Lies You Wanted to Hear by James Whitfield Thomson

Author:James Whitfield Thomson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Family Life, Fiction
ISBN: 9781402284281
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 22

Matt

A copy of Lucy’s deposition was in my mailbox when I got home from a trip to Mexico City. Norman Claxton had gone after her hard and got her rattled. I was beyond the point of being repulsed by the sordid details, but one line of questions from Hoyt, her attorney, was troubling. He asked Lucy how she felt about my having a gun in the house, and she said she didn’t mind because I kept it in a safe down in the basement.

Atty. Hoyt: Did Mr. Drobyshev ever forget to put the gun away when he came home?

Mrs. Drobyshev: Just once.

Atty. Hoyt: Would you please elaborate?

Mrs. Drobyshev: This was about six months after he started working for the courier service. I was out with the children, and when I came home he was sleeping on the couch. I guess he was so tired he took his sports coat off and lay down with the gun in his shoulder holster.

Atty. Hoyt: So the gun was still in the holster when he was sleeping on the couch?

Mrs. Drobyshev: Actually, the gun had fallen out of the holster and was lying on the rug.

Atty. Hoyt: And you picked it up?

Mrs. Drobyshev: No, our daughter Sarah did. She picked it up with both hands and pointed it at me and said, “Look, Mommy, Daddy dropped his gun.”

Atty. Hoyt: How old was your little girl at the time?

Mrs. Drobyshev: About three and a half.

Atty. Hoyt: What did you do when she pointed the gun at you?

Mrs. Drobyshev: I was holding my son, Nathan, in my arms. I tried to be very calm and casual and said something like, “Oh, thank you, honey. Please give Mommy the gun.” Meanwhile, I thought I was going to wet my pants.

Atty. Hoyt: What type of gun was it?

Mrs. Drobyshev: I’m not sure. I don’t know much about guns.

Atty. Hoyt: So you don’t know if the safety was on?

Mrs. Drobyshev: No.

Atty. Hoyt: What did you do with the gun after you took it from the child?

Mrs. Drobyshev: I put it on a high shelf behind some dishes in the kitchen.

Atty. Hoyt: Did you mention this to your husband when he woke up?

Mrs. Drobyshev: Yes, of course. I had to give him back the gun. But I didn’t say anything about Sarah picking it up off the floor.

Atty. Hoyt: Why not?

Mrs. Drobyshev: I felt bad for him. He was mortified about not putting it away the minute he got home. He was under so much stress from his job I didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did.

Claxton had penciled exclamation points in the margin next to some of Lucy’s answers. I’d completely forgotten about the incident. I was ninety-nine percent certain Lucy was lying about Sarah picking up the gun, but that wouldn’t be easy to prove.

***

My deposition took place in Norman Claxton’s library. It was a dingy, cluttered room with books and file folders piled everywhere. A single dirty window looked out on a brick wall about three feet away.

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