Justice Divided (Cowboy Justice Association Book 10) Read online

  Logan was pretty sure he already knew what Gary was going to say but they had to ask no matter what.

  “I think everyone liked Lyle, although a lot of people kept their distance. Because of his brother, if you know what I mean.”

  Yes, Logan knew what he meant.

  “But still, he was a good guy. He’d do anything for you.”

  “So he didn’t have any enemies?” Logan asked. “He didn’t even cut someone off in traffic?”

  Gary smiled and shook his head. “He drove like my grandma so the answer would be no. As for pissing off a business partner, well…not that I know of. He tried to keep his nose clean and do everything above board. The only person that gave him a hard time was Mary, and from what I’ve seen she gives everyone a rough time. She’s a pistol, that’s for sure.”

  Now they were getting somewhere. As the best friend Gary should know more than a casual acquaintance or employee.

  “We’ve heard that he and Mary were having some marital difficulties,” Logan replied. “Is that true?”

  “It’s true.” Gary grimaced and looked away. “Lyle had talked divorce a few times but I don’t think he was going to do it. He loved Mary but she was tough to live with. Nothing he did was good enough and every now and then it just got to him.”

  “So what did he do about that?”

  Shifting in his chair, Gary wouldn’t meet Logan’s eyes. “You know…guy stuff. He’d blow off some steam.”

  “Golf? Shooting range?” Drake queried, scribbling on his notepad. “Maybe having a drink too many?”

  A sigh escaped and Gary’s shoulders slumped. “Listen, Lyle was my friend and I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.”

  “I’m not asking you to,” Logan said, hiding his impatience. “But we do need the truth here. It could be the smallest detail that helps us find out who did this. If Lyle was into something, we need to know about it. You’re not being a bad friend. If anything, you’re being a good one.”

  Gary seemed to think about Logan’s words. “Lyle…well…Mary could sometimes be rough on him. He’d go have a beer or two and well…there was a woman. He was seeing her off and on. I don’t think he was serious about her, though. I mean…I don’t think he was in love with her. Not really.”

  Logan gripped the arm of his chair until his knuckles were white. Lyle had been having an affair. This was a huge revelation.

  “Did you ever meet her? Do you know her name?”

  “I never met her but her name is Natalie Denning. She’s a hairdresser over in Springwood who moonlighted as a waitress a few nights a week at this club he liked to go to. Lyle had a few pictures of her on his phone. She was pretty…and young.”

  Logan had to ask the next question. “Did Mary know?”

  Once again Gary’s gaze dropped to the floor. “She did. He said he told her once when they were arguing. Then he promised not to see Natalie again.”

  Logan and Drake exchanged a cynical glance.

  “And did he keep that promise?” Drake asked.

  “No. No, he didn’t.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  When Logan had arrived at Mary’s house he’d pulled his sister-in-law aside to speak to her about what he and Drake had found out today. Blessedly Bruce had retreated to the living room to watch television and Carol was in the kitchen organizing the massive amounts of food that had been dropped off during the day. At the rate it was appearing, they were all going to have to take some home and put it in their own refrigerators before it went bad.

  He’d tried to be delicate when bringing up the subject, but this was Mary. She immediately became defensive and then accused him of deliberately trying to find evidence against her and ignoring all the other suspects.

  It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. He didn’t want to look but he couldn’t drag his gaze away at the carnage.

  “I’m not trying to find evidence against you,” Logan explained patiently, shutting the den door behind him so no one else could hear. “If anything, I’m trying to clear you, but the problem is there are no other suspects. Every person that I speak with says what a great guy Lyle was and how he had no enemies. The only human being on the planet he fought with was you. Now I find out that you knew Lyle was having an affair and you didn’t mention it to me.”

  “Because it was humiliating.” Mary’s eyes sparkled with tears. “I didn’t want the whole town knowing that Lyle messed around with some bimbo. I want to have some dignity, or are you planning to take that away, too? You’ve taken everything else from the Bryson family.”

  He was getting fucking tired of everyone blaming him. He hadn’t come back to town to be Mary’s whipping boy.

  “If your marriage had problems, then you need to look into a mirror. Sadly, I’m not powerful enough to affect your relationship. But if you’re looking for your dignity, you might want to speak with Wade. He’s the one that went around killing people for fun. I just stopped him.”

  Red faced, Mary whirled on her heel to face him. “How dare you speak to me like that. Who do you think you are?”

  For Ava’s sake, Logan had always tried to keep the peace but he was rapidly losing the will to live here. Lyle was a fucking saint to have put up with Mary all these years.

  But that doesn’t mean she’s a killer. She’s just a pain in the ass.

  “I think I’m the man that’s investigating your husband’s murder. You do want his killer brought to justice, don’t you? Well…don’t you? Or are you too worried about your secrets and dignity? Because you may not be able to have both.”

  Crossing her arms over her chest, she lifted her chin in defiance. “How do you know she didn’t kill him? Maybe she was angry that he and I were reconciling.”

  A woman scorned. It wasn’t all that far-fetched, and he’d planned to look into it. He needed to speak with Natalie Denning, preferably soon. Girlfriends often knew the secrets that were kept from the wife.

