by Vicki Delany
Chapter Thirty-five
Walt could tell Winters nothing he didn’t already know from reading police reports and legal documents from the time of the original crime and fresh evidence presented at the appeal. The lawyer, he’d quickly come to understand, was here to “protect Mr. Desmond’s interests.” Which Winters interpreted as meaning they’d slap another lawsuit onto the TCP, given half a chance.
Between Dave Evans and Tony D’Angelo, they might well get it.
If Walt Desmond hadn’t killed Sophia D’Angelo, Winters wanted to know, then who did? As to that, Walt couldn’t help him.
He hadn’t known the young woman. He hadn’t met her before she came into the real estate office saying she wanted to buy a house. He’d shown her some properties and taken her for coffee a couple of times to talk over the details of what she was looking for and what she could afford. Nothing eventful had happened. They’d toured several houses, seen what there was to see and left. She’d been pretty and friendly, maybe borderline flirty, and he’d enjoyed her company. That was all. He got the impression she wasn’t really interested in buying and he’d feared she was wasting his time.
As for who might have killed her, he had no idea. Not a one. “And believe me, Sergeant, I’ve had a heck of a lot of time to think about it.”
McMillan, a patrol officer, had been first on the scene in answer to Walt’s frantic phone call, followed by Kibbens, the detective. Winters gently probed for details of any contact Walt might have had with the police before the fateful day.
Nothing. He’d never spoken to either of the men before they showed up at the house where poor Sophia’s bloody body lay sprawled across the kitchen floor. He knew who they were, of course. Most people did in a town this size. He’d seen Jack McMillan coming out of Arlene’s shop on one or two occasions, and he’d been in the audience when Kibbens had given a speech to the Rotary Club in the fall.
Winters left, feeling more frustrated than ever. The killer of Sophia D’Angelo had gotten away with it for almost thirty years. Looked like he was going to keep getting away with it. Winters had phoned Ryan Smethwick, the man in Alaska who’d claimed to have helped Walter with his flat tire at the time Sophia was being slaughtered. The guy had repeated his story, and Winters had no reason not to believe him. He had no police record, no known contacts in the criminal world, no ties whatsoever to Walter Desmond, the D’Angelo family, or anyone in British Columbia, by the looks of it.
As for Walt himself, it didn’t matter what Winters thought of him, but he couldn’t help but think the guy had gotten a mighty raw deal. He looked like the lifer he’d been: all muscle, stony expression, wary eyes. Except when he looked at that woman, Carolanne. Then the expression relaxed and the eyes softened. If only for a moment, before he snapped the veil of self-control back down.
Carolanne. And Jack McMillan. Winters had seen McMillan’s truck pull up to the motel. Someone had obviously alerted him as to what was going on. When Walt talked about McMillan and Kibbens, still struggling after all these years to understand why they would have wanted to ruin his life, his self-control slipped again.
McMillan would be wise to keep his distance.
Winters got into the van and was about to switch the engine on when his phone rang. Lucky Smith.
“I hope I haven’t got you at a bad time?”
“Not at all, Lucky. What’s up?”
“Paul and I want to invite you and your wife around to my…our house on Saturday. Nothing special. We’re going to have a small barbeque.”
“We’d love to come.” So, Paul was moving in with Lucky, was he? He hadn’t said anything about selling the condo. Maybe he was going to rent it out. No surprise that they would live in the house Lucky had shared with Andy, where they’re raised their children. It was a sprawling home on a fabulous piece of wilderness property nestled next to a meandering branch of the Upper Kootenay River. Winters couldn’t see Lucky moving into Paul’s soulless modern condo close to town.
“Three o’clock,” she said. “Bye.”
“Hold on, Lucky. As you probably know the Sophia D’Angelo case has been reopened. I’d like to talk to you about it. You were around back then. I wasn’t. I’d like your opinion on what was going on in town at the time.”
