But Tom had a problem. He had no musical ability whatsoever. He was completely tone-deaf. He couldn’t identify one note from another or remember how to create a particular sound if his life depended on it. No matter how much his dad yelled at him and called him a slacker, he couldn’t read the music or make the notes sound like they should.
Slaps to the side of the head and screamed insults did nothing to help.
His younger sister could play. She was good, very good. But she was a girl, and as far as Mad Mike was concerned, major rock bands didn’t have girl guitarists. Their dad might have forgiven her if she could sing, but in that she was also a disappointment.
Tom inherited his lack of musical ability from his mother, and as the band began sliding down the charts, Mad Mike Dunning took out his frustration on his wife. Tom’s mom died in a car accident when Tom was twenty-one, working construction in Toronto. His sister had married a musician and they played country music in the same sort of dives and dingy bars where their dad had started out.
Tom went to his mom’s funeral, didn’t speak to his dad, and left town the next day. His sister had been on tour and couldn’t make the funeral.
Over the years, Tom saw pictures of his dad occasionally, heard a couple of times that the band was planning a big reunion concert.
It wouldn’t happen. The singer, the only truly talented one of the bunch, had died of an overdose, and Mad Mike himself now weighed about three hundred pounds and had a nose that belonged on Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
It gave Tom a not-inconsiderable degree of satisfaction the time he saw a picture of his dad on an online gossip site, passed out and being loaded into the back of a cruiser, his pants so far down he was mooning the camera. The headline read: “How Low Can He Go?”
Still, Tom couldn’t bear to listen to live rock music.
It was time he moved in with Jody. He was doing okay with his cut of the take from the car repairs and the other stuff that was going on at Global, but he didn’t like wasting money. He rarely spent any time at the apartment he shared with three other guys. He was sick of being surrounded by Alistair’s equipment and the posters of rock bands he insisted on sticking to the walls. Tom spent most nights at Jody’s, so why not move in? Her roommate, a stuck-up bitch from Vancouver, wasn’t a bad piece. Get her alone one night when Jody was out, and he could show her what she was missing.
Might even be able to talk them into a three-way.
It wouldn’t be for long, anyway. One thing he’d learned from good old dad was to know when it was time to move on. Barry was starting to complain that he deserved a bigger cut. Complain to the wrong people and someone, someday, might squeal to the cops on Global Car Rental. Tom Dunning intended to be nowhere around when that happened.
Before he left, he might even do the squealing himself.
Chapter Thirteen
REDS WINE BAR. BANFF, ALBERTA. SATURDAY NIGHT.
Tracey regarded Reds Wine Bar with a mixture of bitter hatred and yearning envy. She detested the place, but hoped one day it would be the sort of bar where she could hang out without feeling awkward and out of place.
Tonight, she perched on a stool at the far end of the bar. She sipped her wine; to her dismay the glass was emptying too fast. The place was filling up and she’d have to leave as soon as she finished her drink. She couldn’t take a seat that could be used by a tipping customer. Matt wouldn’t like that.
She watched him while he worked. Handsome in a white shirt and black tie, pouring drinks, taking money, joking with customers and the other staff. She’d phoned him after finishing at the restaurant, while changing to go to the car rental job, to check he was okay after the encounter earlier with his dad. By the time she’d taken the orders of the four construction workers into the kitchen and brought out their coffee, Matt had left the restaurant. They’d been busier than usual for the rest of her shift and Tracey had been almost run off her feet. She got some good tips, though, so that made it okay.
Matt had sneered at her on the phone, dismissive of her concern. He had a few bad things to say about his dad, and hoped they wouldn’t run into each other again. But Tracey had seen the look on his face this morning, and she knew it was nothing but bluster. Her heart ached for him.
