The Letter

By Stephen Michael Zimmerman

The Letter arrives with no return adress, threatening to expose the truth. Who sent it? And why? Long held secrets quickly rise to the surface. By happenstance, the letterr drifts from character to character, from generation to generation, throwing lives into turmoil. Its devastating impact produces guilt, fear, deception, threats and murder, an

• Language: English
• Publisher: Stephen Zimmerman
• Release date: Jun 1, 2019
• ISBN: 9780987797919

Stephen Michael Zimmerman

Stephen Zimmerman was an entrepreneur for thirty years before he and his wife left for Uruguay, South America, to work as missionaries for fi ve years. Upon their return to Canada, Stephen became the founding pastor of New Life Community Christian Church in Thornton, Ontario. He now lives in Midland, Ontario, where he is currently working on his second novel.

Book preview

Prologue

Rain had punctuated the sorrow of the day. A gleaming casket, still wet from an earlier rain, waited, in the presence of a meager few, to be lowered to its final resting place. In the coffin lay Samuel Johnston. Just three days ago, he had planned to spend a quiet evening at home, but another fate had awaited him.

Sobbing beside the casket was Samuel's daughter, Rose. She was strikingly beautiful. Black hair cascaded down upon her shoulders. Her flawless skin trapped deep green eyes. Rose transmitted a movie star glow even though she had turned forty. She moved closer to the final place where Samuel would lie and gazed at the coffin. A void opened in her, the place where he had resided. But he was gone.

Dark clouds cloaked the sky as the small group of mourners stood in communal grief and shock. The minister, well accustomed to solemn occasions, waxed eloquent about the life of Samuel and the just reward he would claim. And then it was over. The life of Samuel Johnston, 1898-1978, the beloved father of Rose, had come to its full and final conclusion. But how had it come to this?

1

Samuel Johnston

Just days ago, Samuel Johnston was sitting on the porch of the house where he was born. It was the only significant thing he had ever owned. The homestead was unremarkable. A clapboard house sat on five acres, hidden by tall weeping willow trees gracefully bowing to the gravel road out front. It was guarded by Duke, a German shepherd mix, weighing in at a hefty one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Duke was the best dog Samuel had ever owned. He was as smart as a whip and ferociously devoted to his master. No one, absolutely no one, entered the property owned by Samuel Johnston without first passing muster with Duke. Samuel's chair rocked back and forth like the pendulum in a grandfather clock. It creaked across the pine boards of the porch. Duke lay quietly beside him.

A car, crunching gravel off in the distance, raised Duke's ears. He was vigilant about anyone or anything that moved beyond the huge willows out front. As the car approached, Duke yawned, as if paying little attention. But, when the car slowed, he was up on all fours, moving stealthily across the front lawn. Squealing brakes announced the car's arrival at the mailbox at the end of the lane. Duke stopped at the border of the property. He watched. A handful of mail was deposited by the mailman. The old mailbox had been clobbered so many times by snowplows and hay wagons, it looked like a relic from a scrapyard. The front door of the box was long gone. Samuel had remedied this by tilting the box downward toward the front, so water would run out. As the mailman drove off, Duke turned to eye Samuel. The big man lurched forward out of his chair, stepped off the porch and lumbered slowly down the lane. Duke waited. The two of them moved in tandem toward the mailbox. Samuel reached in, pulled out the handful of mail and slowly returned to his rocker. Only then did he look through the bundle in his hands. He sighed and dropped the papers on the porch floor. Only advertising flyers and a couple of bills. He sighed and stared out across the lawn.

Something stirred in his memory. He thought of another day, twenty-five years earlier, a summer day much like today, when he had made the same walk down to the mailbox. Rose, a teenager, was still living with him then. It was a different time, a different piece of mail, and that day had had a profound impact on the course of his life. His mind drifted back to that day.

*****

That day also, Samuel had made the walk down to the mailbox and not looked at the mail until he had returned to the porch. This time the mail had consisted of a solitary brown paper envelope. Looking at it, he wondered who would be writing him. His second wife, Rose's mother, had died years ago, and her kin had faded away. There were others, but they also were long gone.

Sitting on the porch in the early morning sun, Samuel tore open one end of the envelope. Inside, he found a torn envelope, a partial page of a letter and a note from the post office indicating the correspondence had been damaged in transit. There was no return address. The only legible page bore a single paragraph, unsigned.

I am writing you this letter because I cannot allow one more day to pass without you knowing that I saw what you did. I am sure you thought that time would have caused memories to fade and it would have been impossible for anyone to come forward. But I saw everything. Soon I will make public the entire truth. Do not mistake this letter for anything other than that I want the truth to be known.

