A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series) (22 page)

“Neither do I, Molly.” Even Shirley Lee, the most no-nonsense person Winters knew, was disturbed. He’d seen something in her face, something behind her eyes, which had concerned him.
He knew very little about Doctor Lee. No reason he should, they weren’t exactly friends. For a moment it had been as if she hadn’t been there, in the morgue, beside him, but someplace else. Someplace she rarely went.

He almost shook his own head. Now who was getting dramatic? He finished his coffee. “Better get back at it. Keep yourself safe tonight, eh?”

She grinned. “Sure.”

They took their empty mugs to the counter, calling goodbye to Eddie and Jolene. At the door, they stepped aside to allow a woman to maneuver a giant push chair into the shop. She was very young, with long straight hair the color of midnight, heavy black make-up outlining her eyes, black lipstick, an array of piercings, and a hoop through her nostrils. The child was bundled up in a snowsuit with nothing but his bright intelligent eyes peeping out from between swathes of scarf.

“Sergeant Winters, hi. How you doing?”

“I’m well. And you, uh…”

“Paula. Remember me? You came around to the women’s center a couple of years ago asking about Ashley.” She bent over and began unwrapping yards of scarf from the child’s face.

“Paula. Of course I remember. I remember your son, too. Beowulf isn’t it? He’s growing fast.”

“Sure is. Never stops moving. Beowulf, say hi to the nice man.”

“Hi,” the boy said, squirming to get out of the restraints.

“Beowulf?” Smith said, once they were outside. “She named her kid after a movie?”

“He was a Norse hero long before he was a movie character. Beowulf’s saga is the first recorded story of a serial killer.”

“She named her kid after a serial killer?”

“Beowulf’s task was to hunt down the killer Grendel who was terrorizing the area. Grendel’s sometimes referred to as the first serial killer.”

He stopped walking.

“What’s up?” Smith asked.

“Just an idea. I’m going to run some checks.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Friday Gord Lindsay left the office in the middle of the afternoon. One of his best clients had cancelled a four o’clock meeting, no doubt thinking poor Gord wouldn’t be able to concentrate on issues at hand. They were right, but he was angry at the cancellation nonetheless. He needed to work. He needed to forget the turn his life had taken, even if only for a short while, and bury his head in his computer.

No one would give him a moment’s peace. He was thoroughly sick of the endless cups of coffee being brought to him by well-meaning female employees—all of whom normally refused to make coffee on feminist principals—with sad sympathetic eyes and offers of shoulders to cry on. The male employees kept slapping him on the back, suggesting they take a long lunch or break off work early and go out for a beer.

He headed home thinking he’d surprise Jocelyn, take her shopping maybe, try and have some fun together, but she’d gone to a friend’s house and wouldn’t be home until after supper. His mom and Renee were at the grocery store; however, Ralph there. Ralph had decided it was time to finish the basement. He’d also decided Gord was going to help.

Gord did not do handyman chores. If anything more elaborate than the change of a light bulb needed doing around the house he’d hire someone. Any other father-in-law would suggest they wash the car or tidy the garage to keep Gord busy. Ralph wanted to spend the weekend rebuilding the bloody house.

Gord slapped his head, said he’d forgotten an important appointment, and fled his house. He drove aimlessly through the streets, eventually finding himself at the city park, high above town.

The place was packed with families enjoying the end of the school holidays. The snow was icy and the ground bare in patches, but little kids didn’t mind. They zoomed down the hill, laughing and screeching with terrified pleasure. Proud parents shouted encouragement, and dragged traditional wooden or modern metal toboggans to the top. A group of older boys were using flattened cardboard boxes.

Laughing kids, smiling parents, beaming grandparents. Everyone looked so happy.

Gord sat in his car and watched, ignoring the questioning glances of passing adults. When was the last time he’d gone tobogganing with Bradley? He couldn’t remember. Had to have been many years ago. He bought an old-fashioned red sleigh and they’d come to this same hill. Bradley had been frightened at first, trying hard not to show it. Gord had sat at the back, his arms wrapped tightly around the boy’s chest. Protecting his son. Keeping him safe. After a couple of runs, Bradley declared he wanted to go by himself.

And he had. While Gord stood at the top, waving, his heart in his mouth. He’d been proud to let the boy go.

He should have held on as long as he could.

He’d had a call from the principal of Jocelyn’s school this morning. She wanted to invite a grief counselor into the school to work with Jocelyn and any of the girl’s friends who might be having trouble dealing with the death of Jocelyn’s mother.

Gord was okay with that. He told her so, and they talked about how her teacher would keep an eye on Jocelyn, be there in case the girl needed her. Cathy’s funeral was scheduled for Monday, the first day back at school. A good number of Jocelyn’s friends would want to attend. Gord told the principal his daughter would be in class Tuesday. They agreed that she needed to get back to routine as soon as possible. As if, Gord thought but did not say, Jocelyn’s life would ever be the same again.

For the rest of her years, Jocelyn would miss her mother. There would be an empty place at her wedding; no one to give her kindly advice on the birth of her first child. No shoulder for her to cry on when life got too hard. No one to tell her to buck up, and suggest they chase away her worries by indulging in some retail therapy.

No one to tell her the facts of life.

Gord put his head in his hands and wept.

He wept for himself as much as he wept for his daughter. All that Cathy had done, all that she had been in their lives, would now fall on him.

He knew
he wasn’t up to it.

Renee was making noises about staying on after the funeral. To help out.

About the last thing Gord wanted was his in-laws hanging around. Renee could be as much of a bother as her husband. Gord couldn’t put a glass down before she whisked it away to be washed. She dusted and cleaned, and two hours later she was back, dusting and cleaning again. She’d tidied up his home office when he was at work, and he couldn’t find the rough notes he’d made on the proposal for the hospital job.

