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“You got it, Sarge.” He walked past Barb, chuckling. “Just like the old days.”

“He came out of nowhere and took a swing at me.” Evans wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and looked at it. He spat a lump of bloody phlegm onto the floor.

“Too bad I didn’t break your fucking mouth,” Tocek said.

“You want to tell me about it,” Winters said, “we’ll go to the Chief’s office for a formal chat and call in a lawyer. Otherwise, Evans, get back on the street. Tocek, what are you doing here anyway?”

“Just paying a visit.”

“Visit’s over. Get lost.”

Tocek turned and walked out of the lunch room, rubbing at the knuckles on his right hand. Barb stepped aside to let him pass.

The commotion had drawn everyone out of their offices, and they were standing around the dispatch desk watching. Jim Denton was on his feet and Al Peterson, the Staff Sergeant, was there. Molly Smith clutched her hat in her hands and her blue eyes were large and round in a pale face. Tocek stepped toward her. She said something Barb didn’t hear, but she caught the tone easily enough. Tocek turned and walked out the door.

“Some guys can’t take a joke,” Evans said to the crowd.

“Not another word,” Winters said. “You people have nothing to do? Crime has stopped in our fair town, has it?”

People slipped away. No one said anything.

Dave Evans didn’t look at Smith as he passed.

“I need a ride to the airport,” Winters said. “Al, if you don’t need her, I’ll take Molly.”

“Okay,” Peterson said.

“Meet me by the cars in five.” Winters walked down the hall.

Barb touched Smith’s arm and gave her a small smile. She looked shell-shocked, and Barb was sure she must have heard some of what had been said in the lunch room. Everyone else in the place probably heard it as well. “I have some cookies in my drawer, if you want to talk.”

Color, too much of it, flooded back into Smith’s pretty face and her eyes blazed. “Talk?” she said. “Oh, yes, I want to talk. But not to you. Thanks anyway, Barb.”

***

Molly Smith clenched the steering wheel. She’d been sitting in the damned van for fifteen minutes and Winters hadn’t bothered to show.

Perhaps he didn’t need a ride to the airport; he just wanted to get her out of there before everyone broke into gales of laughter.

She’d programmed her phone with a special ring for Adam. It rang. She didn’t answer.

She’d walked through the front doors of the station, feeling good after talking to the kiddies about a career as a police officer. They were young enough to still think being a cop was neat and peppered her with questions. She’d been pleased to see that almost as many girls as boys had come to her presentation. She’d been able to forget, for a while, about her dad, about Charlie Bassing.

Then she’d walked into that. It had given her a jolt of pure pleasure to see Adam standing in the hall, talking to Barb, and she’d been about to walk over and say hi. She heard something of what Evans and McMillan were saying, but before she could react Adam threw himself into the middle of it.

Jack McMillan was a misogynist pig, bitter that the world had moved on and left him behind. He hung around the station and the coffee shop where the staff usually went implying things about her and Dawn Solway, the Trafalgar City Police’s only other female officer. Most of the younger guys paid him no attention. Evans didn’t like her, that wasn’t news, and no doubt happy to talk to someone who felt the same, but she knew Evans was first of all a cop. She never thought his personal opinion about her would get in the way of doing the job.

What the hell was Adam thinking? Or rather not thinking. Did he think he had to fight her battles for her?
Screw that
.

For a moment she thought about talking it over with her mom. Then she remembered that Lucky had more important things on her mind right now than her daughter’s love life.

The passenger door opened, and Winters got into the van. “Sorry to keep you waiting. Last minute call from Ray.”

“Did he find something?”

“The occupant of the room next to Steiner’s says he might have heard a gunshot. He said he was watching TV and didn’t pay much attention. He remembers what program he was watching at the time. It was on from eight-thirty to nine and was almost over. If he’s right, it gives us a good idea of the time Steiner died.”

“The grieving widow has condescended to make an appointment with us for this afternoon. I might bring you along, Molly. The INIT people are both men, it might be good to have a woman there.”

“To comfort the poor dear? Make tea, maybe. Pat her hand if she gets distressed.”

