Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

stupid most criminals can be. We wouldn’t catch many of them if they had half a brain cell to rub together.”
    “Half of anything can’t rub against nothing.”
    ***
    Talk at the coffee shop was all about the CNC program. It had been rebroadcast across the United States that morning on the network’s breakfast show.
    “I wouldn’t of thought many people in town watched CNC.” Christa joined the conversation in the bagel line.
    A young woman with hair cropped to her scalp, a short T-shirt, and low-slung cut-off jeans shrugged. “Word got around that there was going to be a piece on Trafalgar, so people tuned in. Hoping to see themselves in the background.”
    “Fellow came in already,” Jolene, behind the sandwich bar, said, as she sliced a pumpernickel bagel, popped it into the toaster oven, slipped an onion one out, and slathered it with cream cheese. “Told me he’d driven up from Oregon and wanted to know where he could go to protest the peace garden.”
    “What’d you say?” the short-haired girl asked.
    “Sent him to Nelson.”
    Everyone laughed.
    “Dill and garlic on whole wheat, please.” Christa shuffled down the line. She’d been up all night, working on her paper. As the sun touched the top of the mountains, she’d pressed the Outlook Express send/receive button and sent it on its way. She’d done a good job and deserved a treat. On a nice morning like this sometimes it seemed as if everyone in Trafalgar passed through Big Eddie’s.
    “Excuse me,” a middle-aged woman said from the back of the line, “but are you people talking about the Commemorative Peace Garden?”
    The line ground to a halt as the locals turned and looked at her. Even Jolene stopped in the midst of slicing a bagel.
    “My friends and I flew in from Vancouver. We heard about the program and wanted to let you know that you have our support.”
    Like an assembly line that had been re-started after an accident, the bagel line shifted into motion again. “That’s nice of you,” a tall young man said. “But the show was only on last night.”
    “We can move quickly when we have to. I’m with the Vancouver Women’s Peace Alliance.”
    “Not everyone’s going to be happy to see you.” A man walked past, balancing coffee and bagel bag. He was dressed in a suit and tie. You didn’t see that much in Trafalgar, and certainly not in high summer. “O’Reilly donated the land and asked for a park to be dedicated to him and his buddies, so I figure they should respect his wishes. But we don’t need strangers stirring up trouble.” He glared at the woman from Vancouver.
    Christa poured herself coffee and moved further down the line to pay.
    “Some people aren’t in favor of the garden,” a woman in tennis whites, pushing a stroller, said. “Like the old World War Two vets. They say it disgraces their memory.”
    “But the garden has nothing to do with World War Two. My grandpa lost an eye in Italy and he….”
    Eddie took Christa’s money. “I don’t take sides,” he said, handing Christa her change and the warm bagel bag. “Have a nice day.”
    The tables inside and out were all taken; people were propped on the short brick wall around Eddie’s’s property, and the line snaked down the street. With one or two exceptions there were no North-American-wide fast-food restaurants or coffee chains in Trafalgar. The citizens were active and vocal, and kept the corporate biggies out.
    Christa sipped coffee through the hole in the lid. Perhaps she’d go to the beach later, spend a lazy day in the sun. It would be nice if Molly could come, but she was probably working, unless they’d solved this murder. In a million years Christa would never have guessed that Moonlight Smith would become a cop. But when Graham was killed, a lot of things changed with her friend. Molly had been working toward her MSW, Master of Social Work, at University of Victoria. Graham had finished ahead of her and had a job in Vancouver. Their wedding date was set for the following summer. But he’d been killed days before Christmas, stabbed and left to die in a garbage-strewn alley in the Downtown Eastside by one of his spaced-out clients. The doctor told Molly, foolishly in Christa’s opinion, that if someone had just called 911, Graham would have lived. But people passed him in the alley all night and no one called for help until morning. Molly quit the MSW program, came home to Trafalgar and wrapped herself in mourning and