Winter of Secrets

by Vicki Delany

  Poor Wendy. Smith ate her lunch quickly and went back outside to get her skis.

  She was standing in the line for the lift to Bear Cave Run when the man beside her took a double take. “Hey, Moonlight. It’s you, right Moonlight? How are you?”

  “I’m fine, Doug. You?”

  The line stopped moving. A child was yelling something about not wanting to get into the chair. “Just great, Moonlight. Back in town for a visit with the folks over the holidays. You too?”

  “Yeah.” Just the other day she’d thought of Doug Whiteside for the first time in years, and here he was in real life. She hoped her thoughts hadn’t conjured him up. What the hell was the problem with this line, couldn’t they move it up?

  “What’s with the jacket?” Doug grabbed her arm and half-turned her to have a look at her back. She wrenched her arm away. “Hey, didn’t I hear something about you becoming a cop? I figured that was a joke.”

  “No joke.” she inched forward. Her face burned. After all these years, she was still embarrassed about what had happened between them.

  “How’s Sam anyway?”

  “He’s a lawyer. Lives in Calgary.”

  ”Funny, isn’t it, how some people grow up exactly like you’d expect them to, and others turn out completely different. Never would have figured you for a cop. I saw Meredith a few days ago. In school all she ever talked about was being a reporter. And she went and did it. Between you and me, I got the feeling she’s not too happy being on the staff of the Gazette. I think she figured she’d at least be a foreign correspondent for the Globe and Mail by now. She looks good, though,” he added, almost wistfully.

  Doug chatted on while Molly’s cheeks burned. Years passed, and they finally got to the front of the line. The next chair had room for just one more person and Smith leapt in, leaving Doug waving and suggesting they go for a drink and talk about ‘the old days.’ She’d rather spend the night in the Trafalgar jail.

  Doug Whiteside had been friends with her brother Samwise when they were in school. Sam was several years older than Moonlight, and so were his friends.

  Doug had been a popular guy, good looking, pitcher on the school baseball team. His parents were well off, and he’d been one of the few kids in their school who had a car of his own.

  She’d been thirteen the summer Sam and Doug were seventeen. When they weren’t chasing girls, or begging rides from sailboats on the lake, the boys liked to go fishing where the Upper Kootenay River broke off a branch and ran through the back of the Smith property.

  One warm, lazy day Moonlight was at home alone. Her parents were at the store and Sam had taken a hiking party on a three day wilderness trip. She was on the dock by the river, swinging her long brown legs in the air, reading and daydreaming, and ignoring the chores her mother had left her. Doug drove up and walked over to the dock to say hi. He asked if Sam was ready to go. When Moonlight explained that Sam had gone away for a few days, Doug smacked his head with a laugh and said he’d forgotten. He turned to leave, and Moonlight jumped to her feet.

  She asked him if he’d like to go to see a movie tonight.

  “I thought Sam didn’t get back until Monday?”

  “I mean, go with me. Just me. I mean us.”

  He ran his eyes slowly down her skinny, young body, all long limbs, sharp angles, and knees, making her feel like a slab of meat in the butcher’s display counter, and then he began to laugh. It was not a kind laugh. “I don’t think so,” he said at last. “You’re a cute enough kid, but I’m not into robbing the cradle.”

  Humiliated, embarrassed, she stood rooted to the spot while he sauntered across the lawn back to his car. “Although…,” he said, turning.

  “Yes!”

  “You could do me a favor and set me up with your pal Meredith Morgenstern. She might be the same age as you, but she looks, you know,” he made a gesture like he was weighing two coconuts in his hands, “older.” He winked and got into his car. He drove away in a cloud of dust, while Jerome, Sylvester’s predecessor, ran alongside, barking.

  Moonlight wanted to die. From that moment on she’d never had a kind word to say about her brother’s friend.

