Aiden, page 4
Aiden hopped up, put himself between the two of them, and guided her back to the living room. Mountain opened the front door and slipped outside.
“What’s that all about?” she asked, glaring at him.
“Your cousin is just checking to make sure who’s at the door.”
Her shoulders sagged. “I don’t know why he’s worried about me now.”
“We’re here because he cares about you,” Aiden stated. “I don’t know if he hired the Mavericks himself or if he pulled some strings and made it so or that your father did this. I don’t know. I do know Mountain won’t like it if you interfere with us doing our jobs here.”
She looked up at him and nodded slowly. “You do know him, don’t you?” But a wry tone filled her voice.
“I know a lot about him. I know the things that matter. And I know that he’s here to help you out.”
She sighed and sat down again. “I can’t imagine that anybody can do anything with this mess.”
“The authorities need to have more than just a dead body and a motive in order to put you on the hot seat.”
“I have been charged,” she noted. “I’ve posted bail, and I tell you what. Nothing like realizing this is happening in your world and you can do nothing to stop it.”
“It’s also the kind of stuff we do,” Aiden told her.
She shook her head. “No, that’s not the kind of stuff you do.”
He chuckled. “Okay,” he agreed, “it’s similar to stuff we do.”
“Maybe,” she relented, and then she yawned.
He looked at her and asked, “Are you getting any sleep at night?”
She shook her head. “How does one sleep when you understand that your life as you know it is passing you by, and, before you have any inkling of what’s going on, you know that you’ll get through some sort of a monkey trial and will end up in jail for years and years?” she asked. “I didn’t do anything but try to protect a young woman who was being tormented by her brother. And yet I couldn’t even seem to do that properly.”
“You did what you could,” he murmured. “Don’t ever feel bad about that. Obviously, if you’d had some help, it would have been a lot easier.”
“I’ve been concerned about her for a long time. I know she’s doing better and that’s good, but…” She looked up at him. “I’d hate to see her slide back again.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Nobody should have to deal with that kind of torture. Dealing with it takes time.”
“He was really good at it,” she noted. “He always just kept to the side of the law.”
“Not once he laid a hand on you and Michelle.”
“Yeah, and yet who would I tell? It’s not as if my father wanted to know or my mother gave a shit, and it’s not as if the cops wanted anything to do with it even after I’d already been to them a couple times asking for help for Michelle. To them, it was just a cry wolf scenario.”
“Only this time, it was you and not Michelle.”
“Exactly. One cop even went so far as to say that I was just making it all up.”
“Of course. Did Moscow have a good reputation in town?”
“Oh, he did.” She nodded. “He had lots of friends. I mean, if he’d lived, he might very well have ended up with some political career. He was definitely slimy.”
“Those guys often have great political careers,” he said, with a laugh.
She nodded. “And his father is also a big man in town.”
“That’s another thing that’s probably driving this investigation in your direction.”
“Sure. He hates me. I’m nothing but a casino girl who hooked his fantastic son and ruined his life.”
“Wow. And what about his mentally challenged daughter?”
“I don’t think he acknowledges her at all.” She sighed. “Just another broken-family issue. Technically Michelle is his stepdaughter. She’s not his by blood. Moscow’s birth parents split when Moscow was four, and his mom remarried, and that’s when she had Michelle.”
“Right. So, as far as Moscow’s father is concerned, the stepsister’s got nothing to do with him.”
“Exactly. And most people say those mental health issues have nothing to do with them, as in the genes or whatever. Michelle has a lot of mental health issues, if that’s even what it is called. Supposedly she has a chromosome issue,” Toby explained. “Michelle is one of the sweetest, nicest ladies I’ve ever met, and I really love her. And I’m so sorry for everything that happened to her, even though I tried so hard to stop it.”
“And you have to stop feeling guilty about that too.” Aiden frowned. “The good news is, your husband is dead. So neither of you have to go through that torment any longer.”
Her shoulders sagged.
He looked at her closely, leaned forward, and asked, “Or are you grieving him?”
She stared at him in shock, shook her head immediately. “No, not at all, but getting over his abuse takes time,” she declared. “But Michelle? I can’t be sure that she isn’t mourning or grieving his loss.”
“Not likely,” Aiden guessed. “At the same time, it doesn’t matter because this is something that needs to be dealt with now.”
She nodded. “I don’t think she understands.” She looked over at the door. “Why hasn’t Mountain returned?”
“Do you want me to go check?”
She frowned and shook her head. “No. I’m not on house arrest. I can get up and leave, but, once they decide I’m guilty,” she stated bitterly, “I can’t go visit Michelle anymore.”
The fact that she was so concerned about Michelle warmed Aiden’s heart. At the same time, he had no idea what kind of mental state Michelle was in after all this torture. And who knows? Maybe there was a better avenue for her than this. “Have you ever thought about whether she’d be better off without you as a reminder?”
“Yes,” she admitted, looking at him. “I have, and I did talk to the psychologist about it and to Michelle’s counselors. But every time she sees me, she gives me such a big smiling welcome that it made them feel I was helping her to heal.”
