A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series) (2 page)

Chapter Two

Constable Molly Smith pulled a couple of containers from the fridge. Cold pizza and leftover birthday cake for breakfast. Yum.

Yesterday had been her mom’s birthday. Lucy Smith, known to all as Lucky, was a good cook and a great baker. Molly’s dad, Andy, hadn’t been. Over all the years of her parents’ marriage, Andy insisted on fixing the dinner for his wife’s birthday: take-away pizza and supermarket chocolate cake with super-sweet icing.

Andy had died unexpectedly two years ago. Slowly and steadily they were getting over their loss, but there were somethings Molly wanted to remain as they always had. Her mom’s birthday tradition among them.

So takeout pizza and store-bought cake it was.

Although she would have preferred if Lucky hadn’t invited her friend—Molly shuddered—to join them. Lucky Smith’s gentleman friend was none other than the Chief Constable of Trafalgar, Paul Keller. Molly Smith’s boss. Her mom and Paul been dating on and off for the past couple of months. Lucky did not want to talk about the relationship, and Molly was more than happy to oblige. The time she’d arrived at her mom’s place at six in the morning to find all the lights off and Keller’s car parked in the driveway had been traumatic enough.

Molly’s own boyfriend, RCMP Constable Adam Tocek, had also come to dinner. Adam’s police dog, Norman, and the Smith family mutt, Sylvester, settled themselves in the family room in front of the fireplace with soup bones that had been Adam’s hostess gift as logs popped and embers glowed. Sylvester decided Norman’s bone looked much better than his. Norman, the far better trained of the two, lifted one eyebrow and gave a single warning growl. Sylvester wisely retreated to the far end of the fireplace.

Lucky reminded them with a laugh of the time the family had been playing cards around the dining room table while Sylvester climbed onto a chair to get to the kitchen table and the remains of the Christmas turkey.

It had been a nice evening. Paul Keller had left, thank heavens, at the same time as Molly and Adam.

Now, she took her Glock out of the gun safe and slipped it into her holster, looking forward to what should be a quiet day. She wiggled the belt onto the most comfortable spot on her hips, and stuffed her uniform shirt in. Trafalgar was a low-crime, generally peaceful town. Nestled deep in the mountains of British Columbia, far from any cities, on the way to nowhere, it was a neohippy paradise, retiree haven, convergence of ley lines, outdoor adventurer’s dream, center of the B.C. pot culture. A small town, yet its cops pretty much saw it all.

Today was the first day of March Break. The town would be full because of the holidays and the fast-approaching end of the skiing season. The police could be busy at night with drunken college kids brawling in the bars and drunken families resurrecting long-held grievances, but the days were generally quiet. With today’s forecast calling for nothing but light snow and no wind, the roads shouldn’t be bad.

As she let herself out of her apartment, the marvelous aroma of baking bread filled the staircase, even though the sun was not yet up. She lived above Alphonse’s bakery and loved getting off a tough night shift, arriving home to be wrapped in the warm fragrant air wafting out of the ovens. Alphonse often left a treat waiting for her on the bottom step.

Fat flakes drifted out of a black sky as she walked the short distance to the police station. The lights at the intersection blinked yellow, not a moving vehicle in sight. Street lamps burned, and the police station was brightly lit, but otherwise all was dark. The mountains not yet visible.

She bounded up the steps, ran through the small waiting room, and punched in the code to open the inner door.

Jim Denton was settling himself behind the console, steam rising from the mug of coffee clutched in his hand.

“Morning, Molly,” he shouted.

“Morning. Anything much happen overnight?”

He clicked the mouse on his computer. “A lady slipped on the ice in front of her garage and broke her arm. A minor car accident, out-of-towners driving too fast down the steep roads. They would have gone straight over the cliff if not for a conveniently-parked SUV.” The screens monitoring the cells in the basement showed no one currently in residence.

“This changeable weather has done a number on the roads and sidewalks,” he said, and she grunted in agreement. Temperatures at the lower elevations had played with the freezing point all last week, melting snow during the day and turning it into solid ice overnight.

“You been up to Blue Sky lately?” Denton asked, sipping coffee.

“Ooooh, yeah. And the conditions are
good
.” On the mountains it would be good skiing for a couple of weeks yet.

No one else was in and Smith went through some paperwork, munching on cold pizza and cake, until light began creeping through the blinds. She retrieved her hat, pulled on her uniform jacket, and went out back to get a vehicle.

