Page 81 of A Week Away

After considering that for a moment, she said, “I think they sold it and then her parents died. Or her parents died and then they sold it. I don’t remember. Either way, I don’t think her family liked Mr. Cray much.”

The Cosmo arrived, straight up and bright pink. She looked at the waiter, and said, “Yum.” He looked frightened and ran off.

“Do you know why they didn’t like Mr. Cray?”

“He’s a creep?”

“His wife doesn’t think he’s a creep, though?”

“You don’t know anything about women, do you? Women don’t marry a man for who he is, they marry him for who they think he can be. Mr. Cray was a creep with potential.”

She took a sip of her drink and closed her eyes in appreciation. I wondered if the waiter had completely forgotten my soda.

“Do you think Mrs. Cray knew about her husband’s relationship with Joanne?”

“Depends on what you mean by the word ‘know’.”

“You said she’d call when Mr. Cray and Joanne went away and try to get their contact information.”

“Every time. Didn’t really matter, though. Mr. Cray and Joanne always had different rooms. For appearances.”

“But you think Mrs. Cray knew about the relationship?”

“And didn’t know at the same time.”

“What about Mr. Cray? Did he think his wife knew?”

She shook her head. “Men don’t know what women think. He thought he had her fooled.”

The waiter came back with my second soda. “Would you like to order?”

I’d barely looked at the menu and was about to ask for more time, but Claudia said, “I’d like the rock shrimp, a salad and the veal shank.”

The easiest thing to do was say I’d have the same. I really wasn’t there for lunch. Once the waiter was gone, I said, “Tell me what happened Monday afternoon, after I left. Did Joanne go in and talk to Mr. Cray?”

“You want to know if you stirred up trouble between them.”

“Did I?”

“You did. Right after you left she went into Mr. Cray’s office and they had it out, big time. He said he was going to fire her. And she said he’d better not. That he’d be sorry if he tried it.”

“As in she’d tell his wife about their affair?”

“Maybe. I couldn’t hear that part.”

“Did they fight a lot?”

“Enough. They always made up.”

“Did they make up on Monday?”

Claudia rolled her eyes. “They sure did. I went to the ladies room. I don’t need to hear that kind of thing.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-FOUR

September 18, 1996

Wednesday early afternoon