by Vicki Delany
“Suppose I can’t get a ride up tomorrow? In the meantime my car, with my purse stuffed under the front seat, I might add, is sitting all night in the parking lot. And my skis; I didn’t even stop to lock them into the rack.” She threw her hands up in the air and half turned.
Color flooded into her cheeks as she saw him standing there.
“Sergeant,” she said.
“This is convenient. I was about to give you a call. What’s with the uniform? Some sort of undercover operation on the mountainside?”
Denton chuckled. “They’ve invented a strain of marijuana that grows all through a Kootenay winter. Thrives on deep snow and heavy cloud cover. We’re looking for the green tops sticking their heads out from the snow.” He stopped chuckling as he answered the phone.
“You remember I told you we get free skiing if we agree to help out with security?” Smith said. “Sometimes it isn’t worth saving the fifty bucks.” Her eyes narrowed and some of the color drained from her face. “Why’d you want me?”
“You were at an incident last night at Flavours Restaurant.”
She snorted. “I certainly was.”
“Doctor Wyatt-Yarmouth phoned the CC with a complaint first thing this morning. Paul was in meetings until now so I’ve just heard about it.”
The remaining blood fled from her face, leaving it almost as white as her pants.
“Not a complaint about you,” he said. She let out a long breath. His displeasure over the fireplace incident had her spooked.
Good.
“It was to the effect that in our failure to release the bodies promptly we’re setting the family up for ridicule.”
“No one needs to set that guy up for ridicule. He manages it all by himself.”
“The CC suggested that I might want to hear what happened, so I’m asking you.”
“The story continues. I have more than even the Chief knows. I’ve just arrested Jeremy Wozenack, a friend of Jason and Ewan, who was also at Flavours last night.”
“What’s this about your car?”
“I came back to town with my prisoners in the patrol car. Didn’t think it through carefully enough.” Her face changed color again. “Well, that is, sure I thought it through, I just, well, I figured…”
“In your eagerness to complete the arrest you left your own vehicle at the scene. And now you can’t get a ride back and it’s almost dark. Let’s take the van, and you can tell me both stories on the way. But first, Molly, we need to stop at Eddies and get me a coffee.”
Smith talked most of the way to the ski resort. It was getting late and a steady stream of traffic passed them, heading down the mountain toward town. Yellow headlights broke through the dusk and high snow banks and snow-laden black trees closed in around them. He’d heard from Dave Evans that Ewan Williams had been in a brawl on Saturday night, the night before he disappeared. This morning he’d interviewed the other participant in the fight, and the guy insisted that he’d gone home after the police broke it up and never thought about it again. He’d had more than a few beers on board, he told Winters with an easy laugh, and doubted he’d recognize the other guy if he saw him again. The object of the fight in question had been at the apartment, stretching and preening. She hadn’t bothered to put a robe on over her lacy red teddy (with food stains down the front, and a tear at the left hip) in the presence of company. Winters’ opinion of Ewan Williams’ taste went down a considerable amount, and he wondered if the guy was just out to cause trouble.
The woman also insisted that she hadn’t seen Williams since that night. She looked honest enough when she said it, slightly bored at the conversation, but a bit titillated at being involved, however peripherally, in a police investigation.
The skin around her right eye was the color of a tropical sunset. Almost a perfect match for an injury sustained oh, approximately a week ago. About the night she’d dared to flirt with some other guy.
Winters had thanked them for their time and left. He’d started a check on the boyfriend’s record, but nothing had come up so far.
And now, according to Smith, it would appear that not only had Ewan Williams been causing trouble over local girls, but Jeremy Wozenack and Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth were playing the game as well.
Fun for some.
Never for the police.
“Tell me about Gary LeBlanc,” he asked Smith. “Every town’s blessed with a family like that, it seems.”
“I knew him in school. He was a trouble maker back then, but never anything serious. He’s been away, a guest, as they say, of the government of Canada, for several years. He had a nice little grow-op on Crown land outside of town. Nothing much, from what I’ve heard. Less than a hundred plants.”
