“My father didn’t consider either of us to be adults worth talking to about anything of importance,” Joseph said loudly. So it wasn’t grief that had kept his jaw clenched throughout the funeral. He must have spent the whole time trying to keep his anger in, and now it was exploding out of him.
“He loved us and made sure we had everything we needed,” Aaron said, facing his brother. His hands were in fists; he was geared up for a confrontation. “You know that he was a fine father and a fine man.”
“Well, that is certainly what he would have said of himself,” Joseph said, with dark humor. “It’s nice to know that you still agree with him about everything.”
“He was a good father,” Aaron repeated, turning to me. He was even more defensive sounding now. “He paid for our college tuition and room and board. He made our lives very easy, with no strings attached.”
Joseph rolled his eyes. “No strings. You’re right there. They were nets, not strings, big enough to pull whole planets in. We were never children, not to him. We were the manifestation of his future power in the world. He molded us and punished us and manipulated us so that we would be what he wanted us to be, and even now, I can’t see a way to escape his plan for me.”
He couldn’t just drop out of school and do something else? I found I didn’t like either of the sons, who seemed to see everything in the world only as it related to themselves. Though Joseph hated his father, he was like him in many ways, including his tendency to speechify normal conversation.
“So you didn’t know about the will?” I asked, trying to get them back to my original point.
“I assume—didn’t he leave everything to Mom?” said Aaron, turning back to me.
“There’s some question about whether he changed his will recently.” I was watching them both closely, but saw no flicker of guilt on either of their faces.
“Why would he do that?” said Aaron, who seemed genuinely confused now.
I didn’t know. That was why I was asking. “Did he speak to either of you about it?” I looked at Joseph.
“He said something about changing our monthly allowances the last time I talked to him.”
“When was that?” I asked.
“A couple of days ago,” Joseph admitted, squinting in concentration, trying to remember. “But I thought it was just his usual threats that we had to get perfect grades and so on.”
“What did he say?” I asked, since this sounded like it was on the same timeline as the will and the argument between Stephen and Joanna.
Joseph shrugged. “That there were changes coming. I figured he meant another wife and kids. Maybe he was changing his will to include her, whoever she was.” He made an ugly face.
Another wife? I hadn’t heard anything about that from anyone else, and I was inclined to dismiss it from Joseph, who so clearly had a chip on his shoulder about his father.
I took a deep breath and asked, “Did your mother tell you anything about your father’s death?”
“A heart attack,” Aaron said.
Ah, so she had lied to them, as well. I had assumed she had lied to the small children, but not to the grown ones.
“Did you know if there was a specific new woman your father was, uh, dating?” I asked, picking up on the thread of what Joseph had said.
“He said something about her being a neighbor. I thought maybe it was the girl who was here.” He glanced around, but the Perezes appeared to have gone back to their house.
“Isn’t she a little young for a man your father’s age?” I asked.
“You don’t know my father if you think that,” Joseph said, shaking his head.
Aaron gave his brother a disgusted look. “He’s talking about our neighbor Maria. She’s only sixteen—the same as Esther.”
Joseph shrugged, apparently unaffected by the idea of his father marrying someone the same age as one of his little sisters. “The younger the better for our father. They were easier for him to con.”
“He wasn’t conning them!” Aaron interjected. “They just had fewer set ideas about what marriage should be. He said they were more flexible.”
“More flexible, yeah, I’ll say.” Joseph guffawed at this and even I blushed at the unintended innuendo.
“That’s not what I meant.” Aaron had reddened a little.
“Do you mind if I ask you where you were last night and this morning?” I asked.
Joseph looked at me long and hard. “I was at a party,” he said finally. “Why?”
Did he know that his father hadn’t died of a heart attack? I wouldn’t be able to tell if he was lying to me. “What about this morning?”
“The party went all night,” he said. Aaron shot him a reproving look. “Not that it’s any of your business. Why do you want to know?”
“I was wondering if you’d had a chance to talk to your father before he died,” I said carefully. “What about you, Aaron?”
“I didn’t talk to him,” Aaron said, and he seemed genuinely bereft. “I thought about coming home for dinner, too, but instead I just studied all night.”
I didn’t think he had killed his father, but I asked anyway, “What about this morning?”