To Laney, With Love

by Joyce Sullivan

  After thirty-six hours of waiting and wondering if Graham and Reese were the same person, it struck her as being a cruel and unjust punishment that she should be told there was no record, and that she must endure another delay of days or weeks until a positive identification could be made.

  Laney stared numbly as a melting clump of snow shifted off the tip of a cedar bough and thudded softly to the ground. A gray mist had settled over the Whistler valley overnight, bringing with it a light rainfall that added a dusting of snow to the ski runs at the top of the mountains where the temperature was several degrees colder. “We’ve already put a call through to your husband’s dentist. They’re sending Reese’s dental records by overnight courier,” McBain told her. He gestured toward the other corporal, who nodded solemnly and raised a video camera to his eye to begin filming. “Corporal Axworthy is with the Ident team. He’ll be recording the walk-through on film.”

  Corporal McBain advised them both of their right to have a lawyer present again, which they both waived, then he led them toward the front door. “We’ll begin here, Mrs. Dobson,” he instructed. A rivulet of rain dribbled off the brim of his forage cap. “Never mind the camera, just talk to me. What time did you arrive at the house?”

  Laney glanced uncertainly at the camera, then back at Corporal McBain. “About ten after six. I checked my watch as I climbed onto the front porch to see how early I was. I wasn’t supposed to meet Reese until seven.”

  “What did you do next? Ring the bell?”

  “No, I didn’t ring the bell. The door was ajar a few inches. I saw the candlelight and the rose petals on the floor.” Conscious of her attentive audience and the camera, Laney went through the motions of opening the door and removing her coat and shoes in the foyer. The men removed their coats, as well, and wiped their feet.

  The air in the house was as stagnant as the inside of a tomb. Laney felt the somber atmosphere hem her in as though she were being measured for a shroud. Ben’s face was a tight mask of concentration. Moisture gleamed on his cheeks and hair. She noticed he had the same aversion as she to stepping on the withered rose petals still littering the floor. McBain and Constable Henry, however, looked ready to pounce on every word she said.

  She led the way into the dining room and stopped behind one of the chairs drawn up to the dining-room table. The room looked much as it had the other night, without the luster of the candlelight. And, in the gray morning light, Laney could see the grains of a black powder on the pale wood of the table.

  “Did you sit down at the table?” McBain asked.

  Laney shook her head. “No. I smelled food cooking, which made me think Reese might be in the kitchen, so I tried to find the kitchen.”

  “Did you touch anything on the table?”

  Laney frowned. “I don’t believe so. I might have touched the chair. I’m not sure.”

  “We found your fingerprints on the chair and the silverware. Henry, show her the silverware.”

  Laney felt a chord of alarm vibrate through her as Constable Henry produced a sealed plastic bag containing the silverware from a large black briefcase he carried with him. His young face looked grave. Laney couldn’t understand why they were making such a fuss about a knife, a fork and a spoon. Ben seemed equally puzzled. “Well, I don’t recall touching it. But maybe I forgot I did. I certainly didn’t set the table or sit down, if that’s what you’re implying.”

  “Let’s continue on,” McBain instructed loudly. “Where did you go next?” Laney led them into the kitchen and explained how she’d opened the oven and seen the cartons of Chinese food. “It occurred to me that Reese might be waiting for me upstairs,” she admitted with a blush. “I called out for him to answer me, but he didn’t.” Laney threaded her way through the house to the staircase, wincing at the clomping sound the men’s footsteps made on the granite steps as they mounted the stairs behind her. The sound echoed in the still house and made her feel as if an army were in pursuit of her. She stopped on the secondfloor landing and faced Corporal McBain.

  “When I got upstairs, I could see the glow of candles and the light from the fire through the glass doors. Then I opened the door and I saw...h-him.”

  “Walk us through your movements.”

  Laney closed her eyes and swallowed hard, trying to remember the tiniest details of that night. But how she wanted to forget the sight of Reese in that bed! So much blood! Her knees wobbled as she found the courage to open the glass door and enter the bedroom. She couldn’t bring herself to focus directly on the bed. But in her peripheral vision, she noted to her relief that the bed had been stripped and the bloodsoaked parts of the mattress cut away by the forensics team.