A group of women swung into the bar, all sporting expensively cut and colored hair, short tight dresses, high heels, makeup, and bright red nail polish. With much tossing of heads and giggling, drawing all eyes to them, they pulled stools into a circle. They found themselves one short. They eyed Tracey, taking in the cheap shiny blue dress, the plastic jewelry, the shoes that hadn’t been new even when they were new to her. But mostly taking in the fact that she, Tracey, was alone.
She lifted her head and stuck out her chin. She wasn’t alone. She was with her boyfriend. He might be working, but that didn’t matter. She wasn’t alone like a loser who didn’t have a date on a Saturday night.
Some people had to work for a living. Her mother, on one of the few occasions she’d been sober and employed, had told Tracey to be proud she was working class. Proud to work hard, to earn a decent living, not a rich bitch mooch like these girls. She’d tried to be proud. That hadn’t lasted long.
Matt laid cocktail napkins in front of the new arrivals, giving them a huge grin of welcome. The smile he rarely had for Tracey. He told them tonight’s specials were listed on the blackboard behind the bar or they could see the menu offering wines by the bottle or glass. The women smiled and preened. One of them was so thin you could, Tracey thought, use her hips for clothes hangers and her tits to measure walnuts. Tracey glanced at the woman’s face, and upped her estimate of her age. Lines radiated out from the corners of her eyes and mouth, and the skin on her throat was as wrinkled as the right sleeve of her ivory blouse, which the iron had missed.
A long-haired, long-legged, bleached blonde leaned over, giving Matt a good view of her more- than-ample breasts, and asked him breathlessly what he’d recommend. Her lips were as red as her sharp fingernails and Tracey imagined those nails turning into claws, reaching across the bar and grabbing Matt by the front of his shirt.
He grinned and glanced down the scooped neck of the woman’s dress, not long enough to be offensive, briefly enough to let her know he liked what he saw. He never looked at Tracey like that. Not that Tracey had boobs like that in any event. Fake probably.
Matt rattled off the names of a couple of bottles. The blonde waved her hand in the air, her talons glistening, and said, without asking the price, that they’d have a bottle of Chardonnay from the Okanagan Valley to start. Tracey, because she had no one to talk to, had spent her time reading the wine list. That was one of the more expensive whites.
“A good choice.” Matt pitched his voice pitched slow and sexy.
Tracey swallowed a hefty mouthful of her wine. Only a dribble remained.
She counted up the tips she’d made today, balanced that against her share of the rent due at the end of the month. Perhaps she could treat herself to another drink.
Matt brought glasses and the Chardonnay and made a big deal out of uncorking the bottle. Tracey didn’t know why they bothered. Screw caps were so much easier. He poured a mouthful of wine into the blonde’s glass. She swirled it around, sniffed it, sipped it, never taking her eyes off Matt.
He didn’t take his eyes off her either.
“Very nice,” the blonde purred, and Matt poured for them all.
What the hell was Tracey doing here? She had nothing to offer a guy like Matt. He was good-looking, older, from a middle-class family. Tracey’s father had run off before she was born, and her mother drank too much and couldn’t hold down a job. She worked two jobs and could barely pay the rent on a couch in someone’s living room. That bottle of wine these women were throwing back without tasting it cost more than Tracey earned in a shift at the car rental company.
Acid stirred in her gut and she felt tears behind her eyes. One of the girls glanced at her, and didn’t bother to cover her sn
eer. She waved to Matt. “Could we possibly get another stool? My poor feet are simply aching after all the shopping we did today.”
Matt glanced at Tracey. She lifted her glass and thrust out her chin. “I’ll have another.”
Surprise crossed his face, but he only said, “Let me see what I can do.”
“You are such a dear,” the girl cooed. Her friends giggled. Tracey was beginning to hate that giggle.
Prompted by Matt, a man brought over a stool and the girl wiggled her amble rump onto it. She shouldn’t be wearing that dress—not with that butt.
Matt handed Tracey her drink. He started to say something, but one of the waitresses called for him.
