Winter of Secrets (10 page)

“Fuck,” a man said. Static, and then: “Sarge, what can I do for you?”

“Not leave your cell phone with anyone inclined to blow me off for one thing.”

“Well, yeah, you see…”

Winters pulled on his drug store glasses, size 1.25, to read the fine print on the computer. He hated those glasses. Another step and it was a wheelchair and a bladder bag. He’d interviewed Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, a third-class liar if he’d ever seen one, and then her prickly father, and then her friends. The latter had been a quick conversation, as they needed to get ready for a formal dinner with the Wyatt-Yarmouths. Winters didn’t much care if the W-Y’s dinner plans had to be put back, but the boys didn’t have much to say other than echo Wendy. Some of them had gone for dinner on Sunday, some had done other things. No one knew where Ewan Williams had gone, although Rob and Jeremy both said he’d told them he was going out on his own for the night. He’d been eying a girl at the ski resort for a couple of days, a short, attractive dark-haired girl wearing a white ski outfit, and had taken a break for an early lunch saying he was going to track her down. Jeremy gave a rough description of the girl, but they had no idea who she was, or if Ewan had made plans to meet up with her later. Ewan had shared a room with Jason, but Winters couldn’t ask Jason what he knew about his friend’s movements that night.

Winters had spent his evening here, at the office. Eliza’s long time agent, the formidable Barney, who, at age sixty-five, and still an avid skier, was in town combining business with pleasure. They’d been supposed to meet for dinner to discuss some wonderful plan Barney had for Eliza’s next job. Which was necessary considering that Eliza’s last project had fallen to earth in a spectacular flameout. Dinner would be on Barney’s tab, which would, of course, be tax-deductible. He’d called Eliza to say he wouldn’t be able to make it. After twenty-five years of marriage to a cop, Eliza said she’d eat his portion. Winters turned to his computer and tried to dig up the dirt on Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, Ewan Williams, and the rest of their crowd: Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, Jeremy Wozenack, Rob Fitzgerald, Alan Robertson, and Sophie Dion.

Wozenack had a couple of drunk charges in Toronto, brawls outside of bars, but nothing serious enough to have caused injury. Dion had several traffic tickets to her name, and was perilously close to earning enough points to have her license suspended. Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth’s file was the interesting one. Juvenile records. Closed. Which told him that there was something to tell him, but they weren’t going to.
Na, Na, Na. I know something you don’t.
He started the paperwork necessary to try to pry open her juvie file.

“Save it,” Winters said over the phone to Dave Evans. “I want to ask you about a fight at the Bishop a couple of nights before Christmas. The twenty-second. You were there, tell me what you remember.” While telling him that they didn’t know what Ewan Williams had been up to Sunday evening, his friends had mentioned, in that way that people who have something to hide manage to accidentally let you know far more than you’d been hoping for, that Williams had gotten himself into a street fight on Saturday night. Winters had checked the shift report for the night before William’s death.

“Same old shit we get all the time,” Evans said. “By the time we arrived a full scale punch up was going on outside. Two guys taking swings at each other. The sidewalk was icy and they were having trouble staying upright. They looked like a couple of bloody fools. That’s probably what kept them from landing any serious blows on the other guy.”

“You recognize either of them?”

“One of them, yes. Don’t know his name, but a local guy. The other was probably an outsider, a skier.”

“Why do you think that?”

Evans let out a puff of air, and Winters let him think. “The outsider was dressed well, clean jeans, thick wool sweater, good boots. He was small, but knew how to throw a punch. Hard to say, Sarge. Just my impression.”

“Impressions count, Dave. You didn’t bring them in?”

Evans’ voice turned hard, as he moved onto the defensive. “Both guys stepped back, soon as we pulled up. They apologized; said there’d be no more trouble. I thought we should bring them in, but…Molly didn’t agree. And that was it.”

“Sounds okay with me,” Winters said. He had plenty of doubts about Constable Dave Evans. Always too much on the defensive. Winters had run into the Evans type before. One day Evans would toss someone to the wolves to save his own butt. Hopefully at that time he would no longer be in the employ of the Trafalgar City Police.

