Winter of Secrets (8 page)

Those had been good days for sure.

The glove-and-sock-purchasing local said hi to Lucky and left the store. She prepared to follow.

“Lucky,” Flower said. “Can I speak to you for a minute?” Her face was drawn into serious lines.

“Sure.” Lucky rounded the counter. “What’s the matter?”

Flower lowered her voice. Lucky leaned closer in order to hear. “I think we’ve been robbed.”

“What?”

“See those goggles over there? End of the table beside the helmets?”

Lucky looked. The table featured a display of ski accessories. Helmets, gloves, a pair of very expensive goggles.

“Half hour ago, there were two goggles.”

Lucky looked around the store. The outsider had decided that white wasn’t what she wanted and asked Andy to find her a colorful jacket in the same size. She carried a shoulder bag not large enough to conceal anything bigger than a deck of cards. The man looking at snowshoes took a pair down from the wall. Unless he’d stuffed them into his coat pocket he didn’t have the goggles.

The snow-covered group picked their way through the goods. Just browsing.

“Are you sure?” Lucky asked Flower. “Maybe Andy sold it.”

“I’ve been the only one on cash for the last couple of hours. It didn’t go through me, Lucky. There were three of them sitting there when I got back from lunch. Andy sold one about an hour ago. Half-hour or so ago, I noticed that the goggles—both of them—had been knocked askew. I was about to go and adjust them, when we got busy. Next time I looked up, one was left and no one around who might have picked them up while thinking about buying them.”

Andy escorted his customer to the check out. She’d chosen a tight-fitting pink ski jacket that, in Lucky’s opinion, did absolutely nothing for a woman in her fifties with hair dyed as red as a rotting tomato.

Flower smiled at her and accepted the garment. “I’ve had my eyes on this myself,” she said. “It looks fabulous on you.”

The woman beamed and pulled out a credit card.

Lucky drew Andy to the side and told him what Flower had told her.

He sighed heavily. “Can you do a quick search of the store? Look under tables and check the change room. If nothing, I’ll call the cops, although that’ll be a waste of time.”

He looked so dejected Lucky knew she’d been right—he’d been planning on following her home.

Chapter Ten

Molly Smith worked her shift in robot mode. She guided traffic around the mess of cars on George Street. A car with Florida plates and no winter tires slid off the road into a ditch. A fight broke out at the Bishop and Nun, apparently over a girl who decided that she’d found someone more to her liking. She answered a call of a theft from, of all places, her parents’ store. An expensive pair of ski goggles, allegedly snatched in the middle of the day in the middle of a crowed shop.

She’d seen Lorraine LeBlanc wandering down Front Street, her face white and her gaze blank. Smith hadn’t spoken to her since Christmas Eve so she pulled up to ask how the girl was doing. Lorraine had tugged at the straps of her big bag and basically told Smith to take up sex and traveling.

She had not been called to report to the Chief Constable. Her fellow officers continued to speak to her without sneers or smothered laughter or looks of pity.

Shortly before six o’clock, she headed back to the station ready to close out her shift. Jim Denton smiled at her as she unzipped her jacket and pulled off her gloves. “Plans for tonight, Molly?”

Plans? Other than finding a redirection for her life?

“Nothing. Uh, has the CC left?”

“Long ago. Meeting at city council. Must be as boring as all hell.”

“You got that right.” Barb rounded the corner. “Hi, Molly. I saw your mom and dad at the fundraiser for the environmental coalition the other night. I talked to your dad for a while. He’ll never say so, of course, but he’s so proud of you.” Barb smiled at Denton. “Remember what it was like to be young, Jim? When our parents cared about what we did?”

“I was never that young,” he said. “My kids would rather die than admit their old man’s a cop.”

Barb laughed. Everyone knew that Jim Denton’s two children doted on their dad.

Smith searched around for a mouse hole to crawl into. Finding nothing suitable, she said to Barb, “Anything of importance happening? Say between the Chief and Sergeant Winters?”

“Steam was almost pouring from the top of John’s head, he was in such a fever to speak to the boss. You know I wouldn’t tell you anything they talked about, Molly, but it doesn’t matter as they shut the door. See you tomorrow, guys.”

Tomorrow
. Would she still be working here tomorrow?

“Are you okay, Molly?” Denton said, as the door closed behind Barb. “You don’t look too well.”

“Just the cold. It always makes my face red.”

“I’d say you’re the opposite, very pale.”

Dawn Solway came in, stomping snow off her boots. “One more shift, should I live so long, and I’m outa here. Hawaii here I come.”

