Walter opened the letter at 8:12 the next morning.
Daniel knew the exact time because he had been sitting across the street in his mother's car, waiting.
He had not planned to spy.
At least, that was what he told himself.
But after seeing the green sedan the previous afternoon, he could not stop thinking about the stranger behind the wheel.
Walter had asked Daniel to stay out of it.
Daniel had agreed.
Then he had spent the entire night wondering whether agreeing was the same as doing the right thing.
At 8:13, Walter stepped onto the porch.
He was holding the letter.
He did not sit.
He stood beneath the hanging flowers and read it twice.
Then he lowered the paper.
Daniel watched him cover his mouth.
The old man looked suddenly much smaller than he had the day before.
Daniel got out of the car.
Walter saw him.
“You shouldn't be here.”
“I know.”
“You promised.”
“I know.”
Walter folded the letter.
Then he walked toward the gate.
“Come here.”
Daniel crossed the street.
Walter handed him the paper.
Daniel hesitated.
“Read it.”
The letter contained only a few lines.
The writer claimed to know the truth about Michael's accident.
The police report, it said, was incomplete.
There had been another car at the intersection.
A witness had seen it.
That witness had never spoken because someone had threatened him.
At the bottom of the letter was an address.
Daniel recognized the street.
It was only twelve minutes away.
Walter took the paper back.
“Who lives there?”
“I don't know.”
“Are you going?”
Walter looked at him.
“Yes.”
Daniel expected Walter to tell him to stay home.
Instead, the old man said, “You can come.”
They drove separately.
Walter's old sedan moved slowly through town.
Daniel followed on his bicycle.
The address belonged to a narrow brick house behind a row of tall hedges.
Walter parked across the street.
For several minutes, he did not leave the car.
Daniel stood beside him.
“What are you afraid of?”
Walter looked at the house.
“Finding out I was wrong.”
“About what?”
“About Michael.”
They crossed the street.
An elderly woman answered the door.
Her name was Ruth Palmer.
When she saw Walter, her face went pale.
“I wondered when you'd come.”
Walter stared at her.
“You sent the letters.”
Ruth nodded.
“Yes.”
Daniel looked at Walter.
Walter seemed unable to speak.
Ruth opened the door wider.
“Come inside.”
The house smelled of old books and furniture polish.
On the dining room table sat a cardboard box.
Ruth opened it.
Inside were photographs.
Newspaper clippings.
A police statement.
And a photograph of Michael.
Daniel recognized him immediately from the family pictures in Walter's house.
He was smiling beside a bicycle.
Ruth touched the photograph.
“My husband took this two weeks before the accident.”
Walter picked it up.
“Why did you wait?”
“Because my husband was afraid.”
“Afraid of whom?”
Ruth looked toward the window.
“The man driving the second car.”
Walter stared at her.
“Who was he?”
Ruth shook her head.
“We never knew his name.”
Daniel frowned.
“But the letter said you knew.”
“I knew his face.”
She removed another photograph.
This one showed the intersection.
Two cars were visible.
One was the truck listed in the police report.
The second was farther back.
A dark-green sedan.
Daniel felt his pulse quicken.
“That's the car.”
Walter looked at him.
“The one from yesterday.”
Ruth nodded.
“You saw it?”
“Yesterday.”
Ruth's face tightened.
“Then he knows you're asking questions.”
Walter stepped closer.
“Why didn't you go to the police?”
“My husband tried.”
“What happened?”
“He was threatened.”
Ruth's voice broke slightly.
“They told him that if he spoke again, his business would burn.”
Walter closed his eyes.
“And you believed them.”
“My husband did.”
“What about after he died?”
Ruth looked down.
“I was afraid.”
Silence filled the room.
Then Daniel noticed something.
One of the photographs had been taken from inside a house.
The angle was high.
The photographer had been looking toward the intersection through a window.
“Who took this?”
Ruth turned.
“My husband.”
“From where?”
“The house next door.”
Daniel pointed.
“There wasn't a house there in this picture.”
“There was.”
Walter looked at the photograph.
“Who owned it?”
Ruth hesitated.
