Winter of Secrets

by Vicki Delany

  “No reason,” Rob yelled. His lip was split and leaking blood. The skin around his right eye was already changing color. “All you’ve done since we got the news about Jason and Ewan is make snide insinuations.” Kathy slipped behind him and put a hand on the small of his back. He didn’t seem to notice.

  Jeremy’s body stiffened as, despite the presence of three police officers, violence began to creep back in. “Why don’t you do us all a favor and go back to your fucking computer?”

  It wasn’t her place to do anything without orders, but Molly Smith was so tired of this bunch of spoiled brats. And on a day that had started so nicely with a steaming mocha and a bag of fresh croissants and skis on the roof of her car. “Jeremy Wozenack, I’m sick to death of seeing your face. This is the second time in one day I’ve been called out to find you in a brawl. You’re under arrest.”

  Rob chuckled.

  “What the hell, you can’t arrest me.” Jeremy turned to his friends. “Ask anyone, he attacked me. Didn’t he? Didn’t he? Tell her, Alan.”

  Alan was rubbing at his forearm. “From what I saw, he made a fist like a first-grader and you came back like Mohammed Ali. Other than that, I don’t much care.”

  “He started it,” Kathy said, pointing at Jeremy. “He attacked Rob with no provocation at all.”

  “That’s a fucking lie. Christ, you weren’t even here, kid. Think making up a story’s going to get you a date, think again.”

  “Mr. Wozenack, right now it doesn’t matter one whit who started what. A judge will decide that. I’m arresting you because I don’t want to be called out any more today. Got it?”

  “Think I’m going to be taken away by a blond bitch in an ugly red hat? Think again, lady.”

  Smith felt heat rising into her face. They were all watching her. Particularly her mother. Lucky’s lips were pinched. That meant that she was about to explode in righteous indignation. At Molly for acting like a storm trooper or at Jeremy for calling her daughter a bitch. No matter. Molly Smith could only do what she had to do.

  “Turn around,” she said.

  “No.”

  “Constable Solway.” Smith half-turned toward Dawn. She felt as much as heard Jeremy Wozenack exhale and start to relax as he assumed he’d forced her to step down. She whirled around and grabbed his left arm. With a sharp twist she had him facing the wall, struggling to keep his footing.

  “Nice.” Solway snapped handcuffs on.

  Smith let out a puff of breath that meant thanks. Jeremy let out a stream of abuse.

  Solway spoke to Jeremy. “Let’s go.”

  “Constable Smith,” Winters said. “Help Constable Solway take him to the station. I’ll stay for a while longer.” He held out his hand. Smith gave him the keys to the vehicle.

  Smith and Solway headed for the door. Other than informing the two women of his opinion of their sexual proclivities and those of their parents, Jeremy didn’t put up any resistance.

  “Now, perhaps someone will tell me what’s going on here. And you,” Winters said to Rob, “don’t start thinking you’re in the clear just because you’re not being escorted out like your friend.”

  “That’s so unfair,” Kathy Carmine said. “It wasn’t Rob’s fault…”

  Smith opened the front door.

  A man’s hand was raised to knock. Mr. Wyatt-Yarmouth, Wendy and Jason’s father. His eyes opened wide and he took a step back. He slipped on the stair and his arms windmilled as he struggled to keep from falling. Solway reached out her free hand to offer support, but he kept his footing without it.

  “What on earth?” he said.

  “If you’ll excuse us, sir,” Smith said.

  Jeremy, fortunately, didn’t say anything.

  Wyatt-Yarmouth peered at her. “Didn’t I see you the other night at the restaurant?”

  “Perhaps. Good evening, sir.”

  “Wait, just a minute, please, is my wife here?”

  “I don’t believe so, sir.”

  “You’re with the police?” Mr. Wyatt-Yarmouth said. As if he’d finally understood that two women, one in full uniform, the other wearing a police jacket, escorting a handcuffed prisoner with a bleeding nose, might be real officers and not girls dressed up for a costume party. He coughed. “Perhaps it’s fortunate I’ve run into you…uh…ladies.”