He read the letter three times, slowly. The knot in his stomach tightened. His head flopped back, resting on the wooden rocker. Then, Samuel read it again, his heart pounding faster with every word. Who had sent this? Why would someone do this? Memories filled his head with old terrors. Samuel was lost in thoughts of the past.

In time, he roused himself. His boss would not arrive for an hour, so Samuel walked to the work shop in the barn and began sanding the school desk he had taken on to refurbish. Why did the students insist on carving their names and foul words into the surface of their desks? He methodically moved the sanding block across the old oak desk top. He wished he could sand away the anxiety produced by the letter poking out of his breast pocket. Who had sent it? What did they want? He was lost inside the motion of his work.

Samuel was stricken by vivid recollections of his life. He had tried to be a decent man, husband and father, but his failures cascaded across his memory. The day would be filled with awful reminders of his shortcomings and disloyalties and an aching guilt that his life had not been lived better. He stood there remembering. He had never told either of his wives he was sorry. He had never told his children he could have done better. But time had closed on most of those squandered opportunities. Now it was too late.

In an effort to rid himself of his agonies, he worked. Life had given Samuel one gift of escape. Work. It soothed the heartache eating him from the inside. And so he sanded hard, preparing a glass finish for the young authors who would most surely deface the desk once more with their uncaring prose.

He removed the letter from his pocket, folded it carefully and placed it in the top drawer of his next project, a teacher's desk. Out of sight, out of mind, he thought. But it gave him no relief. He closed the drawer and walked back to the house with his companion at his side.

Half an hour later, Samuel's boss drove up the lane. Mr. Wright's Chevrolet coupe was a testament to his business sense. He had survived the difficult years of the Great Depression and saved his money diligently. Now, in the summer of 1952, the car was the reward for his labor.

You ready to go? he hollered at Samuel from the open window of his coupe.

You bet, Samuel managed, as he was jerked back into the realities of the day.

Samuel was uncharacteristically quiet as they made their way down the gravel road to the hardware store.

Cat got your tongue this morning, Samuel?

Oh, I guess, Samuel answered.

Is everything alright?

Yep. I just didn't sleep very well last night, he lied.

They traveled the rest of the way in silence.

The store was a gathering place for the locals. The epicenter of gossip. Any news worthy of being told was to be heard at the morning meeting, as it had become known. They sat on the nail kegs, exchanging the latest gossip.

The town's old men were careful not to tell off-color jokes within earshot of Samuel, but now and then a punch line would drift out the back door. He would pretend not to hear, as he went about his work.

Samuel moved past the keg crew to get his delivery slips from his boss. The slips were kept in a wooden cigar box. Samuel took them and arranged them in order of delivery.

Make sure the Aimes' bill is paid before you drop off their fencing. They are getting behind a bit, his boss cautioned.

Okay. If there is nothing else, I'll head out, Samuel said, as he walked through the store, surveying the group assembled on the kegs.

See you fellas later, he said, as he drifted out the back door. The sound of the old truck coughing to life announced Samuel's departure.

He reflected as he rumbled down the gravel road how the regulars at the store had very little idea of who he was. He was sure they had never contemplated his family's history in the area. His grandfather had cleared the land where the hardware store stood. He smiled to himself at how naive the keg crew really were. They lived in their own, very small world. Anything from outside was deemed to be a threat. Their sphere of influence consisted of a few local side roads, farms and small villages. If they wandered the highways to distant places, it was usually in a protected group that was formed at home.

The angry sound of a loud horn jerked Samuel from his thoughts. A young driver shook his fist at him, as he roared past in his roadster.

Get that rattletrap out of the way, you old bugger! the young driver yelled across his passenger, a young girl. Samuel didn't answer. He just shook his fist as the young man piloted his thundering machine past the loaded truck. Samuel watched as the roadster tore into the distance. He reflected on the insolence of the youth. Within seconds, the speeding roadster was out of sight.

Samuel continued on his way. It was a beautiful late summer day, and he felt happy being out of the store. Driving along, he marveled at the maple leaves in full summer splendor, knowing that their lush green would soon give way to the red, orange and yellow display of fall. Then they would be the ruins of autumn, as the seasonal clock ticked by.

The truck hummed along, and he began to think about how he would ask Mr. Aimes for the money for the outstanding bill. He wished his boss would handle the collections. It made Samuel uncomfortable. But, like most every day, he executed his duties faithfully. Then he thought about the letter. His stomach ached.

