by Vicki Delany
“I’m sorry, Mr. Wyatt-Yarmouth, but the coroner will be keeping your son’s body for a few more days.”
The man jumped to his feet. “This is outrageous. We’ve already had to sit in this miserable hotel waiting for the autopsy, and we were told only yesterday that we could take him home. My wife made the arrangements this morning.”
“I realize this is a shock, but we do have our reasons.”
“And what reasons might those be?”
“Ewan Williams died sometime before the car Jason was driving went into the river.”
Wyatt-Yarmouth dropped back onto the bed. The springs squeaked in protest. “What on earth?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out. Your son had a dead man in his car.”
“Surely, you’re not implying that my son was responsible for Ewan’s death.”
“I’m implying nothing. I’m telling you the situation. What do you do for a living, Jack?”
“As you probably know, if you’re any sort of a detective, I am a full professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. I happen to specialize in issues of policing in democratic societies and have written extensively on matters regarding the abuse of police powers. I’m also on the police board at home in Oakville.”
All of which means Jack-shit to me, Jack.
“Then you’ll be aware that the circumstances of your son’s death are now a matter for police investigation.”
Jack got to his feet once again. He almost visibly stretched in an attempt to make his short frame taller. He clenched his fists. “My son had nothing to do with the death of Ewan. It should be easy to explain, even for officers on a police department as small as yours. Jason wasn’t aware Ewan was dead, and was taking him to the hospital.” He cracked a smile, stiff and frozen. “My son was, I’ll thank you to remember, young and highly impulsive. He should have called 911, I won’t argue with that. But waiting for someone else to arrive and take charge wasn’t in Jason’s nature. I have no trouble believing he decided to act and get Ewan to the hospital by himself. Sadly, that decision cost my son his life.” Wyatt-Yarmouth rubbed at his face for a long time. When he took his hands away, his eyes were very red. “If you have no other questions, Sergeant, I’d like you to leave. My wife will be here shortly and I’d rather not see her disturbed any more than she is already.”
Winters stood. “I’m truly sorry for your loss. I wanted you to know how the situation stands. The pathologist will have to re-examine your son in light of what she found with Mr. Williams. I’m afraid it can’t be helped.”
Jack Wyatt-Yarmouth reached the door before John Winters, and pulled it open. “Thank you for your time,” he said, not at all meaning it. “I’m sure we won’t meet again before my family leaves your pleasant town.”
Winters paused half-way out the door and turned back to the room. Of all the police dramas on TV, most of which he couldn’t bear to watch, he’d liked Colombo the most. “One more thing. What was Jason studying at university?”
“Medicine. Like his mother, Jason intended to be a surgeon.”
***
All Kathy Carmine wanted in this life was to get out of Trafalgar. Her mother’s idea of travel was the monthly drive to Nelson to shop at Wal-Mart. Kathy had been to Vancouver once, on a Grade Ten school trip. She’d been awed by the size of the buildings, the panorama of the open ocean, the huge old trees in Stanley Park, the glittering stores, the glamorous people shopping in those stores. Ever since, she’d realized just how small, how confining, how provincial, Trafalgar, surrounded by mountains on all sides, was.
Kathy got average marks at school, and she wasn’t any kind of an athlete. She’d always had to help her mom run the B&B, cooking, cleaning, and so, unlike her friends, she’d never had the chance to make some money from an after school job.
She was in Grade Twelve, and had applied to Trafalgar College for a diploma in business in the fall—her mom’s idea, not hers. Mrs. Carmine had her eye on a small house across the street that she always said would be perfect for a cozy catered vacation home. Something very high end, she’d said, that she could charge an arm and a leg for. The home owners, the McNeils, were elderly, getting close to having to sell up and move into assisted living. Mr. McNeil had broken his hip in the spring, and Mrs. Carmine hovered like a vulture, encouraging Mrs. McNeil to consider moving to someplace that would be “easier for you to manage, dear.” To her consternation, Mr. McNeil recovered fairly well, and by mid-summer Mrs. McNeil was back caring for the fifty-year old perennial gardens that accentuated the old home’s appeal.