Evans thought it was his little secret, but Barb knew, and thus everyone else knew, the Chief Constable most of all, that Evans’ goal in life was to join the RCMP. Counter-terrorism was his aim: not petty crime or no-account deaths in small mountain towns.

Which, today, was of no consequence.

“What was the fight about?”

Evans snorted. “The same thing it always is. A woman. Mr. Wool Sweater had moved in on Mr. Local’s girl while he spent time with his friends and ignored her. This is what I heard outside, Sarge, you follow?”

“I do.”

“They’d been leaving…”

“Who’d been leaving?”

“The girl and the outsider guy.”

“Continue.”

“The girl had, far as I could figure out, been quite happy to be moved in on. But when she got up to leave, the boyfriend noticed and took exception.”

Winters got the picture. Local girl, abandoned in a low-level bar while her boyfriend watched Sport TV with his pals. Soon the boyfriend pulls his head out of the brown bottle and, hey, his woman is making friendly with another guy.

“You and Smith were at the car in the river on Monday. Recognize anyone brought out?”

“No. Neither of them. Outsiders probably.” Even over the phone it was almost possible to see the light dawning behind Evans’ eyes. “Hey. Didn’t occur to me before, but, now that I’m putting them together, one of the guys in the river was the outsider in the fight we’ve just been talking about. It was him all right.”

Hardly a positive identification. But it didn’t matter, Winters only needed clarification on what he’d been told earlier.

“Same guy,” Evans said. “I’m sure of it.”

***

The B&B was dark and quiet by eight. The guests had gone out to dinner with Wendy’s and Jason’s parents. As they trooped out the door, it was easy to see that none of them seemed happy about it, and who could blame them. Whether they talked about it or not, the deaths of Ewan and Jason would lie over the dinner table like a shroud.

Upstairs, a toilet flushed.

Kathy took a deep breath. Her mother had gone to a movie. There were only two people in the Glacier Chalet B&B. Kathy had gone shopping earlier and found a purple blouse, much more daring than anything she owned. Shoulder straps the thickness of a strand of spaghetti and a deeply plunging neckline. She’d left the store without trying it on, and hadn’t thought about a bra. Only when she got home did she realize that her bras, white things with thick straps and multiple clips, would make the purple blouse look ridiculous.

She’d have to go without a bra.

The satin felt wicked and delicious against her bare breasts. Kathy shivered.
So this is what rich feels like.

She walked up the stairs breathing heavily—and not from exertion: she must climb these steps twenty times a day. She carried a bottle of cheap bubbly wine, stolen from the stash her mother kept to help guests celebrate anniversaries or weddings, a carton of orange juice she’d bought this afternoon, and two crystal flutes.

Her heart was beating so hard, she thought he’d hear it before the knock on his door.

“Come on in,” Rob shouted. “It’s open.”

She had to wedge the bottle of champagne under her arm to get a hand free to open the door.

He was sitting at the desk in front of the window hunched over his computer. He wore baggy track suit pants and a red cardigan over a gray T-shirt advertising a brand of beer. Glasses were perched on his nose. He didn’t look up from the screen. “You’re back early. Forget something, or just too much misery around the table?”

Kathy cleared her throat.

Rob looked up. Under the round glasses, his eyes were equally round with surprise.

“Hi, Rob. I thought.” She cleared her throat again. “You might like a treat.” Heat flew up her face and across her exposed chest. “I mean something tasty.” She grabbed the bottle and held it up.

One of the crystal flutes fell from her hand. She lunged for it and dropped the carton of juice, which she’d opened in the kitchen. It squirted orange liquid across the beige carpet.

“Oh, dear,” Rob said.

Chapter Twelve

No one had been offered cocktails. Instead Dad told the waiter they would have Champagne.
Presumably
, he’d said in his hoity-toity voice, they’d have the
real
thing.

Certainly
, the waitress said. She went to fetch it.

