by Vicki Delany
”Do you know how we can get up there?” Winters said.
“No.”
“Then perhaps,” he snapped, “you should find out, Constable Smith.”
Smith’s mother believed in spirit guides, what some other people might call angels. Smith did not. Until this moment.
Constable Evans walked toward them, a man beside him, wringing his hands.
“Terrible business. Terrible,” the man said. He was almost as round as he was tall, and completely bald. His accent was strong, from France, not Quebec. He looked nothing like an angel.
“Mr. Levalle,” Smith said. “We need you to take us up to your roof.”
Chapter Four
“I could have used you here, Andy,” Lucky Smith said. It was close to midnight and he’d only just come in. She took a deep breath, sniffing the air, trying not to appear to be doing so. There was no obvious smell of alcohol, or a woman, on her husband.
“Problems at the store,” he said.
What problems could a wilderness adventure store have after closing? Lucky didn’t bother to ask. She stuffed the plug of the kettle into the socket. “Tom Maas’ death has thrown everything into a fritz. We might have to reconvene the full committee and start the whole business all over again. I don’t trust the city council to do the right thing without Tom’s guidance.”
“Guidance? You mean bullying. Strong arm tactics. Threats.”
Lucky rooted through the tea jar. “I mean guidance, Andy. There was a reason Tom was mayor of this town for so long, you know. People liked him, they accepted his leadership. Chai or Earl Grey?”
“Strange as it may seem, Lucky, I don’t want tea, okay. I’m going to bed.”
She pulled out a satchel of fair trade organic white chai. “The forces opposed to the park are gathering now that Tom’s gone.”
“Will you listen to yourself, Lucky? The forces of Mordor are not gathering. It might just be that this little garden isn’t going to be the salvation of the world.”
“Don’t mock me, Andy.”
“Then stop leaving yourself open to be mocked.”
She felt tears gather behind her eyes, and refused to give into them. Once, he would have felt the same way she did.
“This park might not be such a good idea. Come to your senses, Lucky. Tourists are our livelihood. How many locals come into the shop or sign up for an expedition? None, unless they have friends visiting. Maybe thirty, forty percent at the most, of our business is Europeans and Canadians. The rest are Americans. Americans stop coming because they think they’ve been insulted by a draft dodger monument, we’re finished.”
Her fingers worked at the tea bag. “You’d forget about what the garden represents to keep Fox News and a handful of hunting goons happy? Okay, suppose all we care about is the business. Most of the people who come to us are looking for blue waters, green hills, wildlife. They’re looking for a place of peace. It doesn’t matter if they’re from the States or Ontario or Lower Slobovia.”
“Nice speech, Lucky. Save it for the Chamber of Commerce. I’m telling you that the Commemorative Peace Garden will be the death of this town and thus of our company. All this area has going for it is tourism. Americans won’t come if that garden goes in.”
“That garden honors you, Andy, and all the men like you. How could you forget?” The bag of tea crumbled to shreds between her fingers. Black leaves sprinkled on the kitchen floor. Sylvester sniffed at them.
“Times have changed. Let the past be past. I don’t want to argue any more. I’m going to bed.”
“Andy,” she said.
The kitchen door slammed shut behind him.
Lucky Smith stared at the tea leaves on the floor. They’d fallen in a black arrow pointing toward the stove. To the heart of her home.
The kettle switched itself off. She released her tears and reached for the phone.
□□□
Tubs of flour, giant bowls, and baking sheets were lined up in Alphonse’s Bakery like soldiers on parade, waiting for orders to head into battle. Floor to ceiling racks, empty, filled the back of the room. Everything was as neat and clean and well-organized as one would hope to find in a laboratory handling smallpox virus.
A narrow staircase led from the back of the bakery. Alphonse Levalle led the way.
“What’s behind this door?” Winters asked as they reached the second floor.
“Apartment for let. Empty.”
“How long has it been empty?”
“One week.”
“Do you have the key?”
“Of course, Monsieur.”
“We’ll want to have a look. After we’ve seen the roof.”
Levalle unlocked the door.
“Flashlight, Molly,” Winters said.
She flicked it on. The roof was empty, unused. A large, industrial strength spider’s web stretched across the doorway at eye level, caught in the light from Smith’s beam. A fat fly hung upside down, suspended in the gossamer trap.
“Wait here, Mr. Levalle.” Winters ducked to avoid the web. Smith did the same.
The night was clear. Above the bulk of the dark mountains looming over town from all sides, stars filled the sky. White and red lights flashed as an airplane flew toward Vancouver and the Pacific Ocean.
He reached the ledge overlooking the back alley and looked down. Smith stood beside him. Montgomery lay on his back, staring up at them. Evans was standing beside the body. He followed the dead eyes and gave the officers on the roof a salute.
“Shine that light here, across the ledge,” Winters ordered. “Do you see any disturbance?”
“Nothing.”
“It doesn’t look like anyone’s been up here in years. Anyone other than birds, that is.” Winters rubbed his hand along the surface of the ledge. He held his finger up so Smith could see. It was filthy.
