In the Shadow of the Glacier

by Vicki Delany

  Christa poured herself coffee and moved further down the line to pay.

  “Some people aren’t in favor of the garden,” a woman in tennis whites, pushing a stroller, said. “Like the old World War Two vets. They say it disgraces their memory.”

  “But the garden has nothing to do with World War Two. My grandpa lost an eye in Italy and he….”

  Eddie took Christa’s money. “I don’t take sides,” he said, handing Christa her change and the warm bagel bag. “Have a nice day.”

  The tables inside and out were all taken; people were propped on the short brick wall around Eddie’s’s property, and the line snaked down the street. With one or two exceptions there were no North-American-wide fast-food restaurants or coffee chains in Trafalgar. The citizens were active and vocal, and kept the corporate biggies out.

  Christa sipped coffee through the hole in the lid. Perhaps she’d go to the beach later, spend a lazy day in the sun. It would be nice if Molly could come, but she was probably working, unless they’d solved this murder. In a million years Christa would never have guessed that Moonlight Smith would become a cop. But when Graham was killed, a lot of things changed with her friend. Molly had been working toward her MSW, Master of Social Work, at University of Victoria. Graham had finished ahead of her and had a job in Vancouver. Their wedding date was set for the following summer. But he’d been killed days before Christmas, stabbed and left to die in a garbage-strewn alley in the Downtown Eastside by one of his spaced-out clients. The doctor told Molly, foolishly in Christa’s opinion, that if someone had just called 911, Graham would have lived. But people passed him in the alley all night and no one called for help until morning. Molly quit the MSW program, came home to Trafalgar and wrapped herself in mourning and loneliness. She took an office job in Calgary, at her brother Sam’s law firm, two days before what should have been her wedding day. Six months later she was back in Trafalgar, and shortly after that announced that she’d been accepted as a recruit by the Trafalgar City Police. Her parents, Lucky in particular, were vehemently opposed to the very idea. But Molly didn’t argue, simply told them that she’d decided this was what she was going to do and they could accept it, or not. Sensibly, they accepted it.

  Christa fumbled in her pocket for her key. A day at the beach would do Molly a world of good. It had to be tough, working on this murder case. She was still a rookie, and although she hadn’t said so, Christa sensed that Molly wasn’t getting on with the sergeant guy all that well. Even if she were working all day, she should be able to get away for a couple of hours later. They’d borrow Lucky’s car, take fold-up chairs, big straw hats and trashy magazines, and wine hidden in a thermos, and have fun. Like when they were kids.

  The key slipped out of her fingers. She balanced the coffee cup, tucked the bagel bag under her arm, and bent over to retrieve the key.

  “Let me help.” An arm knocked her against the wall, and long fingers grabbed the keys.

  “I can manage, Charlie.”

  “I’ll just help you take your things upstairs, okay?”

  He unlocked the door.

  “I don’t want your help. Good-bye.” She held out her hand. “Give me the key.”

  “Don’t be like that. I’m trying to help you, aren’t I?” He reached for the coffee cup.

  She pulled it out of the way. The brown bag fell to the ground. “I’m calling the cops.” She thrust her hand into her shorts pocket seeking her cell phone. Oh, no. She’d left it behind, thinking that it wouldn’t be needed on a quick walk to the coffee shop on a pleasant summer’s day.

  He pushed his body up against hers, forcing her inside. His breath was rancid, like he’d been drinking all night and hadn’t brushed his teeth. The front hall was small, barely large enough for one person. He slammed the door behind him and they were plunged into near darkness, the only light coming from the small, dirty window in the top of the door. Christa fell onto the bottom step and scurried up the stairs, backward, on her butt. Hot coffee soaked the front of her tank-top.

  “I’ve had enough of you and your shit,” Charlie yelled. “What the hell’s the matter with you, Chrissie?”

  White hot pain streaked across her face. Her head felt as if it were flying off her neck.

  “I don’t want to do this, but you just won’t listen to reason.”

  He lifted his foot.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Call for you, John. Rosemary’s Country Kitchen.”

