Page 33 of The Ghostwriter

Three days after my conversation with Margot, I’m sitting on a Zoom call again with Nicole and the team at Monarch. I’m supposed to meet Mark Randall, Danny’s best friend, at the country club in an hour, and I’m anxious I might be late.

To be honest, I’m glad to be busy, filling my days with interviews, research, and meetings and my evenings at Jack and Matt’s. Anything to avoid the silence of my phone. Tom has always been a touchstone for me at the end of the day, no matter where I am in the world. But now it’s just this suffocating quiet.

Neil’s face comes onto the screen and he’s smiling. “Olivia, we’ve all had a chance to read the new chapter and we wanted to tell you we loved it.”

Nicole grins, but I fight a tightening in my chest. “I’m really glad to hear that,” I say. “But I’m actually going to have to pull that chapter.”

A shadow passes across Neil’s face, and I push on, hoping my explanation will be compelling enough for him to want to see the revision. “I’ve come across some information that renders that chapter incorrect, as it was told to me by Mr. Taylor,” I say. “In his retelling, it was Danny who’d killed the neighbor’s cat and buried it. But I’ve recently discovered that it was Mr. Taylor himself who’d done that.”

A murmur passes through the team, their faces showing intrigue, shock, excitement. “I can rewrite it pretty easily,” I continue. “The scene itself happened as he described it to me.”

Neil finally speaks, his voice tight. “What’s your source material for the change?” he asks.

“Poppy was an aspiring filmmaker. Mr. Taylor told me about how she’d gotten a Super 8 camera for her last birthday and spent those final months filming everything and everyone,” I tell them. “He still has some of her old reels.”

“There are movies?” Neil asks, his tone lifting. Hungry.

“A few, yes,” I tell him. “But there’s no sound.”

Excitement ripples through the room. I hear the words exclusive web content. Tie-ins.

I hurry to explain. “On one of the reels is a clip of young Vincent with a shovel, burying a dead cat.” Neil’s eyes nearly sparkle at the idea of something so dark and sinister at his fingertips. “But that’s not the story he’s told me,” I continue. “It’s been tricky, navigating his memories without upsetting him. He seems to truly believe that it was Danny who buried the cat, and I have to be careful not to push him too hard. But there is definitive proof that it was Vincent.”

“Would you be able to send the movies to us?” Neil asks.

“I’ll ask Mr. Taylor,” I tell them. “This was his sister, remember. His brother. He wasn’t aware of the existence of these reels either, so I want to be respectful.”

But the truth is, I’m the one who is hesitating. I’m not too eager to share them until I’m certain what they reveal.

“Go ahead and rewrite that chapter and send it over,” Neil says, before signing off.

When they’re gone, Nicole asks, “If he didn’t know about the film reels, how did you come across them?”

I realize my mistake and quickly formulate a lie, substituting the diary for the films. “He gave me some boxes to look through. Stuff packed up from the house long ago that he never had the heart to throw away. Most of it was junk, but some of Poppy’s things were in one of them—old folders, schoolwork, and these movies.”

“Wow,” she says. “That’s a lucky break.”

All these years, I’ve thought the story I told people about my family was harmless. But now I can see that I’m no different from my father, omitting everything that feels painful or complicated. I’m beginning to realize that once you lie about your past, you wall yourself off from the present. From the people who care about you. And now that I’m tasked with tunneling through my father’s lies—hardened and calcified by time—I wonder who will stick around to tunnel through my walls and find me.

Not Tom.

***

Mark Randall looks older, his gray hair cropped close to his head, and he wears khaki pants and a light-green collared shirt. But he still maintains an air of authority, and I feel as if he’s caught me doing something I’m not supposed to be doing.

“Thanks for meeting with me,” I say. We’re sitting in the restaurant of the local country club, a large, airy room that overlooks the golf course, filled with dark wood and vintage photographs of golfers on the wall.

“I’m not sure what you’re hoping I can tell you,” he says.

“I’m guessing you’ve heard that my father is sick, that he’s nearing the end of his life.” He nods and I continue. “I have questions about those months leading up to the murders. I want to know what really happened to my family.” I bow my head and look at my hands in my lap, wishing again I could take notes or record the conversation. But that’s what a writer would do, not a daughter seeking answers.

A server comes and takes our drink order—iced tea for me, a sparkling water for him. I remember that Jack said his dad has been sober for nearly twenty years, and I wonder how sharp his memories of that day are, or whether they’ve been softened and marinated by years of alcohol abuse.

“What does he have?” he asks.

“Lewy body dementia,” I tell him. “Basically, he’s losing control of his mind and his body.”

Mark winces. “I’d like to say I’m sorry, but I’m not.” He looks out the giant plate-glass window and onto the course. In the distance, a foursome finishes up and loads their bags into their white golf cart.

The server returns with our drinks, and we each smile our thanks, dismissing her.

“Tell me about Danny,” I say. “Did he have a lot of girlfriends? Margot tells me she had quite a crush on him.”

Mark laughs and says, “Margot was a cute kid. But yeah, most of the girls had a crush on Danny at one point or another.”

“Anyone lucky enough to date him?”

“Here and there. Now and then,” Mark says, and I wonder what that means. “Nobody serious.”