As he crested the hill, the railway tracks came into view. There was something wrong. Samuel got on the brakes hard. He saw an engine lying in the opposite lane up ahead. An overturned wreck was dead center of the road. He eased over the tracks and came to a stop.

He sat, stunned, in the cab. The vehicle in the middle of the road must have hit the tracks at a tremendous clip. Samuel knew this crossing well. It had to be navigated under the speed limit. If not, vehicles would bottom out and hit hard as they crossed the tracks. He pulled the truck off the road and lurched out of the cab, ignoring the protests of the rusty door hinge. He walked toward the pile of scrap, still smoking in the middle of the road. He recognized the remains of the roadster that had thundered past him earlier. There was little left of the vehicle. As he approached the crumpled mass, he was sickened by the scene. The young man who had been driving was crushed underneath the shattered wreck.

Samuel turned and looked for the girl. His attention was yanked to the opposite side of the road when he heard faint moans. He rushed over and found a broken and battered girl, no older than twelve or thirteen, in the ditch. Her legs were a tangled mess. She was mortally injured. Samuel's heart lurched. She was only slightly younger than his own daughter, Rose. He fell to his knees and tried to pick her up, but her screams froze him. He knew he could not save her, so he did the only thing he could. He sat down beside her and held her, with her head resting on his chest.

The bloodied and broken body of the girl awakened old horrors of war. He remembered the screams and the terror of young men being blown apart. Late at night, memories visited him. He had seen too much death. Samuel still occasionally sought comfort from the bottle hidden in his barn.

He yelled, Somebody, help! There was no immediate response—only a morbid silence. The girl's head and face were badly injured. Blood was running from her ears and mouth. With each gasp for air, he heard a gurgle as she exhaled. Blood accompanied each expelled breath. Samuel kept chanting, You'll be alright, girl. Just stay with me, just stay with me.

Finally, people emerged from their houses. Someone said they had called the police and ambulance, but Samuel knew that neither would make it in time. He asked a lady for a blanket.

Someone asked, Where is the driver?

Under the wreck, dead, Samuel answered.

Oh, my God, the stranger said. Is she going to make it? Samuel's expression told them it was hopeless.

He continued to soothe the girl, fingering away the matted, blood-drenched hair from her face. He ached, watching the life slowly ebb from a mere child. She looked up at him, and his eyes locked onto hers. Samuel knew full well that he was the last connection she would have in this world. Her eyes slowly closed, and she expelled her last breath. Samuel felt wet on his cheeks. She was gone. Police and ambulance sirens wailed in the distance, as the young girl passed from life to death. A police cruiser arrived just ahead of the ambulance, hitting the tracks with a thud. It came to a screeching halt just feet from the horrific scene. Out from the driver's side, an officer bolted toward the carnage.

Is anyone hurt? he asked.

Officer, Samuel called. Over here.

The officer ran over to the roadside tragedy. Is she alive? he asked.

No, she just died. Samuel choked the words out.

Where is the driver? the officer asked, with both hope and disgust in his voice.

He's under that wreck, dead, Samuel said, as he nodded toward the smoking pile of scrap on the road.

Did you see it happen? the officer asked Samuel, who could only respond with the shaking of his head.

Did anyone see this happen? the officer called out to the crowd.

A lady stepped closer to the officer and said, I heard the crash and looked out the window and saw the car rolling over. That's all I saw.

The police officer stopped the ambulance attendants, raising his arm. His solemn gait signaled hope was lost for the two young people.

Better call the coroner, he said.

The officer returned to Samuel, still cradling the young girl on his chest.

Would you please come with me, sir? the policeman asked.

At first, Samuel didn't hear him.

Sir? the officer repeated.

Oh, yes, sir, offered a dazed Samuel. He surrendered the girl's broken body to the ambulance attendants. He felt a sense of kinship with this girl, having been the last living soul to hold her. He didn't want to leave her. The officer asked for a third time that Samuel follow him over to the cruiser. Samuel felt his feet moving beneath him, but everything else was numb. Once he had made it to the police car, the officer asked him, "Did you see any of the accident happen?"

No. He passed me back at the highway crossing. It was all a mess by the time I came to the tracks.

What is your name, sir? the officer asked.

Samuel Johnston.

How fast was he driving when he passed you?

He was moving pretty fast. I lost sight of him before I got to the hill after the bridge, Samuel said.

Wow, he lost you in that short a distance? Were you driving unusually slow?

About forty or forty-five, Samuel replied. The truck was loaded and all.

