In the Shadow of the Glacier (3 page)

Meredith and her photographer complied. Lopez shrugged one shoulder at Smith.

A white SUV pulled up. A blue stripe ran down the side; the city crest and the words
Trafalgar City Police
were painted on the door. Constable Dave Evans drove. Sergeant Winters got out, and Evans remained in the vehicle.

Winters was dressed in a nice business suit, a cut up from the casual clothes he preferred. He nodded to Smith, as if she were the doorman at a fancy hotel, and joined Lopez. They walked toward the black shape that had once been Reginald Montgomery, talking in low voices.

A laughing group of young people came down the Elm Street hill, heading toward Front Street. The women wore long colorful skirts and loose blouses, and the men’s hair was either shaved off or gathered into a mass of dreadlocks. They eyed Smith and the police vehicle, and crossed to the other side of the street. One of the boys dropped his cigarette to the ground, and crushed it under his heel. He scooped the butt up and stuffed it in his pocket. The scent of marijuana lingered in his wake. Smith did nothing: this was Trafalgar, where the police pretended not to notice minor drug infractions.

Lopez walked up to her. “Sergeant wants to talk to you, Smith. I’ll have Evans take your post.”

Winters stood over the body. Just observing. He looked up as Smith approached. The last rays of the summer sun were gone; there were no streetlights in the alley and the light from the restaurant kitchen was poor. His face was full of shadows, his eyes unreadable pools. His black and white hair was cut very short; thin on top but not all gone. He had a well trimmed silver mustache—on him it looked good, rather than outdated. He was tall and lean, with the slightest hint of a middle-aged pot.

“Sir,” Smith said, more nervous than she’d been in the presence of the Chief Constable. She’d been working for the Trafalgar City Police for six months. She hadn’t said a word to the Detective Sergeant since she’d been introduced to everyone her first day on the job.

Sergeant Winters and Detective Lopez were the entirety of the General Investigation Section. Lopez was one-of-the-boys-and-girls, friends with everyone, loved practical jokes and town gossip. Smith had been to his house for a barbeque earlier in the summer. But Winters kept himself apart. He didn’t socialize, didn’t engage in idle office chatter. He’d been a homicide detective in Vancouver, played a prominent role in the hunt for the serial killer who’d been snatching runaway boys from the city’s notorious Downtown Eastside for years. Marcus Sanders, a church youth-group leader, had been charged with the crimes, and forensics spent months digging up every inch of his property. Winters quit the Vancouver force shortly after Sanders’ arrest and moved to Trafalgar. No one knew why, but speculation ran rampant. Burned-out, some said; disgusted at the long-time official indifference to the fate of the boys, others whispered. Something else, a few said, unrelated to Sanders. Perhaps to do with the Blakeley murder: nasty business that, they all agreed.

Winters never socialized with members of the department. The office administrator, Barb Kowalski, ever cheerful and inquisitive, had made it her mission to find out what she could about his private life. Wife used to be a supermodel, she reported, now does magazine ads for laundry detergent and floor polish. No kids. Fantastic home outside of town, deep in the woods on the side of the mountain.

Winters looked at Smith. “Detective Lopez’s daughter is getting married on Saturday,” he said.

“Yes, sir.” Everyone knew that. Lopez had talked about nothing else all month, and Barb had organized a collection to buy a gift for the happy couple.

“The wedding’s in Toronto. He’s leaving tonight. Last plane out of Castlegar.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Bad timing, but it can’t be helped. I’ll have to conduct this investigation on my own.”

“Yes, sir.” Smith had no idea why he was telling her this.

Silence stretched through the alley. Restaurant staff threw the odd curious glance out the window—Smith had gone around to tell them, and the solitary worker at the convenience store, not to come out back until further notice—but otherwise the restaurant carried on business as normal.

Winters turned to her. He was quite good looking, for an older guy. “So you’ll have to help me.”

“Me?” Smith tried to swallow the squeak of excitement that escaped from her mouth.

“Chief tells me you’re local.”

