Legacy Of Terror

for some unimaginable crime.
    “I didn't talk to your neighbors, Gordon,” she said. She felt, paradoxically, as if she had to defend herself. “Your grandfather mentioned it, but didn't tell me what had happened then. And I thought, from talking to him, that it was only this past Christmas.”
    His face softened a little, though he was still a long way from the talkative and charming man who had escorted her about the house.
    He said, “You must excuse grandfather. He becomes confused easily since his stroke.”
    “I've begun to suspect as much.”
    “What exactly did he tell you?”
    She recounted the eerie conversation.
    “Someone trying to murder him?” Gordon asked, incredulous.
    “So he says.”
    “It's the first I've heard of it.”
    “Evidently, he has told your father.”
    Gordon frowned. “And dad didn't want the rest of us to know how far gone the old fellow is.”
    “Your father seems genuinely concerned about him.”
    “They're close. Closer than dad and I.” The last was said with plain dissatisfaction.
    “What did happen?” she asked, interested enough to pursue the point still.
    “I choose not to talk about it.”
    “I'm sorry if I've pried-”
    “You better check on grandfather now,” he said. He turned away from her and went down the stairs.
    Whatever had transpired on that Christmas Eve fifteen years ago had been an indeed unpleasant event. The old man couldn't summon up the will to tell her, and Gordon was clearly afraid to. But why was he afraid? Was it something that would so disgust her or scare her that she might decide not to work here after all?
    She clamped her imagination into a can and sealed it away. She best do what Gordon had suggested and see that Jacob was all right.
    The old man was sitting in one of the easy chairs, his tray of food mostly eaten and pushed to one side. A book lay open in his lap, though he did not seem to have been reading it.
    “Come here and sit down,” he said. His voice was a file drawn over sandpaper, delicate as sugar lace and ready to shatter into countless pieces.
    She sat in the other easy chair, across from him, and she felt as if she were being devoured by the huge arms, high back and extra- thick padding. The chair was so comfortable that it was almost uncomfortable.
    “You've met them all?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she said. “Bess is a magnificent cook.”
    “I hired Jerry and Bess when I was a young man- and they were younger. But that is neither here nor there. I want to tell you about the others.”
    “Tell me what?” she asked. She was finding it easier to maintain her calm before the old man's pitiable condition. She supposed that, in a short while, a few days, she would be able to listen to his rambled tales of attempted murder without giving away her disbelief.
    “First of all, let's take Paul. He is-was-whatever tense we need for this situation-the younger brother of Amelia, Lee's wife. He is the exact same blood as she was, and we should therefore pay closer attention to him that to either of the boys.” He coughed a dry cough and said, “What did you think of him?”
    She told him what little she could of her opinion of Paul Honneker from this first meeting.
    “When you know him better,” Jacob said, “you'll see more than his jolly side. The poor boy can't hold a job. He is thirty-seven years old and chronically unemployed. Its in his nature. He can't tolerate bosses. The same as Amelia. She loathed taking orders or even responding to any request that wasn't suffixed with a 'please'. He lives here because Amelia's will provided him a place here as long as he lives. She knew how shiftless he was. She also left him one third of the stock and bond fortune Lee had built for her with what inheritance she had received from her mother's estate.”
    She said, “You say these uncomplimentary things about Paul, but you seem to like him.”
    “I do. Its not the boy's fault that he has that Honneker blood, the same blood that was Amelia's downfall. I pity him. I want the best for him. But the fact remains that he was her brother and must be watched.”
    The soft chair seemed to be growing softer as she listened to the old man's directionless paranoia and tried to think of some way to change the subject.
    “Denny,” the old man said, “has a great deal of talent. He is an artist of some merit. He plays piano and guitar, and he writes a little.”
    “He seemed frivolous to me,” she said.
    Jacob raised his eyebrows, then chuckled. “He is that. He certainly is frivolous. He