To Laney, With Love Page 6

  “I’m not suggesting that, Mrs. Dobson. But at this stage in a homicide investigation we don’t rule out anything. How were your relations with your husband before his initial disappearance?”

  “Fine.” She stared down into her mug, not caring for this line of questioning any more than the last. “Reese was always a romantic man to be with.”

  “No arguments?”

  “I wanted him to be home more—he traveled a lot with his work. But I wouldn’t call our discussions about his schedule arguments.”

  “Do you have any children with the victim?”

  “Yes. We have a nine-year-old son, Josh.” Laney swallowed hard and felt a shudder rock through her. “He’ll be heartbroken about his dad. He‘s—we’ve—missed him a lot. I can’t think why he’d let us believe he was dead.”

  “We’ll do our best to find out, ma’am. I realize this is a shock, but it is necessary for me to ask certain questions that may seem indelicate.”

  “I understand.”

  “What’s your relationship with Mr. Forbes?”

  Relationship? Laney blinked, not quite liking the way McBain rolled that word off his thick tongue. “We’re friends—our sons are friends. He came along because he was worried about me meeting Reese alone.”

  “Are you romantically involved?”

  Laney resisted the impulse to glare at him. She could just imagine McBain putting two single parents together and coming up with one motive for murder. “No. And I don’t see what this has to do with who killed Reese—and why he disappeared.”

  McBain shrugged his shoulders and made a note in his notebook. “Let’s go on to what happened this evening. What time did you leave the hotel?”

  “Between five-fifteen and five-thirty.” Laney sighed. She hated to think of Ben going through this same rigmarole in the other room...all because of her.

  “CAN YOU THINK of any reason why Mrs. Dobson would want to kill her husband?”

  “Why would she—when she could have ignored the notes and continued on with her life as if he were still dead?” Ben asked. Frustration climbed his back like a cat digging in its claws. He closed his eyes and threaded his fingers through his hair, trying to dismiss the image of Laney on the bed beside Reese, the towel in her hands. Not for a moment did he think she’d killed Reese, but he wasn’t sure what kind of conclusions the police would draw.

  How had she known to meet Reese at the house? Why hadn’t she told him about the meeting? The police had separated them before he had had a chance to ask her.

  “She loved her husband very much, Constable,” Ben said after a minute. “She was overjoyed at the prospect he might still be alive. I honestly don’t think she would have allowed me to come with her if she had had murder on her mind.”

  “Yet you say she left the hotel without telling you where she was going. Didn’t you find that odd?”

  “Not if she was convinced that my being at the restaurant this afternoon was the reason Reese stood her up at lunch.”

  “You don’t know how she knew to find this address?”

  “No. Your guess is as good as mine.” Ben shifted in the overstuffed armchair in the library and studied the books clumped in untidy piles on the pine shelves, mostly murder mysteries, westerns and thrillers.

  “Is she seeing anyone, Mr. Forbes?”

  Ben glanced back at the young officer, who barely looked old enough to sport chest hairs. “I don’t think so. We don’t usually discuss our social lives with each other, but sometimes her son says stuff that leads me to believe she isn’t dating yet.” Ben suddenly remembered his conversation with Laney in November when she’d solicited his opinion about removing her wedding rings. Had she been considering dating someone whom Josh hadn’t known about? He pushed the disturbing thought away.

  “You weren’t dating her?”

  Ben thanked his lucky stars he’d never officially asked Laney out on a date so he could answer the question with all honesty. “Nope. We’re friends. She was great to my little boy when my wife died and I’ve been trying to return the favor. What happens next, Constable?”

  “Corporal McBain will have a few questions for you when he’s finished interviewing Mrs. Dobson. Once the Ident team arrives, we’ll want to take your fingerprints and Mrs. Dobson’s fingerprints to help us identify your movements in the crime scene. Then, you’re free to go. After we have the autopsy and forensic results, we’ll know more. Of course, we’ll ask you and Mrs. Dobson to keep us advised of your whereabouts as the homicide is being investigated.”

