Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

be able to get Bassing well and good. Now all they had to do was to find him.
    Time to head home, change and go for a good long run. Something to clear the cobwebs out of his brain.
    And maybe he’d have a flash of insight about the Montgomery case while pounding the pavement.
    ***
    Andy Smith was sitting at the kitchen table in the center of a puddle of yellow light when Lucky and her daughter got home. Sylvester leapt to his feet and greeted them as if they’d been away for months, trekking in the Himalayas. Lucky pushed him aside. She wasn’t in a mood to endure his usually joyful greeting.
    “Christa?” Andy asked.
    “She’ll be okay.” Lucky collapsed into a chair. Sylvester kept nuzzling her, until she relented and gave him a half-hearted pat. “A couple of broken ribs, a lot of bruising on her face. A cracked cheekbone.” Christa had been wrapped in bandages, her right eye swollen and blackened, her lips thick and cut. She’d been sleeping when Lucky and Moonlight were allowed a minute in her room. Her breathing sounded harsh and ragged. Lucky kissed her lightly on the cheek, her heart breaking, and Moonlight had clenched her own hands together until her knuckles turned as white as the face of the moon, and they left.
    Moonlight tossed her boots onto the mat beside the door. She filled the kettle. “She was starting to regain consciousness when I found her. She could have lain there for days calling for help before that bitch of a neighbor did anything other than hammer on the wall and scream at her to shut up.”
    “Can I visit tomorrow?” Andy asked.
    “You should be able to,” Lucky said.
    “Good. I want to catch the late news.”
    Moonlight tossed her gun belt on the table. Lucky winced at the sight of it, as she always did. At least it was her daughter who carried a gun, not her son. She didn’t know why that seemed preferable, but it did.
    A loose floorboard creaked under Andy’s footsteps. He hadn’t reached out to comfort her. These days they seemed to interact like two bubble people, each confined to their own private world. It would have been nice if he’d sat with them for a while. Had tea and cookies around the kitchen table, and talked over their troubles. Like they used to.
    “It’s my fault,” Moonlight said, taking mugs off the drying rack and bags of tea out of the canister on the counter.
    “Nonsense,” Lucky said. “It’s the fault of Charlie whatshisname. And don’t you dare forget that.”
    “I told her to take out a restraining order. But when she came to the station, I wasn’t there. I had more important things to do. I forgot her. She could have died.”
    “Look at me, Moonlight,” Lucky said. “Look at me.”
    Moonlight turned her head. Outside the sun was setting, and the shadows of the trees were as long as those across her high cheekbones. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
    “You did all you could. You tried to warn Christa. You told her to make a complaint. You couldn’t force her to go in front of a judge, could you?”
    “No, but….”
    “No buts about it. I’ve seen it before.” Lucky accepted a cup of tea. Moonlight threw herself into a chair. The gun belt lay on the table between them. The Great Divide—tearing the one strong river that had been their family into two. “A nice young woman like Christa, she can’t believe in the violence of the world outside.”
    “That’s the point, Mom.” Moonlight hit the table so hard the sugar bowl jumped. “I know! I knew she was in danger. I wasn’t there when she turned to me. I was too busy.”
    “Too busy,” Lucky said, “trying to find the person who murdered a citizen of this town. I may have disagreed with Montgomery, profoundly, but I want his killer to be caught. Don’t make it sound as if you were smoking a joint and reading
Cosmo
, Moonlight.”
    Lucky’s daughter stared into her tea cup.
    “You’re an officer of the law. A policewoman. Moonlight Smith can’t make Christa’s choices for her. But Constable Smith can do something about bringing that…person…to justice. Not only Christa, but Montgomery, and the people of this town need you. Are you going to be there for them?”
    “I don’t know, Mom.” Moonlight lifted her head. Her eyes were blue pools in a face touched with sunburn. She was so fair, like her father, that she didn’t take the sun well. “The job. The responsibility. Sergeant Winters thinks I’m a schoolgirl. Christa needed me and I