Constable Molly Smith Mystery: Winter Of Secrets Part 10

She threw open the door leading to the familys private area, and sprinted down the hall to her own room.

"Yes?" A woman answered the phone. Her voice thick and drowsy.

"Im looking for Dave Evans."

"Who wants to know?"

"Tell him its Sergeant Winters of the Trafalgar City Police."

"Okay, hold on."

"Sweetie," she said through a big yawn. "You wanna take a call?"

A noise in the background.

"That Winters guy," the woman said. "Didnt he come around to ask Rosemary about her stolen bike last summer?" She giggled. "That was when we met."

"f.u.c.k," 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 gla.s.ses, size 1.25, to read the fine print on the computer. He hated those gla.s.ses. Another step and it was a wheelchair and a bladder bag. Hed interviewed Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, a third-cla.s.s liar if hed ever seen one, and then her p.r.i.c.kly 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 didnt much care if the W-Ys dinner plans had to be put back, but the boys didnt 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 hed told them he was going out on his own for the night. Hed 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 couldnt ask Jason what he knew about his friends movements that night.

Winters had spent his evening here, at the office. Elizas long time agent, the formidable Barney, who, at age sixty-five, and still an avid skier, was in town combining business with pleasure. Theyd been supposed to meet for dinner to discuss some wonderful plan Barney had for Elizas next job. Which was necessary considering that Elizas last project had fallen to earth in a spectacular flameout. Dinner would be on Barneys tab, which would, of course, be tax-deductible. Hed called Eliza to say he wouldnt be able to make it. After twenty-five years of marriage to a cop, Eliza said shed 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-Yarmouths file was the interesting one. Juvenile records. Closed. Which told him that there was something to tell him, but they werent going to. Na, Na, Na. I know something you dont. 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 didnt 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 youd been hoping for, that Williams had gotten himself into a street fight on Sat.u.r.day night. Winters had checked the s.h.i.+ft report for the night before Williams death.

"Same old s.h.i.+t 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 b.l.o.o.d.y fools. Thats probably what kept them from landing any serious blows on the other guy."

"You recognize either of them?"

"One of them, yes. Dont 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 didnt 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 thered be no more trouble. I thought we should bring them in, but...Molly didnt 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 b.u.t.t. 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. Locals girl while he spent time with his friends and ignored her. This is what I heard outside, Sarge, you follow?"

"I do."

"Theyd been leaving..."

"Whod 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. Didnt occur to me before, but, now that Im putting them together, one of the guys in the river was the outsider in the fight weve just been talking about. It was him all right."

Hardly a positive identification. But it didnt matter, Winters only needed clarification on what hed been told earlier.

"Same guy," Evans said. "Im sure of it."

The B&B was dark and quiet by eight. The guests had gone out to dinner with Wendys and Jasons 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. Shed left the store without trying it on, and hadnt 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.

Shed have to go without a bra.

The satin felt wicked and delicious against her bare b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Kathy s.h.i.+vered. 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 shed bought this afternoon, and two crystal flutes.

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

"Come on in," Rob shouted. "Its 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-s.h.i.+rt advertising a brand of beer. Gla.s.ses were perched on his nose. He didnt look up from the screen. "Youre back early. Forget something, or just too much misery around the table?"

Kathy cleared her throat.

Rob looked up. Under the round gla.s.ses, 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 shed opened in the kitchen. It squirted orange liquid across the beige carpet.

"Oh, dear," Rob said.

Chapter Twelve.

No one had been offered c.o.c.ktails. Instead Dad told the waiter they would have Champagne. Presumably, hed said in his hoity-toity voice, theyd 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 couldnt remember ever seeing her mother with escaping hair. It made her seem a bit more human. Wendy reached under the table and touched her mothers hand. Mom almost jumped out of her skin, but when shed 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 theyd all been served, Dad raised his gla.s.s. 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 gla.s.s down and opened her menu. "What do you think looks good?" she said to no one in particular.

"My daughter tells me youre 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. "Its a wonderful school. I applied there for my undergrad, but they rejected me."

"Which theyve been regretting ever since, Ive 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 didnt know.

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

"Do you think the salmons any good?" Sophie said. "I cant 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 shed landed a job in Trafalgar-big budget, mega-star photographer, national exposure, and to top it all off she wouldnt 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 Elizas 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 pa.s.sed and left its calling card. "Jonathan will be your waiter tonight," she said.

Barney couldnt possibly have cared less what their waiters 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-Yarmouths face was, Eliza thought, rather frightening.

"Eliza! How wonderful. Please, wont you join us? As you can see, we havent ordered our food yet. Were having a gla.s.s 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. "Im with a friend. Just the two of us tonight, Im afraid. My husbands working late."

"Thats perfect," Patricia said. "You and your friend can join us. Weve had a cancellation ourselves, so theres 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.

"Youre being most presumptions, Pat. This lady has plans." The man was Patricias 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 friends 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. "Im Jeremy. Nice to meet you."

"Eliza. My pleasure. This is my friend Bernadette."

Introductions were made. Another bottle of champagne ordered.

Eliza sat between Patricias 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 b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

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 Barneys 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 girls face lit up and they chattered away.