Under Cold Stone A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (3 page)

And then, after all that, the old folks left twenty percent and thanked her and the snotty tourists left five. A five-percent tip. She felt like running into the street after them and throwing it at their feet. But money was money—even five percent—and pride was expensive.

Tracey McMillan carried the dirty dishes into the kitchen. At three o’clock in the afternoon the restaurant was empty. The back door was propped open and she knew Kevin, the cook, was outside grabbing a smoke in the alley. Her feet ached, and she pulled up a stool. She took off her shoe and rubbed at her toes.

She’d been working since seven. Less than an hour to go. Tracey hated breakfast and lunch shifts: cheap meals, not much liquor, people in a hurry, hung-over from the night before. A couple of times she’d been called in at the last minute to take a dinner shift when one of the other staff had been sick. They were a lot busier, but the tips sure made up for it. She needed better and more hours, but Kevin, the owner as well as the cook, said she had to work her way up.

God, she hated this place. Hated this town. She’d been better off back in Smith’s Falls, Ontario. Prospects were no better there, but at least a person could afford to live in Smith’s Falls. Banff was lovely to look at but so overrun with wealthy tourists the rents were sky-high no matter what sort of dump you lived in. The town was located smack dab in a national park, so no one was building cheap apartment complexes for the workers.

If it weren’t for Matt, she’d be outta here. Back to Smith’s Falls, dragging her tail between her legs, asking her mom to take her in, just until she got back on her feet. Mom would roll her eyes, light up another fag, take a swig of rye, and say, “Come on in, honey.”

Matt. He was great guy if only he’d drop the chip on his shoulder. Angry at the world, most of the time. But not angry at Tracey, not often anyway. She loved him, she really did, but she wasn’t sure what his feelings were for her. She knew she wasn’t a babe. She was only nineteen to Matt’s thirty-three, which was good, but no matter how much she starved herself she could never be fashionably skinny. She had an overbite that she hated, although Matt said it was cute, and thin hair the color of dog shit. She’d dyed her hair blond once, but that made it look like it belonged to a dog with a stomach disorder. She’d had a roommate a while ago, who worked in a spa and allowed Tracey to use some of her expensive makeup and hair products. Those had put color on her face and bounce in her hair. But the roommate moved on, taking all her stuff with her, and Tracey had never been able to allow herself to pay more than she could afford for frivolities.

She wasn’t like so many girls here, with their shiny hair, glowing complexions, perfect teeth, and trim bodies. They came from all over the world to work in Banff. Not many of them, Tracey thought bitterly, needed the job. They were here for the experience and probably paid as much in rent, maybe more, than they earned in wages. Tracey had applied for jobs at some of the good hotels. She never even got a reply. No doubt they wanted girls named Tiffany from New York or Marie-France from Paris or Pippa from London. Not Tracey McMillan from Smith’s Falls, Ontario.

Still, that was the way it was, and no point getting mad over it. At least she had a boyfriend. Better than her mother could say. It would be nice, though, if she and Matt could live together. Like every other working-class schmuck in Banff, they stitched together a strange assortment of living arrangements. Matt bunked in with three guys in an apartment whose only advantage was that it wasn’t too far from the center of town. Talk was that the old apartment buildings on that street were going to be demolished for another luxury hotel. Where the hell the workers were supposed to live then, no one seemed to worry about. At least Matt had his own room, small as it was. Tracey was crashing with a couple of girls who were friends of friends of Matt. She slept in the living room on a pull-out couch that had seen far better days. Her roommates worked days, and usually went to bars or parties in the evening. They might come in at all hours, bringing guys home to continue the party. Tracey would crawl deeper under the covers and try not to hear the blare of the TV or noises from the girls’ bedrooms.

Matt promised that he and Tracey would get their own apartment soon. Once skiing at Sunshine opened in November he’d be able to supplement his bartending job and start bringing in better money. Tracey glanced at the calendar on the wall. Another month, at least, until the snow fell and the skiers arrived. She’d give Matt until then. And then a month to get some money together. Either they had an apartment, or at least a room in an apartment, by then, or it would be Christmas in Smith’s Falls for her.

She loved Matt. But she couldn’t continue living like this.

The kitchen door opened and Martina and Julianne bounced in, laughing. They didn’t bother to share the joke with Tracey. She struggled to get off her chair and put her shoe back on. Time to leave this dump. She had one hour to get home and change and be at her other job at Global Car Rental by five. Put in a four-hour shift there and be back at the restaurant in the morning at seven.

What a miserable life.

Chapter Five

TRAFALGAR CITY POLICE STATION. TRAFALGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA. FRIDAY LATE AFTERNOON.

Sergeant John Winters stretched back and wiggled his toes. He had his shoes off and his feet on the desk as he flipped the pages of a six-month-old edition of
Blue Line
magazine. Almost quitting time, but he had nothing to go home to. Eliza was in Saskatoon, visiting her mother and sister. Ray Lopez, the only other member of the Trafalgar Police Service’s General Investigative Section, had the Thanksgiving weekend off to spend with his family. Someone had to mind the store, so Winters had nobly offered to stay behind. Not that he didn’t like Eliza’s mother, he did, a great deal. But he didn’t have much to say to the old woman, and Eliza’s sister Jennifer could be a right bitch when she got into the dinner wine. Which she did before, during, and after dinner. The result, he’d always thought, of jealously over the younger, prettier, richer, far more successful sister. John Winters never thought of himself as much of a catch, particularly not for a woman like Eliza, so beautiful she’d been a top-ranked international model in her youth. Not only was she still beautiful in middle age but also a wizard on the stock market, with a head for business that matched that of Warren Buffett.

But even John Winters, small-town cop, was a pretty good catch compared to the series of men who passed through Jennifer’s life, sometimes leaving a baby behind for her to remember them by.

