A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series) (3 page)

Chapter Four

Molly Smith knew the hiking trail well. She and Adam went there when they needed a walk or to give Norman a run but didn’t have enough time to go far. It was located on an old abandoned railway bed, high above the city. Within the town limits, but you felt as if you were in the wilderness. The trail itself was roughly maintained, but nothing else. No restrooms or picnic benches or directional signs. Just a path meandering through thick woods that occasionally opened up to give the best view in Trafalgar. A parking area had been put in at one end of the trail, but people often parked on the streets that ended at the top of the hill.

Trafalgar was built into the side of a mountain; streets got steeper and steeper as they climbed. They also got narrower and narrower as snowplows continually pushed snow up against the edges. More than one vehicle was trapped, surrounded by a mountain of snow where the plow had simply gone around it. The mountain was so steep houses at the top could experience different weather than those at the bottom. Up here, there hadn’t been as much melt over the past few days.

A woman waited for Smith at the end of Martin Street. She was young, practically clad in good, but not expensive, winter gear. A shaggy brown dog of indeterminate breed, what Smith’s dad, Andy, would have called a Heinz 57, waited politely at her feet. The dog’s muzzle and the tips of his toes were as white as the snow he sat upon. Smith pulled in behind a blue Honda Accord that had seen a lot of miles, switched off her lights, and climbed out of the truck.

“That way. It’s that way. Hurry,” the woman said.

“Hold on a sec. You called in a body?”

“Yes, a woman. She’s not far. Rex found her.” The dog gave Smith a rheumy-eyed once-over. Not impressed with what he saw, he turned his head and set about chewing at his nether regions.

Another siren broke the quiet. An ambulance, leaving the hospital. Smith glanced over her shoulder.

“You won’t need the ambulance,” the woman said.

“Are you sure?”

She took a deep breath. “Oh, yes. My husband’s with her. He’s waiting for you.”

Smith stepped onto the path. “Are you coming?”

“I’d…If you don’t mind, I’d rather not. I’ve seen more than enough. And…” she nodded to the dog. “I don’t want to take Rex back. Follow my footsteps. It’s not far.”

“Tell the paramedics where I’ve gone.” Smith broke onto the trail. The snow on the sides was deep, but the path was well used and firmly packed under the fresh dusting. The footsteps of the woman and dog were easy to follow. Below lay the roofs of houses clinging to the edge of the hill, the steep winding road, the quiet town, the black river meandering between the mountains, the bridge leading to the other side.

Smith broke into a jog, calling out as she ran, and before long a man answered, “Over here.”

Evergreens were piled with snow, the branches of the few aspens and cottonwoods stark and bare. She rounded the bend and could see him up ahead, standing in the trail. Something dark lay near his feet, not moving. The rocky face of the mountain rose sharply above them.

The man was young, bearded, dressed for outdoors in the cold. He looked at her, but said nothing more.

On the ground, a black coat, a green scarf. Red snow. A dog barked and Smith glanced around. Small and white, the animal blended into the surroundings. It bared its teeth and lunged, but couldn’t reach her. It had been tied to a tree by a blue leash.

Smith took off her winter gloves and pulled thin blue disposable ones out of her pocket before dropping to her haunches. A woman lay face down in the snow, her arms spread out to either side. Smith slipped on the gloves and touched her fingers to the skin beneath the woman’s scarf. Still warm, but cooling rapidly. Nothing moved. Blood soaked the back of the coat, not a great deal of it. The snow had been churned up all around her by bloody paw prints.

Smith got to her feet. She stepped backward, trying to keep her boots in the prints she’d already made.

She touched the radio at her shoulder.

“Five-one.” She coughed to clear her throat.

“Go ahead, five-one.”

“I’m at the trail at the top of Martin Street. I need a detective, and he’ll be wanting forensics. Probably the RCMP dog also.” She looked at the man, watching her with wide eyes. “Is that your dog, sir?”

“No.”

“Better send someone from the humane society too.”

She heard a shout, probably the paramedics, and called out to them.

Chapter Five

Eliza Winters wasn’t much of a cook. Good food, to her, was what restaurant chefs prepared. She’d been a model since the age of sixteen, and for many years food, when she wasn’t dining out, was by necessity not much more than rice crackers and carrot sticks. The minimum required to keep body and soul together. Now that she was well into middle age, no longer modeling, she could eat what she liked. But old habits die hard, and she could not summon up much interest in her kitchen.

John stood at the stove, his attention focused on four slices of bacon sizzling and spitting fat in the cast-iron frying pan. He wielded a spatula like a weapon, as if expecting one of the rashers would attempt an escape.

She smiled. Her husband wasn’t much of a cook either, but he did like a hearty breakfast on his days off and had soon come to realize Eliza wasn’t going to stand at the stove in a frilly apron the way his mother had when he was a young man living at home.

