A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series)

by Delany, Vicki

  As if that ever happened.

  He’d burn out thoughts of the cop and what an investigation might reveal. Then he’d mark the tests. Most of the kids in his class didn’t see the point of it all. They had computers, didn’t they? Calculators. Machines to do their thinking for them.

  Who, he tried to tell them, did they think created the machines in the first place?

  They shrugged. Didn’t care.

  But a few students did care. They wanted to build computers, write video games, get jobs at Apple or Microsoft or a hot new start up. They wanted to be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs.

  They wanted to understand.

  Those kids kept Mark Hamilton alive. As long as he could teach math, he’d be okay.

  He loved numbers, loved mathematics.

  Nothing was unpredictable about math. In math, one plus one always equals two. It never comes out to three or to ten. It is what it is. It never equals a hollow-cheeked, dirty-faced child wearing a suicide vest, or a gunman hiding underneath a burka.

  He adjusted the treadmill to an incline of seven degrees. The sweat was pouring freely now.

  The cops were nosing around, asking questions. They’d taken his boots. The killer was an expert shot.

  He couldn’t go to jail.

  He could run in prison. But he couldn’t teach math.

  Outside his basement, where the lights were never switched off, darkness settled across the valley.

  Mark Hamilton ran on.

  ***

  John Winters slapped his forehead.

  He’d forgotten.

  He’d promised Eliza he’d pick up a couple of croissants for breakfast tomorrow.

  Ten to three. The bakery closed at three. He might be able to make it. If he was lucky, they’d have a few of the pastries left. Hopefully not just the chocolate ones. Eliza considered chocolate in a croissant to be a monstrosity on the scale of a Hummer in a residential driveway.

  “I’ll be back,” Winters shouted over his shoulder to the dispatcher as he headed out the front door.

  He jogged down Monroe Street, trying to stick to the bare patches of sidewalk, and turned into Front. His destination was in sight. He reached the bakery as Alphonse flipped the sign over.

  “Please tell me you have some croissants left, or my life won’t be worth living,” Winters said as he stumbled through the door.

  “I suppose you can make it worth my while.” Molly Smith held up a paper bag. Winters glanced behind the serving counter. Three lonely loaves of bread on the shelf. The ovens were switched off, the staff gone home. The shop quiet and clean.

  “Dare I ask what you have in there?” he asked Smith.

  “Two fluffy, fresh-baked croissants. My supper. I’m on nights today. I so look forward to taking a break from the hard work of keeping our streets safe and tucking into some good French baking.” Her blue eyes danced with amusement.

  “Twenty bucks?”

  Alphonse laughed as he hung his long white apron on a hook behind the counter.

  “On the house.” Smith handed Winters the smaller of her two bags. “I also got a baguette, so I won’t starve.”

  “I’m in your debt.”

  “Night, Alphonse,” Smith called as they left the bakery.

  “My wife feels like having croissants for breakfast tomorrow. She doesn’t often indulge so I said I’d pick them up. She said she didn’t trust me, and she’d get them. I reminded her that my office is closer to the bakery than her store is, so I could manage. Imagine the egg on my face if I came home without them.”

  Molly laughed.

  “As long as I’m out,” he said, “I’m going to grab a coffee.”

  She fell into step beside him as they turned east, heading toward Big Eddie’s. “Going back to the office?” she asked.

  “I’m reading through the results of computer checks, interviews. Boring but necessary. Hoping something’ll pop up and smack me on the nose. I’ll do a couple more hours and then call it a day. You’re working?”

  “Volunteered to fill in for Scott so he could get an early start on the weekend with his kids. Six till six.”

  They turned into Elm and walked up the hill. “Can I buy you a coffee?” Winters said. “I owe you for the croissants. I hope they’re not chocolate.”

  “Plain.”

  “If they were chocolate, Eliza’d know I’d left it until the last minute.”

  “A drink’d be good.”

  Big Eddie’s was largely empty. One man waited while his sandwich was being prepared; a couple sat at a table near the door, heads close together, smiling, holding hands. Smith headed for a table in a far corner, and Winters placed their orders.

  He sat on the bench beside her, both of them with backs to the wall.

  “Can I ask,” she said, “how the case is going?”

  “Unofficially, it’s going very badly. I’ve got next to nothing. I’ve been wanting to ask you about the son, Bradley. He was in trouble the other night and you were the officer responding. I hear he gets into trouble a lot. Tell me about him.”

  “Not much to tell. Typical kid. Spoiled, middle-class brat angry at the world for no reason whatsoever. No reason until his mom was murdered. He doesn’t get on with his dad and is carrying a heavy load of guilt because he fought with his mom the night before she died. He seems fond of his little sister though, and his grandmothers. I hope he’ll think about them before he acts out too much. I tried to plant a seed there.”

  He nodded and sipped his coffee. Jolene came out from the back and began stacking chairs onto tables.

