Part 42 (1/2)

Epilogue.Fletcher Harcourt sat at the desk in his study. He was still using his wheelchair to get around, but during therapy he was able to walk on of those aluminum walkers. His body was taking its own sweet time to heal, but his brain seemed to be working. He still couldn't remember everything that had happened in the years since the accident. But oddly, his strongest memory was of the night he'd been pushed down the stairs.

Fletcher pulled his mind away from thoughts of his son and the ugly moment that would be forever burned into his brain. He leaned back in his old oak swivel chair, pulled out of storage in the barn. d.a.m.n, it felt good to be home, to be sitting at the rolltop desk he had worked at for more than forty years.

The house was different now. Carson had redecorated the whole d.a.m.ned place, but Fletcher had to admit he'd done a good job, and though it was more formal than he liked, the rooms were comfortable and he was getting used to the changes.

There were going to be a whole lot more of them.

Since his return to the house, he'd had time to do some thinking. He went over the life he'd led, how selfish he had been through the years, never really thinking of his sons or his wife, always doing exactly what he wanted, no matter who he hurt.

Constance had been dead for more than a decade. There was nothing he could do for her. Teresa was happily married, and she had Zach to look out for her. And Carson would be spending the next few years in jail, though not as long as he undoubtedly deserved.

His son had pled guilty to manslaughter, said that he and Jake Benson had gotten into a fight the night Jake was killed, said Jake had pulled a gun and Carson had turned it against him and shot him in self-defense.

Afterward, he'd been scared, he said, so he buried the body inside the foundation of the overseer's cottage that was under construction on the farm.

Both Zach and Fletcher had refused to testify against him, or mention anything about the wreck that Zach had spent time for in prison. Blood was blood, and both of them would probably have perjured themselves if they'd been subpoenaed. But Carson had always been a smooth talker.

Fletcher had hired his son one of those fancy, overpriced criminal lawyers from L.A., and together they'd negotiated a reduction of the charges. With good behavior, Carson would probably be out in a couple of years.

It didn't seem quite right, yet Fletcher wouldn't have it any other way. The man was, after all, still his son.

”Hey, Dad.”

He looked up to see his younger son standing in the doorway, an arm around the little gal he was marrying next Sunday afternoon. She was a pretty thing, he thought, with her heavy auburn hair and blue eyes. Fletcher believed his son had finally found a woman who would make him happy. And the girl was getting a d.a.m.ned fine man in the bargain.

”You said you wanted to see us,” Zach said, looking a little concerned.

”That's right, come on in.”

Zach ushered Liz through the door then fell in behind her. He dragged over a chair and she sat down, then Zach sat down in the chair next to Fletcher's desk.

”I asked you to come because there's something I want to show you. You got that medal I asked you to bring? The one you said you found under the house?”

”I brought it.” Zach pulled the old rusted piece of medal out of his pocket and laid it down on Fletcher's desk.

Fletcher picked it up and examined it. ”See this writing on the front?”

”We tried to read it the night we found it but we couldn't make out what it said.”

”That's because the letters are in German.”

”German?” Liz picked up the medal, studied the printed letters. ”Ben Donahue said it looked like something that came from the military. We thought maybe someone brought it back from the war.”

”Well, in a way, that's what happened.” Reaching down, he pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk. He'd had Isabel, the housekeeper, dig around in his old room upstairs until she found the box he was looking for. He was living in a bedroom downstairs now and she'd helped him collect his things.

Nice girl, Isabel. He'd asked her to stay on and she'd agreed. It was good to have someone else in the house.

Fletcher lifted the metal box, set it on the table, and lifted the lid. Inside was a stack of old, dog-eared, time-yellowed newspaper clippings.

He lifted them out of the box and set them down on top of his desk. ”I been doing some thinking. Mostly about that house over there and this one, too. You see, I did a little research on that couple who killed those little girls. Sheriff Morgan says before they kidnapped that child, they were model citizens. Not so much as a parking ticket. Then they moved into the old gray house.”

”What are you getting at, Dad?” Zach asked.

”You told me about Miguel Santiago, how the house seemed to change him.”

”That's right,” Liz said. ”He was different before things started happening in the house. He's different now. Thank you for giving them another place to live.”

He waved away the thanks. The couple was afraid to live in the house, and after finding two dead bodies underneath, he didn't blame them.

”I started thinking about Carson about how a boy I raised could kill a man the way he did. I still have trouble imagining it. Which got me to thinking even more.” He shoved the stack of clippings toward Zach, motioned for Liz to come round where she could read them.

Zach picked up a page of yellowed newsprint. ”These came out of the San Pico Newspress. Looks like they were printed during World War II. They're all dated in the 1940s.”

”That's right. I don't know if you remember me ever mentioning it. It was so far back I was just a kid at the time. I don't remember much about the war, but my dad would sometimes talk about it.”

Zach and Liz both started reading the articles, skimming the pages, picking up the next article in the stack.

Zach finished first. ”It says that between 1941 and 1945, the government set up prisoner of war camps all along the San Joaquin Valley.” Zach tapped the yellowed page. ”It says one of them was right here in San Pico.”

”That's right. In fact, the camp was right here on this property. It was a farm labor camp even back then. The government needed a safe place to keep German prisoners until the war was over.”

”I think my high school history teacher mentioned the camp,” Liz said. ”It seemed so long ago I never gave it much thought.”

”Being patriotic, my old man agreed to let the government use the land. Unfortunately, according to what my dad told me years later, he wound up with the worst prisoners of the lot. The captured German soldiers were Gestapo and n.a.z.i S.S. Really bad men. Some of them were responsible for the ma.s.sacre in Warsaw in 1941.”

Zach shook his head. ”I'm afraid my history's not that good.”

”I read up on it. Happened in a little town called Jedwabne. n.a.z.is forced sixteen hundred people into a barn and set it on fire.”

He looked over at Liz, saw the color wash out of her face. ”Sorry, but that's what happened. That's the kind of men these were. Evil men, according to my dad. When the war was over, they s.h.i.+pped the soldiers back to Germany. I have no idea what happened to them. My father tore down the temporary buildings and tents that housed them and in their place, built the old gray house.”

Liz leaned toward him. ”Are you are you thinking that maybe that's where all this began?”

”That's about it. I guess you could say I've been thinking a lot about evil. About the nature of the beast, if there is such a thing. Seems to me a lot of bad stuff has gone on around here since the war. Maybe well, maybe if the evil is strong enough, it stays on after the carrier is gone.”

”That's pretty far-fetched,” Zach said.

”Maybe. But considering what's happened out here”

”Good point.”

”At any rate, I've decided to close this section of the ranch, move the workers to another part of the property. The overseers' houses are old and in need of repair. I'm gonna tear 'em down and rebuild in a new location.”

Zach just stared.

”I guess you think I'm crazy. Maybe you'll start believing your brother was right about me, all along.”

Liz reached over and caught his hand. ”I don't think you're crazy. I was in that house. I felt the evil that lives there. I think it's a good idea.”