  ***

  For the rest of the afternoon, the memory of the teenaged Doug’s mocking laugh followed Molly Smith around the hills. He didn’t seem to have been laughing at her today, though. Perhaps, she told herself, he’d forgotten what had happened and was genuinely interested in talking about the old days. He’d never dated Meredith, far as Smith knew, and he’d probably forgotten all about Moonlight’s awkward attempt at asking him out.

  But it was still so mortifying.

  She remembered the way her mother’s eyebrows rose in a question when, from that day on, Moonlight had mocked, ridiculed, slandered, disparaged Doug Whiteside every time his name came up. Even more embarrassing, Lucky probably knew why her attitude had changed so abruptly.

  Smith barely missed colliding with a snow-laden Douglas fir. She dug the edges of her skis in and came to a hockey stop in a swirl of cold powder.

  Who the hell did all that remind her of?

  She took refuge near the tree, getting out of the way of anyone who might be coming down, before pulling her helmet off and rubbing at her face.

  Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth didn’t have a good word to say about her brother’s friend, Ewan Williams. What was it Smith had overheard Wendy saying about Ewan?

  When it came to women, he liked to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  John Winters read the e-mail from Doctor Shirley Lee confirming that the body of Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth would be released to the funeral home arranged by his family.

  He took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He’d arranged to come in to work later today, thinking that rank had its privileges and he’d take the privilege of enjoying a pleasant, relaxing New Year’s morning at home, breakfast on the sun porch, catching up on the newspapers. Perhaps he’d bundle up later and go for a run. A perfect morning following a perfect evening out with his wife.

  It hadn’t quite worked out that way. Instead, Barney had come with them to dinner, and he’d been woken by the sound of the phone ringing and Barney chattering in the computer room next door as she made calls to re-arrange her schedule, having been unable to get a flight out yesterday. Barney wanted to go to town at noon to see the annual polar bear swim in the Upper Kootenay River. John Winters had absolutely no interest in watching a pack of people without a lick of common sense between them jump into an icy river. But Eliza asked him to drive, and, like a good husband, he’d put the newspapers aside and done so.

  Winters swiveled his chair and looked out the window. The sun was shining in Trafalgar, but there were several mountain ridges between here and Castlegar, and that meant a lot of weather. The one o’clock flight had gotten away, but it had been full, and Barney was booked on the later one.

  Hopefully tomorrow’s planes would leave on time. It would not be good for Patricia Wyatt-Yarmouth if she had to spend hours in the waiting room while the body of her son lay next door in the cargo area.

  With the departure of Doctors Wyatt-Yarmouth the friends would also be heading back to Ontario. He had no reason to keep them in Trafalgar, but once they were gone it would be difficult, if not impossible, to continue with the investigation.

  Whether Ewan Williams’ death was deliberate or accidental, one of his friends had to know a lot more than they were saying.

  Winters stared out the window. An old van, the sort of Volkswagen Kombi that had bounced down the road to Woodstock, clattered up the hill, puffing and wheezing as if, like an old timer still trying to keep up with the kids, its age was catching up with it. The inside was loaded with young people and the roof with skis. Ewan Williams had been alone, supposedly, when he left the B&B on Sunday evening after the day’s skiing. He was never seen again. At least not by anyone who was prepared to tell the police so. He had met a woman earlier that day at the lodge and a
rranged to meet her at a bar in the evening. He hadn’t arrived. Winters had sent an officer to the bar to check that the woman, Marilyn Chow, had told Smith the truth. Chow was attractive enough that the bartender had no trouble remembering her. He’d watched her sitting in a table in the corner, alone, for about an hour, and then leave, alone, at the time she’d told Smith she had.

  Winters mentally checked the hard-to-accept scenarios off on his fingers. The B&B wasn’t in the wilderness, and there were only a few blocks of well-travelled and well-lit city streets between it and the Bishop and the Nun. Ewan was on foot: if he’d had an accident on the way into town, someone would have reported it. If he’d been mugged he would have been rumbled and left on the sidewalk for a passer-by to find. If he’d changed his mind and was heading for someplace other than the Bishop, the same rules applied. Ewan didn’t have a vehicle except for the rented SUV, which had not gone missing, so he would have been walking.