  “What’d you go to Victoria for?”

  “Gord Lindsay has a girlfriend there.”

  “Interesting.”

  “Very.”

  “Did Cathy know about her?”

  “I don’t think so. If she did, she kept it pretty close to her chest. Gord says she didn’t know, but men can be blind about that sort of thing. More importantly, of those of her girlfriends we’ve been able to contact, none of them said anything about it.”

  “You asked?”

  “We asked in broad terms. Was there trouble in the marriage, was Cathy worried about anything.”

  “Maybe Gord’s girlfriend didn’t want to continue being just a girlfriend. Maybe she wants to be a wife?”

  “I’ve considered that. I can’t place the woman anywhere near Trafalgar. Doesn’t mean she wasn’t. But this doesn’t seem like a woman’s crime to me.”

  “Women can do lots of things that might surprise you.”

  “So my wife tells me.” He gave her a smile. Molly Smith was smart and quick. Too impulsive still, but that would change with a few more years under her belt. She was a good cop. She might make a good detective someday. She had a feel for people. He’d never asked her what her plans were. Never asked if she were aiming for the top, or content to remain a beat cop in Trafalgar. Winters didn’t know where she stood with Adam Tocek. These days marriage needn’t interfere with a female officer’s career ambitions, nor did becoming a mother. But staying here, in Trafalgar? That wouldn’t lead to a stellar career.

  She sipped her hot chocolate. “You don’t have any suspects?”

  Soft jazz played over the sound system. Jolene swept the floor.

  “Your mom said rumors at the school say Cathy was involved with a teacher named Mark Hamilton.”

  “She wanted to be involved with him,” Smith said. “That’s different. Did you find out anything more about him?”

  “Hamilton’s a strange one. He’d been lifting weights when I arrived at his place. Built like the proverbial brick outhouse. Not my idea of what a math teacher should look like.”

  “People tell me I don’t look like a police officer.”

  He grinned. “Appearances can be deceiving. We forget that at our peril. He’s a good-looking guy, Hamilton. I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of the women at the school find him attractive. When I spoke to him, he claimed not to have heard about the killing.”<
br />
  “Did you believe him?”

  “Not sure. He’s hiding something. Might be anything. Some people are afraid of the police for no reason. Some people for a lot of good reasons we don’t know about. He has a military background, which makes him a person of interest in this case. He has no alibi. Says he was at a cabin in the mountains by himself. I managed to get him to lend me his winter boots. Ron gave the treads one look and said they weren’t anywhere near a match, although the size was about right. Which only means if he was the killer he wasn’t wearing those particular boots. And considering how efficiently our guy covered his tracks, I wouldn’t expect to find evidence left lying around. He would have gotten rid of the boots along with the gun.”

  “No sign of the weapon?”

  “No. The killer was fully in control of himself. Not the sort to throw the shotgun aside, or drop it in the nearest garbage can. Which is what makes this case so darned frustrating. What on earth was there about Cathy Lindsay, high school teacher, wife, mother, that had a man…a person…like that intent on killing her?”

  “Maybe he mistook her for someone else.”

  “Entirely possible. My biggest fear is that there’s someone out there with a bull’s-eye painted on his back, and we can’t do anything about it because we don’t know who the hell it is.”

  “It’s got the town spooked. People are, I don’t know, quieter, looking at each other differently. Some people like to come over all dramatic about any situation, but many are genuinely concerned, wondering how something like that can happen here. Worried it will happen again. I don’t like it.”

  “Neither do I, Molly.” Even Shirley Lee, the most no-nonsense person Winters knew, was disturbed. He’d seen something in her face, something behind her eyes, which had concerned him. He knew very little about Doctor Lee. No reason he should, they weren’t exactly friends. For a moment it had been as if she hadn’t been there, in the morgue, beside him, but someplace else. Someplace she rarely went.

  He almost shook his own head. Now who was getting dramatic? He finished his coffee. “Better get back at it. Keep yourself safe tonight, eh?”

  She grinned. “Sure.”

  They took their empty mugs to the counter, calling goodbye to Eddie and Jolene. At the door, they stepped aside to allow a woman to maneuver a giant push chair into the shop. She was very young, with long straight hair the color of midnight, heavy black make-up outlining her eyes, black lipstick, an array of piercings, and a hoop through her nostrils. The child was bundled up in a snowsuit with nothing but his bright intelligent eyes peeping out from between swathes of scarf.

  “Sergeant Winters, hi. How you doing?”

  “I’m well. And you, uh…”

  “Paula. Remember me? You came around to the women’s center a couple of years ago asking about Ashley.” She bent over and began unwrapping yards of scarf from the child’s face.

  “Paula. Of course I remember. I remember your son, too. Beowulf isn’t it? He’s growing fast.”