  “Why’s that, sir?” Smith said.

  Solway gave Smith a nod around Jeremy and gave him a prod toward the car.

  “Well,” Wyatt-Yarmouth said. “It’s that…Well you see. I mean…”

  “Sir, is there a problem?”

  “Yes, there is. My wife has gone missing.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ellie Carmine had an attack of the vapors. Sophie Dion forgot how to speak English. Alan Robertson insisted that he didn’t need to go to the hospital, although no one had offered to take him there. Kathy Carmine wept and moaned over Rob Fitzgerald’s minor wounds with as much drama as if he’d been bayoneted in the Charge of the Light Brigade. Lucky Smith walked around the room picking up shards of glass.

  Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth walked into a scene of total chaos. His daughter stopped crying, breathed in what bit of fragile strength she still possessed and approached him.

  “Hi Dad,” she said. “Sorry. I guess I’m late for dinner, eh? I’ll run upstairs and tidy up and be right with you.” She looked around the room. “Might be just us tonight, though.”

  “Is your mother here?” Jack said. Without a hug or a kiss or even a question as to why rivers of black mascara scarred her cheeks.

  He didn’t even seem too concerned at why the Christmas tree was leaning against the wall, Mrs. Carmine keening over broken decorations, Alan trying to get Sophie to come upstairs, Kathy rubbing Rob’s face while he swatted at her eager fingers, as if they carried swarms of starving mosquitoes.

  “I don’t know where Mom is,” Wendy said.

  Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth turned to Winters. “I’m glad I found you here, Sergeant. My wife has gone missing. This is unusual behavior, and I have to tell you that I fear for her safety.”

  Wendy fell into a chair. “No more,” she moaned, “please no more.”

  Wendy, Winters thought, alone among this pack of drama kings and queens, truly needs some help.

  “When did you see her last, sir?” He stepped into the hallway, willing Jack to follow.

  “We had breakfast together, at a restaurant in town, around nine.”

  Winters checked his watch. “It’s eight o’clock. You must realize we can’t consider this to be a missing person case with less than twelve hours having passed.”

  “Look here, Sergeant. My wife and I have come to your charming town to collect the body of our son. Since arriving we have been told that the body is not going to be released, pending further investigation. Whatever that means. Our family dinner was interrupted by a street person to such a degree that the police had to be called. And tonight I can not find my wife.”

  “Careless of you.”

  Winters turned. Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth stood in the doorway. Her eyes were red, nose and cheeks matching. She held a crumpled tissue in one hand.

  “Go and wash your face,” Jack told his daughter.

  “Won’t help,” she said.

  Ellie crept past them, heading toward the kitchen. In the common room Alan said something about going home, and Kathy told Rob she’d help him manage the stairs.

  Winters had no idea what Lucky Smith was up to, and that worried him.

  Wendy blew her nose. “Mom’s out of her mind with grief. Can’t you let her have some time to herself?”

  “For once in your life, you stupid child, will you at least pretend to have a modicum of common sense. My wife will not be allowed to wander the streets by herself.”

  Wendy turned to John Winters. “So there we have it. Mom will not be allowed to grieve or to mourn as she sees fit. I’ve had it. I’m going to bed. You can expect to see me at your door in the morning, Dad. I don’t expect the Glacier Chale
t B&B will be all that hospitable tomorrow, at least toward those of us who threw an illumined blacksmith’s shop against the wall.”

  Wyatt-Yarmouth sputtered.

  “I haven’t met your wife, sir,” Winters said. “But I believe Constable Smith, who you just passed, has. I’ll stop in at the station and ask her for a description. As I said, we can’t issue an alert for an adult this early, but I will ask our officers to contact me if they see her.”

  “I would have expected, Sergeant Winters, that in light of my wife’s state of mind…”

  “Shut the hell up, Dad,” Wendy said. “You’re the last person to know Mom’s state of mind. Why don’t you just go away?”

  Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth gaped at her, and Winters guessed the man didn’t normally encounter outright mutiny from his family.

  “You’re still at the Mountainside Inn?” Winters said, before Jack could reply to his daughter.

  “Sadly, yes. It seems the town is full.”