He looked at her. “No, Molly. To see her from a different angle. She looks to me like a woman who knows how to manipulate people.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Her face burned and she pulled out of the parking lot.

She waited for him to say something about what had happened in the lunch room. He didn’t.

“I heard about your dad. How’s he doing?”

“I spoke to Mom this morning. They’re hoping to operate tomorrow. The operation’s not a big deal, but he’ll need a lot of looking after for a while.”

“How’s your mom taking it?” Winters knew Molly’s mother well. Lucky had a tendency to be at the center of whatever trouble was brewing in Trafalgar.

“Hard. She’s all fuss and bother, fluffing pillows and doing everything short of feeding Dad with a spoon. Not like her normal self at all.”

“Let me know if I can do anything. Or Paul. You know he and your mom go back a long way.”

She actually laughed at that. Political agitator and environmental activist verses small town constable and later chief of police. Lucky Smith and Paul Keller had eyed each other over the battlements, only sometimes rhetorical, for many years. “I was surprised he hired me, considering the history those two have.”

“You never know what people are thinking, Molly.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Nothing. IHIT’s sending us two guys. I need more, but that’s all they can spare right now. What with hotel guests, staff, tradespeople, and those walking in one door and going out another, we could be interviewing people until the cows come home. My prime suspect turned out to have been stuck in a road closure rather than fleeing the scene, and the widow is calling in her lawyer. Which I suspect isn’t because she’s about to confess, but wants to make sure she’s not caught up in legalities when she should be making sure her inheritance is secure. If she’d done it, I don’t think she’d have called the lawyer. She’d be wanting to play the grieving innocent. But I’ve been wrong before.”

He looked out the window and watched the scenery pass. The mist hung low over the mountainside, occasionally moving aside to grant a glimpse of brown, dark forest. Dirty snow filled the shadows and crevices at the side of the road. Impromptu streams poured down the hills, carrying snow melt. The river was below them, cold and black, and moving fast. Winters rubbed his thumb over the face of his watch.

Smith remained quiet, knowing he only wanted a sounding board, not her opinions.

“I need to talk to the room service waiter who made a delivery to the room that night, not long before the estimated time of death. So far we can’t find him.”

“You think that’s suspicious?”

“No. He isn’t scheduled to work, and his roommate said he’s gone hiking with his girlfriend. There’s no answer at his cell phone, which, if he’s in the mountains, will be because he’s out of range.”

His own phone rang. He glanced at it, hesitated, and then answered. He sounded weary.

“I was late. Didn’t want to disturb you. Well, there’s always a first time. No, that’s not a good idea. I’ll be tied up all day.” He hung up without saying goodbye. A fight with the wife, Smith assumed.

He looked at his watch. “The plane had better be on time. I don’t intend to hang around waiting.”

***

It was, and the two Mounties were the first passengers off. They didn’t have any checked bags, and the van was back on the highway less than fifteen minutes after their arrival at the airport. There was one corporal by the name of Kevin Farzaneh, young and friendly. The sergeant was Dick Madison, a slightly built man with olive skin, black hair, shiny white teeth, prominent nose, and a bone crushing handshake.

Madison grunted at Smith, but Farzaneh gave her a big grin, and asked about the skiing conditions. Before she could launch into an enthusiastic description, Madison made a comment about how much he hated snow. The rest of the drive back to Trafalgar, Winters filled them in.

He told Smith to drop them at the hotel, where Gavin, Townshend, and Lopez were working, and sent her back to the station to get on with her shift.

He was still carrying the photograph. He’d considered leaving it in the house, hiding it under his socks, like he’d hidden the dirty magazines he and his friends passed around when they were kids, but found himself stuffing it into his shirt pocket instead.

He’d worked late, and got home after Eliza had gone to bed. That wasn’t unusual, but for the first time in their marriage he slept in the spare room. Up before the sun, he left the house while Eliza was still sleeping. He showered in the locker room at the station and got an egg sandwich for breakfast from Big Eddie’s Coffee Emporium.

He still had no idea what he was going to say to her.

