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Heath’s warm hand on her lower back, propelled Dela deeper into the bar. She had to maneuver around people and tap some on the shoulder to get them to move out of the way. When the last of the cluster of bodies parted, there sat Gus Sanders in his booth. This time with a little older woman than the last, but one dressed just as provocatively as the younger one.
Dela had expected Heath to head to the right and try to snag a corner of a table, but he maneuvered her right up to the booth where Gus sat beaming at the woman across from him.
The man shifted his attention to them and his eyes hardened, as well as his jaw.
Heath stepped around Dela. “Surprised to see you here. From what your secretary told me this afternoon, you are away on a business trip.” Heath studied the woman. “This doesn’t look like business to me.” He said over his shoulder to Dela, “Keep Mr. Sanders company while I snag us a couple of chairs.”
Dela stepped forward and held her hand out to the woman, whose questioning eyes and parted lips looked as if she’d walked into the middle of a movie. “Hi, I’m Dela. What’s your name?”
The woman held out her hand. “Evelyn Sanders.”
Shaking hands with Evelyn, Dela tried to picture her as the woman who had sounded so haughty on the telephone the two times Dela had called Gus’s home.
“Pleased to meet you,” she said, sitting in the chair that bumped against the back of her knees. Heath had neatly placed her chair so the woman couldn’t get out of the booth. She wondered if he knew this was Gus’s wife. Though he had to be more than twenty years older than the woman.
Heath placed his chair so that the drug dealer couldn’t leave without asking him to move or crawling over him. “Mr. Sanders, as I said, I’ve been looking for you all day.”
“And you are?” Evelyn asked.
“Tribal Detective Heath Seaver, Ma’am.” Heath held out his hand.
“Evelyn Sanders. Why are you looking for my father?”
With that one word, father, Dela immediately noted the resemblance between the two. While she was a pretty woman, she had her father’s small eyes and large eyebrows. Not to mention his thin small mouth.
“A woman he was having an exchange with in here last night is dead. I wanted to talk to him about that exchange.” Heath raised his hand as a barmaid walked by.
When she stopped, he said, “I’ll have an iced tea. Dela, what do you want?”
She knew he was driving and this was a night out, but she didn’t want to be fuzzy about anything that was said or done tonight. “I’ll have the same.”
“I’m driving,” he said.
“I know.” She looked the barmaid in the eyes. “I’ll have iced tea.”
The barmaid shrugged and walked away.
“Ok, that gave you enough time to decide whether to tell me the truth or make up a story,” Heath said.
“How can I do either when I don’t know who you are talking about.” Gus picked up his drink and stared at his daughter.
“Does your daughter know all about your business dealings?” Heath leaned closer and said with emphasis, “All of them?”
The man shifted his gaze to Heath. The venom shooting out of his beady gray eyes would have cowered many others. In fact, it had made Dela scared of the man the first time she’d met him. But Heath just continued to stare back.
Gus directed his attention to his daughter. His eyes softened. “Evelyn, why don’t you and Dela go see if the bartender can change the channel to the Mariner’s game?”
The woman narrowed her eyes. “What is it you don’t want me to hear about? Surely not your women. I’ve known about them for years. Mother had no one else to complain to but me.”
The man’s eyes widened.
Dela held back a snort. Did the man really think the women in his family hadn’t a clue about his roaming hands and dick?
Heath paid the barmaid standing beside him for their drinks. He handed one to Dela and took the other one for himself. He swallowed several times, then concentrated on Gus. “When we were in here last night, Athena Kindale, a barmaid, leaned into you and said something that made you angry. What was it? And how well did you know the woman?”
Gus picked up his drink and stared across the table at his daughter. His twitching jaw and perspiration glistening on his temple was a pretty good sign he wasn’t ready to talk in front of his daughter, even if she did know he was a lecher.
“Would it interest you to know, you weren’t the only person she was blackmailing?” Dela asked. Heath’s elbow bumped her arm. She flicked a glance at him. He hadn’t wanted to let that out just yet it appeared. However, she continued. “What did she have over you and what were you paying her to keep it a secret?”
The man’s gaze bore into Dela. “You said what did she have over me. Why are you using past tense?”
“She was found murdered in her car this morning,” Heath said, in a tone that indicated, she had said too much.
Dela leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea watching the daughter. Her beady stare flicked back and forth between Heath and her father.
“Where?” Gus asked.
“In her car,” Heath said as if the man weren’t quite all there in the mind.
“No. Where was her car?” Gus insisted.
“Why are you worried about that?” Heath asked.
The man ran a hand over his face, peered at his daughter, then said in a low voice. “That car is registered to my construction company. That was her payment for not telling my wife—things.”
