A Cold White Sun: A Constable Molly Smith Mystery (Constable Molly Smith Series) (19 page)

“You could rent out a room,” Swanson said.

“Yeah, I could. But Gord pays more than any college student.”

“Was his wife aware of this arrangement?” Winters asked.

“I doubt it. She didn’t have the phone number. I overheard him on his cell to her a couple of times. He certainly didn’t mention me, or the house.”

“Did you ever meet her?”

“No.”

Winters studied Elizabeth Moorehouse. She kept her face impassive; little emotion crossed it except when she talked about her home and the injury that ended her career. No reason for her to show emotion at the death of Cathy Lindsay. Not if she hadn’t known the woman.

“Do you own a firearm, Ms. Moorehouse?”

“No, sir, I do not, but I can shoot. We lived near Smithers when I was growing up. In the bush. My dad had a rifle and he taught me to use it, but I haven’t touched one since. I know why you’re asking, but I had no reason to kill Gord’s wife. I had reason not to—I don’t want him making what we have permanent. And before you ask, I was here, at home all day Saturday.”

“Was anyone with you?”

She shook her head. “All alone. I spent the day fixing up the basement. I’m putting in a second bathroom and guest room. Not that I ever get any guests. I lost contact with my family a long time ago. I don’t go out much, except to work.”

“Were you working at the store on Friday?”

“Took the day off. Business has been slow lately, they’re cutting back our hours. I went to a party Thursday night with a bunch of my friends from the old days. I don’t see them much anymore. It hurts, sometimes, when I remember what I’ve lost.” She looked at Winters through dry eyes. “I could have made it big. Real big. International fame big. I was good enough. I just needed the break. Then…too late.

“So now I’ll be looking for another sugar daddy. Want to apply for the job, Sergeant? It doesn’t cost much, and the benefits aren’t bad, if I say so myself.”

“The party you mentioned. Can you give me the address please? And names of people who were there.”

“Checking up on me? Sure, no problem. They’re mostly musicians, so you’d be better not to call too early.”

“Did Gord Lindsay talk much about his wife? His marriage?”

“Oh, sure. She didn’t understand him, and she’d let herself go over the years.” Elizabeth snorted. “Like he was still some hot stud. He talked about his kids a lot. His daughter’s perfect, the son a disappointing screw up.”

“Did he ever lead you to think he was considering a divorce?”

“Nah. He spun me some line about how she had control of the money, and she’d make sure he never saw his kids again if he left her. A pile of rubbish. He was happy enough with our relationship as it stood, and so was I. No need to change anything.”

Winters got to his feet. “Thank you for your time, Ms. Moorehouse.” He passed over his card. “If you think of anything, anything at all, that might be important, give me a call.”

She tossed the card onto the table. It landed in the ash tray. “Sure. Whatever.” She did not get up to show them out.

“What do you think?” Swanson asked when they were settled in the car.

“I’d appreciate it if you can confirm she was at that party she mentioned. It’s a long drive from here to Trafalgar. If she was in Victoria Thursday night, she would have had to have been on the road all day Friday. Then see if she caught a flight.”

“Nice thing about living on an island,” Swanson said. “If she took her car onto a ferry, they’ll have a record of her license plate. I’ll run that for you, too.”

“Thanks.”

“You think she might have been involved?”

“I’m not sure. She said she was happy enough with the situation with Gord, but I don’t know if I buy that. She is not a happy woman.”

“I’d say. Her unhappiness lies over that house as thick as the smell of pot. Understandable that she’d be bitter about losing her voice. I doubt she was on the verge of making it into the big time, but if she thinks she was…”

“What do you know about the attack on her?”

Constable Swanson pulled into the street and drove through light traffic into the city. “I looked it up before coming to get you. Pretty much what she said. Two guys got into a fight in a jazz club over a girl. One of them pulled a knife. Somehow, Elizabeth got in the way—she wasn’t the girl in question—and she got cut. The guy with the knife spent three years in prison. He’s out now, moved to Vancouver. Want me to drop you at your hotel?”

“Yeah. I’ve brought work to do.”

