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CHAPTER TWENTY

September 17, 1996

Tuesday afternoon

W e followed Aunt Josette into the kitchen. The room was filled with women, mostly older. There seemed to be two old women for every old man in the living room. They wore somber colors and simple aprons. It suggested a Hollywood depiction of women from a small Sicilian village. Right and wrong at the same time.

The kitchen itself was transformed. Suddenly, there was everything you needed to make a feast for hundreds. Obviously, they’d brought it all with them. If Joanne had been hiding it all somewhere, I hadn’t found it.

Cass introduced me to the women. I couldn’t keep their names straight two minutes after I’d been told. One of them was in her late thirties, tall, thin and beak-nosed. A cousin. Bella? Della? She seemed to be doing nothing but cutting onions, her eyes red from it. One of the old women poked her. Presumably to get her to talk to me, since I was the subject at hand. She pushed the other woman’s hand away.

I was offered wine, something called rosso. I turned it down and had a lemon soda forced on me. Bella was made to give it to me.

“You have a wife?” the oldest woman in the room asked.

To put an end to the Bella’s misery and to go along with my cover story, I said, “Yes. Yes I do.”

The old woman said, “Hmmmphf.” As though my being married was a personality flaw. I imagine I’d have been stabbed with a kitchen knife if I’d mentioned my longtime boyfriend.

I stuffed my mouth with cookies, hoping I wouldn’t be asked any more questions. That didn’t stop them from staring baldly at me.

Aunt Suzie stood at the stove stirring a large pot. One of the other women reached for a jar of spice and was about to shake some in when Suzie stopped her.

“No, no, no… It’s lamb stew. You don’t put oregano in there.”

“Basil?”

As she waved the woman away, I heard the doorbell ring. Someone was arriving. I stood close to the swinging door in hopes of hearing who it might be. I heard a man go to the door, I think it might have been Luca. Another man said a few things. Then the door shut and their voices got further away.

Cass tapped me on the shoulder, and I followed him out onto the patio where I’d spoken with Joanne about thirty-six hours before. Not even two days. Carla and Rose Amato were out there, looking tense and seemingly in exile.

When she saw me, Carla said, “You know, neither Rose nor I could remember your name after you left. Why do you think that is?”

“Oh, well… it’s Nick,” I said, as though saying my name was the easiest, most natural thing in the world. “I’m sure I told you.”

I hadn’t, but better to make her think she’d forgotten something than for her to think I wasn’t telling her something.

“Did you ever find your card? You said it was in your other jeans.”

“That was a little fib. I’m not actually a private detective.”

“Shocking,” she said, dry again. As dry as a summer breeze in Palm Springs.

“I met Cass in an AOL chatroom about finding missing relatives.”

“Who are you missing?” she asked me.

“My daughter. Thankfully, I found her. She’s doing well. Back in school. After that experience, I felt like I should help others.”

“It’s so terrible what happened to your mom,” Rose said. “How can you bear it, Cassidy? You must be destroyed.”

Not really the kind of thing you should say to someone who’s probably destroyed. The boy made a strangled sound, so I said, “He’s doing remarkably well. He’s thinking about going to stay with his Aunt Suzie.”

“The Di Stefano’s will hate that,” Carla said. I could swear she almost smiled.

“Why aren’t the two of you in the kitchen helping out?”

“We’re feminists.”

To Cass I said, “You’ve got a couple of aunts in the kitchen. Is one of them…”

“Yes, one of them is our mother,” Carla said. “What does that have to do with your finding Dominick Reilly?”

“Carla, we shouldn’t have come here,” Rose said. “You know they don’t want us around. You know they think we’re liars.” To me she said, “We’re not liars. We would never lie.”

“Don’t say anything else, Rose.” Carla stood up. “We only came because of you, Cassidy. If you need anything let me know, we’ll do what we can.”

Rose stood up. “Can we go around the side? I don’t want to walk through the house.”

“Of course we can.” To me, she said, “Our little family dramas have nothing to do with whatever happened to Dominick.”

Then they walked around the side of the house. When they were out of earshot, I asked Cass, “Do you know what’s going on with them? I have the feeling it has something to do with their brother, Luca.”

“I think he used to do stuff to them.”

“What stuff?”

“You know… stuff.”

“Like the stuff he used to do with your mom?”

First cousins weren’t supposed to mess around. It wasn’t a big leap to think he’d done the same sort of thing with his sister. But that didn’t seem to be it, Cass gave me a confused look, and said, “I don’t think he ever beat up my mom.”

Violence, bullying, maybe more. Whatever happened it wasn’t going to go away. The two women who’d just left weren’t going to let it go away.

Cass was standing there very still, like he was making an effort not to move. At that moment, he was like a fawn in the woods being hunted. If he stayed quiet, didn’t make a move, grief might not find him. But it would find him. It found us all.

“They’re wrong, you know. About my mom.”

“Who’s wrong?”

“Josette. And, well, everybody. They didn’t know her like I did. She was scared mostly. She didn’t think she was pretty or smart or anything, really. She didn’t think anyone liked her. There was no one to love her. Except me.”

I wasn’t sure how much of that I believed. It did explain the Xanax. If she told all that to a psychiatrist and added a few tears she’d likely have gotten a prescription. It sounded like manipulation. But then, I had to admit that people often used the truth to manipulate others. Maybe she did feel all those things and only ever talked about them when it was to her benefit.

I still had to say something to Cass about all this. I went with, “You were a good son. I’m sure she knew that.”

He wiped his nose. I could tell he was trying not to cry. Without much thought, I said, “None of this is going to help, you know.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Finding out what happened to your dad, finding out who killed your mom. It won’t help with the pain you’re feeling. It’s going to hurt like hell no matter what happens.”