  He might have been picked up. A random or serial-type killing, Winters dismissed off hand. He’d come back to that if necessary, but right now the idea was way out in left field. Someone Ewan knew, one of the men he’d been in a fight with because of paying attention to the guy’s girlfriend? Unlikely. Ewan didn’t seem to be naive enough to accept a lift from someone he’d offended.

  Lucky told Molly she’d heard that Alan and Ewan had sparred over Alan’s girlfriend, Sophie. Clearly the incident hadn’t been forgotten: Winters remembered the dirty look Alan had given his girlfriend when the discussion had come around to Ewan’s sexual habits. He made a note to have a talk with Alan Robertson.

  Ewan had stepped out the front door and disappeared for twenty-four hours. It was highly likely he’d never left the grounds of the Glacier Chalet B&B.

  Winters thought about the property around the lovely old house. Neat gardens and perfect lawns, now covered in deep snow, backing up against a patch of woodland. No fence, the lawn was outlined by perennial beds.

  What do you find in a forest? Lots of wood. Dead branches.

  Tomorrow, when everyone was back after the holidays, he’d get the Mounties’ forensic team crawling through those woods.

  Jason had been at Lorraine LeBlanc’s house in the hours before his death; his bright yellow SUV parked on a city street in clear view of any one passing. Highly unlikely he’d left a dead body in the front seat while he went inside for his Christmas Eve supper with Lorraine. So he had to have found, or recovered, the body between leaving Lorraine’s and midnight, when he went off the road. Where had Jason told Lorraine he was going when he left her?

  Back to the B&B.

  Like a movie unraveling in his head, Winters tried to play out the last movements of Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth’s life.

  He leaves the LeBlanc’s around nine, telling Lorraine to join him later at the Glacier Chalet. He gets into the car while Lorraine watches from the door. Jason drives back to the B&B. Does he get there? Winters had sent reserve officers down the street, asking if anyone had seen the yellow SUV parked at the B&B between nine and midnight. A few people said they might have, but they were unsure about the time, or even the day.

  For now, Winters would assume it had been there. The movie continued.

  Jason parked the car, but didn’t go inside. The house was busy with preparations for the midnight celebration, someone would have seen or heard him.

  Why didn’t he go inside? Did he remember something he had to do? Buy a last minute gift, perhaps? As he drove through town, Jason would have noticed that the stores were all closed.

  Winters watched Jason get out of the car. With a flick of his finger on the remote door-lock he takes a step toward the house. It’s snowing heavily.

  Someone steps out of the shadows. Snow covers head and coat. He or she had been waiting.

  Why is someone else involved? Jason could have been coming back to get the body he’d stashed earlier.

  Again, unlikely. Jason had, by all accounts, not behaved that day like a man with the death of his best friend on his mind. Like his friends, Jason thought Ewan had met up with his date and it had gone so well he was still with her. Apparently it wasn’t out of character for Ewan to instantly drop the company of his friends when he found more pleasing companionship.

  In John Winters’ private movie, the figure waiting for Jason stepped out of the shadows. The streetlight shone into her face. Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth’s expression was bleak and her face was wet with melting snow and tears.

  Winters stopped the movie, and thought about Wendy. A bitter and angry young woman, who appeared to be veering perilously close to the edge of a breakdown. One would think that with all the money and influence her parents had, they’d have taken her to a good therapist. Maybe they had, and it wasn’t working.

  Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe the depth of Wendy’s problems had only started coming to the surface on this vacation.

  He glanced at his watch. Almost four. He had one last chance to get Wendy to tell him what she knew before she left tomorrow.

  He reached for his coat.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  The main room of the lodge was full of people changing out of their heavy outerwear, removing boots, stuffing accessories into back packs, talking over the day on the slopes. The kitchen was closed, only the hot beverage and dessert counter still open for last-minute business.

  Smith went downstairs to hand in the radio. There was time for another run, but she was no longer in the mood.

  The old guy was behind the desk. “Good day?” she asked.