“Born and bred. My parents live just outside of town. About ten klicks, kilometers, away. Sir.”

“There may be some…shall we say sensitive…political aspects to this situation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And as I need a partner, with Lopez on leave, and having only been in town for a short while, the Chief thinks you’ll be the best one to take me around.”

“Yes, sir.” Smith was thrilled to bits. The first murder in town all year and she would be assisting the investigating officer. Her voice had regained some of its strength, so she dared to say something more. “Murder’s a nasty business, sir.”

“No one’s said anything about murder, Constable. Don’t rush to conclusions. Accidents happen. And this isn’t the army. Stop calling me sir.”

□□□

John Winters was not pleased at being given this fresh-faced young constable to assist him. Too eager by half, almost panting at the excitement of being involved in a probable-murder investigation, she reminded him of a sled dog at the beginning of the Iditarod. But as the Trafalgar City Police consisted of a grand total of twenty sworn officers, he didn’t have much choice. And as the Chief Constable had said, over the phone as Winters had left Eliza and their anniversary dinner behind, Smith was about as local as they came. And local politics, the CC said, might have a major role to play in this investigation.

“Tell me, Molly. What do you make of this?”

She took a deep breath, her chest puffing under the Kevlar vest, trying to make herself look important, wise and knowledgeable. He remembered himself as young recruit to the Vancouver P.D. a long, long time ago. He resisted giving the constable a sympathetic smile. This was a hard job, getting harder all the time. No room for sympathy: if you couldn’t cut it, get the hell out of the way.

“I know who he is, sir. Uh, Mr. Winters.”

“John will do, Molly.”

“Right, sir. I mean John. Reginald Montgomery, owner of the Grizzly Resort. The proposed resort. It hasn’t been started yet. He hasn’t been in town long—couple of months maybe. Trying to get his development underway. Lots of people don’t care for him, or his plans.”

Her hair was a pale blond, tied into a neat French braid that fell to the middle of her back. The color was probably natural, as her brows and lashes were the same shade. Her eyes were large, the color of the Kootenay River on a sunny day. She was only a few inches shorter than Winters, and her body looked fit and trim beneath the bulk of her uniform. She was pretty, too pretty to make an effective officer. Her voice was soft—it would have a problem carrying authority—and had the unfortunately tendency to crack under stress.

Tomorrow he’d ask for a more suitable officer, local or not, to help on this investigation.

“What do you make, Molly, of Mr. Montgomery’s present situation?” Winters did his best work with a sounding board. The board’s opinion didn’t matter, but he needed to hear his questions spoken out loud—only when they bounced back at him could he start to formulate answers.

“He didn’t kill himself. If he’d jumped out of that window above, he wouldn’t have closed the window behind him, would he? And the drop’s too short to be sure of a successful conclusion.”

“Go on.”

“He wouldn’t have inflicted that degree of damage to his head had he slipped on a banana peel or something. Well, at least I don’t think so.”

She was doing okay until she threw in that disclaimer. Never apologize for your conclusions.

“Therefore…?”

“Therefore, someone murdered him. There’s enough blood to indicate that he died on the spot. Someone bashed his head in right here.”

“He couldn’t have fallen from the roof?”

“The roof?”

Winters looked up. The night was clear, no clouds. Stars filled the black sky, looking like the diamonds in the necklace he’d bought for Eliza. The one he’d scarcely had time to slip around her neck before heading back to work. Maybe it was time to toss the job in. For her sake if not his.

“Oh,” Smith said. “The roof.”

□□□

How could she have been so stupid? The roof was high enough that a fall from it could result in considerable damage to someone’s head. She’d been so proud of herself for determining that Montgomery hadn’t jumped from the second story, she hadn’t even considered the roof. She wasn’t cut out for this job. She should chuck it; go back and finish her degree in social work. Her advisor had told her she could return any time.
When you’ve recovered from this temporary insanity
, he’d really been saying.

”Do you know how we can get up there?” Winters said.

“No.”

