Constable Molly Smith Mystery: Winter Of Secrets Part 13

Smith flashed back to the previous night and the trouble at Flavours. Garys rage at Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, the late Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, for seducing Lorraine. What had he said to the boys at the table? Something about rich guys coming to town and flas.h.i.+ng their money and taking the local girls.

An old story. Plenty of young people came to Trafalgar on vacation; it was not a destination for the blue-rinse, name-badge wearing, bus-tour type. Tourists came here for the hiking and kayaking in summer, skiing and snowmobiling in winter. Some of her friends in high-school had had brief romances with guys in Trafalgar on vacation. Usually the guys left with promises to write, to keep in touch. Never to be heard from again.

She pushed the door open and gestured to Jeremy Wozenack to go back inside.

The old guy was putting down the phone. "Your rides here, Constable."

John Winters needed a drink. Toward the end of his career with Vancouver City Police that would have meant a quick visit to a bar, but these days Big Eddie would have what he needed. Hed been in a meeting with the Chief Constable, and Keller was getting pressure from the politically connected Dr. Wyatt-Yarmouth. Like a kettle, when the pressure got too much Keller believed in spreading the steam around the room so he didnt explode.

Molly Smith was standing by the dispatch desk, dressed in the blue standard-issue police winter jacket over s.h.i.+ny white ski pants and clumsy white ski boots. She wore a red helmet with large goggles pushed on top.

"Bad enough that Ive spent half my day off here, and now youre telling me I cant get a ride for my car and my stuff?"

"Everyones out, Molly," Denton told her. "I cant call them in to take you to Blue Sky. Youre just going to have to cool your heels. Go home and get your car tomorrow, why dont you?"

"Suppose I cant get a ride up tomorrow? In the meantime my car, with my purse stuffed under the front seat, I might add, is sitting all night in the parking lot. And my skis; I didnt even stop to lock them into the rack." She threw her hands up in the air and half turned.

Color flooded into her cheeks as she saw him standing there.

"Sergeant," she said.

"This is convenient. I was about to give you a call. Whats with the uniform? Some sort of undercover operation on the mountainside?"

Denton chuckled. "Theyve invented a strain of marijuana that grows all through a Kootenay winter. Thrives on deep snow and heavy cloud cover. Were looking for the green tops sticking their heads out from the snow." He stopped chuckling as he answered the phone.

"You remember I told you we get free skiing if we agree to help out with security?" Smith said. "Sometimes it isnt worth saving the fifty bucks." Her eyes narrowed and some of the color drained from her face. "Whyd you want me?"

"You were at an incident last night at Flavours Restaurant."

She snorted. "I certainly was."

"Doctor Wyatt-Yarmouth phoned the CC with a complaint first thing this morning. Paul was in meetings until now so Ive just heard about it."

The remaining blood fled from her face, leaving it almost as white as her pants.

"Not a complaint about you," he said. She let out a long breath. His displeasure over the fireplace incident had her spooked.

Good.

"It was to the effect that in our failure to release the bodies promptly were setting the family up for ridicule."

"No one needs to set that guy up for ridicule. He manages it all by himself."

"The CC suggested that I might want to hear what happened, so Im asking you."

"The story continues. I have more than even the Chief knows. Ive just arrested Jeremy Wozenack, a friend of Jason and Ewan, who was also at Flavours last night."

"Whats this about your car?"

"I came back to town with my prisoners in the patrol car. Didnt think it through carefully enough." Her face changed color again. "Well, that is, sure I thought it through, I just, well, I figured..."

"In your eagerness to complete the arrest you left your own vehicle at the scene. And now you cant get a ride back and its almost dark. Lets take the van, and you can tell me both stories on the way. But first, Molly, we need to stop at Eddies and get me a coffee."

Smith talked most of the way to the ski resort. It was getting late and a steady stream of traffic pa.s.sed them, heading down the mountain toward town. Yellow headlights broke through the dusk and high snow banks and snow-laden black trees closed in around them. Hed heard from Dave Evans that Ewan Williams had been in a brawl on Sat.u.r.day night, the night before he disappeared. This morning hed interviewed the other partic.i.p.ant in the fight, and the guy insisted that hed gone home after the police broke it up and never thought about it again. Hed had more than a few beers on board, he told Winters with an easy laugh, and doubted hed recognize the other guy if he saw him again. The object of the fight in question had been at the apartment, stretching and preening. She hadnt bothered to put a robe on over her lacy red teddy (with food stains down the front, and a tear at the left hip) in the presence of company. Winters opinion of Ewan Williams taste went down a considerable amount, and he wondered if the guy was just out to cause trouble.