“That’s good,” he noted.
“Well, it’s good, but it’s also rough,” she murmured, “because she often asks me questions that I can’t answer.”
“Like what?”
She stared at him for a long moment. “She saw the bruises on me. She’s always asking me where he is and if we’re safe.”
“Hmm,” he replied. “I guess, in her mind, she can’t quite reconcile that you are both safe now.”
“No, I don’t think so. She has been told that he’s dead, but I don’t know if she gets it.”
“Hopefully,” he added, “at least over time, they should help her with that at the home. Plus further counseling.”
At that, Mountain returned. “It’s the cops.”
She groaned. “Now what?”
“They found another body,” he told her.
“What? And, because I’m out on bail, I’m a suspect?”
“Absolutely. You’re a suspect, and I’m letting them in so that they can talk to you.”
She stared at him, wordless. Then the words burst from her. “How is that helping me?”
He gave her a hard look. “You’ll tell them everything, including where you were last night.”
“I was here alone,” she said. “How am I supposed to have an alibi for something that I didn’t know I would need one for?”
And, of course, that was always a problem, as Aiden knew from other cases. Given a choice, everybody would have an alibi. But, in her case, she didn’t have anybody to stay with her. Aiden would make that change right here and now.
As the cops came in to join them, they looked at her and then at Aiden. He nodded to them. “Good afternoon.”
They frowned at her and stated, “We need to speak with you.”
“Fine,” she replied. “Go ahead. No reason my cousin and Aiden can’t hear what you want to know.”
They looked at Aiden and asked, “When did you arrive in town?”
“Both of us came in this morning,” he said easily, knowing the cops would check the flight info. “We haven’t been here long, so she has no alibi for last night. Again, she didn’t know she needed one.”
“Of course.” One of the cops snorted.
“So, what’s your evidence that she has anything to do with these cases?” Mountain asked, leaning against the door. Just his size was intimidating, but he did try to stand back ever-so-slightly, so as not to crowd the cops and to make them look like he was in their space.
“You’re Mountain, aren’t you?” the lead cop asked suddenly, looking at him.
He frowned. “Yeah. Do I know you?”
“You sure do.” He reached out a hand. “We went to school together.”
Mountain stared at him. “Ben? Ben Rosco?”
The cop nodded. “Yeah, that’s me.” He looked over at Toby. “Are you related to her?”
“She’s my cousin,” Mountain said, staring at him.
That news seemed to make him swallow. “You’ll make life difficult for us, won’t you?”
“If you charge her with something which I know she didn’t do, like you’ve charged her with murder, of course I will. How can I not?” As he looked pointedly over at the other cop, he added, “And Ben knows me well enough to understand that, if I say she didn’t do it, she didn’t do it.”
“But you also know that we’ve got to follow up all leads,” the second cop stated doggedly.
At that, Mountain turned to the lead cop again. “Ben, you know she didn’t do it.”
“I don’t know that,” Ben argued, glaring at Mountain, trying hard to stay neutral.
“Whatever,” Toby snapped from the couch. “Ask your questions. The only way you find out who really did this is when you’re done focusing on me.”
“Considering that they’ve already charged you,” Mountain explained, “that’s hardly likely.”
The second cop looked nervous. “Still, following up all leads.”
“If you’ve charged her, it means that you’re only looking to secure who you already have as a suspect,” Mountain declared, looking over at his cousin. “Like she said, ask your questions.”
“Well, what we wanted to know first off is where you were last night,” Ben said, “between midnight and four a.m.”
“Here, sleeping,” she stated instantly. “And, like Aiden told you, I have no alibi because I sleep alone.” At that, the men looked at her steadily. She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, I sleep alone, and I have done so for a very long time.”
“What about your husband?” Ben asked in a delicate voice.
She snorted. “You won’t believe any of what I say anyway,” she said.
Ben looked down at his notes. “Do you know this man?” he asked, holding up a photo.
She looked at him and nodded. “He’s a regular at my table.”
“At your table?”
“He is a regular at the casino,” she corrected. “I have no idea where the customers go when they’re not at my table. For all I know, they hit all the tables in all the casinos. That’s not uncommon.”
Aiden knew that a lot of people who went to the casinos were really diehard gamblers, but that didn’t mean they stuck with the same dealer or that they didn’t come back hours later to a different dealer on the next shift or to a different game. Aiden stepped around and looked at the picture. “Pretty nondescript too, isn’t he?” he asked in a conversational tone. “Probably what? Five-ten, longer brown hair, maybe brown eyes, thin medium build, nothing very discerning about him.”
At that, the two cops stared at him, and Ben asked, “What’s that got to do with it?”
Aiden shrugged. “Presumably you have a positive ID on the victim?”
Ben nodded. “Yes. This is John Brown.”
At the name, he raised an eyebrow. “Is that a legit name?”
“It is, apparently,” Ben stated. “Regardless, he’s dead. He was found in a Dumpster, same as the others.”
Her shoulders slumped at that.
