Winter of Secrets

by Vicki Delany

  “This is dreadful, simply dreadful,” Ellie said. “I didn’t leave Lorraine alone for more than a couple of minutes. Well, perhaps I did, I don’t quite remember every detail.”

  Wendy came back. “The police,” she said, very haughty, “will be here shortly.”

  Ellie groaned.

  ***

  The small procession pulled into town. John Winters turned into the police station, and Molly Smith drove past. He’d heard she’d taken the apartment above Alphonse’s bakery.

  He made a quick decision, and turned the van around. There was no traffic on Monroe Street and he caught up to the Focus as it made the next corner.

  The Ford climbed over dirty packed snow and ice to reach its parking slot on the other side of the alley. He pulled up behind her, opened the window and waited.

  “Everything, okay?” she asked, coming up to the driver’s window, ski boots in hand. She’d pulled a knitted red cap over her head.

  “I don’t know what Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth was doing the day his pal was missing. I need to find out. I know you’re not working today, but thought you might want to come with me.”

  She grinned. “Thanks, John, thanks. Do you want me to put on my uniform?”

  “You’ll do.”

  She tossed her ski boots back into her car, locked it, ran around the van and jumped into the passenger seat. As eager as a puppy at play time.

  It was almost six. A good time to find skiers resting between the day on the slopes and heading out to dinner. The Wyatt-Yarmouth family and friends were a prickly bunch, and he’d decided, on the spur of the moment, that it would be a good idea to have someone else on hand. Even if only to observe and pick up on unspoken communication.

  He backed the van into the alley. The radio crackled. Reported theft at 1894 Victoria Street. Winters turned to Smith. “Isn’t that the Glacier Chalet?”

  “Yeah, it is.”

  “What a coincidence.” He grabbed the radio. “Winters. I’ll take that call.”

  “You got it, Sarge.”

  ***

  Molly Smith was not pleased to see her mother, once again, standing in the hallway of the Glacier Chalet B&B. But she knew that Lucky and Ellie Carmine were friends, so her mom did have the right to be here. Although the hotels and B&Bs in town did a lot of mutually-beneficial business with the outfitting and tour companies, Lucky and Ellie hadn’t become friends until recently. While Molly was away at University there was something about Ellie having trouble with the police over guests using hard drugs in her B&B. How that would bring her into Lucky Smith’s circle, Molly didn’t want to know.

  “That was quick,” Mrs. Carmine said, opening the door. Looking like Mrs. Claus no longer, her face was set in hard, tight lines.

  “Constable Smith and I were passing,” Winters explained.

  Mrs. Carmine hesitated and then stepped back to let them in.

  A good-sized crowd was gathered in the entrance hall. Not only Ellie Carmine and Lucky Smith, but Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, and two of her friends, the Quebec girl and her boyfriend.

  Wendy looked at Smith, sizing up the police jacket and ski pants, red wool gloves, and matching red hat. She didn’t bother to contain a sneer. “Are you the only cop they have in this miserable town? Every time I turn around you’re standing there. Nice uniform though.”

  Not that Smith cared much about Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth’s opinions. In her short career she’d already run into plenty of rich types who considered themselves to be above the law, and plenty of young women who wanted to have the female equivalent of a pissing contest with a woman cop. Smith reminded herself to be charitable, that Wendy had just lost her brother, and wasn’t handling it all that well.

  “You should be pleased Constable Smith is so dedicated,” Winters said. “Perhaps someone can explain the problem before we go any further.”

  “All my money and my credit card ‘ave been stolen,” the Quebec girl shouted. “From my room.”

  “We’re not entirely sure about that.” Mrs. Carmine’s face was very pale.

  “I am sure, Madame.”

  Lucky avoided her daughter’s eyes and put her arm around her friend’s shoulder.

  Winters asked the standard questions. Smith should be taking notes, but not being in uniform she didn’t have a notebook with her.

  “Is it possible you misplaced the items, Sophie?” Mrs. Carmine asked.

  “Non.”

  “Did you make a thorough search, sir?” Winters said to the young man. “Alan Robertson isn’t it?”

  “Yes. No. Yes, I’m Alan and no we didn’t search. Sophie said her money was missing and we came downstairs.”