“Working hard?” Barb Kowalski came into the GIS office with a stack of reports to be read and signed.

Winters grinned at the chief constable’s assistant. “It seems as if every scumball and troublemaker in town has gone to Mom’s for Thanksgiving.”

“Think we’ll get lucky and they’ll decide not to come back?”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Winters said. “We’d all be out of a job.”

Barb laughed. She’d worked for the police for thirty years, longer than anyone else here, and she knew that was unlikely to happen. Trafalgar was a tourist town, but one that catered to young adventure vacationers. Too early for skiing, too late for kayaking, kids only back in school for a month so not too restless yet. The town could be quiet the second weekend in October, Thanksgiving weekend.

“I have enough paperwork to last me well into my retirement even if we never get another call,” Winters said. “It’s the calm before the storm, I fear. People are starting to make noise about the Grizzly Resort starting up again, and it’s rumored there’ll be protests next week.”

“That place. Never anything but trouble. As an employee of this department I won’t tell you what side I’m on, John, but in my spare time, I might be found wishing they would go away and leave us alone.”

“I have a meeting on Tuesday with the Mounties to go over what we might expect.”

There’d been trouble before around plans to turn a parcel of pristine wilderness into vacation homes. The development had been put on hold and for the past couple of years only a single security guard kept watch as the forest crept back to claim its territory. Now, new owners had bought the land, heavy equipment was moving back in, fences were being repaired, and security was increased. Trafalgar sits in the middle of the B.C. wilderness, eight hours or more in either direction to the nearest Canadian big city, four hours to a small city. If Trafalgar residents wanted to go to the mall, they need a passport: The nearest mall is across the border in Spokane, Washington, two hours away. Plenty of people moved here specifically to escape the city and unchecked development. They were not happy, to say the least, at the news. On the other hand, good jobs in Trafalgar were scarce and the development would bring plenty of those, plus business to the shops on Front Street.

Once again, fault lines were splitting the town. It would be up to them, the Trafalgar City Police, as well as the RCMP, to try to keep the peace.

“As you say,” Barb said, “keeps us employed. I’m taking advantage of the chief’s absence, and I’m off now. You won’t tell him I left early, I hope.”

Winters glanced at his watch. “You’ll be cheating the town out of ten minutes, Barb. Can you live with the guilt?”

She tossed the papers on his desk with a snort. “I’ll get over it. Particularly the next time I work straight through lunch because the chief forgot to tell me he needs the budget to show the mayor this afternoon. At first I thought our dear leader was getting senile. Instead, I’ve decided he has happier things on his mind.”

“Lucky guy.”

Barb laughed. “In more ways than one.” She lowered her voice and leaned slightly toward him. “Something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about. I know you and Paul get together over beers now and again to talk about the department. Has he ever said anything to you about, well, maybe thinking of retirement?”

“No. Why do you ask? Do you think he’s considering it?”

“Wondering, that’s all. He’s well past the age for a full pension. After Karen left him, he was lonely, that’s no secret. Lost without the routine of living with another person. I assumed he’d abandoned retirement plans because he needed the job. Not for the money, although the divorce probably cost him, but for something to do. Now, well…now that he’s with Lucky I thought he might be thinking of traveling, having some fun. Going fishing.”

“I’ve no idea, Barb. It might be that this jaunt to Banff puts the idea in his head.”

She was silent for a moment. She glanced over her shoulder, but no one was standing at the door or coming down the hallway. “I’d appreciate it if you give me a heads-up if you do hear anything, John. You know I can keep the chief’s secrets.”

He nodded. She wouldn’t have lasted thirty years as a civilian in the police department if she couldn’t keep her mouth shut. And, on occasion, her ears.

“It’s just that, well, I’ve decided to retire when Paul does. I’m too old to train another chief constable. I’d like you to keep that to yourself, if you could.”

He smiled at her. “You know I will.”

“Thanks. I’m off home. Looks like I’ll only owe the taxpayers five minutes now. Stay safe, eh?” And she left.

Five o’clock on the Friday of a long weekend. The office was quiet. His computer beeped to tell him he had an incoming message. He opened it eagerly. A retirement announcement from the RCMP detachment in Castlegar.

He sighed and went back to his magazine.

Chapter Six

GLOBAL CAR RENTAL. BANFF, ALBERTA. FRIDAY LATE AFTERNOON.

The man blinked behind thick glasses as he waved his hands in the air. His wife flipped frantically through a small book, seeking the right words.

Tom shrugged. “You broke it, man. You gotta pay. You got insurance, right?”

The man babbled incomprehensibly as he gestured to the car’s windshield. A tiny chip in the glass.

“Rock,” his wife said, finding the word she wanted. “Rock.”

As if Tom Dunning cared what hit their car.

They were a middle-aged couple who’d decided to cut themselves free from the herd of their tour group and take a day for themselves. Rent a car, drive into the mountains, admire the scenery, get off the main road, maybe see some wildlife. They were dressed in expensive outdoor gear bought specifically for this trip, clothes their tour company had told them would be appropriate for the Canadian wilderness. The wife’s earrings were gold hoops, the chain around her neck also gold. She had a nice-sized rock on her finger and her pink nails were freshly groomed. The man looked like he’d had a manicure too. Tom didn’t have much time for men who visited spas.

“Five hundred dollars,” Tom said. He shrugged, trying to look sympathetic. “Sorry, that’s what it costs for a new windscreen.”

“Five hundred dollar!”

“You got insurance, right?”

“Insurance, yes.” The man’s head bobbed in agreement. The wife continued flipping through her phrase book.

“Claim it from them.”

“Small,” the man said. He held his hands close together as if trying to indicate the size of the chip. “Small.”