“Unfortunately, that’s not our only problem now.”
Ava frowned. “Do you think Cory suspected something?”
“Not in the least. No, this…this is…personal, baby. Maybe you and I should go someplace and talk about it.”
Her sharp gaze ran from Tanner to Kim and then to Logan. “Personal? Do you mean that I know who was there?”
Logan nodded, already pissed off at Bruce Hayworth putting him in this position. Ava was going to be upset. Mary was going to be upset. Carol was going to be upset.
That was a whole lot of upset that one man had caused with his thoughtlessness.
“You might as well just tell me because they’re going to find out eventually. There aren’t any secrets in a murder investigation, remember? That’s what we told Mary.”
Yep, Logan was going to kick Bruce’s ass.
“It was your dad.”
Ava’s eyes widened and then her lips flattened into a straight line.
“My father? He was there?”
“He was at the poker table. I don’t think he saw me but I definitely saw him.”
No one said anything for the longest time. Ava appeared to be grappling with what she’d learned about her own parent and Kim and Tanner were respectfully giving her the space to do that.
“You did the right thing,” Ava finally replied. “I doubt he would have reacted well to seeing you there. With Kim especially. He wouldn’t have understood that you were on an assignment.”
Shit, it hadn’t even occurred to Logan that Bruce would think he was cheating with Kim. He’d been worried about the gambling angle.
Tanner cleared his throat loudly. “What do you want to do now?”
Have a drink. Maybe two.
“We need to speak with Bruce, obviously. He must have known about Lyle’s gambling habit.”
“And probably Natalie as well,” Ava said, her tone hard. “I never realized my father was this skilled at secret keeping. He’s just full of surprises.”
“Let’s hope there aren’t any more, babe.”
“What about Cory?” Kim asked, nodding back toward the nightclub. “We’ll still need to talk to him. He’s a possible suspect.”
“I can answer that,” Tanner said. “I now have probable cause to drag his sorry ass in for questioning. I’m going to get that back room shut down as quickly as possible. With the possibility of federal charges hanging over his head maybe Cory will talk.”
But first Logan needed to speak with Bruce, and there was no way he was going to be able to keep Ava from not attending that discussion. This was going to get ugly.
* * * *
The reason for Ava’s sleepless night was sitting at his kitchen table and lying through his teeth. If she’d done the same thing when she was a kid, he would have washed her mouth out with soap and sent her to her room without supper.
“I didn’t know about Lyle’s gambling,” Bruce protested, his face almost purple. “And I absolutely didn’t know about any other women. I don’t think Lyle would do that.”
Ava rolled her eyes at Logan before turning back to her father.
“Right, because he was such a fine, upstanding citizen. Did you know he wanted Logan to look the other way when he realized that Wade was the vigilante killer?”
Bruce had the good sense to look down at the floor but Ava wasn’t done with him. She had a lifetime of his lectures saved up, constantly telling her right from wrong, and she wasn’t going to let this go easily.
“Dad, look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t know that Lyle was cheating and gambling. Can you do it? You can’t, can you?”
“Bruce,” Logan said, keeping his tone as nonjudgmental as possible. “We need to find Lyle’s killer and you might know something that would help us.”
Bruce’s head snapped up. “That was my first time there.”
It was amazing how easily her father lied. It made Ava wonder how much practice he’d had over the years.
“We’re going to bring in the manager of the nightclub. If we ask him about you will he say it was your first time there?”
The air seemed to leak out of Bruce, his shoulders slumping in defeat. “No.”
Flipping a chair around, Logan straddled it so he was facing Bruce. “Now we’re getting somewhere. We need the truth. I won’t settle for anything less and neither will your daughter. Not to mention Mary and Carol.”
Bruce shook his head and Ava was startled by how Bruce had aged ten years in mere minutes. His previously red cheeks were now ashen and his eyes bloodshot. He looked old and sad and not in the least intimidating.
“I didn’t do anything all that bad.”
Bruce’s voice was barely a whisper.
“That’s good. Real good. Now let’s start at the beginning. Did Lyle take you to the gambling house the first time or did you take him?”
Her father’s throat bobbed as he swallowed hard. “He took me. About a year ago. I was always complaining about how bored I was. He said that he knew something that was more exciting than puttering around in the garage.”
Lyle had taken her father. But Bruce still had to have known about Natalie.
“Do you know how long Lyle had been going before he took you?” Logan asked.
Bruce shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. It was awhile, though. Everyone knew him there. They all greeted him by his first name.”
Rubbing his chin, Logan nodded. “Okay, this is good information. Did you know that Lyle owed a lot of money?”
“Yes.” Bruce’s voice was barely audible. “I was trying to help him.”
“Oh, Dad. What did you do?”
Ava couldn’t see how her father could help Lyle unless he was willing to give him a whole heck of a lot of cash, which Bruce Hayworth didn’t have. Had he been playing cards to win back the money?
“How? How could you help Lyle raise that kind of cash?” Ava queried. Her parents weren’t wealthy but perhaps he’d dipped into their retirement savings.
“I’m a decent card player.”
