Page 20 of A Week Away
“I have an Aunt Suzie. My father’s sister.”
“You see her much?”
“My mom doesn’t like her. She’s religious.”
“And your mom. Her parents are still alive?”
He nodded.
“Does she have brothers or sisters?”
“She has two sisters. They don’t talk to her much. She has an uncle she likes a lot.”
The pretty blond stewardess came down the aisle with a plastic bag. She picked up our empty plastic breakfast trays. I watched Cass blush.
When she was gone, I asked, “You said you mom’s at a casino in… Where was it?”
“Sault Sainte Marie. It’s at the top of the mitten.”
I kind of knew what that meant. “When will she be back?”
“Tomorrow night.”
That meant we had tonight and all day tomorrow to ask around about her. That was good. I wanted to know as much as I could before I talked to her.IfI talked to her. I still held out some hope that with a little more information I could get the kid to let go of the whole thing. I wasn’t excited about meeting his mother. And why would I be?Hello, I’m your fake husbandwas not a sentence I ever wanted to utter. And not one she’d be happy to hear.
“Do you remember what your father did for a living?”
“Built cars. Plymouth Volare. My grandfather would point them out when I was a kid.”
“So he made a good living?”
“I guess. I don’t think they made those cars for long.”
They didn’t. Honestly I couldn’t remember the last time I saw one. Did that mean he fell on hard times? There were lots of other places to build cars in Detroit, weren’t there?
“Your mother likes to gamble. Did your dad?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. I think they had card games in our apartment sometimes.”
“When we were talking before, you mentioned a friend of your mother’s. They were together when your parents met.”
“Heather.”
“Yeah. Are they still friends?”
“No. Not for a long time.”
“Do you know her last name?”
He shrugged.
“You don’t know how we can find her?”
“What difference does it make? You think she killed my dad?”
“We need to talk to people who knew your parents around the time your dad disappeared. They might know something.”
“Why wouldn’t they have said something before now?”
