Constable Molly Smith Mystery: Winter Of Secrets Part 19

"For once in your life, you stupid child, will you at least pretend to have a modic.u.m of common sense. My wife will not be allowed to wander the streets by herself."

Wendy turned to John Winters. "So there we have it. Mom will not be allowed to grieve or to mourn as she sees fit. Ive had it. Im going to bed. You can expect to see me at your door in the morning, Dad. I dont expect the Glacier Chalet B&B will be all that hospitable tomorrow, at least toward those of us who threw an illumined blacksmiths shop against the wall."

Wyatt-Yarmouth sputtered.

"I havent met your wife, sir," Winters said. "But I believe Constable Smith, who you just pa.s.sed, has. Ill stop in at the station and ask her for a description. As I said, we cant issue an alert for an adult this early, but I will ask our officers to contact me if they see her."

"I would have expected, Sergeant Winters, that in light of my wifes state of mind..."

"Shut the h.e.l.l up, Dad," Wendy said. "Youre the last person to know Moms state of mind. Why dont you just go away?"

Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth gaped at her, and Winters guessed the man didnt normally encounter outright mutiny from his family.

"Youre still at the Mountainside Inn?" Winters said, before Jack could reply to his daughter.

"Sadly, yes. It seems the town is full."

"Call here tomorrow. I expect therell be rooms available." Wendy turned and walked away.

"Children," Wyatt-Yarmouth said, "are not worth the bother."

"Do you have a cell phone?"

"Yes."

"Give me the number. Ill call you if we locate your wife. But be aware well first ask her if she wants us to contact you."

"I trust youll remember that my wife is an important woman. She is a recipient of the Order of Canada. I myself am on the board..."

"Number?" Winters tapped his pen against the notebook hed pulled out of his pocket.

Wyatt-Yarmouth spat it out.

Winters wrote it down, before looking pointedly toward the door.

Wyatt-Yarmouth didnt take the hint. "My daughter seems to be not herself. Id better check on her."

"Please, dont worry." A short, chubby red-headed bundle stepped out from the common room, where shed obviously been listening from behind a wall. She held out her hand. "Im Lucy Smith. My friends call me Lucky."

Wyatt-Yarmouth took her hand. Lucky folded it into both of hers. "Please dont worry," she repeated. "Ill check on Wendy. I have a daughter of my own that age."

Winters refrained from rolling his eyes. Good thing Luckys last name was Smith. If it had been something noticeable, like, say, Wyatt-Yarmouth, Jack would have immediately connected it to the police officer and objected to Luckys interference. Winters knew that it made no difference who, and what, Luckys daughter was, but not many people would see it that way.

"Thank you," Jack said.

"Ill let you know if I hear anything." Winters edged the man toward the door. It didnt help that Lucky was still holding his hands and looking into his eyes. Finally Wyatt-Yarmouth broke away, turned, and stumbled down the steps.

Winters did, in fact, plan to do something about the absent Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth. This wasnt a normal disappearance by any means. The womans only son had died days ago, and the body wasnt being released so she could make arrangements and try to find some sort of peace. He couldnt do much, yet, to search for her, but hed ask everyone to be on the lookout. It was Sat.u.r.day so officers would be in and out of the bars all night. Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth was probably sitting in a hotel lounge, in a better bar than anything in the vicinity of the Mountainside Inn, nursing a quiet drink, wanting to be left alone to remember her son when hed been a laughing, mischievous boy with all the promise of the world ahead of him.

He turned to see Lucky Smith watching him.

"Are you going to tell me whats been going on here tonight?" Winters asked. People were talking in the common room. A woman was crying and a man spoke in a low voice full of anger. "Is there someplace we can talk in private?"

"Wed be best outside, if youre looking for privacy." Lucky was wearing her black winter coat, a lush blue scarf wrapped around her neck. "After you."

They stood on the porch watching the snow fall.

"Theyre upset about the death of their friends, John."

"A friend of mine died two years ago. Id say, without reservation, that he was the best friend I ever had. We met the first day on the job, both of us young and keen. We were best men at each others weddings. Ive the honor of being G.o.dfather to his oldest son. He was killed in what some would call a car accident."

"What some would call?" she repeated, turning the statement into a question.

"My friend was a patrol officer. All he ever aspired to be. He was standing at the side of a pleasant road in one of the best parts of town, writing out a ticket for a guy going too fast through a school zone when he was sideswiped by a car that was going much too fast through a school zone."

"That must have been hard for you to deal with."

