. She hoped tonight’s call wouldn’t amount to anything too serious.

Eliza twisted the necklace around her fingers, letting it catch fire from the candlelight on the table. She signaled to the waiter to bring the bill and dug into her bag for her credit card.

□□□

Christa Thompson let all of her frustrations out on the phone table.

“Damn, blast, and hellfire,” she yelled. “Leave me alone.” The table jumped.

He’d called her again. As always, sweet and kind and considerate. Is there anything I can get you, Chrissie? I’m heading to Nelson. I’ll stop at Wal-Mart if you want. Can I pick up anything? Let me help you, let me care for you, let me watch over you, let me, let me….

Why wouldn’t he leave her alone?

She buried the phone under a pile of sheets in the linen closet. She knew the routine. He’d call every fifteen minutes, “just checking that you’re okay.” After an hour or two, he’d suggest coming over with a pizza, or picking up a DVD. She’d tried to be nice, to be friendly. To explain that she’d eaten dinner, thank you. That she was tired and ready for bed. Always being polite, always saying thank you.

But tonight she’d told him straight out not to bother her again, and buried the phone where she wouldn’t have to listen to it ring. Would he get the message at last?

She carried a cup of tea into the living room-dining room-study of her apartment and sat down at the computer table. Her essay on the Romantic Poets (20% of the final mark!) was due next week and she’d barely started it. She looked out the window. The lights of town twinkled in the valley and crawled up the lower slopes, getting thinner and thinner until the mountains were nothing but dark shapes against the deep purple sky. Koola glacier was wrapped in darkness.

She sipped at the tea and reviewed her notes. She’d always loved Wordsworth the best. Could his name, perfect for a poet, have contributed to his art? That might be an idea to pursue if she decided to go for her master’s in English Lit. She was reading
An Evening’s Walk, Addressed to a Young Lady,
settling into the mood and the love of the words, when the loud knocking at the front door yanked her back to her cramped apartment. She occupied the top floor of a house so decrepit it was a wonder that one board still supported another, and her downstairs neighbors could be nasty if she made the slightest noise.

Abandoning Wordsworth, Christa ran down the narrow staircase. She threw open the door.

Charlie stood there. He was well over six feet tall, thickly muscled from hours spent at the gym, with a head as round and bald as a bowling ball. His running shoes filled the mat at her door.

“Gosh, Chrissie, your phone isn’t working. It rings and rings but you don’t pick up. Suppose you had to call 911 or something. I came over right away.”

“Please, please. Leave me alone, Charlie. Just. Go. Away.” She slammed the door shut. She leaned her back against it and wept as his fists pounded on the thin wood. “Chrissie. Let me help. I can fix your phone.”

“You don’t shut your friend the hell up, I’m reporting this to Mr. Czarnecki,” the downstairs neighbor screamed through the wall that separated their living room from Chrissie’s staircase. “He’ll have you out of here on your skinny ass if I have anything to say about it. My kids are tryin’ to get to fuckin’ sleep.” A dull thud as a shoe hit the wall.

“Chrissie? I can’t get the door open. You’ve locked me out by mistake.”

She ran up the stairs, blinded by tears.

□□□

Everyone called her Lucky, but at this moment Lucy Smith didn’t feel lucky in the slightest. She was nothing but disgusted. Disgusted at the pile of petitions on her kitchen table. Disgusted at her husband who appeared to have gone over to the dark side—such a cliché that, but highly appropriate. Disgusted at the people filling her house who were great at rhetoric, but not so good at getting down to solid, productive work.

“This cranberry loaf’s delicious, Jane. Can I have the recipe?” Norma McGrath was digging out a pen.

“It’s so easy, you won’t believe it,” Jane Reynolds replied. “Two cups of flour….”

“Please, can we get back to business,” Lucky said.

“We have to forget about the Grizzly development and concentrate on the garden,” Nick Boswell mumbled around a mouthful of cranberry loaf.

“That Rob Montgomery has to be stopped,” Norma said. “His resort will kill the bears.”

“Reg. Reginald Montgomery.” Lucky restrained a heavy sigh. “But it is a free country, at least for now, and we can’t put out a contract on him, can we? So let’s concentrate on where we can be most effective. And that’s the Commemorative Peace Garden. Once we’re sure its future is secure we can turn our attention to the resort development.” Sylvester, the big, goofy, good-natured golden retriever lying at her feet, yawned. Sylvester was used to groups of people gathering, and arguing, in the Smith kitchen.

“I agree with Lucky,” Michael Rockwell said. “If we fly all over the map we don’t make an impression on anything. And so we achieve nothing.” He smiled at her and Lucky felt something move in her chest.