Okay. Was the driver alive when you found him?

No, he was dead.

Was the girl alive?

Yes. She was hurt real bad, but she was alive, Samuel replied.

Did she say anything?

Nope. She just looked up at me. She couldn't talk, Samuel whispered.

The police officer put his hand on Samuel's shoulder and said, You work for Harold Wright, don't you?

Yes, I work at his store, have for over twenty years.

Do you have to deliver that load today?

Yes, sir, and I am late, but I couldn't leave this.

You go on ahead, and I will drop in on Harold and let him know what happened. Are you alright to drive? the officer asked.

I think so, yes, Samuel answered.

Take the right shoulder around this. If I need any further information from you, I'll drop into the hardware store. Thank you, Mr. Johnston. You take care now, the officer said.

Samuel's rubbery legs carried him back to his truck. He could hardly apply enough pressure to the starter button on the floor to engage it. The old truck coughed to life, and he pulled slowly along the right shoulder, as he had been instructed. He passed the scene of the accident and glanced over to where he had held the dying young girl. All that was left was an area of flattened, bloody grass. He felt an empty sense of loss. The vice of emotions caught Samuel off guard. His knees felt so weak he could no longer drive. Not five hundred feet from the accident, around a curve shielded by trees from the accident site, the truck rolled to a stop. He slumped over the steering wheel, and, with huge heaves, he cried hard. His heart ached for the girl who had been killed so needlessly, so violently. He pictured her face, her eyes staring up at him. He felt the guilt wash over him. How could he make it through this day? He slowly regained control of his emotions and mopped his face with his handkerchief. He did not look back. Samuel eased out the clutch and drove slowly down the road. His first delivery was less than four miles away.

2

Agnes Stockwood

Agnes Stockwood was anything but warm. Tall and slender, her figure provided little to excite the local young men. Coupled with her less than average appearance was a cold demeanor that could lower the temperature of a room. Only twenty-three, she had been trained at teacher's college in Toronto for conducting lessons in a public school, but the college had had no success in modifying her stiff persona. She was usually dressed in a dark, unflattering, floor-length dress, a style long out of fashion, with a white kerchief encapsulating the bun on her head. A lace collar protected her from any intrusive glances below her neckline. She had not always been this way. Miss Stockwood had a past, one that she desperately wanted to keep in the past.

As she moved over the sidewalk, it was difficult to see how she propelled herself along. It appeared to onlookers that she floated across the ground. The local people kept a respectful distance from her, knowing full well that sooner or later their children would be in her charge. She was the new teacher from the city. All eyes were on her.

It was 1952. The school house was typical for that era. The brick was as good as the day the school had been built, some fifty years previously. A patchwork of paint had long since lost its battle to cover the window trim and the main doors. The tin roof was rusty but miraculously watertight.

The front of the school had two doors. One was labelled Boys and the other Girls. It was a cardinal sin for a student to enter any door but the one identifying that student's gender. Improper use of either door was grounds for the strap, an eighteen-inch by two-inch strip of conveyer belt that Miss Stockwood had become skilled in wielding. It was applied with extreme accuracy and force to the hands of any offender. In the short time that she had been at the school, Miss Stockwood had gained a reputation for her ability to dole out serious pain.

The schoolyard sloped down at the back toward a single ribbon of train tracks. The tracks were absolutely off limits—and so the destination of all who dared to break the rules. The allure of leaving pennies on the tracks, for eventual flattening, was enough to tempt students to risk the ire of Miss Stockwood.

The school was located on the Burlington Side Road, a typical stretch of gravel dissecting the lush countryside. It sat high on a hill, overlooking farmland. Much of the yard was void of grass, having succumbed to the pummeling feet of playing students over the years. A rusty fence hugged the one-acre schoolyard. Holes had been fashioned to allow the students to escape, on their way to the tracks or the bush that lay beyond.

The school had few visitors, except for the annual inspection of the School Board Superintendent. Stern warnings were given by Miss Stockwood weeks in advance regarding the proper behavior for such a visit. Rules for correct etiquette when speaking to and answering questions from the Superintendent were issued through the thin lips of Miss Stockwood. Even the most remedial students understood the ominous circumstances they would find themselves in if they disobeyed her clear instructions—that is, all the students except Bud McClarey.

