Under Cold Stone A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (7 page)

The blonde who’d ordered the wine burst into over-loud laughter and threw her arms out. Her glass tipped and Chardonnay sloshed down the front of Tracey’s dress. The friends tittered and the blonde turned her head. “Oh,” she said, in a voice that said she didn’t give a shit, “sorry about that.” Her eyes were watery and her speech slurred, and Tracey figured this wasn’t their first stop of the night.

She could have made a huge deal out of it. Insisted the woman pay for her dry cleaning bill. Not that Tracey had ever once in her life taken her clothes to a dry cleaner. If it couldn’t be washed in the Laundromat or the sink, she didn’t buy it.

She let it go. If the woman objected, wanted to get into an argument, Matt would hustle Tracey out so fast her feet would barely touch the ground.

What the hell. She didn’t belong here anyway. She tossed back the rest of her wine and slid off her stool. A woman, older than most of them here, gray hair sprayed into a helmet, pearl necklace, hands glittering with diamonds, hip-checked Tracey and grabbed the seat.

She hesitated at the entrance, wanting to get a last glimpse of Matt. He was laughing with one of the waitresses. The woman was married, but Tracey didn’t care for the way she eyed Matt.

“Excuse me,” someone said, trying to come in. Tracey slipped away from the lights and laugher of the bar and into the dark night.

Chapter Fourteen

BANFF SPRINGS HOTEL. BANFF, ALBERTA. SUNDAY EARLY MORNING.

Lucky didn’t recognize the ringing at first. Confused, she struggled out of sleep to find Paul sitting up, the bedside phone clenched in his hand.

“What?” he said. “Where?”

Lucky’s heart leapt into her mouth. Moonlight: a police officer, a dangerous job. When her daughter first started working for the police, Lucky found it hard to sleep when the girl worked nights. She lay in bed, thinking of all the bad things that could happen, even in peaceful Trafalgar. But Andy, Lucky’s late husband, Moonlight’s father, reminded her that people could be, and sometimes were, killed crossing the street. The police were more protected than most. Lucky didn’t stop worrying, but she did start sleeping better. Then, when Moonlight got engaged to Adam, Lucky realized she’d have two cops in the family to worry about.

She could tell by the look on Paul’s face that this wasn’t a wrong number or a hotel employee calling to check if everything was all right. “Yes, I know. But where exactly is that? Calm down, take a breath, and give me the address.”

Her thoughts tumbled all over themselves. If one of his officers was hurt or, God forbid, dead, wouldn’t they call Paul on his cell phone, rather than go through the hotel switchboard? She scrambled across the bed and grabbed her own phone, which she’d laid out on the bedside table. She flipped it open, and fell back with relief. No calls, no messages. The battery was charged and it had a full complement of bars indicating the strength of reception. If something terrible had happened, both Moonlight and Adam had her number.

She glanced at the clock. Two forty-five.

“Call the police as soon as you hang up. 911.” Paul threw off the covers. “Give me fifteen minutes.”

“What’s going on? Paul, who was that?”

The bathroom door closed behind him. Lucky leapt out of bed. Fifteen minutes. If Paul was going to be somewhere in fifteen minutes then it couldn’t be a problem back home. And it couldn’t be the RCMP with bad news from Trafalgar if he’d told the caller to contact the police. She pulled her nightgown over her head. It was new, another something special she’d bought for this weekend, all peach satin and cream lace. Long and flowing, not skimpy and sexy. Lucky Smith had long ago ceased to be able to get away with skimpy and sexy. She was pulling on her jeans when Paul came out of the bathroom and began throwing on his own clothes.

“Paul, please, tell me.”

“That was Matthew. His roommate’s dead.”

“Why? How?”

“Matt says he got home, found the fellow dead.”

“How awful.” Lucky thrust her arms through her sweater.

“I’m going over there. You don’t need to come.”

“But I want to. Perhaps I can help.”