Kathy no longer wondered why, if her mom had enough money to consider buying another property, she wasn’t going to use it to send Kathy to University, as she wanted. But that subject wasn’t up for discussion. Kathy would get a diploma in business, help her mother run the B&B, and eventually take it over when the cozy catered vacation property became Mrs. Carmine’s to manage.
Kathy Carmine’s worst nightmare was that she would grow old without ever again seeing the world on the other side of these mountains.
And it would all be her mother’s fault.
She’d never had a real boyfriend, just a bit of awkward groping in someone’s father’s car or in the darkened movie theater. Kathy’d decided after the Grade Ten trip to Vancouver that getting involved with a Trafalgar boy would only tie her even tighter to the town.
She wasn’t a brave girl, Kathy, and she’d been waiting, hesitating, afraid to make her move.
It would have to be tonight.
The guests had come in as Kathy had been putting sheets into the washing machine. She’d abandoned the wash and grabbed the fresh flowers she’d left sitting in a couple of inches of water in the sink. She took the flowers up to the second-floor landing. The group had gathered in Wendy’s room, and the door was open.
“My parents expect us all to be there,” Wendy said, in that hideous nasal whine that she no doubt thought made her sound upper class.
“Look, Wendy, I’m sorry for your parents. I really am. But Jason was my friend too, and I’ll thank you to remember that. If I don’t want to go out to dinner, then I don’t. And so I won’t.”
“You think I want to go? And be forced to drag out every story about what a nice little boy Jason was, and what a nice young man he grew up to be, and what a nice big man he was intended to be, before being tragically struck down in his prime?”
“Wendy,” Sophie said, in her soft Québécoise accent.
“What the hell are you doing here anyway? You hadn’t even met my brother before last week.”
“Come on Wendy, Sophie’s only trying to help.”
“Like I care. Do what you want, Rob, okay? But don’t think I won’t remember that you wouldn’t come.”
“Listen to yourself, will you, Wendy? I’m not exactly breaking out in hives worrying that you’re going to cut me out of your will. I’d rather not go to dinner with your parents, that’s all.”
“Puh,” Sophie said in that absolutely French way. “Do as you want. I am going to prepare for dinner en famille. Alain?”
“What?”
“Dinner, Alain. Are you coming to dress?”
“Yeah, right.”
Alan and Sophie came out of Wendy’s room. Kathy was standing in the landing, flowers in hand. She forced a smile. But, as usual, they were so wrapped up in each other they couldn’t spare a moment for anyone else. By the time they reached their room, Alan had his hand up Sophie’s shirt, reaching for the clips of her bra, and she was unfastening the zipper on her pants.
Dressing for dinner meant something different to Alan and Sophie than it did to most people.
“Don’t be in such a rush, Alan,” Wendy shouted. “The police want to talk to you guys. I’m calling them. You don’t want to be having a nap when they get here.”
Kathy dropped the flowers onto the table and ran downstairs. She’d heard what she needed to. They would all be going out for dinner tonight. Except for Rob.
***
“Yes?” A woman answered the phone. Her voice thick and drowsy.
“I’m looking for Dave Evans.”
“Who wants to know?”
“Tell him it’s Sergeant Winters of the Trafalgar City Police.”
“Okay, hold on.”
“Sweetie,” she said through a big yawn. “You wanna take a call?”
A noise in the background.
“That Winters guy,” the woman said. “Didn’t he come around to ask Rosemary about her stolen bike last summer?” She giggled. “That was when we met.”
“Fuck,” a man said. Static, and then: “Sarge, what can I do for you?”
“Not leave your cell phone with anyone inclined to blow me off for one thing.”
