Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

coast. It’ll all blow over. Good night, dear.”
    “Night, Mom.” Smith climbed the stairs. Lucky was such an optimist. This wouldn’t blow over. Not if Rich Ashcroft had anything to say about it—and he almost certainly did.
    She pulled off her uniform, freed her toes from the heavy boots, locked her gun in the safe, ran a toothbrush over her teeth, and fell into bed. She felt like killing—Rich Ashcroft first, her dad second. Meredith Morgenstern would be a distant third.
    When the phone rang at three o’clock, she reached for it instantly, her heart pounding. Dad. He hadn’t come home. In her job, she herself had made some unwelcome early-morning phone calls.
    Instead of a solemn-voiced officer asking to speak to Mrs. Smith, it was Sergeant Winters. “Be ready in fifteen minutes,” he said. “We’ve got a situation.”

Chapter Thirteen
    The building was a smoldering ruin. Firefighters were rolling up hoses and packing away their equipment when Smith and Winters arrived. Curious citizens had gathered across the street in an assortment of summer sleepwear. A police cruiser blocked entrance to the park, and Constable Dawn Solway stood beside it.
    Winters had said nothing to Smith when he picked her up, thirteen minutes after his call. She hadn’t known if she should put on her uniform, so dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, with running shoes on her feet, and her gun and badge tossed into a fanny pack. She hadn’t had time to braid her hair, just stuffed it into a clip as they drove. She’d been pleased to see her father’s car parked in their driveway.
    A firefighter met them as they got out of Winters’ car.
    The men shook hands and the firefighter nodded to Smith. “Joe Matthews,” he said. His helmet was tucked under his arm, and soot streaked across his face.
    They walked toward the scene of the fire, the smell of smoke heavy in the air, wet grass soft underfoot. “I’ll bet my son’s university tuition that this was arson,” Matthews said. “Not the slightest attempt to hide it.”
    “No one on the scene when you arrived?”
    “Long gone. It was called in by a lady who lives across the street. She was up feeding her baby, looked out the window before settling it back to sleep, saw flames and called us.”
    “Is it safe to poke around?”
    “Long as you don’t go into the structure itself, and don’t pick anything up. Arson investigator’s been called.”
    “Thanks.”
    Matthews walked away, the orange stripes on his bunker gear glowing in the lights from police car and fire truck.
    The building wasn’t more than seven or eight feet square. Charred gardening implements and workmen’s tools littered the blackened ground. Water soaked into Smith’s running shoes.
    This property was owned by the town of Trafalgar, as much as some citizens might not want it. It had been left to the town in the will of Larry O’Reilly—the site of the proposed Commemorative Peace Garden.
    “I haven’t heard of an arsonist active in this area, have you, Molly?”
    “No.”
    “Ineffectual building to want to burn to the ground.”
    The fire truck drove away, its big tires digging trenches through the grass.
    Across the street, people began to disperse.
    “But symbolic,” Smith said.
    “How so? It’s a garden shed. I have a bigger one in my back yard.”
    “My mom has a draft of the plans.” Smith waved her arm. “This is where the fountain’s supposed to go. As there isn’t anything else to burn, I guess they figured this shed would have to do. The house is over that ridge. The garden was separated from the property immediately around the house, and left to the town.”
    “You think this was a political act? Not a couple of drunk teenagers with nothing better to do?”
    Smith shrugged. “Why else would you call me out?”
    “Because I think this was a political act related to the Commemorative Peace Garden and the murder of Reginald Montgomery. What I’m wondering, though, is why it happened tonight. There hasn’t been any real trouble, criminal trouble, over the park. Just a lot of yelling and shouting at town council. Did the murder of Montgomery bring troublemakers out of the woodwork?”
    Smith laughed without mirth. “That TV trash certainly didn’t help.” She felt something squish under her foot, and knew she’d stepped into a pile of dog dirt. Made nice and moist by water from the firefighters’ hoses.
    “What TV trash?”
    She rubbed her shoe on the grass. “CNC, the