Long Lost - James Scott Bell Page 0,97

never questioned Bill. I never felt I had that right. I figured whatever he knew was his to know, and he had a good reason for knowing it. They did the autopsy and found that the little boy who was burned to death was a kid who had been taken from his home some time earlier that year.”

“That was supposedly my brother,” Steve said.

“That’s where I would have left it but for Walker Phillips. I was going to church regularly then and had straightened out my life to the point where people I guess sort of thought of me as a pillar of the community. Some sort of moral example. That’s a laugh. If only they could have seen inside me.

“But one night Walter Phillips came to see me. He had been drinking heavily. I knew there was something wrong. He proceeded to spill his guts to me. He asked me not to say anything to anyone, but that he had to talk to somebody. You know, I think deep down maybe he wanted me to talk about it. Maybe he wanted to be caught. You think strange things when you’re drunk. Believe me, I know.

“So I listened. And this is what he told me.”

Hendrickson paused. “I’ll take that water now, if you don’t mind.”

“Sure.” Meyer left the office for a moment, leaving Steve and Bethany alone with Hendrickson.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” Hendrickson said. “It can only end badly for you now.”

Tiny mice feet clawed Steve’s spine. The man no doubt spoke the truth.

Meyer came back with the water and Hendrickson drank. He cleared his throat and seemed to be gathering his strength, like a weight lifter about to do the clean and jerk.

“The boy in the fire was Eldon LaSalle’s own son.”

Steve almost slipped out of his chair. He saw Meyer’s eyes filling the thick lenses of his glasses. Even Bethany seemed stunned.

No one said anything for a long moment. Then Hendrickson continued. “Eldon LaSalle came to these mountains after building that place he calls Beth-El. He was able to keep tight control over the information flowing out of it. I don’t think anyone even knew he had a son until years later, a son named Johnny. Only Walker knew the truth. The truth about Eldon LaSalle’s son.”

Hendrickson took another sip of water in what was obviously an ordeal.

“He brought Walker up to the place in secret to examine his son. It was clear he was not the son LaSalle wanted as his heir. He was retarded. I guess that’s not the term you’re supposed to use now. I can’t keep up. He was not perfect, let’s put it that way, and that was all that mattered to LaSalle. Sometime up there Walker made his deal with the devil. I don’t know all that was involved after that, how much money may have changed hands. But Walker was in deep.

“I sometimes wonder why LaSalle didn’t just kill poor Walker. I know he has two daughters who he was estranged from. But he loved them. They came to represent the only good thing he’d ever done. Maybe LaSalle told Walker if he ever spoke about anything, he’d deal with the daughters. At the end, I don’t think it would have taken much to scare Walker into doing anything.”

Suddenly Hendrickson’s eyes narrowed. “If this gets out, they may try to kill Walker and those two girls. You’ve got to promise me you’ll take care of that.”

Meyer deferred to Steve.

“Mr. Hendrickson,” Steve said, “I wasn’t entirely up front with you. Yes, I talked to Dr. Phillips, but he shot himself before I left. He’s dead.”

Hendrickson closed his eyes, paused, nodded. “Then there’s no use holding this thing close to the vest. Walker told me that LaSalle had found a boy to his liking, and wanted him to be his only son.”

Steve had a sudden thought about a TV mini-series he’d seen once. A Stephen King story about demon who came to an island community in the middle of storm when no one could get out. He came to take away one of their children, to become his apprentice demon. It was chilling, and as Steve recalled the demon won because the town didn’t stand up to him with collective faith.

“What happened next was horrible,” Hendrickson continued, “but Walker, for reasons known only to him, went along with it. I do know that in the next few years Walker became quite wealthy even as his drinking got worse. Cole and the boy