In the Shadow of the Glacier

by Vicki Delany

  Winters passed her, running. “Move it, Smith,” he said. The headlights of the plainclothes van flashed as he flicked the remote.

  A large crowd had gathered in front of Mid-Kootenay Adventure Vacations. A blue and white police vehicle was pulled up, half on the sidewalk. The red light went round and round, but it didn’t throw much of a glow, sitting in the full summer sun. Dawn Solway was standing in front of the shop doors, ordering the crowd to keep back.

  Smith leapt out of the van while Winters was still bringing it to a halt. Solway looked up, relief crossing her face at the sight of reinforcements.

  Dave Evans had a man up against the counter. He pulled handcuffs off his belt as Smith ran in. Andy Smith was lying on the floor, on his back, rolling from side to side, blood gushing from his nose. Lucky held a heavy-duty flashlight in one hand, over the head of a man backed against the wall with his hands lifted in front of his face. A woman screamed, and Duncan spoke to her as he would a newbie facing whitewater for the first time. The display table in the center of the store was overturned, legs turned toward Smith as if pointing out that this was all her fault. The table’s contents—tourist and orienteering maps of the area, guide books, nature guides—were scattered across the floor.

  “What do you need?” she said, her training kicking in. This wasn’t her parents’ store—it was a police situation.

  Evans snapped the cuffs shut and jerked the man around. He was about five seven and very thin, hair cut short to his scalp, face pitted with acne scars and a sprinkling of fresh spots. He wasn’t much over twenty. He wore tattered jeans, heavy boots, and a loose jacket in a camouflage print. “Escort the other guy out, Smith,” Evans said. “And we can all go down to the station.”

  “Everything okay here?” Winters sauntered in.

  “You can step back, Mom, uh, Mrs. Smith,” Smith said to her mother. Lucky lowered the flashlight. She barely came up to her opponent’s collar bone. Like the other guy, he was dressed in semi-military clothes, but he was much bigger and had a scrap of mustache across his upper lip. He wore a short-sleeved T-shirt that revealed heavily tattooed arms. “Commie bitch,” he said, letting loose a plug of phlegm.

  Lucky ignored him and ran to Andy.

  Smith said, “Let’s go, buddy.”

  “We didn’t do nothing. That old guy,” he pointed to Andy, being helped to his feet by his wife, “attacked my friend.” Andy leaned his head back and Lucky pressed a tissue up against his nose. The front of his white shirt was spotted with blood.

  “Looks like a real tough guy to me,” Winters said. “Gotta be, what, twice your age?”

  “You weren’t here, man. He’s a lunatic. And as for that old broad….”

  “Watch your mouth,” Winters snapped. “We’ll sort it all out at the station.”

  The screaming woman had finally shut up, and Duncan was patting her arm, making soothing, sympathetic noises. He saw Smith watching them and rolled his eyes.

  “Did you see what happened here, ma’am?” Winters asked.

  “He,” she pointed at the smaller man, “hit him,” she pointed at Andy. “They were arguing about the peace garden. I read about it in the paper. He asked him to leave and she said that she was going to call the police, and then he hit him and if it hadn’t been for her he would have joined in. I see my husband outside. I’d better go.”

  “If I could bother you for more of your time, ma’am,” Winters said. “I need you to come to the station and make a statement.”

  She was well into her forties, well-preserved fifties perhaps, with perfectly cut and highlighted blond hair, khaki shorts, and a matching T-shirt embroidered with big wooden beads. She almost preened under the force of Winters’ attention. “I’d be happy to be of help.”

  “Constable Smith, help Constable Evans with these two gentlemen.” Another siren sounded outside. The ambulance. “Mr. Smith,” Winters said, “do you need to go to the hospital?”

  “No,” he mumbled. A gush of blood soaked Lucky’s tissues and ran over her fingers. The customer having calmed down, Duncan reached under the counter and handed a box of tissues to Lucky. “I wanna come wif you,” Andy Smith said. “Lay charges.”

  “You and Mrs. Smith can ride with me.”