He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his hand. “I’ll send the forensics people up here to check, just to be sure. Speak of the devil, here they are now.”
The RCMP scene-of-the-crime van was edging its way down the alley. Evans waved them to a halt a few feet short of the mass that had once been Reg Montgomery.
“I want to talk to them first, then I’ll have a look at that apartment.”
“They shouldn’t have to bother coming up here.” Smith’s voice cracked. She coughed and tried again. “That spiderweb. It proves that no one was up here tonight. At least no one taller than about five feet five. And Montgomery is…was…taller than that.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They would have broken the web, wouldn’t they?”
“Perhaps our criminal knows the legend of Robert Bruce. Perhaps he, or she, carried Montgomery and isn’t taller than five foot five. Lots of people, men as well as women, aren’t. You reach your conclusions much too quickly, Constable Smith. Please don’t try to be so clever from now on. I’ll ask your opinion when I want it. Which won’t be often.”
Smith’s face burned and she was thankful for the darkness. Sanctimonious prick. She’d bet a year’s salary that Montgomery and his assailant hadn’t been on this roof. And who the hell was Robert Bruce? Some famous detective who’d solved a crime by studying the mating habits of a spider? She’d look him up. In case there was a test tomorrow.
She stood in the doorway to the bakery as Winters greeted the RCMP officers, who were setting up strong lights. Something small and brown, with a long tail, ran out from the garbage bags behind the convenience store and crossed the lane, heading for the safety of darkness on the other side of the fence. Levalle busied himself in the back of his shop, almost falling over trying to see what was going on outside.
The coroner, Shirley Lee, had arrived while Winters and Smith were on the roof. She pulled on thin blue gloves and crouched beside the body. Winters squatted beside her.
“See anything other than the obvious, doc?”
“Define obvious, Sergeant,” she said, not looking up. She was tiny, not much ove
r five feet, and thin. Every strand of her black hair was gathered into a stiff bun at the back of her delicate neck. Smith had met her once before, at a traffic fatality, and she’d felt like a lead-footed Sasquatch in the presence of the diminutive, feminine doctor.
“Dead from a blow to the back of the head,” Winters said.
“At a guess, I’d agree,” Dr. Lee said. “Send him to Trail, and I’ll confirm tomorrow. I see no obvious signs of trauma other than the head injury.”
“Could he have fallen?”
“There should be injury other than just to the head in that case. I have to see him with his clothes off to be sure. I suppose he could have fallen directly onto his head. Unlikely, though.”
She lifted the right hand and leaned over to have a good look.
“Something interesting, Doc?”
“What do you see here, Sergeant?” She ordered a technician to turn a light on their hands, and pointed to Montgomery’s fist, clenched tight. Her hand, holding his, looked like that of a child clinging to her grandfather.
From where she stood, Smith couldn’t see anything significant.
“Hair,” Winters said.
“A few strands. Be sure you bag them.”
Lee stood up in one liquid motion, as graceful as a ballet dancer, and pulled her gloves off, one slim finger at a time. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sergeant. Call me in the morning and we’ll arrange a time.”
“Sure.”
“Don’t know why they pay her the big bucks,” Winters said, more to himself than to Smith, as the doctor walked away. “I’ve never heard her say anything I hadn’t already concluded for myself.”
The coroner’s van backed down the alley.
He pulled a pair of latex gloves out of his pocket, and pulled them over his fingers. He knelt beside the body and patted Montgomery’s pockets. “That’s interesting. Nothing here.”
“Wallet?” Smith asked.
Winters used the end of his pen to lift the side of Montgomery’s suit jacket away. “Nope. No cell phone either. He could have been out for an evening stroll. Left the house without phone or wallet, but at a guess I’d say not. Not dressed in a nice suit like this.” He felt both the dead man’s wrists. “And no watch.” He got to his feet with a stifled groan and pulled off the gloves. A technician held out an evidence bag and he dropped them in.
“You think this might have been a theft?”
“Or made to look like one.”
They watched in silence as Montgomery was loaded onto a stretcher and taken away.
“Where’s that fellow who owns the apartment?” Winters said.
“Inside.”
“Then let’s go up and have a look.”
The apartment above the bakery was neat and tidy. A thin layer of dust lay over everything, including the floor. The bedroom looked over the alley. Winters stood at the window staring out. Smith glanced around the room. The windows were closed and the day’s heat still lingered. It was a spacious apartment, with simple but adequate furniture. The double bed was stripped down to the mattress. It would be nice to wake up to the scent of baking bread and croissants. It was past time for her to get out of her parents’ house. The living arrangements were getting tense. When she’d told her family that she’d been accepted by the Trafalgar City Police, her mother couldn’t have been more dismayed if Molly’d announced that she was going to take the veil. Or become a lawyer for an oil company, which was what her brother had done.
“Right?” Winters said.
Smith grabbed her head back from thinking about the apartment and her family. “Right,” she said, hoping that he hadn’t just asked her if she’d killed Montgomery.
He grabbed the window latches and pulled upwards. The window opened with a deep grumble. They could hear Evans talking, someone laugh in response, and the back doors of the coroner’s van slam closed. “When were you here last, Mr. Levalle?” Winters said.
