Hiding Place (9781101606759)

by Bell, David

  Kate recognized her cue, shut the recorder off, and put it away.

  Janet didn’t know if Kate picked up on what she had—a key element of Detective Stynes’s final statement. He’d said the world was a better place with Dante Rogers behind bars.

  Given the chance to say so definitively, he didn’t say he thought Dante Rogers was guilty. He didn’t say that at all.

  Chapter Nine

  Stynes walked Kate to the door and watched her stroll down the walk—her young hips moving back and forth—and climb into a new red Honda Civic. A graduation gift from Dad, Stynes figured, watching her drive away. Most of the reporters he knew drove older cars held together by rust and prayer. One more reason to resent her, even if she did look good both coming and going. A rich college girl turning over the race card. Stynes felt his back molars grind against one another. Let it go. Let it go.

  He turned to say good-bye to Janet and found her standing right behind him in the doorway. Before he could say anything, he saw the look in her eyes. Something pleading, almost fearful.

  “Don’t worry about that stuff—”

  She cut him off with a nod of her head. Toward the porch. She wanted to talk outside.

  Stynes held the door, and they stepped out into the heat of the late afternoon. The sun glanced off the chrome and glass of the parked cars. The street shimmered. Stynes didn’t sit, but Janet did. She settled into a lawn chair and looked up.

  “I just wanted to talk about all of that,” she said, pointing toward the general area where Kate’s car had been parked.

  “Like I said, don’t worry about it. She’s just a kid trying to make a name for herself. She thinks a race angle might play big in a story like this. Little does she know people in Dove Point would rather attend free colonoscopy day at the hospital than dwell on racial issues. It probably won’t even get into the story. I know the features editor at the Ledger—”

  “I don’t mean the race stuff,” Janet said.

  Stynes shifted his feet. He wore a suit coat over a polo shirt, and he felt the sweat forming on his back. He had about two hours of paperwork to do back at the station, and he wanted nothing more than to get home in time to watch the Reds play the Cardinals. For the first time in years, the Reds had a prayer of reaching the playoffs, and Stynes wanted to enjoy it. The simple things, he called them. The simple things.

  “Which stuff do you mean then?” he asked. “You just mean her questions? Did they upset you?”

  Janet turned her head and looked over her shoulder to the front door, wanting to make sure her dad wasn’t there listening. When she was satisfied he wasn’t, she spoke in a low voice. “She seemed to be suggesting that Dante Rogers is innocent,” Janet said.

  “No, she wasn’t—”

  “And I was wondering the same thing,” she said, her voice still low but forceful. “Did you have enough to convict him?”

  “We did convict him.”

  “But like Kate said, in Dove Point—”

  “Hold on.” Stynes held both hands out in front of him like he wanted to push something away. The sweat ran faster down his back and sides and suddenly the thought of his air-conditioned office seemed even more appealing than Kate Grossman’s backside. “Don’t let this girl get into your head. The story this morning, this interview—it’s all just talk. It doesn’t change the past.”

  Janet nodded. She looked mollified, and Stynes took quiet pleasure in having found the right words for the right situation and shutting things down effectively. He sometimes thought the ability to talk, to placate, to smooth ruffled feathers in the heat of the moment was the most useful skill any cop or public servant could have.

  “Janet, call me if—”

  “Was the evidence against him just circumstantial?” she asked.

  Stynes deflated. So much for my placating skills, he thought.

  “This isn’t CSI: Dove Point. We don’t have oodles of DNA and fiber evidence when someone commits a crime here. Usually, someone knows the person or knows someone who knows the person, and nobody is surprised when they find out who did what to whom. Now, we had witnesses who saw Dante with your brother, including you, and we had the pornography and the newspaper clippings, the prior arrest, and the testimony of his aunt. Twelve citizens of this community listened to the evidence and rendered a verdict. Who cares if they were white or black?”

