Page 77 of A Week Away
“Hello again,” Heather said. “This is Hector. He’s a friend. I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”
“Nick.”
They each had a bowl of Aunt Suzie’s stew. I noted that the cans of Diet Coke that had once taken up a shelf in the refrigerator now sat on the counter. I imagined it had been cleaned out to make room for all the food that had been served that afternoon.
Cass was anxious for me to follow him into the garage, and I would have if Suzie hadn’t asked, “What brings you back, Nick?”
I didn’t have an answer for that. Fortunately, Cass said,
“I called. There’s something I want to talk to him about.”
To me, Aunt Suzie said, “If you learned anything about what happened to my brother I deserve to know.”
“I haven’t learned anything you don’t already know,” I said, without thinking about whether I was being truthful or not. To be honest, I’d almost forgotten about Dom’s disappearance completely.
I walked out of the kitchen into the garage. As I’d suspected, Cass had moved the Belvedere into the garage. He opened the driver’s door, reached behind the front seat, and pulled out a brown paper bag. He handed it to me and I opened it. Inside was a dark green Spartan’s hoodie with a Colt 38 sitting on top of it. The gun was similar to the duty weapon I carried when I was a cop twenty years before. This gun might have been ten or fifteen years old.
“Where was this?”
“Behind the driver’s seat.”
“And how did you find it?”
“When I pulled the car into the garage, I braked a little fast and the bag hit the back of the seat, making a kind of crinkle noise. I checked it out.”
That was when I realized he smelled of alcohol. That explained the ‘braked a little fast’. “You’ve been drinking.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“I get it. Your mom just died. Just don’t make yourself sick. That wasn’t fun, was it?”
He shrugged. “Whatever.”
“No. Not whatever. Whoever put this into your car has probably already left an anonymous tip with the police. They’re probably getting a warrant and will be here in the morning. Someone wants to pin your mom’s murder on you.”
“Why would they do that?”
“To protect themselves,” I said. “I’m going to take this away. I don’t want you caught with it.”
“Okay… Do you think it was someone who was here today?”
“I don’t know. I suppose someone could have put it into your car sometime during the night. It was outside.”
I was well aware that it could have been put there by his aunt. She was there. She watched it happen. She probably paid someone to kill Joanne, and they gave her the hoodie and the gun. And now she’s trying… No, that didn’t make any sense. I was sure she genuinely cared about her nephew. She might have had Joanne killed, but she wouldn’t blame it on Cass. So what was going on?
Even as we stood there, I began planning to visit Aunt Suzie first thing in the morning. Without Cass. “Why don’t you open the garage door, and I’ll take care of these and see you tomorrow.”
“You don’t want to come back inside?”
“You go in. Don’t have anything else to drink and get some sleep. The cops will be here in the morning, you’ll need your wits about you.”
“Aunt Suzie wants me to go home with her.”
“Try to get her to stay here.”
“I’ll try,” he said, doubtfully as he hit the button to open the garage door. As I walked down the driveway, I realized it might be hard to get Aunt Suzie alone in the morning. I might need to ask her what she was doing at Top Dog in front of Cass. That gave me a queasy feeling in my stomach.
Then I lucked out. I was standing at the trunk of the Thunderbird when I heard the front door close. I turned and saw Aunt Suzie stomping toward me. When she got close, she said, “What were the two of you talking about? I know it’s about Dominick. You found something out, didn’t you?”