Logan’s gaze flickered over to Ava, his eyes sad. “That’s why Lyle asked you to go with him, isn’t it? He wanted help winning back the money.”
“Not at first.” Bruce shook his head in denial. “But then later… When the debts really began to pile up and they were threatening him, although not so much in the last several months.”
Ave pounced on that. “With death?”
Bruce frowned. “I don’t think so. They said they’d rough him up and he’d be hurt bad. They threatened to tell Mary. They wanted him to sell some of the Bryson assets.”
“Why didn’t he?” Logan shot back. “That would have been the sensible move.”
“There wasn’t anything left to sell, really. I think he must have sold a few things to keep them at bay because they’ve left him alone for awhile.”
Such a simple statement but it was sad, too. At one time the Bryson family had ruled this little town like local royalty.
“What about Natalie?” Logan asked. “You did know about her, right? You had to know.”
Bruce nodded slowly as if admitting it was painful. It should be.
“I knew. He and Mary were always fighting and yelling at one another. He wanted to have kids and she didn’t.”
Was her father actually defending Lyle? Jesus, Ava could hardly stand this conversation.
“Was he going to divorce Mary?” she demanded. “She thinks they were reconciling but that’s not what Natalie thinks. What’s the truth?”
“He didn’t know what to do. He wanted to be free, but he hated the idea of going through the divorce and I was trying to talk him out of it.”
So that still gave both Mary and Natalie a motive. Lyle wouldn’t make up his mind.
Logan stood and pushed the chair back into place at the table. “We’re going to need more details, but before we go any further I need to know what you were doing the morning Lyle was shot.”
Bruce’s eyes went round
and his mouth fell open. “You think I did it? I need an alibi?”
“I think you do,” Logan stated flatly.
Bruce wasn’t taking the news well. His once gray skin had turned a ruddy shade and his breathing was loud and agitated. “You think I would shoot my own son-in-law?”
To her husband’s credit he didn’t crack a smile, simply staying expressionless. If her father had ever caught Logan doing some of the things they used to do before they were legally wed, she had no doubt Bruce would have met him at the door with a shotgun.
“I think that Lyle cheating on your oldest daughter might be considered a motive by some. It’s in your best interests for us to clear you as soon as possible.”
“I was trying to help him,” Bruce protested. “I wouldn’t shoot him.”
“Then where were you that morning?” Logan pressed. “Can anybody vouch for your whereabouts?”
“I wasn’t home. I was at the Rotary Club Breakfast. There should be dozens of witnesses. The speaker was the local high school’s class valedictorian. He gave a speech on service to the community.”
Ava knew a moment of complete and total gratitude. She didn’t have to worry about her father being a killer. Small mercies and all of that.
“Are we done here?” Bruce asked. “I think I’ve had about enough of this and you.”
He didn’t seem to understand the seriousness of what was going on.
“Dad, we’ve only just got started. We have lots more questions.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Logan and Ava left her father’s home, picked up the kids, and then headed straight for Mary and Lyle’s house. Mary had to be told the news and neither of them was looking forward to that conversation.
“Do you think he has a girlfriend, too?”
Logan looked over at his wife sitting in the passenger seat of the car. Despite all she’d been hit with in the past twenty-four hours she’d been admirably calm. Almost too calm.
“I think this isn’t a subject we should be having with the kids in the backseat.”
Ava looked over her shoulder and sighed. “They’re watching Scooby Doo. I doubt they’re even paying attention.”
“It was your idea to get them a tablet. I didn’t have a tablet when I was six. I had a bat and ball.”
And I walked to school uphill in the snow. Both ways.
“Times have changed. Kids play differently. And they do have a bat and ball. They play outside quite a bit, but in the car and on airplanes they can’t play baseball.”
She made sense but he didn’t have to like it. He wanted his kids to understand and embrace technology but it was disturbing that they seemed to love it so much. Way more than they should.
Logan glanced over his shoulder at his two children, their heads close together as they giggled at the antics of the talking cartoon dog who solved crimes. If only it was as easy as setting a trap and letting it all go awry.
“I don’t think he has a girlfriend.”
Logan kept his voice low, although Ava was surely correct in that the twins weren’t listening.
“For Mom’s sake, I hope not, especially when they were trying to work things out not long ago. But he did know all about Lyle and never said anything. I’m not sure I can forgive him for that.”
He’d thought about the situation and had come to a conclusion. “I know you’re angry and upset, babe, but…he’s your dad. And he’s not young anymore. I don’t want to see you do something drastic and then wish you hadn’t later.”
Like if Bruce suddenly died. Ava would never forgive herself if he passed away while they weren’t speaking to one another.
“Since when do you take Dad’s side?”
It was kind of funny. Logan and Bruce didn’t agree on the color of the sky, yet here he was kinda sorta defending his father-in-law. Bruce had done wrong and Logan wouldn’t give him a pass on that, but he didn’t want to see Ava make a knee-jerk decision that she’d regret later.
“I’m taking your side. I’m thinking about you, not Bruce. Frankly, he has to deal with the consequences of his poor decisions. But taking your love away from him probably isn’t the answer. He knows you don’t approve.”