  Stynes waited again while Janet processed his words. He thought he’d made another good pitch, but while Janet didn’t say anything else, she didn’t look at peace with his explanation.

  “Janet?” Stynes asked. “Is there something else at play here? Why are you so worked up about this?”

  Janet looked back to the door again, her lips pressed into a tight line.

  “Is this about your father?” Stynes asked. “Is he upset about something?”

  She turned back around, shaking her head. “It’s something you said. Or didn’t say, I guess.”

  “What did I say?”

  “When that reporter asked you about Dante’s trial and conviction, you didn’t say he was guilty.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  Janet shook her head with more force, like a dog in the rain. “You said the world was a better place with him behind bars.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “You didn’t say he was guilty.”

  Stynes raised his hand to his forehead. He wiped droplets of sweat away, then brushed his fingertips against his pant leg. Wasn’t it the same thing? Wasn’t it the same thing as saying he was guilty?

  “Maybe it was a mistake to have you do this interview,” Stynes said. “Maybe it’s just bringing up unpleasant memories for you. Like I said, this is probably the last time you’ll have to do this. Maybe it just needs to be over for all of us.”

  “Were there other suspects?” Janet asked. “Was there anything that indicated it wasn’t Dante?”

  “Has someone been talking to you about this?” Stynes asked. “Is it Dante? Did he try to talk to you? Because the conditions of his parole—”

  “No.”

  “I can’t help you or even protect you if you don’t tell me.”

  Janet took a long time to answer, but then she shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong, Detective. No one is bothering me.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I am.”

  Stynes paused, examining her face. She didn’t reveal anything. She didn’t crack or speak. If there was something going on—and Stynes suspected there was—she wasn’t ready to give it up to him. Not right then. Stynes checked his watch and told her he had to get back to the station.

  “But you know how to reach me if you need something, right?”

  “I do. Thanks.”

  Stynes went down the walk, his mind turning over the events of the past hour. Not just the reporter’s questions but Janet’s as well. His own doubts were stirring, like silt in the bottom of a clear streambed.

  And how do you plan to navigate these troubled waters, Stynes? What are you going to do?

  Chapter Ten

  Ashleigh walked home from the park. She took the long way, exiting the park closer to where Kevin’s family lived than on the side near her own house. She wanted the extra time to think. She ignored the heat and let her mind work, trying to process what she’d seen—who she’d seen—in the middle of the woods.

  As soon as Dante ran off and disappeared from sight, Ashleigh regretted letting him go. She wished she had continued after him, running hard so she could catch up and ask him what he had been doing at the place her uncle died. The question circled in her brain. And even while she thought about it and imagined catching up to the man, a more rational, more logical voice spoke in her brain as well: What would you do if you caught up to him? Tackle him? Punch him? Take him to coffee? What would a fifteen-year-old girl do with a convicted murderer?

  Ashleigh put her hair up as she trudged along in the heat. The sun beat against the back of her neck, but she minded that less
than the stickiness of the sweat that plastered her hair to her skin. She passed quiet homes that looked cool and comfortable. She thought about the air-conditioned comfort inside them—and she also thought about the normal lives their inhabitants led. No one behind those doors and windows was caught up in pursuing crazy leads in a twenty-five-year-old murder. Were they?

  But Ashleigh knew the truth. No, they might not be doing that exactly, but every home contained some craziness. She knew that from the kids at school. Alcoholism, abuse, infidelity. Her friends saw it all. Despite all her complaints about her mother and grandfather, they didn’t subject her to anything awful. But, still, a murder in the family past stood out as pretty crazy…

  She hadn’t even called or texted Kevin. She would eventually, but she didn’t want to call him at work, especially if he’d already been made late by their trip to Steven Kollman’s apartment.

  And then there was the other part of it.