  “This is ridiculous.” Wendy almost stamped her foot. “That girl is obviously up to no good and I for one refuse to stand here chattering about it”—Smith dearly hoped that Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth would insist on leaving the scene—“while she spends every penny of poor Sophie’s money. God, Sophie, you’d better cancel your credit cards right away.”

  Sophie gasped.

  “Who is ‘she’?” Winters asked. “Do you suspect someone of taking the money?”

  “No,” said Alan and Mrs. Carmine and Lucky Smith.

  “Yes,” said Wendy.

  “Go on,” Winters said to Wendy.

  “Lorraine what’s her name, of course.”

  “She means Lorraine LeBlanc,” Lucky said.

  “You think Lorraine LeBlanc was responsible.” Winters said. “Why?”

  “Why? It’s perfectly obvious,” Wendy shouted. She turned to Smith. “You saw the state she was in last night. Demanding to be included in my family.”

  “I don’t see…”

  “She was in the house. I saw her myself. I demand you arrest her.”

  “Is everyone who was in this house today to be arrested?” Winters asked pointedly.

  Wendy flushed.

  “Before this goes any further,” Lucky said, “I’d suggest we have another search of the room. Sophie, you’re sharing the room with Alan, right?”

  The girl nodded.

  “When two people share close accommodations and a strange room, it’s easy for things to get misplaced. And Alan,” she smiled sweetly, “you did say that you only watched Sophie look in the place she thought she’d left the money. You didn’t actually search.”

  Smith glanced at Sergeant Winters. The left edge of his mouth twitched. It was the only sign of a smile he would allow himself.

  “Can’t hurt,” Alan said to Sophie.

  “That’s a perfectly wonderful idea,” Mrs. Carmine said.

  “If we must,” Wendy said. She began to turn.

  “While I’m here, Ms. Wyatt-Yarmouth,” Winters said. “I’d like to speak to you about your brother and Ewan Williams. Perhaps Mrs. Carmine would allow us to talk in the common room.”

  Wendy shot daggers at him with her eyes.

  “If it’s okay with Alan and Sophie, Constable Smith will go with them. You won’t assist with the search in any way, Constable. Just observe.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said.

  The front door opened and Jeremy walked in. He stopped so abruptly that Rob crashed into the back of him.

  “Hey,” Rob said. “What’s all this? Has something happened?”

  “Yes,” Wendy’s thin chest rose with indignation. “There has been a theft and these cops refuse to do anything about it. I’m going to make a complaint.”

  “Oh, put a sock in it, Wendy,” Alan said in a tired voice. “Hard as it is to believe, this isn’t about you.”

  Wendy sputtered.

  “Where the hell’d you get to anyway?” Alan said. “We couldn’t find you when it was time to leave.”

  “I got a ride back.” Jeremy Wozenack smirked at Smith.

  “Coulda told us,” Alan mumbled. He led the way to the stairs. Smith and Sophie followed.

  The upstairs corridor was wide enough to have a thin-legged mahogany table up against the wall, holding magazines and tourist brochure
s. The wallpaper was stripped pink and cream above the wainscoting. Paintings of historical scenes lined the walls. Whiskered men in suits and ties or overalls and women in long dresses and big hats.

  Alan and Sophie’s room was at the top of the stairs. Alan opened the door and allowed Sophie and Smith to enter. “Do you normally lock the door, sir?” Smith had not failed to notice that, this time at least, it hadn’t been.

  “In a respectable place like this? I didn’t think it necessary. Maybe I was wrong.”

  The room was spacious and tastefully decorated. A beautiful quilt made out of interlocking blocks of cream and blue covered the king-sized bed. Large pillows in matching colors were piled against the headboard. A small table beside the window held a single-serving coffee pot, kettle, and a basket overflowing with coffee, tea bags, condiments, and individual-sized packets of cookies.

  Smith stood in the doorway. “Does someone come to tidy up and make the bed every day?”

  Sophie plopped her plump behind onto the bed. The headboard hit the wall. “They’d better, for what this place is costing us.”

  “Does Mrs. Carmine do the cleaning?”