  “I ran over to him,” she said shakily. “There was blood everywhere. I touched his face. He felt warm and I thought he, was still alive, so I ran into the bathroom to get a towel to stop the bleeding.” Hugging herself, she walked into the bathroom and pointed at the towel bar near one of the twin sinks.

  “You didn’t touch anything else or go back into the bathroom for any other reason?” the corporal asked.

  “N-no. I went back into the bedroom and wrapped the towel around the wound. I took a first-aid course when my son was a baby so I knew not to try to remove the...” She faltered, not quite sure how to describe the murder weapon. “Anyway, that’s when I noticed Reese wasn’t breathing and I started artificial respiration.”

  “Did it occur to you to call 911?”

  “Yes, it did.” Laney felt her knees wobble. “But I thought it was more important to get some air into Reese’s lungs first. That’s when Ben arrived and I told him to call for an ambulance.”

  Laney gave a tiny sigh of relief as McBain turned his steely eyed gaze on Ben.

  “What time did you arrive, Mr. Forbes?”

  “I honestly don’t know,” Ben admitted. “Six twenty-five, maybe six-thirty. I got back to the hotel just before six. The concierge told me Laney had asked directions to Horstman Lane. I headed over here in a hurry and parked at the top of the road and started knocking on doors. I went to two houses before I heard a scream and I just started running. I rang the doorbell, but I didn’t wait for anyone to answer. I just knew Laney was in here. The door wasn’t locked. As soon as I opened it, I heard her crying. I think I called out her name as I came up the stairs and saw her with Reese on the bed—I’m not sure. She was giving Reese artificial respiration. As soon as she saw me, she told me to call 911.”

  McBain nodded and checked his notebook. “That seems to fit. The call was logged in at 6:33 p.m. What’d you do after you called?”

  “I went to assist Laney. Reese didn’t have a pulse. It seemed obvious to me he was dead,” Ben replied matter-of fact.

  “What was the state of the coverings on the bed when you arrived?” McBain asked Ben.

  Ben frowned and Laney saw him glance at the mutilated bed as though trying to stimulate his memory. Laney wondered what in the world McBain was driving at.

  “I think the covers were folded back onto the left side of the bed as though Laney flipped them back to examine Reese’s injury,” Ben said after a pause.

  “I did push them aside,” Laney admitted. “And I pulled the pillows out from behind him and threw them on the rug so I could see if he was breathing.”

  McBain addressed Ben. “Was the left side of the bed fairly neatly made or mussed up when you entered?”

  “Neatly made. The top sheet was turned down over the covers like you see in displays in a bedding department. My wife used to do that when she made our bed. Is this really important?”

  McBain disregarded Ben’s question with a wave of his hand. Laney felt a needle of tension nose sharply up her spine. “In your attempts to administer first aid to the victim after Mr. Forbes’s arrival, did either of you adjust the covers?”

  A hot lump swelled in Laney’s throat. “After I realized he was gone, I, um, covered him up to his chest. But I still don’t understand what the position of the covers has to do with
anything.”

  “I’m getting to that.” McBain moved to a spot near the bed. “We’ve been able to determine that Mr. Walker was standing here, with his back to the bed when he was stabbed. He fell onto the bed and bled to death very quickly. Then his killer propped him up in bed and arranged the coverings around him.” McBain walked around the foot of the bed to the left side and gestured with his arms. “The left side of the bed is made up. Pillows plumped nice and pretty. People tend to shed hair and fabric fibers when they’re nervous. The Ident team picked up a couple of red hairs on the right side of the bed in the vicinity of Mr. Walker’s body. But what we can’t figure out is how three red hairs could be found elsewhere in the bed. One was found between the sheets near the foot of the bed. A second was found sandwiched between a blanket and the top sheet, and a third hair was found on a pillow slip on the left side of the bed. On the bottom pillow, actually. There were two on that side of the bed.”