  “I will be questioning her but right now I’m talking to you. How long did you know about Lyle and Natalie?”

  Mary rolled her eyes and snorted. “Is that her name? Natalie? Does it end with an ‘i’ that she dots with a little heart? Jesus, she even sounds immature. Lyle saw her a few times and then he ended it. Case closed.”

  Apparently, Mary knew the other woman was young. And she didn’t like it one bit. Not that Mary was old. She was…around forty, maybe?

  Taking a deep breath, Logan held onto his temper. Anger would get him nowhere.

  “How long did you know about Lyle and Natalie?” he repeated.

  “Six months ago.” Mary shrugged and sat down in the brown leather wing backed chair. It looked like one of the same ones that had sat in the library in the Bryson estate. “He told me and then said he was going to end it. He did end it. We were working on our marriage.”

  “And the night you chased him out of the house with a gun? Was that when he told you?”

  Mary’s mouth fell open and her face turned a particularly bright shade of purple. Obviously she hadn’t expected him to know about that incident.

  “We had an argument. All couples do.”

  Her voice trembled and her hands were at her side, held in tight fists. She probably wanted to smack him.

  “You know…Ava and I have had a few fights in our time together but not once have either one of us waved a firearm at the other. What could make a person that angry?”

  “He told me about her.”

  “And you were mad?”

  She stood and walked toward the windows, avoiding his gaze. “Who wouldn’t be?”

  “But he came back?”

  “And we worked it out. End of story. It’s not nearly as dramatic as you make it sound.”

  She wasn’t getting what was happening here and he was going to have to be the poor bastard that broke it to her.

  “I’m not the one making this sound dramatic. Your friends and neighbors are, Mary. They’re the ones telling me the stories and if we don
’t find a way to clear your name, they will be the ones testifying against you at your murder trial. Are you listening to me? Right now, you are the one and only suspect in the shooting of your husband and things are looking bad. You need to start being honest with me or I can’t help you.”

  Shit, now she was crying. He hadn’t meant to be hard on her, but she needed to wake the hell up and start seeing the reality of her situation. Nothing was going to protect her. Not the Bryson name and certainly not the reputation she had in Corville. No one would be shocked if she was arrested.

  “Do you want to help me?”

  “I do,” Logan confirmed. “But you better start being more honest with me. Now…is there anything else you haven’t told me about your relationship with Lyle? And for fuck’s sake, is there anyone else that might have had a motive to kill him?”

  Mary slumped against the window frame, more tears dampening her cheeks. “We really were reconciling. I swear it. But things have been rough, especially financially. There never seems to be enough money.”

  “Now we’re making some progress.” Logan exhaled slowly, the tension between them lessening, but there would always be some there. She didn’t like him. “How about we start at the beginning? When you and Lyle moved away from Corville. Tell me about that.”

  Maybe the shooter was someone from Lyle’s past. Logan had to look at every angle if he was going to clear Mary, but she was going to have to tell him the truth. No more surprises.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Later that evening, Ava kissed Colt and Brianna goodnight before joining Logan in the kitchen. Boxes of documents had been delivered during the day and despite her best efforts she had yet to break the seal on even one of them.

  He slid the frozen pizza onto the oven rack before turning and giving her a quick kiss on the lips. “Are they asleep?”

  “Do you hear that?”

  Frowning, he stopped and listened. “I don’t hear anything.”

  Ah, the blessed quiet. Some days Ava couldn’t even pee without two kids pounding on the bathroom door wanting in.

  “Exactly. They’re asleep and they should stay that way.” She picked up the cardboard box on the counter. “Frozen pizza? Did we have this in the freezer? I could have made a homemade pizza if you had a craving.”

  The twins had eaten dinner earlier. Chicken nuggets and applesauce. Colt had nibbled a piece of broccoli but Brianna had turned up her nose in disgust.

  Plucking the box out of her hand and tossing it into the trash, he gave a mock sigh. “I stopped at the store. Am I the only romantic soul in this marriage? You really don’t remember?”

  She really didn’t. What was he talking about?

  “Mea culpa. You’re the king of romance. Now will you tell me what frozen pizza has to do with romance? I think I missed it.”

  “I fixed us a frozen pizza that first night that we worked together on the case,” he explained. “Just like tonight.”

  Smacking her forehead, she groaned. “You’re absolutely right. I’d forgotten. You really are the king of romance. That’s so sweet that you remembered. You’re not going to let me forget this, are you?”

  “After you busted my balls about Valentine’s Day? Let’s just say we’re even.”

  She’d given him a hard time when he couldn’t get home to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Again. And his over the top flowers and chocolate a few days later hadn’t softened her mood at all. He’d promised to be home and then he wasn’t. It was becoming all too frequent.

  He’d been with Kim working on a case.

  She didn’t remind him that they’d been planning on going out on Valentine’s Day for weeks. That she’d made reservations at a romantic restaurant and bought a new outfit. She also didn’t remind him that Misty and Jared had volunteered to watch the twins that night. He’d had a good excuse, after all. They needed to catch the bad guy and they had done exactly that the next day.