Mom looked strained. The delicate skin under her eyes was blue and puffy. Strands of hair had escaped from the knot at the back of her neck. Wendy couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother with escaping hair. It made her seem a bit more human. Wendy reached under the table and touched her mother’s hand. Mom almost jumped out of her skin, but when she’d settled down she gave her daughter a small smile and pressed her hand in return.

The Champagne arrived; a bottle was presented to Dad and the cork popped. Dad tasted, nodded, and one waitress began to pour, while another placed flutes in front of everyone.

And Wendy knew that this was going to be perfectly horrible.

After they’d all been served, Dad raised his glass. Wendy glanced around the table. Not one of the friends looked as if they wanted to be here. Rob, she thought, was the only sensible one.

“My son,” Dad said, taking a sip. The others followed. Even Jeremy, who knew how to knock a drink back faster than anyone Wendy knew, barely touched the wine to his lips.

Another toast, another drink. “Ewan,” Dad said.

Mom let out a small sob.

Dad always did like the theatrical. Mom was sitting so low in her chair she was almost under the table. He absolutely hated the fact that his wife was a Member of the Order of Canada and he was not, and to cover up how much he resented it, he felt compelled to mention it at every opportunity.

Sophie put her glass down and opened her menu. “What do you think looks good?” she said to no one in particular.

“My daughter tells me you’re taking theater at McGill,” Mom said to Alan, sitting on her right at the round table. The restaurant was full, silver gleamed, candlelight flickered, crystal sparkled. The curtains were drawn back, and outside snow fell heavily. “It’s a wonderful school. I applied there for my undergrad, but they rejected me.”

“Which they’ve been regretting ever since, I’ve no doubt,” Alan said with his boyish-charm grin. He was handsome enough, with deep brown eyes underneath long lashes, a mop of artfully tossed black curls, and a dimpled smile, to be a movie star. Whether he had any real talent, Wendy didn’t know.

Mom put her company façade back on, laughed lightly, and took a sip of Champagne.

“Do you think the salmon’s any good?” Sophie said. “I can’t stand dry fish.”

***

Time was catching up with Eliza Winters. Designers in Paris and Milan had stopped calling long ago; the big magazines shortly after. That she still got any work at all, she knew, was due to the contacts and skills of her agent, Bernadette McLaughlin, who everyone in the business called Barney. Eliza had been so pleased last summer when she’d landed a job in Trafalgar—big budget, mega-star photographer, national exposure, and to top it all off she wouldn’t have to leave home. But the client company folded before the first picture was even snapped. Nothing suitable had come up since.

Barney told the hostess they would require a table for two, not three, as reserved. Flavours was the best restaurant in Trafalgar. It was also the most expensive. In Eliza’s experience, those two adjectives were not always complementary, but in this case they were. The room was full, but the noise level not too high. People laughed while black and white clad waiters maneuvered heavy trays.

“A moment, Barney,” Eliza said. “I see someone I know.” She leaned close to the older woman. “Just lost her son.”

Barney followed the long-haired hostess with the thin hips to a table set into a private alcove at the back. It was prepared for a party of three, and the woman whipped the unneeded place-setting away as quickly as if a dog had passed and left its calling card. “Jonathan will be your waiter tonight,” she said.

Barney couldn’t possibly have cared less what their waiter’s name was. As long as he brought the wine list.

Eliza approached the large round table in the center of the main room. “Patricia. Lovely to see you.”

The look of sheer pleasure that crossed Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth’s face was, Eliza thought, rather frightening.

“Eliza! How wonderful. Please, won’t you join us? As you can see, we haven’t ordered our food yet. We’re having a glass of champagne in honor of my son and his friend.” She turned to the man across the table. “Ask them to bring another chair, dear.”

The man half-rose.

“No, thank you,” Eliza said. “I’m with a friend. Just the two of us tonight, I’m afraid. My husband’s working late.”

“That’s perfect,” Patricia said. “You and your friend can join us. We’ve had a cancellation ourselves, so there’s plenty of room.” They were six at a table for eight. Menus were still on the table.

“Thank you, but we have business….”

Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth was on her feet. She waived to the hostess. “Two more to join us,” she said.

The young woman ran for chairs and cutlery.

Oh, dear.

