Winter of Secrets

by Vicki Delany

  Lucky’s heart almost cracked in two. Better for Lorraine to think that after Jason’s death his cold-hearted family shunned her than to be abandoned in Trafalgar, waiting for word as days turned into weeks, and weeks into months. Which would have happened had Jason lived and gone back to Toronto, laughing all the way at how easy it had been to capture the heart, and the body, of a small-town girl. Whenever he bothered to think of her.

  “Forget his family,” she said. “Let them take Jason home. Only you know they’re not taking the truth of his life with him.” Wasn’t that a mouthful of trash?

  “You’re right, Mrs. Smith. His family would have fought us all the way, wouldn’t they, once Jason and I were properly engaged. I was afraid they’d disinherit him, but Jason said not to worry because he had an inheritance from an aunt that would be enough to at least get us settled into our own apartment. And then I could work and he’d stop taking vacations and finish his studies as fast as possible.”

  Lorraine pulled a tissue, heavily worn with use, out of her pocket and blew her nose. Lucky fished in her bag and found a small package. She pushed it across the table. Lorraine took one and held it to her eyes. “Jason’s friends are bad enough, but that Wendy, she’s the worst. I know about her. Things Jason told me. She can’t afford all the stuff she wants, but she keeps buying them anyway. His dad used to pay her bills, but her mom told him she had to start standing on her own. Once Jason graduated and became a doctor, I’d be able to have nice stuff too, like Wendy has.” She touched the gold hoop in her right ear.

  “Never mind that, Lorraine. Stuff isn’t worth all that much, you know.”

  “Yeah, right. Tell it to people like Alan and Sophie and Jeremy. The only nice one of all of them is Rob. Have you met Rob?”

  “Yes, I have.”

  “I like Rob. Kathy Carmine’s got the hots for him. It’s positively pathetic.”

  Not for the first time, Lucky wondered at the human capacity for self-deception.

  “I wasn’t sorry to hear Ewan died, Mrs. Smith.” The tears had stopped and Lorraine shredded the tissue in her fingers. “Only that he’d taken Jason with him.” She gave Lucky a knowing look. “Ewan wasn’t a nice man. He had a real problem with women, you know. I’d say he hated them and used them for sex in the same way you use a tissue to blow your nose. Something you throw away after.” She tossed her own tissue toward the garbage can in the corner. She missed and the dog picked it up.

  Young as she was, Lorraine had learned a thing or two in the back alleys.

  “Ewan wasn’t like Jason. Jason was a one-woman man. Isn’t that a great saying, Mrs. Smith? Once Jason found me, he didn’t want anyone else. He and Ewan had been best friends since grade school. Jason didn’t like the man Ewan had grown up to be, but what could he do? They were best friends forever, right?”

  Lucky swallowed a gag.

  “Ewan didn’t care about women or their feelings. Why he even went after his friends’ girlfriends. Alan and Ewan almost got into a fight over Sophie before they even got to Trafalgar. Some friends, eh?”

  Lorraine stopped talking. She rubbed at her face, as if trying to scrub away the memories. She looked at Lucky. “Despite it all, no matter how much Jason disliked the things Ewan did, they were best friends forever. And they stayed best friends as they marched into the face of death. I’d like to find a friend like that. Wouldn’t you, Mrs. Smith?”

  The romanticism of the very young. Still alive in Lorraine, despite all that the girl had been through. Or perhaps stronger because of it.

  Lucky got to her feet. “If you need to talk, Lorraine, any time, please call me.” Lucky dug into her bag for her card with her name and contact information at the store. She found a pen and wrote her home number on the back. She pressed the card into Lorraine’s hand.

  ***

  John Winters needed to speak to Gary LeBlanc. According to Mrs. James, Jason had been at the LeBlanc house the night before Christmas Eve, where he and Gary had argued. Presumably Gary had found Jason with his sister and thrown the young man out. According to Lorraine, Jason had been at her home around dinnertime the following day, Christmas Eve. Gary said he hadn’t been there. Jason left around nine, telling Lorraine he was going back to the B&B to join his friends, and saying he’d call her when it was time for her to come over.

