Under Cold Stone A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (37 page)

Her eyes darkened. “Pure luck. McNally set me up. I didn’t realize how dangerous he had become. I trust you people are looking for him.”

“We are. Although I’m sure he’s long gone by now. Tell me about the car.”

“He disappeared day before yesterday, came back with that vehicle. Said it was his, and I could use it to transport the demonstrators.”

“It was a rental car. You didn’t check?”

“No, I didn’t check. I was undercover, if you don’t know what that means.”

The door opened. Lopez. He nodded to Winters.

“Told ya,” Robyn said. She started to get to her feet. “My work here is done.”

“It’s done when I say it’s done. I want answers.”

“I did not know he’d planted a fucking bomb in the car. We talked about how to get more media exposure than that pathetic small-town newspaper. I guess he decided not to share his idea with me. I would have put a stop to it, if he had.”

“Maybe. What about the trap? The leghold trap at the resort.”

She shrugged. “It wouldn’t have hurt anyone. McNally wanted to hide it, use it like a real trap but I put it out in the open. Even if someone stepped in it, they wear construction boots there. No harm done.”

“This whole thing. You orchestrated it all. The protests, the demonstrations. You weren’t just an observer, you set everything in motion.”

“I didn’t start anything, Sergeant. The ball was rolling; I gave it a little push. That was my job. These people, these so-called environmentalists, they’re a threat to our country. Oh, yeah, some of them are nice ladies who bring along their knitting to demonstrations. Some are terrorists, pure and simple. I proved that, didn’t I? Flushed them out of their caves into the open. We can put McNally away for a long time. You might not like my methods, but I got results. And that’s all that counts.”

“Are you really that stupid? Results? You could have gotten us all killed. You’ve been played like a violin. You think this was about terrorist groups? What do you call them? Eco-terrorists? Get real. It was about money. Land for resource-extraction. Pure and simple. There’s gas under that land, and there are people who want it bad enough to kill for it. They must have been absolutely delighted when some stupid, brain-dead undercover cop wandered in and suggested escalating everything.”

“I…”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they knew all along who you are. The people of Trafalgar care about the environment, very much, but they believe above all in legal peaceful protest. Guys like McNally wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of getting in with them. That’s why he kept to the sidelines. Let you, the smiling woman with the blog, the following, the
passion
, suck them in.

“I have absolutely no doubt you were intended to go up along with the car. Imagine the headlines. Courageous fighter for the environment murdered by… It probably doesn’t even matter who they intended to pin the bombing on. No one would be able to do anything to build homes on that land. Not ever. It would be a shrine. For a while, until a shell company bought it, and handed it off to an oil and gas company for fracking. You don’t need people wanting to be part of a community, to get along with their new neighbors, for fracking. They’d probably leave the roadside untouched. Maybe put up a nice monument to you. You think McNally’s an eco-terrorist? He’s a common criminal, in the pay of bigger criminals. And you’re his patsy.”

“You know nothing about this. Nothing about playing in the big leagues. Sometimes, we have to take chances, risks, throw the dice. You’re a small-town cop, sitting behind your desk chasing down pickpockets and jaywalkers and going home to have dinner with your wife every night at five o’clock.”

“Get the hell out of here, and get out of my town. If I see you here again, I’ll find some pretext to arrest you. Ray, escort this
officer
to get her things. And then drop her at the bus station.”

John Winters slammed the door on his way out.

Chapter Sixty-nine

TOCEK-SMITH HOME. OUTSIDE TRAFALGAR, BRITISH COLUMBIA. ONE WEEK LATER.

The extensions on the hand-carved wood table had been laid, the good wineglasses taken out of the cabinet, additional china and silverware borrowed from Molly Smith’s mom. Adam Tocek made a huge pot of turkey tetrazzini with the Thanksgiving bird; Madeline Lopez threw together an enormous salad; Lucky Smith dug pumpkin and apple pie out of her freezer. John Winters brought the wine, and Paul Keller provided the beer.

