by David Bell
“I pay attention,” Kelcey said.
“If you did, instead of sitting there texting or chewing gum or twirling your hair with your finger, you’d know that someone dying isn’t a tragedy. A tragedy is when a noble character falls as the result of a fatal flaw. It provides catharsis and pleasure to the audience to watch it happen. Do you feel catharsis or pleasure reading about my family?”
“Come on, Ash-” Kevin placed his hand on Ashleigh’s arm, calming her down and leading her away.
“Fuck you, Ashleigh,” Kelcey said. “God. We’re just trying to be nice and ask about your family. But if you want to keep being the little moody girl, go ahead.”
“I can be the moody girl and you can be the dumb girl-”
By then, Kevin was applying more force, guiding her away from the baseball diamond and out of the park. She let herself be led because she realized she’d finally get to talk to Kevin alone.
They walked out of the park side by side. They didn’t talk to each other. Ashleigh kept her head down, her hands in the sweatshirt pockets. She didn’t look at Kevin but felt him by her side, a solid, reassuring presence. She didn’t pay attention to where they headed, didn’t care. She felt the anger at Kelcey-and all the stupid people she knew-course through her body. She hoped the walk would cool things down, let the steam of her rage dissipate.
When she looked up again, they were at Clark Street Junior High, the place where Ashleigh and Kevin had first met before they’d moved on to high school together. They still didn’t speak. They knew where to go without words, so they walked to the side of the school building and over to the old playground. Ashleigh went right for the swing sets, with Kevin following, and they sat next to each other, each on their own swing.
After a long few moments, Ashleigh spoke. “You look like an idiot, you know that?”
The swing was too small and too low to the ground for Kevin. It forced his knees up high, making him look like some kind of contortionist. “No,” he said. “I’m cool.” He spread his arms wide. “Look at me, I’m cool.”
Ashleigh swung a little, a gentle back and forth. “Don’t tell me I shouldn’t have yelled at Kelcey,” she said. “I know you want to tell me that, so just don’t.”
“I won’t.”
“She’s a fucking airhead.”
“I know. But in her own way, she was trying to act concerned.”
“I thought I said not to tell me that.”
But she wasn’t really mad. The anger-at least at Kelcey-was gone. Ashleigh continued to rock. She looked at the old school building, the dirty bricks, the huge windows. It seemed so long ago that she was a student there, even though it had been just over a year.
“What are you so pissed about?” Kevin asked.
“I’m not pissed,” she said.
“That wasn’t pissed?”
“I mean I’m not really mad about that.” Ashleigh slowed her movement on the swing. She scraped her feet against the ground, felt the bark and twigs against her feet. “I’m mad at my mom and grandpa. But that’s not really bothering me either. I just wanted to tell you something. I’m not mad. I just wanted to talk.”
“What’s up then?” Kevin asked.
But Ashleigh didn’t feel ready to talk. Not about all of that-her uncle, the murder. The man in the woods. Not yet.
“Do you remember playing kickball and dodgeball here?” she asked.
“Sure. It was kind of fun.”
“I hated it,” Ashleigh said.
Kevin laughed.
“Seriously, I hated it,” she said. “I thought nothing would ever be worse than being in grade school or junior high and having to do what everybody told me to do. I couldn’t wait to get to high school, you know? I thought I’d be a grown-up then.”
“Are you a grown-up?”
“No. Things are just as bad. And now I can’t wait to graduate and go to college.”
“The grass is always greener,” Kevin said. “But aren’t we supposed to be happy and carefree? Aren’t these the best years of our lives?”
“Right,” Ashleigh said. She kicked at the dirt, then made a circular pattern with her foot. She knew Kevin was watching her. She felt his eyes on her even when she wasn’t looking at him. “The other day when you got off the bus, I went on to the park.”
“I figured you were headed there, that you were in the mood to be there.”
“Something happened.”
Kevin looked concerned. Protective. “What happened?”
“I saw someone.”
“Who, Ashleigh?”
She didn’t answer right away.
“Who did you see?” Kevin asked.
“Dante Rogers. The guy who killed my uncle.”
“He was in the park?”
“He wasn’t just in the park. He was at the place where they found my uncle’s body. He was right there.”
“He was there when you were there? Just the two of you in the middle of the woods?”
“Yes.”
“Were you scared?”
Ashleigh thought about the question before she answered. “Not scared. Uneasy, I guess.”
“What the hell was he doing there?” Kevin asked.
“He was just standing there. He came walking up, and he looked surprised to see me, like he’d been there before and was always alone.”
“Did you talk to him?”
“I tried.” Ashleigh thought back to the scene in the clearing, the way Dante just ran away from her, as though she had something wrong with her. “He bolted. As soon as I went toward him, he ran.”
“He didn’t say anything?”
Ashleigh shook her head. The sun had fallen farther, and near the low ground beneath the hedge that separated the school from the road, fireflies began to blink on and off.
“He held his hands out,” Ashleigh said. “He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn’t. He looked scared, I guess.”
“Weird.”
“Why would he go there?” Ashleigh asked.
Kevin shrugged. “Maybe he’s been going to that spot in the woods ever since he got out.”
“But if you go to the place where you supposedly murdered someone, doesn’t it mean you’re guilty?”
“If you’re going there and no one’s making you go there, yes, it does suggest guilt.”
