Chapter 15 - WHAT BESS NEVER TOLD ME
Bess came to me before the prosecutor could.
She looked exhausted.
“I should have told you sooner.”
I almost laughed.
“That sentence is getting popular around here.”
She accepted that.
We sat in the kitchen.
Same room where she first told me to keep my head down.
“What did you hide?”
Bess folded her hands.
“Your father came here one final time.”
“When?”
“About eight months before he got sick enough to stop working.”
I waited.
“He met Garrett.”
I stared at her.
“That’s impossible.”
Garrett would have been twenty-one.
Home from college.
Bess nodded.
“He asked Thomas why he hated the family.”
“What did Dad say?”
“He told him he didn’t hate the family.”
“He hated what powerful men convinced themselves they were allowed to do.”
I looked toward the doorway.
Garrett stood there.
He had heard.
His face went still.
Bess continued.
“Thomas gave him a folder.”
Garrett frowned.
“I don’t remember that.”
“You were drunk.”
He looked embarrassed.
Bess almost smiled.
“You had fought with your father.”
“Thomas found you in the stable.”
Garrett closed his eyes.
Then something returned.
A memory.
“A man with a blue jacket.”
Bess nodded.
“My father always wore blue work jackets.”
Garrett sat down.
“He told me my father wasn’t a good man.”
“Yes.”
“I thought he was bitter.”
Bess looked at him.
“He was trying to warn you.”
Garrett stared at his hands.
“What happened to the folder?”
“You burned it.”
His head lifted.
“What?”
“You were angry.”
“You said nobody talked about your father that way.”
Garrett’s face drained.
He remembered.
Not everything.
Enough.
My stomach tightened.
My father had tried.
Again.
Garrett had destroyed the warning.
He looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
I wanted to be angry.
Part of me was.
But he had been twenty-one.
Drunk.
Loyal to a father he didn’t yet understand.
My father’s letter came back to me.
Do not waste your life hating them.
Make them answer.
There is a difference.
I asked Bess.
“Why did Celeste know?”
“Victor knew Thomas met Garrett.”
“He didn’t know what was said.”
“So Celeste used it.”
“Yes.”
Garrett stood.
“I could have known twenty years ago.”
I answered.
“Maybe.”
He looked at me.
“But you know now.”
He nodded slowly.
That was when the estate phone rang.
Percy answered.
His face changed.
“Mr. Harwick.”
Garrett took the receiver.
Listened.
Then looked at me.
“What?”
He covered the phone.
“Victor collapsed.”
I felt nothing.
“Is he dead?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
Garrett’s expression hardened.
“He wants to confess before surgery.”
May you like
Not to police.
To me.
