Under Cold Stone A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (22 page)

Chapter Thirty-eight

TRAFALGAR CITY POLICE STATION. TRAFALGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA. MONDAY AFTERNOON.

John Winters settled into his desk chair with a cup of coffee in hand.

First, he opened his e-mail and sent a note to Rose Benoit in Vancouver. They’d been partners for a number of years, as well as good friends. Rose was an inspector now, working major fraud cases. He wouldn’t expect her to be working on Thanksgiving Monday, and decided against giving her a call. She’d be relaxing at home with her husband Claude. The finances of the Grizzly Resort could wait.

Then, armed with only a name, he went onto Google.

Several pages of hits popped up. But it wasn’t difficult to find the person he was interested in. He clicked on images, and up she came, Robyn Winfield, the woman he’d seen yesterday. Grainy newspaper photographs, snaps from homemade YouTube videos, press releases.

She was with an organization called Free the Wild. Winfield seemed to make a habit of attending protests at sensitive environmental areas and writing strongly worded letters to newspapers. She kept a blog, which got a substantial number of comments and links, detailing her latest indignation. Of Free the Wild, he couldn’t find much, and nothing without her name attached, so he suspected Winfield was pretty much the whole thing.

Her blog posts were articulate, sensible, and highly literate, illustrated with photographs that concentrated on the beauty of nature, not the ugliness of its destruction. Her passions for the environment and the animals that live there were expressed in every word. He found the beginning of the blog and started to skim. As the afternoon passed, along with the years she’d been doing the blog, her frustration increased, her language got sharper, verging on threatening at times.

The latest posting, dated last week, discussed the situation in Trafalgar. She said she was heading there, intending to help coalesce opposition into an effective movement, and calling for others to join her. The blog ended: “This
must
stop. This
will
stop!”

Now that he was sure of her real name, he ran a records search. Not an unusual name, but at least he had a rough idea of her age.

She’d been arrested twice, both times for engaging in civil disobedience, once for a demonstration on Parliament Hill against development of the Alberta tar sands, and again for attempting to close a highway in Alberta taking construction equipment north. The latest occurrence had been three months ago. In both cases she got no jail time.

Recently she’d been photographed in the company of a man on whom the RCMP was keeping a close eye—an individual suspected of carrying out a bombing campaign with the intent of intimidating tar sands workers. A couple of minor explosions had occurred. Fortunately, no one was hurt and property damage was minimal. No arrests were made.

John Winters leaned back in his chair and ran his thumb across his watch as he studied the grainy photograph of the man, one Steve McNally.

The man in the photo was clean-shaven, bare-headed, glowering at the camera.

The guy at the demonstration yesterday sported a heavy growth of beard and had been wearing a ball cap. Hard to be sure, but the resemblance was there.

Whether it was the same person or not, Winters reminded himself that just because Robyn Winfield might have been seen in McNally’s company it was a mighty hefty leap to assume she was now involved in eco-terrorism. Similar interests didn’t mean similar tactics.

He thought about the Grizzly Resort. In his mind he saw the remains of tree stumps, the massive holes dug into the ground. If he had his way, he’d prefer the resort not go ahead. It was a stunningly beautiful piece of land. Trees that hadn’t been logged for a long time, steep cliffs overlooking the fast-moving river below, the forest thick enough, wild enough, that bears were known to live there, along with cougars, elk, and coyotes. What would happen, he thought, the first time one of the vacationers came face to face with a bear or a cougar, the animal not inside a cage, the human not confined to a car?

Regardless of who survived the encounter, the call would go up for the animal to be destroyed.

Yes, Winfield and Free the Wild had a point.

Then again, Winters’ own house was located in what had not so long ago been pure wilderness. Trees cut down, birds’ nests destroyed, road put in, house built, grass and shrubs and flowers planted. The original inhabitants driven further and further up the mountain. What would happen, when nowhere remained for them to go?

He had to have someplace to live. He and Eliza owned twenty acres, of which the house and garden occupied a small portion. The remainder of the property was left wild, and they shared it with the animals. He often came across bear or elk tracks in the mud or snow, and some dark cold nights they could hear coyotes calling to each other across the hills.

The Grizzly Resort, on the other hand, with two hundred small buildings, sidewalks joining them all, road access and parking spaces, outbuildings, swimming pools, restaurants, and all the maintenance that went with it, would be far too crowded to live comfortably alongside nature.

A thought niggled uncomfortably at the back of his mind. Should only people such as Eliza and him, because they had sufficient money, be allowed to own a place in the wilderness? They loved living here, so did plenty of people. But what about the people who wanted to escape from the city, to bring their children on vacation, but couldn’t afford the indulgence of twenty exclusive acres.

He shoved his chair back and got to his feet with a grunt. Time for another cup of coffee. Not his job to decide who’d be allowed a place in the wilds and who would not. Thank heavens for that. The Grizzly Resort consortium owned the land, and they had permission to build their vacation homes on it. The Mounties would see that construction was allowed to go ahead and the Trafalgar City Police would see that business in town continued unimpeded.

He glanced back over his shoulder at the computer screen. A photo of Robyn Winfield, standing beneath an enormous tree. A shaft of sunlight broke through the branches and lit her short red hair as if it were on fire. Her arms were lifted in the air and her smile was radiant.

Chapter Thirty-nine

KRAMP’S AUTO REPAIR. BANFF, ALBERTA. MONDAY AFTERNOON.

Lucky Smith shifted on the uncomfortable seat and brushed at the dust on a pile of magazines. Kramp’s Auto Repair shop didn’t waste money on furnishings, nor on cleaning services. The seats had been removed from cars and unceremoniously plunked in the waiting room. Most of the magazines pre-dated the century and were covered with a thick layer of dust. Which, she thought, probably also pre-dated the century.

