Constable Molly Smith 01 - In the Shadow of the Glacier

Rosemary started toward them, intending to ask if they’d seen her bike, perhaps noticed anyone suspicious hanging around. She soon saw that they were arguing; voices were raised and the fat one was punching his fist into his other hand.
    She retreated and let herself back into her shop. The comfortable closeness, the scent of the day’s cooking, the shine of the countertops, the neatness of the cans and packaged goods stacked on the shelves, even her pride in owning her own business, had diminished in the few minutes Rosemary’d been in the alley.
    Her car was at home. She didn’t want to waste money on a cab, but it was too far to walk. And tonight, for the first time since she’d driven over the big black bridge across the wide Upper Kootenay River, Rosemary Fitzgerald didn’t feel safe in Trafalgar.
    ***
    “I think,” John Winters said to the woman across the table, “that if I had to live my life again, I’d meet you in kindergarten so I wouldn’t waste all those years without knowing you.”
    The woman laughed and tilted her glass to watch the swirl of red wine move across the sides of the bowl. “You do go on, John.” She leaned back to allow the waiter to slide a plate in front of her. “Thank you.”
    Winters scarcely noticed as his own plate was placed on the table. His dinner companion was a highly sought-after model. Men’s heads had turned as they entered the restaurant. Men’s heads always turned when she walked into a room.
    She slipped a plump oyster between her pink lips and chewed with delicate bites of white teeth. They were in the dining room of one of the best resorts in the British Columbia Interior, a place well out of the budget of a Sergeant in the Trafalgar City Police. But Winters was determined to make this a very special evening. Wasn’t that why credit cards had been invented? He cast a silent prayer to the god of banking that his card wouldn’t have reached its limit. He’d bought the diamond necklace just this morning, so the charge shouldn’t have been placed on his card yet. He was planning to present her with the gift over dessert, and it would spoil the mood if a sneering waiter rejected the card.
    The words slipped out. “You are so beautiful.”
    “Oh, John, how you do go on.” She looked at him through sea-green eyes over the rim of her glass.
    He was the luckiest man in the world. While most of his colleagues sat at home with their dumpy
hausfrau
wives, he was dining in one of the best restaurants in the area with a woman who was regularly photographed for women’s magazines. If his credit card could take the load of this dinner, he’d be scoring tonight.
    The waiter cleared the appetizer dishes. He was young, blond, buff, handsome, yet he almost melted under the force of the smile from John’s date.
    Their main courses arrived. She’d chosen the poached wild salmon; he’d wanted the filet mignon but at forty bucks a pop it was too much, so he settled for a T-bone. Potatoes and vegetables cost extra; the cash register in his brain clicked up the numbers. Why couldn’t he stop thinking about how much this meal was costing? He looked into the woman’s deep décolletage. That took his mind off the price of the meal. “Shall I order another bottle of wine?”
    “I’m game if you are,” she said. She winked.
    Winters’ arm shot up to summon the waiter. At the same moment his jacket rang.
    “Oh, no,” he said.
    “John,” she said. “Not tonight.”
    He pulled the phone out of his jacket pocket and pointed to the empty bottle of wine in the cooler as the attentive waiter slid up to their table.
    “Winters.”
    The woman across the table threw sea-green daggers at him.
    He put the phone back without daring a glance at her. “If you want dessert,” he mumbled, picking at mashed potatoes running with yellow butter, “we should have time. I told them I’ve been drinking so they’re sending someone to pick me up.”
    “John…”
    “Oh, by the way, I bought this.” He fumbled in his pocket for the small blue box, and handed it across the table.
    She took it in perfectly manicured fingers.
    “It’s for you,” he said.
    She gave him a soft smile. A smile full of love, yet tinged with disappointment at the failure of their evening. She opened the box.
    His phone rang again. He said no more than two or three words before hanging up. “The car’s here already, there was someone nearby.” He got to his feet and walked around to her side of