The Ghostwriter

On May 30, 1975, Poppy is shaken after witnessing Vincent tackle Danny. Something Danny said provoked Vincent’s attack. Vincent lunges at Poppy when he realizes she was filming their fight.

Later, Vincent asks Poppy to let him sleep in her room. Poppy asks if he attacked Danny because of Lydia, but Vincent avoids the question. They hear Danny playing a song from their room, turning the volume up whenever the lyrics reference a lying girlfriend. Vincent says he wishes Danny were dead.

Calder sends an email calling Olivia a “hack.” Olivia uses Vincent’s email to dismiss Calder’s proposal. She then resolves to stop engaging with Calder any further.

Olivia arranges a meeting with Charles Monahan, the district attorney who served as a second chair during the 1993 grand jury. Monahan explains that the attorneys could not disprove Vincent’s alibi, especially after it was proved that the coroner did not commit malpractice while working on the Taylor case. Monahan agrees with the grand jury’s opinion since the evidence was insufficient. The investigators never recovered the murder weapon, and the evidence on hand was circumstantial at best. After Vincent’s parents died, Vincent was the only person left who could restart the investigation with new forensic methods, but he chose to forego it.

Olivia meets with Jack to vent her frustration with her investigation. Jack asserts his own conviction that Vincent is innocent, remembering the times Vincent stepped in to raise him when his own father fell short. He goes on to point out that none of the evidence Olivia has uncovered so far definitively paints him as the murderer. Finally, he stresses the fact that Vincent, even if he were guilty, has lived a lonely life, coping with his experience in deeply unhealthy ways. He challenges Olivia to consider Vincent’s motivation for telling his story.

Shortly before he tackled Danny, Vincent planned a treasure hunt for Poppy to apologize for his behavior. Treasure hunts are a traditional game for them, allowing Vincent to challenge Poppy’s wits and reward her with prizes. This time, the treasure hunt is themed “dark places,” which keeps reminding Poppy of the cat she saw Vincent bury.

On the night of June 1, 1975, Vincent gives Poppy another clue, directing her to look for their mother’s box of Christmas decorations. Poppy goes to the garage but is too scared to look on her own, fearing what Vincent might do. Danny teases her when he finds her checking the garage. The next morning, Poppy returns to the garage and finds an ornament telling her where to find the prize. However, the clue is partial, suggesting that there is still one more clue she needs to find.

Vincent asks Olivia to remember the last treasure hunt he ever planned for her. Olivia recalls how one evening when she was younger, Vincent told her an anecdote about trapping a raccoon in an outhouse. In the anecdote, Vincent mentioned that his mother stored items in the closet under the stairs. Since no such closet existed in Vincent’s childhood home, Olivia realized that he was clueing her in on the start of a new treasure hunt. She soon found a toiletry bag he had hidden for her in their own closet.

On the second evening of the treasure hunt, Vincent told Olivia a story about going backpacking after college. From this, Olivia discovered her next prize: a backpack. On the third evening, Vincent told her an anecdote about his publicist having luggage troubles while going on safari. Olivia’s third prize was a new suitcase. Inside the suitcase was the brochure for Olivia’s new boarding school in Switzerland. This broke Olivia’s heart as she felt as though she were being robbed of her life and had no say in the matter.

Olivia is still upset about the experience as she retells it to Vincent. She asks Vincent to remember the time they went to Miami. When Vincent cannot remember it, Olivia blames his memory lapse on the alcohol and drugs he consumed throughout the trip. At the end of the trip, Vincent abandoned Olivia in the hotel and went to the airport without telling her. Olivia chased Vincent to the airport and reprimanded him for his bad behavior, but Vincent passed out before she finished her tirade. Olivia is crestfallen because Vincent never apologizes or acknowledges his actions on that day.

Later, Vincent tells Olivia that every chapter either moves the story forward or helps the reader understand the characters better. Olivia doesn’t know why he is telling her this, but Vincent worries that Olivia isn’t fit to write his memoir after all.

Olivia realizes that the book project is, in part, Vincent’s last treasure hunt. This motivates Olivia to tell Vincent what she knows, hoping it will unlock more clues for her to follow.

Olivia reveals that she has visited Vincent’s childhood home. Vincent explains that his family kept the house because they couldn’t afford to move anywhere else. He authorizes Olivia to visit the house, introducing herself to the neighbors as the new tenant. Olivia realizes this would be an alternative to living in debt in Topanga Canyon. Olivia then tells Vincent about the inscription in Poppy’s closet. This makes Vincent laugh.

