Harold motioned to the platter. “Help yourself.” Neither Lance nor Mary made a move for the cakes, and Harold sighed. “Yeah, they taste like shit. Josie makes them, so I bring them here to be polite. She thinks I love them.” Lance raised his eyebrows at Mary and she laughed into her hand. “So, what did you want to know, my boy? Mary mentioned you never knew your grandfather at all.”
Lance nodded. “My family wasn’t very close and I grew up near the cities, so …” Lance trailed off.
Harold had his eyes shut with a knowing look on his face. “Say no more, my boy. Sounds very familiar. I came from a family that didn’t talk—they yelled. And with what happened up there at the house, who could blame your father for not telling you. I suppose he wanted to protect you from something hurtful like that.”
Lance couldn’t help but huff a cynical laugh. Harold looked at him, and then at Mary. Lance just shook his head, and the older man shrugged and sipped his coffee.
“Sorry, I’m guessing you didn’t know my father. I think if he knew it would’ve hurt me, he would’ve told me. Anyhow, I guess I’d like to know about Erwin’s murder. John filled me in on the earlier history, but he was a little vague with the details about what actually happened up there.”
Harold sipped at his coffee again and then set it on the table before crossing his bony arms over his slight chest.
“History is nasty business sometimes. The thing that people forget is that when something happens, it doesn’t just die and fade away. Not anymore. Maybe a few thousand years ago it would’ve, but not now. No, there are people like me who remember everything. That’s what I was made to do: collect, categorize, and remember when others can’t or won’t.” Harold looked out of a nearby window and watched the sheets of rain cascade into the alley behind the building, his eyes lost in thought.
Finally he looked back to Lance, and then dropped his eyes to the table. “Aaron Haff. I remember the day that he walked in here. Good-looking man. Dark hair, strong build. Couldn’t really tell his age. He moved like a young man, but when you got up close, you realized his eyes were old, like he’d been through more than his mind could handle and it pushed him past his years. Jocelyn was working here with me then. She was all of twenty-five, and God, was she pretty.” Harold paused and looked at Lance. He must have read the expression on the younger man’s face. “My daughter. I could see right away they were taken with each other. That Aaron, his whole demeanor changed when she walked out of the back.” Harold leaned forward and rapped his knuckles on the wood of the table. “But I could’ve swore it was sincere. As much as I didn’t know that man, he was polite and courteous in a way that disarmed you. Jocelyn showed him around that day, and the last thing I heard him ask her was if she’d like to get a drink with him.”
“John said that he asked questions about Erwin when he arrived. Was Jocelyn the one who told him what he wanted to know?” Lance asked.
Harold rubbed his arms through his sweater as if he were cold. “I’m afraid so. He rented a room at the hotel here in town and came in almost every day of the week. I overheard him asking Josie one afternoon if she knew what part of Germany the Metzgers had come from. No one really knew that, not around here anyway.” Harold swallowed and frowned, the memory darkening his eyes.
Lance leaned forward toward the older man. “What happened at the end of the week?”