Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

way,” he said, when she stopped talking.
    “That might not be a good idea. That CNC guy’s hanging around, spoiling for a fight. Let it all calm down, and he’ll be on the next plane out. And his viewers’ attention will follow him. They’ll never think about us again.”
    “This means a lot to me, Lucky.”
    “I know, Barry, I know. Let’s keep our heads down and wait until the shit has stopped flying, shall we?”
    “Keep me posted.”
    “I will.”
    She had only just opened the letter on the top of her mail pile when the phone rang again. She looked at the call display: Barry again?
    “What, you couldn’t you keep your fool head down for longer than ten seconds?”
    “The town council’s going to discuss the garden at tonight’s regular meeting. They’re going to decide once and for all whether or not to approve it.”
    “How do you know?”
    “An e-mail. Sitting in my in-box since yesterday. Unsigned, from an anonymous hotmail account.”
    “The sneaky bastards are trying to do a run-around without anyone noticing.”
    “So it seems.”
    “Feel like going out tonight, Barry?”
    “It’s a date. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty.”
    “I’ll call the others.”
    “You know, Lucky, I’d rather not involve them.”
    “Why?”
    “Tempers are at fever pitch, judging by the contents of my in-box. Just you and me, Lucky. We’ll ask the council to recognize us, and say what we have to say. I’m the one who was there, in ’Nam; you’re the one with the silver tongue. All the others—they’ll just clutter up the scene.”
    “I don’t know, Barry.”
    “Will Andy come?”
    She snorted. “Easier to get him to a bridal show.”
    “Thought so. Be nice if Dwayne Washington could come, but he’s laid up with his back again. Robbie Colman’s gone to Arizona for some sorta family reunion. Most of the rest of us old guys are scattered, too hard to get to with half a day’s notice. Or not interested, like Andy. It’s you and me, Lucky.”
    “One for all, eh?”
    “And all for one. See you at seven thirty.” He hung up.
    Lucky looked out the window into the alley. A woman dragging a Yorkshire terrier on a leash passed by. The dog strained to sniff under a bush, but the woman kept on walking. Lucky could feel her heart beating. The fight earlier had ignited a spark that had been burning deep inside her, like a single ember buried in a mountain of coal. She punched her fist into the air.
    “Bring it on,” she said.
    ***
    “That puts Dr. Tyler out of the frame,” Smith said.
    “Perhaps.”
    “Seems conclusive to me. The old guy was walking his even older dog and they passed Tyler’s car at the side of the road. And he was still there when man and dog came the other way half an hour later.”
    “The car,” Winters said. “But not necessarily Tyler himself.”
    “Mr. Johnson was positive that there was someone in the driver’s seat. You think Tyler arranged for someone to sit in his car at the top of the bluffs for an hour or so while he dispatched Montgomery?”
    “Don’t laugh, Molly. I’ve seen stranger things.”
    And he probably had. “Sorry.”
    “If I were investigating organized crime in, say, New York City, I wouldn’t think that scenario to be at all out of the ordinary. But in pleasant little Trafalgar, a middle-aged dentist who’s screwing the wife of the deceased? Probably not.
    “Tell you the truth, Molly, I’m pretty much stumped on this one. Someone in the family’s usually the perp. Business associates a distant second. Strangers last of all.”
    “Random?” she asked.
    “Always a possibility. Damned hard to nail down, if it is, if the guy doesn’t do something stupid or have an attack of the guilties and turn himself in.”
    Winters’ jacket rang. He pulled out his cell phone, as Smith drove down the mountainside. She took a short cut down Sycamore Street. Several young people were lounging in front of Happy Tobaccy, which sold hemp products, posters calling for the legalization of marijuana, drug paraphernalia and, under the counter, the finest B.C. pot.
    As long as the product wasn’t sold to minors, wasn’t waved in anyone’s face, and nothing harder than pot graced the premises, the Trafalgar City Police pretty much pretended not to notice. A woman waved cheerfully at the van as Smith drove past. She’d hadn’t taken to the stuff herself. She’d used it once in high school, but it made her so nauseous she didn’t want to try again. A