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

by Delany, Vicki

  Evans gave Smith a nod and they slipped away from the throng, drawing their weapons. Evans held a flashlight. Guns clutched in hands trying not to shake, watching their footing on the thin crust of ice coating the snow, the two officers made their way into the backyard of the closest house. A motion detector light switched on. Ignoring the rain dripping down collars, soaking through pant legs, they crouched in the cover of the building, leapfrogging each other, one moving forward, staying low, the other maintaining guard, using hand signals to communicate.

  She pushed all conscious thought to the back of her mind. If the shooter were here, hiding, watching, she’d deal with him. That was all she needed to know. Back in Police College when they did use-of-force training, the immediate rapid deployment instructor had been a woman by the name of Sergeant Angelina Sullivan. Tough as they came, Sullivan ripped the head off anyone who dared call her Angie. Smith had been surprised to come across Sergeant Sullivan at the mall one evening. Leading a tussle-headed toddler by the hand, pushing a stroller, laughing up at a tall handsome man carrying shopping bags, she looked like a real human being. Smith thought of Sullivan now. Tried to remember everything she’d learned from the woman.

  It was all a blur.

  She remembered making a mistake, bursting into a room that supposedly contained the shooter, seeing movement to one side, turning toward it, yelling at it, “Get down, get down, get down.” It was a dummy, set up to represent a hostage, while the trainer playing the shooter came up behind her and said, “bang.”

  The class laughed as Smith’s face burned with embarrassment.

  Get it wrong now, and she’d be a lot more than embarrassed.

  Smith whipped around the building, gun up, moving from side to side. Dig your corner, dig your corner, Sullivan bellowed at her. All was still. Thank heavens for snow. Unless the shooter could fly, he wasn’t here. The lawn was an unmarked, pristine carpet.

  They cleared the yard, moved on to the next house. A garden shed stood in a dark corner against the back fence. The snow here was heavily trampled. Kids probably, out playing. Tracks in and out of the shed. Evans jerked his head toward it.

  Smith went first. She stacked right; Evans positioned himself on the left. He gave her a sharp nod. She swallowed and tightened her grip on her Glock. She reached for the door knob. She twisted it, threw the door open and crashed in, gun up in a two-handed grip. Evans followed, swinging the flashlight from side to side, checking out the corners.

  Nothing here but rusty garden implements and a jumble of sleds and snow shovels.

  They moved from house to house, garden to garden, tension twisting their guts. Dogs barked and the curious peered out kitchen windows. Her radio told her Mounties were sweeping the other side of the street. Every officer who lived within a hundred kilometers was being called in.

  Peterson ordered Evans and Smith to return to the scene. Start a door to door, ensure the shooter wasn’t holding some innocent family hostage.

  Crime scene tape had been strung up, strong lights arranged to illuminate the area. The cold rain seemed to be lessening. The injured woman had been taken away. A patch of black blood soaked into the ice where she’d lain. Ron Gavin knelt on the sidewalk. The street was full of marked and unmarked police vehicles, red-and-blue lights flashing. Smith recognized Adam’s truck. He’d have Norman out, trying to get a scent. Unlikely they’d find anything, so many people had been milling about.

  A couple of men from the Trafalgar Daily Gazette, cameras and notebooks ready, stood behind the tape. Other reporters held microphones in front of witnesses. No TV cameras yet, but they’d be here soon.

  Smith and Evans took the house closest to where the woman had fallen. A man and boy stood in the window watching them approach.

  “Hey,” Smith stopped so abruptly Evans almost crashed into her. “Give me a sec.”

  She ran back to the road.

  Winters huddled in a circle with Paul Keller and Ray Lopez.

  Keller said, “Worst possible situation. A random shooter.”

  “Have you ID’d the victim?” Smith said.

  “We found a purse beside her,” Winters said. “Alison’s going through it.”

  “Alison,” Smith called, “is the name Franklin?”

  “Got it in one.”

  “I thought I recognized her. I stopped her yesterday. Last night.”

  “What? Where? Why?”

  “She was driving through town. Up and down the streets, going slow, checking out cars, driveways. I thought she was looking for unlocked vehicles so I pulled her over. Ran her license and plates. An older woman, nicely dressed, nervous, car neat and tidy. Hardly the type to go in for a bout of smash and grab.”

  “Did she tell you what she was doing?”

  “Said she was looking for a friend whose phone number she’d lost. She got her pronouns muddled, said the friend was a she and then said he, back to a she. I figured she’d been having an affair with some guy, he dumped her, and she was trying to find him. I told her to go home or I’d bring her in. It was so weird her name stuck in my mind. As I remember, her address is near here.”

  “A witness said she lives in that house on the corner. He didn’t know her name, though. I knocked, but no one answered. Place’s quiet. What happened after that?”

  “Nothing. I told her to go home and then I left. Didn’t see her again.”

  “I can’t believe that’s a coincidence,” Ray Lopez said.