“If you think I can help, I’d be happy to talk to you, although I don’t know anything. I haven’t thought about it in years, but it’s coming back, seeing as it’s pretty much all anyone is talking about these days.”
“I’ll be there in five minutes. If you have time, I’ll treat you to a coffee.”
Lucky was waiting on the sidewalk in front of her store when he arrived. They walked the two blocks to Big Eddies Coffee Emporium, which had a nicer patio than the closer Crazies Coffee. Today was definitely a patio day. Not quite as hot as it had been but pleasantly warm and sunny.
“How’s Eliza?” Lucky asked.
“She’s doing well. She’s been advised to get some counseling to help her deal with what happened, and I’m happy to say she’s taking the advice.”
“I’m glad,” Lucky said. “I volunteer at the women’s center and we do a lot of work with abuse victims. No one needs to go through it alone, not anymore. I heard, of course, about a woman being attacked last night at Ellie’s place. The same man?”
“Unofficially, yes.”
He got the drinks—black coffee for him, a chai latte for her—while she searched for a table on the patio. When he came outside, carefully balancing two cups, she was sitting at a table in the corner, her face lifted to the sun, her wide colorful skirt spread around her. He grinned.
He was an old-time cop, although not too old-time he hoped, and she was an old-time hippie and still an energetic activist. They were too different to be close friends, but he liked Lucky a great deal. Her passion for her causes came from genuine goodwill and, dare he say it, love. Knowing her, and coming to understand her, had made him, he hoped, more sympathetic. As for her, she was the sort of left-wing activist who never had anything good to say about the police, but he’d sensed her melting over the years he’d known her. Maybe sympathy and understanding went both ways. First her daughter became an officer, then she made friends with John Winters, and lastly Lucky found herself dating none other than the police chief himself. Winters wondered if he could congratulate himself on being a matchmaker.
“You look pleased with yourself.” She gave him a bright smile.
“I’m thinking it’s a nice day. The boys and girls in uniform will be happy the heat’s broken.”
“We’re supposed to get some rain tomorrow. We need it desperately. When it’s been this hot and dry, it doesn’t take much for the forest to ignite.”
Winters grimaced. Living out of town, with their own house surrounded by woods, he and Eliza had an escape plan drawn up and a box of supplies in the garage, ready to be loaded into the car with next to no notice. He sipped his coffee. “Dawn Solway has decided what we need is a police dragon boat team. Last time I saw Paul, he was nipping into the men’s room. The one place she can’t follow him to sign him up.”
Lucky laughed. “Poor Paul.”
She’d found a table in a corner, tucked into a nook against the stone wall that kept the hillside from tumbling into the coffee shop. Flowers and trailing vines covered the wall and above their heads a small fountain tinkled merrily. A line of expensive strollers was parked outside, and a group of young mothers, wearing running gear and bouncing babies on knees, had pulled two tables together. They were far enough away, and their laughter loud enough, Winters was confident he and Lucky could talk in private.
Lucky didn’t have much to tell him about Walter Desmond, a man she’d barely known. She knew his wife slightly better, more as fellow shop owners than as friends. She hadn’t known Sophia D’Angelo at all, although, Lucky said after some prodding on his part, she had reason to believe Sophia wasn’t as unive
rsally loved as the newspapers made out after her death.
“Meaning?” he said.
“Meaning that girls of her age, the ones who knew her, didn’t like her. ‘Conniving bitch’ was the phrase I overheard. Along with ‘butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth.’ It means nothing, John. Hearsay, gossip. High school resentments still festering.”
He wasn’t so sure. One of the biggest factors in Walt Desmond’s conviction had been testimony that Sophia was a “stickler for the rules.” Witnesses said she would never have gone into the house without the real estate agent letting her in, even if she had found the door unlocked. There’d been no sign of forced entry to the house or defensive wounds on Sophia herself. That, the Crown prosecutor told the jury, indicated Sophia had not been grabbed on the street and forced inside. She had gone willingly in the company of her killer, been taken by surprise, and overcome.