  “Sergeant Winters.”

  “Hi, Mr. Winters. It’s Emily here, from Rosemary’s Country….”

  “Have you heard from Mrs. Fitzgerald?”

  “Constable Evans told me to let you know soon as she called. Her son in Toronto’s had a heart attack. She’s flying straight there. She said it sounds bad. I don’t know how I’m going to manage this store on my own. I’ve been run off my feet this morning.”

  “Did you tell Mrs. Fitzgerald that I want to speak with her?”

  “She said she can’t be bothered with that now.”

  “Did you tell her why?”

  “I didn’t get a chance. She said she wondered how you’d heard what’d happened, but she’ll phone the station when she gets back.”

  Winters spluttered. “How I’d heard….Do you have a number where she can be reached?”

  “She told me to call her on her cell phone.”

  “What’s the number?” He jotted it down on a pink Post-it note.

  “Something up?” Smith stood in the doorway.

  “Fitzgerald’s left the building.” He dialed the number. A pleasant voice answered, asking him to leave a message at the beep. He did so. If she was in the air, then rushing to her son’s side, perhaps in the hospital all day, she might never turn her phone on.

  “You think Rosemary’s got something to do with this?”

  “No, I don’t. But it bothers me to have stones unturned. She said something odd to her assistant, although I suspect the assistant got the message mixed up. If she doesn’t call by tomorrow, I’ll ask the Toronto Police to track her down; her son’s in the hospital, so they should be able to find him. Oh, God, I hope the son’s name is Fitzgerald. It might not be. Whatever happened to the days when a son could be expected to have the same last name as his mother, eh, Molly?”

  “You mean the good old days when there was no divorce because people died in their twenties and thirties, and so the surviving spouse, provided they were healthy enough, and lucky enough, might live to be widowed several times over?”

  “Right. The good old days.” He dug his knuckles into his eyes. He needed some sleep. “Let’s go.”

  “Go where?”

  “Back to the park. The Mounties’ll be there, doing their thing. I’d like to have a look around in the daylight.”

  □□□

  Rich Ashcroft untangled himself from the front seat of Meredith’s car. He’d seen bigger sardine cans.

  The Grizzly Resort was a sorry sight. A single trailer on a muddy patch of dug-up forest.

  “Not too photogenic,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” Greg said, looking away from the building, toward the forest. “There’s always something.”

  “I want promise. I want hope. I want to see the future here. I want to see nature in all her tamed and pacified glory, kneeling before the authority that is the modern American man.”

  “This is Canada, Rich,” Meredith said.

  “Whatever.” She was starting to get tedious. But he needed the local help. At first he’d tried to keep a low profile, didn’t want to be spotted by too many fans on the street. But as no one seemed to recognize him, he became bolder. Still no luck. He hadn’t been recognized anywhere he’d gone. So Meredith was pretty much the only talent he could draw. He couldn’t wait to get back to L.A.

  They climbed the steps of the trailer. Greg followed, lugging his camera.

  The eagerness on the receptionist’s face as she welcomed them brought joy to Rich’s heart. Either sh
e dressed every day as if the Queen would be dropping by, or she’d gone home to change after Meredith called to make the appointment with her boss.

  “It is so nice to meet you, Mr. Ashforth.” Flecks of lipstick stuck to her prominent teeth.

  “Ashcroft.”

  “Sorry. Hi, Meredith.”

  A man came out of the inner office. He crossed the floor in two strides and held out his hand. Rich shook it.

  “Thank you for agreeing to talk to us, Mr. Clemmins. It was good of you to take time on such a sad day.”

  “No problem.” Clemmins waved toward his pokey office at the back of the trailer. “Come in.”

  Clemmins looked like a biker gone soft. Not the image of a respectable businessman that Rich wanted, but there was nothing he could do about that.

  “Why don’t we step outside? It’s a nice day, and the woods’ll give us plenty of atmosphere.”

  “Sure. Bernice, hold all my calls. Unless it’s Mr. Yakamoto or Mr. Takauri.”

