Hiding Place (9781101606759)

by Bell, David

  Janet studied the address. It was printed, not handwritten. The postmark said Dove Point, but the envelope lacked a return address.

  “Go ahead and open it,” Kate said.

  But Janet didn’t move right away. She thought about taking the envelope back to her desk and opening it away from Kate Grossman. Or maybe just throwing it in the trash. Did she need to know anything else?

  But Janet turned it over and started to slip her index finger under the sealed flap.

  “Just one second,” Kate said.

  Janet looked up.

  “I know it’s weird, but I brought a camera with me. Would you mind if I—?”

  “Yes, I’d mind.”

  Janet completed the work of opening the envelope and looked inside. She didn’t see much. Just a white piece of paper. She drew it out and unfolded the sheet.

  Dear Ms. Manning,

  In response to your stated request to see your late brother and mother buried side by side, please accept a donation of $10,000 for that purpose, which has been placed into a fund in your name at Dove Point Farmers Bank and Trust.

  With our sympathies.

  “Well?” Kate asked.

  Janet didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say. She turned the paper over. It was blank on the back. The whole thing seemed like a joke. Was it some sort of crank attempting to mess with her again?

  “Oh, God, Ms. Manning,” Kate said. “Is it something awful? Did someone say something nasty to you?”

  “Why did you come in here and say you had good news?” Janet asked. “Do you know what this says?”

  Kate shook her head. She really did look young, like a kid who thought she might be in trouble. “I don’t know,” she said. Her shoulders sagged, and she lost the shiny, confident smile. “See, my editor thought coming and watching you open the letter personally would make a good follow-up story. I guess we were just hoping it would be good news.”

  “Hoping?”

  “Is it? Or is it something bad?”

  Janet folded the letter and tucked it back into the envelope. “I need to call the bank.”

  “Here, use my phone.”

  “I don’t know the number.”

  “It’s a smartphone. I’ll look it up.”

  Janet told her who to call, and within a few minutes Janet was speaking with the branch manager. She explained who she was and asked if he could tell her anything over the phone about something being opened in her name.

  The manager seemed circumspect at first, reluctant to give out too much information. But Janet insisted.

  “If this is some kind of sick joke, then I have to call the police,” Janet said. “Do I need to call the police?”

  After a short pause, the manager said, “No, you don’t have to call the police. This isn’t a joke at all, Ms. Manning. No joke at all.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Ashleigh was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal even though it was after five o’clock in the evening, when her mom came through the back door. Her mom usually whisked through the world with breezy efficiency. She moved quickly, but always with purpose, her body and movements under her complete control. But that evening her mom seemed out of sorts when she came into the house. She dropped her keys on the kitchen floor. They fell in a rattling jumble against the linoleum. Rather than take her purse to her room, as she always did, she dropped it onto the floor as well. Her face was flushed, and Ashleigh didn’t think it was just from the heat.

  “Hi, Mom.”

  Janet stopped in the kitchen and leaned back against the counter by the sink. She let out a deep breath and then moved to the refrigerator, where she pulled out a bottle of wine. While it wasn’t unusual for her mom to have some wine in the evening, it was unusual for her to open a bottle before she was even ten steps in the door. She still hadn’t spoken to or looked at Ashleigh.

  “Is everything okay?” Ashleigh asked.

  Janet filled a glass and took a long first swallow. She came over to the table and sat across from her daughter.

  “Would you believe me if I told you someone gave us ten thousand dollars today?” Janet asked.

  “No.”

  “I don’t believe it either, but they did.”

  “Who gave you ten thousand dollars?” Ashleigh asked. She studied her mother’s face. Had she been drinking before she came home? Had the stress of the last few days driven her to say crazy, nonsensical things? Her mother’s eyes looked clear. She didn’t slur her words or seem fuzzy-headed.

  “Someone created a fund at the bank in my name,” Janet said. “An anonymous donor. They set it up because they read the story in the paper about Justin, and they wanted to give us the money to move Justin’s grave next to your grandma’s.”

  “An anonymous donor did this? Someone we don’t know?”

  Her mother swallowed more wine. “The bank manager doesn’t even know who did it. The whole thing was set up by a lawyer or something. But the money’s there. I saw the paperwork at the bank.”

  “Have you ever had that much money before?” Ashleigh asked.

  “Just in my retirement account. And I can’t touch that.”

  Ashleigh ignored her cereal. The Cheerios looked fat and milk swollen. “You seem pretty upset about this,” Ashleigh said. “Aren’t you happy? You said you wanted this to happen. You’ve always said that.”

  Her mother didn’t speak for a long time. She finished her glass of wine, then went to the counter and poured another one. When she came back, Ashleigh studied her mom’s face again. Her mother didn’t look very old up close. She was younger than most of the other parents of the kids Ashleigh went to school with, and in the slanting late-afternoon light that came through the kitchen window, Ashleigh noticed again how pretty her mother’s eyes were. They were light blue, and the sun picked up flecks of a gold color in the irises that Ashleigh had never noticed before. Her mother never dated, but she could. No doubt about it, Ashleigh concluded: her mother could be out on the market finding a nice guy and having a little fun. And Ashleigh wished her mother would do that, would choose to have a little bit of fun. She deserved it.