“Then perhaps,” he snapped, “you should find out, Constable Smith.”

Smith’s mother believed in spirit guides, what some other people might call angels. Smith did not. Until this moment.

Constable Evans walked toward them, a man beside him, wringing his hands.

“Terrible business. Terrible,” the man said. He was almost as round as he was tall, and completely bald. His accent was strong, from France, not Quebec. He looked nothing like an angel.

“Mr. Levalle,” Smith said. “We need you to take us up to your roof.”

Chapter Four

“I could have used you here, Andy,” Lucky Smith said. It was close to midnight and he’d only just come in. She took a deep breath, sniffing the air, trying not to appear to be doing so. There was no obvious smell of alcohol, or a woman, on her husband.

“Problems at the store,” he said.

What problems could a wilderness adventure store have after closing? Lucky didn’t bother to ask. She stuffed the plug of the kettle into the socket. “Tom Maas’ death has thrown everything into a fritz. We might have to reconvene the full committee and start the whole business all over again. I don’t trust the city council to do the right thing without Tom’s guidance.”

“Guidance? You mean bullying. Strong arm tactics. Threats.”

Lucky rooted through the tea jar. “I mean guidance, Andy. There was a reason Tom was mayor of this town for so long, you know. People liked him, they accepted his leadership. Chai or Earl Grey?”

“Strange as it may seem, Lucky, I don’t want tea, okay. I’m going to bed.”

She pulled out a satchel of fair trade organic white chai. “The forces opposed to the park are gathering now that Tom’s gone.”

“Will you listen to yourself, Lucky? The forces of Mordor are not gathering. It might just be that this little garden isn’t going to be the salvation of the world.”

“Don’t mock me, Andy.”

“Then stop leaving yourself open to be mocked.”

She felt tears gather behind her eyes, and refused to give into them. Once, he would have felt the same way she did.

“This park might not be such a good idea. Come to your senses, Lucky. Tourists are our livelihood. How many locals come into the shop or sign up for an expedition? None, unless they have friends visiting. Maybe thirty, forty percent at the most, of our business is Europeans and Canadians. The rest are Americans. Americans stop coming because they think they’ve been insulted by a draft dodger monument, we’re finished.”

Her fingers worked at the tea bag. “You’d forget about what the garden represents to keep Fox News and a handful of hunting goons happy? Okay, suppose all we care about is the business. Most of the people who come to us are looking for blue waters, green hills, wildlife. They’re looking for a place of peace. It doesn’t matter if they’re from the States or Ontario or Lower Slobovia.”

“Nice speech, Lucky. Save it for the Chamber of Commerce. I’m telling you that the Commemorative Peace Garden will be the death of this town and thus of our company. All this area has going for it is tourism. Americans won’t come if that garden goes in.”

“That garden honors you, Andy, and all the men like you. How could you forget?” The bag of tea crumbled to shreds between her fingers. Black leaves sprinkled on the kitchen floor. Sylvester sniffed at them.

“Times have changed. Let the past be past. I don’t want to argue any more. I’m going to bed.”

“Andy,” she said.

The kitchen door slammed shut behind him.

Lucky Smith stared at the tea leaves on the floor. They’d fallen in a black arrow pointing toward the stove. To the heart of her home.

The kettle switched itself off. She released her tears and reached for the phone.

□□□

Tubs of flour, giant bowls, and baking sheets were lined up in Alphonse’s Bakery like soldiers on parade, waiting for orders to head into battle. Floor to ceiling racks, empty, filled the back of the room. Everything was as neat and clean and well-organized as one would hope to find in a laboratory handling smallpox virus.

A narrow staircase led from the back of the bakery. Alphonse Levalle led the way.

“What’s behind this door?” Winters asked as they reached the second floor.

“Apartment for let. Empty.”

“How long has it been empty?”

“One week.”

“Do you have the key?”

“Of course,
Monsieur
.”

“We’ll want to have a look. After we’ve seen the roof.”

Levalle unlocked the door.

“Flashlight, Molly,” Winters said.