Chapter 5 - WHAT HOWARD COLE WROTE
Howard Cole died nine years earlier.
No trial was coming for him.
But truth still mattered.
Police searched Richard’s home after obtaining a warrant based on the remains, renovation evidence, and historical records.
In a locked cabinet inside Richard’s study, they found Howard’s papers.
Richard had kept them.
Boxes.
Tax files.
Old contracts.
Personal letters.
One leather journal.
The entry from October 17, 1974, was short.
Howard wrote that he met Eleanor behind the Vale house.
They argued.
She told him the relationship was finished.
He tried to stop her from leaving.
She pulled away.
They struggled near the old cellar stairs.
Eleanor fell.
Howard went down.
She was alive.
Barely.
That was the part I had difficulty reading when Margaret later allowed me to see a copy.
Howard could have called for help.
Instead, he panicked.
He believed Eleanor would tell police he attacked her.
He believed his father would destroy him.
So he left.
When he returned hours later, Eleanor was dead.
Then Howard and his father concealed her body inside the cellar.
They removed her suitcase and coat.
Created the appearance she had left voluntarily.
For years, Howard wrote nothing more.
Then in 1988:
Bought Vale property today. At least now no stranger will ever find her.
I felt physically sick.
The following year:
Pool plans cover west cellar entirely. After this, it is finished.
It was never finished.
Truth does not disappear because concrete goes over it.
The journal alone could not answer every legal question.
Howard was dead.
His father dead.
But it proved Eleanor had never run away.
And it proved the pool had been designed, at least partly, to conceal the old cellar.
Then investigators found another document.
A letter Howard wrote to Richard shortly before his death.
It began:
Richard, there is one thing about the Lake Forest property you must never disturb.
The rest was worse.
Howard did not explicitly confess murder.
But he said:
The west cellar contains the reason our family acquired that land. Leave it sealed. If you ever rebuild the pool, build around it. Ask no questions that require answers.
Richard received the letter.
Kept it.
Six years later, during renovation, he found the cellar.
And resealed it.
That was why he had recognized Margaret.
That was why Melissa became frightened.
Not because Richard killed Eleanor.
He had not even been alive.
Because Richard had inherited a lie.
May you like
Then consciously decided to keep it.
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