Legacy Of Terror

of amnesia, after all, in which anything could be done and later go unremembered…
    “Rand says that they had several reports about a hitchhiker on the highway, just down from here, shortly after the murder. Three people have come forward since the newspaper story broke, and two of them collaborate well. A large man, perhaps twenty-five or twenty-six, dressed in jeans and work-shirt, carrying one suitcase."'
    “But they can't be sure,” Paul said.
    “Not until they find him.”
    Paul said, “If they ever do.”
    Elaine wanted out of there, but she did not know how to graciously depart. She did not want to hurt anyone's feelings, but she could not take this self-recrimination of Paul Honneker's much longer. Could not take it, chiefly, because she did not know whether or not to believe it was based in truth.
    “If you can't eat, Paul, you don't have to remain,” Lee said. He spoke gently, calmly, soothingly, as if he had had a great deal of experience with the other man's moods.
    “Come on, Uncle Paul,” Dennis said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and shoving back from the table. “I'll show you the painting I just finished. It's my best so far, I think.”
    Paul Honneker accepted the invitation with the first expression of pleasure he had shown since he had arrived at the table. He seemed to like the older Matherly son. Elaine supposed that the irresponsible people of this world attracted one another.
    When she had checked Jacob Matherly's blood pressure, temperature, and heartbeat for the evening and had duly recorded her findings in the note folder which the doctor had provided, the old man said, “So someone has told you about Christmas Eve.”
    She said, “Have they?”
    “It shows in your face.”
    Unconsciously, she raised a hand to her cheek, as if she might feel the change.
    “You're still quite pretty,” Jacob said. “But there's a weariness there, a coldness. It happens to anyone when they have to face a story like that one.”
    He did not seem to be excited over the memory any longer. The events of the last several hours had forced him to dredge it up and examine it from every angle, and it no longer frightened him.
    She said, “The Bradshaws told me.”
    “Those vampires!”
    Despite herself, she laughed. “Aren't they just?”
    “Money will never do them any good, because they'll never be satisfied that they have enough of it to be happy.”
    She agreed.
    He said, “Sit down, Elaine. I want you to hear it from me.”
    “Christmas Eve?”
    He said, “Yes.”
    “Do you feel you should talk about it?”
    “The memory hurt me for a while,” Jacob admitted. “But that was only because I'd tried to force it out of my mind. I hadn't fully succeeded, of course, but over the years I had managed to dull the memory. Now, it is back, sharp and clear, and I've learned to accept it again. It'll help if I tell you; it'll unburden me a bit. Besides, I want to be sure that you hear it the way it was, not embroidered by the Bradshaws.”

Chapter 7
    Christmas Eve, 1957.
    Snow. It had begun to snow early in the day, lightly at first, like a fine dusting of powdered sugar spilled across the streets and lawns. As the afternoon wore on, the cloud masses hung lower and became a more leaden gray, evenly colored so that one could not tell where the sun lay behind the sky's shroud. By four o'clock, the road crews were plowing and cindering. Those who had dared the city streets to complete last minute shopping were finding it rough going; cars were angled oddly across the pavement as more inexperienced drivers gritted their teeth and cursed themselves for ignoring the weather reports.
    Everything at the restaurants checked out as it should. They would be able to serve a record number of Christmas dinners to those who chose not to eat at home as most people did-the elderly whose children no longer thought of them, young lovers not interested in sharing a magic time with parents, single people without family and afraid to remain alone on such a quiet, bleak day. Jacob left the Brass Lantern Inn, the last of the Matherly eateries to be checked out, got his car from the garage and started the weary drive home.
    At twenty minutes of six, he pulled into the garage and shut the engine off. No other cars were there. Lee and the boys were shopping. Jerry and Bess had the day off and wouldn't get back until nine or ten, early enough for Bess to start making a few preparations for tomorrow's traditional feast.
    When he stepped through the front door, he