Dela leaned forward. “Do you want the car back?”
“No!” Gus practically shouted. A few people nearby turned and looked.
“The information she was blackmailing you with, was it something she’d picked up here in the bar or elsewhere?” Heath asked.
“Here. Once she came to work here, my life was hell. She kept track of everyone I talked to and would bring up things she’d noticed or overheard. That woman would threaten me every day with she could tell this to the police, or that to my wife.” He glanced at his daughter. “You know I’ve never been happy with your mom. But I thought she was okay with my wandering.”
Evelyn glared at her father and shoved her drink to the center of the table. “I’m going home.”
Gus opened his mouth.
“I won’t say anything to Mother, but you better either divorce her and let her have some peace or stop hanging out in bars and bedding girls younger than me.” She grabbed her purse and pushed to the end of the booth. The anger and misery in her gaze had Dela standing and pulling the chair out of the way.
Evelyn parted the crowd with shoves. She disappeared into the bodies, and Dela sat on the bench she’d vacated.
“Thanks a lot for wrecking my relationship with my daughter,” Gus said, glaring at the two of them.
“We didn’t do it, you did,” Dela said. This man would get no sympathy from her.
“Tell us what Athena was blackmailing you about and if you noticed her talking with other local men who frequent the bar.” Heath pulled out a small notebook and pen.
“Don’t you cops ever take time off?” Gus asked.
“Not when there is a homicide to solve.” Heath tapped the pen on the pad. “Start talking or I’ll haul you into the tribal police station.”
The man finished his drink in one swallow and raised the empty glass. When the barmaid came over to get the glass, she brought another drink with her.
“Thanks, Ruby,” Gus said, starting to put his hand on the woman’s butt. He must have thought about what they’d been talking about and dropped his hand.
The woman looked surprised as she walked away.
“Why was Athena blackmailing you?” Heath asked, again.
“The young women I like to bring in here. One specifically. I like the daughter of one of my wife’s best friends. This is the only place we can go in town that her mom and my wife won’t hear about us. Athena must have done her research and figured it out. She told me if I gave her a car, she wouldn’t tell my wife or the mother.” He swallowed half the drink and said, “My wife has turned a blind eye to my women but if she knew about me and Darla, she’d take me to the cleaners, if she didn’t shoot me first.”
“Athena wasn’t blackmailing you about your drug dealing?” Dela asked.
“I passed that on to someone else. I’m getting too old to end up in jail for that.” His face paled.
Dela wondered what had made him give up what was more lucrative than his construction company.
“What about other frequent patrons? Did it look like Athena might be blackmailing anyone else in here?” Heath persisted.
Dela knew they needed all the names of the people she’d been pinching for money and it seemed cars. She wondered if the woman had a book or something at her house. If not there, where else might she keep it? A thought came to her. She’d check the woman’s locker at work tomorrow.
“She seemed to be chummy with a tall man who came in here once a month, then started coming in a couple times a week. Also, Mack Mahone. But I haven’t seen him in here for about a month.” The man raised his hands. “Those are the only two I saw her talking with a lot.”
“Where can I find Mack Mahone?” Heath asked.
“At Fire Station Two. He’s a firefighter paramedic.” Gus finished his drink. “I’m going home. You two put a damper on my welcome home party for my daughter.” He waved Heath to move and slid to the end of the bench seat.
Heath stood, pulling the chair out of the way.
“The next time you want to talk to me, call and make an appointment.” The man walked through the crowd that parted as if the people could feel his anger.
Heath plopped onto the seat across from Dela. “What do you think?”
“A lot,” Dela replied. “You messed up his date with his daughter. Did you happen to notice she dresses just like all his girlfriends?”
“Yeah. What about his comments about giving the victim the car and acting as if he didn’t have a clue she was dead?”
“The car is easy enough to find out. As for acting surprised... I think he was. But he could have told someone to make her stop harassing him and they went farther than he’d planned.” Dela sipped her iced tea.
“True. That could be why he looked so scared.”
“But he was more scared when I brought up the drugs. Did you see how his face paled and his eyes dilated? Something about his drug business has him terrified.” Dela replayed Gus’s actions. He had been scared shitless at the mention of the drugs. Why? Another mystery to solve besides the murder.
“Do you think the person he didn’t know is your security guard?” Heath asked.
“Possibly. Are you going to talk to the fireman tomorrow?” Dela asked.
“Yeah. It’s getting late. We need to get home so we can both function at work tomorrow.” He finished his drink and stood.
Dela slid out of her seat and grasped his hand. She didn’t want to get separated in the crush of people still dancing, talking, and drinking as they stood pressed together.