The baker was wringing a dishcloth in his hands. “The day the tenants left. Eight days ago. I checked for damage or property missing. My wife cleaned the apartment and then we locked the door. He…he wasn’t killed here, was he?”
“Probably not.”
Levalle wiped his forehead with the dishcloth. “Good. That would make it hard to rent the apartment. To decent people. Lots of weirdos in Trafalgar.” It was an old-fashioned word, but Levalle was right: there were plenty of weirdos in Trafalgar. The small town, nestled deep in the mountains in the interior of British Columbia, was a magnet for drifters. Along with more than its share of artists, the comfortably retired, and Internet workers.
“I said probably,” Winters said. “Nothing is definite.”
Levalle paled.
“The technicians will be wanting up here. Give me the key and you can go home. They’ll call you when they’re finished.”
Levalle forgot about renting his apartment, and excitement filled his doughy face. “CSI, right. Looking for fingerprints and DNA. They’ll be wanting mine, for elimination, yes?”
Winters led the way down the stairs. “That damned TV show again,” he muttered.
In the alley a woman was scraping something off the pavement, where Montgomery’s head had recently been. Smith’s eyes slid away. A flash of sharp white light as a photographer moved in to shoot the scene.
“Is someone going to notify the family?” she asked.
Winters turned to Smith with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Funny you should mention that, Molly. It’s our next stop.” He tossed a wave toward the restaurant windows, where staff had their noses pressed up against the glass. Most of them ducked.
He headed toward the street; she hurried to keep up.
“I’ll take the car, Dave.”
“I can drive you, Sarge,” Constable Evans said.
“No need. Keep this alley secure until further notice. The keys.” Evans handed them to Winters. He glared at Smith.
“Your chariot awaits, madam.” The sergeant bowed toward the marked SUV. “You can drive. Call dispatch and get us Montgomery’s address.” He tossed her the keys. “I’ve found that it’s always nice to have a female officer on hand when giving news of a loved one’s death, don’t you agree, Molly?” Winters fastened his seat belt as she started the vehicle.
She picked up the radio and called dispatch. Montgomery’s home was within the Trafalgar town limits, they told her. In a prestigious new development high above town. Smith pulled into the slight evening traffic.
“If you think I’m full of shit, you may say so.”
“You’re full of shit, sir.” Smith’s teeth ground together. She narrowly missed a cyclist, without lights, crossing an intersection. He was steering so erratically that if he’d been in a car she would have pulled him over for a breath test. “We’re not calling upon the widow Montgomery in order to make a nice cup of tea and serve chocolate biscuits while we cluck in pretentious sympathy.”
“Too true.” He leaned his head against the seat rest. “I really, really hate doing this.”
□□□
At last he’d given up. Probably because of the downstairs neighbor’s threats to “rip your cock off and wrap it around your little finger, which is about as far as it’ll stretch.”
Christa wiggled the small of her back into the indent of the chair. The screen saver on her computer showed images of Hawaii—lush jungle, tumbling waterfalls, pristine beaches, luxury hotels. Did she have the money for a flight to Hawaii? Those hotels looked expensive. She could empty her savings account, but then she wouldn’t be able to afford school in September.
It was all so complicated; she wanted to do nothing but cry.
Christa moved the mouse. Hawaii disappeared, and her essay was in front of her. She read the last paragraph she’d written, trying to get back onto the flow of words and ideas.
But it was gone. William Wordsworth was no longer speaking to Christa Thompson.
She went into the linen closet and dug the cordless phone out. Sh
e pressed talk and hesitantly held it up to her ear. All she heard was silence. Christa punched in numbers.
“This is Molly Smith. I’m not available, please leave a message at the beep.”
“Call me, Mol. Any time. I’m up.”
Christa hung up. She remembered the days when Molly’s voice mail had said something like, “I’m either drugging up a storm, having wild sex, leaping into the mosh pit, or studying for my finals. Leave a message and I’ll decide if I want to get back to you or not.”
But then Graham died and all the fun left Molly.
□□□
It was close to eleven by the time the police arrived at the Montgomery home.
Smith pulled into the driveway, and Winters looked out the window for a moment just to enjoy the view. High on the mountainside, they overlooked the town, the black river, the sprinkling of lights on the far side, diminishing as they climbed up the hill. Where they faded away, leaving nothing but the dark mass of the mountain against the night sky.
He climbed out of the vehicle, and Smith followed. Shrubbery swayed in the night breeze. A man shouted in the hills, and a dog barked. The light over the front door was on. Waiting for someone who would not be coming home.
Smith pushed the door bell. Winters listened, but heard nothing. Smith held her finger to the bell again, longer this time.
Inside the house a dog barked.
“Shush.”
A woman peered through the window in the door. Her hair was very black, the dye emphasizing her age, rather than concealing it.
“Trafalgar City Police,” Smith said. “Sorry to bother you, ma’am, but we need to talk to you.” Her voice was calm, deep, and full of authority. So she could be comfortable, Winters thought, within her area of responsibility.