Lineage(95)

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?”

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.”