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CHAPTER THIRTEEN

September 15, 1996

Sunday evening

W hen we pulled up in front of Cass’s house there was a recent model silver 5-series BMW sitting in front. It was close to seven and I was getting pretty hungry.

“That’s Mr. Cray,” Cass said, and I realized I wouldn’t be eating dinner any time soon.

We pulled into the driveway. I looked back at the BMW. I hadn’t realized at first, but there were two people sitting inside the car. A gray-haired man in the drivers’ seat and a woman with a lot of black hair. After a moment, she leaned over the seat and kissed him on the cheek. Then she got out of the car and he drove off.

Joanne Di Stefano gave the impression of being tall—that was likely because of her hairstyle, which added two or three inches above her head, and her heels which added another three inches. She wobbled across a strip of grass and then was on the sidewalk.

Her hair was pitch black and probably included a fall or two—no one seemed to have told her the eighties were over. I couldn’t see her eyes as they were behind a giant pair of sunglasses. She wore a mink jacket which just begged for someone to throw red paint on it, and beneath that a deep purple, form-fitting dress. Around her neck was a gold necklace that said JOANNE in a pretty script. She had a designer purse hooked in one elbow and an expensive looking travel bag hanging from her other hand.

When she saw Cass get out of the Belvedere, she dropped the bag, threw her arms in the air and screamed, “There’s my baby! Oh my God I missed you.” She picked her way up the driveway until she got to Cass and pulled him into a tight embrace.

He seemed to resist for a moment—possibly because of all the times I’d mentioned that his mother might have had his father killed—but then he gave in to her embrace. She was kissing him all over his face when I got out of the car.

She stopped abruptly, and asked, “Who the fuck are you?”

“He’s a friend of mine,” Cass said.

“When did you start having middle-aged friends?” Then to me. “If you touched my son?—”

“Mom, that’s so gross.”

“Then who is he? Who are you?”

“I’m Dom Reilly.”

She looked me up and down, and asked, “Is that some kind of joke? Cause mister you got a funny sense of humor.”

“You went to Reno sometime between 1982 and 1986 and sold your husband’s identity to a guy named Gavin. I bought it.”

She looked at Cass for a long beat, then said to me, “You’re saying that kind of shit to me on my front lawn? My own fucking front lawn?”

“Mom.”

“Go get my bag,” she snapped at her son, then she went up to the house and let herself in. Cass walked down to the sidewalk and got her bag. I dawdled. I assumed I was supposed to follow them into the house but didn’t want to go first.

At the door, Cass said, “Come on. It’s okay.”

“It doesn’t seem okay.”

He shrugged and went into the house. I followed him. Inside, Joanne had shrugged her way out of the mink jacket and was standing in the living room with her hands on her hips. “Okay. Okay, so fucking what?”

“Mom.”

“Shut up. Yeah, so I sold some old paperwork to a guy in Reno. Big deal. And by the way, people like that are supposed to have confidentiality.”

“Yeah, I don’t think Gavin’s a lawyer.”

She shrugged like it was an unimportant point. “How is Gavin, since we’re talking about him?”

“He went to prison and then he died.”

“So, not good.”

“His daughter remembers your purple leather coat.”

“That’s sweet of her. I love that coat. I still have it. I should wear it more often.”

“Did you kill your husband?”

“What the fuck? Of course not.” She fidgeted a moment, then said, “Let’s go out to the patio.” She grabbed her purse and led us through the house to the patio.

I watched Cass. He seemed to relax when she said she didn’t kill her husband. I didn’t believe her, but I could tell he did. Or at least wanted to. When we got to the patio, I was happy to find the sun had come out from behind the clouds.

Even though it was in the low sixties, it felt warmer. Frigid in California but cheery and warm in the Midwest. Joanne plunked her purse on her lap and dug around until she found a pack of long, skinny cigarettes and a matching lighter. As she lit her cigarette, I asked, “You don’t smoke inside?”

“Are you kidding? I spent a fortune on those drapes. Wouldn’t ever get the smell of smoke out of them.” She exhaled as dramatically as she could then said, “Look, we were in a lot of financial trouble. Dominick wasn’t working much and we were broke. He took a loan from the wrong people and when they couldn’t collect… I was told they were just going to rough him up, you know encourage him to find the money, and they sort of over did it.”

“How come you never told me that?” Cass asked.

“You’re a kid. You don’t tell a kid his father was a dumb ass who got himself killed cause he couldn’t manage money. What kind of mother would do that?”

