“Mr. Shingler, Laura is going raise her child with my help. Kyle can be as involved as he wants to be.”
He looked astonished. “You need some time to think about what I said. Laura’s education will be paid as long as she wants to stay in school. Law school, medical school, post-graduate studies, whatever she wants to pursue will be taken care of.”
“Mr. Shingler, get out of my office.”
“Think it over,” he said as he rose from his chair. “Discuss it with Laura.”
I did not discuss it with Laura. She was in good spirits at dinner, relaxed and happy. I saw that she had gained a little weight. Her face and breasts were fuller, and her hair was thick and glossy.
“I feel like a load’s been lifted off me since we sent Yvonne and Russell packing,” she said. “No more wedding talk.”
“Wedding?” Tommy asked. “Are you and Kyle getting married?”
“No, Tommy. We’re not getting married.”
“I’ve never been to a wedding,” he said.
“I haven’t heard from Kyle since his parents were here,” Laura went on, “and I don’t care.”
“When am I gonna see Bruce’s new place?” Tommy asked.
I smiled at him. “Soon, I hope.”
“Have you heard from Bruce?” Laura asked me.
“No. He wasn’t at work, and he’s not at his cabin.” Maria had called before I left my office. She told me that The Times’ business manager had just returned from Raven Lake. No one was at Bruce’s place.
“Where can he be?” Laura asked.
“I wish I knew,” I said.
“He said we’d go swimming at his beach,” Tommy said.
I got up from my chair and put an arm around him. “Bruce hasn’t been seen since Saturday night. We’re worried about him.”
“Where did he go?”
“Nobody knows,” I said.
“Think, Mom,” Laura said. “You know Bruce pretty well. Who are his friends?”
“He sees a fair bit of Lainey and Burt Campbell. But Lainey called me this afternoon when she couldn’t reach him at The Times.”
“Soupy?”
“No. I’ve been talking to Soupy and Ivy about Bruce all day.”
“Think, Mom. He must’ve mentioned someone.”
“After Ted died, Bruce began seeing a psychologist who’s a relative of the Campbells. I asked Lainey if Dr. Reynolds had heard from Bruce. She called me back to say he hadn’t seen or heard from him in a couple of weeks.”
“There must be someone else.”
“No one I can think of.”
We were eating dinner when Jamie called to say that her mother’s laparoscopy had gone well. She planned to drive Ronnie home in the morning.
“Tommy and I can go over tomorrow and help them,” Laura said when I told her Jamie’s news.
“The best thing you can do is let Ronnie rest,” I told her. “She’ll be exhausted after the drive from Peterborough.”
It was time for Laura to get back to her life in the city.
After the dishes were put away, she curled up on the sofa with a book.
“A game of Chinese checkers, Mrs. T?” Tommy asked, a grin on his face.
“Sounds good to me.”
My thoughts were on Jamie and her mother as I watched him set up the game board on the kitchen table.
“You can go first, Mrs. T.”
I moved one of my marbles into an empty hole on the board. Tommy took his turn, and we began to move across the board. I let my thoughts drift, and something Ronnie had told me surfaced. Years ago, she and Vi had explored the trails around the lookout above Braeloch, and they sometimes met up with a young man called Daniel.
“Mrs. T, you’re not concentrating,” Tommy scolded.
I hopped my marble over the one beside it and smiled at him. We continued advancing across the board until all Tommy’s marbles were in the triangle directly across from his starting point. “I win!” he cried.
He looked at me and shook his head. “That was too easy, Mrs. T. You were far away.”
After I’d tucked Tommy into bed, I sat down beside Laura on the sofa. “Like to get back to the city?” I asked.
“I’ll go back on the weekend. I need to start my job, and you’ll have left work by then.”
I nodded, grateful that she’d be with Tommy until I left the branch.
“Kyle will come and get you?”
“That’s not a good idea. I can take the bus.”
“I’ll drive you down on Saturday. Tommy can spend the night with his grandmother.”
“You’re the best, Mom.” She planted a kiss on my cheek and went off to bed.
I poured myself a glass of chardonnay and took it out on the porch. Frogs were croaking down by the lake. I sipped my wine and looked up at the star-studded sky.
I remembered that Bruce had met Daniel Laughton at Highland Ridge. Were they still in touch?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
I dropped into Highland Ridge the next morning. Sheila Sommers greeted me with a smile when I was taken to her office. “What brings you back here, Ms. Tierney?”
I told her that Bruce hadn’t been seen for a few days and that I was worried about him.
The smile left her face. “The man at The Times who was killed on Saturday…”
“The past two weeks have been a bit much for Bruce. His mother and now Wilf Mathers. He probably needs some time to himself, but I want to know if he’s okay.”
“How can I help?” she asked.
“I’m trying to come up with the names of friends of his family, people he might be staying with. Can you tell me who visited Vi while she was here?”
“Vi didn’t have many visitors. Her husband, of course, and Bruce. Lainey Campbell was a regular, and she sometimes brought her husband with her. Veronica Collins visited when Vi first arrived, but she stopped coming. Some people aren’t comfortable around people with dementia.”