“The garden has to come to pass.” Barry Stevens choked on the words. Lucky turned away from Michael’s friendly smile and looked at Barry. Lines of pain, always there in one degree or another, dragged at his face. His left hand was white against the arm of his chair. His right sleeve hung empty at his side. His eyes, pale, pale blue, filled with water. “It has to. Where’s Andy, anyway? I’d expect that Andy, of all people, would be part of this.”

“Problems at the store,” Lucky said, studying the pattern of the wood in her kitchen table. “He sends his apologies.”

“Apology noted,” Barry said. “We can start with a letter insisting that the town council stick to its original decision and proceed with the construction of the Commemorative Peace Garden. To use the estate’s bequest to fund the garden, and that the garden be specifically dedicated to Vietnam War resisters.”

“Now that the fate of the garden’s in doubt, trouble’s brewing,” Jane said. “Fox News ran a piece on it. I’ve been told it was nasty.”

“Fox News!” Barry’s mouth twisted to one side and for a moment Lucky thought he was going to spit on her ceramic floor. “Let the chickenhawks come.”

Chapter Three

“I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t go that way,” Molly Smith said to the staggering drunk.

“Whada ya mean,” he mumbled. “I’ll go where I wanna go, pig bitch.”

She rested her hand loosely on her nightstick. This fellow could barely stand up, much less attack her.

“Police investigation. Please go around, sir.”

“What if I say I don wanna go round?”

“Then I’ll have to arrest you.”

“You and whose army?”

This was ridiculous. She’d been told to stand beside the yellow police tape that had been strung across the entrance to the alley, and stop anyone who might be inclined to ignore it. Detective Lopez had arrived a few minutes ago and was making an initial inspection of the area while waiting for Sergeant Winters and the RCMP forensic crew to arrive. The Chief Constable had rejoined his family at dinner, after posting Smith at one end of the alley, and the second duty constable, Solway, at the other. Smith was hoping to be able to watch what Lopez was doing, but she was stuck arguing with a drunk. Who’d probably pass her on the street when she was out of uniform and give her a nice smile, forgetting that she was a “pig bitch.” Trafalgar boasted a population of less than 10,000 people. Smith had lived here all her life, except for a few years at the University of Victoria. It was hard, sometimes, to be a cop in a town where a substantial number of the residents had seen you performing as Number Two Wise Man in the Grade Three Christmas pageant.

“Please, sir,” she said, “go away.”

He peered at her through unfocused eyes. He was young, not much older than she, thin to the point of emaciation, with a scraggly beard and hair that hadn’t seen scissors or shampoo in a long time. Something green was trapped in the depths of his beard. He grinned, showing yellow teeth and exhaling breath so rancid that Smith blinked. “How ’bout we go to my place and have ourselves a party? I’ll get a six-pack.”

She almost laughed. “I don’t think so, sir. You should go home.”

A light flashed.

“Meredith Morgenstern,
Trafalgar Daily Gazette
. What seems to be happening here, Constable?”

The drunk slipped away. His hair caught the light from a street lamp and he disappeared.

“Police investigation, Ms. Morgenstern,” Smith said.

“I can see that, Molly.”

The newspaper photographer took another picture.

“Come on, you can tell me what’s going on. For old times’ sake, eh?” Meredith tossed a smile so fake it would have elicited boos at a children’s play. She couldn’t act, but she was beautiful. She was tall, thin and full-breasted at the same time. Her hair tumbled down her back in a river the color of midnight. Her black eyes sparkled in the light from the street lamps. Meredith had been in Smith’s class all through school, when her breasts were the size of raisins. Her current lush figure had to be the handiwork of a good doctor. For old times’ sake, Smith would cheerfully stuff Meredith’s head into the garbage bags behind the convenience store.

“Sorry, Ms. Morgenstern, I can’t tell you anything.”

“I guess not. Being just a lowly constable. I’ll ask that man over there. Come on, Ed.”

“This alley is restricted, ma’am,” Smith said. She tried to keep her voice level, as she bristled at the sneer in the way Meredith said “lowly constable.” What did Meredith think she had to brag about: a second string reporter on the
Trafalgar Daily Gazette,
where the biggest story of the past month was an out-of-control truck careening down the side of the mountain.

“What are you going to do if I go there anyway? Arrest me?”

“Yes.”

For the briefest moment Meredith’s composure cracked, and Smith relished the thought of snapping handcuffs on her old enemy’s thin wrists.

Detective Lopez strolled up. Lopez always strolled; so calm and relaxed, at first Smith hadn’t realized that a tough police officer lay under the casual Latin demeanor. She’d seen his hard side when several participants at a weekend-long outdoor rock concert attacked a local girl.

“We’ve nothing to tell the press at this time. I suggest you go home and wait for an official release.”

“But…” Meredith said.

“If not home, then stand on the other side of the street.”