  Sometimes it was simply hard to be apart.

  Ava knew that Valentine’s Day was just a made-up holiday designed by corporate America to separate people from their money and guilt men into buying flowers for their wives once a year, but that didn’t stop her from wanting him with her on that day. It didn’t stop her from feeling the loneliness as his business trips seemed to drag on longer and longer with each assignment. Logan was a great lawman and this was part and parcel of his world. But she still missed him. A hell of alot.

  It was a good idea to change the subject. “Are we going to look through these papers after dinner?”

  “I was hoping,” Logan replied, checking his phone and then plugging it into the charger. “After what Drake and I dug up about your sister and Lyle today, we need to find some evidence that points in another direction.”

  After he’d explained what he’d learned, Ava was worried about Mary. Her sister had a temper and although Ava didn’t think she would shoot someone, other people might. Jurors especially.

  Starving, they wolfed down the sausage pizza and then settled onto the living room floor. Boxes were stacked around them and Ava wasn’t sure where to begin. Should she continue on with the phone records or make a start on the financials?

  Logan answered without her having to ask. He picked up a huge box from the top of the pile and dropped it next to her. “How about you dig into those financial records and I’ll pick up Lyle’s text messages?”

  Ava lifted the lid on the box. “Sounds good.”

  They were both quiet for the next hour or so, the only sound the soft murmurs from the television set. Ava didn’t even know what was playing but she often kept it on just for the background noise when she was working.

  Setting aside the last bank statement, Ava groaned and rubbed at her lower back. It ached from the position she’d been sitting in and her knees were stiff as well. She needed to exercise more but there never seemed to be any time.

  Honestly, what she’d found in the stack of papers wasn’t making her day any better. If anything, it was far worse than she’d imagined. She’d kept digging through the documents hoping to find something to mitigate the damage but instead she’d found a life insurance policy.

  On Lyle. With Mary as the beneficiary. She didn’t have money problems any longer.

  “Find anything?” Logan asked, reaching around to knead her shoulders. Ava sighed with pleasure as his strong fingers worked on a particularly large knot at the base of her skull. “Jesus, woman, your shoulders and neck are like concrete.”

  “Writing is hard on the body. I’m way past due for an adjustment and massage.”

  “We’ll get the heating pad out.” His hand skated over her neck and lifted her hair out of the way. “Lyle was definitely having an affair. I read the texts.”

  “Did he stop like Mary said he did?”

  She still couldn’t believe that Mary had chased Lyle out of his own home with a gun.

  “No. Well, maybe. The texts seemed to slow down about a month ago but they didn’t stop. At least the sexting ceased, though. That’s shit you don’t want to read, let me tell you.”

  She was grateful that Logan had offered to take the phone records. She hadn’t been looking forward to reading private communications between Lyle and her sister. Or his girlfriend. People didn’t seem to realize that they had little privacy on their phones or on the internet.

  “He sexted with her? Ick.”

  “I’m going to need some brain bleach. There are things I know about his kinks that I didn’t want to know. I mean, more power to him and all but damn…I sure as hell wouldn’t want people knowing what I like in the sack. No eye contact with Mary next time I see her.”

  Ava didn’t want to think about her sister’s sex life. At all. Never.

  “Stop talking about sex,” Ava groaned again. “I’m going to need brain bleach, too. You need to take whatever you read to the grave.”

  “But I want to share everything with you, pumpkin.”

  “If I can’t share childbirth then you can’t
share this.”

  Logan laughed, his fingers digging into an especially sensitive spot that had her sighing in bliss. “If I remember correctly, you pointed to me and ordered the doctor to cut off my balls. I think you shared plenty.”

  “I birthed twins, Logan. Twins. With no epidural.”

  Not on purpose, though. She’d wanted pain medication but by the time they’d arrived at the hospital the doctor had informed her it was too late. She was too far gone and she was going to have to do this the old-fashioned way. Then after pushing for what felt like forever, the doctor had ended up doing a c-section.

  “How about we change the subject and talk about what I found?” Ava said sweetly, holding up a piece of paper. “Lyle and Mary were basically broke. They lived on credit and were robbing Peter to pay Paul. But this caught my eye.”

  Logan took the document and perused it. “Lyle had life insurance and Mary was the beneficiary. A half million is a whole lot of motive.”

  “It’s a huge policy for a couple with no children and barely any money,” Ava observed. She and Logan had gone through the ‘how much life insurance do we need’ dance when Colt and Brianna were born. “They could barely pay their car lease but they never missed a payment on the policy.”

  Logan rubbed at his eyes and set the document back into the box. “This is bad. Very bad. I’m going to have to tell Drake tomorrow. We need to find that girlfriend and talk to her. If Lyle did actually end their relationship, that might be a motive for murder and we’d finally have another suspect.”

  “And if he didn’t?”

  “Then your sister better hire a good attorney.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “I asked Jared to check out the girlfriend,” Logan said in a whisper as he watched the mourners file out of the church. It was Lyle’s funeral and the whole town appeared to have shown up to pay their respects. Or get a good look at the possible murderer – Mary.