The bar was filling up. It was a small space, meant to be intimate. The lights were low, the tables illuminated by candles, the music soft jazz. Rich people with good teeth, good hair, nice clothes, drank wine and beer, nibbled on canapés, and laughed and chatted. Tracey was starving. She hadn’t eaten since breakfast, but she couldn’t afford anything they served here. It was all small bites, meant to be shared. Small bites but big prices. She’d go to McDonald’s later, grab a burger and a pop.
The blonde who’d ordered the wine burst into over-loud laughter and threw her arms out. Her glass tipped and Chardonnay sloshed down the front of Tracey’s dress. The friends tittered and the blonde turned her head. “Oh,” she said, in a voice that said she didn’t give a shit, “sorry about that.” Her eyes were watery and her speech slurred, and Tracey figured this wasn’t their first stop of the night.
She could have made a huge deal out of it. Insisted the woman pay for her dry cleaning bill. Not that Tracey had ever once in her life taken her clothes to a dry cleaner. If it couldn’t be washed in the Laundromat or the sink, she didn’t buy it.
She let it go. If the woman objected, wanted to get into an argument, Matt would hustle Tracey out so fast her feet would barely touch the ground.
What the hell. She didn’t belong here anyway. She tossed back the rest of her wine and slid off her stool. A woman, older than most of them here, gray hair sprayed into a helmet, pearl necklace, hands glittering with diamonds, hip-checked Tracey and grabbed the seat.
She hesitated at the entrance, wanting to get a last glimpse of Matt. He was laughing with one of the waitresses. The woman was married, but Tracey didn’t care for the way she eyed Matt.
“Excuse me,” someone said, trying to come in. Tracey slipped away from the lights and laugher of the bar and into the dark night.
Chapter Fourteen
BANFF SPRINGS HOTEL. BANFF, ALBERTA. SUNDAY EARLY MORNING.
Lucky didn’t recognize the ringing at first. Confused, she struggled out of sleep to find Paul sitting up, the bedside phone clenched in his hand.
“What?” he said. “Where?”
Lucky’s heart leapt into her mouth. Moonlight: a police officer, a dangerous job. When her daughter first started working for the police, Lucky found it hard to sleep when the girl worked nights. She lay in bed, thinking of all the bad things that could happen, even in peaceful Trafalgar. But Andy, Lucky’s late husband, Moonlight’s father, reminded her that people could be, and sometimes were, killed crossing the street. The police were more protected than most. Lucky didn’t stop worrying, but she did start sleeping better. Then, when Moonlight got engaged to Adam, Lucky realized she’d have two cops in the family to worry about.
She could tell by the look on Paul’s face that this wasn’t a wrong number or a hotel employee calling to check if everything was all right. “Yes, I know. But where exactly is that? Calm down, take a breath, and give me the address.”
Her thoughts tumbled all over themselves. If one of his officers was hurt or, God forbid, dead, wouldn’t they call Paul on his cell phone, rather than go through the hotel switchboard? She scrambled across the bed and grabbed her own phone, which she’d laid out on the bedside table. She flipped it open, and fell back with relief. No calls, no messages. The battery was charged and it had a full complement of bars indicating the strength of reception. If something terrible had happened, both Moonlight and Adam had her number.
She glanced at the clock. Two forty-five.
“Call the police as soon as you hang up. 911.” Paul threw off the covers. “Give me fifteen minutes.”
“What’s going on? Paul, who was that?”
The bathroom door closed behind him. Lucky leapt out of bed. Fifteen minutes. If Paul was going to be somewhere in fifteen minutes then it couldn’t be a problem back home. And it couldn’t be the RCMP with bad news from Trafalgar if he’d told the caller to contact the police. She pulled her nightgown over her head. It was new, another something special she’d bought for this weekend, all peach satin and cream lace. Long and flowing, not skimpy and sexy. Lucky Smith had long ago ceased to be able to get away with skimpy and sexy. She was pulling on her jeans when Paul came out of the bathroom and began throwing on his own clothes.