Bud held the record for years attended at the public school level. He took two years to find his legs through grade one. Grade two required two more years to clear, and grade three, his finest academic performance, was a single-year cake-walk. He was eleven years old when he entered grade four. Then, Bud fell into his previous pattern. He would take two years to complete that level. Grade five, apparently, provided Bud with real challenges. With Bud facing the prospect of attempting that level for a third time, the Board of Education moved him along out of pure pity. Bud began grade six at the age of fifteen. His original grade one classmates had long since moved on to high school. The local joke, whispered among those aware of Bud's academic shortcomings, was that he would be the first student in primary school to vote.

Bud held other records. He was the only student to drive to public school. Every day—or at least the days he chose to attend—he would rumble in through the gates of the schoolyard in a rusty, smoke-belching pickup truck with no license plates. Bud's family lived two side roads from the school. Back road travel, at the time, would often include drivers lacking a driver's license and vehicles lacking license plates. Sometimes Bud would take the tractor to school if his brother needed the truck.

He was also the only student to smoke at the school. He brought cigarettes every day and felt no remorse over lighting up outdoors, much to the disgust of Miss Stockwood. Complaints to the Superintendent fell on deaf ears because, until Bud's sixteenth birthday, he was a ward of the Board of Education. He would not be issued a work permit until then, and Bud was content to terrorize the public school until he was forced to leave.

Bud stood out in the schoolyard and could often be seen surrounded by his admirers. Typically, a cigarette hung from his mouth, bouncing off his bottom lip as he talked. The students all looked up to him because he was so big, almost six feet tall, and as strong as an ox.

*****

Bud leaned against his truck as the teacher swung her brass hand bell, summoning the students in from lunch hour. He stayed slumped against his truck finishing his smoke.

Bud, put that out, came the high-pitched order.

Just a minute, Bud replied, making no effort to meet her eye to eye.

Now, Bud! she shrieked.

I said, just a minute. He raised his head, staring directly at the teacher. He reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out his pack of cigarettes, withdrew another and lit it. As he exhaled the smoke, he looked at her and smiled.

Put that out and get in the classroom! she screamed.

Bud knew this was leading to something bigger than he wanted. His father had warned him to bide his time in school and keep clear of trouble. Gord McClarey was not to be messed with. He was six foot five and weighed north of three hundred pounds. Bud had seen his father lift the back of a pickup off the ground. The senior McClarey had warned his son that jobs were hard to get and trouble at school was something Bud—and Gord—did not need.

Slowly Bud moved toward the teacher and the school house entrance. He flicked his lit cigarette past her and mounted the steps, exhaling the smoke directly into the face of Miss Stockwood. As was customary with Bud, he entered through the Girls door, simply to show his contempt for the rules.

Miss Stockwood snapped. Get up to the front of the classroom.

What for? Bud smirked, turning to meet her eye to eye. Although only a couple of inches taller, his looming bulk seemed to tower over her.

Get up to the front of the classroom! she hollered.

The entire student body rotated heads. Bud craved admiration from the younger students, but he knew there was a limit to how far he could push this teacher. He went directly to his desk in the back.

"I told you to go to the front of the classroom," she repeated.

Why? Bud countered.

Because you are getting the strap.

No, I'm not, Bud shot back.

Agnes Stockwood had had enough. She moved swiftly to Bud's desk, leaned into his face, and said, Bud McClarey, you get up to my desk right now or I will be talking to your father and the Superintendent before you sit down to supper tonight.

Bud felt the teacher's hot breath on his face and realized that this episode had gone far beyond previous standoffs. He glared at her, frozen in his seat.

Get up there now, she growled through clenched teeth.

Bud slowly rose from his desk and sauntered up to the teacher's desk at the front of the classroom. Miss Stockwood reached into the drawer with a shaking hand and withdrew the strap.

Put out your hand, she said.

Bud smirked and exposed his palm. A fast stroke connected with his hand. The slap brought forth gasps from the seats behind him.

Hold out the other one, she instructed.

Bud responded and held out his left hand. The stroke came fast and hard. But Bud clenched his fingers and stopped the strap, dead in his hand. He glared at the teacher, straight into her eyes—a warning to take the victory and withdraw.

Get back to your desk, she managed.

Bud turned and smiled at his classmates, but he was seething inside. The strap had little effect on him; however, the humiliation had cut deep.

*****

Miss Stockwood lurched for her chair, knees weak and heart pounding. Why had she ever accepted a teaching contract way out in the sticks—outside of Toronto? Surely, she could have found a job where students had some respect for learning. But, she knew the reasons why.

She felt trapped between her deepest emotions and the reality of her current situation. Agnes needed teaching. She admired children's approach to life. They had the innate capacity to feel colors, to see sounds, and to taste life, to engage life in the small helpings that came to them indiscriminately. Children live in the flash of