Page 23 of The Ghostwriter
The following morning, I find my father drinking coffee in the courtyard, his face tilted toward the sun. “Good morning,” he says. “Did you sleep well?”
“Well enough,” I say. “You?”
He shrugs and looks at me. “Every night is an adventure these days.”
I swipe the hair off my forehead. “I was planning on going to the library this morning to look up the news coverage of the murders. If you won’t let me talk to anyone, maybe I can make sense of things using those as a framework.”
A hummingbird hovers next to the lemon tree, and we both watch it dart in and out of the branches before lifting into the air and vanishing over the garden wall. “I might have something that will help,” he says.
He enters the house, says something to Alma, and the two of them disappear up the stairs. The courtyard is quiet, not even the sound of traffic passing by, and I’m reminded of my own house in Topanga, the way the chaos of the world seems removed. A homesickness rises inside of me—for Tom, for my space, my life in Los Angeles that I’m on the verge of losing. To a time before I owed John Calder close to $500,000 and my attorney another $200,000. Before my father decided he needed to share his secrets, yanking my childhood questions out of the past and into the present.
He returns carrying a folder and Alma resumes her cooking. “I’m not sure what’s in there,” he says, passing it over. “It’s been a long time since I’ve looked.” He glances toward the house. “Alma will have breakfast in about a half hour if you’re interested.”
“That’s okay; I have some groceries upstairs. I think I’ll just fix a small snack and dive into these. Is it all right if we skip our session this morning?” I hold up the folder. “This will help me with background.”
He studies me and I wait to see if he’ll challenge me. But he just nods and turns away, sliding the glass door closed behind him.
***
Upstairs I’m about to settle in to read when I see a notification of a new email from John Calder on my father’s account, finally picking up our exchange.
I slide the file folder to the side and read his response. Some on the team aren’t happy with Olivia Dumont. To be honest, I was surprised to hear you chose her without opening it up to others to pitch. I’m not sure she can do what you need to be done.
My mind flies back to that first Zoom with Monarch. We should have gone with Calder. Heat fills my chest, to see my name spoken so easily by a man who has trashed my reputation and my life so effortlessly. I’m tempted to email Nicole, to tell her there’s a leak somewhere and Calder is trying to take this job from me, when I realize I’d have to explain how I know and reveal what I’ve done.
What exactly do you think I need done? I type. I should end the email there, but I can’t help but add one more sentence. Why do you think Ms. Dumont can’t do this job?
I wait for his reply, and when it doesn’t come after five minutes, I close my laptop, my mind running a loop. If I allow myself to be sidetracked by this, I’m certain I won’t be able to focus the way I need to, and then Calder will be right.
I push away from the desk and head downstairs, through the courtyard and into the orchard. The air is crisp, my feet silent on the soft earth, and I make my way through the trees at a brisk pace, trying to clear my mind. Calder doesn’t matter. He can’t take this job from me unless I let him.
***
An hour later, I’m back at my desk, but I leave my laptop closed and flip open the file folder my father gave me. There are several newspaper clippings, faded with age. The first one is dated June 14, 1975, and the headline reads Tragedy During Ojai Summer Carnival . It’s relatively short but has a photograph of the house, police tape wrapped around the perimeter of the property.
Mr. and Mrs. Edmund Taylor returned home Friday evening to a heartbreaking tragedy in their home—the bodies of two of their three children brutally slain by an unknown assailant. Both children were declared dead at the scene by authorities who responded to the call placed at 9:17 p.m. According to officers, one child, age 17, was found deceased in the hallway. The other, age 14, was found deceased in a bedroom. Due to their ages, names have not been released to the public. Police will not comment on whether there were any signs of struggle inside the home, citing an ongoing investigation. A third Taylor sibling, age 16, was not home at the time of the slayings and is now the Taylors’ sole surviving child.
I imagine my grandparents waking up to this article in the local paper. Someone—perhaps my grandmother—had taken the time to clip it out and save it, tucking it away somewhere out of sight.
The second article is from the funeral. Taylor Family Lays Children to Rest as Entire Community Turns Out. There isn’t much to the article other than quotes from Danny’s and Poppy’s friends, teachers, neighbors. No comment from the family. But there’s a photograph of them exiting the church. My grandparents, clinging to each other as they make their way down the steps, my father thin and pale in a black suit behind them, my mother just a shadow next to him. I stare at them, how young they were, my mother’s dress seeming to envelop her whole.
The next article features school photographs of Danny and Poppy dated July 14, 1975. More Questions than Answers in Ojai Summer Carnival Slayings. This one is longer, containing the coroner’s time of death—sometime between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m. Witness statements had Danny leaving the carnival an hour earlier, but it was unclear whether he’d walked in on an attack already in progress, or shortly after.
Police are focusing on looking for anyone who saw Poppy exit an unknown vehicle the weekend prior, reporting that she’d hitchhiked into Ventura and back again. “We ask anyone with information about the make and model of that car to please come forward.” The lead investigator says the person who gave Poppy a ride isn’t a suspect. “We just want to speak with them, to eliminate them so we can focus our energy elsewhere.”
But friends close to the deceased children tell a different story. That Vincent Taylor, 16 and the sole surviving child of the Taylor family, knows more than he’s saying. They speculate that Danny had been the intended victim as opposed to Poppy, citing ongoing conflict between the two brothers. Police will not comment other than to say that all members of the Taylor family have been questioned and all have verified alibis during the time of the murders.
The last article, from September of that year, is just a few paragraphs, the news cycle relegating the killings to a back page. The headline reads First Day of School Vigil to Remember Danny and Poppy Taylor . The article basically rehashes what’s already been reported. No leads. No suspects. Devastated family and friends seeking answers. With one notable observation: Vincent Taylor, now a junior, was not in attendance at the vigil, though many claimed he was present at school that day.