  She felt a little weird—sometimes—talking to Kevin about Dante Rogers because of one simple fact: Dove Point contained a fair share of racist assholes. No, nobody burned crosses on anybody’s lawn. And plenty of black people—including Kevin’s dad, who handled all the IT for a bank—held prominent positions in town and did very well, but Ashleigh knew the truth. Most people didn’t feel comfortable seeing a black guy and a white girl hanging around together. She could tell the way some of them—friends of hers from school and even once a science teacher—asked a question:

  Are you and Kevin dating?

  She and Kevin were not dating—they were just friends. But Ashleigh thought about dating Kevin all the time. She liked to look at his face when he didn’t know she was watching, and she enjoyed the electrical charge that coursed through her body if they inadvertently brushed their arms against each other. But they weren’t dating. They hadn’t even come close. Ashleigh’s mom and grandpa acted a little weird whenever Kevin’s name came up, but Ashleigh knew that wasn’t really about race. She understood that the adults in her family were more worried about her going out and getting knocked up like her mom did in high school.

  But sometimes she worried about what Kevin thought. He always acted like he didn’t mind. He made jokes all the time about his race, going so far as to refer to the two of them as the “salt and pepper twins” when they went places together, but she absolutely didn’t want him to ever think the views of certain narrow-minded and stupid people in the town had somehow become her own. She didn’t want to suffer guilt by association, so sometimes she avoided the topic of Dante.

  The house came into view, and every time it did, Ashleigh’s heart dropped a little. It wasn’t a bad house. The rooms were big enough, and her mom and grandpa did a decent job of keeping it in shape. But it wasn’t her house. For the past three years, she and her mom had rented a cute little bungalow near downtown on Park Street. The morning sun lit Ashleigh’s bedroom there, and they lived side by side with young couples and college kids. At least once a month, Ashleigh asked her mother why they couldn’t just move out and get their old place back, just the two of them. Her mom always explained that this was a financial decision, that when Grandpa lost his job he needed help in order to keep the family home. And besides, Grandpa needs us, her mom would say. We’re all he’s got.

  Ashleigh never said it out loud, but she thought it: He doesn’t have me. Only a few more years, and I’m off to college. Ohio State. Miami. Cincinnati. Bowling Green. As long as it’s college and as long as it’s away.

  Ashleigh entered the dark, quiet house. No surprise. Her grandfather liked to keep the place closed up and sealed. Like a bank vault. Or a morgue. Both Ashleigh and her mom went around behind the old man, opening blinds he closed or pulling open curtains he’d yanked shut. Ashleigh liked windows and air and light. The house on Park Street had had all of those things.

  She stopped in the kitchen for a quick glass of water, then planned on slipping up to her room. She hoped her mother wasn’t home, that she wouldn’t have to face the usual interrogation. Her mother’s questions were the bane of her existence. Where were you? Who were you with? Why did you go there? She knew her mom was still a little freaked by her uncle’s death, but come on. I’m fifteen. Fifteen.

  Ashleigh could just imagine her mom’s response to where she’d just been. First I tried to find the creepy guy from the porch. And then I saw the guy who killed your brother—at the crime scene.

  “Ash?”

  Ashleigh froze, the glass of water halfway to her mouth. Her mother must have been upstairs, maybe even napping. Ashleigh wanted to slip away, but knew she couldn’t.

  “I’m here,” Ashleigh said, giving in. As much as her mom annoyed her, Ashleigh found it hard to be outright mean to her. Or ignore her. If they were all her grandpa had, Ashleigh knew she was all her mom had.

  Her mom came into the kitchen. She was wearing a T-shirt and sweatpants and looked tired. Maybe she had been asleep. Her hair looked flat, her face without makeup.

  “Where were you all day?” her mom asked.

  “I was with Kevin.”

  “Where?”

  Ashleigh sighed. She took a long drink of water, then filled the glass again.

  “Don’t sigh,” her mom said. “Where were you?”

  “We went to see a friend, but he wasn’t home. So then Kevin had to go to work, and I came home.”

  “You’ve been gone since before I went to work.”