“What I want to know,” Lucky said, as the steaming casserole was passed around, “is what’s going to happen to Jonathan.”

Keller shook his head. “We can only hope we can convince one of his men to roll over on him. Even then, he’s surrounded by lawyers, buried in a maze of interconnected companies, protected by middlemen.”

“You mean he’s going to get off?” Matt served himself a generous helping.

Tracey sat beside him, sipping at a glass of wine. “Tom’s going to testify, isn’t he? Won’t that help?”

“It’ll help,” Keller said. “Against Simpson and McIntosh, about drug running and fake car repairs.”

“Mr. Simpson was arrested,” Tracey said. “Jody’s out of a job, but she’s finally ditched Tom. I’m glad of that.” She rubbed her jaw absentmindedly.

“Blechta has brought in computer experts and they’re ripping the company computers, as well as their personal ones, apart. Finding, I might add, further evidence of what you, Tracey, came up with on your own. Nothing, however, on the murder of Barry Caseman or the bomb in the Corolla. Facing a charge of assisting in an act of terrorism, Simpson copped quickly enough to trafficking and fraud. He claims he was never told what was in the Corolla, just that it was to be left alone until picked up.”

“What I’d like to know,” Eliza said, twirling her fork through her pasta without ever lifting it to her mouth. “is how that bomb works. The car was driven to Banff from Calgary. Sat in a parking lot for a couple of days, then driven to Trafalgar. Isn’t that incredibly dangerous? Surely this Steve McNally wouldn’t have taken such a risk. Suppose he’d hit something, or been in an accident?”

Smith reached across the table and grabbed the bottle of white. In the four years she’d been working with John Winters, this was the first time she’d properly met his wife. Eliza didn’t come to police functions; she didn’t pop into the station to say hi or bring the lunch he’d left in the fridge. She was beautiful and elegant and distant, still scarcely seemed to belong in Trafalgar at all.

She’d brought a huge bunch of flowers, yellow roses and baby’s breath, artfully arranged in a cut-glass vase as a hostess gift, and thanked Molly and Adam, in a sexy, almost-breathless voice, for inviting her to their home.

Smith guessed that Eliza had been dragged along to make Tracey feel more at ease at what was essentially a party for cops and partners, all of whom knew each other well. When they arrived, Tracey had stared at Eliza with her mouth practically gaping open. Eliza greeted her warmly, drew her causally aside, and asked questions about living in Banff. Smith suspected Mrs. Winters had been primed before arriving.

Over drinks, they talked about generalities, the weather, the potential for an early opening of the ski hills, Matt and Tracey’s plans for the future. Once they sat down and the food was brought out, conversation inevitably drifted to the one topic on everyone’s mind.

“Not dangerous, no,” Gavin said. “No matter how big an explosion, and this was a small one as these things go, trace evidence remains. He used a component called C-4. It’s used by the military but available on the black market for those who know where to look. C-4 is useful precisely because it isn’t unstable. It can’t detonate on its own, not even if lit by a small flame or shot with a bullet.”

“How much do you need?” Tracey asked.

“About the size of a brick,” Gavin said. “In this case it was fastened to the undercarriage.”

Madeline Lopez shuddered. “Scary.”

“That it is. It’s soft, like dough. McNally drove the car to Trafalgar, allegedly, and before he handed it over to Robyn…”

Smith was looking at John Winters at that moment, about to ask if he wanted a top off to his wine. His lips twisted in disapproval at the mention of Robyn Winfield, and he gave her a dark look.

“… he crawled under the car, and simply pressed a detonator into the compound. Primed to go off at a cell phone signal. Easy.”

“Too easy,” Lucky said.

“At eight-thirty that morning we got a report of a stolen motorbike,” Lopez said. “We found the bike a couple of hours later in an alley behind Front Street. Its tracks match those found on an access road about a kilometer from the Grizzly Resort site. We believe McNally stole the bike overnight, hid himself in the woods, and at the right time, made the call to the detonator. Then, back to town, dumped the bike, and leapt on a Greyhound bus.”