“No. This is bad, Lucky. Bad. The death wasn’t an accident. He was knifed. Murdered.”

Lucky lifted her head. She looked Paul in the eye. “Then all the more reason for me to come. You’re not going because you’re a police officer. You’re going because you’re his father. You need me, Paul, even if your son doesn’t.”

Chapter Fifteen

BEARTRACK TRAIL. BANFF, ALBERTA. SUNDAY EARLY MORNING.

Not wanting to wait for the elevator, Paul galloped down the stairs, Lucky following. The night staff threw them startled looks as they dashed across the deserted lobby, but Paul didn’t slow down to explain. He had a GPS in his car and shouted an address to Lucky as he pulled out of the parking garage. Lucky punched in numbers while Paul drove down the hill toward Banff townsite, and then through dark quiet streets. Shortly after three o’clock a few lights were on in bars as the staff cleaned up or enjoyed a drink. The last few stragglers made their way home past closed shops and restaurants.

Lucky Smith was a mountain woman. Born and raised in Seattle, adulthood in the B.C. Interior, the one time she’d travelled to Kansas to attend a cousin’s wedding, she’d been overwhelmed by the simple vastness of it. The open spaces, the distant, visible horizon, the sky that went on forever. Wedding over, she escaped back to the mountains, seeking comfort and safely in their familiar bulk.

Tonight, although the sky was clear, the surrounding mountains cut off the glow of the moon and most of the stars. Lucky shivered. So beautiful during the day, at night these mountains seemed ominous, looming over them, closing them in. Trapping them.

No need to get fanciful. That would be no help to anyone. She glanced at Paul. In the light from the dashboard she could see his face set into serious lines. He didn’t look angry, simply determined.

“Turn left,” she said, “and then an immediate right. Arriving at…” the efficient British accent announced from the GPS.

“Are you sure you gave that thing the right address?” Paul slid the car to a stop against the curb.

Lucky read it back to him. “That’s what you told me.”

The street was empty. The address they’d been directed to was a three-story apartment block on a street of similar buildings. Street lamps cast pools of faint yellow light onto the sidewalk. A black cat leisurely crossed the road, paying Lucky and Paul no attention. Paul opened his door and light filled the interior of the car.

“What’s the matter?” Lucky asked.

“This is a small town. The police should have gotten here faster than we did. There’s a flashlight in the glove compartment. Give it to me.” She did so and he climbed out of the car.

Lucky opened her door.

“Stay here,” he ordered.

“But…”

“But nothing. Matt didn’t call 911. That means something…someone might have prevented him. Do you have your phone?”

“Yes.”

“Call 911. Give them the address. Tell them we have a report of a homicide. Tell them who I am. And, Lucky,” he bent down and stuck his head into the car, “you will stay here. This is now a police action.”

“Paul, wait for the Mounties.”

But he was gone. He headed for the building at a trot, slipping in and out of the shadows, slightly bent at the knees and waist. Lucky made the call and was told the police were on their way. She watched as Paul approached the front door. He didn’t stand in front of it, knocking, like anyone else would. He stood to one side, back against the wall. His hand reached out, gripped the doorknob, and turned it. The door swung open, an interior light came on, and Paul slipped into the vestibule, moving fast and keeping low. A row of mailboxes and buzzers lined the wall, illuminated by the weak light in the entrance. Paul punched a button, repeatedly. No one seemed to be answering and Lucky breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn’t get in. He’d have to wait for the police. Like all Canadian police officers, Paul Keller carried a gun to work but never when not on duty.

She waited, heart pounding, itching to get out of the car, to go to Paul, but, knowing that this time, for once, she had to do as she’d been told. It was only a matter of moments until she heard a siren, another, and the street was washed in white, blue, and red lights. Lucky told the 911 operator the police had arrived, and snapped her phone shut. She stuffed it into her jacket pocket and jumped out of the car. She flagged down the first vehicle. “Over there,” she shouted to the officer, a woman not much older than Lucky’s own daughter. “Chief Constable Keller’s waiting for you.”