She drove through the quiet streets while the sun rose. The sky was overcast and as light spread across the valley, everything simply turned from black to gray and then the gray progressively lightened. They hadn’t had much snow in the night; just enough to freshen everything up and make it look nice again.

She drove down Front Street slowly, peeking in shop windows, looking for something out of place, an open door, a broken window. Most of the stores, including her mother’s business, Mid-Kootenay Adventure Vacations, were trimmed with small white lights, an abundance of fake snow and decorations in the windows.

A handful of people were out walking dogs and the snowplow made a sweep down the main street, but otherwise the only activity to be found in the early hours grew in front of hotels where tourists, skis over shoulders, stamping feet and rubbing gloved hands against the cold, waited for the bus to take them to Blue Sky.

Traffic signals had been switched on, lights glinted from behind drawn curtains, signs on shop doors flipped to open, people were walking to work, and Molly Smith was thinking about heading to Big Eddie’s to pick up a mug of their special hot chocolate when her radio crackled. Nothing better on a snowy winter’s day than a mug of Big Eddie’s special hot chocolate.

Unless it was drinking Big Eddie’s special hot chocolate heading out of town to Blue Sky with her skis on the roof.

“Five-one?”

“Five-one. Go ahead.”

“Hiking trail on the old railroad tracks at the top of Martin Street. Report of a body found.”

She checked for oncoming traffic—nothing—and spun the truck into a U-Turn. “They say anything about the condition of the body?”

“Only that it appears to be recently dead. Caller’s name is Matt Hornbeck. He’ll meet you at the top of Martin Street, walk you in.”

“On my way.” She punched the console and headed up the mountain under lights and sirens.

Chapter Three

“I’m hungry. When’s breakfast?”

“When your mother gets home.”

“How much longer’s she gonna be?”

“She’ll be back soon, honeybunch. It’s so nice out, they must be having a great walk.”

Gord Lindsay glanced out the window. He’d have to shovel the driveway soon. Again. Cathy loved snow. She loved to ski in it, she loved to walk in it, she loved to play in it, she loved to sit by the window and watch it fall. He, who had to shovel it, hated the stuff.

She was a mountain girl, raised on a backcountry property until she went to university in Victoria and spent a few years teaching in schools around the Island. Then marriage and children and stability. She’d never stopped pining for the mountains and the snow.

He’d always known she stayed in Victoria for him. He liked the ocean.

When she’d been offered a job at Trafalgar District High,
he knew
it was his turn to make some sacrifices, and so they packed up and moved. He, after all, could work just about anywhere. That had been ten years ago. His Internet development business was thriving, the children were growing strong and healthy, Cathy was, if not happy, at least content.

He was happy.

Most of the time.

But he still hated the damned snow.

He rubbed the top of his daughter’s head. Jocelyn was ten, Daddy’s girl. That,
he knew
, wouldn’t last much longer. Look at Bradley. The freckle-faced, gap-toothed boy who’d loved nothing more than to kick a soccer ball around the yard with his dad and had wanted to be an air force pilot when he grew up, had morphed into a sullen, swearing, scowling juvenile delinquent.

Bradley had gone out last night, after scarfing down his dinner, despite Cathy’s pleas that he stay home, just this once. Play a board game perhaps, do something as a family to celebrate the start of March Break. The door slammed shut behind him, his mindless, unfocused anger at the world reverberating through the house.

Gord had popped his head into the boy’s room this morning. Fast asleep beneath a mountain of blankets.

Cathy was an early riser: all that mountain air she’d breathed growing up, Gord assumed. When he woke, her side of the bed had been empty. The kitchen was tidy for a change, dinner dishes washed and put away, coffee-pot full, bacon laid out to thaw, ingredients assembled for pancakes. Cathy liked to celebrate holidays, even a nonoccasion holiday like March Break.

Spot wasn’t in the house; Cathy always took her out in the morning. Yes, their dog went by the name of Spot. Jocelyn had been six when they got her, and the girl insisted on naming the mutt for the black dot on her forehead, the only mark in the mass of curly white fur.

Gord glanced at the clock on the stove. Almost ten o’clock. Perhaps Cathy had run into a friend and gone to the friend’s house for coffee, lost track of time.

He’d better check. He grabbed the kitchen phone and dialed her cell. The sound of ringing in his ear, and then he heard a traditional ringtone beneath a dish cloth tossed on the counter not more than two feet away. She’d left her phone at home.