“Perfection,” he said, placing the bacon carefully on a layer of paper towel. He cracked two eggs into the hot fat.

“Perfection indeed,” she said, encompassing far more than the plate of bacon.

Toast popped up, and he took his attention away from the eggs long enough to flip a slice onto a side plate and present it to her.

“Thank you,” she said. John massaged the muscles in her shoulders. He smelled of wood smoke, and his chin scratched against her cheek when he bent over to kiss her.

“Fire lit?” she asked, wiggling her shoulders into the most favorable position.

“Might even last this time.”

She twisted to smile up at him, looking forward to a simple day lazing about the house. Together.

The cursed cell phone fastened to his waistband rang.

He tossed her an apologetic grimace and flipped open the phone. “Winters,” he barked, sliding the frying pan off the heat.

Eliza always maintained that John had two personalities. His cop face and his husband face. She could see one morph into the other and didn’t need to be told this was a summons he could not ignore.

Those separate faces had only merged twice, the night they met when he as a young patrol officer answered her 911 call, and about two years ago when a man she’d once known had been murdered. John had, momentarily, actually believed Eliza, his wife of twenty-five years, might have killed him.

It had taken a long time for their marriage to recover from her sense of betrayal.

But recover it had. She got up from the table and began putting together a bacon and egg sandwich for him to eat in the car.

***

Detective Sergeant John Winters drove down the steep mountain road toward town, munching on the remains of his hastily-assembled breakfast. Fortunately, they hadn’t had much snow overnight and the driveway was clear. He and Eliza had come to Trafalgar househunting in spring. They’d fallen in love with the house and garden. The view down to the shimmering river was spectacular and not a neighbor could be seen.

They’d been warned that a lot of snow could fall at the higher elevations. He was from Vancouver, and he’d dismissed talk of fourteen feet of snow as an exaggeration.

It wasn’t.

Traffic was light this morning. He made it down his stretch of mountain to the highway meandering along the river, over the bridge, through Trafalgar, and up the hills on the other side in near record time.

A police truck and an ambulance were parked at the top of Martin Street. As Winters climbed out of his car, an RCMP vehicle pulled up behind him. Adam Tocek and his dog, Norman, jumped out. Norman’s head was up, his ears pointed, his expression eager. Norman loved going to work.

The men, not so much.

“Body in the woods, Molly says.”

“Fresh, by the sound of it.”

Another car labored up the hill. “Party time,” Alison Townshend, the RCMP forensics officer, greeted the men. “First day of school holidays and I have to leave a note for the kids telling them I’ve gone out. Do you know what we have, John?”

“Sounds like a shooting. Let’s go see.” He pulled on his gloves and tightened the scarf around his neck. Fat cheerful flakes fell from a pewter sky.

Norman led the way. Trained to follow the freshest scent, he found Smith’s trail immediately. Not that they would have had any trouble without the dog. Boot prints made clear indentations in the fresh snow.

Winters shouted, and Smith answered.

No more than a hundred yards along, the path took a sharp bend. Two paramedics were waiting, their packs resting on the ground. They nodded greetings. Smith stood in the center of the path, next to a man. A small dog tied to a tree nearby set up a chorus of frantic barking as Norman approached, straining to free itself from the restraints of its leash.

A body lay on its back in the snow. A woman. Her arms were tucked against her sides, her face wet with melting snow, her eyes glassy, staring up at nothing. As Winters looked, white flakes fell gently onto her face. She did not lift a hand to brush them away. She wore a winter coat, green scarf, gloves, and boots. The coat was spread open and red liquid soaked her chest. Blood spread around her, like broken Christmas lights scattered on a white carpet. The snow was churned up around the body; small paw marks, trailing blood, led to the nearly hysterical small dog.

The paramedics approached. “I’ve called it, Sarge. No pulse. H.R. zero.”

“Did you move her?”

“She was lying face down. We turned her and opened the coat to check for a heartbeat.”

“Thanks.” Winters pulled out his cell phone. He called Jim Denton and said he needed officers to seal off the area. He wanted the entire walking trail placed out of bounds.

Denton reminded him they didn’t have enough officers, some of those with young families had taken vacation time.

“From the parking lot then, to whatever street is after Martin to the east. We’re in the middle of a public path. I can’t have curiosity seekers picking through the bush for clues, trying to be helpful. Oh, and call the coroner.”

Winters went over to Smith and the man standing beside her. Townshend and Tocek hung back, waiting for orders. The paramedics packed up their equipment.

“This is Sergeant Winters,” Smith said. “Sergeant, Matt Hornbeck placed the 911 call. His wife was here, but I said she could take her dog home.” Her voice dropped. “Hope that was okay?”

It wasn’t okay, but he was scarcely going to say so in front of a civilian. Smith should have known better than to display a degree of uncertainty. Just when he thought the young officer was coming along nicely, she slipped.

“What can you tell me, Mr. Hornbeck?”

