“No. He knew about my affair with his wife, and that angered him. If she had had another lover besides me, that would make him even more angry, angry enough to kill her.”
Jules was quiet for a minute. “I watched the video this past weekend of the grand opening of Shiloh’s wine boutique and saw both of you behave very rudely to Caden Granger. Why was that? Caden and his brothers were just children when their father went to jail. What are you holding against them?”
“I think I can best answer that.”
Jules’s gaze moved from the Greenes to the doorway. Ivan Greene stood there with an angry Manning holding him back.
Forty-One
“Do you want me to throw him out, Jules?” Manning asked seriously.
She shook her head. “No, let him come in, especially if he can give me an answer to my question.”
When Manning released Ivan, he rushed into the room. “Mom. Dad. I told the two of you that I would handle things.”
“And we told you that we didn’t mind talking to her. We have nothing to hide.”
“That’s not the point.”
Jules crossed her arms over her chest. “Then what is the point, Mr. Greene? Why don’t you tell me why you and your parents treated Caden so shabbily that night at Shiloh’s open house? And, while you’re at it, how about telling me why you were so interested in Marshall Imerson’s report on the Sylvia Granger murder?”
He glared at her. “Why are you so interested in that report?” Ivan fired back.
“Because that report probably contained information proving that Sheppard Granger did not kill his wife,” Jules responded.
“And I believed it contained information proving otherwise, and that Marshall was killed before he could prove it.”
Jules lifted her brow. “Marshall? Sounds like you knew Imerson personally since the two of you were on a first-name basis.”
“I did. Fresh out of law school, I was a court-appointed attorney. My first case was defending a woman who’d been arrested for killing her boyfriend. Marshall was a detective on the case, and with his help, I was able to prove the woman had been abused and was defending herself. She was cleared of all charges, and Marshall and I had been friends since. He was older, and I considered him something of a mentor. With his help, I understood how law enforcement worked, and I got to know a lot of the guys around the precinct. They were invaluable whenever I worked a case.”
He paused a minute and then said, “Marshall and I stayed in touch over the years, even after he went into business for himself as a private investigator. Imagine my surprise when he came to me and told me he had been hired by Richard Granger to find out who had killed his daughter-in-law and that my parents were the primary suspects.”
He paused again. “I couldn’t believe it. I had just finished law school a few months after Sheppard Granger’s trial and had no idea my father had been involved with Sylvia Granger. I assumed the reason he’d left Granger Aeronautics was of his own choosing, not that he’d been fired. I also didn’t know about my parents’ marital problems even though my sisters did.
“After Marshall dropped this bombshell on me, I asked my parents about it, and they told me the truth. Mom told me about the PI she’d hired and the pictures she’d sent to Sheppard Granger showing Dad and Mrs. Granger together. She also told me that she’d told Sheppard Granger that she and Dad had a solid alibi proving neither of them had anything to do with his wife’s death. I think Sheppard believed their story, but Richard Granger did not. He was determined to find a scapegoat for his son and decided my parents would fill the role.”