I wonder where the other articles are. The one that I remember being passed around the playground when I was ten. I grab my keys and my purse, sidestepping the house, where I can see my father seated at the table alone. If he hears me, he doesn’t look up.
***
The librarian sets me up on a computer, and I start in the obvious place, June 13, 1985. I flip through each page, scanning for something related to the anniversary, but it’s a pretty bare edition. Then I pull up June 12, and that’s when I see it, on the front page below the fold: Ten Years Later and Still No Answers .
This one is less about the murders and more about Danny and Poppy. Speculation that my father had something to do with the murders is more obvious, with Poppy’s best friend, Margot, leading the charge.
Twenty-five, and recently returned to Ojai after attending UCLA, Ms. Gibson is still emotional when recounting the events of that day. When asked if she thought Vincent would harm his brother, Ms. Gibson says, “I have no doubt.”
Vincent Taylor, now twenty-six, is married to his girlfriend from that time, Lydia Greene. The two have a daughter, age five. Mr. Taylor attended city college in Ventura, then returned to Ojai and is working at a local grocery store stocking shelves while he pursues a writing career. He declined to comment for this piece, but we were able to speak briefly to his wife, Lydia, who said, “We were in the oak grove with our teacher, Mr. Stewart. The police eliminated Vince as a suspect in 1975.”
Memories of reading this article with Jack come back to me. I’d forgotten most of it, but one line from my mother stood out then, and I read it again now. “ I would never allow my daughter to live in a house with someone who’d done something so horrific. That should tell you everything you need to know. ”
I pause, trying—and failing—to picture my mother saying these words. But I can’t even conjure her face, let alone remember her saying anything like this about me.
There are still more questions than answers in this decade-old tragedy, but what people find most surprising is Mr. Taylor’s lack of interest in pursuing the case. Police say the investigation is still active. However, after the death of his parents several years ago, Mr. Taylor has done nothing to keep the case in the public eye, and in fact goes out of his way to avoid speaking about it.
He may have an alibi, but he still has a lot of questions to answer.
I’d been living abroad when the 1995 retrospective was published, but it’s essentially the same as the others—a rehashing of my father’s misdeeds, his refusal to speak to reporters, but in this one, Margot and Mark reveal that they’d both been called in to a grand jury for questioning in 1993 and that my father seemed to be the target of their inquiry. The reason, according to the article, has something to do with malpractice on the part of the coroner who worked Poppy and Danny’s case.
Dr. Nelson, who had been the county coroner for ten years at the time of the Taylor siblings’ death, was removed from his post in 1990 after a whistleblower revealed that he often performed autopsies while under the influence. As a result, several convictions tied to his tenure have been overturned. This calls into question the time of death he gave for Danny and Poppy and ultimately could negate the alibi Vincent Taylor has been leaning on for so long.
I stare at the screen, thinking again of the story my father is telling me, spinning Danny as dangerous. Of Poppy’s diary hidden deep inside my duffel bag with references to films long gone. Wondering if somehow the information my father claims he never told police has something to do with the alibi.
I press the button to print the article and collect my things to go home.
***
“When is it okay to break an agreement you’ve made?” I’d called Tom as soon as I got in my car.
“Never,” he says.
His answer doesn’t surprise me, but I need him to give me a different one. “But what if you’re stuck?” I ask. “Like, you can’t honor one agreement without breaking another.”
“You figure out how to honor both, to the best of your ability.” He doesn’t even hesitate. There is no gray area for Tom. Only honor and truth and openness. “It may not be perfect, but that’s sometimes the best you can do.”
I wish I lived in a world like Tom’s. Where there are no secrets. No fictional backstories. No complicated traumas that make people behave in unexpected ways.
When I get back to my father’s house, I find Alma gathering their things, preparing to leave for his physical therapy appointment. My father sits on the couch, waiting, his hands clasped like an obedient child’s.
“Did you know there was a grand jury in 1993? That the coroner who did Poppy and Danny’s autopsy was using drugs?” I ask.
He looks up at me and I’m relieved to see his gaze clear. “My attorney had heard rumblings, but they quickly determined they didn’t have enough evidence to move forward.”
I wait for him to continue, but of course, he doesn’t. Apparently, that’s all he’s got to say on the subject of his near-indictment.
“Why didn’t you push for the investigation to continue after your parents died?”
He lifts one shoulder, a half shrug, and says, “All I wanted to do was forget. Your mother and I…we were traumatized. I’m certain it was at the root of all her problems later. Mine as well. We probably never should have gotten married. There’s a term for it now—trauma bonding.” He sighs. “My thinking at the time was that nothing would bring them back. My parents believed it was the man who’d given Poppy that ride home the weekend before. Who’d come back for the carnival, followed her to the house, and Danny got in the way. And that person was long gone.”
I cut my gaze toward Alma and lower my voice. “Here’s what I’m wondering.” I pause, trying to find a way to word my question so that he doesn’t feel attacked. “In all the articles I read, no one—and I mean no one—ever mentioned Danny as unstable or volatile. The only place I’ve ever heard that is from you.”
“Because no one outside of the family ever saw it,” he says. “And you’re the first person I’ve ever told.”
I think about how convenient it is that there isn’t anyone left of his family to corroborate this for him. It’s time for me to finally ask him about what he thinks Danny did to their sister. But what he says next sucks all the air from my lungs and renders my question obsolete. “Danny was a lot of things to me—hero and abuser—but I could never figure out how to suggest he could have been a killer.”