Lineage

Harold grimaced as if the coffee had turned sour. “He came in here that day. He was talking to Jocelyn in the front of the museum area, right by the door. I heard her say ‘Why?’ a little too loud for regular conversation, so I peeked around the edge of an exhibit we had set up near the back of the shop. That Aaron was holding her hands in front of him like a soldier about to go off to war. I could see she was crying, and I was about to step out and ask if everything was all right when he just let go of her and walked out the door. She watched him go through the window.

“It was raining like this that day. We heard the sirens around one in the afternoon. The cars blazed right through town and kept going. None of us had the foggiest about what was happening. It was only later when a neighbor of mine came in, whose brother was a sheriff’s deputy, that we found out. From what he said, Aaron drove right up to the house and parked outside. Walked up to the front door and kicked it in. Erwin and Annette were in the living room watching the lake, and Erwin came out to meet him just next to the stairs there. After that, it gets a little hazy, and all the sheriff had to go off of was the ballistics report. Apparently, Aaron made Erwin kneel down before him, put the gun to his head, and pulled the trigger. Annette saw the whole thing.”

Harold shook his head in dismay, his color paling. “As far as I know, she’s never spoken again. I asked Jocelyn what he’d asked her during that week, and she’d just said normal questions about the Metzgers: what their business was, who knew them in town, what they were like. When I asked her what he’d said to her that day before he left to go kill your grandfather, she got real quiet. I had to pester her a little, until she finally told me he’d just come to say goodbye and that he was sorry.”

“Sorry?” Lance asked.

“Yes. That he was sorry he’d met her when he did. At the time she didn’t know what to think. Afterwards, she slowly closed herself off. You see, a few people had seen them out together having a drink and, well, you know how small towns are.”

Lance nodded. Harold sipped his coffee again before he continued.

“She moved away a month after Erwin was killed, just up and gone one day. Didn’t call Josie or me until nearly a week later, and we worried ourselves sick while we waited. She just said she couldn’t live here after what happened, couldn’t stand to look people in the face. I told her it was nonsense, that she should come home, but she wouldn’t have it. She felt responsible on some level, telling Aaron what she did without knowing what he was planning. I think she felt so betrayed, also, that the thought of setting foot back here again was like tearing an old scar open.”

“If you gave me her number, do you think she would talk with me? I’d just like to know a little …” Lance trailed off as Mary’s hand squeezed his arm, and when he looked at her, her head shook from side to side.

“I’m sorry, but she passed away a little over a year after she left home,” Harold said, his voice breaking like dry kindling. “She fell asleep at the wheel of her car one night. We’d visited her a few times just before it happened. She finally told us where she’d gone—a little town in northern Iowa, just across the border. We had the funeral there too. We figured she wouldn’t have wanted to come home.” Tears leaked from the corners of Harold’s eyes; the sound that might have gone with them had dried up over the years. All that remained was the man’s memory of his daughter and the unavoidable grief that it brought.

“God, I’m so sorry,” Lance said, but Harold sniffled once and shook his head.

“It’s okay. I just loved her so much, it’s still hard to believe she’s been gone for over thirty years.”

The room fell silent in the wake of the older man’s words. The rain tapped against the window, asking to be let in, and receding thunder grumbled at the tossing waves of the lake.

After several minutes, Harold cleared his throat and took his glasses off to be polished repetitively by a practiced hand. “Mary said you wanted to know about something else too? Rhinelander, was it?”

Lance nodded, trying to shake off the guilt he felt for making the other man expound on his daughter’s death. “Yes. I heard someone say that he was a missing person?” Lance tried to sound casual, not wanting to delve into the details of his visit to Riverside.

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