The woman also insisted that she hadnt seen Williams since that night. She looked honest enough when she said it, slightly bored at the conversation, but a bit t.i.tillated at being involved, however peripherally, in a police investigation.

The skin around her right eye was the color of a tropical sunset. Almost a perfect match for an injury sustained oh, approximately a week ago. About the night shed dared to flirt with some other guy.

Winters had thanked them for their time and left. Hed started a check on the boyfriends record, but nothing had come up so far.

And now, according to Smith, it would appear that not only had Ewan Williams been causing trouble over local girls, but Jeremy Wozenack and Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth were playing the game as well.

Fun for some.

Never for the police.

"Tell me about Gary LeBlanc," he asked Smith. "Every towns blessed with a family like that, it seems."

"I knew him in school. He was a trouble maker back then, but never anything serious. Hes been away, a guest, as they say, of the government of Canada, for several years. He had a nice little grow-op on Crown land outside of town. Nothing much, from what Ive heard. Less than a hundred plants."

"He got several years for that?" Surprising that he got any jail time at all.

"Unfortunately, that wasnt the whole story. The hors.e.m.e.n came across it by accident, looking for a ten-year-old boy whod gone missing from the family campsite. Gary was watering his garden. A Mountie caught the working end of a spade in the face and needed a heck of a lot of st.i.tches. People in town said it was an accident, the officer tripped and fell into the edge of the spade Gary was holding."

"Is that what happened?"

"I wasnt with the police then, John. I was away at University. I remembered my mom talking about it, so I pulled the file the other day, just out of interest. Gary was put away for a.s.sault P.O."

"What about the kid?"

"Kid?"

"The child they were searching for?"

"Found eating chocolate while dipping his toes in a creek and enjoying his great adventure."

"At least part of the story has a happy ending."

"This is one situation in which everyone would have been better off if justice had not been served."

Winters turned his head. "Go on."

"Gary looked after Lorraine, best as he could. My mom knows them. When Gary was around, Mom took a personal interest in the both of them. You know my mom."

"That I do."

"Lorraines Garys half-sister, same mother, and hes a lot older than her. When Gary was sent away Lorraine was left in the tender care of her parents. Neither of whom has ever met a bottle they didnt love more than her. My mom tried to help, but she was rebuffed continually so she pretty much stopped coming around."

"Doesnt sound like Lucky."

Smith laughed, without humor. "Doesnt, does it? But even Mom knows to stop when shes beating her head against a brick wall. Well, sometimes she does. And Lorraine, at sixteen years old, is now the town sled."

"The what?"

"Sled. Available for anyone to ride."

"Isnt that a bit insensitive, Molly?"

"Its the way shes seen, even by some of our officers. I feel for the girl, I really do. But she doesnt want my help. Not that thats worth much, but she doesnt want Moms help or anyone elses. Now Garys back, maybe he can do something."

The lodge came into view. There werent many vehicles left in the parking lot. The yellow lights of the lodge and outbuildings looked very small and insignificant against the dark bulk of the surrounding mountains. The moon was lifting above the crest of the mountain to the east. It was waxing, and the light was cold and very white. It made him think of Mollys proper first name.

"Thats mine, over there."

A green car was parked close to the building, all alone. He pulled to a halt beside it. "I asked the security guys to keep an eye on my skis," Smith said. A single pair of skis remained in the racks at the back of the lodge. She climbed out of the car, unzipped her jacket pocket and pulled out her keys.

"Thanks for the ride, John. I appreciate it." Her blue eyes said a lot more before she slammed the door shut. He watched her walk in that duck-like gait people in ski boots did. She found her skis and equipment and fastened them to the roof, then climbed into the drivers seat and burrowed into the pa.s.senger seat foot-well. She came up with a pair of winter boots and waved them at him. She turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life.

Winters made a wide circle, and set off down the dark mountain road.

Hed been in homicide in Vancouver for many years. Most murders consisted of a victim. Victim was found in a certain place. A few people, family members mostly, were the suspects. But in this case there was nothing he could put his finger on. He didnt even know if he had a murder.