“He’s a hypocrite.”
The words were said under Ava’s breath but he still heard them.
“Yes, and from the look on his face when we questioned him he knows that. I don’t think you’ll be getting any lectures from him any time soon, so there’s that.”
“It’s so out of character for him,” she sighed, reaching across the seat and placing her hand on his. He immediately wound their fingers together. Her skin felt warm and reassuring, just as it always did. Ava brought peace to his sometimes crazy world. He only hoped he could do that for her today.
“He was bored. He just wasn’t thinking. He wanted some excitement.”
“He got it,” Ava snorted. “He thought he was James Bond, frequenting an illegal gambling den. My poor mother.”
Carol was the real victim in all of this. She’d put up with more than any woman should through the years. They’d been talking divorce for a long time but it looked inevitable now. Logan didn’t think Ava would forgive him if she found out he was lying behind her back. In fact, she’d kick his ass from here to Puget Sound and back again.
“What are you going to say to Mary?”
They’d already decided that Ava would be the one to tell her sister while Logan kept the twins busy in the backyard. Mary was incredibly unpredictable. She might blow up or she might shrug and move on. But he did need to ask her about that insurance policy. She’d never mentioned it in all of their conversations about Lyle’s death.
“She already knows about Natalie, so no surprise there. I’m not going to tell her that maybe Lyle was going to go ahead with the divorce. It won’t help and we really don’t know for sure. I will tell her about the gambling debts. She deserves to know. If she hasn’t exploded at that point, I’ll tell her about Dad.”
“Sounds like a decent plan. I need to talk to her about the insurance policy.”
“I’ll do that,” Ava assured him. “It’s going to come up when I talk about the money issues. I need to know if she was aware just how bad their financial situation was.”
That everything worth selling was basically gone. At least according to Bruce via Lyle.
But Logan had been lied to before by the Bryson family. He wouldn’t put it past them to hide their assets so no one could get to them.
“Let me know if you need my help.” Logan pulled up into Mary’s driveway. “You don’t have to do this, you know. I can do it.”
Ava had already been through quite a lot and it wasn’t even lunchtime yet.
“No, I’ll do it. I need to be the one.”
What a lousy fucking day. This was why he didn’t want to come back to Corville. The only good thing that had ever happened here was meeting Ava.
* * * *
Ava closely watched Mary’s expression, waiting for anger or tears or some other strong emotion but saw none. It was as if Ava had announced to her sister that she didn’t like ketchup. Mild surprise but no real reaction either way. Ava didn’t know whether to be relieved or alarmed.
“I knew Lyle was up to more than just another woman,” Mary finally said, staring out of the back window of the living room that looked over the yard where Logan played with twins. “I just didn’t know what it was. Do you know how much he lost?”
“Not yet. We’re going to bring in the club owner and question him.”
“Will they come after me for the money?”
Ava hadn’t expected that question.
“No! I don’t think so. Logan didn’t say anything about that.” She couldn’t help her curiosity though. “Are you planning to stay in Corville?”
“This is where the family business is. This is where Mom and Dad live.”
“With the insurance money you could go anywhere, do anything. You could start over.”
There. She�
��d dropped the bomb right in the middle of Mary’s flowered furniture. Time to see what her sister would say.
“I suppose I could but it was intended to keep the business running.”
“Half a million is a lot of money.”
Mary shrugged and returned to her seat on the overstuffed couch. “Aaron has the same policy. They took them out at the same time.”
“But you’re the beneficiary, not the company. Or Aaron.”
“So? I was his wife.”
Ava sighed and pushed her hair off of her face. Mary didn’t seem to get it. “It adds to your motive. This doesn’t help us clear your name.”
The anger that Ava had been expecting earlier finally made an appearance. Mary’s face turned red and her lips pressed together tightly. “I didn’t kill my husband for the money.”
“Or because he was cheating. Or gambling. Do you see where I’m going here? You had plenty of motive, Mary. We need to find a way to clear your name but you’ve got to help us here.”
“I loved my husband,” Mary declared, sitting ramrod straight, her entire body stiff. “I don’t believe that he was going to ask for a divorce either. We were really happy the last few months.”
Ava hated to be the bad guy but she had no choice. “I told you that he was still in touch with Natalie right up until the day he was shot.”
“That doesn’t mean they were sleeping together. Maybe she was helping him with the gambling debt.”
Denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt. It ran right through Corville as well. Ava dropped the subject and picked up another grenade, lobbing it between them.
“What about Daddy?”
Looking away, Mary took her time answering. “While I’m upset about that, I’ll find a way to get over it. We’re family. If Lyle taught me anything in the years that we were together it’s that family is the most important thing.”
“Everything we’ve found so far doesn’t help you in the least. It looks worse than ever for you. Is there anything you can tell me that might help? Something you may have forgotten? Anything at all? It could even be the smallest thing. You’re in deep trouble here, sis. All the signs point to you.”
Justice Divided (Cowboy Justice Association Book 10) Page 12