  “Call here tomorrow. I expect there’ll be rooms available.” Wendy turned and walked away.

  “Children,” Wyatt-Yarmouth said, “are not worth the bother.”

  “Do you have a cell phone?”

  “Yes.”

  “Give me the number. I’ll call you if we locate your wife. But be aware we’ll first ask her if she wants us to contact you.”

  “I trust you’ll remember that my wife is an important woman. She is a recipient of the Order of Canada. I myself am on the board…”

  “Number?” Winters tapped his pen against the notebook he’d pulled out of his pocket.

  Wyatt-Yarmouth spat it out.

  Winters wrote it down, before looking pointedly toward the door.

  Wyatt-Yarmouth didn’t take the hint. “My daughter seems to be not herself. I’d better check on her.”

  “Please, don’t worry.” A short, chubby red-headed bundle stepped out from the common room, where she’d obviously been listening from behind a wall. She held out her hand. “I’m Lucy Smith. My friends call me Lucky.”

  Wyatt-Yarmouth took her hand. Lucky folded it into both of hers. “Please don’t worry,” she repeated. “I’ll check on Wendy. I have a daughter of my own that age.”

  Winters refrained from rolling his eyes. Good thing Lucky’s last name was Smith. If it had been something noticeable, like, say, Wyatt-Yarmouth, Jack would have immediately connected it to the police officer and objected to Lucky’s interference. Winters knew that it made no difference who, and what, Lucky’s daughter was, but not many people would see it that way.

  “Thank you,” Jack said.

  “I’ll let you know if I hear anything.” Winters edged the man toward the door. It didn’t help that Lucky was still holding his hands and looking into his eyes. Finally Wyatt-Yarmouth broke away, turned, and stumbled down the steps.

  Winters did, in fact, plan to do something about the absent Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth. This wasn’t a normal disappearance by any means. The woman’s only son had died days ago, and the body wasn’t being released so she could make arrangements and try to find some sort of peace. He couldn’t do much, yet, to search for her, but he’d ask everyone to be on the lookout. It was Saturday so officers would be in and out of the bars all night. Mrs. Wyatt-Yarmouth was probably sitting in a hotel lounge, in a better bar than anything in the vicinity of the Mountainside Inn, nursing a quiet drink, wanting to be left alone to remember her son when he’d been a laughing, mischievous boy with all the promise of the world ahead of him.

  He turned to see Lucky Smith watching him.

  “Are you going to tell me what’s been going on here tonight?” Winters asked. People were talking in the common room. A woman was crying and a man spoke in a low voice full of anger. “Is there someplace we can talk in private?”

  “We’d be best outside, if you’re looking for privacy.” Lucky was wearing her black winter coat, a lush blue scarf wrapped around her neck. “After you.”

  They stood on the porch watching the snow fall.

  “They’re upset about the death of their friends, John.”

  “A friend of mine died two years ago. I’d say, without reservation, that he was the best friend I ever had. We met the first day on the job, both of us young and keen. We were best men at each other’s weddings. I’ve the honor of being godfather to his oldest son. He was killed in what some would call a car accident.”

  “What some would call?” she repeated, turning the statement into a question.

  “My friend was a patrol officer. All he ever aspired to be. He was standing at the side of a pleasant road in one of the best parts of town, writing out a ticket for a guy going too fast through a school zone when he was sideswiped by a car that was going much too fast through a school zone.”

  “That must have been hard for you to deal with.”

  “Hard, yes. But you know what, Lucky? I didn’t smash up my house, or knock around the next person who walked by. I didn’t even stake out the perp’s home and vandalize it when he wasn’t there.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “For once, justice was done, and the driver, despite being a pillar of the community and a deacon of his church, was found to have been drunk at the time and sent away to a place where he is, even as we speak, considering the evil of his ways.”

  Lucky Smith reached out her hand, palm turned up. Winters looked at it. For a moment, just a moment, he considered taking the offering. Instead, he continued, “What I’m telling you, Lucky, is that I don’t particularly care how much these people are hurting. I need you to tell me what the fight was about.”

