Page 55 of The Ghostwriter

I spend four days at home drafting several new chapters of my father’s memoir. Chapters that tell the truth of what happened. I want to have something to share with him when I return to Ojai. And I will be returning, regardless of what Alma wants. I need my father to know that this story doesn’t have to end the way he wants it to.

Nearly two months to the day after I made that first trip back to Ojai, I make it again. This time armed with answers.

***

I find him in the courtyard, enjoying the early May sunshine, his right hand wrapped in gauze. I approach him tentatively and sit on the bench next to him, resting my laptop on my knees. “How are you feeling?” I ask.

“Better,” he says. “That must have scared you.”

I wave away his words. “I should have done a better job to prepare you. I had no idea it would upset you so much.”

“Of course you didn’t,” he says.

The entire drive back, I ran through different ways to tell my father what I’d learned. What I suspect actually happened. And how to tell him without sending him back to the hospital.

“I went to see Mom,” I tell him.

He closes his eyes and nods. When he opens them again, he looks defeated. “Why can’t you just write the book I asked you to write?”

“Because that’s not the way I work, and I think you knew that, which is why you hired me.” Then I touch his arm. “I know you didn’t think I was paying attention, but I was. I found everything you left for me.”

He gives me a weak smile. “I know.”

“Why go through all that, Dad? Why not just tell me what you wanted me to know?”

He’s quiet for a moment, and I’m not sure if he’s trying to formulate an answer or if he’s gone somewhere else in his mind. “I wanted one last hunt with you,” he says. “Besides, when you thought I was being deceitful, you felt the information you were discovering was truer than if I’d just come out and told you.” He gives me a half shrug and continues. “When I first started showing symptoms, I made a plan. I put the notes in the margins for you to find. I knew what stories I wanted to tell. I just needed you here to listen.”

“I have one more clip I need to show you. Are you up for it?”

“I’ve got some pretty heavy-duty meds in me, so I’m game,” he says.

I nod and open my laptop. “That last week, Mom found Poppy’s Super 8 camera in the preserve. Danny had broken it because of something she’d recorded on it. The film from that day was still in it, and I had it transferred to digital.” The video is paused, frozen on the tree trunks of the oak grove near their house. “She meant to give the camera back to Poppy at some point, but then everything happened. This was Poppy’s last movie, shot just a few days before she died.” I glance at him, trying to gauge his mental state. “I need you to be ready,” I warn. “This one has sound. You’re going to hear their voices.”

A gentle smile floats across my father’s face. “The eleventh roll,” he whispers.

The beginning of the reel had been scenes from the ERA rally. She’d captured the speakers, the crowds of women, and finally Poppy, who’d turned her camera around on herself, lit up with an energy and passion that had brought tears to my eyes when I’d first seen it. How young she was. How happy. But I’ve skipped over all of that to the very last clip.

I press Play. At first all you can see are trees and someone walking through them. But this time we can hear the crunch of leaves. Birds singing. The camera finds the edge of Poppy’s scuffed tennis shoe, then back up again. A tent comes into focus, and Poppy zooms in on the two figures in front of it. Mr. Stewart, facing Danny.

“What are you doing out here by yourself?” Mr. Stewart asks.

“You’re the one who told me how powerful it is to camp alone in the woods,” Danny says, his seventeen-year-old voice lower than I expected it to be. Cracking with anger. Or nerves.

“You’ve been avoiding me since I moved in,” Mr. Stewart says, closing the space between them.

“I wonder why.”

Mr. Stewart steps even closer, forcing Danny to move back.

“We had a special connection, once upon a time,” Mr. Stewart says.

Danny’s face quickly becomes a mask, and he says, “What do you want, Mr. Stewart?”

“Remember, I said you could call me Paul when it’s just the two of us.”

“What do you want, Paul ?” Danny’s voice is now a sneer. “Surely, I’m too old for you. Are you still taking kids into that equipment shed? Telling them they’re special, explaining how to keep big secrets?” He snaps his fingers as if just remembering something. “Oh wait, you can’t because I burned it down.”

I glance at my father to make sure he’s okay. His expression is intent on the screen, watching the scene unfold.

“I got away from you once,” Danny says. “And you had to move in next door.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way, Danny. We’re neighbors now. Let’s be friendly about it at the very least. After all, it’s not like you’re blameless,” he says. “I know what you did to my cat, and yet I’m able to forgive you.”

Mr. Stewart grabs Danny’s wrist and pulls Danny toward him. Gripping Danny’s hand, he guides it lower, then reaches out with his other to caress Danny’s cheek. He leans in to kiss Danny on the lips, which seems to wake Danny up.

Danny shoves Mr. Stewart hard. “Get the fuck off me!”

Mr. Stewart holds his hands up as if he meant no harm, walking backward with a smile on his face like he’d only been joking. “I hope you’ll come to my end-of-year party tomorrow night. It should be fun.”

Then he’s gone.

Danny crouches down, covering his face with his arms, and sobs. When he finally looks up, he must see his sister, filming. His expression morphs into fear, then rage. He leaps up and Poppy takes off, the camera still rolling.