  Had Gary arrived home as Jason was leaving and been angry at him for being in the house after having been thrown out the day before? If so, that might go a long way toward explaining the situation if it had been Jason who’d been killed that night. But it hadn’t. Jason had been alive several hours later when his car went into the river. It had been his friend Ewan who’d already been dead.

  What had Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth done between leaving the house on Aspen Street and failing to make the turn on Elm Street?

  Was it possible Gary had followed the yellow SUV and later mistaken Ewan for Jason and killed him without looking into the boy’s face? Ewan had suffered a blow to the back of the skull. No, the timing of that was off—Ewan had, according to Doctor Lee, died before Christmas Eve night.

  But that scenario could have happened the previous night.

  He needed to have another chat with Gary LeBlanc.

  He’d tried the LeBlanc house after leaving Mrs. James, but no one came to the door and there hadn’t been a car in the driveway. When he’d visited yesterday with Molly, Gary had been in the house, but there’d been no sign of a vehicle. If Gary was just out of jail he might not have a license or a car. Winters punched a search into the van’s computer as he drove toward town. He then called Jim Denton on the dispatch desk and requested that officers keep an eye on 484 Aspen Street and let him know if they saw Gary.

  Back in his office, he checked the computer. He needed to find someone, anyone, who’d seen Ewan Williams after he left his friends around 5:30 on Sunday—Christmas Eve Eve, Mrs. James’ grandchildren called it. Nothing. Zip. Nada. Ewan had met a girl on the ski hill that day, no one his friends recognized, and ate lunch with her. He’d driven back to town in the yellow SUV with everyone and had gone out, almost immediately. His friends assumed he’d gone to meet the girl. Winters had absolutely no idea of who the ski-girl was. The newspaper story he’d planted with Meredith wouldn’t be out at least until tomorrow, and with Monday being New Year’s Eve, anyone who could tell him anything might not even read the paper.

  An idea came to him. He turned to his computer, looked up a number and picked up the phone.

  Chapter Twenty

  Molly Smith hadn’t liked the gleam in her mother’s eyes when Lucky dropped her off. But as she couldn’t decipher the gleam, and probably didn’t want to, she let it go.

  She climbed the stairs to her apartment and let herself in. She’d only been gone for a few hours, but the place seemed cold and empty. When ski season was over and she got some time perhaps she’d start looking for a way to personalize this place.

  She sliced a bagel and popped it into the toaster. While it browned, she went to the front window. The street was quiet, the ski tourists all out for the day. She curled up in the single armchair in her living room.

  ***

  A very angry bee was trying very hard to get out of a glass bottle.

  Smith blinked. Not a bee, but her phone.

  She fumbled in her pocket and dragged it out.

  “Sleeping, Molly?” Sergeant Winters.

  Oh, no. She’d fallen asleep and missed showing up for her shift. In a panic she pulled at her sleeve and checked her watch. One o’clock: she wasn’t due in until three.

  “Just resting. What’s up?”

  “I know you’re on afternoons, but I need you to do something for me earlier. I’ve run it past the acting Sergeant and he agrees with the overtime. Before you come in for your shift, go up to Blue Sky. Wear your uniform, this is official.”

  ***

  Heads turned as Molly Smith walked into the main lounge of the Blue Sky Ski Resort. Too bad, she thought, it was not because of h
er style or her beauty but because she was dressed in full uniform. As out of place in this room packed with skiers as if she’d been wearing a sarong and had a hibiscus tucked behind one ear.

  She tried not to grin with embarrassment and made her way to the security office.

  “Hey, Constable Molly. What’s up? You look quite formal.”

  “I’m here on business, Fred.”

  The Chief of Security’s face darkened. “Trouble?”

  “Long over. I need to ask your people about something that happened a week ago. I’m not a detective, but I guess they sent me ‘cause I’m known around here. Can I talk to the staff? It’s the lodge staff I’m most interested in, not the people outside.”

  “Sure, Molly. Whatever you need. Want to start with me?”