  “Mom, please? It’s summer. You said as long as I kept my grades up—”

  “Do you know why I’m mad at you?”

  “Mad at me?”

  Her mom’s brow was furrowed, the lines at the corners of her mouth deepened and exaggerated. She looked ugly when she was like this. She looked like life was chiseling its marks onto her face.

  “You were supposed to be here today,” her mom said. “That reporter came by.”

  Shit. The reporter.

  “I forgot.”

  The words sounded hollow even to her own ears. Her voice came from far away, its sound tiny, like a little kid’s. Shit, she thought. I really forgot.

  “I don’t think you appreciate what this means to me,” her mother said. “To have this reporter come here and to have to talk about those things. Your grandpa doesn’t want to talk about them, so I count on you.”

  “I said I was sorry, Mom.”

  Ashleigh saw the tears forming in her mother’s eyes, little pools of water that threatened to spill. Her mother rarely cried. And whenever she cried, Ashleigh felt the same way. She’d do anything on earth to stop it from happening.

  But the tears didn’t spill. Instead, her mom seemed angry, ready to lash out.

  “I swear, Ashleigh, I’m the only one here who really cares about this family. The only one who cares about what happened in the past and who cares to do anything about it now. Do you know how frustrating that is for me?”

  The only one who cares about what happened in the past? The only one who cares to do anything about it now?

  Ashleigh felt her own anger rise. She slammed the glass on the counter, creating a mini geyser of water. It drenched her hand and the counter.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve saying that to me,” Ashleigh said.

  “Don’t act that way.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  “You can’t talk to me that way.”

  “You’re the one stuck in Dove Point, living in the same house you grew up in,” Ashleigh said.

  Ashleigh regretted the words as she said them, but she couldn’t stop. And when they came out, her mother lifted her hand to her own mouth, reacting as though she’d been slapped.

  “Ashleigh,” she said. All she managed, her voice just above a whisper.

  “Mom, I’m sorry—”

  Then the tears really did come. Her mother turned away, went up the stairs and back to her room, leaving Ashleigh behind.

  And as soon as she was gone, Ashleigh knew what she wanted to say to her mom. What she s
hould have said:

  If you really knew what I was doing today…And if only you knew I was doing it all for you. Only for you.

  Chapter Eleven

  The call came just after nine in the evening. Janet was in her bed, the TV playing low. They were all in their rooms in the house, each of them isolated and locked in their own worlds. Janet let the phone ring. She figured it was a call for Ashleigh. No one ever called Janet or her dad.

  But the phone kept ringing. Either Ashleigh was wearing her headphones in her room and couldn’t hear it, or else she was letting it ring as a protest in response to the fight.

  Janet answered.

  “Hey,” the still familiar voice said. “It’s me.”

  “Michael?”

  Her heart started to thump. She felt almost breathless.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Watching TV.” She regretted the admission. So mundane. “I mean, there’s a movie.”

  “I was hoping we could talk more,” he said.

  “Sure.” Janet reached over and muted the sound. She sat up. “Do you want to come over? We could sit on the porch.”

  Michael laughed a little. “I’m guessing your dad is home, right?”

  “He is.”

  Janet understood. Her dad wasn’t a fan of Michael. He still thought of Michael as the shaggy-haired, partying wild man from high school. And Ashleigh’s father, Tony Bachus—now married and living in Florida—hung out with Michael all the time back then. Her dad associated the two boys so closely that neither one was allowed on the Manning property after Janet became pregnant.

  “I was thinking of neutral territory,” Michael said. “Do you know the coffee shop downtown? It’s open until eleven in the summer.” His voice carried mystery, like he knew things others didn’t know. Even something as trivial as the coffee shop hours. “Can you meet me there?”

  Janet didn’t hesitate. “I’ll be there in fifteen.”

  But when she stepped outside, into the hot, still night, something felt different. Too calm. Too quiet. Janet stopped in the driveway, halfway between the house and the car, the keys dangling from her hand. She listened.