  Smith looked at her mother for the first time. Still holding her hand to her husband’s face, Lucky raised one eyebrow. Her face was flushed and there was a smile tugging at the edges of her mouth, a smile which Smith didn’t like one bit. Lucky had been arrested at the infamous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago for jumping on the back of a police officer who was either attempting to subdue an offender or beating the shit out of an innocent protester, depending on one’s point of view. She recalled the incident fondly whenever she had the chance, and Smith feared her mother was reliving her glory days. Lucky put the flashlight on the counter. “After you, Sergeant,” she said.

  Smith grabbed the big guy by the arm. “Do I have to cuff you?” she said.

  “Hey, babe, I’m easy. What are you doin’ after work?”

  “Move.”

  Approximately half the population of Trafalgar had gathered outside Mid-Kootenay Adventures. Solway had been joined by another constable and they had their hands full trying to keep everyone back. Traffic was at a halt, as onlookers spilled off the sidewalk and drivers stopped in the middle of the street trying to get a glimpse of what was going on.

  “Nothing to see, folks,” Evans said, as he walked out of the store with his handcuffed prisoner. “Go about your business.”

  Smith thought that Evans had seen one too many cop movies.

  She followed with the big one who was asking her if she had plans for dinner.

  “What’s the matter with you people?” the scrawny guy yelled. “Are you gonna stand by while these terrorist sympathizers erect their monument to cowardice and treason?”

  “Let him go,” someone deep in the crowd shouted. “Lucky Smith won’t be happy until every business in town’s shut down.”

  Voices rose, some shouting their agreement, some throwing counter-arguments.

  “Are you losing your minds?” a woman shouted. “When did Trafalgar become about censorship and silencing citizens? I never would have believed the day would come.”

  “We have to stand up for peace,” someone else shouted.

  “My father died in Vietnam. He died doing his duty. Unlike that fat scum.” Smith recognized the guy from last night’s TV program. In the soft morning light, rather than the shadows cast by the TV camera, she could see that he was no older than she. If his father had died in 1972, Brian Harris been conceived from frozen sperm.

  “Get moving,” Winters yelled.

  Smith and Evans bundled the men into the car. She had to push hard on her prisoner’s thick head to get him to duck. She took shotgun and Evans turned on the siren. People in the crowd were still murmuring, but they began to move off the road. Evans negotiated around the ambulance—the paramedics were talking to Andy—and edged into the street.

  Sunlight caught on glass, and Smith looked across the street. Standing outside the hardware store was a man with a camera on his shoulder. Meredith Morgenstern was beside him, summer-fresh in a short yellow skirt and matching T-shirt. Rich Ashcroft was on the other side of the cameraman, his mouth moving. He watched while Evans executed a three-point turn, although he could just as easily have gone around the block. When he knew she was looking at him, Ashcroft lowered one eyelid in a slow wink, and lifted his right thumb.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  While Smith and Evans escorted the two men to the booking room at the back of the station, Winters went to brief the Chief.

  “I’m not happy about this, John.” Paul Keller took a hearty gulp of one of the ten or twelve diet Cokes he’d consume over the course of the day.

  “I didn’t think you would be.”

  “The last thing we need is outside agitators arriving to stir the pot up. We don’t need any more oars dipping into our community’s probl
ems.”

  Winters ignored the badly matched metaphors. “That TV guy, Ashcroft, filmed the whole thing.”

  “Tell me you made that last statement up.”

  “I don’t suppose we can run him out of town on a rail.”

  “This is only the tip of the iceberg, John. There’ll be more folks arriving. I’m not fond of this garden myself. It’s unnecessarily divisive, and it’s like flicking the finger to our American neighbors.”

  “The two guys we arrested at the Smiths’ store are from Creston.”

  “Oh, goodie. Local thugs. That makes me feel so much better.” The Chief crushed the can in his fist and tossed the remains into the trash, where the day’s Coke graveyard was beginning to build.