She closed her eyes for a moment or two. “And Daniel Laughton.”
“The Daniel Laughton.”
“Yes, the environmentalist.” She smiled. “He’s a wonderful man. I so enjoyed his books on Canadian wildlife and that TV show he had. The world needs more people like him.”
She snapped out of her reverie. “Anyway, Dr. Laughton came to see Vi about once a month. He sent her a lovely floral arrangement last Christmas.”
“He knew Bruce?”
“Oh, yes. I saw them leave the building together not long ago.”
“Does Dr. Laughton have a place around here?”
“He has a vacation home on Raven Lake.”
After our client meetings that morning, I went into my office and flipped open the Glencoe Highlands phone directory. It had a listing for an R. Laughton but gave no address. There was nothing for a Daniel or a D. Laughton.
I tried the R. Laughton number, which turned out to be the listing for Daniel’s son Rob. He was reluctant to give me his father’s number, but I told him I wasn’t an admirer wanting a selfie with the great man. And I wasn’t a reporter. I couldn’t tell him what it was about, only that it was urgent that I speak to Daniel.
I punched in the number Rob gave me and a woman picked up.
“Laughton residence.”
“My name is Pat Tierney. May I speak to Daniel Laughton?”
“How did you get this number?”
I didn’t want to get Rob into trouble. “I’m not at liberty to say but it’s important that I talk to Daniel.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Hello?” I held my breath, hoping she wouldn’t hang up.
“I’m afraid he can’t come to the phone now. What’s this about?”
“I’m looking for someone Daniel knows, a man named Bruce Stohl. He’s missing and I hope Daniel can tell me where he is.”
“There must be some mistake. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“If you could ask—”
�
��Goodbye.” She cut the connection.
Seething at her rudeness, I grabbed my handbag and left the building.
I was approaching Joe’s Diner when a maroon van pulled into a parking space on Main Street, narrowly missing the bumper of the vehicle in front of it. Chuck Gibson was at the wheel of the van and Gracie was beside him. I waited for them to get out.
“Good to see you, Pat,” Chuck said, coming around to open Gracie’s door.
“How’s everything going?” I asked when they joined me on the sidewalk.
Gracie shook her head and I saw that she looked jittery. “A couple showed up two days ago.”
Chuck put an arm around her and she went on. “When we told them our home wasn’t for rent, they weren’t at all nice about it. The man wanted his $1,500 back. We told him we had nothing to do with the ad he’d answered, but he didn’t believe us. Said if they didn’t get their money back, he’d break our picture window.”
“They waited until Sergeant Bouchard came over,” Chuck said.
“Good thing we’d called the police before and they knew about our problem,” Gracie continued. “Sergeant Bouchard told the couple that our home has been targeted by those con men.”
“The couple backed off?” I asked.
She nodded. “They weren’t happy, but they left. They could come back, though, and other people will probably arrive too. The police haven’t put an end to it.”
“The ad was on a different site this time. VacationSpots,” Chuck said. “Posted by a different fellow too. But no one seems to know who these people really are. Sergeant Bouchard said they can set up email accounts under any names they like.”
“This couple threatened to break your window and someone else said he’d punch you out, so it’s more than just a nuisance when renters show up,” I said. “I wonder if the police got the rental sites to release the IP addresses of the computers that posted the ads.”
Chuck and Gracie looked at each other in dismay. “IP addresses?” Gracie said. “This is getting much too complicated.”
Nate and I wrapped up our client meetings around four. I was about to leave my office when my phone rang.
“Mrs. Shingler is here to see you,” Ivy said.
“Send her in.” I knew this wasn’t going to be fun.
Yvonne had a smile on her face when she appeared at my door. “Have I got you at a bad time?” she asked.
“Come in and close the door.” I pointed to the chair in front of my desk.
She perched on the edge of the seat, her arms wrapped around her handbag. “Last night, Russell told me what he discussed with you. I decided I had to speak to you myself.”
I waited for her to go on. I wasn’t about to make this any easier for her.
“You were tied up in meetings all afternoon,” she said. “I would have gone to see Laura, but I don’t know where your new place is.”
I thanked God for small mercies.
“Russell told you that we want to raise Kyle and Laura’s child. We’re prepared to compensate Laura financially, and we would give the child every advantage.”
“And Russell must have told you my answer.”
“He said you needed some time to think about it.”
“My answer was and still is no.”
“Pat, I couldn’t have any more children after Kyle, although we desperately wanted to. We considered adopting. What troubled us about adoption was that we wouldn’t know the child’s family background. But this would be the perfect situation. Our son is the father, and we know Laura and her family.”
“Mrs. Shingler—”
“Yvonne.”
“If someone wanted you to give up Kyle when he was born, you would have been outraged. You never would have considered it. So you will understand how Laura would feel if she knew what you were asking. She’s looking forward to being a mother in a few months, and she intends to bring up her child to the very best of her abilities.”
Her violet eyes bored into me. “But will that be good enough for the child? A child needs a father and a mother, and Laura doesn’t want to get married.”