  Ben nodded, anxious to see how Laney was holding up.

  As Corporal McBain strode into the library and conferred with Constable Henry, Ben mentally prepared himself for round two. Something about the big man’s determined expression told him the police corporal had something particular on his mind.

  “Mr. Forbes, how would you describe Mrs. Dobson’s parenting abilities?” McBain began without preamble.

  “She’s a great mother, very kind and giving. Josh is the center of her universe.”

  “So she might react very strongly if she thought her son were about to be taken away from her?”

  “That isn’t what I said,” Ben protested, feeling a state of alarm settle beneath his skin.

  “You don’t think her husband might have contacted her because he wanted to see his kid—maybe wanted custody?”

  “Why would he send her love notes, then?” Ben asked.

  “That’s just it, Mr. Forbes. He didn’t send them. She just claims she received them. Which would explain why the husband didn’t show up at the restaurant. Mrs. Dobson claims a woman approached her in the ladies’ room with a message from her husband asking her to meet him at the house next door.”

  Ben’s stomach reeled as he realized what Corporal McBain was driving at. “You think Laney set this up, don’t you?”

  McBain clapped his hand on Ben’s shoulder. “It doesn’t matter what I think. The physical evidence will tell us what really happened this evening. That you can bet on, Mr. Forbes.”

  THE POLICE WEREN’T wasting any time gathering evidence.

  A sick feeling continued to hover in Ben’s stomach as he watched Laney hurry into her bedroom and return almost immediately with the note and the valentine, which she wordlessly handed to Constable Henry, who’d accompanied them to their hotel suite. Ben was sure the sharp-eyed young constable noticed the nervous twitching of her hands.

  “Thank you, ma’am.”

  Laney closed the door after the constable took his leave and sagged against it, her blue eyes shimmering with confusion, pain and uncertainty. One look at her swept away the suspicions McBain had planted in Ben’s heart. This was his Laney, whose expressive eyes were a constant mirror of her feelings. Vindictiveness wasn’t part of her nature and never would be.

  Ben was convinced the physical evidence would prove her innocent.

  He took two steps across the room and gripped her cold hands. “You holding up okay?” he asked. “Come sit down and I’ll pour you a drink. There must be some brandy in the bar.”

  “I could drink anything right about now,” she admitted, allowing him to lead her to the sofa. “I feel so cold inside. A part of me keeps saying that it’s impossible to lose your husband twice. What will I tell people? What will I tell Josh?”

  Ben got her settled and gave her fingers a comforting squeeze. “You’ll find the right words. Right now I’m more concerned about you and Josh than other people. I’m going to call my mom and make sure she doesn’t let the boys out of her sight until the police know what happened to Reese.”

  Ben poured a brandy from the bar and carried it over to Laney. He was tempted to have one himself, but he didn’t want anything dulling his wits right now. Laney stared off into space, her fingers cradling the heavy crystal tumbler. But he could sense her listening to his end of the conversation as he spoke to his mother. Ben kept the call brief and promised to phone again when they had more news.

  �
�Are the boys all right?” Laney asked as he joined her on the sofa.

  “Yes, Mom took them out for pizza for dinner. They’re both asleep now. Mom sends you her condolences. She told me to tell you not to worry—she’ll keep a close eye on Josh.” Ben settled his arm around her shoulders and felt a lightening in his soul when she scooted closer to him and laid her auburn head against his chest. A shudder slowly wracked her body.

  “Do you think it was Reese we found?” she asked so softly he had trouble hearing her.

  He looked down at her. He could see the faint freckles—like Josh’s—on the tip of her nose. “What do you mean?”

  “Corporal McBain told me they found his wallet and the name on his ID and credit cards was Graham Walker. Didn’t McBain tell you this?” She tilted her chin up to look at him with perfect trust in her eyes and Ben had to focus hard to keep from kissing her forehead and telling her exactly what McBain thought. That disillusionment could wait until tomorrow. Laney had had enough emotional shocks for one day.

