The Bay at Midnight - By Diane Chamberlain Page 0,2
got really depressed. I only knew him as a sad sort of person.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again. I couldn’t picture handsome, athletic Ned Chapman as a beaten-down, fifty-nine-year-old man, but then we’d all changed after that summer.
“Dad doesn’t know I’ve come to see you,” Abby said. “And he wouldn’t be happy about it, but I just had to.”
I leaned forward, wishing she would get to the point. “Why are you here, Abby?” I asked.
She nodded as if readying herself to say something she’d rehearsed. “Dad and I cleaned out Uncle Ned’s town house,” she said. “I was going through his kitchen and I found an envelope in one of the drawers addressed to the Point Pleasant Police Department. Dad opened it and…” She reached into her pocketbook and handed me a sheet of paper. “This is just a copy.”
I looked down at the short, typed missive, dated two months earlier.
To Whom it May Concern:
I have information about a murder that occurred in your jurisdiction in 1962. The wrong person paid for that crime. I’m terminally ill and want to set the record straight. I can be contacted at the above phone number.
Sincerely, Ned Chapman
“My God.” I leaned against the back of the rocker and closed my eyes. I thought my head might explode with the meaning behind the words. “He was going to confess,” I said.
“We don’t know that,” Abby said quickly. “I mean, Dad is absolutely sure Uncle Ned didn’t do it. I mean, he is completely sure. But he’d told me about you long ago. My mom and I have read all your books, and so of course he told me everything about you. He said how you suspected that Uncle Ned did it, even though no one else did, so I thought you had a right to know about the letter. I told Dad we should take it to the police. I mean, it sounds like the guy who was sent to prison might not have done it.”
“Absolutely,” I agreed, holding the letter in the air. “The police need to see this.”
Abby bit her lip. “The only thing is, Dad doesn’t want to take it to them. He said that the man who was convicted died in prison, so it doesn’t really matter now.”
I felt tears spring to my eyes. I knew that George Lewis had died of pneumonia five years into serving his life sentence for my sister’s murder. I’d always believed that he’d been wrongly imprisoned. How cruel and unfair.
“At the very least, his name should be cleared,” I said firmly.
“I think so, too,” Abby agreed. “But Dad is afraid that the police will jump to the conclusion that Uncle Ned did it, just like you did. My uncle was screwed up, but he could never hurt anyone.”
I pulled a tissue from my shorts’ pocket and removed my glasses to blot the tears from my eyes. “Maybe he did hurt someone,” I suggested gently, slipping my glasses on again. “And maybe that’s what screwed him up.”
Abby shook her head. “I know it looks that way, but Dad said Ned had an airtight alibi. That he was home when your sis—when it happened.”
“It sounds like your father wants to protect his brother no matter what,” I said, trying not to sound as bitter as I felt. “If your father won’t take this to the police,” I said, “I will.” I didn’t mean it to sound like a threat, but it probably did.
“I understand,” Abby said. “And I agree the police need to know. But Dad…” She shook her head. “Would you consider talking to him?” she asked.
I thought of how unwelcome that conversation would be to Ethan. “It doesn’t sound like he wants to talk about it,” I said. “And you said he’d be angry that you came here.”
“He won’t be angry,” Abby said. “He never really gets angry. He’ll just be…upset. I’ll tell him I came. But then, if you could call him, maybe you could persuade him.You have the biggest personal stake in this.”
She didn’t understand how the thought of revisiting the summer of 1962 made my palms sweat and my stomach burn. I thought about George Lewis’s sister, Wanda, and the personal stake she would have in this. I thought about his cousin Salena, the woman who’d raised him. Nothing would return my sister to her family or George Lewis to his, but at the very least, we all deserved to know the truth. “Give me his number,” I said.