a pint bottle of Wild Turkey on his desk beside a few paper cones from the water cooler. He held one, she saw. “Still here?” he asked her, head wobbling, clearly drunk. “Aren’t you the dedicated consultant. Cheers.” He lifted the cone, sloshing whiskey on his desk, then drank it, making a face.
“Whiskey neat is no fun,” he said. “It looks so manly in the movies when men drown their sorrows. Maybe if I bought the good stuff like Abbott, but that’s...not...me. Guard the pennies and the dollars take care of themselves.” He balled up the cone and tossed it toward the trash can, missing by a mile.
“Did something happen, Joseph?” she asked.
“It’s about to,” he said, picking up an iPhone near his hand. “This is Faye’s phone. I’ve been carrying it around since they gave it to me at the hospital, scared to look at it. But last night she almost died, soooo I charged it up. I hadda see.”
Tara sank into a chair. “Why are you afraid to look at her phone?” Her neck hairs began to prickle.
“Because as long as I didn’t look, I could pretend she still loved me. The proof she doesn’t is right here.” He shook the phone.
“What kind of proof?” A chill raised goose bumps.
“Messages, texts, the guy’s number.”
“What guy?”
“She was having an affair,” he said, getting choked up.
“No way,” Tara said. “Not Faye.” Faye was steady and loyal. She would never do such a thing.
“She hadn’t been herself. Distant. Preoccupied. Hardly talking to me except to argue.”
“What did you argue about?”
“The taxes. I delayed payment. Abbott and Faye were angry about the penalties and the interest. They never listened to me. Never. I told them we should kill the Ryland contract, cut our losses, but no, it’s too damned symbolic. I told them we should outsource, that manufacturing was too expensive. Oh, no, gotta be loyal...town’s counting on us...whatever.” He shook his head.
“I disappointed her,” he said grimly. “I let her down. That’s it. That’s why. She wanted kids. But I had...problems.”
“Like what?” she asked gently. This might tell her more about the accident. She held her breath, her heart pounding.
“Number one...slow sperm... Number two...recessive gene for a neurological disorder. That’s what did it. The straw that broke my back. She talked to a gen...et...ics counselor. Then she stopped talking to me.” He was slurring, spacing out syllables, running words together. He tried to pour himself another drink, but couldn’t get the cones pulled apart.
“So she found a guy with better genes and better sperm.” He waved the phone. “It’s all here.”
“What makes you say that? Is there a message?”
“Two new numbers. So far, I called one. It’s a divorce attorney.” His face crumpled. “She didn’t even try. She gave up on me just...like...that.” He snapped a finger.
That made no sense to Tara, not with the kind of person Faye was. “And the other number?”
“Has to be him. I got drunk before I called him. Figured I could give him hell that way.”
So he was only guessing. At least that.
“I think she met him at Vito’s that night. She told Abbott, I think. Maybe Abbott didn’t want her to do it—divorce me, I mean—cuz she sent him a text.”
“Nothing changes. Let it go,” Tara said. “I saw it on Dad’s phone.”
“Why would she cut me off like that?” He looked at her, his eyes full of passion. “I’d do anything for her. Anything. She’s...my...life.”
“What happened that night? After you quarreled with Faye?”
His eyes were red embers. “She said she was meeting Abbott at Vito’s. Abbott. Right. I’m not an idiot. She saw Abbott every day. Besides, we weren’t even eating pasta. She bought low-carb ketchup, for heaven’s sake.”
“Were you angry that night?” she asked, afraid he’d done something terrible after all. “Did you do something, Joseph? Something you regret?” Had he run them off the road in a fit of fury, jealousy and fear? Please, no.
“Of course I did something I regret. Wouldn’t you?” He took two harsh breaths. “I bought a Bundt cake and a gallon of ice cream and ate myself sick, then fell asleep watching Animal Planet. Bill Fallon woke me up when he called about the accident.”
Joseph hadn’t caused the crash. Thank God. Abruptly a thought came to her. “Wait. Was the divorce attorney Randall Scott?”
“Did she tell you, too? Abbott and you?”
“No. My father met with the guy. He had the card in his wallet.”