“You’re being most presumptions, Pat. This lady has plans.” The man was Patricia’s age; her husband probably. The rest of their group was much younger. The daughter, small and dark and scowling, was easy to identify, as short and lightly-boned as her mother. The others, one young woman and two men, must be friends as they bore no resemblance to the family.

“Nonsense,” Patricia said to her husband. She hailed the hostess once again. “Ask my friend’s companion to join us.”

Mr. Wyatt-Yarmouth sat down. Two more chairs and matching place settings arrived. Along with a rather startled looking Barney, clutching her linen napkin.

Eliza had no choice. She took the offered seat.

“Hi,” said the young man to her left. “I’m Jeremy. Nice to meet you.”

“Eliza. My pleasure. This is my friend Bernadette.”

Introductions were made. Another bottle of champagne ordered.

Eliza sat between Patricia’s daughter and Jeremy. The daughter, Wendy, would have been plain, with her large nose and weak bone structure, except that her teeth were straight and white and perfect and her skin glowed with youth and health. Her hair, light brown streaked with blond, was cut into a highly attractive, and no-doubt highly expensive, chin-length bob. Her earrings were giant silver hoops, which suited her haircut perfectly. A long silver pendant dipped into the cleft between her small breasts.

Wyatt-Yarmouth glared at his wife, and she kept her eyes demurely downcast, as a proper Victorian maiden should in company. Eliza tried to catch Barney’s eyes, to signal an apology, but at the first sign of the accent in the “’allo,” of the girl she was seated beside, Barney had launched into rapid-fire French. The girl’s face lit up and they chattered away.

“Pardon us,” Barney said at last. “Dreadfully rude, I know, but now I’m living in Vancouver I so rarely get the chance to practice my French, I simply couldn’t resist.”

It wasn’t as if anyone else at the table had anything to talk about. Eliza and Barney expressed their sympathies to Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth.

He thanked them.

Barney asked when they’d be going home.

That was a mistake.

“We should have been out of here tomorrow,” he snarled. “But the police are saying they need to keep Jason for a while longer. Let me tell you, I put in a call to the Chief of Police PDQ. I won’t have some two-bit, hick town cop sticking his nose into my son’s death and trying to score points by making a tragic car accident out to be something out of an episode of
CSI
.”

“Eliza’s husband…” Barney began.

Eliza silenced her with a look.

“Please, dear.” Patricia said, her voice low and calm. “People are looking.”

And they were. Chairs might have scratched the golden hardwood floor as diners at adjoining tables tried to eavesdrop without appearing to be rude.

The young people shifted in their seats. Wendy, the daughter, bristled with anger. She opened her mouth to say something. And it would not have been polite.

Eliza gathered her bag from the back of her chair and reached into a front pocket. “I think it best if we don’t interfere in your evening.” She got to her feet. Barney scrambled to follow. “Thank you for the champagne. It was a pleasure to meet you, Jack. My condolences again.” She touched Patricia on the shoulder and slipped her card into the woman’s hand. A bit pretentious, having a calling card in a town like Trafalgar. She rarely used them any more, and only for business. But she didn’t want to take the time to scramble for paper and pen. “If you’re going to be here for a few days, perhaps we can have lunch, or another day at the spa. That would be fun. Call me, if you’re free.”

Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth smiled at Eliza. “Thank you,” she whispered.

The waitress hovered to take their order.

“Is the salmon dry?” Sophie asked.

Eliza and Barney turned toward their table, only to find that it had been given to another party in the interim. They turned again, back toward the hostess table.

“Having a nice
family
dinner, are you?”

Eliza blinked. “I’m sorry?”

The girl didn’t look much older than fifteen. She was dressed in a patched winter coat and a long scarf full of holes. Black mascara ran down her cheeks, mixed with melting snow or tears, it was impossible to tell.

Incongruously, she wore a small pair of, if Eliza’s judgment hadn’t completely failed her, 14-carat gold hoop earrings.

“Thought you could have your dinner without me, did you? We’ll I’m here, and I’m in mourning too, not that any you gives a fuck. But I’m going to tell you one thing, Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth…”

“I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake,” Eliza said.