“Never to be seen again,” Smith said.

John Winters lifted his glass. “About that, I have news.” He couldn’t hide the grin that spread across his face. “I got a call just before we got here. Steve McNally was picked up by the Mounties in Kelowna, getting on a plane for Fort McMurray.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Gavin said. And he did so.

“Cheers,” said Lopez. Everyone drank.

“He’ll testify against Jonathan, then?” Lucky asked.

“Don’t get your hopes up,” Winters said. “McNally’s unlikely to know who ultimately ordered the attack. He’s just muscle-for-hire. They’re charging him with committing an act of terrorism, attempted murder, and various other charges. He’ll go down for a long time. The people behind him? That remains to be seen.”

“Makes me so mad,” Lucky said with a determined huff. Keller smiled at her. “It’ll be all over the news that he was an activist. By the time his real motivation comes out, they’ll have gone on to another story and environmentalists will be stuck with the blame.”

“What’s happening about Barry?” Tracey said. “I didn’t like him, but he didn’t deserve to die. What about the guy who killed him?”

“These things take time, Tracey,” Keller said. “Blechta’s building a case. They’ll find him.”

“But it’s been a whole week!”

A whole week,
Smith thought. They’d consider themselves lucky if it was over in a whole year.
The man Matt had seen
leaving his apartment had disappeared. If Matt had gone to the police immediately, they might have had a chance of finding him. But two days had passed. Plenty of time to get himself to just about any place in the world. Or, more likely, to get himself dead and buried in an unmarked grave, his reward for being so careless as to be seen.

Police in Alberta and B.C. were only beginning to work their way through the network of drug dealers and shady businessmen. Forensic computer searches found that Global Car Rental and Kramp’s Auto Repair were, indeed, owned ultimately by Burgess Enterprises. Company vice-presidents were shocked to hear of the wrongdoing of their employees. Steps would be taken to ensure such didn’t happen again.

“It’s only speculation on my part,” Keller said, “and mustn’t go beyond this room, but I’d guess Jonathan ordered the hit on Barry because of the timing. Barry Caseman was a greedy man, greedy but strictly small-time. He figured he could shake down Jonathan. Make some extra money by threatening to expose him for being behind the car rental scam. Any other time, Jonathan would have laughed him off. But with C-4 coming to Banff, and then to Trafalgar, he didn’t want any attention on him, or on Global Car Rental. So Barry had to go. There was little risk on Jonathan’s part. If not for you, Matt, coming home when you did, the police in Banff wouldn’t have gotten anywhere. A hired killer, gone before the body was discovered. No clues, no motive, no suspects.”

“Have you heard from your mother?” Lucky asked Matt.

“I called her yesterday. She’s not doing too well. She’s staying at Aunt Pat’s place for a while. She wasn’t living with Burgess, thank God, but some of her stuff was there. He had it packed up and sent around without a word. Hasn’t bothered to call her or get in touch.”

“She’ll need your support.”

“We’re going to Calgary tomorrow,” Tracey said.

“And so,” Eliza said slowly, “the small players are caught in the net, and the big ones swim away.”

“The world we live in,” Adam said. “Burgess will get off without a scratch.”

“Not entirely,” Lucky said. “Karen and I had a drink one night in the hotel. Karen told me, bragged about it, that Jonathan had big plans. He was about to be offered a post as a special advisor to the prime minister. Something about encouraging foreign investment in resource-extraction. What other people call selling out and…”

“Get to the point, Lucky,” Keller said.

“If I must. He’d been handpicked by the prime minister for the job. Dare I suggest no politician will now want to touch him with the proverbial ten-foot pole? The bombing is news nationally, and Burgess Enterprises has been mentioned in the papers. No accusations, of course, but mud’s flying, and I’d say Jonathan’s political dreams are dead.”