Page 44 of A Week Away

“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?”