“Why do you have to say shit like that?”

He walked into the house. Which I suppose was a good thing because I didn’t really have an answer to his question. Did I really think telling him how shitty things were going to get would help him? Weren’t we all better off pretending things were better than they were no matter how bad they got?

No. I didn’t think we were.

I decided the best thing to do would be to eat. I went back inside, hoping they’d put out something that wasn’t a hundred and fifty percent sugar. I was in luck, a pasta dish had come out, along with an antipasto. I picked up a paper plate—the good kind that didn’t flop—and waited in the short line. I watched as two of the older women filled plates and then brought them over to the living room.

When it was my turn, I filled the plate with cheese and meats from the antipasto and took a healthy serving of the pasta dish which was rigatoni in a red sauce with eggplant. The dining chairs had been pushed up against the walls, so I sat down in one and started eating.

I wondered where Cass had gotten to. I was tempted to set aside my lunch and go find him, but it might not be a good idea to seem so attached to him. Heaven forbid people got the wrong idea. Actually heaven forbid they got the right idea.

Was I any closer to getting myself out of this mess? It made sense that whoever killed Joanne also killed her husband. That did make sense, didn’t it? Someone helped her get rid of Dominick. My asking around with Cass had caused that person to kill Joanne. Had they thought she would tell?

Wait. Given my brief experience of the woman, knowing someone was looking into her husband’s disappearance wouldn’t have caused her to confess… It would have caused her to demand something of the killer. Even if that killer was doing her bidding.

That raised an issue I hadn’t thought about much: What if Joanne didn’t ask that her husband be killed? What if she knew who did it but wasn’t involved? Honestly, that didn’t make a lot of sense.

Which brought me back to Luca. He probably killed the real Dom Reilly. But he probably didn’t kill Joanne. He was being followed by the Feds, they wouldn’t have just watched him kill Joanne, they’d have arrested him. He’d be in an interview room right now turning state’s evidence on whoever he had to—probably the old men in the living room—to make his life easier.

From where I was sitting, I could almost hear the conversation in the living room. I heard Mr. Cray saying “…believe this has happened. I left…after she…driven right by and not … anything.”

I didn’t quite hear the answers to that but they seemed kind. He was getting a much warmer reception than I’d gotten. And then they were talking about money. The number six thousand kept coming up. They were talking about whether the stock market would get over six thousand. Mr. Cray said it would never happen if Clinton won the election. That caused a bit of spirited discussion, Joanne’s family being Catholic and democrats.

That made me think of home. Ronnie was very engaged in the upcoming election. He’d put a Clinton sign in our window, was threatening to canvas, and had begun arguing about Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell with our friends—some of whom felt betrayed. I was planning not to vote—without letting Ronnie know that. It wasn’t that I didn’t have opinions, it was more that we already knew California would go for Clinton so my one vote didn’t matter much. And if it didn’t matter, I didn’t see a reason to add voter fraud to my list of crimes.

I’d just about finished my pasta and was deciding whether I should get more—I definitely wanted more of the lemon soda—when there was a rushing noise from the living room and something fell over. Something else broke. Voices were raised. I stepped into the foyer so I could better see what was happening.

Luca had Mr. Cray shoved up against the wall. An end table had fallen over and a lamp lay broken on the floor. One of the furniture store landscapes hung crookedly over Cray’s head.

Two of the old men had gotten up and were yelling at Luca to stop. His forearm was across Cray’s throat and he was pressing. Cray’s hands were attempting to pull Luca’s arm away. Cass stood behind a chair looking confused.

I wondered if I should step in. I was one of the younger people in the room. But Cass’s grandfather and great uncle were in the way. And then, Salvatore Di Stefano—still on the sofa—said, “Luca. No.”

Reluctantly, Luca released Mr. Cray, letting him slide a few inches down the wall. The man tried to recapture his dignity. He adjusted his clothes and said, “Really, I meant nothing disrespectful. And I’m sorry if you took it that way.”

Luca returned to his former seat. He did not look appeased. The old men sat down. Mr. Cray looked around and, wisely I thought, said “I really should be leaving. My family, they’re upset, of course. It could have happened to anyone.”

He walked out of the living room, passed me and went out the front door. I managed to catch Cass’s eye. I nodded my head toward the back of the house. Then I turned and walked back through the dining room, through the raucous kitchen—where they seemed to have missed the fight in the living room completely—and out into the garage.

The garage was empty. Joanne’s car had been impounded somewhere. Cass was right behind me. I turned to him and asked, “What happened in there?”

“Mr. Cray said that he’d told Mom not to be so flashy. Luca said that sounded like he was blaming the whole thing on her. Then he rushed at Mr. Cray and everything got crazy.”

“Do you think that’s all there was to it?”

“What do you mean? That’s what they said.”

“People don’t always say what they mean. I’ve gotten the impression your mom might have had something going on with her cousin and then maybe with Mr. Cray.”

“My mom wasn’t a slut.”

“I didn’t say that. And believe me, I’m not one to talk.”

He looked like he was trying not to think about that last bit. I went on, “Look, I’m going to go soon. Do you know where Mr. Cray lives?”

“In Novi. Not far from the office. Bellagio Drive. Are you going to talk to him?”

“No. I might drive by tomorrow. Get a sense of who he is.”

“He’s kind of an asshole, to be honest. But I don’t think you’ll be able to figure that out from his front lawn.”

“You’d be surprised what I can figure out from someone’s front lawn.”

We were quiet a moment. I had the feeling the whole thing was hitting the kid, and hitting him hard. Half to distract him and half out of curiosity, I asked, “How come you haven’t put your car in here? It’s a classic. You want it to stay safe.”

He looked sheepish for a moment, then said, “My mom wouldn’t like it.”