“That upsets you?” Ben asked her.
“I was hoping,” she added, “that my late husband would have been the killer and that you would find that out and that I would be off the hook.”
The two cops stared at her. “What?”
“I didn’t kill any of these men, so somebody else did. And, if somebody else did, knowing my ex, I would say that he would be a likely candidate. But the fact is, he is dead, so he didn’t kill this latest victim.”
“And why would your husband have killed any of them?” Ben queried.
“Because I don’t know what he did for a living. I don’t believe he had any visible means of support, outside of gambling. These dead guys all should have had money on them that they recently won from the games,” she noted. “For all I know, these were robberies.”
The men wrote down a couple notes. Mountain stepped forward and cleared his throat, but she just glared at him. Aiden immediately placed a hand on her shoulder and murmured, “Tell them.”
“They won’t believe me anyway.”
“But, if you tell them, then it’s in the record that you’ve done what you can do.”
Her shoulders slumped again, and she glared at him. “You know you guys can leave anytime too.”
“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Aiden quipped, smiling down at her. “However, that won’t happen.”
She turned and looked at the cops.
“What’s going on?” Ben asked.
“She didn’t tell you all the story because she doesn’t feel like you guys will believe her.”
“That won’t happen,” Ben argued.
“What we do believe happened,” Mountain began, “is that you already have a murder suspect locked in and that you’re not looking at anybody else.”
“That’s not true,” Ben protested, as he looked over at his partner, who stared at Mountain uneasily. “Look. If she’s got something to help clear her, we need to know,” Ben said.
“And again she doesn’t feel like you’ll believe her,” Mountain repeated.
“Which doesn’t matter. Yet, if she’s lied on her statement, that’s already one lie we’ve caught her in.”
“Exactly what we’re hearing from you right there is why she’s uncomfortable speaking with you two,” Mountain stated. “So I guess the only answer is for her lawyer to get here pretty soon, and then you cops can talk to him. She has already asked for a public defender, but I hired her a lawyer,” Mountain shared gently.
Toby’s jaw dropped.
“And don’t even begin to argue with me,” Mountain told her. “When you’re getting railroaded, it’s important that somebody is in your corner. … I’ve always been in your corner, whether you believe it or not.”
Aiden smiled. “There you go. Now we’re getting somewhere.” He looked over at the cops. “She’ll talk to her lawyer, and then she can come down and talk to you guys, if the lawyer believes it’s important.”
The cops didn’t like that obviously, but they had no reason to haul her down to the station. They nodded slowly, got up to leave, and Ben added, “You’re not leaving town, are you?”
“It’s a provision of my bail,” she snapped in a hard tone, “something that you guys made sure you accused me of right away.”
Ben looked over at Mountain. “You know it’s a pretty good case.”
“It’s a bullshit case,” Mountain snapped. “Don’t think we don’t know who Moscow’s father is.”
At that, the second cop had the grace to look ashamed.
“Look,” Ben said. “She still gets a fair shake. We’ll obviously not railroad her into a murder trial if she didn’t do the crime.”
“She didn’t do the crime,” Mountain repeated calmly, “but I highly doubt you’ll change anything about what you’re doing in the next little while, until we find some real evidence.”
They didn’t like hearing that either. As they headed to the door, Ben looked at Aiden and asked, “Where are you staying?”
“I’m staying here,” he replied cheerfully. “She’ll have an alibi for every night from here on.”
They didn’t like hearing that either.
“So, if you get another victim,” Aiden explained, “make sure you come and check on her whereabouts.”
And, with that, the two cops left quickly.
She looked over at Aiden. “Are you serious?”
“Absolutely. They can’t do anything if you’re cleared. It’s all bullshit anyway, and it’s politically driven.”
“That’s obvious,” she agreed. “That doesn’t get me off the hook though.”
“No, but finding the truth does,” Aiden declared, looking over at Mountain. “What’s your take on it?”
“Same as yours. The cops don’t have any suspects. Toby looks good for it. And her father-in-law wants it to look even better.”
“So, do you think the cops have some fabricated evidence?” Aiden asked.
Mountain nodded. “I wouldn’t be at all surprised.”
Just then came another ring of the doorbell.
She groaned. “I can go weeks to months without anybody stopping in,” she shared. “Now apparently I’m popular.”
“Nope,” Mountain stated. “This should be your lawyer.”
She glared at him, but he disappeared. She looked over at Aiden. “He didn’t have to hire me a lawyer.”
“He did,” Aiden disagreed, looking at her, “and you’ll accept this and say Thank you very much with a smile on your face.”
“And if I don’t?”
“You’ll break his heart,” Aiden murmured, before Mountain had a chance to come back. “He’s doing everything he can to help you out. You might want to let other people step in and give you a little bit of assistance. He feels bad enough that he couldn’t help you before.”
She continued to stare at Aiden, but then the new arrival was here. And this time it was definitely a lawyer. He wore a three-piece suit and carried the prerequisite briefcase, but it was the look on his face, that hawk look that said he scented something of interest.
