Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

about the memorial to the draft dodgers up in British Columbia, right?”
    “Spit it out, Irene.”
    “Word just came in of a murder in Trafalgar. At first I didn’t pay it any attention. Killing in small-town Canada, who the hell cares? But I decided to read the whole piece. The dead guy was big in trying to derail the monument.”
    “You don’t say?”
    “I say. The report’s covered in all sorts of disclaimers, but it’s a murder all right.”
    Jenny, Joanie? reached out a thin pale arm and ran her long red nails across his chest. He slapped it away. Jeannie, that was her name.
    “The mayor died couple weeks ago. He was the one pushing hard for the memorial. I did a quick bit of catching up before calling you and this guy, I’ve got his name right here, Reginald Montgomery, stepped in and tried to stop it. Bad for international relations he said.”
    “By which he meant bad for business. How’d the mayor die?”
    “Heart attack.”
    “No need to dig into his death. But the other guy? Sounds promising. Pitch it to the bosses, and book me a flight to Trafalgar first thing tomorrow. Get on the phone to the reporter who put out the story. Small town, he’s gotta be impressed to have a call from CNC. Sound charming, will you?”
    Rich’s assistant, Irene, was over sixty years old; she’d had a two-pack-a-day habit since she was sixteen. Her voice was so low and sexy that it, plus the mention of Cable News Corporation, would have any hick town reporter coming in his jeans. Irene laughed. “Aren’t I always charming? However, the name on the byline is Meredith. Sounds more like your style.”
    “Call me with that flight info. I’ll be up.” Rich switched the phone off, and lay back into the pillows. He grabbed Jeannie’s arm. “Finish what you were doing,” he said.
    ***
    John Winters wasn’t going to wait until morning to call the Chief Constable.
    The taxi had dropped him at his car, still at the resort where he and Eliza had dinner, and he’d driven himself home. They lived outside of town, on a small road clinging to the side of the mountain. The forest grew thicker and the handful of houses dotting the road grew thinner as he drove. His house was the last before the wilderness closed in. A right bugger to get out of in winter, but Eliza loved the solitude and the view. The front porch and wide living room windows looked over the forest to the expanse of the Upper Kootenay River and the mountains beyond, cumulating in a glimpse of Koola, the glacier that loomed over Trafalgar.
    Eliza was curled up in the king-size bed under a light summer sheet. The strap of her ivory satin nightgown had slipped down her arm. She smelled of Chanel No. 5. He kissed her on the cheek. She murmured sweet nothings and rolled over, and he went into the kitchen for something to eat and to make the call.
    Eliza. It was a wonder she’d stayed with him all these years. In her late 40s, she was still beautiful enough to have her pick of men, yet she stuck with him. Their Vancouver friends had assumed that the move from the city to slow-paced, quiet Trafalgar was to make Eliza happy; more time for her husband to be home, a nice house in the mountains. In reality Eliza had loved their condo on False Creek, loved city life. But he couldn’t take it any more. Big-city politics, the sordid Downtown Eastside, filled with hopeless druggies, empty-eyed hookers, and wide-eyed child runaways. Sad lives of sad people for which no one gave a damn. It hadn’t been the death of yet another drug-addled teenaged whore or child runaway that had forced him to make up his mind, rather the mess he’d made of the investigation of the murder of a twelve-year-old from a wealthy, highly connected family.
    Eliza no longer modeled for
Vogue
or
Harper’s Bazaar
, but she still made good money, enough to buy a small apartment in Vancouver where she could stay overnight if she had a shoot in the city. Not only had Eliza been a top model in her day, she was also blessed with the gift of acute financial know-how. Winters could have retired outright, had he wanted. He’d considered it, seriously. But he was a cop. And as hard as the job got sometimes, he wanted to be nothing but a cop.
    They’d had packaged-microwaveable roast beef last night. Winters cut thick slices off the leftovers and slapped them between pieces of whole wheat bread. He didn’t spare the mustard. After taking a couple of bites, he punched in the Chief Constable’s