“He got several years for that?” Surprising that he got any jail time at all.
“Unfortunately, that wasn’t the whole story. The horsemen came across it by accident, looking for a ten-year-old boy who’d gone missing from the family campsite. Gary was watering his garden. A Mountie caught the working end of a spade in the face and needed a heck of a lot of stitches. People in town said it was an accident, the officer tripped and fell into the edge of the spade Gary was holding.”
“Is that what happened?”
“I wasn’t with the police then, John. I was away at University. I remembered my mom talking about it, so I pulled the file the other day, just out of interest. Gary was put away for assault P.O.”
“What about the kid?”
“Kid?”
“The child they were searching for?”
“Found eating chocolate while dipping his toes in a creek and enjoying his great adventure.”
“At least part of the story has a happy ending.”
“This is one situation in which everyone would have been better off if justice had not been served.”
Winters turned his head. “Go on.”
“Gary looked after Lorraine, best as he could. My mom knows them. When Gary was around, Mom took a personal interest in the both of them. You know my mom.”
“That I do.”
“Lorraine’s Gary’s half-sister, same mother, and he’s a lot older than her. When Gary was sent away Lorraine was left in the tender care of her parents. Neither of whom has ever met a bottle they didn’t love more than her. My mom tried to help, but she was rebuffed continually so she pretty much stopped coming around.”
“Doesn’t sound like Lucky.”
Smith laughed, without humor. “Doesn’t, does it? But even Mom knows to stop when she’s beating her head against a brick wall. Well, sometimes she does. And Lorraine, at sixteen years old, is now the town sled.”
“The what?”
“Sled. Available for anyone to ride.”
“Isn’t that a bit insensitive, Molly?”
“It’s the way she’s seen, even by some of our officers. I feel for the girl, I really do. But she doesn’t want my help. Not that that’s worth much, but she doesn’t want Mom’s help or anyone else’s. Now Gary’s back, maybe he can do something.”
The lodge came into view. There weren’t many vehicles left in the parking lot. The yellow lights of the lodge and outbuildings looked very small and insignificant against the dark bulk of the surrounding mountains. The moon was lifting above the crest of the mountain to the east. It was waxing, and the light was cold and very white. It made him think of Molly’s proper first name.
“That’s mine, over there.”
A green car was parked close to the building, all alone. He pulled to a halt beside it. “I asked the security guys to keep an eye on my skis,” Smith said. A single pair of skis remained in the racks at the back of the lodge. She climbed out of the car, unzipped her jacket pocket and pulled out her keys.
“Thanks for the ride, John. I appreciate it.” Her blue eyes said a lot more before she slammed the door shut. He watched her walk in that duck-like gait people in ski boots did. She found her skis and equipment and fastened them to the roof, then climbed into the driver’s
seat and burrowed into the passenger seat foot-well. She came up with a pair of winter boots and waved them at him. She turned the key in the ignition and the engine roared to life.
Winters made a wide circle, and set off down the dark mountain road.
He’d been in homicide in Vancouver for many years. Most murders consisted of a victim. Victim was found in a certain place. A few people, family members mostly, were the suspects. But in this case there was nothing he could put his finger on. He didn’t even know if he had a murder.
He had a victim, or did he? Was there one victim, or none, or maybe two? No place of death that he’d yet found. And no suspects to speak of. He’d found nothing in Ewan’s room at the B&B that would necessitate a forensic search, and he’d accepted Ellie Carmine’s word that she hadn’t had any blood spills to mop up. Not that he would necessarily accept her, or anyone else’s, word about anything, but the Glacier Chalet was a crowded, busy place. Even in the middle of the night, he reflected, people seemed to be coming and going. He was pretty sure Ewan hadn’t died there.
Jason and Ewan had been a couple of fun-loving rich boys on vacation. Them and their friend Jeremy, who’d been released with a promise to return tomorrow. Local guys were upset because outsiders, dripping with money and good looks and educated voices, were moving in on their girlfriends.