  “I don’t know what to make of this, Ash,” she said.

  “Someone just wants to help. There are rich people who can write a check for thousands of dollars just like that.” Ashleigh snapped her fingers to demonstrate. “We don’t know any of them, but I’m sure they exist.”

  “Isn’t it strange that this is happening right when this guy is here saying he’s Justin? What if the two are related?”

  “You mean that guy might have given the money? No way. You didn’t see his sketchy apartment, Mom.”

  “I guess I don’t trust anyone anymore,” her mom said. “I feel like there’s a trap around every corner. I feel like—”

  “Like Grandpa,” Ashleigh said, her voice low. The old man was back in his room, the TV on. But she still didn’t want to risk having him hear her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “He’s so angry. So bitter. He thinks the world is out to get him.”

  “I know.” Janet nodded, then said, “He wasn’t always like that. He could be warm and fun when I was a little kid. I can remember him laughing and playing sometimes. He’s had a rough ride.”

  “No rougher than you.”

  Janet smiled. She reached out and squeezed Ashleigh’s hand. “That’s sweet of you to say. But he lost a son. Maybe I can’t imagine.” Janet let go and sat up in her chair. “But you’re right. I don’t want to look at everyone like they’re a suspect or like they’re up to something.”

  “So just take the money and have Uncle Justin moved. You’d feel better—”

  But Ashleigh stopped talking. She recognized the problem with what she was saying at the same time the words came out of her mouth.

  A chill went through Ashleigh’s torso, shaking her upper body hard enough to make her teeth rattle against one another.

  “Mom, if that’s not Uncle Justin
in there…”

  “I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.”

  Chapter Thirty-six

  Stynes arrived at the Manning house after nine o’clock. He’d received a call from Janet Manning that afternoon, something about money being donated to her for the purposes of—

  He couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t listened to the message carefully, and he didn’t replay it. Other things were cluttering his mind.

  He had called in advance of his arrival at the Mannings’. He wanted to tell them in person, before they found out about it on the news or some other way. But he hadn’t given many details over the phone. He simply said they needed to talk, that there’d been a development in the case and he needed to speak to them as soon as possible. Was it too late?

  Janet Manning assured him it wasn’t.

  She opened the door for him seconds after he knocked. She was barefoot but otherwise still wearing the clothes she’d probably worked in. Her father wasn’t in the room, but Ashleigh was. The two of them sat on opposite ends of the couch, the TV playing one of those shows where they redecorate an entire home for fifty bucks or something like that. Janet turned it off, and Stynes sat in a chair, noting the empty wineglass on the end table by Janet’s arm.

  “Detective,” Janet said, “this house has just about exhausted its potential for hearing strange or disturbing news.”

  Stynes almost laughed. He looked at the two of them on the couch, the daughter a more petite version of the mother, but undeniably mother and child. He admired them, even liked them. Hell, if it weren’t for the complications surrounding the twenty-five-year-old murder of one of their close relatives, he’d really enjoy spending time with them.

  “Is your father home?” Stynes asked. “Would you like him to hear this?”

  “He’s here,” Janet said. “But why don’t you tell me what you know, and I’ll decide when to get him involved.”

  Stynes nodded. Fair enough.

  “We arrested a man today,” he said. “His identification said his name is Justin Manning.”

  The words settled over the room like an enveloping fog. No one moved or spoke. Stynes waited, watching the two Manning women. Ashleigh turned her head toward her mother as well, as though in anticipation.

  “Is it him?” Janet asked.

  The question—so simple, so loaded—cut to the heart of the entire matter.

  Is it him?

  “I’ll tell you what I do know,” Stynes said. He brought out his small notebook, flipped to the right page, and lifted his glasses so he could read the page. He knew some of the details without referencing the pad and spoke without directly referring to it. But it sometimes felt better to have the notebook there as a kind of prop. “This afternoon we received a call from St. Anne’s Elementary School. Are you familiar with it? It’s over on Roselawn Avenue.”

  “That’s where I went to school,” Janet said. “Grade school.”

  “They’re doing some summer cleaning projects, and one of their maintenance men found a man sleeping in the cafeteria. It looked like he was homeless and had been there for a couple of days, so they called the police.”

  “Did he break in?” Ashleigh asked.

  “Someone had left a service door open in the back, and he slipped in that way. When the officer arrived and asked for identification, the man produced an Ohio driver’s license saying he was Justin Manning of Columbus. The officer knew we were looking for this guy, so he brought him in.” Stynes reached into his jacket pocket again and brought out a photo. “First things first. Is this the man who came to your house in the middle of the night? And then this same man spoke to you on campus?” He handed the photo to Janet. “Take your time.”

  Janet looked at the photo and said, “Yes, that’s him.”

  She held on to the photo, her eyes studying it.

  “Ashleigh?” Stynes said. “Can you look too?”

  It took a long moment for Janet to hand the photo over, so long that Stynes had to speak.

  “Janet?”

  She passed it to Ashleigh without saying anything, and her daughter took the photo. Just as quickly, she said, “Yes, that’s the guy.”