  “Don’t suppose you want to have a word with this Ashcroft fellow, John? Suggest he go cover more important things. Like the trade in nuclear weapons or a war brewing somewhere.”

  Winters didn’t smile. “Not my job, Paul. Not my job. And I’m glad of it.”

  “I’ve called the Yellow Stripes. Told them we may need help if this keeps building.” The Chief looked out the window. “Did you, uh, bring the Smiths in?”

  “They’re in an interview room. Peterson’ll take their statements.”

  “Perhaps I should pop in, make sure Andy’s not too traumatized. He’s not as young as he used to be.” His laugh sounded more like a dog with kennel cough. “And Lucky as well, of course.”

  A drop of sweat slid off Keller’s forehead, and Winters realized that the Chief Constable had been, perhaps still was, in love with Lucky Smith.

  The phone on the desk rang. Keller looked at the call display. “The deputy mayor. I guess she’s heard there’s trouble in town and’s calling to demand that I put a stop to it. Never would have thought of that myself. Do you want to take it, John? Tell her I’m on the beat, rounding up troublemakers.”

  “Not my job, Paul.” Winters pulled the door shut on his way out.

  He went to the booking area in the back. The little guy was yelling something about terrorist sympathizers, and the big one was asking Smith if she’d go out with him. Neither of them seemed to be concerned that they were about to be locked up.

  Evans had read them the caution and was starting on the paperwork.

  “Leave this to Constable Evans, Constable Smith,” Winters said. “I need you on the road.”

  “Woo hoo,” the big guy yelled. “Aren’t you the lucky one?”

  “Shut the fuck up,” Smith said.

  “Hey, she can talk. What else can you do with that mouth, sweetie?”

  She walked out of the room. Winters followed. Her face was set into firm lines, and a spark of red coal blazed behind the blue eyes. A small vein pulsed in the side of her neck. Women, Winters thought, did sometimes have it hard.

  “My mom and dad?” she said, visibly gathering her self-control.

  “They’re in an interview room. Staff-Sergeant Peterson’ll take their statements. We’ve a witness to talk to.”

  “I’d like to check that they’re okay.”

  “Your parents are okay. You can’t take part in the interview, Molly. You know that.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “A man called the station in response to our asking for anyone who’d been at Eagle Point Bluffs on Thursday night to come forward.”

  They walked to the parking bay. Heat radiated off the asphalt and into the bottom of his shoes. The sky was as blue as in a brochure for Caribbean vacations; a single tuft of white cloud hovered in the west, no larger or more substantial than a cotton ball. “We could use some rain. I haven’t had time to water the impatiens beds, and if they’re dead when Eliza gets back, she’ll not be pleased.”

  “The whole area is on extreme fire alert,” Smith said.

  They got into the van, and Winters switched on the computer.

  “Where to?”

  “Hold on, computer’s slow.” He typed, waited for a response, then gave her the directions.

  She pulled onto George Street. “What happened at the store?”

  “Two guys walked in. Started trouble right away. Asked the clerk, what’s his name?”

  “Duncan.”

  “Duncan, if he was a deserter. He didn’t know what they were talking about. Your mother heard them, came out. They recognized her from TV and started with the insults.”

  Smith sighed. “So my dad intervened.”

  He coughed. “Not at first. There seems to be some, if I may say, conflict between your parents around this business.” That was an understatement. The van was so chilly with the Smith parents in it, Winters hadn’t needed to turn on the air conditioning.

  “Tell me about it.” She stopped at a light to let a hugely pregnant woman cross. She was pushing a baby carriage and dragging a toddler by the arm. Her skirt was pulled down low and her T-shirt didn’t extend far enough to cover the round belly.

  “Your dad tried to reason with the guys. Told them that the TV program was a pack of lies, and everyone in Trafalgar just wants to get along with everyone else.”

  “I bet Mom loved that.”

  “She basically told them they’d come to the right place and what did they want to do about it. One of them threw the table over and threatened to wreck the store. A customer ran out into the street, yelling for help. Mrs. Smith picked up a flashlight and threatened to bash their heads in if they didn’t leave and Mr. Smith stepped in front of her. And got hit.”

