“You must be Jason Anderson. We met when you were a boy but you probably don’t remember it.”
Wendell stepped back so they could enter and Jason put his arm around Brinley. “This is Brinley Snow, Mr. Barnes.”
They all shook hands and then followed him from the foyer to the living room. Jason and Brinley sat down on the couch while Barnes sat in a chair to their right. Brinley’s gaze was darting all around the room, her eyes wide, and Jason knew why. The same as outside, the inside was a mirror image of her own home right down to the built in book shelves in the living room and the mirrored banquet in the dining room. The only difference was the color scheme and Jason knew that Brinley had spent weeks repainting and decorating when she’d moved in.
“So you want to talk about Linda,” Wendell began and then looked up when an attractive woman came through from the kitchen with a tray of lemonade. “Ah yes, I asked my wife Lynn to bring us some refreshments. Lynn, this is Jason Anderson and Brinley Snow.”
“It’s nice to meet you.” The dark haired woman sat down and poured four glasses of lemonade and then offered Jason and Brinley a plate of cookies. “Are both of you police officers?”
The shock Jason had felt when seeing Lynn Barnes for the first time was making it difficult to concentrate. There had been a picture of Linda Barnes in the police file he’d gone through. An attractive brunette with a trim figure, she could have been this woman’s double.
Spooky as shit. The longer he spent here the stranger it became.
Did Lynn – hell, even the name was almost like Linda’s – have any idea she was a dead ringer for Barnes’s deceased wife?
A quick glance around the house revealed no family pictures or memorabilia, only two black and white framed photos of the mountains and a lake. But then Barnes wouldn’t need photos of the past when he was still living in it.
“I’m actually a police consultant, Mrs. Barnes, and Brinley is a civilian. I just want to thank you for speaking with us today. I’m sure talking about the past is not something you want to do.”
Wendell Barnes sniffed in disapproval. “No, it is not. I’d appreciate it if you would ask your questions so we can be done with this.” He patted his wife on the hand. “You can ask anything in front of Lynn. She knows the whole story.”
“Let’s start there then. What do you remember from that night, Mr. Barnes?”
Jason deliberately kept his question open-ended. Guilty suspects tended to start where they felt the most vulnerable instead of at the beginning of the story.
Barnes sat up straight and crossed his arms over his chest, a huge body language give away that he didn’t feel like being open and honest. “I suppose you want to know why I was at the lake that night. Well, I’ll tell you. Linda and I had an argument and I went for a drive. That’s it. Nothing dramatic. Just an ordinary marital spat.”
“That’s not what you told the police that night,” Jason countered, watching the man’s expression closely. “You said you were fishing.”
Barnes’s lips twisted in derision. “I’m no fisherman and the cops knew it. I just knew that if I told them the truth they’d think I’d done it. Hell, they thought it anyway so I needn’t have bothered. But I didn’t shoot Linda. I loved her.”
He loved her so much he’d married her a second time, but with another woman.
“What else do you remember?” Jason prodded. Interesting the first thing Barnes mentioned was his shaky alibi.
“It was an evening like any other.” Barnes shrugged carelessly. “We watched some television and that’s when we argued. I went out for a drive. I pulled over because I was tired and fell asleep. That’s where the police found me. That’s all I remember. I told your father I wouldn’t be much help.”
“You’re helping more than you know. Do you have any idea what happened to the gun you owned? It’s never been found.”
“I hated that gun.” The man had a look of distaste that appeared genuine. “I only bought it because we’d been robbed. As for what happened to it, who knows? We had people in and out of the house all the time. Our friends. Workmen. Damian’s friends too.”
Jason had been able to find out very little about Barnes’s progeny. “Your son had friends over quite a bit?”
“All the time. Pretty much every day. You know how kids are.”
He sure did and that’s why he wanted to talk to Damian Barnes.
“I’d like to talk to him. Do you have a contact number for him?”
“I can get it but he doesn’t know anything. He was out that night.” The older man hung his head. “That’s my biggest regret. That he found Linda. If I’d come home first it would have been me.”
He murmured something to his wife and the woman stood and went into the kitchen for a moment before returning with a business card.
“Here’s Damian’s contact information. He runs a software company in Billings.”
“Thank you, ma’am. I appreciate your help.”
Jason tucked the card away in his breast pocket. The police report contained little information from Damian Barnes but there would be no one better to know the true dynamics between Linda and Wendell.
“I doubt he has anything to tell you,” Barnes said gruffly. “He was just a boy at the time.”
“I’m simply trying to be thorough. I’m planning to speak to your sister-in-law as well.”
Barnes laughed humorlessly. “I wasn’t Gail’s favorite person so I can only imagine what she has to say.”
“What is she going to tell me?”
Barnes leaned forward, a grim look on his face. “That Linda and I had a bad marriage which wasn’t true at all. All married couples fight. Gail didn’t understand that. Last time I saw her she was on her second divorce and counting. She did nothing but complain. Nothing was ever good enough for her. More, more, more. That’s all she cared about. She hated our house, our car, our life and she made sure I knew it every time I saw her. Bitch.”
Gail or Linda? Was Barnes conflating the two women? Because it sounded an awful lot like what they’d been told about Wendell’s wife.
“One more question. Did you or your wife have any enemies, Mr. Barnes? Someone who might want to hurt your wife or maybe you?”
A sickly grin crossed the man’s face and even Lynn Barnes seemed to stiffen in reaction.
“When a man makes money he also makes enemies, although I never took the time to catalog them. Perhaps I should have. Linda might be alive today. As for her, she could be direct and honest which ruffled a few feathers here and there, but no, I don’t know of any enemies that would want to hurt her. I’m not sure why the police can’t admit that it was a robbery gone bad. That’s all. We were supposed to go to a party that night but cancelled at the last minute.” Wendell Barnes stood, indicating that the interview was done. “I’m tired of answering the same questions over and over. There was never any evidence that I was guilty. I want to live my life in peace.”
In his lookalike house with his doppelgänger wife.
“I’m sorry to have troubled you.” Jason and Brinley stood as well. “I hope we don’t have to trouble you for another twenty years, Mr. Barnes.”
They walked to the front door and Wendell gave them an odd look. “I’m not sure what all the interest is in this now. I told the same thing I told you to that young man.”
Jason stopped in his tracks, and pulled his hand from the doorknob. “Young man? Do you remember his name by any chance?”
“Of course I do,” Barnes answered briskly. “Roger Gaines. He came here about a month ago asking the very same questions plus a few more. Nosy fellow. He wanted to talk to Damian too.”
Barnes knew that Roger was on the trail of his wife’s killer. That was motive.
Son of a bitch.