  “And just to be clear, where did you see this man?”

  Ashleigh said, “He came to our porch and talked to Mom in the middle of the night.”

  Stynes took the photo back and returned it to his pocket.

  “What did he say?” Janet asked.

  “He hasn’t said much,” Stynes said. “In fact, he’s refused to answer any questions. He didn’t even ask for a lawyer. He handed over his identification and clammed up. We searched him and the small bag he carries with him. He didn’t carry any other identification. Nothing with the name Steven Kollman on it.”

  “He must have had something with that name on it,” Janet said. “How else would he be able to work and get a paycheck?”

  “Good question. And one we thought of. Turns out the place he was working, this Mi Casita or whatever it is, has a habit of paying some of its help under the table. They had some undocumented workers in the kitchen in addition to this guy. That’s a problem they’ll have to deal with, but it doesn’t concern us right now, except to say that as far as we can tell, Steven Kollman didn’t exist in Dove Point. He paid cash for the apartment and worked without identification. No one there knew him as Justin Manning. They knew him as Steven.”

  Janet’s face brightened a little. “Doesn’t that mean it’s likely—?”

  Stynes held up his hand. “It’s too early to conclude anything. It really is. We’re going to search the public records we have access to and see what if anything we can find out about Steven Kollman. In the meantime, we do know that someone—presumably this same guy—has been using your brother’s name and social security number for the past decade. He’s worked at a series of odd jobs all over the country—some in the South, some as close as Columbus and Cincinnati. He was never in any other trouble with the law, at least not anything that shows up as a conviction or an outstanding warrant beyond the one incident in Columbus. That’s the summons that Ashleigh found in his apartment. We’ve been in contact with local police departments in the places where he lived, hoping that they’ll do some legwork for us and ask about Justin Manning at some of the places he worked, but they’re strapped for time and resources, so who knows how long that will take to pan out, if it does at all.”

  “Can anything else be done?” Janet asked. “How are we going to find out what’s going on with this guy?”

  “What we can do is send this photo out,” Stynes said. “Send it to law enforcement agencies, the media. With the Internet, we can hit all corners of the country. We can hope someone recognizes him and knows something about him. Otherwise, the clock is ticking, and eventually we’ll have to let him go.”

  “Let him go?” Ashleigh said.

  Stynes looked over at the girl. She hadn’t said much since he’d come in the door, so her voice sounded discordant. She wasn’t content to just let her mother ask the tough questions.

  “That’s the law,” Stynes said. “We can’t just hold someone as long as we want.”

  “But he’s using my uncle’s social security number. Isn’t that identity theft or something?”

  “It is,” Stynes said. “If he’s really not your uncle. Do you have any proof that he isn’t who he says he is?”

  Again, the room fell silent. Stynes understood where Ashleigh was coming from—he felt the exact same way. At some point, he no longer cared what the answer was—yes, this man in the jail was Justin Manning or, no, the man in the jail wasn’t Justin Manning—he just wanted a final answer.

  But their options for answering that question were limited.

  “Look,” Stynes said. “I know how frustrating this is. I get it. If that man in the jail is your brother, then we convicted the wrong man twenty-five years ago. And that’s on me. Big-time. And if he’s not your brother, then I want to see him punished for harassing you.”

  “H
e never told me he was Justin,” Janet said. “Never.”

  “He still pretended to be Justin to some extent,” Stynes said. “People do that. They use the identities of deceased children because they know there isn’t much of a paper trail on a child. No arrests, no work history. It’s easy to acquire that information through a public record search and then get false identification made. He broke the law by doing that.” Stynes thought about it and chose the right words. “He raised your hopes. He led you on. That’s wrong.”

  “So what are our options here, besides just waiting around?” Janet asked.

  “Do you mean what options do we have for proving that man’s relationship or lack of one to you?” Stynes asked. “Absent a witness who will swear to something, which I don’t think we have, there’s only DNA or fingerprinting. Your brother didn’t have any prominent scars or anything like that, did he?”

  Janet shook her head.

  “So take a DNA sample,” Ashleigh said.

  “From the man in the jail?” Stynes asked.

  “Yes. Compare it to Mom. Then you’d know.”

  “We already asked him to do that, and he didn’t respond,” Stynes said. “And we can’t just force him to do it. It’s invasive. We’d have to have a court order, and in a case like this, I don’t know if a judge would grant it. They tend to do that with sexual assault and murder cases, but with this—” He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Can’t you just get him to lick an envelope or something?” Ashleigh asked. “Or steal his gum?”

  “This isn’t TV,” Stynes said.

  “What would it take to get a DNA sample from the body in Justin’s grave?” Janet asked.

  “You’d still need a court order, but there wouldn’t be any obstacles to getting it because the family would be making the request. But the judge would have to weigh the cost and time against the potential value that would come out of it. It might be a tough sell. And if I can be perfectly frank, we wouldn’t even know how much viable DNA they could get off the body. Remember, he was buried in those woods for a number of weeks. The body was skeletonized when we found it. And there was no embalming, no preservation possible. After another twenty-five years in the ground, who knows?”