  “What a mess. Who are they, anyway?”

  “Your parents said they’d never seen them before.”

  “Neither have I. Outsiders.”

  “We can expect more to arrive. As long as that Ashcroft guy’s in town. I saw last night’s show. He’s upping the ante. Getting nastier. The war hero’s posthumously born son was a nice touch.”

  “We can’t do anything to stop him?”

  “Not as long as he doesn’t trespass onto private property. You noticed that he didn’t try to come into the store, get the fight in action so to speak.”

  “He was at my house the other night.”

  “Invited by your mother.”

  They had to drive by the park entrance on their way to their meeting. People were lined up on both sides of the street. One group was mostly middle-aged women with grey hair either clipped close to their scalp or cascading down their backs, men with unkempt beards, and youths in T-shirts and sandals. The other was neatly dressed middle-aged or older people, with a few younger ones in ugly shorts for the men and pastel short-sets for the women. A man in the second group waved a small flag in each hand. The Stars and Stripes and the Maple Leaf.

  A TV van with the logo of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation was parked further up the street. A woman walked through the crowd, carrying a tape recorder. Smith couldn’t be sure, but with scraggly blond hair and big glasses, she looked a lot like the picture of the Globe and Mail’s human-interest columnist.

  A single Trafalgar City Police officer watched over it all.

  “Chief has the Mounties on standby,” Winters said.

  “Hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  □□□

  Lucky Smith was still exhilarated when they got back to the store. It was like when she was young, back in the Sixties. When anything and everything was possible. Sometimes she thought that the street battle with the cops outside the Democratic convention in Chicago was, aside from the birth of her children, the most exciting day in her life.

  She looked at Andy, his nose swollen, drops of blood drying down the front of his shirt, and thought that perhaps she shouldn’t have gotten such a rush out of the fight. But, hey, she’d shown that two-bit punk, hadn’t she?

  Nice of Paul Keller to check on them. She’d always liked the Chief Constable, although they’d had their differences over the years. She remembered when he was a newly promoted sergeant, fresh from the big city, full of his own self-importance, trying to face her down over that water-access issue. Paul might be The Man, b
ut Lucky had always thought they respected each other. She’d been secretly pleased that he’d hired Moonlight; she expected that he’d turn the girl down because her mother was a known agitator.

  “I’m going home to change,” Andy said.

  “Okay,” she said. He hadn’t actually moved his things out, as he’d threatened to do yesterday.

  He headed for the door. Duncan watched them from behind the counter.

  “Andy,” she said.

  He turned around. “Yes?”

  She swallowed what she’d meant to say. Poor Andy, as he got older he mellowed and wondered why she didn’t. He was no longer happy with a firebrand for a wife. All he wanted was a peaceful life. But when that foul young man had threatened her, he’d jumped in front of her, quick enough. “Don’t be long,” she said. “Duncan has a trip to take at noon, and Flower isn’t in until two.”

  “I know my staff’s schedule, Lucky.”

  “Just reminding you, dear.”

  Andy may have mellowed, she thought. But the world hadn’t. And until it did, neither could she.

  Duncan had put the table back on its feet and picked books and pamphlets off the floor. But he’d done nothing about the blood on the wide pine flooring. “If you can mop that mess up, Duncan,” she said, “I’ll be in my office.”

  The phone rang before she’d fully settled into her chair.

  “Lucky, what the hell’s going on there?”

  “Hell’s the word, Barry. Where are you?”

  “Home, at last. Marta broke her foot, as it turns out. Badly. Doc said he’d rarely seen such a mess. We got in a few hours ago. I settled her onto the couch, went for some groceries and beer, made lunch, ate lunch.”

  Lucky drew circles on her desk blotter. Barry did sometimes talk in lists.

  “Only then did I access my e-mail. Everyone on the committee has been sending frantic notes back and forth. My nephew in Tennessee wrote to ask what’s going on. Said he’d seen something on TV about Trafalgar.”