  “Wish every day was so quiet.”

  “Then you’d be out of a job.”

  He laughed. “Back tomorrow?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Kathy Carmine was sitting on a bench removing her boots. Her face shone with happiness and cold and exercise. She waved at Smith. Her pleasure was almost infectious, and Smith smiled at her. “Have fun?”

  “The best day ever.”

  “Where’s Rob?”

  “I’m such a slow-poke that he wanted to spend some time skiing by himself.”

  “Is the rest of his crowd here?”

  “Wendy and Alan and Sophie came with us. Jeremy’s still in jail.” Kathy giggled. “Sorry, forgot that was your fault.”

  Smith had been skiing powder all day, and her arms and legs ached. Time to get out of here. As soon as she got in cell phone range, she’d call Christa and ask her around for pizza and a movie. With Charlie back in town, Smith had promised herself she’d keep a close eye on her friend.

  She climbed the stairs once more and grabbed her backpack from the hook where she’d left it. She rummaged for her water bottle and took a long drink. Tucked into one corner of the lodge was a small bar with a scattering of seats arranged around a wood-burning fireplace. Flames jumped as the bartender tossed in a fresh log. Every seat was taken and men stood three deep at the bar. As Smith put her water bottle away, the crowd shifted and she could see Wendy Wyatt-Yarmouth, lifting a wine glass to her lips, sitting alone against the far wall. Her yellow ski jacket hung on a hook behind her.

  Wendy swallowed the remainder of her wine and waved her glass at the waiter.

  Smith went into the bar.

  “Not you again,” was Wendy’s greeting. Her eyes and nose were very red and her words were slurred.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “There isn’t an empty chair.”

  “I’ll stand.”

  The waiter put the drink on the table. Someone had carved a pair of initials, surrounded by a heart, in the dark wood.

  “Getcha something?” he asked, picking up the empty wine glass.

  “No, thank you.” The man walked away. Wendy drank deeply. “Your friends will be ready to leave soon,” Smith said.

  “I don’t have any friends.”

  “What about Rob and Alan and the rest?”

  “Jason’s friends. Always Jason’s friends.” She finished the drink. “Get us a bottle, will you.”

  �
�How much have you had, Wendy?”

  “Not enough for it to be any of your business.” She hiccupped. The waiter passed with a tray overflowing with mugs of beer, and Wendy shouted at him to bring a bottle.

  Smith touched the man’s shoulder. “Cancel that.” He shrugged and passed around the drinks. The table next to them was crowded with six young men packed around a table for four. They crashed their mugs together and cheered.

  Smith leaned over and spoke into Wendy’s ear. “It’s too loud in here. I told the waiter to bring our drinks outside. Let’s go.”

  “What?”

  Smith lifted Wendy’s elbow and guided her out of her chair. “I wanna another drink.”

  “He’ll bring it outside.”

  “Okay.” Wendy let herself be led. She was wearing ski boots and tripped over the chair leg. She stumbled against the young men’s table. Beer mugs wobbled, and men grabbed for them. “Hey, watch it. Stupid drunk.”

  “It’s all good.” Smith gripped Wendy’s arm, and with her other hand grabbed the girl’s helmet off the table and jacket down from the hook.

  The main room of the lodge was busy with families packing up at the end of the day. Smith spotted an unoccupied, battered old couch close to the center of the room, and led Wendy to it.

  Through the big windows, Smith could see a line of cars heading down the mountain. The earlier promise of snow never arrived and the clouds had left to dump their load someplace else. The winter’s night was closing in fast, although a full moon was low in the sky to the south.

  She threw Wendy’s things on the couch. “I’m going to look for your friends, okay? I saw Kathy downstairs earlier.”

  “Kathy thinks she’s gonna get Rob just ‘cause she wants him. Not gonna happen. Why are women so dis…disillusional?”

  “You wait here, Wendy, okay?”

  The girl’s eyes were glazed and unfocused. She wasn’t hearing anything Molly Smith was saying. “Rob’s too polite to tell her to get lost.”