  “You wouldn’t like to take a few pictures in here first?” Bernice looked like a dog whose bone had been snatched inches from its drooling jaws.

  “Great idea,” Rich said. “Greg, get some footage of the office. I want the feel of a busy organization, lots of paperwork. Would you mind, Bernice, is it? if Greg gets you in the shot? Talking on the phone, or working at the computer.”

  “If you think it would help,” she said, whipping a brush out of a cavernous handbag.

  “It’ll add background. Thanks, Bernice. Join us as soon as you’re finished in here, Greg.”

  Rich posed Clemmins against the side of the trailer. He asked a couple of introductory questions, waiting for Greg to finish taking useless footage of Bernice wasting her time and join them. Meredith watched.

  Greg and his camera clambered down the trailer steps. “Not there,” he said. “Too many shadows. How about if you stand over here, Mr. Clemmins. If I shoot high, I can catch the color of those trees against the blue sky. That’ll give us the pristine wilderness look I think you’re looking for, Rich.”

  Everyone moved into position. Rich settled his face into serious lines. “This is a beautiful spot you have here, Mr. Clemmins, looks like the perfect place for families to enjoy the wilderness.”

  Clemmins cleared his throat. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t worry about it, just keep talking. It’s normal to be nervous. Pretend we’re interested investors.” The cough could be edited out. Along with anything else that Rich’s audience didn’t want to hear.

  “You’re correct, Mr. Ashcroft.”

  “Rich. Say it again, but this time call me Rich.”

  “You’re right, Rich. What we want to build here is a place to which people can bring their children, and those children will, in years to come, bring their own children. Far from being an attack on the wilderness, I see the Grizzly Resort as a place where generations can be introduced to the true meaning of nature, a meeting of two worlds, if you will.”

  “Sounds perfect to me, Frank. Let me congratulate you on having such foresight. But someone murdered Reginald Montgomery, your business partner, two days ago. How might that despicable act threaten this resort you both worked so hard to bring to fruition?”

  Clemmins squinted into the camera. “It’s made some of our investors understandably nervous. But I’m confident that they’re aware of the value of this project and we’ll be able to continue.”

  “Some people are saying that the cold-blooded killing of your partner, Mr. Montgomery, was committed by activists associated with the Trafalgar Commemorative Peace Garden crowd. What are your feelings about them?”

  □□□

  As they drove to the site of last night’s fire. Winters told Smith what he’d learned from his earlier meeting with the businessmen from Japan.

  “Nothing.”

  She refrained from telling him that she’d seen that one coming.

  “They are, quote, shocked and horrified, at the sudden death of Mr. Montgomery. We already know they were with Clemmins for a couple of hours after Montgomery left them on the night in question, so they’re not in the frame. But I wanted to get a feel for how this’ll affect their business plans.”

  “And?”

  “And, if the police don’t solve this in a hurry, and prove that it has nothing to do with M&D Developments, they might, just might, suggest to their bosses that M&D isn’t a good investment opportunity at this time. All of which I learned by reading between the lines, you understand.”

  She drove past Big Eddie’s coffee shop. The French doors across the front were open wide, and a line-up spilled down the street. A neatly dressed middle-aged man appeared to be having an intense conversation with a dreadlocked young woman. People were gathering around. Smith watched them in her rear view mirror.

  “Get someone heading this way in case that scene grows,” Winters said.

  She picked up the radio.

  She stopped at an intersection in one of the leafy residential streets in the original part of town, not far from Christa’s place, to let an elderly lady with a walker cross the street. A face loomed up in her side window, and knuckles tapped at the glass.

  It was Charlie Bassing, as mean and ugly as ever. A few red spots dotted the front of his sleeveless white T-shirt: it looked as if he’d had a nosebleed.

  Smith pushed the button and the window rolled down. “What do you want, Charlie?”

  “Just sayin’ hi, sexy cop. This old guy your boss? Gotta go down on him to keep the job, eh?”

