Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

hit with campers.
    ***
    John Winters also had his head in the freezer. There had to be something in here he could eat. He’d told Smith that tomorrow she would be back on regular duty. Her face had sort of crumpled in on itself, but she recovered and said something about happy to be back on the streets.
    There was no point in dragging a constable around after him any longer. A constable who’d be needed for crowd control if this business got any more intense. Rich Ashcroft’s program was on at ten. By ten thirty there might well be barbarian hordes descending upon Trafalgar, British Columbia. Lopez was due back in a couple of days. Maybe he’d bring a new perspective to the Montgomery murder. Winters studied a package of frozen pizza. The best-by date was six months past. How reliable was that date, anyway? Did it mean he was going to die if he ate it one day late, or was it a marketing gimmick to get him to buy another pizza? He ripped open the package and threw the frozen circle of dough into the microwave. If he died, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about the Montgomery case any more.
    The microwave pinged and he took out his dinner. He grabbed a bottle of beer from the fridge and went into the study. Tonight was a night for a good solid action flick. If he couldn’t solve the Montgomery murder, he could at least watch a tough cop mow down the bad guys. In the movies it was easy to sort out the bad guys from the good guys. The bad guys had greasy hair and wore good suits or baggy trousers and smoked a lot. People who had nice, normal middle-class families, stable jobs, were the good guys.
    They didn’t use their own children as sex toys and blame an itinerant gardener if something went wrong. It was always there, in the back of his mind. Samantha Blakely, daughter of a vice president of a major bank, had been murdered, in her home, the day after her birthday. As she’d turned twelve, her mother decided that she didn’t need to go to the babysitter’s after school, as long as she came straight home. Manuel Estavera, the gardener, discovered the body, raped and strangled, stuffed into the shrubbery beside the pool like a bag of autumn leaves. The investigation, led by John Winters, immediately focused on the gardener. There was no DNA on the girl’s body; the killer had worn a condom, nowhere to be found, but the gardening gloves were bloody. Numerous strands of the girl’s hair were found in the gardening shed. She liked to watch him work, Estavera explained through a Spanish translator. He’d been wearing his gloves when he found her, and he tucked her dress around her lower body. To preserve her modesty, even in death. The autopsy revealed that abuse had been going on for some time. The bank VP was a good-looking guy, dressed in two-thousand-dollar suits; his wife was a tall, blond stunner who worked two days a week in an art gallery and did charity work the rest of the time. She was home by five on her gallery days, and she’d thought that Samantha could handle the responsibility of two hours on her own. Because of the prominence of the family, and the luxury Grey’s Point community where the crime had taken place, press attention was relentless. Columnists called for stricter immigration controls; others took the opportunity to bay for their favorite hobby horse—the return of the death penalty. And John Winters, charmed by the gracious wife, admiring the perfect home with the perfect view, maybe a bit jealous of the quality of the suit, zeroed in on Manuel Estavera, the gardener.
    Winters had been in his office, about to leave to charge Estavera with the murder of Samantha Blakely, when his partner called. He’d found someone from Blakely’s gym, where he’d supposedly been at the time, who thought that he’d seen the man leave much earlier than he’d said. Once Winters turned some of his attention from the gardener and started to dig into Blakely, the case came together like the wheels of a Swiss watch. Richard Blakely was now doing life in Kingston Penitentiary; the glamorous wife was doing life in therapy. And John Winters was wrapped in the guilt of how close he’d come to railroading an innocent man.
    His prejudices and arrogant confidence in his own judgment had almost seen an innocent man convicted, and a guilty one left free.
    The phone rang, and he lunged for it, glad of the chance to shake off his memories.
    “Rosemary Fitzgerald’s back, Sarge,” Ingrid, the night