“Paul, please, tell me.”
“That was Matthew. His roommate’s dead.”
“Why? How?”
“Matt says he got home, found the fellow dead.”
“How awful.” Lucky thrust her arms through her sweater.
“I’m going over there. You don’t need to come.”
“But I want to. Perhaps I can help.”
“No. This is bad, Lucky. Bad. The death wasn’t an accident. He was knifed. Murdered.”
Lucky lifted her head. She looked Paul in the eye. “Then all the more reason for me to come. You’re not going because you’re a police officer. You’re going because you’re his father. You need me, Paul, even if your son doesn’t.”
Chapter Fifteen
BEARTRACK TRAIL. BANFF, ALBERTA. SUNDAY EARLY MORNING.
Not wanting to wait for the elevator, Paul galloped down the stairs, Lucky following. The night staff threw them startled looks as they dashed across the deserted lobby, but Paul didn’t slow down to explain. He had a GPS in his car and shouted an address to Lucky as he pulled out of the parking garage. Lucky punched in numbers while Paul drove down the hill toward Banff townsite, and then through dark quiet streets. Shortly after three o’clock a few lights were on in bars as the staff cleaned up or enjoyed a drink. The last few stragglers made their way home past closed shops and restaurants.
Lucky Smith was a mountain woman. Born and raised in Seattle, adulthood in the B.C. Interior, the one time she’d travelled to Kansas to attend a cousin’s wedding, she’d been overwhelmed by the simple vastness of it. The open spaces, the distant, visible horizon, the sky that went on forever. Wedding over, she escaped back to the mountains, seeking comfort and safely in their familiar bulk.
Tonight, although the sky was clear, the surrounding mountains cut off the glow of the moon and most of the stars. Lucky shivered. So beautiful during the day, at night these mountains seemed ominous, looming over them, closing them in. Trapping them.
No need to get fanciful. That would be no help to anyone. She glanced at Paul. In the light from the dashboard she could see his face set into serious lines. He didn’t look angry, simply determined.
“Turn left,” she said, “and then an immediate right. Arriving at…” the efficient British accent announced from the GPS.
“Are you sure you gave that thing the right address?” Paul slid the car to a stop against the curb.
Lucky read it back to him. “That’s what you told me.”
The street was empty. The address they’d been directed to was a three-story apartment block on a street of similar buildings. Street lamps cast pools of faint yellow light onto the sidewalk. A black cat leisurely crossed the road, paying Lucky and Paul no attention. Paul opened his door and light filled the interior of the car.
“What’s the matter?” Lucky asked.
“This is a small town. The police should have gotten here faster than we did. There’s a flashlight in the glove compartment. Give it to me.” She did so and he climbed out of the car.
Lucky opened her door.
“Stay here,” he ordered.
“But…”
“But nothing. Matt didn’t call 911. That means something…someone might have prevented him. Do you have your phone?”
“Yes.”
“Call 911. Give them the address. Tell them we have a report of a homicide. Tell them who I am. And, Lucky,” he bent down and stuck his head into the car, “you will stay here. This is now a police action.”
“Paul, wait for the Mounties.”
But he was gone. He headed for the building at a trot, slipping in and out of the shadows, slightly bent at the knees and waist. Lucky made the call and was told the police were on their way. She watched as Paul approached the front door. He didn’t stand in front of it, knocking, like anyone else would. He stood to one side, back against the wall. His hand reached out, gripped the doorknob, and turned it. The door swung open, an interior light came on, and Paul slipped into the vestibule, moving fast and keeping low. A row of mailboxes and buzzers lined the wall, illuminated by the weak light in the entrance. Paul punched a button, repeatedly. No one seemed to be answering and Lucky breathed a sigh of relief. He couldn’t get in. He’d have to wait for the police. Like all Canadian police officers, Paul Keller carried a gun to work but never when not on duty.
Under Cold Stone: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Novels) Page 5
