Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

either attempting to subdue an offender or beating the shit out of an innocent protester, depending on one’s point of view. She recalled the incident fondly whenever she had the chance, and Smith feared her mother was reliving her glory days. Lucky put the flashlight on the counter. “After you, Sergeant,” she said.
    Smith grabbed the big guy by the arm. “Do I have to cuff you?” she said.
    “Hey, babe, I’m easy. What are you doin’ after work?”
    “Move.”
    Approximately half the population of Trafalgar had gathered outside Mid-Kootenay Adventures. Solway had been joined by another constable and they had their hands full trying to keep everyone back. Traffic was at a halt, as onlookers spilled off the sidewalk and drivers stopped in the middle of the street trying to get a glimpse of what was going on.
    “Nothing to see, folks,” Evans said, as he walked out of the store with his handcuffed prisoner. “Go about your business.”
    Smith thought that Evans had seen one too many cop movies.
    She followed with the big one who was asking her if she had plans for dinner.
    “What’s the matter with you people?” the scrawny guy yelled. “Are you gonna stand by while these terrorist sympathizers erect their monument to cowardice and treason?”
    “Let him go,” someone deep in the crowd shouted. “Lucky Smith won’t be happy until every business in town’s shut down.”
    Voices rose, some shouting their agreement, some throwing counter-arguments.
    “Are you losing your minds?” a woman shouted. “When did Trafalgar become about censorship and silencing citizens? I never would have believed the day would come.”
    “We have to stand up for peace,” someone else shouted.
    “My father died in Vietnam. He died doing his duty. Unlike that fat scum.” Smith recognized the guy from last night’s TV program. In the soft morning light, rather than the shadows cast by the TV camera, she could see that he was no older than she. If his father had died in 1972, Brian Harris been conceived from frozen sperm.
    “Get moving,” Winters yelled.
    Smith and Evans bundled the men into the car. She had to push hard on her prisoner’s thick head to get him to duck. She took shotgun and Evans turned on the siren. People in the crowd were still murmuring, but they began to move off the road. Evans negotiated around the ambulance—the paramedics were talking to Andy—and edged into the street.
    Sunlight caught on glass, and Smith looked across the street. Standing outside the hardware store was a man with a camera on his shoulder. Meredith Morgenstern was beside him, summer-fresh in a short yellow skirt and matching T-shirt. Rich Ashcroft was on the other side of the cameraman, his mouth moving. He watched while Evans executed a three-point turn, although he could just as easily have gone around the block. When he knew she was looking at him, Ashcroft lowered one eyelid in a slow wink, and lifted his right thumb.

Chapter Twenty-two
    While Smith and Evans escorted the two men to the booking room at the back of the station, Winters went to brief the Chief.
    “I’m not happy about this, John.” Paul Keller took a hearty gulp of one of the ten or twelve diet Cokes he’d consume over the course of the day.
    “I didn’t think you would be.”
    “The last thing we need is outside agitators arriving to stir the pot up. We don’t need any more oars dipping into our community’s problems.”
    Winters ignored the badly matched metaphors. “That TV guy, Ashcroft, filmed the whole thing.”
    “Tell me you made that last statement up.”
    “I don’t suppose we can run him out of town on a rail.”
    “This is only the tip of the iceberg, John. There’ll be more folks arriving. I’m not fond of this garden myself. It’s unnecessarily divisive, and it’s like flicking the finger to our American neighbors.”
    “The two guys we arrested at the Smiths’ store are from Creston.”
    “Oh, goodie. Local thugs. That makes me feel so much better.” The Chief crushed the can in his fist and tossed the remains into the trash, where the day’s Coke graveyard was beginning to build.
    “Don’t suppose you want to have a word with this Ashcroft fellow, John? Suggest he go cover more important things. Like the trade in nuclear weapons or a war brewing somewhere.”
    Winters didn’t smile. “Not my job, Paul. Not my job. And I’m glad of it.”
    “I’ve called the Yellow Stripes. Told them we may need help if