Worst of all, she made his bed every morning. It had given him a hell of a shock, the first time he’d walked into his room after an outing with Jocelyn. The bed neatly made, the top of the dresser tidied, his discarded socks and underwear in the laundry basket, all of Cathy’s things put away. He told Renee never to do that again.

She said she was only trying to help, sniffing in that annoying way of hers.

The next day she made the bed and cleaned the room again.

Gord didn’t bother to protest any more.

Cathy had been a slob. He’d thought it one of her best features, largely because he was no neat freak himself. Cathy did the laundry when she got down to her last clean outfit; she ran the dishwasher when it was full and washed the pots when it was time to use them again. She made their bed once a week when she changed the sheets. Why bother in the interim? It just got mussed again.

She expected Gord to pick up after himself, and if he didn’t his things remained where they’d been tossed. The kids threw their sports bags and school supplies into their rooms and shut the door.

If they were having company, Cathy could turn into a version of her mother, cleaning up a storm. Gord would be handed the vacuum and a can of Pledge and told to have at it. The house usually managed to look presentable when guests arrived, the doors to the nonpublic areas of the house firmly closed.

Cathy had grown up in a house run like a military barracks awaiting inspection. Neatness was the order of the day, and Renee and Ralph considered any mess to be a personal affront.

She’d never gotten over her youthful rebellion.

Now, she never would.

Jocelyn was the neat one in the family. Funny how habits skip generations. Jocelyn made her bed before school, lining up her stuffed animals and dolls on the pillow to patiently await her return. She hung her clothes in the closet, most of the time, and
knew where her school things were when she needed them. But she was just a kid and didn’t take the neatness thing too far.

Gord feared Renee was rubbing her hands together in glee at the chance to turn her granddaughter into her version of herself.

As for Bradley…

He’d worry about Bradley later.

A family walked up to an SUV parked beside Gord’s. Mom, Dad, two kids, a black Lab. The perfect family. They loaded toboggans into the trunk, and children and dog piled into the back. The father eyed Gord suspiciously. A man sitting there, alone in his car, observing a park where kids played? Then he seemed to recognize Gord. His face flushed and he looked aside, embarrassed.

Gord Lindsay watched the SUV drive away, and then he pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He ran his fingers over it.

Elizabeth had called several times. She’d left a message telling him Sergeant Winters had visited her.

She left a second message demanding to know why he wasn’t answering.

This morning, she’d called the house. Spoke to Renee, pretended to be a friend, concerned about Gord.

But Renee wasn’t stupid, and she’d given Gord the message with an arch to her eyebrow and a question in her voice.

“Business contact,” he said, hoping his guilt wasn’t written all over his face.

He’d have to deal with Elizabeth sometime. Might as well get it over with. He flipped the lid, tapped buttons. Heard the ring.

“My god, Gord. I’ve been so worried. I’ve been calling and calling. Did you lose your phone? Didn’t you get my messages?”

“I told you on Sunday not to call me. I’ve got a lot on my plate, you know. I got your messages, Elizabeth. As did my mother-in-law. Please don’t phone the house again. How’d you get the number anyway?”

“Duh, it’s in the phone book, Gord. I’ll thank you not to take that tone of voice with me. I don’t like having the police sitting in my living room, interrogating me, you know.”

Elizabeth, unlike Cathy, was neat and tidy. One of the things he liked about visiting Elizabeth, aside from the obvious, was a calm, clean environment. He himself wasn’t any neater than at the house in Trafalgar, but Elizabeth cleaned around him. She washed his clothes, cooked his meals, picked up his socks.

All very 1960s. Like an episode of
Mad Men
or something.

Would it be so bad living with Elizabeth permanently? She would never be a mother to Jocelyn, but she could be a wife to Gord.

Did he want a new wife?

What a goddamned stupid thing to be thinking. Cathy wasn’t even in her grave and here Gord was making plans to fill her side of the bed.

He took a deep breath. “I’m sorry you had to go through that, Elizabeth. Really I am. I had no idea that cop would go all the way to Victoria.”

“He had lots of questions. Questions about you. About you and me. Did you kill your wife, Gord?”

“What the hell? Are you crazy? You think I could do something like that?”

“I have no idea what you could do or not do,” she said in that deep, damaged voice he found so incredibly sexy.

To his shame, he felt himself getting stiff.

He bit down on his thumb. Hard.

“The cops seem to think so,” she said.

“It’s routine. They always suspect the husband. I have an alibi, my daughter.”

“When’s the funeral?”

“Why are you asking?”

“I’m thinking of coming. Pay my respects.”

“No, Elizabeth. I don’t want you here.”

“I’m not going to stand up in front of the church and tell everyone what I mean to you, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I guess I should say what I meant to you. This changes things. We need to talk.”

“Give me some time. Everything’s happened so fast.”

“Monday.”

“What?”

“The funeral’s Monday. Three o’clock. I’m looking it up right now. I have property taxes due. If I don’t pay, they’ll start slapping on interest charges.”

“You can’t be asking me for money. Not now, not today.”

“We have an arrangement, Gord. I bought a load of supplies for the basement renovations from the store and put it all on my credit card. I need to pay it off.”

“Elizabeth…”

“I’ll need a new dress for Monday. Something black and solemn. Shoes and a coat to match. Jewelry. I’m looking forward to meeting your kids, Gord. See you Monday.”

A soft click, and he realized she’d hung up.

Teeth marks, deep, were pressed into the soft pad of his thumb, turning the skin deadly white.