Molly Smith had never been to tropical climes. She liked the winter too much. At this moment, however, Hawaii was looking like a promising destination. Although Outer Mongolia might be even better.

“Going by yourself, Dawn?” Denton asked.

Solway winked. “Top secret. I’d tell you, but then I’d have to kill you.” They could hear her laughing as she headed down the corridor.

“Someone’s in a good mood,” Denton said. “Unlike the thundercloud standing in front of me.”

Smith walked around the desk to stand beside the dispatcher. She leaned over and whispered, “Jim, if you hear anything about, well about me, in the next couple of days, I’d appreciate it if you’d let me know.”

“What are you going on about, Molly? Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“I’d like a heads up, that’s all.” She straightened. “Now I’m going to get drunk.”

“Molly, wait.”

Waving over her shoulder she went to the constable’s office to close off her shift. They couldn’t fire her outright; she could take her case to the Union. She didn’t know if she’d do that—it would all be just too embarrassing.

She stepped out the back door into the street. A light snow was falling, and the weather report on the radio had told her to expect close to twenty centimeters overnight. That was almost ten inches. It would be a great day on the mountain.

Her heart lifted a bit at the thought of going skiing. She was off tomorrow; she’d come in today in the middle of her four days off as a favor to Brad Noseworthy, who wanted to watch his fifteen-year-old daughter play an important hockey game. According to Brad, the girl was so good she was on track to make the Women’s Olympic team.

She took the short cut down the alley toward her apartment, watching her footing as she walked. The path hadn’t been cleared and it would turn to ice soon enough. She’d told Jim Denton she was going to get drunk. Sounded like a great idea, but she didn’t have anywhere to go. She was so well known in this town, both as Moonlight Smith and Constable Smith, that if she pulled up a stool in some low-life bar, or even some high-end bar, everyone would be discussing it over their morning coffee. She could call her friend, Christa. But their relationship had been strained almost to the breaking point—perhaps beyond it—when Christa had been beaten up by a stalker. At least Charlie Bassing was doing well-deserved time in the lockup. Smith did some arithmetic and realized that he’d be eligible for parole any day now. Unlikely he’d come back to Trafalgar: too much would have happened to him in court and in prison for him to maintain his strange obsession with Christa. It wasn’t as if she’d been his girlfriend, or even a close friend. He had no ties to Trafalgar, and no ties to Christa. She’d be free of him, Smith was sure, but it was unlikely the two women would ever again share that casual friendship which had made them as close as sisters.

She waited for traffic to clear and watched an elderly lady on the other side of the street picking her way through the snow with only a cane for support. The light turned green and Smith crossed. She was about to ask the woman if she needed help when she turned into a shop doorway.

Light and laughter spilled out the back of
Feuilles de Menthe
, the restaurant next door to Molly’s apartment. She walked past, feeling nothing but sad and lonely. In any anonymous city, she’d go to the restaurant, after changing out of uniform, take a quiet table in the back and settle in with a good book, a glass of wine, and the day’s special. But here someone was almost sure to ask her to join them, and be offended if she refused.

As much as she loved it here, it might be time to get out of Trafalgar.

Alphonse’s Bakery was closed, all the lights off, save for a single low-wattage bulb over the door. No welcoming scents drifted into the alley. Smith approached the door to her apartment. A dark shape walked toward her. The weak light at the rear of the convenience store on the other side of the bakery was at his back and the glow from the light across the street didn’t reach him. He stood in a black hole.

“Moonlight Smith. Fancy that.”

His voice was deep and he was tall and, as far as she could tell beneath the bulky winter jacket, heavily muscled. A woman alone in a dark alley at night, Molly Smith wasn’t afraid. Her jacket was tucked up around her belt. She felt the truncheon at her hip, the solid weight of the Glock, the radio at her shoulder.

“Do I know you?” she said.

With one step he was in the light. “I heard you’d become a cop.”

He looked familiar. Close enough to her in age to have been in school with her. He ran his eyes down her body, but there weren’t any sexual overtones. He was checking out the snow-covered hat, the jacket with the shoulder patches (Trafalgar City Police. Since 1895), the pants with the blue stripe running down the leg, and, probably most importantly, the equipment belt.

“Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me, Moonlight? Gary LeBlanc.”

She remembered. Gary LeBlanc. Much older than his half-sister Lorraine, he’d been in some of Smith’s classes in school. Always the clown, always the fool. Always under detention. Gone as soon as he turned sixteen. Either expelled or dropped out.

“Gary, it’s been a while. Back for a visit?” In and out of minor trouble before and after he left school. Then something about a prison sentence. It had happened while she’d been in Victoria at University; she didn’t know the details. Next time she was in the office, she’d pull his file.