  “Her or her daughter, Kathy.”

  There was a wide chest of drawers, matching night tables on each side of the bed, and a cabinet underneath the flat-screen TV. Smith stuffed her hands into her jacket pocket, and watched Alan pull out the drawers, starting at the bottom. He hadn’t closed the door and sound travelled quite well up the stairs. Wendy’s voice was steadily rising. That girl needs some serious help before she goes right over the edge, Smith thought. It seemed, from the little Smith had seen, that her parents were too wrapped up in their own grief over Jason’s death to pay Wendy much attention.

  Easy to spot the place where they kept their drugs. Alan maneuvered his body to block Smith’s view, and Sophie jumped off the bed and made a big fuss of checking out the bedside table, presumably to distract the police’s attention.

  Not Smith’s concern.

  Not now.

  Downstairs Wendy was saying something about Ewan’s taste in women. She really didn’t like the guy. Reminded Smith of when they’d been in school and her brother, Sam, had been friends with Doug Whiteside, one of the star baseball players. A real piece of work he was. Lucky despised him, but Sam wouldn’t hear a word against him. Smith wondered what had happened to the baseball player. Wouldn’t be surprised if he’d gone into politics.

  “Hell, Sophie.” Alan’s hand came up from the right side of the top drawer. “It’s here.”

  She ran over and he handed her a wad of colored bills. She flicked through it, counting. Alan held a silver credit card in his hand. “Is it all there, Sophie?”

  “Oui.”

  He turned toward Smith, his embarrassed grin beneath tousled black curls making him look a lot like the actor Hugh Grant. “I’m really sorry about all this. I guess with what happened to Jason and Ewan we’re all on edge.”

  “Not a problem. It’s happened before. Like Mom…I mean Mrs. Smith, said people get things mixed up. Your friend Wendy seemed somewhat quick on the draw to pin it on Lorraine though.”

  “Wendy’s upset, you know. Her brother just died.”

  “I understand.”

  “Him and Ewan…”

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Wendy loved her brother, that’s all.” But Alan’s face was flushed, and Smith knew there was more behind the statement than he was prepared to reveal.

  “Let’s go downstairs and let everyone know the good news. You should both come, Sergeant Winters has some questions.”

  “Sure,” he said.

  Sophie stuffed her money into the pocket of her long wool sweater.

  They trooped out of the room. Alan shut the door behind them.

  “Sophie has the top two drawers,” he said to Smith, in that distant tone a person takes on when they’re really talking to themselves. “It wasn’t me who moved things.” He raised his voice. “You need to be more careful, Sophie, your carelessness could have caused a lot of trouble.”

  She turned, her dark eyes full of Gaelic fury. “Me, I always place my money under my socks, always. Since I was a little girl.” She spoke to Smith. “Always on vacation we went to London or to Paris or Vienna. Always we stayed in the best hotels and always my mother told me to hide my valuables beneath my socks. Thieves, she said, do not think about a woman’s socks. I do not put my money under my nightgowns. Never.”

  She stalked off toward the staircase.

  Alan lifted one eyebrow toward Smith. “Sometimes,” he said, “we forget what our mommy taught us.”

  She grinned. “In my experience when criminal masterminds are searching for the loot they rarely avoid a woman’s sock drawer.”

  She settled her face back into serious, professional lines at the sight of the furious woman waiting for them at the top of the stairs.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The scene might have been plucked directly from a book written in the Golden Age of the mystery novel. The detective, the collection of suspects, the housekeeper wringing her hands on her apron, the fire burning cheerfully in the fireplace, comfortable armchairs, Christmas decorations and a festive tree, outside lights shining on fat snowflakes. The maid bringing in a tray with teapot, cups, milk and sugar, and a plate of cookies. Although in the stories the maid didn’t drop the tray onto the table so hard the mugs jumped, collapse into a vacant chair, and say, “I hope, Sergeant Winters, that you are not using the excuse of being called to a crime scene to interrogate these people.”

  He took a star-shaped cookie sprinkled with red sugar. “Coincidences happen, Lucky. I was headed this way when the request for an officer came over the radio. So I took it. As for interrogating anyone, that’s a harsh word for a simple detective asking questions about the death of two men known to these people. If you, Lucky, would prefer not to be interrogated, you’re free to leave.”