  She pulled Ewan Williams’ picture out of her pocket and handed it across the desk. “This guy was here several times before Christmas. I’m particularly interested in December twenty-third. That was a Sunday. I’m looking for a woman he had lunch with. She’s dark haired, early twenties, attractive, quite short. She was wearing a white ski suit. That’s all I know.”

  Fred Stockdale leaned back in his chair. He caressed his beer-belly with one hand, reminding Smith of a pregnant woman in deep contemplation, while the other held the photograph. “Means nothing to me,” he said at last. “We get so many of these types in here every day, they’re all a blur to me.” He stood up and gave back the picture. “Let’s go talk to the staff. If you’re lucky someone will remember serving him. A girl might; he’s a good looking guy.”

  She was lucky. The lunch rush was over and the kitchen staff had time to give the picture a good look. “Oh, yes,” the young woman who tossed salads said with a happy sigh. “I remember him, all right. Such a doll. With a smile that would melt my grandmother’s frozen heart. And she’s been dead for ten years.” The two women angling to get a look at the picture laughed.

  “Not local,” one of the boys said, in a tone that explained it all. “Tourist.” He wiped his hands on his once-white apron. “What’s he done?”

  Reports of Ewan and Jason’s deaths had been in the local paper, but no pictures of the dead men.

  Smith told the serving line staff she needed to find the woman he might have had lunch with one day. They looked at each other. “I remember him,” the salad girl said, “’cause he wasn’t the only cute one. His friend was quite the dish as well. But I didn’t see him with a girl.”

  “I did,” another woman said. She was a good bit older than the others, almost as round as she was tall with hair more gray than blond. Her apron was streaked with grease. “There was this girl from Quebec. She gave me lip because she didn’t think the fries had been cooked long enough. Take it or leave it, I said. The lineup was almost to the door and here she was telling me to prepare her fries just so. He,” she gestured to the photograph of Ewan, “told her to go back to Quebec if she wasn’t happy with B.C. cuisine. She left her tray right there on the counter and stormed off in a huff. She acted like a bitch, but he wasn’t any better, I thought. He’d really goaded her.”

  The salad woman said, “One day, I can’t remember exactly when, he bought a ton of food. We’d just started setting up for lunch and were busy with prep, so I didn’t have time to watch what he did with it. Looked like he was feeding an army.”

  All of which was of no help. There was no doubt Ewan and his friends had spent time at the Blue Sky resort. The group made an impression everywhere they went. Not always for the good.

  Unfortunately the serving staff couldn’t remember Ewan eating lunch with anyone in particular.

  Stockdale accompanied her into the kitchen. Pots boiled and frying pans sizzled. She remembered the salmon burger she’d never had the chance to eat the last time she’d been here. The kitchen staff obediently looked at her picture, but no one recognized Ewan. Not a surprise—he would have been unlikely to venture into the kitchen.

  “Lift operators?” Stockdale asked.

  “I guess.” She wasn’t optimistic. All day long, the lift operators saw nothing but the shape of bodies and if they did look at faces, they were likely to see nothing much more than goggles and helmets.

  But she asked anyway, and got the answers she expected.

  “The glamorous life of a detective,” Stockdale said as they walked back to the lodge.

  “Let’s check ski patrol before I give up,” she said. “Someone might have been having lunch at the time in question and seen something.”

  Stockdale’s radio squawked. “Be right there,” he said. He turned to Molly. “Someone’s remembered something.”

  The woman who cooked the fries met them as they came through the doors. A young woman in slim white jeans and a white sweater with the Blue Sky logo over the right pocket stood beside her. She was much shorter than Molly and as thin as a ski pole. Her long hair, black highlighted with streaks of copper, swung in a ponytail that reached halfway down her back. Her skin was golden, with high flat cheekbones, and she was exceptionally pretty.

  “Show the picture to Marilyn,” the woman said.

  Smith held it out and the girl took it.

  “That’s him,” she said, almost immediately. “Positive.”

  “Marilyn’s my daughter,” the woman explained. “She’s a cashier. She was on her break when you came by. I told her about the guy you’re looking for and she asked to have a look. Right, dear?”