Plenty of fodder for bar brawls. But for murder? Unlikely, although stranger, much stranger, things had happened over the course of his career.
Gary LeBlanc made an attractive candidate. Except for the fact that he’d been angry at Jason, not Ewan.
And Ewan, Winters had to remember, was the one who’d died first.
Jason had died in a car accident. There was not the slightest doubt about that. It was Ewan’s death that was the strange one.
Nevertheless, Winters knew deep in his cop’s gut that if he could find out why Jason had the dead body of his friend in his car, he’d be a long way toward finding out why Ewan Williams had died.
It wasn’t helping that the Wyatt-Yarmouth family were making phone calls and stamping their feet demanding attention. He could only hope the national media wouldn’t pick this story up.
Williams had last been seen by his friends on Sunday the twenty-third. They spent the day skiing before returning to the B&B. Around five-thirty, Ewan had gone out alone, on foot, and had never been seen again.
Had something happened at the ski hill that day? His friends thought he’d met a girl. But they hadn’t seen her. Did Ewan run into trouble in town? Did he even make it to town?
His headlights picked out the sharp curves and steep banks of the mountain road. This police-issue mini-van was not the ideal vehicle for driving down treacherous mountain roads.
He turned a corner and came into a straightway. The lights of Smith’s car behind him flooded the van.
Meredith Morgenstern had been calling, leaving messages hinting that she knew why he was keeping the bodies and why he was showing so much interest in a car accident. John Winters knew lots of good reporters. Men and women who did their jobs and let the police do theirs. Meredith Morgenstern wasn’t one of them, and he wouldn’t normally give her the time of day. But he might be able to toss her enough of a crumb that she’d write a story asking anyone who’d seen Ewan to come forward.
No one seemed to know where Ewan Williams had gone that night. But he had to have gone somewhere, and seen someone. If only the person who’d last seen him alive.
If that person was Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, Winters might never find out what happened.
***
Lucky Smith bit into a piece of shortbread. She didn’t even chew, just let the buttery dough dissolve in her mouth.
“Perfect,” she said to Ellie Carmine.
“Thanks.” Ellie sipped at her tea. She looked troubled.
“What’s happening about your guests?” Lucky asked. “I’m surprised they’re still here, after…Well, after what happened to their two friends.”
“The sister, Wendy, is waiting to leave with her parents and the boy’s body. I’ve no idea what’s going on but apparently the coroner isn’t releasing the bodies yet, and won’t say when.”
“That seems strange.”
“Perhaps you could ask Moonlight…”
“No.”
“I haven’t even said what I want to know.”
“I don’t ask my daughter anything to do with police business.” Lucky would happily ask anything at all, but Moonlight wouldn’t tell her more than was available to all in the pages of the Trafalgar Daily Gazette. She’d confided a few things to her mother in her early days with the department, but that had stopped.
“Having the police poking around, questioning the guests, it’s upsetting for everyone. It was just a car accident, for heaven’s sake. He is rather attractive, that Sergeant Winters, isn’t he?”
“I hadn’t noticed,” Lucky said, as her hand hovered over the plate of treats before settling upon a cookie formed into the shape of candy cane. Bands of pink and white dough wound through the cookie. She took an exploratory bite. Not as good as the shortbread.
The kitchen door flew open.
“Robbed. I ‘ave been robbed.” It was a young woman, with long black hair and full lips. She would have been pretty if not for a much too prominent nose. She was dressed in leather ankle boots, form-fitting jeans, and a tight red T-shirt with Quebec printed across her chest in silver glitter.
Mrs. Carmine jumped to her feet. “Sophie, what on earth?”
“My money. I ‘id my money in the drawer. Beneath my clothes. It is gone. All gone.”
A strikingly handsome young man stood behind her. “She’s right, Mrs. C. Sophie doesn’t like to carry too much money when she’s skiing, so she hides it in the dresser. It isn’t there.”