“Not much. Janice and I were taking Rex, our dog, for a walk. We hadn’t gone far when Rex bolted up the path ahead of us. He wouldn’t come when we called, which is unusual. He’s an old guy and doesn’t like to be out of our sight. We followed. This is what we found.” He spread his hands.

“Do you live nearby?”

“Redwood Street. We drive up here to walk Rex most weekends.”

“Did you touch the body?”

The man turned green around the edges. He swallowed heavily. “Yes, I did. I wanted to help. At first, I figured she’d fallen. Her dog was going nuts, trying to encourage her to get up, I guess. Don’t know why I didn’t see the blood at first. I touched her cheek. Cold. So cold.” He shuddered. “So still.”

More people in uniform began to arrive. Falling snow picked up its pace.

“Do you recognize her?” Winters asked.

“No.”

“Ever seen the dog before?”

Hornbeck glanced at it. The poor creature was set to pull down the tree to which it had been tied.

“Can’t say. It’s not an unusual breed. Lots of people walk their dogs here.”

“You said the dog was jumping on the woman. How’d he get tied up?”

“I did that. Hope it was okay?” he echoed Smith. “I thought it should be out of the way.”

“Is that your leash?”

“No. She was holding it. I uh…sorry, but I pried it out of her hands. I probably wouldn’t have been able to stomach it, but she’s wearing gloves. Somehow that didn’t seem so bad.”

“Did you disturb anything else?”

“No.”

“How much time passed between finding the body and calling 911?”

“Probably less than a minute. This close to town, cell phones get a strong signal.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hornbeck. We’ll need you and your wife to come into the station and make a statement. Give your contact information to Constable Smith. I’ll call you when I’m done here.”

“Sure.”

“Did you hear anything? Anything out of the ordinary?”

“You mean like a gunshot?”

Winters did not reply.

“No. Nothing. Lovely and quiet.”

“See anyone else on the trail?”

He shook his head. Ice and snow were trapped in his beard and mustache. “No. We only just started walking. There might be people further toward the parking lot.”

“Thanks.”

Winters left Smith to take Hornbeck’s information.

“Let’s have a look, Alison.” He pulled latex gloves from his coat pocket.

“Humane society’s here.” Tocek indicated a small woman peering myopically up the path. Norman waited patiently beneath a tree.

“Thank heavens. Let her take that dog away. Man can’t hear himself think over that racket. Before she does, Adam have a look at it. Make sure there isn’t a clue tucked into its collar.”

“Better keep your gloves on,” Townshend said. “She may be small, but I bet she’s nasty when frightened.”

Winters and Townshend approached the body. They crouched down on either side. He was conscious of Molly Smith peering over his shoulder, of the humane society woman talking softly to the frenzied dog. He could hear officers, city as well as Mounties, arriving. He couldn’t see them around the bend, but he could hear onlookers and curiosity seekers also gathering.

Snow fell harder now. A light veneer covered the woman’s face, melting in the still warm blood on her clothes.

“Gunshot.”

“No doubt about it,” Townshend replied.

“Hard to tell how many. One maybe. If two, they’re together.”

“Fired from a distance, probably. Not close anyway. No powder burns.”

“Can you tell what type of weapon?” Smith asked.

“Not yet. There’s not an excessive amount of blood. She must have died almost immediately the bullet hit.”

The woman stared at them through sightless brown eyes. He checked her body. No other visible wounds.

She was probably in her late thirties, early forties. Her shoulder-length blond hair was expensively cut and streaked. John Winters’ wife was a fashion model. In her youth Eliza had been so successful she’d sashayed down the catwalks in Paris and Milan for the likes of Dior and Chanel; her pouting face had been on the cover of
Vogue
several times. On occasion he’d found himself being dragged to boring industry parties and dinners to drink European beer or expensive cocktails and exchange empty conversation with mindless models and superficial designers.
He knew
, more than most men, the cost and effort that went into being beautiful.

This woman wasn’t beautiful, but she was well cared for. In life she would have been attractive. Her skin, turning the color of skim milk with death and cold, was smooth and taut. Her mouth was open in a soundless scream, and he could see perfect white teeth. He gently pulled the glove off her left hand. The nails were short, the pink polish unchipped, the fingers long and smooth. A good-sized diamond ring graced the third finger, along with a plain gold band.

“Recognize her, Molly?”

“I’ve seen her around. Can’t think where.”

“It’ll come to you.” Winters pushed himself to his feet, trying not to grimace as his knee protested. He studied the area. Ahead, the trail carried on for about twenty yards before disappearing around a bend. On his left, through a break in the trees he could see the road, houses and garages, gardens and sheds, and the maze of streets leading down to town. On his right, a patch of thick trees and undergrowth, then the rocky mountain face climbing at about a forty-five degree angle. Behind him, the trail went back to where it began. The woman had been struck in the back. He studied the way she’d fallen.