Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

stuffed-shirt, condescending, middle-class
male
police officer like John Winters what it felt like to be stalked, humiliated, threatened.
    “Tell her that he won’t be talked into seeing her point of view,” Winters said. “Tell her to come in and lay a complaint. It might save her life.”
    As if she hadn’t done all that many times over. “She doesn’t live far from here. I don’t like it that he’s so close.”
    “Worry about that later,” Winters said. “Ron Gavin’s at the park. I need to find out what he’s discovered. Perhaps our arsonist will have dropped his driver’s license in the mud.”
    There was no one in front of her: Smith put her foot on the gas.
    ***
    It suited the bulk of his audience to think that Rich Ashcroft was a good, religious man. Today he was almost ready to believe it himself.
    As they were pulling away from M&D Developments, with plenty of good footage in the can, something even better came his way.
    A white SUV blocked the entrance to the work site. The logo on the side was of a man on a horse, holding a lance upright. The RCMP. Americans loved the Mounties. It reminded them of the Old West, the frontier. Of which there was nothing left in America. Not much left in Canada, either, but a Mountie driving an SUV would do. Unfortunately, the officer wasn’t dressed in red serge. Just a brown uniform with a yellow stripe running down the pant leg.
    A ragged bunch of protesters marched in the dirt in front of the entrance to Grizzly Resort. They wore an assortment of animal costumes that might have been stolen from their baby sister’s Halloween get-up.
    “We’ll play it real friendly,” Rich said. “Get it all, Greg. Meredith, stay in the car.”
    Cop and protesters stopped what they were doing at the sight of the car.
    “Hey, officer, what’s going on?” Rich put on his friendly face. Greg tried to be as noticeable as possible—not difficult for a man with a camera on his shoulder.
    “Stop the animal killers!” The protesters ran forward.
    Rich saw a grizzly bear, a wolf, a tiger, a moose or two, and what might have been a Maltese poodle. Horns and antlers wagged, big ears waved. “What’s going on?” he asked.
    “If you’ll be on your way, sir,” the Mountie said.
    “A minute, please. These people are here for a reason. I’d like to hear it. You, sir, Mr….uh…bear. I’m Rich Ashcroft, CNC.” He ran the letters together, trying to make them sound like CBC, the government-owned Canadian broadcaster that had the reputation of being left-wing. “Can you tell me what you’re protesting here?”
    Mr. Grizzly Bear pulled off his head. Underneath he was a clean-shaven, short-haired, mid-thirties man with frameless round glasses. He might have emerged only this morning from the cube farm of a bank. “We, uh,” he mumbled.
    “This abomination will kill the animals that count on this ravine for passage around the filth of human settlement.” The speaker wore a wolf’s head, as threatening as a Care Bear. The voice was muffled under the mask, but the big breasts could only belong to a human female.
    Rich stepped closer, signaling to Greg to zoom in. “This looks like a nice family place to me. Wide open spaces, not too crowded, plenty of room for children to experience nature.”
    “They might as well go to a theme park in Florida for all the nature they’ll experience here. It has to be stopped.” The pack mumbled their agreement. The cop was looking edgy. He spoke into the radio on his shoulder. Time to move this on.
    “What do you mean, stopped? The company has the proper authorization, doesn’t it?” Rich asked, his eyes wide open and innocent. Innocent was his best look. They fell for it every time.
    “Authorization,” the wolf yelled. “We don’t care about authorization.” The group behind her shifted from foot to foot without much enthusiasm. Rich signaled to Greg to focus on the wolf-woman.
    “You want the real story?” she asked.
    “I’m here to listen.”
    Whereupon the wolf-woman told him that they would do whatever was necessary to stop the development. The grizzly bear, the moose and the tiger shuffled away. Rich could almost feel Greg’s camera closing in.
    “Whatever’s necessary?” Rich said. “What do you mean by that?”
    “An animal in the wild kills only because it has to.”
    “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. Are you comparing yourself, your group, to an animal cornered by its enemy? As if you’re