  “No, as a matter of fact, he didn’t.”

  “Do you think someone was impersonating Reese?”

  “Why would someone do that?” Ben cupped her head with his palm and felt the fine silk of her hair and the vulnerable softness of her cheek. “It’s more likely he had fake ID. But I should think the police will be able to confirm his identity through fingerprints or dental records.”

  Laney gave a long, drawn-out sigh. “Which leads us to why he disappeared in the first place and why he decided to come out of hiding.”

  Ben curled his arm tighter around her. “The police should have some answers for us tomorrow and in the next few days. But that doesn’t mean we can’t formulate our own theories and do whatever we can to help the investigation. Now, tell me what happened in the ladies’ room.... I want to know everything you can remember about the woman who approached you. For all we know, she set you up for Reese’s murder.”

  LANEY WASN’T SURE what kind of explanation she expected from the police, but the knowledge that Graham Walker was married and lived in West Vancouver, sapped her already low energy reserves and made her knees knock together beneath the table in the stark interview room of the Whistler Royal Canadian Mounted Police detachment

  She’d stayed up half the night with Ben, trying to blot out the memory of finding Reese’s body from her mind. Talking helped, but when she’d finally gone to bed the tears had come again. By sunrise, she was more than ready for answers, but she just hadn’t expected this one and all its implications.

  “Married?” she asked weakly. She folded her hands together tightly on the imitation-wood tabletop and waited for Corporal McBain to tell her how her husband could possibly be married to two women at the same time. There must be some mistake. Maybe this Graham Walker really wasn’t Reese, or there was some kind of explanation....

  “About six months ago,” McBain informed her, glancing at a file he’d opened on the table. “Interesting thing is he told his wife Kristel he had no family and he’d never been married. The house on Horstman Lane is their second home—purchased after their wedding. According to his wife, Graham left for Europe two days ago to meet with various clients. He owns a specialty wine importing and exporting company. He was supposed to be gone a week.”

  “But he obviously lied to his wife and didn’t go,” Ben interjected.

  Laney winced inwardly at Ben’s use of the word wife and tried to absorb the details of what McBain was saying.

  “Apparently,” McBain agreed.

  “When will you have the autopsy results?” Ben asked.

  “We’ll receive some results later today. The autopsy is scheduled for this afternoon. Autopsies are conducted at the Vancouver General Hospital and the lab tests take a couple of days. In the meantime, we’ve already determined that Mr. Walker doesn’t have a criminal record. We’re running his fingerprints through Ottawa to see if there’s a match, which will give us a positive ID on the body, but it’ll be late tonight or tomorrow morning before we have those results.”

  “What if there’s no match?” Laney murmured. “I don’t think Reese ever had his fingerprints taken.”

  McBain cleared his throat. “That’s a real possibility. Graham Walker might not have had his fingerprints taken either. If that’s the case, we’ll compare your husband’s dental records with Graham Walker’s records to see if they’re the same person. Perhaps you could provide me with the name of your husband’s dentist?”

  Laney dug her dentist’s business card out of her wallet and gave him the information. “Corporal, you said Graham and Kristel married six months ago. Do you have any idea when they met?”

  “A few months before that. I believe they met at a charity event on Grouse Mountain in North Vancouver.”

  “Well, don’t you see,” Laney said excitedly, “Reese could have suffered amnesia as a result of the avalanche and constructed a new life for himself. Maybe his memory came back, which led him to contact me.”

  “And maybe Graham’s wife got suspicious and followed him to Whistler,” Ben pointed out. His cheeks flushed. “Anyone who entered that house last night would assume a romantic tryst was taking place. Where was she last night, anyway?”

  “She spent most of the day at home working on sketches for a project—she’s an interior designer. She claims she spent the evening at home alone watching a video.”

  Ben’s blue-black eyes narrowed. “Have you talked to anyone who can confirm that?”

  McBain leveled his gaze on Ben. “You can be sure we’ll be checking out her alibi and Graham Walker’s background thoroughly. We’ll be checking out yours, too. Neither of you mentioned you were sharing a hotel room. Maybe you were upset when you found out Mrs. Dobson was having a tryst with her husband.”

