Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

blood.
    He heard sirens, the squeal of brakes, doors opening, Smith’s strong voice telling them where to go.
    “She’s alive,” he said to the paramedics. There wasn’t room for all of them in the landing. He walked outside and left them to do their job.
    He blinked in the bright sunshine. “She’s alive,” he repeated to Smith. “Finished at the park or not, I want Ron Gavin here now. Call it in.”
    People began to gather on the sidewalk across the street. Paramedics talked in low, professional tones. Another siren and a marked police car pulled up. Dave Evans parked half on the sidewalk.
    “Keep those people back,” Winters told him. “Too many people with nothing better to do. You can sit in our van now that Dave’s here,” he said to Smith.
    “Charlie fucking Bassing. When I get my hands on the goddamned bastard,” she said.
    “You will escort him to the station with all due formality and have him questioned as per procedure. Do you hear me, Constable Smith?”
    Her blue eyes looked like storm clouds moving in on a sunny day. Her mouth twitched.
    “Otherwise you will be seriously compromising a legal case. Is that what you want?”
    “No.” She buried her face in her hands. Her shoulders shook.
    “Go and sit in the van,” Winters repeated.
    “I’m okay.” She looked up. Her eyes were dry. “Dave needs some help over there.” Evans was arguing with the downstairs neighbor, the one who had a key.
    “I have to see if anything’s been stolen,” she shouted.
    “Evans can handle it. Get in the van, Constable Smith.”
    A dark blue uniform backed out of Christa’s doorway, holding the end of a stretcher. A second paramedic followed, holding a plastic bag and an IV line over a thin shape under a white sheet. Christa’s head was streaked with blood, and blood soaked the front of her shirt. The crowd fell silent while she was loaded into the ambulance.
    “Have you room for my constable?” Winters asked the medic, his hand on the floor of the vehicle, ready to jump in the back with the patient.
    “Yes.”
    Smith was in the van, as ordered, watching. Winters gestured to her, and she leapt out. “Accompany the patient to the hospital,” he said. “You’re off duty for the rest of the day.” She clambered into the ambulance, rejecting a hand from the paramedic, and the doors slammed shut behind her. Evans forced onlookers aside to make a path for the retreating vehicle.
    ***
    At the hospital, they wouldn’t tell her anything. Christa was rushed away, but a nurse stopped Smith at the reception desk. “You can wait here, Officer.”
    “I’m not an officer. I mean, I’m not here as an officer. I’m her friend.”
    “Then take a seat over there.” The nurse nodded toward the waiting area. The room smelled of disinfectant, floor polish, grief, and pain. A woman about Smith’s age wept silently into the shoulder of a much older man. He patted her back and his lips moved, but no sound came out. People flicked through dusty magazines. Some of them looked up to see what was going on. A TV was suspended from the wall, turned to a headline news channel. Either the sound was off or Smith couldn’t hear it over the screams of blame and recrimination bounding around the inside of her brain.
    She pulled her phone out.
    “No cell phones,” the nurse said.
    Smith punched in the number as she ran outside. “Mom?” she said. “I need you, Mom.” And the tears fell.
    ***
    Lucky Smith splashed cold water across the back of her neck. God, she’d decided, was not a woman.
    This could not be happening. A bomb threat, of all things, and now the police were questioning them about the barbeque lighters they used to promote the store. Barbeque lighters. John Winters hadn’t said why he wanted to know. He hadn’t had to. There’d been a fire last night. Burned the gardening shed that was all the Commemorative Peace Garden consisted of, so far, almost to the ground.
    Had someone happened upon a Mid-Kootenay Adventure Vacations customized lighter, or was it a direct threat? It had to be the latter. They sold and gave away a lot of those lighters over the course of a year, but nowhere near the numbers that would be bought at the Wal-Mart in Nelson, or any retail outlet.
    She studied her face in the mirror. Water dripped from the tendrils of grey hair at the back of her neck. Lines of worry and stress pulled at the corners of her eyes and the edges of her mouth.
When,
she thought
, did I get so