  “I can talk, you know, Mom,” Marilyn said.

  “You remember seeing this man?” Smith asked.

  “Yes, I do.” Marilyn glanced at her mother out of the corner of her eyes.

  Smith said, “Thank you very much, Mrs.…”

  “Monroe. I’m Janice Monroe.”

  That would make her daughter’s name…Marilyn Monroe? Marilyn read Smith’s face. She was probably used to the expression. “I’m Marilyn Chow. When my parents divorced my mother went back to her maiden name. I chose not to change.”

  No need to wonder why.

  “Thank you for your help, Ms. Monroe. I don’t want to keep you any longer,” Smith said. A small lineup was forming at the serving counter. Although no one seemed in much of a hurry to be served: they were all watching the police officer question the women.

  “You can go back to work now, Janice.” Stockdale said, not as politely as Smith had done.

  Janice Monroe tilted her chin and returned to her station. Marilyn sighed audibly.

  “I’m not actually looking for this man,” Smith said. “He…uh…isn’t missing. But we would like to speak to a woman he met here, at the resort, on December twenty-third. She was dressed in a white ski suit. They had lunch together. If you can give me any information about the woman, I’d appreciate it.”

  “Why?” she said. Her dark eyes studied Smith.

  “As part of an ongoing police investigation.”

  “Which doesn’t answer my question, but never mind.” Marilyn took a step backward and held out her arms. “Not exactly ski clothes. But this might be white enough for you. I had lunch with the guy in the photo that day.”

  A man was leaning off the edge of his chair, so obviously trying to hear better he was about to drop onto the floor. Smith glanced at Stockdale.

  “My office,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  Marilyn Chow had met Ewan Williams on December twenty-second when he paid for his lunch. He’d smiled and flirted and she hissed at him that he’d get her fired if he didn’t move on. He paid twenty dollars too much for his food. She put the money in the tip jar to share with the rest of the staff.

  He took a table close to the checkouts and watched her as he ate his lunch. Meal finished he bought a coffee. Coffee drunk, he went for a slice of blueberry pie. His friends had stopped at his table, and asked why he wasn’t sitting with them. ‘Because I’ve found the spot that has the perfect view’ he’d said, with one eye on Marilyn. His friends had gone off shaking their heads.

  Time came for her break and she’d left her c
heckout. He stood up as she passed his table. “I’m in a relationship,” she said, and ran for the stairs.

  He didn’t follow.

  The next morning he was in the breakfast line. As he paid for his coffee he pulled a fresh red rose out of the inside pocket of his jacket. “What time do you take lunch?” he asked.

  Marilyn was in a relationship, but it was getting wobbly. “Eleven,” she’d said. “Before the rush.”

  “I’ll reserve a table.”

  At ten to eleven he walked into the lodge. He gathered up his friends’ backpacks and placed them across the seats at a long table in an alcove toward the back, thus reserving the entire area.

  He slipped up behind her, as she accepted the money for two hot chocolates, and whispered, “Anything you don’t eat, Madame?”

  Charmed, she’d laughed. “I eat anything and everything.”

  He soon was back to pay, pushing two trays along the line. Salmon burger with side salad, spinach salad, sweet potato soup, hamburger and fries, curried chicken and rice, Thai noodle salad, scrambled tofu.

  “Anything and everything,” he said as she racked up the bill.

  Yes, yes. All terribly charming. Smith steered the conversation to the evening in question.

  “He didn’t show,” Marilyn said.

  “You were going to meet where?”

  “Six o’clock at the Bishop and Nun in Trafalgar. I waited for an hour and left. I don’t hang around in bars waiting for men who can’t be bothered to show up.”

  Smith would bet a year’s pay that Marilyn was not accustomed to being stood up.

  Marilyn had taken the visitor’s chair in Stockdale’s office. The security chief sat behind his own desk. Molly Smith leaned against the wall. Marilyn was so tiny, so incredibly lovely, that she made Smith, in her heavy boots, uniform and gunbelt, feel like Godzilla.

  “And that was the end of that.” The girl shrugged. “I gave him my number. He never called.”