Ellie placed one hand to her chest. “There must be a mistake.”
“No mistake, certainement. Phone the Sûreté.”
“The what?”
“She means the police, Mrs. Carmine. Call the police.”
“I’m sure that’s not necessary. Did you look carefully?”
“What am I, an imbécile?” The young woman threw up her hands, turned to the young man, and let loose a stream of French.
He lifted his hands. “Calm down, Sophie. I’ll sort it out. She says her cash and credit card are gone.”
“She must be mistaken. Nothing can have been stolen. Not from my establishment. Why, why, no one’s been here today.”
“Lorraine was.” Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth stood at the door. She pushed Sophie aside. “She was here wasn’t she? This morning, around noon. I wasn’t up to skiing today. Just stayed in my room mostly. But I went into town for lunch and some shopping, and I saw her. She was in the kitchen, eating soup.”
“Lorraine was here as my guest,” Ellie said. “She’s upset about the death of your brother, it seems she was quite fond of him…”
“Fond,” Wendy snorted. “Fond of his money.”
“I don’t know about that, but she came to the door, and she was sad, and I was about to sit down with my lunch. I’d made enough for Kathy, but I hadn’t seen hide nor hair of her since she did a pretty poor job at her chores. So I gave her soup to Lorraine.”
“Who are we talking about?” Lucky asked, although she could guess. Lorraine LeBlanc. Sixteen years old and already a disaster looking for a place to happen.
“That miserable Lorraine creature. My brother smiled at her sideways, and she seems to think that meant they were about to be married.”
“More than smiled at,” Alan said with an unpleasant chuckle.
“Who the hell asked for your opinion?”
“Lest you forget, Wendy, I am the complainant here.”
“Sorry, I thought that was Sophie. And Sophie wants to call the police, don’t you Sophie? People can’t be allowed to just walk into a private home and poke around looking for anything they want, right?”
“Yes, I said so, didn’t I?”
“Hold o
n,” Lucky said. “So Lorraine was here, having soup in the kitchen. You were with her the entire time, weren’t you, Ellie?”
Thoughts raced across the woman’s face as she struggled to find the right answer.
Lorraine. Poor Lorraine. Left alone in the B&B, the girl might well be tempted to walk up the stairs, to peek into the two hundred dollar a night rooms and see what sort of stuff the rich carried around with them. And even help herself to what she thought no one would miss.
“Ellie,” Lucky said. “Did you leave Lorraine alone for a length of time?”
“I might have gone to the bathroom. I don’t remember.”
“There you have it,” Wendy shouted. “It takes no length of time to run upstairs, open a drawer, and snatch the money.”
“No,” Lucky said. “But it does to find the right room, and the right location, without turning the place over. Was anything in your room disturbed, Sophie?”
Sophie looked at Alan.
He shook his head. “Not so as I noticed. Sophie went into her drawer to get money for dinner and noticed it was gone.”
“Lorraine obviously cased the place earlier,” Wendy said. “That explains it.”
“Explains what?”
The girl’s eyes shifted to one side. “Nothing. Just thinking. Are you going to call the cops, Mrs. C?”
Ellie twisted her apron in her hands. She looked perilously close to sheer panic. Lucky touched her friend’s arm. “This won’t reflect on you.”
“It most certainly will,” Wendy said. Her voice was rising. “I can’t imagine who’ll want to stay here after this gets out. In fact, we all should get a sizeable discount, if not our entire stay for free. This place isn’t at all the quality it’s advertised to be.”
“We need to calm down,” Lucky said. “We have plenty of time to discuss this. It isn’t an emergency.” Wendy was over-reacting to a considerable degree, and Lucky suspected it had nothing to do with the loss of Sophie’s money, or even with Lorraine, but with the young woman’s own all-encompassing grief.
Wendy pulled a cell phone out of her pocket. “If you won’t call the cops, I’ll have to do it.” She punched in three numbers, and went into the hall to make the call.
