Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

Montgomery’s death have any effect on negotiations for the property?”
    Smith looked out the window at a cruiser pulling into the parking lot. “It might make it easier for the garden to go ahead. My mom was worried that Montgomery was influential enough to derail the plans, once the mayor died.”
    “Your mother?”
    “She’s uh…well, she’s one of the people in support of the garden.”
    “I’d like to meet your mother.”
    Smith’s eyes flashed blue. “My mother didn’t kill Montgomery.”
    He raised his hands. “I didn’t suggest she did. I only meant that I’d like to meet your mother to talk to her about the political situation.”
    “That’d be okay, I guess.”
    “You wanted to see me, Sarge.” Dave Evans’ head popped around the door.
    Winters glanced at his watch. It was long past three and he was starving. “You went to the shops and homes on the alley this morning?”
    “Yes.” Evans looked at Smith, sitting in the detectives’ office chair, her hat off, her hair mussed. His lips tightened with disapproval.
    “I need to hear what you found out, but it’s long past lunch time. Have you eaten, Dave?”
    Evans shook his head.
    “Let’s go then.” Winters got to his feet. “We can pick up sandwiches on the way. Molly, get your hat. We might not be back.”
    ***
    Smith drove and Evans sat shotgun. She found a parking spot in front of the sandwich shop that doubled as an Internet café, and Winters ran in. Smith and Evans looked out their respective windows, watching people on the street, not saying a word to each other. She knew he didn’t like her. He thought she was getting ahead because of reverse discrimination. She thought she was getting ahead because she was a hard worker, whereas Evans was lazy and flippant. He was the son and grandson of senior RCMP officers, but the Mounties hadn’t been hiring when he was looking, so he’d joined the Trafalgar City Police. He made sure that everyone, short of the Chief Constable, knew that he considered this job to be a stopgap on the way to something better. He looked like Dudley Doright, the stereotypical cop: tall, muscular, strong chinned, prominent cheekbones, clean shaven, short haired. Good-looking and he knew it.
    The back door rattled as Winters pulled it aside and climbed in. He carried two brown paper bags, bulging under the weight. “My house, Molly. The only place in town where we can be sure of not being overheard.”
    Winters hadn’t asked them what they liked in a sandwich, but when they settled around his kitchen table, and he unloaded the bag, Smith grinned with pleasure. Corned beef on rye. Pastrami on pumpernickel. Roast beef on a kaiser. Ham and Swiss on white. Turkey and cheddar on a baguette. Bags of potato chips and cans of pop accompanied the meal.
    “My wife’s out of town for a few days,” Winters explained, pulling sections of paper towel off a roll beside the sink. “I have to fend for myself.”
    He joined them at the table. “Tell me what you found out, Dave.”
    “Not a lot. No one seems to have seen or heard anything. The lady who lives behind the bakery, Mrs.…” He put down his sandwich and pulled out his notebook. He flipped the pages. “Mrs. Morrison, had been in her garden around five. She washed up and went to her sister’s for the meeting of their bridge club. She got home around ten, and went straight to bed.”
    “The restaurant?” Winters ripped open a plastic packet of mustard and applied it liberally to his pastrami sandwich.
    “Not all the staff working last night were there when I dropped in at lunch time. The head cook said he went out for a smoke around six thirty. Didn’t see anything out of the ordinary, and after that everyone says they were too busy to even look out the window. I don’t buy that.”
    “I sure do,” Smith laughed. She swallowed a hunk of her sandwich as well as her words at the expression on Evans’ face. “A busy restaurant is a busy restaurant. Once dinner service starts they don’t have time to go to the can much less take a peek out the window.”
    “You know this, do you,” Evans said, barely disguising a sneer.
    “I waited tables when I was a student.”
    “I bow to your superior knowledge.”
    She wanted to slap him. Or, if not that, at least slap the sandwich out of his hand.
    “What about the rest of the businesses?” Winters said. “Come on, Dave, that’s a busy alley, and there was a bit of daylight left before