"Hard, yes. But you know what, Lucky? I didnt smash up my house, or knock around the next person who walked by. I didnt even stake out the perps home and vandalize it when he wasnt there."

"What happened to him?"

"For once, justice was done, and the driver, despite being a pillar of the community and a deacon of his church, was found to have been drunk at the time and sent away to a place where he is, even as we speak, considering the evil of his ways."

Lucky Smith reached out her hand, palm turned up. Winters looked at it. For a moment, just a moment, he considered taking the offering. Instead, he continued, "What Im telling you, Lucky, is that I dont particularly care how much these people are hurting. I need you to tell me what the fight was about."

"John, weve had dealings before."

And wasnt that the truth?

"I will." Her eyes s.h.i.+fted and she looked everywhere but at him. "Never, ever, forget what you did for Moonlight, for my daughter, when she was held in...that place."

"I did," he said, almost choking back the tears himself, "all the job requires. But were not talking about Molly. This is about the bunch staying in the Glacier Chalet B&B."

There wasnt a great deal she could tell him. Rob and Jeremy had been snapping at each other in such a way that it was almost certain to turn physical. Alan and Sophie wanted to be left alone but found that they couldnt. Wendy was mad at everything and everyone. Her dead brother and her parents most of all. Oh, and Kathy Carmine was besotted with Rob, who was embarra.s.sed to be seen with her. That, Winters reflected, was pretty much what Molly had told him.

He let out a breath, watching it gather shape and form in the cold night air.

"Ewan and Jason," Lucky said. "I never met them. Their friends are mourning, in their own way. Why is this dragging on? Cant you just let them take the boys home?"

He looked into her intelligent green eyes. "This goes no further than this porch? Will you agree, Lucky? Or not?"

"I promise. Not a word."

And he told her what Doctor Lee had found.

She ran her fingers across the top of the railings, scooping up fresh snow. Her hands were bare but she held the snow and crushed it into a ball. "Difficult," she said at last. "For every one. I told her father Id look after Wendy, and so I should." She pulled at the edges of the blue scarf. "Thank you," she said, and went back into the house.

Finally, Molly Smith went home. Dawn said shed take care of booking Jeremy Wozenack into one of their best rooms. Once hed been settled into the back seat of the patrol car, Jeremy had let them know that as soon as his father heard about this vendetta Smith seemed to be carrying on, hed sue her for everything she was worth, and the Trafalgar City Police along with it.

"Thats your privilege," Solway said.

Oh, and his nose might be broken; he had to see a doctor immediately.

Smith let herself into her apartment. The room was cold and dark. Perhaps she should get a cat, someone to greet her when she got home. But, she reminded herself, she wasnt much of a cat person. Dogs had always been the Smith familys pets. She couldnt even consider getting a dog with her hours.

She took off her gloves and boots and hung her jacket in the closet before going into the bedroom, undoing her ski pants as she walked. Clothes tossed into a corner, she dug under her pillow for cozy flannel pajamas.

The doorbell rang.

She groaned.

This apartment was rooms over a shop: it didnt come with luxuries like an intercom. If she wanted to know who was calling, she had to walk down the stairs. She was in her bra and panties. She considered not answering: if it was work they would have called first.

The bell rang again. She dug in the closet for a pair of baggy track suit bottoms and a ratty old sweater, and ran down the steps. A peephole was set into the door.

Gary LeBlanc.

Abandoning the bell, he hammered on the door with his fists.

She opened it. "Gary, you cant come to my home. If you need to talk to someone, go to the police station."

"I dont want to talk to someone, Moonlight. I want to talk to you. Im sorry to bother you at home, but, I saw you walking by and knew you werent asleep or anything."

Meaning hed either been waiting for her in the shadows or watching the police station and followed her.

"Im back at work tomorrow at three. You can talk to me then."

"Id rather this wasnt official."

Oh, G.o.d, let him not be wanting a date. "Gary, I only ever work officially. And if you know anything about Lorraine and the Wyatt-Yarmouth/Williams case you need to talk to Sergeant Winters. Not me. Good-night."

She began to shut the door.

He stepped forward.

"Take one more step and youre threatening a police officer."

He lifted both his hands, palms facing out. "Sorry, Moonlight, sorry. Look, its hard for me. I want to do what I can for Lorraine, but Ive been away. Plus Im a guy. I need a womans advice."

"Then youve come knocking on the wrong door. Im not a woman, Im a police officer. My mom volunteers at the Trafalgar Womens Support Center. Go see them tomorrow morning."