  She wanted to punch his smug face in. Or perhaps shoot his knees full of bullets. He wouldn’t be so tough if he couldn’t walk. Instead she rolled the window back up and stared straight ahead. The old lady was now directly in front of the van. She waved like the Queen on parade and moved a centimeter further.

  Charlie rapped on the glass again. Smith ignored him. They were only a couple of blocks from Christa’s. She’d told Christa to call next time Charlie bothered her. But Trafalgar was a small town, and Christa’s apartment was centrally located; perhaps Charlie really was only passing by.

  “Roll down the window,” Winters ordered.

  “Bet you loved it when the cops let girls onto the force, eh, man.” Charlie turned his bullet-shaped head and spat into the street.

  “Do you want to accompany us to the station?” Winters said. “I can think of several reasons to keep you a guest of the city overnight.”

  Charlie raised his hands and backed onto the sidewalk. “No thanks. Have a nice day, pal.”

  The woman and her walker had barely cleared the front bumper of the van. Smith drove across the intersection anyway.

  “You know that gentleman?” Winters said.

  “Sadly, yes. He’s after my friend, won’t leave her alone. I’ve tried to persuade her to get a restraining order, but she won’t do it. Figures that if she politely explains that she isn’t interested in going out with him, he’ll get the hint and go away.”

  “Nothing we can do then,” Winters said. “I don’t understand why women put up with men like that. Can you explain it to me?”

  She would like to explain to him, all right, about power-imbalances, about being raised to be a good girl, about the embarrassment of explaining to a stuffed-shirt, condescending, middle-class male police officer like John Winters what it felt like to be stalked, humiliated, threatened.

  “Tell her that he won’t be talked into seeing her point of view,” Winters said. “Tell her to come in and lay a complaint. It might save her life.”

  As if she hadn’t done all that many times over. “She doesn’t live far from here. I don’t like it that he’s so close.”

  “Worry about that later,” Winters said. “Ron Gavin’s at the park. I need to find out what he’s discovered. Perhaps our arsonist will have dropped his driver’s license in the mud.”

  There was no one in front of her: Smith put her foot on the gas.

  □□□

  It suited the bulk o
f his audience to think that Rich Ashcroft was a good, religious man. Today he was almost ready to believe it himself.

  As they were pulling away from M&D Developments, with plenty of good footage in the can, something even better came his way.

  A white SUV blocked the entrance to the work site. The logo on the side was of a man on a horse, holding a lance upright. The RCMP. Americans loved the Mounties. It reminded them of the Old West, the frontier. Of which there was nothing left in America. Not much left in Canada, either, but a Mountie driving an SUV would do. Unfortunately, the officer wasn’t dressed in red serge. Just a brown uniform with a yellow stripe running down the pant leg.

  A ragged bunch of protesters marched in the dirt in front of the entrance to Grizzly Resort. They wore an assortment of animal costumes that might have been stolen from their baby sister’s Halloween get-up.

  “We’ll play it real friendly,” Rich said. “Get it all, Greg. Meredith, stay in the car.”

  Cop and protesters stopped what they were doing at the sight of the car.

  “Hey, officer, what’s going on?” Rich put on his friendly face. Greg tried to be as noticeable as possible—not difficult for a man with a camera on his shoulder.

  “Stop the animal killers!” The protesters ran forward.

  Rich saw a grizzly bear, a wolf, a tiger, a moose or two, and what might have been a Maltese poodle. Horns and antlers wagged, big ears waved. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “If you’ll be on your way, sir,” the Mountie said.

  “A minute, please. These people are here for a reason. I’d like to hear it. You, sir, Mr….uh…bear. I’m Rich Ashcroft, CNC.” He ran the letters together, trying to make them sound like CBC, the government-owned Canadian broadcaster that had the reputation of being left-wing. “Can you tell me what you’re protesting here?”

  Mr. Grizzly Bear pulled off his head. Underneath he was a clean-shaven, short-haired, mid-thirties man with frameless round glasses. He might have emerged only this morning from the cube farm of a bank. “We, uh,” he mumbled.