Read Under Cold Stone A Constable Molly Smith Mystery Online
Authors: Vicki Delany
She’d considered, many times, looking for a job in a major city. As far away as Toronto even, to get big-city policing experience. The sort of experience she’d need if she was to get anywhere in her career.
At first, she couldn’t bear to leave her mom, particularly not after her dad’s sudden, unexpected death. Then she decided to commit herself fully to Adam Tocek. But most of all, Smith now understood, she couldn’t bury herself in the city. Even a city like Vancouver, which was close, but not close enough, to the wilderness.
She held the car door open and Sylvester jumped happily into the backseat. She gave him a rub on his back and a scratch behind the ears, and he rewarded her with a shake of his head and a spray of spittle. Telling him to, once again, guard the car, she set off at a trot back to the hotel.
GLOBAL CAR RENTAL. BANFF, ALBERTA. MONDAY AFTERNOON.
Dumb, stupid, arrogant Barry. In one final screw up, he’d chosen this week to get himself killed.
Tom Dunning heaved himself off the bench in the office as a Lexus pulled into the lot, and he went outside to meet them. He’d checked out their papers earlier, a German couple who’d had the car for three days. No doubt they’d taken it off the highway. Some of these rough mountain roads could cause a lot of damage to a car, particularly to the front window.
It was the German couple’s lucky day. Without Barry to make, or rather not make, the repairs to the windshield, no point in telling them they’d have to pay up.
Tom fingered the knife in his pocket. A little nick and scratch, could be expensive to repair on a valuable new car. Maybe a quick jab to the tire.
Nah. All he could do now was wait and see what the bosses decided. They were not happy. Tom had heard Simpson on the phone earlier: easy to guess he was talking to the manager of Kramp’s Auto Repair, where Barry had worked. They had a nice scam going in fake repairs. It wasn’t big business, a few hundred here and there, maybe a thousand or so, but it provided a welcome extra income for Tom and Barry—once the bosses had taken their cut, of course, and tossed scraps to the guys who’d done the real work.
Not good if they were going to shut the operation down while the cops poked around. Who knew how long that might be? Tom made fuck all checking rental cars in and out; he needed that extra cash.
Tom knew better than to rely on any one job or any one person. A man had to look after himself, always be ready for the main chance.
Good thing he had another line of income.
Even hearing only one end of the phone conversation, Tom could guess that McIntosh at the garage was nervous. The cops had been nosing around, asking questions about Barry. Questions like did he have any enemies they knew of? Was he ever in any trouble? Who might have had it in for him?
Simpson reminded McIntosh that Barry never met with the customers. If anyone was out for revenge at being ripped off, they’d be after the folks at the car rental company. Tom blinked. The boss meant him. Simpson would never dirty his manicured hands telling some tourist whose English wasn’t good enough to order a burger and large fries at McDonald’s that they’d be out hundreds of bucks for car repairs.
Not likely to be a problem. If anyone did get home after their vacation and bother trying to find out if those repairs really were done, or if the car was damaged by the check-in assistant himself, they’d be on the phone to their lawyer. Not creeping around apartment stairwells after dark armed with a knife.
No, Barry’s death had nothing to do with the business. He’d gone too far for once and paid the price. An angry boyfriend probably, maybe an aggrieved father. Hell, these days he might well have been done by some girl he’d gotten drunk and stupid. And then found out she wasn’t quite as drunk or as stupid as he’d hoped.
What the hell any of that had to do with Matt Keller, Tom didn’t know. Or care. Unlikely Matt had stabbed Barry himself. Matt didn’t do anything without Barry’s approval. Tom snorted to himself. Matt was as weak a man as he’d ever met. The guy had a real beef with his father, a cop. Get over it, Tom thought but never said.
From the day he’d walked out of his house, turned his back on Mad Mike, Tom had made his way through life on his own terms. He needed nothing from no one. Unlike Matt, who hung around Barry like a lapdog, doing what he was told, seeking the other man’s approval as if Barry was some sort of father-substitute.
Pathetic. No, Matt hadn’t killed Barry. Tom doubted he had the guts to kill anyone who threatened Barry either. Or if he did, he’d have dropped to the floor, curled up into a ball, and waited to be arrested.
The rent on the apartment was paid up until the end of the month. He shouldn’t have any trouble finding new roommates: cheap accommodations around here were as rare as a well-paid job.
Tom had no idea why Matt had run, and didn’t much care except that it threw yet another complication into the business. Matt’s girlfriend Tracey worked here. And the cops had their eye on her, hoping he’d contact her.
Still, they had no reason to connect Matt with the car rental company itself. Tom could only hope they’d give up on Tracey. And soon.
This was definitely not a good time to have the cops watching them.
He found himself glancing to the back corner of the lot, where the beige Corolla was tucked in behind a couple of vans.
That car was supposed to be picked up tomorrow.
Just get it the hell out of here.
Tom checked the Germans in, told them to have a nice day, and thanked them for renting from Global Car Rental. It paid to be friendly when the boss was on the lot.
He glanced at his watch. Long time till lunch break. Inside the office, Simpson was leaning over Jody’s shoulder, reading her computer screen. The look on her face would curdle milk. She wiggled off her stool and stood against the wall, arms folded over her chest.
Simpson had been known to accidently brush up against her almost non-existent breasts now and again.
She’d threatened to quit once, after his hands had wandered, but Tom told her to stay on. It would be hard, he said sensibly, to get another job. He’d keep an eye on the boss, make sure he didn’t get out of line.