On June 3, 1975, all the high school kids are looking forward to the carnival, but Poppy is too distracted by the simmering tensions between Vincent and Danny to care. During a family dinner, Vincent mentions that Poppy’s closet is a mess. She realizes this is a treasure hunt clue and goes to investigate her closet. She soon finds the inscription Vincent wrote on its wall.

Poppy returns to the dinner table, piecing together the clues until she realizes that the prize is in the shed. Poppy hesitantly investigates the shed and finds a brand-new roll of film, complete with a soundtrack.

Vincent tells Olivia that the closet inscription was a treasure hunt clue for Poppy. He assures her that it was never meant to be a threat and that she is overreading it.

Olivia shows Vincent the reel where he attacked Danny. Vincent is surprised that Olivia has Poppy’s film reels but claims not to remember what the fight was about anymore. Olivia reminds him that the film is dated just a few weeks before Danny and Poppy were murdered. Finally, Vincent explains that Danny was always jealous of his happiness, so he often revealed painful truths about Lydia to provoke Vincent. Vincent doesn’t know who got Lydia pregnant, but he knows that Danny provoked him into their fight by telling him about Lydia’s abortion.

On June 4, 1975, Vincent and Danny are washing the dishes, which makes Poppy uneasy. She has deduced that the discovery of Lydia’s abortion provoked Vincent’s May 30 attack on Danny. Danny jostles Vincent while he is washing the kitchen knife. This causes Vincent to accidentally wound himself. Danny dismisses Vincent’s pain. Vincent threatens him with the knife, which Danny encourages when he teases him over Lydia’s infidelity. Vincent holds the knife up to Danny’s chest. This amuses Danny, who walks away.

With enough information to produce a completed draft of the memoir, Olivia organizes the events of 1975 into a timeline. She then asks Jack how she can reach out to Mr. Stewart to interview him. Jack tells her that he still lives next door to Vincent’s childhood home.

Olivia introduces herself to Mr. Stewart and asks him to talk about her family. Mr. Stewart confirms that he was close to Lydia, who had athletic scholarship potential. She retired from track, however, soon after the Taylor murders. Olivia asks about his annual end-of-year parties, one of which was held the same week as the murders. Mr. Stewart reveals that the murders put an end to this celebration, as he decided to change the role he played in the school and more like a role model instead of a friend.

Olivia asks him to recall the day of the Taylor murders. Mr. Stewart remembers coming home after school ended, going for a run, having dinner with his girlfriend, and visiting the carnival. He remembers seeing Vincent and Lydia having an argument at the carnival. Vincent was so angry with Lydia that he made Lydia cry. Mr. Stewart tried to intervene, but this did little to calm Vincent down. He admits that Vincent never warmed up to him, unlike his siblings. Lydia was the person who convinced Vincent to let the three of them talk it out in the grove near Vincent’s house.

Olivia asks Mr. Stewart if her parents were fighting over the topic of Lydia’s abortion. Mr. Stewart admits that he accompanied Lydia to her abortion but denies that he got her pregnant. He is skeptical that Danny was the one who had sex with Lydia, believing that Lydia didn’t like the way Danny antagonized Vincent. He also doesn’t think that it was in Danny’s character to rape Lydia, though he puts the burden of this scenario on Lydia. This exhausts Mr. Stewart’s memories of the day.

Before she leaves, Olivia asks Mr. Stewart who he thinks killed Danny and Poppy. Mr. Stewart suspects it was the man who gave Poppy a ride when she was hitchhiking.

Early on the morning of June 7, 1975, Poppy is walking along the highway to an Equal Rights Amendment rally in Ventura. She catches a ride with a mother and child. The woman is dismissive of Poppy’s idealism, believing that hitchhiking is dangerous and impractical.

The rally restores Poppy’s spirit, though she is too exhausted to walk back to Ojai on her own. A middle-aged man named Craig offers to give her a ride. Poppy asks him to drop her off at school. When Poppy claims that her father will come to pick her up, Craig offers to wait with her at the school. Poppy dismisses him, so Craig directly tells her that he would like to see her again. He tells her he will look for her at the carnival. Poppy is polite until she is out of his sight, then runs away.