  Laney’s eyes widened in mute shock as she came to the frightening conclusion that McBain thought she’d laid her head on that pillow before she’d killed Reese—lured him to his death with sex. Nausea rose in her throat.

  She cast a wary glance at Ben’s reflection in the mirror. His brows were drawn into dark slashes over his eyes, mimicking the tight fold of his arms across his denim-clad chest.

  Was he buying the corporal’s logic?

  Ben’s lower jaw jutted out. “So what? Couldn’t the hairs have been somehow transported when your men were going over the room or when Mr. Walker’s body was moved?”

  “Well, that could be.” McBain’s voice sounded as if he doubted it.

  Laney choked back the taste of bile, heartened by Ben’s steadfast support. “How do you even know it’s my hair?” she stammered. “I’m sure I’m not the only redhead in the world. Someone could have planted those red hairs to incriminate me.”

  “That’s certainly possible,” McBain coolly agreed. “We’d need a hair sample to confirm it.”

  “Well, I’ll be happy to provide one,” Laney said staunchly, with heated indignation. “Because I have nothing to hide.”

  “I’m glad you feel that way, because we found two other items in the bathroom which trouble me. If you’d follow Constable Henry into the bathroom, please, then we can address them.”

  The gray-and-white marble bathroom was spacious enough for a party of ten. The massive whirlpool tub could hold two adults comfortably. Laney quickly bolted an iron door against thoughts of Graham and Kristel sharing the tub. Sharing moments she’d been denied. Reese had always been particularly inventive in a bathtub.

  Constable Henry set his briefcase on the austere marble countertop separating the his-and-hers sinks. Laney eyed the case with suspicion as McBain cleared his throat to get their attention.

  “Mrs. Dobson, you said a few minutes ago that you entered the bathroom only once to get a towel from this towel rack.”

  “That’s right,” she said, knowing intuitively that some ax was about to fall and it was going to come out of that blasted black briefcase.

  “Did you open any drawers to look for first-aid supplies? Or wash your hands or anything?”

  “No,” Laney replied, wishing he’d just get on with it and deal his killing blow. She didn’t even dare look at Ben for fear McBain would come up with a conspiracy theory. She thought about stopping the proceedings by invoking her right to consult with a lawyer before answering any more questions, but decided it would probably seal her guilt in McBain’s eyes. She told herself that regardless of whatever evidence McBain had tucked away in that case, she had the truth on her side. “I grabbed the towel,” she repeated firmly. “I washed my hands when you took me over to the neighbor’s house.”

  “That’s puzzling, because we found another red hair in the far sink and we lifted your prints off a bottle of perfume on the counter beside it. Henry, show her the bottle,” McBain directed.

  A bottle of perfume? Confusion clouded her thoughts as she examined the bagged bottle of Oscar de la Renta perfume. She owned a bottle herself, but it was at home. Or at least she thought it was. She didn’t remember packing it. What’s more, the sink was a good eight feet away from the towel bar. She didn’t remember going anywhere near it, much less knocking something over on the counter that she could have inadvertently righted. She searched her mind for a plausible explanation.

  Could it have been in her purse and had perhaps fallen onto the counter in her panic? How did it get in her purse, though? She rarely carried perfume in her purse. But she’d been so absentminded lately, maybe she’d done it without realizing it.

  Laney jumped, startled by the boom of McBain’s voice. “While you’re coming up with an explanation for the perfume bottle, perhaps you can come up with an explanation for this woman’s petite nightie we found in the hamper underneath the counter. We checked the tag. Quite a coincidence it comes from an exclusive lingerie store in Ottawa.”

  Laney reeled as Constable Henry supplied her with a plastic bag containing a wisp of lace-trimmed, royal-blue lingerie stained with blood. Her fingers tightened around the bag in instant recognition. Her eyes fluttered shut to shield her uncertainty. She’d worn the teddy only for Reese and certainly hadn’t worn it since the avalanche. What was going on here? Was she losing her mind?

  “Do you recognize the garment, Mrs. Dobson?” McBain asked her.