“Can I have a muffin while we’re waiting?” Jocelyn asked. She looked adorable in her blue flannel pajamas dotted with smiling white polar bears, fuzzy pink slippers, strands of brown hair escaping the pony tail.

“Okay. Then you’d better get dressed if we’re going skiing after breakfast.”

***

The silence was almost total. The gentle whoosh of skis gliding through snow, poles breaking the surface, the sharp puff of his breath. It had snowed in the night and he was breaking fresh trail. The going was tough.

Tough was good.

Tough was what he needed.

His heart pounded a steady rhythm in his chest. Sweat gathered in a pool on his low back and underneath his arms. He’d unzipped his jacket and taken his gloves off about a kilometer back and welcomed the piercing cold.

A line of tracks, paw prints, crossed the path ahead. He slowed to check them out. Might be a large dog, but no human marks accompanied them. A wolf then. A big one too. He’d heard them in the night, calling to each other across the valley. He’d closed his eyes and listened, delighting in the primitive wildness of the sound. He had no fear of wolves. Wild animals didn’t frighten him. He’d faced the most dangerous animal of them all.

And he’d survived.

Sometimes he wished he hadn’t.

Mark Hamilton dug his poles into the snow and pushed off again. A hill loomed ahead. A steep one. It would be tough going.

Tough was good.

Tough kept the demons at bay. When his muscles ached and sweat ran in rivers down his body and his heart felt like it would burst out of his chest, the demons fell silent. They might still be there, outside his range of vision, hovering in the dark corners of his mind, but at least they were quiet.

A man couldn’t ski forever. Nor run nor bike nor lift weights. A man had to slow down; he had to do his job, to live his life. He had to talk to people, smile and be friendly. A man had to sleep sometimes.

Then the demons circled, whispering, calling. Filling his head with pictures of blood and destruction and sounds of terror and pain and the crushing feel of overwhelming loss.

He crested the hill and glided to a stop. Pulling a stainless steel bottle out of his pack, he twisted off the cap, leaned his head back, and glugged water. The drink felt cold on his lips; it dribbled down his chin and into the depths of his two-day growth of beard where it began to freeze.

A raven, black against a stark background of black and white, watched him from the skeletal branches of a dying pine.

Mark Hamilton lifted his bottle in greeting and the bird took flight. He sucked in a deep breath, felt cold air move into his lungs, fresh and invigorating.

In a couple of days he’d have to go back to town. Back to work. What if he didn’t go? If he sold the house, he’d make enough of a profit to pay off the mortgage and buy a place out here, free and clear. Maybe he could offer to buy out Jürgen. Not that Jürgen was likely to sell.

A hundred acres of mountain wilderness, a log cabin, a generator, an adequate well. Mark didn’t need much else. He could survive, grow vegetables in the summer, can and freeze them to last the winter. Jürgen told him the hunting was good out here, but Mark no longer hunted. He no longer ate meat.

He’d seen blood and brains leaking into the dust, seen creatures, human creatures, struggling to stand with half their head blown off, trying to run without understanding they no longer had legs on which to run.

He’d given up eating meat, and that seemed to appease the demons. Even if only a small bit and for a short while.

He settled into a slow steady pace as he retraced the tracks of his skis. He might want to live out here, in a cabin in the woods. Off the grid. Alone.

But not yet. One day perhaps, one day when it all got too much and it became time to check out. No, he’d head back to town when his vacation ended. Back to the classroom full of slouching teenagers who didn’t give a rat’s ass about the beauty of mathematics, the gossiping neighbors who tried to fix him up with their divorced daughters, the teachers with their pleasant middle-class lives and sexless husbands.

He didn’t like most of the people he dealt with on a day-to-day basis. He found them boring, shallow, self-obsessed. But they, with their chatter and their gossip and their mundane problems, helped to keep the demons at bay.

If he secluded himself in the wilderness it wouldn’t be long before his defenses crumbled and he took the coward’s way out.

And ended it all.

Through the trees he could see the building. A two-room log cabin in a clearing, close to a small stream, now frozen over. No smoke drifted from the chimney. He’d been gone for four hours, long enough for the fire to go out. Jürgen kept the woodshed well stocked, but Mark would take the axe out later, chop down a couple of dead trees, cut them into suitable size for the stove, stack the logs.

Someday he’d give into the demons.

But not today.