I stare at my father, watching him watch this moment play out, absorbing what it means. Knowing the ending. There are only a few seconds of film left and I know it by heart now. Flashes of dirt and leaves. Of sky. Of Danny’s enraged face. Poppy’s feet pounding on the ground, her breathing heavy. A glimpse of Poppy—her hair, her arm, her face at one point, terrified—then the camera pinwheeling through the air, going black.

When it’s over I say, “Did Mom know what Mr. Stewart had done to Danny? She spent a lot of time with him. Could he have done it to her as well?”

“No. I’m certain of it.” My mother had also been certain, but if she’d been lying to me, I’d have no way to know. “I knew you’d find the movies, but I hadn’t anticipated your mother keeping that last reel of film. She never told me she had it.” He stares across the courtyard, possibly imagining my mother as a young girl, squirreling away the evidence that would have changed his life. That would have changed mine as well. If he’s angry with her, he doesn’t show it.

“I talked to Margot and Mark.” He gives me a sharp look and I clarify. “I never mentioned the book. I told them I just wanted answers, as Danny and Poppy’s niece. They were able to tell me a few things that helped shade in those last weeks. One of the things Margot told me was about Mr. Stewart’s end-of-year party and how unusual it was that Poppy didn’t want to go.”

“She got drunk,” he says. “Caused a scene and I had to go get her. She was yelling something at Mr. Stewart about secrets.”

“Do you think it’s possible that might have tipped off Mr. Stewart about what she knew?”

My father looks at me, astonished. “You think…?”

“I have no proof that Mr. Stewart killed them. This video only proves what he did to Danny. But if Poppy threatened to tell—and from what you told me, she wanted you to meet her at the house so she could tell you something—it’s certainly a motive. And a very good reason why he agreed to lie to the police about where he was at the time of the murders.”

My father looks shaken. “All this time, we thought he was alibiing us because we forced him to.”

I’m quiet, letting my father piece together what I’ve shared with him, his gaze forward, yet his mind clearly far away in time. Finally I say, “I’m thinking we should—” but he cuts me off.

“I need a moment,” he says, struggling to stand. I move to help him, but he waves me off, walking to the edge of the courtyard where an archway leads into the orchard behind the house. He stands there, his hand braced on one side of it, and I watch his shoulders rise and fall.

Behind me, Alma comes to the door. “What’s happening?” she asks.

“Dad?” I say, my voice tentative.

“I’m fine,” he says, not looking at either of us.

After a second, Alma returns to the kitchen, and I wait for my father to gather himself.

When he sits next to me again, I say, “Are you okay?”

“I always thought he did it.”

“Mr. Stewart?” I ask.

“No. Danny. I always thought he’d killed Poppy because of the baby. Because he thought Poppy was going to tell.” He gives a tiny shake of his head. “I hated him for years, knowing what he’d done to your mother. Believing he’d been the one to kill Poppy. It felt righteous and white-hot and pure.” His voice spits that last word. “But now I have to rearrange all of it in my mind. Learn how to think about Danny in a different way. To allow myself to give space to what had been done to him. To what he had to carry for so long.” He pauses, gathering himself. “It’s not an excuse for what he did to your mother. I’ll never forgive him for that. But it gives those actions context. He was just a child.”

Then my father does something I’ve never seen him do. He cries. And I hold his hand and let him.

***

When he’s gathered himself, I say, “I want to put all of this in the book. We can’t prove Mr. Stewart killed them, but we can expose him for what he did to Danny. And likely to other kids as well. It would make sense that he would kill them both to keep them quiet.”

My father’s expression grows distant. Remembering his brother and sister. Absorbing the secrets they both carried. Adjusting to this new reality, one that finally absolves him. He nods. “Do it. Write it.”

“I already did,” I say. “Let me read it to you. Tell me if you want any revisions.” I flip to the manuscript on my computer and start to read aloud. “‘ I walked through the back door, into a silent house. Poppy was supposed to meet me there, and at first, I assumed I’d arrived before her. But within seconds, I realized that was not the case. The smell of blood—I’ll never forget that metallic, cloying scent that seemed to fill my nostrils, forcing me to breathe through my mouth—was overpowering. I saw Danny almost immediately. Dead in the hallway, where he’d landed. Trying—and failing—to reach Poppy, who was crumpled on her bed in a pool of blood. ’”

I read my father the rest. How he’d scurried out the back door again, taking the knife with him. How he hadn’t been thinking and then worried it might implicate him. How he and my mother had asked Mr. Stewart to alibi them, and their surprise at how easy it had been to convince him.

When I’m done, I look up at my father, relieved to see his approval.

“It’s great,” he says. “Send it to Neil.”

“I do have one lingering question,” I say. “You’ve spent the last fifty years believing Danny killed Poppy. But who did you believe killed Danny?”

“Send the manuscript,” he says, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“They’re going to have the same question,” I tell him. “It should be a quick fix.”

“I want you to send it now,” he insists.

He watches as I attach the chapter and send it off to Monarch, cc’ing Nicole.

Then he says, “Now that’s done, I need to tell you what really happened.”