“Well, yeah, you see…”
Winters pulled on his drug store glasses, size 1.25, to read the fine print on the computer. He hated those glasses. Another step and it was a wheelchair and a bladder bag. He’d interviewed Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, a third-class liar if he’d ever seen one, and then her prickly father, and then her friends. The latter had been a quick conversation, as they needed to get ready for a formal dinner with the Wyatt-Yarmouths. Winters didn’t much care if the W-Y’s dinner plans had to be put back, but the boys didn’t have much to say other than echo Wendy. Some of them had gone for dinner on Sunday, some had done other things. No one knew where Ewan Williams had gone, although Rob and Jeremy both said he’d told them he was going out on his own for the night. He’d been eying a girl at the ski resort for a couple of days, a short, attractive dark-haired girl wearing a white ski outfit, and had taken a break for an early lunch saying he was going to track her down. Jeremy gave a rough description of the girl, but they had no idea who she was, or if Ewan had made plans to meet up with her later. Ewan had shared a room with Jason, but Winters couldn’t ask Jason what he knew about his friend’s movements that night.
Winters had spent his evening here, at the office. Eliza’s long time agent, the formidable Barney, who, at age sixty-five, and still an avid skier, was in town combining business with pleasure. They’d been supposed to meet for dinner to discuss some wonderful plan Barney had for Eliza’s next job. Which was necessary considering that Eliza’s last project had fallen to earth in a spectacular flameout. Dinner would be on Barney’s tab, which would, of course, be tax-deductible. He’d called Eliza to say he wouldn’t be able to make it. After twenty-five years of marriage to a cop, Eliza said she’d eat his portion. Winters turned to his computer and tried to dig up the dirt on Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, Ewan Williams, and the rest of their crowd: Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, Jeremy Wozenack, Rob Fitzgerald, Alan Robertson, and Sophie Dion.
Wozenack had a couple of drunk charges in Toronto, brawls outside of bars, but nothing serious enough to have caused injury. Dion had several traffic tickets to her name, and was perilously close to earning enough points to have her license suspended. Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth’s file was the interesting one. Juvenile records. Closed. Which told him that there was something to tell him, but they weren’t going to. Na, Na, Na. I know something you don’t. He started the paperwork necessary to try to pry open her juvie file.
“Save it,” Winters said over the phone to Dave Evans. “I want to ask you about a fight at the Bishop a couple of nights before Christmas. The twenty-second. You were there, tell me what you remember.” While telling him that they didn’t know what Ewan Williams had been up to Sunday evening, his friends had mentioned, in that way that people who have something to hide manage to accidentally let you know far more than you’d been hoping for, that Williams had gotten himself into a street fight on Saturday night. Winters had checked the shift report for the night before William’s death.
“Same old shit we get all the time,” Evans said. “By the time we arrived a full scale punch up was going on outside. Two guys taking swings at each other. The sidewalk was icy and they were having trouble staying upright. They looked like a couple of bloody fools. That’s probably what kept them from landing any serious blows on the other guy.”
“You recognize either of them?”
“One of them, yes. Don’t know his name, but a local guy. The other was probably an outsider, a skier.”
“Why do you think that?”
Evans let out a puff of air, and Winters let him think. “The outsider was dressed well, clean jeans, thick wool sweater, good boots. He was small, but knew how to throw a punch. Hard to say, Sarge. Just my impression.”
“Impressions count, Dave. You didn’t bring them in?”
Evans’ voice turned hard, as he moved onto the defensive. “Both guys stepped back, soon as we pulled up. They apologized; said there’d be no more trouble. I thought we should bring them in, but…Molly didn’t agree. And that was it.”
“Sounds okay with me,” Winters said. He had plenty of doubts about Constable Dave Evans. Always too much on the defensive. Winters had run into the Evans type before. One day Evans would toss someone to the wolves to save his own butt. Hopefully at that time he would no longer be in the employ of the Trafalgar City Police.
Evans thought it was his little secret, but Barb knew, and thus everyone else knew, the Chief Constable most of all, that Evans’ goal in life was to join the RCMP. Counter-terrorism was his aim: not petty crime or no-account deaths in small mountain towns.
Which, today, was of no consequence.