Then she said, “You.”
Daniel looked at Walter.
Walter went still.
“My house?”
Ruth nodded.
“Your upstairs bedroom window had a clear view of the intersection.”
Walter's face changed.
He looked at Daniel.
Daniel suddenly remembered the locked hallway.
The old closet.
The child's jacket.
The photographs.
The buried box.
“Mr. Bennett,” Daniel said quietly, “did you take a picture that night?”
Walter did not answer.
Ruth looked at him.
“You did, didn't you?”
Walter sat down.
His hands trembled.
“Yes.”
Daniel felt the room tighten around them.
Walter explained that after the accident, police officers had come to his house because they believed Michael had left from there.
Walter had been too devastated to understand what they were asking.
An officer had taken photographs from the upstairs window.
Walter remembered hearing someone mention another vehicle.
But by the time he returned to the subject, the investigation had already settled on the truck.
“I thought they knew more than I did,” Walter said.
“Did you keep the photographs?”
Walter looked at Daniel.
“I kept everything.”
Ruth stood.
“The box?”
Walter nodded.
“The one under the maple tree.”
Daniel finally understood.
The metal box had not contained memories alone.
It had contained evidence.
They returned to Walter's house before noon.
The grass still showed the faint path where Daniel had discovered the box.
Walter stood beneath the maple tree with a shovel.
He dug carefully.
The soil was dry near the surface but dark beneath it.
After several minutes, the shovel struck metal.
Daniel knelt.
Walter lifted the box.
This time, he did not hesitate.
The leather strap had nearly rotted away.
Inside were photographs, a child's watch, a school identification card, several folded papers, and a small cassette tape.
Daniel stared at the cassette.
“What is that?”
Walter picked it up.
“Michael recorded everything.”
“Everything?”
“Arguments. Conversations. Things he thought were funny.”
Walter's thumb moved over the label.
One date was written across it.
October 13, 1999.
The day before the accident.
Daniel looked at Walter.
“Can we hear it?”
Walter stared at the cassette.
For twenty-seven years, he had avoided listening.
Now he nodded.
Inside the house, Walter found an old cassette player.
The machine took three attempts before it worked.
Static filled the room.
Then a teenage voice came through.
“Testing this thing.”
Walter froze.
Daniel had never heard him breathe so sharply.
Michael laughed on the recording.
Then came footsteps.
A door.
A second voice.
An argument.
Walter's own younger voice.
Daniel looked at him.
The recording continued.
Michael said something they could not understand.
Then another sound appeared in the background.
A car horn.
A man's voice.
And finally, a sentence that made Walter rise so quickly that his chair scraped backward.
“Dad, that car has been following me.”
The tape clicked.
Silence.
Walter stared at the machine.
Daniel looked toward the window.
Across the street, parked beneath the trees, was the same dark-green sedan.
This time, the engine was off.
A man was sitting behind the wheel.
Walter slowly stood.
The stranger raised one hand.
Not a wave.
A warning.
Walter reached for the telephone.
Daniel stepped closer.
“Call the police.”
Walter lifted the receiver.
Then the phone rang.
The sound made both of them jump.
Walter answered.
No one spoke.
Only breathing.
Then a man's voice came through.
“You should have left the box buried.”
Walter's face went white.
Daniel watched him grip the phone.
The voice continued.
“You've spent twenty-seven years believing your son died because you sent him away.”
A pause.
“He didn't.”
Walter whispered, “Who are you?”
The caller laughed softly.
“You'll find out soon.”
The line went dead.
Walter lowered the receiver.
Daniel looked at him.
“What do we do now?”
Walter stared at the cassette, the photographs, and the old red piece of fabric lying on the table.
Then he looked through the window at the green sedan.
“We stop hiding.”
Click Here to continue read next: PART5: Walter Finally Chose to Face the Past, but the Evidence in Michael’s Tape Revealed a Second Secret No One Had Been Ready to Hear
The Mower Suddenly Stopped Beneath the Tall Grass, and the Old Man on the Porch Stood Up as Though He Had Seen a Ghost
Part 4 of 16