“Nice family Christmas. Real Charles Dickens stuff. Too bad Mom and Dad spent it in the slammer.”

She was standing by the door to her apartment. She’d already started to dig out her keys. It might not, she decided, be a good idea to let Gary LeBlanc know where she lived. Not that everyone in town didn’t.

“You’re looking good, Moonlight. Real good.” He sighed, and passed into the light from above the bakery. Not as handsome as she remembered, now that his nose had been broken more than once and a scar crossed his left cheek. “Happy New Year, eh?”

“Happy New Year.”

He passed her, heading toward Monroe Street. She thought she heard him say, “I always liked you, Moon.” But his words were caught by the falling snow and she was probably mistaken.

***

Mrs. Carmine handed Wendy a piece of paper the moment she came through the front door. Did the woman never leave her post? “Your mother called, dear. In case you’d forgotten, I took down the number of your parents’ hotel.”

Wendy took the paper. She walked up the stairs and opened the door to her room. It was a Victorian nightmare, hideous pink with fluffy cushions on the bed and swooping curtains over the windows and pink towels and shell-shaped pink soap in the bathroom. A porcelain doll wearing a pink skirt and a teddy bear with a pink bow around its neck were standing on the dresser. But at least, amongst all this pinkness, rather like living inside a Pepto Bismo bottle, Wendy had a room of her own. Being the one single woman in the group, she had a private room. Alan and Sophie shared, of course, and their room was next to hers. Much to her annoyance when the bed began to bounce. Which it did an obscene amount: the man must have superhuman powers. Jason had shared with Ewan—Ewan-Jason, Jason-Ewan—and Jeremy bunked in with Rob.

Wendy tossed her shopping bags onto the floor and wondered if Mrs. Carmine would hang a Vacancy sign out front, now that Jason and Ewan’s room was empty. She stood at the window and let the tears fall. Her room looked down the hill, across the city, to the river and the mountain beyond. Lights sparked against the solid black of river, mountains and sky. She wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her sweater.

She was expected to meet her parents for dinner. They’d have to wait: she needed a toke to get ready for it. Wendy pulled open the bottom drawer of the dresser. She’d hid her personal supply of marijuana beneath her underwear. She reached to push the garments aside and her hand stopped. Wendy had been raised to be meticulous in the organization of her possessions. The scraps of silk and lace lay in perfect piles in the drawer. As well they should. Wendy’s underwear cost close to a hundred dollars a set. Before leaving for this vacation, she’d shopped on Bloor Street in Toronto, looking for something special. Unable to resist their sexual beauty, she’d splurged on a lavender bra and panty set costing over five hundred.

Bras to the left and panties to the right, the way she always arranged things. Except that when she’d been getting dressed this morning, trying not to listen to the sounds coming from Sophie and Alan’s room, she’d picked up the lavender pieces and caressed them, thinking about the plans she’d had for them, and how it had all gone wrong. It seemed a shame that Sophie, who probably wore sturdy reinforced bras and white cotton panties purchased at Wal Mart, was getting action whereas the lavender bit was lying in this dark drawer. She’d put the bra back down, not on the bra pile but on top of its mate. Wendy wasn’t a fanciful girl, but she’d thought that the expensive pieces might as well be together, as no one else would be appreciating them.

They’d been moved. Her bras were stacked together, one on top of the other. Panties in a neat pile beside. Each color layered properly. Even the lavender ones.

Wendy sat back on the bed.

Someone had been in her drawer. Rooting through her stuff. Rage boiled up: some miserable lowlife had been rubbing their filthy fingers over her silk and lace and satin underwear. No way would she ever put those clothes on again. Might as well burn them. Better than donating them to a charity clothing shop, where some old bag would toss the lavender bra into her cart beside white underpants that could fit an elephant.

Five hundred and twenty five bucks for a padded push-up bra and a scrap of lace to fit between her legs. Even her mother wouldn’t pay a quarter that. Lorraine, it had to be that miserable Lorraine. God knew why Mrs. Carmine insisted on being nice to the girl. It would be just like Mrs. Carmine to let Lorraine roam around the house without being watched.

Wendy had been given a key for her room, but she hadn’t thought it worth bothering to lock the door.

She reached for the phone. The police would get an earful about this. She got as far as punching in 9-1, before dropping the phone back into the cradle. Someone had been rooting through her drawers looking for what? She fell to her knees and pushed her undies aside. Her stash of marijuana looked to be as she’d left it. Far as she could tell, not a flake was missing.

No way could she call the cops and have them search through her things, asking questions. More questions.