“What was the fight about?”
Evans snorted. “The same thing it always is. A woman. Mr. Wool Sweater had moved in on Mr. Local’s girl while he spent time with his friends and ignored her. This is what I heard outside, Sarge, you follow?”
“I do.”
“They’d been leaving…”
“Who’d been leaving?”
“The girl and the outsider guy.”
“Continue.”
“The girl had, far as I could figure out, been quite happy to be moved in on. But when she got up to leave, the boyfriend noticed and took exception.”
Winters got the picture. Local girl, abandoned in a low-level bar while her boyfriend watched Sport TV with his pals. Soon the boyfriend pulls his head out of the brown bottle and, hey, his woman is making friendly with another guy.
“You and Smith were at the car in the river on Monday. Recognize anyone brought out?”
“No. Neither of them. Outsiders probably.” Even over the phone it was almost possible to see the light dawning behind Evans’ eyes. “Hey. Didn’t occur to me before, but, now that I’m putting them together, one of the guys in the river was the outsider in the fight we’ve just been talking about. It was him all right.”
Hardly a positive identification. But it didn’t matter, Winters only needed clarification on what he’d been told earlier.
“Same guy,” Evans said. “I’m sure of it.”
***
The B&B was dark and quiet by eight. The guests had gone out to dinner with Wendy’s and Jason’s parents. As they trooped out the door, it was easy to see that none of them seemed happy about it, and who could blame them. Whether they talked about it or not, the deaths of Ewan and Jason would lie over the dinner table like a shroud.
Upstairs, a toilet flushed.
Kathy took a deep breath. Her mother had gone to a movie. There were only two people in the Glacier Chalet B&B. Kathy had gone shopping earlier and found a purple blouse, much more daring than anything she owned. Shoulder straps the thickness of a strand of spaghetti and a deeply plunging neckline. She’d left the store without trying it on, and hadn’t thought about a bra. Only when she got home did she realize that her bras, white things with thick straps and multiple clips, would make the purple blouse look ridiculous.
She’d have to go without a bra.
The satin felt wicked and delicious against her bare breasts. Kathy shivered. So this is what rich feels like.
She walked up the stairs breathi
ng heavily—and not from exertion: she must climb these steps twenty times a day. She carried a bottle of cheap bubbly wine, stolen from the stash her mother kept to help guests celebrate anniversaries or weddings, a carton of orange juice she’d bought this afternoon, and two crystal flutes.
Her heart was beating so hard, she thought he’d hear it before the knock on his door.
“Come on in,” Rob shouted. “It’s open.”
She had to wedge the bottle of champagne under her arm to get a hand free to open the door.
He was sitting at the desk in front of the window hunched over his computer. He wore baggy track suit pants and a red cardigan over a gray T-shirt advertising a brand of beer. Glasses were perched on his nose. He didn’t look up from the screen. “You’re back early. Forget something, or just too much misery around the table?”
Kathy cleared her throat.
Rob looked up. Under the round glasses, his eyes were equally round with surprise.
“Hi, Rob. I thought.” She cleared her throat again. “You might like a treat.” Heat flew up her face and across her exposed chest. “I mean something tasty.” She grabbed the bottle and held it up.
One of the crystal flutes fell from her hand. She lunged for it and dropped the carton of juice, which she’d opened in the kitchen. It squirted orange liquid across the beige carpet.
“Oh, dear,” Rob said.
Chapter Twelve
No one had been offered cocktails. Instead Dad told the waiter they would have Champagne. Presumably, he’d said in his hoity-toity voice, they’d have the real thing.
Certainly, the waitress said. She went to fetch it.
Mom looked strained. The delicate skin under her eyes was blue and puffy. Strands of hair had escaped from the knot at the back of her neck. Wendy couldn’t remember ever seeing her mother with escaping hair. It made her seem a bit more human. Wendy reached under the table and touched her mother’s hand. Mom almost jumped out of her skin, but when she’d settled down she gave her daughter a small smile and pressed her hand in return.