“Why are you so convinced my father was the one who killed them?”

Mark takes a drink and says, “That night at the carnival, I was in the haunted house and saw your father and Poppy arguing. She needed to tell him something, but she didn’t want to talk about it there, so they made a plan to meet back at their place in ten minutes.” Mark looks at me, trying to gauge whether I can see what he’s suggesting. Then he says, “If your father was in the oak grove with your mother and Mr. Stewart, how could he be meeting Poppy?”

“Maybe he didn’t show up,” I say.

“Or maybe that junkie coroner got the time of death wrong.”

“Margot told me the same thing. But I read there was a grand jury and that the coroner was cleared.”

Mark looks at me, his gaze steady and sure. “Grand juries get things wrong all the time.”

“I understand that my father and Danny were fighting a lot in those final days,” I say.

Mark gives a hollow laugh. “That’s an understatement.”

“Enough for him to kill Danny? And then kill his sister?” I look at him, trying to see things from his perspective. Trying to travel back in time through his eyes to that day in 1975.

“I’ll put it this way. We were all taught never to hurt a girl. But from the looks of what I walked into at the haunted house, Vince had no such concern. He had his sister shoved up against a wall. She looked terrified. He looked like a psycho.”

“What were they fighting about?” I ask. Thinking about the abortion. Poppy and Margot’s suspicions about Mr. Stewart. Could Mark have overheard Poppy telling my father and walked up just as my father was reacting to the news? But then why would Poppy agree to meet him back at the house?

“No clue. But that was Vince. Always going off about something. Danny told me Vince had come after him with a knife for no reason, just a few days earlier. Completely lost his shit on him.” Mark shakes his head. “It’s my fault Danny went back to that house. I told him about their fight, and…” He trails off, remembering. “He got real quiet. Then he told me he had something to do, and he’d be right back.”

I think about everything Margot told me and about my father’s night terror, searching for a missing knife in a place no one would ever think to look for it. Of how he told me Poppy had been following Danny, describing Danny as volatile and dangerous, and yet Poppy’s home movies show the opposite. They’re filled with clips of my father. Not just of him sneaking out, but charging at Poppy as she filmed, anger on his face, spit flying from his mouth. There was even a clip of my parents, silently fighting in the backyard. My mother, scared and withdrawn, my father pushing into her space. Causing her to step back further.

I pull out my phone and open up the photo of the graffiti I found on Poppy’s closet wall. Someday soon, you’ll be dead. “I think my father wrote that inside Poppy’s closet.”

Mark nods. “Yeah, I totally believe he’d say that to her.”

“So your theory is that Poppy was the target, that my father was angry with her, hurt her, and Danny got in the middle of it?”

“Your father was angry at everyone. But yeah. If things got physical back at the house and Danny walked in on that, there’s no way Danny wouldn’t have intervened,” Mark says.

“Did you tell the police?” I ask.

“Of course I did,” he says. “But I was a kid. They didn’t give a shit about what I had to say. And Vince had that alibi, so what I told them went nowhere.” Mark taps the table in front of him with his finger, as if trying to drill his words into me. “I know what I saw. I know what I heard. Your father went back to that house angry at his sister, and my best friend died trying to protect her.”

His voice is laced with emotion, of unshed tears and nearly fifty years of frustration.

“Maybe my father changed his mind,” I say. “Or got sidetracked by that argument with my mother.”

Mark gives me a hard stare and says, “You asked me what I thought. That’s what I think.”

“What about that teacher, Mr. Stewart?” I ask, thinking of the abortion rumors. Of teenage Margot and Poppy suspecting the baby might have been his. “I hear my father was pretty jealous of the time my mother spent with him. Was he right to be worried?”

Mark shakes his head and takes a sip of his drink. “Nah. Mr. Stewart wasn’t that kind of a guy. Sure, he pushed boundaries. He’d be crucified in today’s world, but he had a girlfriend.” He looks thoughtful, trying to grab the name. “Amanda? Amelia? I can’t remember. Believe me, girls tried to get together with him, but they all got nowhere.”

“Why would he get crucified now?”

Mark shrugs. “He was a young guy who understood what it was like to be a teenager in a small town. He’d buy beer and keep it in the fridge on his back porch. He knew Danny and I would sneak over and steal it, but he didn’t care. He used to sell a little weed now and then, but only to the older kids. And he’d throw a big party the final week of school,” Mark says. “There must have been at least a hundred kids there that last year.” He gives a hollow laugh. “Different times.”

He takes another drink, emptying his glass, then slides it onto the table, away from him. Signaling the end of our conversation. He tosses a couple dollars next to his empty glass and says, “You did the right thing to come home—for yourself, not for your father. It’s an awful thing to go through life feeling as if there had been more to say to someone.” He pauses, as if considering his next words. “But I’m not sure you going around asking questions about what happened in 1975 is a good idea. Danny’s gone. Poppy is gone. You should just leave them where they are and move on. Very rarely do people like what they find when they go digging into the past.”

“My grandmother used to say something like that,” I tell him, remembering what my father had shared with me.

“Your grandmother was a piece of work, but that’s a different conversation for another day.” He checks the time. “I need to get on the course. My tee time is in five minutes.”

He exits the restaurant without looking back.