Page 11 of A Week Away
“If someone murdered your dad—and I think that’s probably what happened—then they either went to your house when you and your mom weren’t there and took all of his stuff, or your mom knows what happened and she got rid of all his stuff.”
I let that sink in. I was careful not to say his mom killed his dad, though I was already leaning in that direction. I didn’t want to push it, though. It would be better if Gavin told the kid it was his mom who sold him the papers. Cass could make his own connections.
A stewardess came down the aisle picking up the trash. I was pretty sure we’d be landing soon.
“You said your mom used to take you places. Where would she take you?”
“Atlantic City. Las Vegas. Places like that.”
“Reno?”
“I don’t remember.”
That might be true. He might not remember. He would have been somewhere between four and eight. She could have come out at any time and sold the papers to Gavin. Neither of us said anything for a few minutes. I was thinking about the possibility his mother had something to do with his father’s death. I wasn’t sure whether he was thinking the same thing. On the upside, if his mother did kill his father then he probably wouldn’t kill her.
Probably.
I decided to come at this from another direction. “So, why were you looking for you dad in the first place?”
“He’s my dad.”
“If you had found him, what were you expecting?”
“You asked me that all ready.”
“Maybe I’m hoping for a better answer. Do you have one?”
He looked out the window for long enough that I wondered if he was going to say anything. Then he said, “I guess, that he’d be my dad again.”
“You know… parents can be pretty disappointing even when they don’t run off.”
He shrugged. “But if he hadn’t disappeared, I’d know if he was a good dad or not, wouldn’t I?”
“You ran a credit report on your dad. Was this the first time?”
“No. I did it once last year.”
Behind my back, Ronnie had gotten a couple credit cards for us both. To build my credit. I didn’t know exactly when he’d done that, but those might have shown up.
“Were there a couple of credit cards on there?”
“Yeah. And an address in Long Beach. Not the one you have now. A different one.”
“Why didn’t you come last year?”
“I wasn’t sure. I thought my mom might have taken them out.”
“What made you think that?”
“She did it before. Eighty-seven, eighty-eight. She took out some cards, had them sent to a guy she knows up in Traverse who gave them to her, and then ran the cards up and never paid for them.” He gave me a funny look and asked, “You never wondered why your credit sucked?”
“I didn’t use it so I never thought about it.”
But, now that Iwasthinking about it, Ronnie had access to credit reports. He’d have seen those cards from eighty-seven, eighty-eight. He must have known there was something funny about them—especially if they went to an address in Traverse, wherever that was. The story I’d told him, the story I told everyone, was that I was living with my wife in the valley in the eighties—not in Michigan. But there was nothing on my credit report that would support my story. I was surprised Ronnie never brought it up.
And then we began the steep descent into Reno-Tahoe International Airport. It was the kind of landing that those in the airline industry describe as smooth and those of us who are passengers wonder if we should send them a dictionary. For a few terrifying moments I wondered if the plane might break apart and fly away in different directions. Luckily, it didn’t.
When we came off the plane, there was a small group of people waiting to pick up their relatives. There was no one waiting for us. We were at gate C4. We weren’t very far down the concourse when I saw a bank of pay phones. Across from the telephones there were two slot machines, but they didn’t seem to be on. I gave the kid a twenty, and said, “See if you can find a newsstand that has any aspirin or Tylenol.”