I tried staring her down. “Laura isn’t ready for marriage and neither is Kyle. A rocky marriage would be terrible for a child.”
“That’s why Russell and I will raise our grandchild.”
“Laura will live with me while she finishes school. I’ve brought up two children, and I still have a young boy at home. My daughter Tracy will be a big part of the child’s life. So will Kyle, and so will you and your husband. Our grandchild will have lots of people to love and nurture him.”
I could see that Yvonne hadn’t taken in a word that I’d said. She rose from the chair, her eyes blazing, her nostrils distended. A warrior queen ready for battle.
I had to get her out of the building. “I’ll walk you to the front door.”
As I came around from behind my desk, she drew herself up to her full height, which meant she came up to my shoulders. “You haven’t heard the last from us, Pat. Russell and I are going to bring up our grandchild. That little boy or girl needs a father and a mother who are living under the same roof.”
She turned on her heel and strode down the hall.
I locked the front door behind her. I was hanging the Closed sign in the window when the phone on Ivy’s desk rang.
“For you, Pat,” she said.
“I’ll take it in my office.” I hurried down the hall.
“Daniel Laughton here. Sorry I missed your call. I understand it was concerning our mutual friend.”
I was caught off guard. “Yes, I’m looking for—”
“Let’s discuss this in person,” he said sharply. “Can you come out to our home on Raven Lake?”
“I can come right now.”
“My wife, Frances, will meet you at the Raven Lake boat launch. Do you know where that is?”
“Yes.” The Gibsons’ and Bruce’s homes on Raven Lake were accessible by road, but I’d driven past the boat launch many times.
“When can you get there?”
“I’ll be at the launch in thirty minutes.”
I’d put Braeloch in my rearview mirror when I realized that I hadn’t given the woman who had answered the Laughtons’ telephone my number or even told her where I worked.
The only way Daniel would have known where to find me was if Bruce had told him. That meant Bruce was either with him or in contact with him. He was okay.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I pulled into the boat launch’s parking lot a little after five and claimed one of the few empty spaces. Bruce’s blue Chevy was three cars down from mine. My heart lifted, knowing that he was with the Laughtons.
“Are you Pat Tierney?” a white-haired woman in a navy windbreaker called from a boat as I approached the dock.
“I’m Frances Laughton,” she said when I went over to her battered aluminum boat. “Careful getting in. Bottom’s slippery.” Her weather-beaten face held no clue to why I’d been summoned, and I had a feeling she wouldn’t tell me if I asked.
When I was bundled into a life jacket, Frances fired up the outboard motor and took us out on the lake. Our progress across the water was slow, and I remembered hearing that Raven was the largest lake in the township. I wondered how far the Laughtons’ place was, and whether I’d make it back to my car before dark. But there was nothing I could do but sit there take in the scenery.
I knew that a greenie like Daniel Laughton wouldn’t own a speed boat. I was surprised that the Laughtons took any kind of gas-guzzler out on the lake, although a long paddle in a canoe would have been strenuous for a couple in their seventies. There seemed to be a point where even tree-huggers drew the line.
The Laughtons’ retreat was on a northern arm of the lake. We entered a bay without any sign of human habitation, and Frances pointed the boat toward a wooded knoll on the far shore. As we got closer, I made out a structure tucked behind the fir trees. A sprawling log cabin, stained dark brown.
There was no
dock. Frances maneuvered the boat along the shoreline. A stooped, white-haired man, who I recognized from his photos and his television show as Daniel Laughton, came down the path from the house. Frances threw him a rope and he tied it to a cedar.
He raised a hand to me. “Take off your shoes.”
I slipped off my shoes and socks, and rolled up the legs of my trousers. Daniel held the boat steady as Frances and I got out. We waded through the shallow water, and he led us up the path to the house.
On the porch, he pulled out a chair from a table covered with a red checked cloth. “Ms. Tierney.”
I seated myself and Daniel sat across from me. Frances went into the house.
I wondered where Bruce was.
“Let me apologize for Frances’s abruptness on the phone,” Daniel said.
“No need. She didn’t know who I was. You value your privacy.”
He nodded. “There are a lot of demands on me—from supporters, fund-raisers, the media. I find it difficult to say no but Frances can. She’s my gatekeeper.”
Frances returned with a tray loaded with four mugs of camomile tea and a plate of cookies studded with seeds. “Help yourselves,” she said, placing the tray on the table. She took a chair between Daniel and me.
Four mugs. One was for Bruce.
“You were looking for Bruce,” Daniel said as I reached for a mug.
“I was.”
“He’d like to speak to you.”
The door opened and Bruce stepped onto the porch. His face was drawn and his shoulders sagged. He didn’t look at me.
“Bruce,” I said, “we’ve been worried about you.”
“Sorry.” He touched my arm and sat in the chair beside me.
“Have you heard about Wilf?”
“Yes.” His face contorted with pain. “Foster questioned me for hours after the fireworks. It was nearly 3 a.m. when he let me go. I knew he’d be at my cabin in a few hours, so I called Daniel. He picked me up at the boat launch around seven. I had to get away.”
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