The patrons were no longer trying not to appear to be eavesdropping. The dining room was so silent that noise from the kitchen, clattering crockery, shouted orders, someone bellowing for carrots,
goddamn it
, could be heard.

The head waiter hurried over, wiping his hands on his white apron. “Is there a problem?”

“Apparently there is.” Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth was on his feet. “Now I don’t know who you are, girl, but I’d suggest that you leave.”

“Sit down, Jack,” Patricia said in quiet voice, “and shut up. If you are looking for Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth, I am she.”

“Oh, you are
she
, are you,” the girl took a step toward the table. She faltered and Eliza reached out a hand to steady her. The girl shrugged her off. Her breath was rancid with the sour scent of beer. “Well, I’m an even better she.”

“Lorraine, get out of here.” Wendy’s chair sounded like a gun shot as it crashed to the floor behind her. “This is a private dinner and you haven’t been invited.”

The girl, Lorraine, turned toward Wendy. “You think I don’t know that, you stuck-up rich bitch.” She dropped into the chair recently vacated by Eliza. “I’ve as much right to be here as he does.” She pointed at Jeremy. “More.” She bared her teeth at Patricia. “I’m Jason’s girlfriend, see. We were going to be engaged but before that could happen he…then he…died.” She burst into tears.

The head waiter stood beside her, not at all sure of what to do.

Eliza glanced at Patricia. All the blood had drained from the woman’s face, leaving it stark white. She might have been a ghost, except for the red in her eyes.

Lorraine picked up a menu. “I’m going to have dinner. Dinner with the family what shoulda been my in-laws. What’s the most expensive thing?”

“As you appear to know this person,” Jack yelled at his daughter, “do something.” He had resumed his seat at Patricia’s order.

Wendy tugged ineffectually at the sleeve of Lorraine’s heavy coat.

“Shall we go to the powder room, Patricia?” Eliza placed her hand on her friend’s shoulder.

Patricia didn’t move.

“What a good idea,” Barney said. “What do you think you’re you looking at, buddy?

The man at the next table began sawing at his steak.

A man ran into the dining room, shedding snow, looking around him as if he quite desperately needed to find something he’d lost. A waitress tried to stop him, but he stepped around her. He walked to the table that was the centre of the room, figuratively as well as literally.

Eliza’s hand was on Patricia’s arm, guiding the woman to standing. Her legs wobbled and Eliza gripped harder. Barney took the other arm.

“Come on, Lorraine. Let’s go home,” the new arrival said. The girl reached across the table and grabbed Patricia’s unfinished glass of champagne. The man plucked it from her fingers. “Let’s go.”

The head waiter signaled to the hostess, who picked up the phone.

“I haven’t ordered my dinner,” Lorraine said.

“I’ll take you to dinner. Anyplace you like.”

“I want to have dinner here.” Lorraine’s eyes were red and puffy and her nose ran. She swallowed a sob, and wiped her nose on the sleeve of her coat.

“Please come with me.”

The girl looked around. Her eyes fastened on Eliza, who was handing Patricia to Barney.

“Tell them I belong here,” she said, her voice a weak whisper.

Barney half-dragged Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth toward the back.

“Christ, as if,” Wendy said in a laugh that was more like a bark. “You’re pathetic. We might as well have invited Geronimo to dinner. Jason cared more about that cat than he did about you.”

“You,” Eliza said, “are not helping.”

“Fuck off, lady.”

“Will someone get this person out of here,” Jack bellowed.

The door opened, bringing in a blast of drifting snow, wind and cold, and a figure dressed in dark blue.

The head waiter, almost jumping up and down with excitement, spoke to the police officer. By now most of the restaurant patrons were standing to see better, the kitchen staff had emerged from the back, and the wait staff lined the walls, twisting fingers in white aprons.

The cop crossed the room. She was young, pretty, blond. Her cheeks glowed red with cold, and fresh snow sprinkled the top of her flat blue hat with the light blue band.

“Hi, Lorraine,” she said, in a warm and friendly voice. “Let’s go outside and talk. Gary can come with us.”