  “Sure is. Never stops moving. Beowulf, say hi to the nice man.”

  “Hi,” the boy said, squirming to get out of the restraints.

  “Beowulf?” Smith said, once they were outside. “She named her kid after a movie?”

  “He was a Norse hero long before he was a movie character. Beowulf’s saga is the first recorded story of a serial killer.”

  “She named her kid after a serial killer?”

  “Beowulf’s task was to hunt down the killer Grendel who was terrorizing the area. Grendel’s sometimes referred to as the first serial killer.”

  He stopped walking.

  “What’s up?” Smith asked.

  “Just an idea. I’m going to run some checks.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Friday Gord Lindsay left the office in the middle of the afternoon. One of his best clients had cancelled a four o’clock meeting, no doubt thinking poor Gord wouldn’t be able to concentrate on issues at hand. They were right, but he was angry at the cancellation nonetheless. He needed to work. He needed to forget the turn his life had taken, even if only for a short while, and bury his head in his computer.

  No one would give him a moment’s peace. He was thoroughly sick of the endless cups of coffee being brought to him by well-meaning female employees—all of whom normally refused to make coffee on feminist principals—with sad sympathetic eyes and offers of shoulders to cry on. The male employees kept slapping him on the back, suggesting they take a long lunch or break off work early and go out for a beer.

  He headed home thinking he’d surprise Jocelyn, take her shopping maybe, try and have some fun together, but she’d gone to a friend’s house and wouldn’t be home until after supper. His mom and Renee were at the grocery store; however, Ralph there. Ralph had decided it was time to finish the basement. He’d also decided Gord was going to help.

  Gord did not do handyman chores. If anything more elaborate than the change of a light bulb needed doing around the house he’d hire someone. Any other father-in-law would suggest they wash the car or tidy the garage to keep Gord busy. Ralph wanted to spend the weekend rebuilding the bloody house.

  Gord slapped his head, said he’d forgotten an important appointment, and fled his house. He drove aimlessly through the streets, eventually finding himself at the city park, high above town.

  The place was packed with families enjoying the end of the school holidays. The snow was icy and the ground bare in patches, but little kids didn’t mind. They zoomed down the hill, laughing and screeching with terrified pleasure. Proud parents shouted encouragement, and dragged traditional wooden or modern metal toboggans to the top. A group of older boys were using flattened cardboard boxes.

  Laughing kids, smiling parents, beaming grandparents. Everyone looked so happy.

  Gord sat in his car and watched, ignoring the questioning glances of passing adults. When was the last time he’d gone tobogganing with Bradley? He couldn’t remember. Had to have been many years ago. He bought an old-fashioned red sleigh and they’d come to this same hill. Bradley had been frightened at first, trying hard not to show it. Gord had sat at the back, his arms wrapped tightly around the boy’s chest. Protecting his son. Keeping him safe. After a couple of runs, Bradley declared he wanted to go by himself.

  And he had. While Gord stood at the top, waving, his heart in his mouth. He’d been proud to let the boy go.

  He should have held on as long as he could.

  He’d had a call from the principal of Jocelyn’s school this morning. She wanted to invite a grief counselor into the school to work with Jocelyn and any of the girl’s friends who might be having trouble dealing with the death of Jocelyn’s mother.

  Gord was okay with that. He told her so, and they talked about how her teacher would keep an eye on Jocelyn, be there in case the girl needed her. Cathy’s funeral was scheduled for Monday, the first day back at school. A good number of Jocelyn’s friends would want to attend. Gord told the principal his daughter would be in class Tuesday. They agreed that she needed to get back to routine as soon as possible. As if, Gord thought but did not say, Jocelyn’s life would ever be the same again.

  For the rest of her years, Jocelyn would miss her mother. There would be an empty place at her wedding; no one to give her kindly advice on the birth of her first child. No shoulder for her to cry on when life got too hard. No one to tell her to buck up, and suggest they chase away her worries by indulging in some retail therapy.

  No one to tell her the facts of life.

  Gord put his head in his hands and wept.

  He wept for himself as much as he wept for his daughter. All that Cathy had done, all that she had been in their lives, would now fall on him.

  He knew he wasn’t up to it.

  Renee was making noises about staying on after the funeral. To help out.

  About the last thing Gord wanted was his in-laws hanging around. Renee could be as much of a bother as her husband. Gord couldn’t put a glass down bef
ore she whisked it away to be washed. She dusted and cleaned, and two hours later she was back, dusting and cleaning again. She’d tidied up his home office when he was at work, and he couldn’t find the rough notes he’d made on the proposal for the hospital job.

  Worst of all, she made his bed every morning. It had given him a hell of a shock, the first time he’d walked into his room after an outing with Jocelyn. The bed neatly made, the top of the dresser tidied, his discarded socks and underwear in the laundry basket, all of Cathy’s things put away. He told Renee never to do that again.