  “No.”

  Townshend held up the wallet, open to the driver’s license. “Margo Franklin. Sixty-one years old.”

  “What the hell?” Winters said.

  “You know her?” Keller asked.

  “I might.” Winters pulled out his phone. “Molly, wait right there. Hi, yeah, no time to talk. Margo who works for you. What’s her last name? Thanks. It’ll be a late one.” He put his phone away.

  “You’re onto something,” Smith said, reading the gleam in his eye.

  “Margo Franklin works for my wife at the gallery. Perfectly pleasant lady, the times I met her. Recently retired, new to town. She’s been stalking a man.”

  “What?” Keller sounded as surprised as Smith was. One never thought of middle-class, elderly ladies as potential stalkers. Molly remembered her own mom yelling at the police from behind the barricades, and decided that middle-class women were capable of just about anything.

  “She claims he’s her long lost son,” Winters continued. “Eliza told me Margo’s obsessed with this man. I saw her at Cathy Lindsay’s funeral, paying more attention to this guy than to the service. He bolted out of the church soon as it was over. I wonder if Margo approached him. Eliza had a talk with Margo’s husband, and he told her that she, Margo, has been somewhat unstable since the death of her son a few years ago.”

  “So,” Smith said, “she’s unstable. That doesn’t help us. She didn’t shoot herself.”

  “No. She didn’t. But she was making a nuisance of herself.” He chewed his lip. Ron Gavin shouted, “Move that light closer.” Alison Townshend went to give him a hand.

  “Someone else said something of interest to me earlier today. If she’d invaded my privacy, I might have struck out at her.”

  “What’s this guy’s name?” Lopez asked.

  “William Westfield. Sound familiar?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Seems a stretch,” Keller said.

  “Maybe not. He knew Cathy from night school class. When we interviewed the people in that class, one of the students said she’d told them she went for a walk every morning in the woods behind her house. Easy enough to find out where she lived, hang around a couple of days to see what time she walked. And then wait for her.”

  “You think this is the same shooter?”

  “Ron’s got the slug. Went in her side and out again. Same type of weapon, far as he can tell.

  “I’m going to pay a call on William Westfield. This is only a hunch, so I don’t want to drag a lot of people
away. We need to check these houses in case the shooter’s still here, start asking questions, interviewing witnesses. Ray, our friends from the press are here, and we can be sure the big city boys will be descending ASAP. Toss them a bone, will you, and then see if you can locate Margo’s husband. Eliza might have a number for him.”

  He looked at the officers. Everyone watched him. His eyes settled on Molly Smith. She saw a flash of indecision, and then he said, “Smith, you’re with me.”

  Chapter Forty

  They took a patrol car.

  Smith punched William Westfield into the computer, brought up his address. Picton Street, high above town.

  “Any word from the hospital?” she said.

  “No. I’m not entirely sure this Westfield’s our man. I’m acting on the assumption that he is. We’re going in hot and heavy. Guns and noise. You will follow my lead in everything. Let’s hope he’s home. Not somewhere on the hillside, watching our people, another shell in his weapon. Keep the siren on until we get to his street. Then turn it and all lights off. Glide up to the house. Park as close as you can get. Block other cars if you have to. Then move.”

  Winters glanced at the young woman beside him. He’d decided on the spur of the moment she was the one he wanted with him, if Westfield was indeed the guy they were after. Winters didn’t know most of the Mounties well enough; he wasn’t sure of Dave Evans. Evans was a hot head, and hot heads could turn cold fast when the pressure was on. The rest of the TCP uniforms were checking the houses. Winters didn’t want to take the time to pull them off. Ray Lopez would have been a good option, but Winters needed a uniform. If he was going to charge into a man’s house, gun drawn, he didn’t want any possibility of anyone not understanding they were the police.

  He should have a freaking platoon at his back, but the situation at the scene was too fluid. He couldn’t pull any more officers away. They had to act on the assumption that the shooter was still in the vicinity.

  When Winters arrived at the shooting, he’d taken the time to observe the watching crowd. Curious faces, some crying, some shocked, many pressing forward eager to get a better look.

  Was he there?

  Had he hung around in order to observe the results of his handiwork?

  Was he inside a house, hiding behind the curtains, gun to a baby’s head? Not a word.

  Winters searched faces for one more interested in the reaction of the crowd than the body or the cops. He hadn’t seen anything other than shock, fear, horror, curiosity.

  Whoever this guy was, he was a cool one.

  Winters remembered the case in Arizona back in the ‘90s. Six women shot and killed. No clues, no evidence. No suspects. Another cool one.

  What had Westfield said that one time Winters met him? Something about the desert landscape and bad memories.

  His gut churned.

  Westfield was the one. Guaranteed.

  The streets of Trafalgar were eerily empty, no teenagers hurrying home after sports or music practice, no one walking dogs or taking a stroll after dinner, not even cars moving through the rain-slicked streets.

