Page 42 of A Week Away

“Oh, yeah.”

“What do you have?

“I’ve got a sixty-six Dodge Charger. Baby blue. One of the first off the line. 426 Hemi. Four-speed. Everything on it is mint.”

“You ever hear what happened to Dominick’s Barracuda?”

He shook his head. “My guess is it’s in Lake St. Clair or Lake Erie with Dominick sitting in the front seat. At least I hope they’re together.”

“So you don’t think he’d just had enough and ran off?”

“No. He loved Joanne. And the kid. He loved Cass.”

“Who do you think killed him?”

“Joanne was cheating on him. I know that.”

“With her cousin?”

“No. I mean, maybe but… Dominick didn’t know about that. He only knew about the lawyer.”

“The one she works for now?”

“Yeah. I think that’s the one.”

Could that be true? Was that why she wanted to become a paralegal? Was that also why Dominick wanted her to hold off on it?

“Does Suzie know this?”

“I never wanted to tell her. She doesn’t need to know that her brother was just some chump whose wife was cheating on him. And…”

“And what?”

“I was afraid of what she might do.”

“What did you think she might do?”

“When we were kids she was always getting into fights. Beat the crap out of one kid who called me and Dominick faggots cause we were friends. Just made things worse. Having your sister beat-up a bully. It was a good thing when they moved to Roseville.”

“She still like that? Beating people up?”

“Naw, I don’t think so. I’m talking about the sixties. It was a lot more common for people to beat each other up.”

“Yeah, I remember. Did Dominick plan on doing anything about the affair?”

Dickie made a raspberry sound. “He made excuses for her. She was young, she didn’t know better, her family treated her badly and it was their fault she didn’t understand right and wrong.”

“I’ve heard rumors her family is involved in organized crime. Any truth to that?”

“I would say there’s a lot of truth to it.”

“And you know that because?”

“Because everybody knows it. Her father, her uncle, her cousin… they’re all involved. Nothing big, just this and that. Small time stuff. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“I’m not. No.”

“So you think someone in Joanne’s family killed Dominick?”