Cole explained that the men worked for Pike, though neither gave a name. They wanted to know whether he possessed a recording made by Elias and whether anyone had asked him about the old financial records. Cole told them he knew nothing about a tape. That part, he insisted, was true.
"They threatened you?" Silas asked. Cole looked down at the water glass. "They reminded me what happened to Elias and told me the past wasn't as far away as I liked to think. Then they said if anyone came asking questions, I had a number to call."
Nolan asked where the number was. Cole withdrew a folded slip from his shirt pocket and placed it on the side table without looking up. The deputy standing by the door took note of it. Nolan studied the paper but did not touch it yet.
"You helped them take the money," Nolan said. He made it a statement rather than a question. Cole closed his eyes. "I helped them make it look as though your father took it. They offered me more money than I'd seen in years, and I told myself nobody would truly be hurt because Elias would disappear for a while and come back when the anger passed."
His hands shook against the glass. "He never came back. I knew what my part meant after that. I chose to pretend not to know."
Silas sat motionless. "You ate at our table for four years after that," he said. "You helped us look for him." Cole finally met his eyes.
"I hoped you'd find him. I also hoped you wouldn't. That's the ugliest truth I have." He looked at Nolan again.
"I knew he had evidence about Pike. I knew it was real. I thought if I got paid and kept quiet, Pike would leave everyone alone. I was wrong, and I knew it long before I admitted it."
Nolan asked how Pike had learned about the hidden box. Cole said Pike's people had continued to watch Carla, especially after her health declined, and later arranged for someone to remain close to Nolan in case the secret emerged. He did not know the person's name. Nolan told him about Marcus.
Cole nodded without confirming a detail he could not know. "That sounds like the sort of thing Pike would pay for," he said. "But don't build another accusation on my guess. You've already lived through what a manufactured accusation can do."
The irony did not escape Nolan. A man who had helped fabricate evidence against his father was warning him not to do the same thing to someone else. Still, Cole was right. Nolan asked the deputy whether he could take a photograph of the number the visitors had left. The deputy said he could, and Nolan photographed it beside Cole's signed account of the visit. Then he told Cole what Ruth had preserved and watched the older man gradually understand how thoroughly the old conspiracy had survived its attempted burial.