  “John, we’ve had dealings before.”

  And wasn’t that the truth?

  “I will.” Her eyes shifted and she looked everywhere but at him. “Never, ever, forget what you did for Moonlight, for my daughter, when she was held in…that place.”

  “I did,” he said, almost choking back the tears himself, “all the job requires. But we’re not talking about Molly. This is about the bunch staying in the Glacier Chalet B&B.”

  There wasn’t a great deal she could tell him. Rob and Jeremy had been snapping at each other in such a way that it was almost certain to turn physical. Alan and Sophie wanted to be left alone but found that they couldn’t. Wendy was mad at everything and everyone. Her dead brother and her parents most of all. Oh, and Kathy Carmine was besotted with Rob, who was embarrassed to be seen with her. That, Winters reflected, was pretty much what Molly had told him.

  He let out a breath, watching it gather shape and form in the cold night air.

  “Ewan and Jason,” Lucky said. “I never met them. Their friends are mourning, in their own way. Why is this dragging on? Can’t you just let them take the boys home?”

  He looked into her intelligent green eyes. “This goes no further than this porch? Will you agree, Lucky? Or not?”

  “I promise. Not a word.”

  And he told her what Doctor Lee had found.

  She ran her fingers across the top of the railings, scooping up fresh snow. Her hands were bare but she held the snow and crushed it into a ball. “Difficult,” she said at last. “For every one. I told her father I’d look after Wendy, and so I should.” She pulled at the edges of the blue scarf. “Thank you,” she said, and went back into the house.

  ***

  Finally, Molly Smith went home. Dawn said she’d take care of booking Jeremy Wozenack into one of their best rooms. Once he’d been settled into the back seat of the patrol car, Jeremy had let them know that as soon as his father heard about this vendetta Smith seemed to be carrying on, he’d sue her for everything she was worth, and the Trafalgar City Police along with it.

  “That’s your privilege,” Solway said.

  Oh, and his nose might be broken; he had to see a doctor immediately.

  Smith let herself into her apartment. The room was cold and dark. Perhaps she should get a cat, someone to greet her when she got home. But, she reminded herself, she wasn’t much of a cat person.
Dogs had always been the Smith family’s pets. She couldn’t even consider getting a dog with her hours.

  She took off her gloves and boots and hung her jacket in the closet before going into the bedroom, undoing her ski pants as she walked. Clothes tossed into a corner, she dug under her pillow for cozy flannel pajamas.

  The doorbell rang.

  She groaned.

  This apartment was rooms over a shop: it didn’t come with luxuries like an intercom. If she wanted to know who was calling, she had to walk down the stairs. She was in her bra and panties. She considered not answering: if it was work they would have called first.

  The bell rang again. She dug in the closet for a pair of baggy track suit bottoms and a ratty old sweater, and ran down the steps. A peephole was set into the door.

  Gary LeBlanc.

  Abandoning the bell, he hammered on the door with his fists.

  She opened it. “Gary, you can’t come to my home. If you need to talk to someone, go to the police station.”

  “I don’t want to talk to someone, Moonlight. I want to talk to you. I’m sorry to bother you at home, but, I saw you walking by and knew you weren’t asleep or anything.”

  Meaning he’d either been waiting for her in the shadows or watching the police station and followed her.

  “I’m back at work tomorrow at three. You can talk to me then.”

  “I’d rather this wasn’t official.”

  Oh, God, let him not be wanting a date. “Gary, I only ever work officially. And if you know anything about Lorraine and the Wyatt-Yarmouth/Williams case you need to talk to Sergeant Winters. Not me. Good-night.”

  She began to shut the door.

  He stepped forward.

  “Take one more step and you’re threatening a police officer.”

  He lifted both his hands, palms facing out. “Sorry, Moonlight, sorry. Look, it’s hard for me. I want to do what I can for Lorraine, but I’ve been away. Plus I’m a guy. I need a woman’s advice.”

  “Then you’ve come knocking on the wrong door. I’m not a woman, I’m a police officer. My mom volunteers at the Trafalgar Women’s Support Center. Go see them tomorrow morning.”