Part 13 (1/2)
Smith flashed back to the previous night and the trouble at Flavours. Garys rage at Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, the late Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth, for seducing Lorraine. What had he said to the boys at the table? Something about rich guys coming to town and flas.h.i.+ng their money and taking the local girls.
An old story. Plenty of young people came to Trafalgar on vacation; it was not a destination for the blue-rinse, name-badge wearing, bus-tour type. Tourists came here for the hiking and kayaking in summer, skiing and snowmobiling in winter. Some of her friends in high-school had had brief romances with guys in Trafalgar on vacation. Usually the guys left with promises to write, to keep in touch. Never to be heard from again.
She pushed the door open and gestured to Jeremy Wozenack to go back inside.
The old guy was putting down the phone. ”Your rides here, Constable.”
John Winters needed a drink. Toward the end of his career with Vancouver City Police that would have meant a quick visit to a bar, but these days Big Eddie would have what he needed. Hed been in a meeting with the Chief Constable, and Keller was getting pressure from the politically connected Dr. Wyatt-Yarmouth. Like a kettle, when the pressure got too much Keller believed in spreading the steam around the room so he didnt explode.
Molly Smith was standing by the dispatch desk, dressed in the blue standard-issue police winter jacket over s.h.i.+ny white ski pants and clumsy white ski boots. She wore a red helmet with large goggles pushed on top.
”Bad enough that Ive spent half my day off here, and now youre telling me I cant get a ride for my car and my stuff?”
”Everyones out, Molly,” Denton told her. ”I cant call them in to take you to Blue Sky. Youre just going to have to cool your heels. Go home and get your car tomorrow, why dont you?”
”Suppose I cant get a ride up tomorrow? In the meantime my car, with my purse stuffed under the front seat, I might add, is sitting all night in the parking lot. And my skis; I didnt even stop to lock them into the rack.” She threw her hands up in the air and half turned.
Color flooded into her cheeks as she saw him standing there.
”Sergeant,” she said.
”This is convenient. I was about to give you a call. Whats with the uniform? Some sort of undercover operation on the mountainside?”
Denton chuckled. ”Theyve invented a strain of marijuana that grows all through a Kootenay winter. Thrives on deep snow and heavy cloud cover. Were looking for the green tops sticking their heads out from the snow.” He stopped chuckling as he answered the phone.
”You remember I told you we get free skiing if we agree to help out with security?” Smith said. ”Sometimes it isnt worth saving the fifty bucks.” Her eyes narrowed and some of the color drained from her face. ”Whyd you want me?”
”You were at an incident last night at Flavours Restaurant.”
She snorted. ”I certainly was.”
”Doctor Wyatt-Yarmouth phoned the CC with a complaint first thing this morning. Paul was in meetings until now so Ive just heard about it.”
The remaining blood fled from her face, leaving it almost as white as her pants.
”Not a complaint about you,” he said. She let out a long breath. His displeasure over the fireplace incident had her spooked.
Good.
”It was to the effect that in our failure to release the bodies promptly were setting the family up for ridicule.”
”No one needs to set that guy up for ridicule. He manages it all by himself.”
”The CC suggested that I might want to hear what happened, so Im asking you.”
”The story continues. I have more than even the Chief knows. Ive just arrested Jeremy Wozenack, a friend of Jason and Ewan, who was also at Flavours last night.”
”Whats this about your car?”
”I came back to town with my prisoners in the patrol car. Didnt think it through carefully enough.” Her face changed color again. ”Well, that is, sure I thought it through, I just, well, I figured...”
”In your eagerness to complete the arrest you left your own vehicle at the scene. And now you cant get a ride back and its almost dark. Lets take the van, and you can tell me both stories on the way. But first, Molly, we need to stop at Eddies and get me a coffee.”
Smith talked most of the way to the ski resort. It was getting late and a steady stream of traffic pa.s.sed them, heading down the mountain toward town. Yellow headlights broke through the dusk and high snow banks and snow-laden black trees closed in around them. Hed heard from Dave Evans that Ewan Williams had been in a brawl on Sat.u.r.day night, the night before he disappeared. This morning hed interviewed the other partic.i.p.ant in the fight, and the guy insisted that hed gone home after the police broke it up and never thought about it again. Hed had more than a few beers on board, he told Winters with an easy laugh, and doubted hed recognize the other guy if he saw him again. The object of the fight in question had been at the apartment, stretching and preening. She hadnt bothered to put a robe on over her lacy red teddy (with food stains down the front, and a tear at the left hip) in the presence of company. Winters opinion of Ewan Williams taste went down a considerable amount, and he wondered if the guy was just out to cause trouble.
The woman also insisted that she hadnt seen Williams since that night. She looked honest enough when she said it, slightly bored at the conversation, but a bit t.i.tillated at being involved, however peripherally, in a police investigation.
The skin around her right eye was the color of a tropical sunset. Almost a perfect match for an injury sustained oh, approximately a week ago. About the night shed dared to flirt with some other guy.
Winters had thanked them for their time and left. Hed started a check on the boyfriends record, but nothing had come up so far.
And now, according to Smith, it would appear that not only had Ewan Williams been causing trouble over local girls, but Jeremy Wozenack and Jason Wyatt-Yarmouth were playing the game as well.
Fun for some.
Never for the police.
”Tell me about Gary LeBlanc,” he asked Smith. ”Every towns blessed with a family like that, it seems.”
”I knew him in school. He was a trouble maker back then, but never anything serious. Hes been away, a guest, as they say, of the government of Canada, for several years. He had a nice little grow-op on Crown land outside of town. Nothing much, from what Ive heard. Less than a hundred plants.”
”He got several years for that?” Surprising that he got any jail time at all.
”Unfortunately, that wasnt the whole story. The hors.e.m.e.n came across it by accident, looking for a ten-year-old boy whod gone missing from the family campsite. Gary was watering his garden. A Mountie caught the working end of a spade in the face and needed a heck of a lot of st.i.tches. People in town said it was an accident, the officer tripped and fell into the edge of the spade Gary was holding.”
”Is that what happened?”
”I wasnt with the police then, John. I was away at University. I remembered my mom talking about it, so I pulled the file the other day, just out of interest. Gary was put away for a.s.sault P.O.”
”What about the kid?”
”Kid?”
”The child they were searching for?”
”Found eating chocolate while dipping his toes in a creek and enjoying his great adventure.”
”At least part of the story has a happy ending.”
”This is one situation in which everyone would have been better off if justice had not been served.”
Winters turned his head. ”Go on.”
”Gary looked after Lorraine, best as he could. My mom knows them. When Gary was around, Mom took a personal interest in the both of them. You know my mom.”
”That I do.”
”Lorraines Garys half-sister, same mother, and hes a lot older than her. When Gary was sent away Lorraine was left in the tender care of her parents. Neither of whom has ever met a bottle they didnt love more than her. My mom tried to help, but she was rebuffed continually so she pretty much stopped coming around.”