"How about I take you for a coffee? Half-hour of your time, no more."

She didnt want coffee, she wanted dinner. Shed missed lunch due to the fight at the ski lodge and hadnt had a minute to get a bite since.

"Im going to make it, Moonlight. I learned carpentry in prison, and Ive already started getting work. You know what a demand there is around here for tradesmen." She certainly did know: her dad complained constantly that he couldnt get anyone out to fix a leaky pipe or build an extension onto the deck, or lay new ceramic tiles in the kitchen. "And Im going to take care of Lorraine. See she stops hanging around the streets, and trash like Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth and his high-cla.s.s buddies, and finishes school. Shes smart. Smarter than everyone else in our family for sure. If she can get back to cla.s.s and work hard and graduate from high school, she could go to university. But she wont be going to university unless I can stop her from wandering the streets.

"I only want a half-hour, Moonlight, and Ill buy the coffee."

She sighed. "No one but my mother calls me Moonlight. Im Molly. Let me get my coat. Wait here."

She shut the door, and locked it behind her.

At a table in the back of Big Eddies, Gary skipped around the question of where his parents had gone. What he really wanted to know was when the group staying at the Glacier Chalet B&B would be leaving, taking their dead with them. Lorraine was insisting she go to Ontario for Jasons funeral. And as he, Gary, had absolutely no intention of paying money he couldnt afford to finance such a trip, he was afraid shed approach Mr. and Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth and, finding them unwilling to provide for her (no kidding!) do what she thought she had to do to get there.

"Shes..." Gary coughed into his mug of black coffee. "Never, far as I know, taken money for...I mean..."

"You mean shes not a hooker, but youre afraid sh.e.l.l turn into one trying to get the money to go to Ontario."

"Yeah."

Smith swirled the remains of her hot chocolate around in the bottom of the mug. She knew, and probably Gary did as well, that a last-minute plane trip from remote Trafalgar to Toronto would cost in the region of a thousand bucks. Minimum. If Lorraine started hooking, shed be lucky to earn a hundred before being busted.

Theft? Whered she get those nice earrings she seemed so proud of anyway? Did Lorraine have anything to do with the other thefts in town? Such as the two-hundred dollar ski goggles s.n.a.t.c.hed from Mid-Kootenay Adventure Vacations?

Smith eyed Gary across the table. His head was turned toward the door, where Jolene was turning the sign from open to closed. Hed come to her looking for some sort of help, not to put the idea in her head that Lorraine was a thief. But she hadnt asked him to drop in to her home of an evening. Shed ask her mom if Lorraine had been in the store around the time the goggles were s.n.a.t.c.hed. However, Smith knew, Lucky would eat the loss before turning a girl she felt sorry for over to the strong arm of the law.

What a mess.

She got to her feet. "Time to leave. Theyre closing."

"Youll think about what I said?"

"I will. Look, Gary, if you think Lorraine knows something about the deaths of Jason and Ewan, you need to let Sergeant Winters know, okay?"

"Whats to know? They were driving too fast and went off the road into the river. Must have been a shock for a couple of invincible rich boys when they hit the water and knew they were about to die, as if they were mere mortals. Im not crying any tears for them, Moon, I just want to protect my sister from the fallout. Whys your boss twisting his boxers into a knot worrying about them anyway?"

"Beats me. He doesnt have to confide in a lowly constable such as me." Was Winters making a mistake keeping what they knew about Ewans death under wraps? No one seemed to be all that worried about helping the police with what everyone believed to be a tragic traffic accident.

Jolene held the door open for them. "Good-night," she said, her upper-crust English accent making it sound as if their carriages were waiting.

Smith pulled her collar up against the falling snow and dug into her pockets for her mittens.

They stood at the entrance to the coffee shop as the lights were switched off. "Good-night, Gary." She spoke without a fraction of the cla.s.s Jolene had put into those two words.

"Im going your way. Ill walk with you."

"Im not going home yet."

"Okay. Look Moon...I mean Molly...I was sort of wondering if...well, when all this business is over...if youd..."

"No." She waited for him to take the first step. Whichever way he went, shed head in the opposite direction.

"night," Gary turned right, going uphill.

She stuffed her hands in her pockets and turned left. She was starving. Too hungry to go home and take the time to cook something, she headed for Front Street. A yellow curry from Trafalgar Thai would be good. With spring rolls to start. They could have the appetizers on the table in minutes, which would keep her from dying of starvation while waiting for the curry.