She drove into the wide sweeping driveway of the Hotel Grand Pacific. The bell hop leapt to open Winters’ door.

“Thanks for this. I don’t know that I learned anything, but I got a feel for the woman. Keep your ears to the ground about her, will you?”

“Sure will. I’ll call you later with the results of the check on the party and the ferry.”

Across the street the wide, deep harbor sparkled in the sunlight. This time of year, it was quiet. Come summer the harbor area would be crowded with tourists, street artists, whale-watching zodiacs loaded with eager passengers, and tiny bright harbor tour craft zipping across the water. The gardens would be lush and the streets full. Now, it was after five, and dusk was deep. Tiny white lights lining the parliament buildings on one side of the square, the stately old Empress hotel on another, were switched on. Winters followed the bellhop into the lobby. He’d check in, work for a bit, and treat himself to a good seafood dinner.

***

John Winters dug a plump oyster out of its shell. The waitress brought a fresh glass of beer, rich amber in color with a thick foamy head. He gave her a smile of thanks.

The beer was good, the oysters even better. The gentle lighting of the restaurant shone on silver, crystal, and china. The place was almost empty, and he’d been seated at a booth for six. His laptop lay open in front of him. As he sipped his beer he read reports, one of which was interesting.

Molly Smith had come across Bradley Lindsay and his friends in an alley, drinking and causing a disturbance. She’d chased them off, but thought in light of the death of his mother, it was worth mentioning Bradley in a report. The boy had been hostile to her, offensive even, but she’d decided to take no further action. A wise decision, in Winters’ opinion. Bradley’s mother wasn’t even in the ground yet. Gord Lindsay needed a break, even if his son didn’t.

Winters thought about the boy. Could he have killed his mother?

If she’d been beaten in her home, struck on the head perhaps, even knifed in her kitchen, Winters would have considered it a possibility. But a shooting like that? Aside from the fact that, as far as they knew, the boy didn’t have firearms training, it was a cold, calculated killing. Not the actions of an impulsive, angry-at-the-world teenage boy.

The weapon was no doubt lying at the bottom of the Upper Kootenay River or buried deep in the woods. On one hand Winters hoped it was –it couldn’t be used again. But on the other hand they wouldn’t find it in the back of some guy’s closet or tossed into the trunk of a car.

No shortage of shotguns or rifles in the area. Lots of people who lived in the mountains, close to bears and wolves, kept long guns. Not so much in town though. Winters gave a sad thought to the now-crumbling long-gun registry. Once, he could have had officers pay a call on owners of 12-gauge shotguns. Ask if their weapon had been used recently or stolen. No longer.

The hovering waitress cleared the empty oyster platter. “Another beer?”

“Sure.”

Elizabeth Moorehouse. She’d confessed quickly enough to familiarity with firearms. She’d seemed open, honest. Could have all been an act. Maybe she had been thinking it was time Gord Lindsay left his wife and married her, Elizabeth. Maybe she wasn’t as content with their relationship as she seemed. Swanson had ascertained that Moorehouse’s car hadn’t left the Island recently. She had not rented a vehicle nor had she taken a flight.

Not using her own name at any rate.

He thought about the world she claimed to have left. Jazz clubs and bars featuring live music. People who slept all day, worked and partied all night. People who knew the sort of people who could set you up with false ID, loan you a car, no questions asked. Obtain an illegal firearm.

Had Moorehouse slipped into Trafalgar on Friday night? Had she been on the hillside the following morning? He made a note to check hotels for a woman arriving Friday. A single woman staying only one night would be remembered. Unlikely, if she had the wherewithal to cross the province secretly, she’d register in a hotel near her quarry, using her own name or not. But that was the sort of little slip-up that led to an arrest so many times. Gord Lindsay had told the police about Cathy’s habit of a morning walk. Had he told his lover the same?

Had Lindsay known what Moorehouse planned to do? Had he put her up to it?

“Here you go, sir.” The waitress loomed over him, bearing his plate, fragrant and steaming. He shoved his computer to one side. Lamb shanks in a rich tomato gravy, with a mound of fluffy mashed potatoes and glistening bok choy.

He dug in with enthusiasm.