  Laney would have crawled under the table in embarrassment had it not been for the fact that McBain had no call to be singling out Ben. Even if they were having a hot, torrid affair, they wouldn’t have been doing anything wrong. She opened her mouth to reply, but Ben beat her to it.

  “We’re sharing a suite—as in separate bedrooms,” he coolly corrected McBain. “Since we didn’t know what kind of situation Laney could be walking into, it seemed a wise precaution to take.”

  “Corporal,” Laney said, endeavoring to change the subject away from her lack of an intimate relationship with Ben. “Would it be possible for you to arrange a meeting between Mrs. Walker and myself? Maybe, between the two of us, we can piece together Graham Walker’s life. I’m sure she doesn’t like the idea that she’s been married to a bigamist any more than I do. I know my husband. And I’m not ready to accept that he would fake his own death and risk possible prosecution as a bigamist, not when he could have simply told me our marriage was over and have filed for divorce. There must be something more here... something serious enough that someone would want to kill him.”

  McBain seemed to consider her request for a moment. “Wait here. I’ll call Mrs. Walker from another room.”

  As McBain left the room, Laney felt Ben’s fingers settle over her hands, warm and strong.

  “Good for you,” he said, his eyes glowing with approval in a way that made a cloud of heat form in her stomach. “Stand up to him. They’ll be looking for easy, simple answers and I don’t think there’s anything simple about this.”

  “That’s an understatement But I don’t like the way McBain’s dragging you into this.” Laney wet her lips. “Maybe you should go home, Ben.”

  Ben’s jaw hardened mulishly. “I’m not leaving you, Laney. Not today. Not tomorrow. And certainly not because the police want to include me on their list of suspects. They can dig all they want. We have nothing to hide. So get used to the idea of having me around until we receive some answers, okay?”

  Laney laughed, a dry, choking sound. She’d never seen him quite like this before, but she felt darn lucky to have him so solidly in her corner. Moisture filled her eyes as she squeezed out a response. “Okay.”

  B
y the time McBain returned, his boots clomping heavily on the floor, determination had settled in Laney’s pores with renewed strength. Ben was right. The idea the police could suspect him—or her—of killing Reese was ridiculous. She had to push to keep them pursuing the truth. She gazed up at the corporal expectantly.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Dobson, but Mrs. Walker refuses to meet with you.”

  Laney arched her brows. “Refuses?”

  McBain shrugged his shoulders. “Her words, not mine.”

  “No is not an answer I’m prepared to accept at this moment, Corporal,” she said with unwavering steel in her voice. “Could you provide me with Graham and Kristel’s address in West Vancouver? My son needs to know what happened to his father.”

  Chapter Five

  Laney held her breath as she sought out the house numbers on the series of gates and fences that separated the rest of the world from the exclusive waterfront homes lining Marine Drive. The narrow road wound along the coast through dense trees, whose verdant boughs guaranteed seclusion and private views of the Burrard Inlet and the Georgia Strait. According to the map, they were getting closer.

  McBain wouldn’t give her Kristel Walker’s address, but he’d hinted that it was public knowledge and should be relatively simple for them to find it by asking around.

  Laney and Ben hadn’t quite known what the corporal meant until a front-desk clerk at their hotel told them Kristel Walker was a member of one of the province’s wealthiest families. Everyone familiar with West Vancouver knew where she lived. Someone on the staff gave them directions and a description of the house.

  There was no snow here. Purple kale, winter pansies and a few early crocuses brightened winterbare beds.

  They drove through a village and Laney told Ben where to turn so they could reach the oceanfront lane where the Walkers lived. The lane was jammed with parked cars. A crowd of people hovered outside a pair of massive beige wrought-iron gates centered in a high stone wall. Laney saw TV news cameras. “Uh-oh, I think this must be it,” she stammered as Ben veered around a parked vehicle jutting onto the roadway.