  Ellie Carmine reached over and patted her friend’s knee. “I’d like Lucky to stay.”

  Lucky Smith was much too polite to smirk.

  They had nothing new to say. Ewan Williams went out the evening of December twenty-third and wasn’t at breakfast the next morning. No one among his friends considered that to be anything worth worrying about.

  “Shacked up with a girl he’d met at the resort, we all assumed,” Wendy said, stirring milk into her tea. Her hand was shaking so badly the edges of the spoon rattled against the cup. “When it came to a quick pick-up, Ewan liked to scrape the bottom of the barrel.”

  John Winters was getting very, very tired of Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth.

  “Come on Wendy, that’s unfair,” Rob said. “He liked women. Women liked him.”

  “He did not ‘like women’.” Wendy crushed a Christmas cookie between her fingers. Pale crumbs fell onto her lap. “He liked sex. There’s a difference, you know. That he’s dead doesn’t change the fact that he was an arrogant bastard.”

  Jeremy gave a mean laugh, and selected a mince tart. “Way to go, Wendy. Tell it like it is. Ewan didn’t give a shit for women. He wanted sex, and he knew how to get it. He was a good looking guy with a deep voice, and a lot of money to throw around.”

  Winters said nothing.

  “And well hung, whew. He was almost as big as me.” Jeremy laughed. No one else did. “He was short and skinny, but I guess he thought the size of his prick made up for that. Ewan would have screwed anything that moved on two legs. Although I’m only guessing at the two legs bit. Wouldn’t have surprised me if, when supply ran short, he’d gone after the four legged ones as well.”

  Ellie Carmine sucked in a breath.

  “So, Lieutenant or Sergeant or whatever you are, if you’re wondering why we weren’t all that concerned about our missing pal, we assumed he was warm and comfy in some slut’s bed, or, failing that, rutting in a stable somewhere. And, as long as we’re talking things out, Jason wasn’t…”

  A side table, all gold gilt on spindly legs, crashed to th
e floor. A mug bounced on the rug, spilling tea. “Don’t you dare say anything against Jason,” Wendy shouted. She was on her feet, her face red and her fists clenched.

  “Earth to Wendy. The truth is out there.” He stuffed the entire tart into his mouth.

  Rob helped Wendy back to her seat. “Never mind him. Jeremy’s always been a jealous bugger. Any woman who preferred Ewan or Jason to him obviously had something wrong with her.”

  “Enough,” Winters said, before Jeremy could reply. “I’m not interested in your petty rivalries.” Although he definitely was, but it was time to move this on. Ewan Williams left the B&B apparently looking for some action. Until they found the woman, if she existed, that led Winters precisely nowhere.

  “I don’t see why you’re wasting everyone’s time with all these questions,” Rob said. “In his own crude way, Jeremy’s probably right. Ewan spent Sunday night and Monday with a girl he’d picked up. None of your business, unless that’s become a crime and no one bothered to tell us. Then he called Jason and they managed to find a bar that was open, had a couple of drinks to give them some Christmas spirit and ended up in the river on the way back here. Sad, but not criminal.”

  “It’s my time to waste,” Winters said. “Did Jason get a phone call on Christmas Eve?”

  “I don’t know! We didn’t keep him under armed guard, you know. Can’t you check his phone calls or something?”

  Everyone knew too much these days, or thought they did, about police methods. Ewan and Jason both had cell phones on them. Completely ruined by their immersion in the icy river. Winters had put in a request for the phone records of the dead men but had yet to hear back. It was a slow week everywhere.

  “Tell me about Jason,” he said.

  “Jason, my brother, was…,” Wendy began.

  Winters lifted a hand. Bad choice of words. He wasn’t here to listen to the virtues, as many as they might be, of Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth. “I mean, tell me about the day after Ewan’s disappearance. The…” Wendy was staring at him. Her eyes and nose were red, the skin around her eyes puffy. She lifted a tissue to her face.

  Never mind all the doubts he had about this crowd: Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth was a woman in mourning, and in a precarious mental state.