After stopping to appreciate the first few bites, his mind went back to work. Moorehouse appeared to be as tough as the nails she used to renovate her house. Gord Lindsay, however, was not. If Lindsay had arranged for his lover, or anyone else, to kill Cathy, he had to be close to breaking.

The man would be an emotional wreck, either because of grief or guilt. Maybe both. John Winters would give Gord a gentle nudge. See if he fell.

His phone rang. A passing waiter threw him a dirty look.

“Winters.”

“Hi, Sarge. How’s Victoria? The daffodils out yet?”

“Yes, and there’s grass. Soggy, wet grass.” He sipped at his beer.

It was Ingrid, the night dispatcher. “I got a call from Molly. She did a drive-by of a house at 762 Maybelle, like you requested. She reports fresh tire tracks in the driveway, and lights on that weren’t on earlier. Do you want her to approach?”

“No. I don’t want anyone doing anything. I’ll handle it when I get back. Thanks, Ingrid.”

“Having a nice dinner?” she asked. “I hear people in the background.”

“A cheap pub,” he said.

She hung up. Mark Hamilton lived at 762 Maybelle. Either the man was home or someone had dropped in who might know where to find him. Winters cursed under his breath. He’d like to go around right now, before Hamilton had a chance to settle in, maybe hear the news. That would have to wait until tomorrow. And, if Winters’ flight into Castlegar was cancelled, as was always a possibility, he’d have to send Lopez around.

He checked his watch. Almost ten. His flight was at seven tomorrow, which would get him nicely into Castlegar at 9:30. He could be back in Trafalgar by 10:30.

“Would you like to see the dessert menu?” the waitress asked.

“Just the bill.”

Chapter Twenty-two

The sky gods smiled on John Winters, and he was trotting across the parking lot at Castlegar airport heading for his car by ten the next morning. He had not asked the station to call Mark Hamilton’s house to confirm the man was home, and if so instruct him to wait for John Winters’ arrival. He wanted this visit to be as much of a surprise as he could make it. Almost certainly Hamilton would have heard the news about Cathy Lindsay, but if he hadn’t, Winters wanted to be the one to tell him.

He’d left his Glock at the police station the previous day, not wanting to bother with the rigmarole of getting it onto the plane. He stopped by the office to pick up the weapon and check in.

One of the IHIT officers was in the GIS office, seated at a temporary desk, surrounded by paper coffee cups.

“Anything?” Winters asked.

“More of the same, Sarge. Nothing. Cathy Lindsay did not have an exciting life. Did you know she taught an adult class at the college on Monday nights?”

“Creative writing, I think Gord said.”

“Yeah. I got the class register from the office, fortunately they have a secretary in for a couple of hours even though they’re closed. I’m making those calls now. No one has much to say. My wife takes an Italian class at college. Same sort of night school thing. She’s determined we’re going to Italy on our next vacation. Night school’s completely different than regular school. At night, for one thing, all adults for another. They don’t socialize. Most of the class have families to get back to, jobs to go to the next morning. They don’t get together to study or do homework. The teacher doesn’t have an office and office hours.”

“Which means?”

“Unlikely anyone in Cathy Lindsay’s night school class would have reason to off her.”

“Agreed. But we have to ask. Find out if she ever went out for coffee or a drink after class with any of the students or another teacher.”

“I’ve asked. Mostly I get a shrug. Everyone picks up their books and heads off into the night the minute class ends. A couple of people said they sometimes saw her getting into her car. Alone. They couldn’t be sure if she left by herself every week. I asked if Lindsay ever talked much about her home life, her habits.”

“You mean habits like walking in the morning?”

“Right. Without saying so. Yes, a couple of them said. She told them she walks her dog in the woods behind her house every morning as soon as she gets up. The point, apparently, being that walking is supposedly good for the creative mind.”

“Anyone in the class she seemed particularly close to?”

“Apparently not. One woman, a…” he checked his notes, “Elaine Federhalf said she didn’t like Cathy and wouldn’t be taking a class from her again. Federhalf told me she was taking this course because she’s thinking of writing a book. Not to get an advanced degree.”