“Do you know any of those girls?” Winters asked. “Any of them still around?”
Lucky’s eyes narrowed. “You are not going to try to say Sophia was responsible for her own rape and murder, I hope, John. If you are, this conversation is over.”
“The character of a crime victim is totally irrelevant to any question of guilt or innocence, Lucky, and I hope by now you know me well enough to know I mean it. However, character does affect attitude and movement. A murder victim has no privacy and no right to their secrets. Someone killed her and they had a reason to do it, even if that reason is something you or I can’t comprehend.”
Lucky nodded. “Okay. Tina Osgood was one of the girls I overheard talking about Sophia back then. She’s called Tina Bowman now, and she still lives in Trafalgar. I see her regularly because she works at the tourist information center. We’ve stopped offering guided hiking and kayaking daytrips since Andy’s death, but the tourist center sends visitors our way who need topographical maps or equipment.”
He sipped his coffee. “Did you know Jack McMillan or Doug Kibbens?”
Lucky snorted. “Jack McMillan put the pig in cop. No offense intended, John.”
“None taken.”
“Doug was okay, I thought. A perfectly pleasant man whenever I interacted with him, which was mainly over the time a purse-snatcher had been working Front Street. He was polite and professional and spoke to me as much as to Andy. I always maintain that says a lot about a man.”
“But McMillan…” he nudged.
“Hard to believe now, but he was a very handsome man in his youth. He knew it too. I never liked him. I don’t mean he ever tried anything with me or gave me reason to think he was on the take. I simply didn’t like him, although some of my friends thought he was quite the guy. He’d spend his rounds popping in and out of the shops playing the charmer, letting the women know he was there to protect them, should they need it. Some women used to like that sort of thing. Many still do, come to think of it. He never came into my store.” She barked with laughter. “Not since the time I was demonstrating against…I don’t remember what right now…and I called him a fascist pig to his face. He said something ungentlemanly in return.
“When Doug died, whispers said he’d crashed his car deliberately, although that was hushed up. But that was only a rumor and I can’t say if it’s true or not.” She sipped her drink. “The whole thing was a tragedy all round. Sophia, her family. Not to mention Walt and Arlene. And then Doug Kibbens dying only a year or so later. And now I hear Rose D’Angelo’s had another stroke. So sad.”
“Murder does that,” he said. “Like a stone dropped into the lake. Waves and waves emanate out forever. Arlene was Desmond’s wife, right? She’s dead now, I’ve been told.”
“Yes. We were told it was cancer, but rumor around town said she killed herself, poor thing. She died a few years after Walt was sent to prison. She was one of the shop owners Jack McMillan liked to visit during his rounds. Her store was where Eliza’s gallery is now, did you know that? Almost directly across the street from mine. I was telling Moonlight the other day that I was, frankly, surprised at how devastated Arlene had been when Walt was arrested and convicted. I hadn’t thought they had a good marriage. Not on her part, anyway. She was the sort of wife always making minor insults and throwing sideways digs at her husband. He never paid much attention, though.” Lucky laughed. “Men can be oblivious sometimes. Present company excepted, of course.”
John Winters froze, his coffee cup halfway to his mouth.
Oblivious.
***
He walked Lucky back to her store and, after being reminded about the barbeque on Saturday, he carried on down the street to the tourist information center. He knew Tina Bowman. She lived with her husband and two children not far from the center of town. They’d had a break-in at their house a few months ago. Garbage tossed around, drinking glasses and plates broken, small electronics taken. The case had not required all of John Winters’ highly toned detective powers. A trail of footprints in freshly fallen snow led directly to the door of a neighbor against whom the Bowmans had laid several noise complaints.
Tina was seated at the reception desk when he came in. She gave him a smile of recognition. “Sergeant Winters, nice to see you. Are you interested in tourist brochures? Planning a nice romantic getaway with your wife? If so, you’ve come to the right place. I was sorry to hear about what happened to her, but they say she’s doing fine.”