Once again the police settled comfortably into the conference room. Instead of coffee and sandwiches, they were given coffee and bagels with small pots of jam and cream cheese on the side. Winters wondered if he’d be expected to pay for all this. No way in hell would the Chief authorize it.

Gavin and Townshend had nothing new to report. They’d finished fingerprinting the room and were ready to start digging up the bathroom. Farzaneh would give them a hand and Townshend would move into the adjoining room, Mrs. Steiner’s room. An initial look showed nothing out of the ordinary, but she’d see what she could find. It was possible the killer had visited Mrs. Steiner first.

It was also possible that half of Trafalgar had visited Mrs. Steiner’s room.

Winters discussed what he’d discovered so far, which was precious little. When found, the body was in full rigor, and the coroner roughly estimated the time of death to be about ten to thirteen hours before the discovery of the body. He could be fairly precise largely because the temperature of the hotel was consistent and measurable. The time coincided with the report, vague as the witness had been, of the sound of a gunshot around nine in the evening. The autopsy was scheduled for late that afternoon, and Madison said he’d attend.

The meeting began to break up.

Farzaneh and Lopez would carry on interviewing staff and hotel guests while Winters would go back to the phones and computers and dig into Steiner’s past.

“But first,” Madison said, “let’s have a look at the scene.”

Winters’ phone rang. It was the station.

“Great,” he said, scribbling a note. He hung up. “The room service waiter called in. He’s home.”

“Let’s go then,” Madison said, putting down his mug.

Winters was nominally in charge of the investigation, and it was understood that Madison and Farzaneh would defer to his local knowledge. But that was a formality, and they all knew the Mountie’s decisions would carry the day.

***

Ronnie Berkowitz lived just around the corner from Happy Tobaccy, the store that sold legal drug paraphernalia and hemp products and was owned by people very active in the campaign to legalize marijuana. That they also sold, on occasion, marijuana itself, was well known to the police. Every time he drove by, Winters itched to barge in. Someday, maybe, the store owners would cross the invisible line the Chief had drawn.

A group of young people were standing outside the store, but no one appeared to be smoking anything illegal. A girl, holding a dirty faced toddler by the hand, recognized the GIS van and said something to her companions. They watched the police drive by. One man gave them the finger, and then pretended he was lifting his hand to rub his forehead.

“Don’t know why you let them get away with flaunting that place in your face,” Madison grumbled.

Winters made no comment.

They pulled up in front of a typical Lower Town house. Old, badly maintained, divided into four apartments, an unkempt front yard. The melting snow had revealed a season’s worth of dog dirt. Berkowitz’s door was down a level from the street, the entrance dark and gloomy. A tall dead stalk, remains of a plant of indeterminate variety, was stuck in a cracked terra cotta pot. They didn’t have to knock, the door was open. Berkowitz was a good six feet four at least and probably didn’t tip the scales at much more than a hundred and fifty pounds. He sported a strange beard, about a half inch long, which covered only the tip of his chin.

“Come on in,” he said in a deep booming voice. “This is cool. I just got home and Harry said the police were looking for me.” He laughed. “So I burned my stash and gave you a call. What’s up?”

Stash or not, Berkowitz didn’t sound like a man who was worried about police attention.

The door opened directly into the kitchen. The appliances were ancient, the floor covered in green linoleum, the countertop stained and chipped. The sink was piled high with dishes and boxes of cereal and pasta were haphazardly stacked inside door-less cupboards. Cartons of empty beer bottles leaned against the far wall. Typical transient lodgings.

“Take a seat,” Berkowitz said, gesturing to the two vinyl-topped chairs pulled up to the Formica table. Winters remembered when he was a child, family meals and homework around a table and chairs exactly the same.

“You’re a waiter at the Hudson House?” he asked, declining to sit. Madison moved a mug so he could lean against the counter.

“Room service waiter. Part time.”

“Worked there for long?”

“Since last May. I finished school, thought I’d get a summer job before going back for my masters. Decided I liked it here, liked the women anyway, and stayed.”

“You delivered a tray to room 214 night before last, is that correct?”

“I figured that’s what you wanted to talk to me about. I heard the guy in that room was killed. Shot, right?”