She’d called Kramp’s as soon as it opened. She was, she said, due to drive back over the mountains tomorrow and was very nervous about taking the trip—alone—in her car. What with the strange sound she heard when she put her foot on the brake. They said if she came right away, they’d try to fit her in.

The waiting room had a dirty glass wall overlooking the shop floor, and she was able to watch the men working. When the fellow behind the counter, a small black-eyed man with skin the color of creamy coffee, took her keys, he explained, again, that it might be a while before they could see to her car. The sudden death of one of their employees had put them seriously behind.

Lucky repeated that she absolutely
had
to be heading home tomorrow, and he said they’d get to it as soon as they could.

She wasn’t lying, she told herself, she was acting. Not that the part required a whole lot of theatrical chops. A woman who didn’t know anything about cars, worried about a strange noise. She flipped through a fashion magazine wondering if anything in the world was more useless than an out-of-date fashion magazine.

She’d wanted to be an actor once, a long time ago. She studied drama at the University of Washington and performed minor parts in several plays. She hadn’t been all that good, and had known it, deep inside where it mattered.

She had one great success on the stage. It hadn’t led to a stellar career of greasepaint and floodlights, but it had led to her name. She’d been an understudy for
The Glass Menagerie
. On opening night, the actress playing Amanda Wingfield came down with a severe cold, and young Lucy Casey went on to star. Andy Smith had been in the audience, clapping and cheering enthusiastically. Lucy had, to no one’s surprise more than hers, been a triumph. At the cast party later, the actor playing the Gentleman Caller commented that she’d been very lucky, and others took up the chant. Lucky Lucy, they called her.

Later, as they walked home from the party and stopped to admire the lights of the city, Andy Smith told her he was leaving for Canada. He’d received his draft notice and was not planning to report. Would she, he asked, come with him and be his Lucky Smith?

She’d been Lucky since that day. Lucky, she always reminded herself, in so many ways. They’d had a good life together, Andy and Lucky, and she’d never regretted tying her star to his. Although she did occasionally think, while enjoying a good movie with a strong female lead or watching the Oscars, about what might have been.

She’d wondered, when Moonlight was young, if the girl had some acting talent she should encourage. Instead, Moonlight found her place not on the stage but on lakes and ski trails almost before she could walk.

Lucky was on her third magazine when a man in overalls, wiping greasy hands on an equally greasy rag, came into the room. She’d watched him earlier, taking Paul’s car out onto the road for a test drive. “I can’t find anything wrong, Mrs. Smith,” he said. “I took it for a spin, didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary. I checked the brakes over anyway, but don’t see a problem. Your car’s in good shape, I’d say. You might have gotten a rock or a piece of ice trapped in the brakes, and all it needed was to be kicked out or melt.”

“I hope that’s it. Thank you.”

She paid a minimal amount for the mechanic’s time and that was the end of that. Her undercover operation, like her acting career, had come to naught.

Chapter Forty

BEARTRACK TRAIL. BANFF, ALBERTA. MONDAY AFTERNOON.

Tracey spent the day checking her phone and moving house.

She’d gone to Matt’s apartment earlier, mainly because she could think of nothing else to do, but wanted, needed, to be doing
something
. The police had finished with it and told Alistair and Tom they could move back in. At ten o’clock, only Alistair was home, packing his bags. Black powder smudged the surface of almost everything . A patch of carpet close to the door looked clean. Noticeably clean amongst the ground-in dirt and years of muck covering the rest of the floor. Tracey swallowed, realizing what that meant.

“I’m done,” Alistair said in answer to her question. “Outta here. I can’t stay where a guy, a guy I knew, died.”

“Where will you go?”

“Jamail’s gonna put me up for a while. I’ll decide what I’m gonna do then. I’m thinking of heading to Vancouver. Friend of mine’s talking about putting together a new band.”

“What about the rent on this place?”

“It’s paid up ’til the end of the month. Matt’s name’s on the lease. I guess if he doesn’t come back, they’ll rent it out again.” He shrugged thin shoulders. “Give me a hand will you, Trace? My car’s outside, can you carry that guitar down?”

She helped Alistair take his belongings, more music equipment than anything else, to his battered van. He wrestled two keys off the chain and handed them to her.

“What’s this?”

“One for the front door, one for the apartment. Lock up, will you? You can leave my keys on the hall table.”

Without a wave or a backward glance he drove away.

Tracey studied the keys in her hand. She didn’t know if the police had found Matt’s keys or if he’d taken them with him. If he didn’t have them, if…when…he got back, he’d need to get in.

She needed a place to stay. Amanda told her she had until the end of the month. Amanda could go screw herself. Tracey didn’t need her charity, didn’t need Crystal’s pitying looks either.

Matt would be happy to find her waiting at home for him.

She stopped at a liquor store on her way back to her apartment and picked up a couple of empty boxes. Amanda and Crystal were at work, and Tracey quickly threw her things into her suitcases and the boxes. It wasn’t, she thought, very much. But that didn’t bother her; she’d never had much.

Amanda would try to screw her on the rent, but Matt’s place was paid for so she’d come out all right. At Matt’s she’d have her own room, Matt’s room. She’d have to share the apartment with miserable Tom, but Tom wasn’t around much, and she could shut the door to her room whenever she wanted. No longer put up with Amanda and Crystal and their drunken slutty friends hanging around, sitting on
her
damn bed watching sappy movies or reality TV, sneering at her. Or worse, their druggy boyfriends, trying to cop a feel when Amanda or Crystal were in the kitchen getting drinks or making popcorn.