The Silence (Columbia River #2)(50)

Normal?

Nothing is normal about a husband who beats his wife. Or his kids—which Mason had learned from Alan Lloyd. He agreed with Alan that it was doubtful Veronica had escaped her father’s wrath, but at least she hadn’t turned out bitter and angry like her brothers.

Their mother had been seventy-two when she died. Fury bubbled in Mason’s chest.

Who beats a woman that age?

Why didn’t she report him?

He put the questions behind him. The deaths had happened five years ago, and there was nothing he could do about it now. He concentrated on the details of the report. Olive Braswell had been found in her bed in her nightgown with a single gunshot wound to the head.

Shot in her sleep.

Asshole.

Tim Braswell had still been alive when the first responders found him. He had been on the floor in his living room, shot in the chest. Mason frowned and reread the line. Most suicides chose a head shot. A better chance of death. As Tim had done with Olive. Mason flipped to the autopsy report and read that Tim had nicked a major artery. He’d bled heavily but held on to die in the hospital the next day.

Tim deserved to die on the floor.

But the father didn’t die on the floor, because he had called 911, stating he’d shot his wife and was shooting himself next.

Coward. Wanted help for himself but not for his wife.

He flipped to Olive’s autopsy, and his brows shot up. Olive had been dead for more than twenty-four hours when the medical examiner arrived at the scene.

Tim had waited a full day after shooting her before he decided to end his own life.

Or it took that long to work up the courage.

That fact that Tim had shot himself in the chest continued to nag at Mason.

Mason read the rest of the report. Tim had had heavy stippling at the bullet’s entry; the handgun had been close to his chest, if not up against it. His hand had tested positive for gunshot residue.

But he’d shot his wife the day before.

GSR was hard to get rid of and easily created cross contamination. If a responding officer had previously been at the shooting range and come in contact with Tim’s hand, it would test positive. Mason searched for a particle count on the GSR evidence, hoping to see high numbers that would indicate that the weapon had been in Tim’s hand. No one had taken a particle count. The GSR test had been deemed sufficient.

But the fact that Tim had shot his wife could have given him high numbers even if the test had been done.

Is it possible someone else shot him?

One of his sons? Angry about their mother’s death?

Mason grimaced. To the Coeur d’Alene police, it had been a pretty open-and-shut case. They had the 911 call saying that Tim was about to commit suicide. They’d arrived and found he had attempted to. He’d killed his wife, as he’d admitted on the phone . . .

Or did he?

Could someone else have made that 911 call?

Mason blew out a deep breath. Why was he picking apart the Braswell deaths? He tossed the report aside. If they ever caught up with Shawn Braswell, he’d look into it then. Right now the parents’ deaths were moot.

He banished the murder-suicide to the back of his brain, but he knew he wouldn’t forget.

Sighing, he checked the time. He’d called Gillian Wood, Reuben’s neighbor and . . . love interest? They were to meet at eleven, and he’d been burning time in his vehicle in front of her house until the hour arrived. He got out and went to knock on her door.

As he waited on her porch, he glanced at Kaden Schroeder’s home, noticing that the red pickup was in the driveway again. Remembering the young man’s fluster when Mason had mentioned Gillian Wood, Mason tried to think if he had any more questions for him. Kaden had been the only one who’d stated he’d seen a silver Mustang at Reuben’s home.

I wonder if Gillian knows of his interest.

Mason doubted it. He’d thought Kaden was a high schooler and doubted that Gillian saw him as anything more.

Gillian opened the door. She smiled, but her eyes were still haunted. Mason didn’t know how it was possible, but she seemed thinner than before. She hesitated after his greeting, and he got the impression she didn’t want to invite him into her home.

“Let’s sit out here.” Mason indicated her front porch. Identical to the porch at Reuben’s home. All the houses on the street were cookie cutter. Only the colors and different landscaping differentiated them.

Relief flashed on her face, and they sat. Mason noticed there were no cigarettes in sight.

“Where’s the other guy?” Gillian asked.

Ray.

A wave of pain hit Mason, and he was unable to tell the truth. He wasn’t ready to discuss it. “He couldn’t make it today.”

She blinked and shifted in her seat. Nervousness hovered around her, but she didn’t seem ready to bolt.

An improvement over last time.

“You said you had more questions for me?” she asked, tentatively making eye contact. “I could’ve answered them on the phone.”

“I needed to come out here anyway,” he hedged. He didn’t have plans to go in the Braswell home again. Not yet, anyway. “I wondered if Reuben mentioned his brother, Shawn Braswell, in any conversations lately.”

“Is that his name? If he told me his brother’s name, I don’t remember it. He wouldn’t talk about his family at all. Reuben didn’t like personal questions.”