Page 32 of A Week Away
I waited a bit, just to let that sink in for Cass. Then I said, “Well, we’ll get out of your way. Thank you. You’ve been helpful.”
The three of us clomped down the stairs, said goodbye—well, Heather and I said good-bye. Cass was growing more sullen by the moment—and then she locked the door up again. As we walked to the car, which was miraculously still there. I asked, “Do you want me to drive?”
He ignored me and got into the driver’s seat. I’d barely shut the door when he pulled away from the curb. I couldn’t believe he’d gotten the anti-theft bar off so fast.
“She’s a lying bitch.”
I assumed he meant Heather, though I suspected it was more true about his mother. I asked, “Which part were lies?”
“All of it.”
“Your mother doesn’t have a cousin named Luca?”
“He owns a trucking company. He’s not in The Partnership.”
Setting aside the stereotypical idea of a mobster owning a trucking company as a cover, I said, “Heather didn’t say he was in The Partnership. She said other people thought that. She was actually pretty nice about it.”
“My mom didn’t ask anybody to kill my dad, okay?”
“Okay, sure.”
We were back on a freeway pretty quickly. I really had no idea where we were. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable about that, and that I was in the company of a very angry teenager who couldn’t be rational when it came to his mother.
“Look, when you do this kind of investigation you have understand that you’re not necessarily going to find out things you want to know.”
“I know my mother didn’t have anything to do with it.”
See, not very rational.
“We know whoever killed your dad is violent and smart. So maybe we should stop. I’m not sure it’s safe to get too close to someone who’d do this. We could be putting ourselves in danger. We could be putting your mom in danger.”
He didn’t say anything. After a couple of minutes, I turned the dial on the radio. AM only. It must have been near the top of the hour since the news was on. Bob Dole was visiting Michigan. Someplace called Midland, which was presumably in the center of the state. They were planning to re-introduce the two-dollar bill. That didn’t seem like a great idea. They’d tried it around the bicentennial and nobody was much interested.
Cass reached over and turned the radio off. After a moment, he said, “Maybe it was Luca. But that doesn’t mean my mom had anything to do with it. Maybe he did it as a favor without her asking.”
“And she’s been covering it up for a decade? Doesn’t that make her just as guilty?”
“No. Notasguilty. Not really guilty at all.”
We parked in front of the house. I got the impression he wasn’t allowed to park in the driveway. He put the anti-theft bar onto the steering wheel and got out. I followed him up the lawn to the front door. After he unlocked it we went inside.
Cass walked directly over to the cabinet and opened it. I hadn’t realized that it was a liquor cabinet, fully stocked. He poured a highball glass full of something red and sticky. It looked like raspberry liquor—not Chambord, which came in a distinctive bottle, but some cheap knockoff.
He saw me looking at him, and asked, “You want some?”
“No thanks. I’m going to bed.”
It was barely eight-thirty.
CHAPTERTEN
September 14, 1996
Late Saturday night
Isuppose I could have had a drink with him. As I’ve said, I didn’t drink because it loosened my tongue. Cass knew my secrets though so it might not have been a big deal. On the other hand, the boy was a danger to me. Drinking with him would have been foolish.
Upstairs in the junk room, I did not go to sleep. I wouldn’t have even if that had been my plan. Cass was playing music. CDs? Possibly record albums? Either way, the volume was cranked up. I wasn’t sure if there was a turntable or a CD player in one of the cabinets in the living room or I’d simply not noticed it in the office. His taste—or more likely Joanne’s—ran to early eighties new wave: The Police, The Go-Go’s, Talking Heads. It was taking me back.