“She is, thanks. I want to talk to you, Tina, and not about tourism. Do you have a couple of minutes?”
“Sure.” She waved her hand in the air. Other than the two of them the room was empty. The building was new, all tinted glass and deep red wood. Sun streamed through the wide windows; maps and colorful posters depicting the spectacular beauty of the Kootenays hung on the walls; display racks overflowed with brochures and pamphlets.
“You’ve lived in Trafalgar a long time,” he said.
“Born and raised. God’s country. Why would I ever want to live anyplace else?”
“Why, indeed. You were at school with Sophia D’Angelo.”
Tina’s eyebrows rose. “Wow, so that’s why you’re here. I heard the guy they put away for killing her didn’t do it. I guess you guys are wondering who did, eh?”
“That we are.”
“Yeah, I knew her back in the day. She was my age, went to the same school.”
“Tell me about her.”
“She was really nice….”
“Is that true?” Winters said.
Tina glanced at the stack of brochures on her desk. She ran a finger across the cover of one. An alpine meadow, masses of flowers, the sparkling blue lake far below, snow-topped mountains in the distance. “What do you mean?”
“Away from the press, away from the courts, I’d like to hear about the real Sophia, not the image of her given at Desmond’s trial or in the papers. Tell me honestly, Tina. Please.”
She sighed. He let the silence linger and eventually she looked at him. “Okay. After her murder and during the trial, it was like they were talking about different person. Not the Soph I knew. She was a wild one. I don’t mean she ever did anything illegal, but she was the sort who wanted what she wanted when she wanted it, and God help anyone who got in her way. Her parents thought she was a little angel and they treated her like she was ten years old or something. She had some really mean things to say about them. I think she got a kick out of pulling the wool over their eyes.
“We were the same age, so in a lot of the same classes all through school. Back then, I didn’t think much about why she was the way she was, but now I’d guess it had a lot to do with her parents. They were totally old-school, and brought Soph up as though she was a Victorian maiden or something. She couldn’t go to dances or sleepovers or activities like that. She wasn’t allowed to date. So she became sneaky. She did all those things, just lied to her parents about it. She had boyfriends, all right, lots of boyfriends. Sometimes even more than one at
the same time. I’m not saying she was promiscuous, Sergeant Winters, no more than any other girl in our age group,” Tina laughed. “She didn’t have a reputation for that.”
She gazed out the window for a long time. Winters let her think. “Now that I’m remembering her, from the vantage point of all these years later and the benefit of my years of maturity, I feel sorry for her. She had to lie to her parents. She had to break their rules all the time. Lying and sneaking around was simply the way she went through life.”
“At the trial she was described as a stickler for the rules. What do you think about that?”
“Sergeant Winters, if there was a rule, as far as Soph was concerned, it was there to be broken. Maybe she changed after high school. I don’t know. A bunch of us went out for dinner one night in the fall after she moved back to Trafalgar. She was talking about how her parents wanted her to stay in town. She’d taken the job at the bank but that was only temporary as far as she was concerned. She had plans. She was saving to go to Australia with some guy she’d met. I never spoke to her again.”
“Thanks, Tina. I know that was hard, but you’ve been a big help.”
“It’s been a long time, Sergeant. I have a daughter and a son of my own, they’re teenagers now. I’ve been determined to raise them both the same. I want them to have freedom, and be able to explore, but to know there are boundaries. It’s not always easy. Maybe watching poor Soph had more of an influence on me than I thought.”
***
“Is he in?” Winters asked Barb.
She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. “Gone for the day. He has a presentation to give to the town council tonight.”
“I need about half an hour of his time tomorrow morning, first thing.”
“I’ll put you down.” Barb turned back to the computer. She didn’t ask what it was about. If Winters wanted to tell her, he would.
“I have good news and less good news,” Ray Lopez said when Winters walked into the detectives’ office.