“What does that mean?”

“Cathy was hard on the class. A tough marker and highly critical. She, the student, thought she should be getting an A for effort. Sour grapes, probably.”

Winters sighed. “Keep at it.”

Mark Hamilton lived on an old street at the foot of the mountain. Some of the houses had been gentrified to modern perfection, some cut into apartments and rented out, some allowed to slowly crumble back into the earth.

Hamilton’s house was old but well maintained. The porch pillars had been replaced recently, the gutters and the front door looked new, and the paint was fresh. Winters parked in the street. The garage door, an old-fashioned wooden one, was closed, but the tracks of an SUV, clearly visible in the soft, melting snow, disappeared into it. The path from the garage to the front door had been shoveled.

A man, tall and handsome, thick with muscle, dressed in loose soccer shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt, opened the door on Winters’ second ring. Sweat stained the shirt and ran down his face and neck. A blue towel was casually tossed around his neck.

“Help you?”

“Sergeant John Winters, TPD. Are you Mr. Mark Hamilton?”

“I am. What’s this about?”

“May I come in?”

Hamilton stood back. “Is something wrong? My mom?”

“As far as I know, Mr. Hamilton, there’s nothing to worry about. I have a couple of questions for you, that’s all.” The entrance hall was barely large enough for the two of them. It was crammed with an assortment of soccer shoes, hiking boots, winter boots, and running shoes, neatly lined in pairs on clean rubber mats. All the footwear was men’s and appeared to be the same size.

“Yeah, sure. Come on through. I’ve been lifting weights.” Hamilton wiped sweat off his brow. “I need a drink. You want something?”

“No, thank you.”

Winters followed the man into the house. The small living room was a clutter of books, newspapers, stacks of paper, an open laptop. However, it was spotlessly clean and everything organized in some fashion. Winters studied the room while Hamilton went through to the kitchen. A tap turned on and water ran. Winters glanced at a pile of papers, spread out on the coffee table, spilling onto the floor. Exams.

Hamilton came back, sipping at a glass of water. “I’ve some marking to do before next week when school’s back. I teach math at the high school.”

“Which,” Winters said, “is why I’m here.”

“Really? One of the kids finally land himself in some serious trouble? Have a seat.”

“I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for a couple of days. Where have you been?”

“Up north.”

“Where up north?”

“A buddy of mine has a cabin outside Cooper Creek. I went there for a few days’ vacation.”

“Who was with you?”

Hamilton’s eyebrows lifted. His hair was a mass of black curls coiling at the back of his neck. His eyes were a deep brown, and his cheekbones so sharp they might have been sculpted. His Adam’s apple bulged as he swallowed.

“You’d better tell me what this is about before I answer any more of your questions.”

Hamilton dropped into a chair. Winters remained standing. Hamilton appeared comfortable enough, as comfortable as anyone can be with an unexpected visit from the police. He didn’t look like a man with anything to hide.

“You haven’t heard the news since you got back?” Winters gestured to the newspapers on a corner table. The national and Vancouver papers were on top. No sign of the
Trafalgar Daily Gazette
.

“News? What news? You’re talking in riddles, man. Spit it out.”

“Do you know Cathy Lindsay?”

“What about her? I know her, yeah. She teaches English at my school. Did she have an accident or something?”

Winters studied the man. Hamilton’s face was open, curious and a bit confused. Could be an act. Could be real.

“Cathy Lindsay was killed Saturday morning. Murdered.”

A muscle twitched behind Hamilton’s right eye. Otherwise he showed no expression. “Sorry to hear that. I can’t help you. I left town after school Friday. Got home yesterday.”

“How well did you know Mrs. Lindsay?”

“Not well at all. I saw her at staff meetings, in the halls. That’s it. Don’t know anything about her or her life other than bits and pieces of gossip I picked up.”

“Much gossip about her?”

“No more than anyone else. I don’t mean gossip as in spreading the muck. I mean as in what people do with their life outside of work. You can’t suspect anyone at the school killed her? We’re a pretty mundane bunch. The most trouble the kids get into is a bit of pot or a beer party now and again.”

