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Authors: Vicki Delany
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the Nun.
She chewed her lip. The people who cared about grizzly bears weren’t the type to kill someone like Ashley. And the people who were developing the resort were under enough pressure from environmental groups without having the cops investigating them. They might just pack up and take their resort money to China or somewhere. And Marigold’s hopes for a job with them.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking directly at Sergeant Winters. “She didn’t say if she’d gone or not. I didn’t think to ask. Sorry.”
Winters said nothing. The silence hung in the room. Out on the street, someone yelled and a woman laughed. The room was hot and stuffy and the scent of baby—dirty diapers, baby powder, warm skin—still lingered.
“Look,” Marigold said at last, “I have to be getting ready for work, so…”
“We found a key to the apartment on her,” Winters said. “Do you know if she had any other keys?”
Ashley kept the key to her safety deposit box inside one of her socks. The cop hadn’t felt it when going through Ashley’s things. A couple of times, Ashley had gone somewhere for the whole day, and returned with enough cash for the rent and what little she and Miller needed. Marigold didn’t know where she went, or who she got a lift with. None of her business. As long as Ashley came back with rent money.
“Nope,” she said in answer to his question.
Marigold led the way to the door. Winters was still holding one of the paperback novels and the flyer.
The police walked down the stairs. The bulletproof vest the woman wore must be a nightmare to wear in this heat, not to mention the dark clothes and all that equipment she had to lug around.
Ashley hadn’t told Marigold much about her life. She was a private person. But they’d sometimes shared the odd bottle of wine on Marigold’s nights off, and she’d confessed that her real name was Jennifer, Jennifer Watson. Not as awful as Joan Jones, but still you couldn’t blame her for changing it. She was from Oakville, Ontario, which was near Toronto. Marigold was from Winnipeg, and she figured that beat any city on the boring scale.
If the police managed to discover Ashley’s real name, Marigold thought, they’d just hand Miller over to Ashley—Jennifer’s—family. Better that the baby find a nice new family to adopt him.
***
Winters carried the dog-eared paperback and the torn flyer advertising a demonstration against the Grizzly Resort down the steps. A man eyed Smith, in her uniform, suspiciously. He was old, probably her parents’ age, with gray hair tied into a pony-tail that fell almost to his waist and a beard to match. His mustache curled up at the edges. She wondered if all that hair was designed to cover up the fact that he had almost nothing on top of his skull.
“What’s interesting about that book?” she asked.
Winters stopped walking and flipped the book open to the inside front cover. Smith leaned closer to see. The page was stamped with the faded address of a second-hand bookstore in Vancouver.
“If Ashley bought this book herself, which is a big if, as it seems to have been passed from hand to hand since,” he flipped to the front matter and read, “it was published in 1998, then we know she was in Vancouver at sometime in her life. Christ, Molly, every broken-down Canadian kid ends up in Vancouver eventually. This gives us nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“A murder investigation starts with the victim,” he said, more to himself than to Smith. “Who hated/feared/loved/had an accident with/even a chance encounter with the victim so that he or she ended up killing her? It all flows from there. But this girl, Ashley? No past, and not much of a present. If I can’t figure out who Ashley was, how can I figure out who killed her?”
Chapter Six
From his office window, John Winters could see over the roofs of town, past the rows of houses clinging to the lower slopes of the mountain, and up to Koola Glacier, still
She chewed her lip. The people who cared about grizzly bears weren’t the type to kill someone like Ashley. And the people who were developing the resort were under enough pressure from environmental groups without having the cops investigating them. They might just pack up and take their resort money to China or somewhere. And Marigold’s hopes for a job with them.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking directly at Sergeant Winters. “She didn’t say if she’d gone or not. I didn’t think to ask. Sorry.”
Winters said nothing. The silence hung in the room. Out on the street, someone yelled and a woman laughed. The room was hot and stuffy and the scent of baby—dirty diapers, baby powder, warm skin—still lingered.
“Look,” Marigold said at last, “I have to be getting ready for work, so…”
“We found a key to the apartment on her,” Winters said. “Do you know if she had any other keys?”
Ashley kept the key to her safety deposit box inside one of her socks. The cop hadn’t felt it when going through Ashley’s things. A couple of times, Ashley had gone somewhere for the whole day, and returned with enough cash for the rent and what little she and Miller needed. Marigold didn’t know where she went, or who she got a lift with. None of her business. As long as Ashley came back with rent money.
“Nope,” she said in answer to his question.
Marigold led the way to the door. Winters was still holding one of the paperback novels and the flyer.
The police walked down the stairs. The bulletproof vest the woman wore must be a nightmare to wear in this heat, not to mention the dark clothes and all that equipment she had to lug around.
Ashley hadn’t told Marigold much about her life. She was a private person. But they’d sometimes shared the odd bottle of wine on Marigold’s nights off, and she’d confessed that her real name was Jennifer, Jennifer Watson. Not as awful as Joan Jones, but still you couldn’t blame her for changing it. She was from Oakville, Ontario, which was near Toronto. Marigold was from Winnipeg, and she figured that beat any city on the boring scale.
If the police managed to discover Ashley’s real name, Marigold thought, they’d just hand Miller over to Ashley—Jennifer’s—family. Better that the baby find a nice new family to adopt him.
***
Winters carried the dog-eared paperback and the torn flyer advertising a demonstration against the Grizzly Resort down the steps. A man eyed Smith, in her uniform, suspiciously. He was old, probably her parents’ age, with gray hair tied into a pony-tail that fell almost to his waist and a beard to match. His mustache curled up at the edges. She wondered if all that hair was designed to cover up the fact that he had almost nothing on top of his skull.
“What’s interesting about that book?” she asked.
Winters stopped walking and flipped the book open to the inside front cover. Smith leaned closer to see. The page was stamped with the faded address of a second-hand bookstore in Vancouver.
“If Ashley bought this book herself, which is a big if, as it seems to have been passed from hand to hand since,” he flipped to the front matter and read, “it was published in 1998, then we know she was in Vancouver at sometime in her life. Christ, Molly, every broken-down Canadian kid ends up in Vancouver eventually. This gives us nothing. Absolutely nothing.
“A murder investigation starts with the victim,” he said, more to himself than to Smith. “Who hated/feared/loved/had an accident with/even a chance encounter with the victim so that he or she ended up killing her? It all flows from there. But this girl, Ashley? No past, and not much of a present. If I can’t figure out who Ashley was, how can I figure out who killed her?”
Chapter Six
From his office window, John Winters could see over the roofs of town, past the rows of houses clinging to the lower slopes of the mountain, and up to Koola Glacier, still
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