He had a victim, or did he? Was there one victim, or none, or maybe two? No place of death that hed yet found. And no suspects to speak of. Hed found nothing in Ewans room at the B&B that would necessitate a forensic search, and hed accepted Ellie Carmines word that she hadnt had any blood spills to mop up. Not that he would necessarily accept her, or anyone elses, word about anything, but the Glacier Chalet was a crowded, busy place. Even in the middle of the night, he reflected, people seemed to be coming and going. He was pretty sure Ewan hadnt died there.

Jason and Ewan had been a couple of fun-loving rich boys on vacation. Them and their friend Jeremy, whod been released with a promise to return tomorrow. Local guys were upset because outsiders, dripping with money and good looks and educated voices, were moving in on their girlfriends.

Plenty of fodder for bar brawls. But for murder? Unlikely, although stranger, much stranger, things had happened over the course of his career.

Gary LeBlanc made an attractive candidate. Except for the fact that hed been angry at Jason, not Ewan.

And Ewan, Winters had to remember, was the one whod died first.

Jason had died in a car accident. There was not the slightest doubt about that. It was Ewans death that was the strange one.

Nevertheless, Winters knew deep in his cops gut that if he could find out why Jason had the dead body of his friend in his car, hed be a long way toward finding out why Ewan Williams had died.

It wasnt helping that the Wyatt-Yarmouth family were making phone calls and stamping their feet demanding attention. He could only hope the national media wouldnt pick this story up.

Williams had last been seen by his friends on Sunday the twenty-third. They spent the day skiing before returning to the B&B. Around five-thirty, Ewan had gone out alone, on foot, and had never been seen again.

Had something happened at the ski hill that day? His friends thought hed met a girl. But they hadnt seen her. Did Ewan run into trouble in town? Did he even make it to town?

His headlights picked out the sharp curves and steep banks of the mountain road. This police-issue mini-van was not the ideal vehicle for driving down treacherous mountain roads.

He turned a corner and came into a straightway. The lights of Smiths car behind him flooded the van.

Meredith Morgenstern had been calling, leaving messages hinting that she knew why he was keeping the bodies and why he was showing so much interest in a car accident. John Winters knew lots of good reporters. Men and women who did their jobs and let the police do theirs. Meredith Morgenstern wasnt one of them, and he wouldnt normally give her the time of day. But he might be able to toss her enough of a crumb that shed write a story asking anyone whod seen Ewan to come forward.

No one seemed to know where Ewan Williams had gone that night. But he had to have gone somewhere, and seen someone. If only the person whod last seen him alive.

If that person was Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, Winters might never find out what happened.

Lucky Smith bit into a piece of shortbread. She didnt even chew, just let the b.u.t.tery dough dissolve in her mouth.

"Perfect," she said to Ellie Carmine.

"Thanks." Ellie sipped at her tea. She looked troubled.

"Whats happening about your guests?" Lucky asked. "Im surprised theyre still here, after...Well, after what happened to their two friends."

"The sister, Wendy, is waiting to leave with her parents and the boys body. Ive no idea whats going on but apparently the coroner isnt releasing the bodies yet, and wont say when."

"That seems strange."

"Perhaps you could ask Moonlight..."

"No."

"I havent even said what I want to know."

"I dont ask my daughter anything to do with police business." Lucky would happily ask anything at all, but Moonlight wouldnt tell her more than was available to all in the pages of the Trafalgar Daily Gazette. Shed confided a few things to her mother in her early days with the department, but that had stopped.

"Having the police poking around, questioning the guests, its upsetting for everyone. It was just a car accident, for heavens sake. He is rather attractive, that Sergeant Winters, isnt he?"

"I hadnt noticed," Lucky said, as her hand hovered over the plate of treats before settling upon a cookie formed into the shape of candy cane. Bands of pink and white dough wound through the cookie. She took an exploratory bite. Not as good as the shortbread.

The kitchen door flew open.

"Robbed. I 'ave been robbed." It was a young woman, with long black hair and full lips. She would have been pretty if not for a much too prominent nose. She was dressed in leather ankle boots, form-fitting jeans, and a tight red T-s.h.i.+rt with Quebec printed across her chest in silver glitter.

Mrs. Carmine jumped to her feet. "Sophie, what on earth?"

"My money. I 'id my money in the drawer. Beneath my clothes. It is gone. All gone."

A strikingly handsome young man stood behind her. "Shes right, Mrs. C. Sophie doesnt like to carry too much money when shes skiing, so she hides it in the dresser. It isnt there."

Ellie placed one hand to her chest. "There must be a mistake."

"No mistake, certainement. Phone the Srete."

"The what?"

"She means the police, Mrs. Carmine. Call the police."