“I’ll repeat my question of earlier. Who was with you this past week? Saturday morning in particular?”

“No one.”

“No one? You went on vacation alone?”

“Yes I did, if it’s any of your business. You can’t possibly be asking me for my alibi.” Hamilton got to his feet. The movement was swift, effortless. One minute he was sitting in a deep, badly sprung chair, the next he was on his feet, looming over Winters.

“Sit down please,” Winters said. “We have to ask these questions.”

“Are you questioning everyone at the school?”

“You don’t have a family to spend your vacation time with? The school has your mother listed as your emergency contact. We called her. We got a nursing home, and the staff told us Mrs. Hamilton would be unable to help.”

Hamilton dropped back to his seat. “I didn’t have anyone else to put on that form. I guess I was hoping Mom would come around someday. She’s gone downhill so damned fast. Doesn’t know me; doesn’t know where she is from one minute to the next.”

“Did you visit her this past week?”

“No. She’s sixty-four years old and as empty minded as a baby.” He shook his head. “Her reward for a life of hard work, of never doing any harm to anyone. What a miserable world we live in.” His face filled with anger. “I go to see her once a month or so. Have tea, check she’s okay, talk to the staff. She doesn’t know who I am.”

“Your father still alive?”

“He died when I was a baby and my mother never remarried. Just me and Mom. I wasn’t a good son when I was young. I try to make it up to her now, when it’s too late to do any good.

“And before you ask, I’m divorced. It was an ugly divorce, bitter. On her part, more than mine. I don’t keep in contact with my ex-wife and we didn’t have any kids. I enjoy getting away from it all and went up to Cooper Creek. My buddy’s place is in the woods, private, quiet. What I wanted.” Hamilton shifted in his seat and rubbed at his face. The twitch was increasing.

“Did you see anyone on Saturday? Anyone see you?”

“I wanted to be alone. So I was alone.”

“How about your friend who owns the cabin?”

“He lives in Vancouver. Leaves a key in a shed.”

“They must have had a lot of snow up there. How’d you get in?”

“My friend has the private road ploughed regularly in case he gets the chance to get away for a couple of days.”

“Did you see anyone Friday night? Or at any time on Saturday? Stop in at a store maybe? Buy gas?”

“I told you, I spent the time alone. I drove straight up after school got out on Friday. I’d filled up with gas and bought groceries the night before. I skied, I read. You can’t seriously be thinking I had anything to do with Cathy’s death. I barely knew the woman. You still haven’t told me how it happened.”

“School’s back on Monday?”

“Yes.” Hamilton pressed his fist into his cheek, hard. Trying to control the twitch.

“Were you having an affair with Cathy Lindsay?”

“What? Don’t be ridiculous.”

“I’ve heard you were close.”

“Cathy might have wanted to be close. I did not.” Hamilton got to his feet once again. He walked to the window, looked outside, walked back. “I’d like you to be going now, Sergeant. I have nothing more to say to you.”

“You were in the army. Spent time in Afghanistan.”

“I’m obviously a person of interest in this if you’ve been checking up on me. Yes, I did a couple of tours in Afghanistan. I have no idea what that has to do with anything. I am what I am now. A small-town high school teacher. A divorced man who has no one to spend his holidays with.”

“Thank you for your time, Mr. Hamilton,” Winters said. “I have to ask you not to leave Trafalgar without letting me know.”

“You can’t possibly be serious.”

“I am very serious. Is that a problem? Did you plan on going somewhere?”

“No. School starts Monday. I have to work.”

“Glad to hear it.” Winters headed for the door. He stopped, studied the array of footwear. Only one pair of winter boots of the type one would wear for a walk in the snow. Winters gestured toward them. “Mind if I borrow those boots?”

“What?”

“Just a formality. I’d like to check out your boots.” Ron Gavin had taken prints of the tracks they’d found in the snow. Easy enough to compare them.

Hamilton’s eyes narrowed. “Actually, Sergeant, I do mind. How am I supposed to get around?”

“You have plenty of other footwear. I’ll return them tomorrow.”

Hamilton shrugged. “Whatever. But I want them back. Tomorrow.”