Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

taken her bike—he might not like her, but he wouldn’t dare being accused of stealing. Her bike, her twenty-one speed mountain bike, had been stolen. From the back of the police station.
    She went back inside.
    “Still here, Molly?” Winters came out of the sergeants’ office as Smith was wondering how she should go about placing a complaint of her stolen property. Should she write up the report herself, or phone it in tomorrow? Or forget about it? The chances of the bike being recovered were about nil.
    “You offered me a ride, John?”
    “Too late to bike? Mountain roads can be treacherous after dark.”
    “Just tired.”
    “Offer’s still good. The cab’ll be here in a couple of minutes. Spoke too soon. It’s here now, that was quick. Advantage of living in a small town, eh?”
    ***
    “Moonlight, is that you? You’re early, and was that a car I heard? Is something the matter?”
    “I’m early, Mom, because I’ve been given a special assignment. This is so great, I can’t wait to tell you about it. And that was a car because of something that isn’t so great.”
    Her mother struggled to push herself out her favorite reading chair, the one with springs so worn that it was an effort standing up. A book lay open on the table beside her, and her reading glasses were pushed down her nose. Sylvester opened one eye, checked Smith out, and went back to sleep. The house was dark, except for a single lamp over the chair.
    At not much over five feet Lucky Smith was considerably shorter than her daughter. Her face was round and soft, with a maze of lines radiating out from the corners of her eyes and mouth; her red hair was heavily streaked with grey and, as always, stuffed into a haphazard bunch at the back of her head. “Sounds like one of those good news, bad news jokes. I’ll put the kettle on and you can tell me the bad news first. So it doesn’t linger in my mind.”
    “Why are you still up, Mom? Everything okay?”
    “Of course. I’m enjoying this book so much, I wanted to finish it.” Lucky went into the kitchen.
    Smith picked up the book her mother’d placed on the side table. The corner of page ten was turned down. The novel was the approximate thickness of the phone book. Lucky would be reading into next month if she wanted to get finished in one sitting. Something was wrong between her parents: she’d suspected it for some time. The ground was shifting under Molly Smith’s feet, fault lines in the earth’s crust preparing to move, and she didn’t like the sensation. She followed her mother into the kitchen. Sylvester padded along behind.
    Their kitchen was a room well lived in. Light catchers dangled in the window, reflecting nothing of the darkness beyond. Almost every square on the calendar over the phone (a fund raiser for the seniors center—a montage of naked elderly women, tastefully posed) was full of scribbles. Piles of letters, newspaper clippings, and magazines had been pushed to the back of the big wooden table, scarred with memories of family dinners and political protests. Photos of her brother Sam’s children, fastened in place by magnets, covered the fridge, and colorful school art was pinned to a cork board set up for that purpose. A shelf, full of cookbooks both well-thumbed and never opened, hung from a loose screw. The screw had been loose as long as Smith could remember. A wicker basket on the counter overflowed with red tomatoes, cherry and beefsteak, interspersed with green peas and yellow beans picked from the garden that afternoon. Several loose sheets of paper had fallen from the pile of petitions, flyers, address books, and notes tumbling all over themselves on the phone table. Lucky picked some of them up.
    Smith undid her gunbelt and tossed it on the table. The weapon lay amongst the evidence of a comfortable country mountain home like dog poo on the lawns of Buchart Gardens. Lucky turned her face away in silent disgust. There were some things mother and daughter had learned not to discuss.
    “Hungry? There’s still some curry.”
    Smith’s stomach rolled over, and an image of Reginald Montgomery’s head rose, unbidden, in her mind. “No. I mean, no thanks, Mom. I’m not hungry.”
    The kettle switched itself off and Lucky busied herself with cups, tea bags, milk and sugar. “Tell me why you got a ride home, dear.”
    “My bike was stolen.”
    Lucky stopped, bag of milk in hand. “You park it behind the police station, don’t