I felt offended for the poor guy. “How much of what he owed was money you gambled away?”

“Dominick liked to gamble, too. Don’t try to make it my fault. My luck is always good.”

No one else had said Dominick liked to gamble, but I let it pass. It might be true, though I suspected it wasn’t.

“So why did you get rid of his stuff and pretend he disappeared?”

“Because I got a phone call and that’s what they told me to do.”

“But you kept his important papers.”

“I don’t throw away things that are valuable.”

“Why didn’t you ever have him declared dead? You could have gotten social security benefits for your son.”

“Crumbs. I don’t go out of my way for crumbs.”

That didn’t fit with saving his papers and then selling them for what was probably much less than she could have gotten for her kid. But I could tell Cass was eating this up, believing every word.

It wasn’t all that surprising when he asked, “Do you know the name of the guy who killed Dad?”

“Oh yeah, sure. Some loan shark is going to call me up and tell me so-and-so beat your husband to death, because that’s how this works. Sorry about that.”

“So who did tell you?” I asked.

“What do you mean?”

“You said you were told they were just going to rough up your husband but then overshot the mark. Who told you that?”

To Cass she said, “Baby, go get your mother a vodka on the rocks. Grey Goose.” Which explained the boys familiarity with the liquor cabinet. As soon as he was in the house, she crushed out her cigarette on the concrete patio, and asked, “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Your son flew out to California and found me, threatened to blow up my life if I didn’t help him find whoever killed his father. I’m here under duress.”

“Huh. I guess he’s not the spineless little wimp I thought he was.”

“Yeah. Good parenting works,” I said dryly. “You’re making up this story about your husband getting beaten to death by accident, aren’t you?”

She took a good look at me, and said, “You’re a faggot aren’t you? I clocked you right away. You wanna know how?”

“Not really.”

“Don’t worry. You’re not the obvious sort. Most people wouldn’t suspect you. It’s just that men, real men, react to me in a particular way. You didn’t.”

Cass was back with his mother’s drink.

“I was just telling your mother how you and I met.”

The boy had the decency to blush.

“All we need is the name of the guy who accidentally killed your dad and then I can go home.”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know it,” Joanne said.

“We could start with who told you?—”

“Wait a minute.” She looked at Cass and asked, “Who paid for you to fly to California? And who paid for you to fly back here?”

“I paid for the trip to Reno,” I said. “And the flight back here. But that’s not what’s most important.”

“Where are you staying? Is there a rental car out front? I didn’t see one.”

“He staying in the junk room,” Cass said. “And I’ve been driving him around,” Cass said.

“Well, you’re going to have to leave. You can’t stay here.”

“Mom—”

“Don’t Mom me. It’s my house. You don’t get to have overnight guests. Particularly middle-aged faggots.” She stood up and added, “I’m going to take a shower. When I come back he’s going to be gone.” Then she walked into the house.

It didn’t escape me that she’d avoided answering the question of who’d told her Dominick was ‘accidentally’ beaten to death. I could have tried again for an answer, but it was clear she didn’t have one.

Cass looked at me sheepishly, and said, “Sorry. I’ll go grab your stuff.”

There was no reason for me to be there anymore, so I didn’t see the point of worrying about a few pairs of underwear and some Tylenol.

“Why don’t you just drive me to the airport?”

“You’re not done! We don’t know who killed my dad.”

“Your mom said it was an accident.” Yeah, so I didn’t believe that, but I had to try to get out of there. “Why can’t you leave it at that?”

“It’s not okay to beat people to death by accident, is it?”

“No. It’s not. Am I supposed to sleep on the lawn?”

“There’s a Motel 6 out on 10 Mile Road. You can use my car.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys and gave them to me. Then he handed me a wad of paper. I took it and unfolded it.

Inside was a credit card in the name of Charles Henderson. A VISA.

“What is this for?”

“You spent a lot of money on airplane tickets.”

“So you thought you’d implicate me in fraud?”

“That’s how I got to LA.”

The pieces of paper were a temporary driver’s license for Mr. Henderson and a police report describing how his wallet got stolen.

“These are fakes, right?”

“They work.”

To be honest, they were pretty good. His mother had taught him well. I decided I would borrow the car but wouldn’t use the credit card. I took it anyway though, just so we could stop talking about it.

“Go up to 10 Mile Road and head east. You’ll see the signs for Motel 6. I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Goody.”