  “Kinda reminds me,” Smith said, reading his mind. “Of one of those post-apocalyptic movies. Everyone’s gone. Only their stuff remains.”

  “Obviously, the news has spread. Which is good, we want people off the streets. Goddamn it, Molly.” His temper boiled up out of nowhere. This was a good town, a great town. A fabulous place to live and to visit. It did not deserve to cower in the shadow of a killer, all the life drained out of it, neighbors watching neighbors, peering over their shoulder every minute of every day. Children hustled from car to door, patios and parks abandoned. He punched the dashboard. “If we don’t catch this guy, now, tonight, this is going to be a ghost town.”

  Smith switched the light bar off. Then the vehicle’s headlights. She turned the corner and they glided down Picton Street, shrouded in darkness. The rain had stopped, leaving roads and sidewalks greasy with wet ice.

  Lights were on in the house they were interested in. Garage door closed, curtains drawn.

  Smith and Winters slipped out of the car. No interior light came on to illuminate them. He gave her a nod and pulled out his weapon. She did the same.

  Winters gestured to the front door. The path hadn’t been shoveled all winter, and snow lay icy and deep. They ducked low and passed in front of the windows at a crouch. Smith took a breath and then shot across the doorway. She pressed her back against the wall. Her breathing was calm, her eyes intent. She held her Glock in two hands, barrel pointing to the sky. Her hands did not shake.

  The door didn’t look anything special. He’d kick it in, step back, let her go first.

  Hopefully catch a guy watching TV in his pajamas.

  Might as well see if it was unlocked before going to all the trouble of trying to break it down.

  He nodded to Smith. She reached out, turned the handle.

  The door swung silently on oiled hinges.

  Smith was inside. She took the left, Winters went right. They were in a hallway, steep, narrow stairs leading up. Stairs were never good. A single pair of heavy men’s boots were neatly placed on a drying mat, wet with melting snow. Smith sucked in a breath at the same time Winters saw it.

  A shotgun in the corner, propped up against the wall. She threw a question at him, and he nodded. She crossed the small room, moving fast, keeping low, and snatched the shotgun in her left hand, keeping her Glock in her right. She broke it open. A casing, bright red, fell out. She emptied the last shell into her hand.

  “Sergeant Winters,” a voice came from inside the house. “That was quick.”

  Chapter Forty-one

  Molly Smith dropped the shotgun shell into her pocket as a calm voice beckoned to them from inside the house.

  Winters pointed to himself, meaning he’d go first. He pointed right: he’d take that side. She nodded. She was encumbered by the shotgun. Couldn’t hold her Glock in both hands, couldn’t leave the shotgun behind in case a second person was in the house.

  “Move,” Winters shouted. He cleared the doorway. She followed, yelling, “Moving.” Went left, dug her corner, kept her back to the wall, swept the room.

  They were in a living room, tastefully decorated in shades of beige with green accents. A handsome wooden bookshelf, full of neatly displayed hardcovers, filled one wall, a large flat-screen TV was mounted on another, good art was prominently displayed throughout the room. A comfortable cream leather sofa decorated with sage pillows faced the TV. On the far side of the room a man sat in a wingback armchair with his right leg crossed casually over his left. He held empty hands in the air, palms out. He smiled at them, a smile without a trace of humor or welcome.

  “Sergeant Winters, come on in. You’ve brought a young lady, how nice.”

  The man was severely emaciated, cheeks sunken, eyes dark caves in a white face, the knuckles on his hands as prominent and lumpy as burls on trees. He did not move. “As you can see,” he said. “I am unarmed.”

  “Don’t move,” Winters shouted.

  “No need to yell. I can hear you.”

  “Smith, cuff him. Put the shotgun in the corner where I can see it.”

  She lowered it to the ground, slipped her own weapon into her holster, pulled cuffs off her belt. The man gave her his creepy smile and held his hands out in front of him, wrists together.

  “No,” she said. “Stand up and turn around.”

  He didn’t move. She reached out, grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. He was as light as a child. She flipped him around, pulled his arms back, twisted his hands so palms were facing out, and snapped the cuffs shut.

  She patted him down as Winters said, “William Westfield. I am arresting you for the murder of Catherine Lindsay and the attempted murder of Margo Franklin.”

  “Won’t do you much good. I’ll never go to trial. I doubt I’ll spend a day in jail.”

  “You’re rather sure of yourself.” Winters’ words had a bite to them the li
ke of which Smith rarely heard. She dared a quick glance. His face was set into a tight grimace and his eyes were dark.

  “Sure as I can be. I’m not feeling well. You have to call my doctor.”

  Winters jerked his head toward the door.

  Smith pulled on her prisoner’s arm. “Let’s go, buddy.”

  He took a step, then another. When they reached Winters, the man stopped. “The perfect crime. Police officers will be talking about me for a long time to come.”