Paul shouted and waved, and two officers ran to join him in the vestibule. Another took a post outside the door. Lights began coming on in the neighboring houses and apartments, faces appeared at windows, and a few people ventured outside to stand on their front steps and watch the excitement.

When Lucky looked back at the apartment building, the two Mounties and Paul were gone. Someone must have buzzed them in.

More cars, white with the logo of colored stripes and horseman with a lance, arrived, followed by an ambulance. A crowd began to gather, coats thrown hastily over pajamas, bare feet stuffed into shoes, laces untied. Uniformed officers ordered people to keep back and spoke into radios at their shoulders. Yellow tape was being unrolled and tied around the spruce trees fronting the property.

No shots rang out; no one screamed in terror or cried out in pain. Lucky took a deep breath, summoning her courage, lifted her head, and marched purposefully across the small patch of browning grass toward the door, as if she had reason to be there.

“Sorry, ma’am.” The Mountie guarding the door stopped her. “I’ll have to ask you to stay behind the tape.”

“I’m with Chief Constable Keller,” she said, her eyes fixed on his face. She wondered if he was old enough to shave yet. He hesitated. His radio spat out something incomprehensible amongst a burst of static and he turned, waving Lucky through.

She slipped inside. The inner door had been propped open. A single weak bulb hung over the hallway, and a staircase, dark and narrow, led up. A Mountie was talking to a group of women at the end of the hall, their apartment doorways open. No need to wonder where to go: The voices of the police overhead were loud and footsteps pounded the floorboards. Lucky dashed up the stairs.

Uniformed men and women stood at the first door on the right, facing into the room. Lucky slipped up behind them, cursing her lack of height. An officer turned and thrust out an arm. “You can’t come in here.”

“I’m with Chief Constable Keller.”

The police parted. Paul’s face was pale and lines that hadn’t been there yesterday dragged down the skin. Lucky glanced around him, into the room. She soon wished she hadn’t.

A man lay on the floor, close to the door. He was on his back, his arms flung out to the sides, looking at, but not seeing, the light overhead and the water-stained ceiling tiles. At first Lucky thought someone had spilled a bucket of red paint onto the dull beige carpet. Her hand came to her mouth as she realized he lay in a pool of blood. Blood covered his throat. Paramedics packed up their equipment. They were in no hurry.

Lucky gasped, and Paul grabbed her arm. He pulled her into the hallway. “I told you to stay in the car.”

“Matt?” she asked.

Paul shook his head. “No sign of him. Damn fool must have run after calling me.”

Footsteps on the stairs. A man, dressed in jeans and a light windbreaker. Shorter than Paul but powerfully built. Silver and gray hair cut short, gray eyes set in deep folds of skin, a lined face full of gray stubble. “Chief Constable Keller?”

Paul held out his hand. The men shook.

“Sergeant Edward Blechta. I’d say it’s a pleasure, but not in these circumstances. My dispatcher told me you called this in. Do you know the victim?”

“No. My son,” Paul sighed, deeply, looking every one of his fifty-eight years, “phoned me at my hotel. Said he’d come home to find…this.”

“Your son? Where’s he now?”

“I don’t know.”

Blechta’s tired gray eyes studied Lucky, and he did not smile. “You are?”

“Lucy Smith. I’m Chief Keller’s…”

“Friend,” Paul finished.

“Friend. People call me Lucky.”

“Are you?”

She flushed. “I mean that’s my nickname. Lucky Smith.”

“Not so lucky today,” Blechta said. “If you have no reason to be here, Ms. Smith, I’d like you to leave. Chief Keller, I’m going to have a look at the scene. Then I have some questions for you.”

Paul said, “As long as Lucky’s here, she should have another look at the body.”

“Me?”

Paul lifted one hand, but he didn’t touch her. For the first time, she noticed drying blood on his tips of his fingers. “You might recognize him, Lucky.”