  “Yes. I think it’s mine,” she said as steadily as she could manage, painfully aware the camera was recording her every word. Had she been foolish not to ask to have a lawyer present? “But I believe I have an explanation as to how it came to be here. My home was broken into a week ago. Not much was taken. Money. My credit cards. But I noticed afterward a wedding photo was taken off my dresser and Josh was missing his favorite toy. The police seemed to think the thief was after drug money, but maybe the thief’s real purpose was to steal things that could be used to incriminate me. Obviously someone knew Reese had invited me to meet him in Whistler.” She spread her arms wide in appeal. ”Gee, I wonder who’d have the money to go to such lengths to set me up? Someone in the Butterfield family, perhaps?”

  McBain and Constable Henry looked at her as if she’d suggested she had three heads and was descended from an alien culture.

  “She’s telling the truth,” Ben cut in, exasperation evident in his throaty growl. “Check with the Ottawa-Carleton police. Mrs. Dobson and her son were having dinner at my house with my son and my mother when the break-in occurred.”

  “I certainly will check with the Ottawa-Carleton police,” McBain assured him, fixing him with a challenging stare. “How interesting that you’re her alibi for the break-in.”

  Laney sucked in her breath as Ben’s expression turned to granite, the muscles in his neck standing out like sculpted cords. For a terrible second, she was afraid Ben would lunge at McBain.

  But she should have known better. Ben always played fair and levelheaded, and always told his players on the Olympics that there was never any call for violence—on or off the ice. Pride blossomed with a honeyed feminine awareness deep within her when he tucked his hands in the front pockets of his slacks and met the corporal’s stare with dignity glinting in his blue-black eyes. “With all due respect, Corporal,” he said curtly, “I don’t appreciate the implication in your last remark. Maybe you should try widening your view to look at the big picture.”

  Laney smothered a grin that was completely inappropriate for the seriousness of the situation and tried to squelch an insane desire to applaud Ben for being Ben.

  McBain’s beefy lips curled with smug satisfaction. “That’s precisely what I’m leading up to...the big picture. If you’ll both follow me back out onto the landing, I’ll explain.”

  Laney lifted her chin and squared her shoulders, confident that no matter what McBain threw at them next, she and Ben could handle it.

  Constable Henry turned on the massive crystal chandelier hanging in the upstairs hall as they gathered near the railing. Light ref
racted through the crystal prisms and glowed off the polished steps. Laney gazed in puzzlement at Corporal McBain.

  “Look carefully at the top tier of the chandelier,” he instructed. “Graham Walker was stabbed with a crystal rod taken from the fixture.”

  Laney gasped as McBain indicated a gap in the upper tier of the chandelier. Leaning over the rail, he removed the rod to the immediate right of the gap. The fixture swayed, its crystals clinking together with a melodic ripple. McBain handed her the rod.

  Laney reluctantly took it. About twelve inches long, the rod was surprisingly heavy; its pointed, starshaped tip was sharp against her thumb. Odd something so beautiful and simple could take a life.

  “Go ahead, Mrs. Dobson,” the corporal said, breaking into her sober thoughts. “Try replacing the rod on the hook.”

  Laney leaned over the rail. Even when she raised up on her tiptoes, her arm fell a foot short of the top tier.

  “That’s what I figured,” the corporal murmured. “What are you—about five-two?”

  “With my socks on,” Laney replied, giddy relief washing through her. Surely this proved she had nothing to do with Reese’s murder. Assuming Graham was Reese. But she had no doubt that the writing on both cards she’d received was Reese’s.

  Then she saw Constable Henry lift an upholstered bench that was tucked beneath a console on the opposite wall of the landing and set it alongside the railing. Laney bit down hard on lower lip and drew blood at the prospect of climbing onto that bench. McBain might as well slap the handcuffs around her wrists right now.

  But the moment she climbed onto the bench, it became apparent the bench was too high. Though considerably taller now, her center of gravity was situated well above the railing, making it impossible for her to lean out over the stairwell without suffering a serious fall to the foyer below.

  Laney felt like crowing until it dawned on her that the burly corporal didn’t seem the least bit perturbed. After she’d safely dismounted the bench, he asked her for the rod and presented it to Ben.