Jody hadn’t liked it, mentioned that Tom wasn’t always there. Frankly, Tom couldn’t care less where Jody worked, except that he liked having her here, knowing she wouldn’t question why he showed particular interest in one vehicle over another. She wasn’t in on the scam, didn’t concern herself with what happened with cars that needed repairing. Tom and Simpson handled that part of the business.
Time to cut Jody loose anyway. She was getting clingy, wanting to go out to restaurants for dinner, or to bars at night. Wanting to do stuff that cost money.
If she wanted money she should tell the boss she’d agree to an extension of her job description, if he paid enough.
Still, it had been mighty handy having Jody as an alibi for the time of Barry’s murder. Tom knew the cops weren’t sure whether or not to believe her. They’d questioned her again, when he wasn’t around. They’d tried to get tough with him, too.
Screw them. About that, he really did know nothing.
A car pulled up as the office door shut behind him. He turned and glanced out the window. A Neon, one that had driven a lot of miles on bad roads. A woman was driving and a large shaggy dog smiled out the back window.
Tom watched her. The woman was definitely hot. Young, blond, tall and slim, casually dressed in jeans and a denim jacket. Normally he would have leapt forward, eager to help, but something about her made him wary, the way she looked around before coming inside, the way her eyes moved, checking everything out. She didn’t look like a cop, and that was no police car. But these days, cops might look like anyone, and it wouldn’t be wise to make assumptions. He crossed the room, went behind the counter, and waited to see what the woman wanted.
GLOBAL CAR RENTAL. BANFF, ALBERTA. MONDAY AFTERNOON.
“Help you?” the Asian woman said as Smith walked in.
“I’m looking for Tom Dunning?”
“That’d be me.” Dunning was about Smith’s age and height. Overweight, flabby. He had an unkempt brown goatee beneath round cheeks and small black eyes full of suspicion.
She held out her hand, and he leaned across the counter to take it. “Pleased to meet you. My name’s Molly Smith and I’m a friend of Paul Keller, Matt’s dad.”
Dunning snatched his hand back. “Don’t know anything about Matt. Sorry.”
An older man, dressed in a shirt and tie, probably the boss, was also in the office, pecking at a computer. “What’s this about?”
She turned to him. “I’m helping with the search for Matt.”
“The cops have been here,” Dunning said. “I told them what I know. Which is nothing. I shared an apartment with Matt and Barry, but we weren’t friends. We didn’t hang around, do things together, you know.”
And that, Smith had come to realize, was the problem. None of these people actually seemed to like each other. They shared space, more than lived together, in order to save money. They went their own way, lived their own lives. “Can I ask you a few questions anyway?”
“Tom’s working right now,” the man in the suit interrupted. “We have a large number of vehicles scheduled to be handed in today.”
She tried to get her question in before she was shown the door. “What about Saturday night? The early hours of Sunday morning?”
“I told the cops I wasn’t home,” Tom said. “And I wasn’t.”
“Now, if that will be all. Tom, what’s the status of the Lexus that just arrived? We have customers who’ve booked it this evening for three days. Have you checked it over?”
“Not yet, Mr. Simpson.”
“Then you’d better do so, hadn’t you? Immediately.” He spoke to Tom but was looking pointedly at Smith.
“Thank you for your time,” she said, thoroughly humiliated. She’d gotten used to—too used to perhaps—the power that came with being in uniform.
She stood in the yard, glancing around, wondering what to do next. Late-model cars, in neat rows, sparkled in the sun. Neither Tom Dunning nor his boss had wanted her here, but that didn’t mean they had anything to hide. They were probably sick of answering questions, having their business disrupted.
She headed for her own car and climbed in to be greeted by an enthusiastic Sylvester. Sylvester was always enthusiastic, whether she’d been gone overnight or five minutes.
Her phone rang. Adam.
“Hey, babe. How’s it going?”
“Not well. No sign of the chief’s son. No other suspects.”
“That’s gotta be tough.”
“I miss you.”
“I miss you too, Molly. I think Norman misses Sylvester. He doesn’t say anything, but mopes around sniffing in corners.”
She smiled at the image.
“I can’t talk for long. I’m about to head out, but I got a call from an old friend I thought you’d be interested in.”
“Shoot.”
“Sergeant Edward Blechta. Eddie to his friends.”
“What about him?”
“This is all internal gossip mind, but it seems that a couple of years ago Eddie was rapidly transferred way up north to some hole-in-the-wall detachment. He’d been working in Red Deer. An officer made a complaint about him. A female officer, brand new shiny young constable straight out of college.”
“Do tell.”
“She claims he propositioned her. She wasn’t interested. He wouldn’t take no for an answer. She wasn’t intimidated as much as he’d thought, and she made a complaint. Of course, he was all, ‘it’s a misunderstanding, just trying to be friendly, overreaction.’”
“I’m surprised he’s the one who had to move.”
“She probably’d have been transferred posthaste, with a note on her record saying she was unstable, if not for the fact that there’d been whispers about Blechta before. Nothing they could charge him with, just rumors, innuendo. You know.”
“Yeah, I know.” It had never happened to Smith; it didn’t happen as much as it used to, but all the women knew there were still male officers who thought women needed to be put in their place. One way or the other.
“Anyway, he was, so my contact says, about to be made a staff sergeant. That never happened and he was sent to the back of beyond. He seems to have learned his lesson, no more talk anyway, so he came to Banff recently. Never did get to staff, though.”
“He probably blames that woman for the loss of the promotion.”
“You watch yourself, eh?”
“Forewarned is forearmed. It shouldn’t matter. I won’t have anything to do with him. He managed to make that perfectly clear.”
They said their good-byes, and Smith ended the call.
Before turning the key in the ignition, she looked back at the office. Tom Dunning stood at the window, watching her. He was not smiling.