Ashleigh didn’t say anything else, but she again felt Kevin staring at her. Studying her.
“Ash, why do you care about that? Wouldn’t you be happy to know that Dante really killed your uncle? It would mean they convicted the right guy, and he did his time.”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?” Kevin asked. “Are you mad because he didn’t go to jail long enough?”
“Not that. I don’t really care about that. I’m not like those stupid people who live for revenge, who foam at the mouth if they think someone should have gone to the electric chair.”
“Then what is it?”
Ashleigh watched the fireflies and tried to think of the right words.
“I want the story to change,” she said finally. “My whole life, that’s been the story. Dante Rogers killed my uncle. He went to jail. My grandmother died from grief. All of that happened before I was born, but I’ve lived with it my whole life. It’s been a black cloud over my head and the whole family.” She turned to him. “But when that guy showed up at the house saying the story wasn’t true, that something else happened to my uncle, I felt something change. I don’t know…There was a chance.”
“A chance to change the story? Your family’s story?”
“Yes.” She kicked at the ground. “When that guy-Steven-first showed up, I thought he just meant that Dante didn’t kill my uncle the way they said he did. Or maybe he just meant that Dante didn’t kill him and someone else did.”
“But?”
“But what if he means something more? What if he’s trying to say that my uncle didn’t die? What if he’s still alive?”
“I know. But there’s something happening with this guy. I can feel it.”
She knew Kevin would understand. She wanted to tell him because she knew he would get it without a lot of explanation. They got each other. Sometimes she thought he was the only person who got her.
“It makes sense,” he said. “I understand why you want to find this guy and talk to him. But there’s one potential problem with all of this.”
“What’s that?”
“What if you find out something different did happen, just like that guy said, and what if it ends up being worse than what you know now?”
As quickly as Ashleigh wanted to celebrate her friendship with Kevin, she just as quickly wanted to curse him. Being friends with him-and maybe being good friends with anyone-meant that he knew exactly how to cut to the heart of a matter, even if it meant saying something Ashleigh didn’t want to hear.
“It can’t be,” she said. “Anything is better. My mom, you know? She’s living her life and everything, but has anyone ever needed a different story more than her? Hell, sometimes-and I can’t believe I’m going to say this-but sometimes-”
“You even feel sorry for your grandpa.”
“Yes.”
Kevin laughed. Ashleigh spent so much time complaining about the old man that she knew it struck him as funny to hear her express any sympathy for him. But she really felt that way. He might be a grumpy old man, but he was her grandfather.
“So, what are you going to do next?” Kevin asked. “Call the police, I hope.”
“And report a guy hanging out in a park?”
“A murderer, Ash. If he’s out, he’s on parole. He can’t just go wherever he wants or do whatever he wants.”
“How do you know what he can and can’t do?” she asked.
Kevin chuckled. “I’m black, Ash. I may be middle class and respectable, but black men don’t grow up not knowing about these things. If he’s out on parole, I guarantee he’s not allowed to come near your family or that park. He could get sent right back to jail.”
“I won’t call the police on him,” she said.
“Then what?”
“I’m going back,” she said. “I’m going back to talk to Steven Kollman.”
Chapter Eighteen
Stynes called into the station before he left his house for his noon-to-nine shift. He spoke to the desk officer and asked if anything was brewing in Dove Point that morning, anything that required his immediate attention. He waited while the officer checked, and while he stood there he looked down at his little notebook. He revisited the details that Reverend Fred had provided-six times in the last eighteen months money had disappeared from the church account. Not big amounts. They all ranged between three hundred and eight hundred dollars. The money always returned, usually without the reverend having to say anything to his bookkeeper.
But still, the reverend wondered, where was that money going?
The desk officer came back and told Stynes all was clear.
“I’m going to be checking on a complaint from the Reverend Fred Arling,” Stynes said. “It shouldn’t take long.”
He hung up and took a last look at the name of the bookkeeper before he left the house.
Ray Bower. Michael Bower’s father.
Could it just be a coincidence?
A converted Cape Cod with a wide front porch housed Ray Bower’s bookkeeping office on Lincoln Street, just two blocks off the circle. Stynes stepped into what had once served as the living room of the home. A large desk and a photocopier took up most of the space, and the young woman behind the desk took up the rest with the size of her smile.
“Can I help you?” she said.
The woman, who looked to be about twenty-five, wore her hair pulled back into a businesslike ponytail. Stynes made a point of not staring at the exposed skin where her black V-neck shirt dipped low enough to reveal a strip of black bra. A large bouquet of flowers took up one corner of the desk.
“Is Mr. Bower in?” Stynes asked.
“He sure is. Did you have an appointment?”
“No,” Stynes said. “I just wanted to talk to him.” Stynes decided to cut to the chase. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather billfold. He felt a little like a cliche from a TV show, letting one half of the billfold fall open, revealing his shiny gold badge. “Is he in?”
The smile remained in place but the wattage dimmed. She stood up. “Just one second. I’ll tell him.”
She went through an open door at the back of the front room, one that must have led to the original kitchen. She disappeared inside, and Stynes heard their murmured voices while he looked around at the Rotary Club plaques and citations from the Dove Point Small Business Association that decorated the walls. It took less than twenty seconds for the girl to come out.
“You can go right on back,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Would you like some coffee or something?”
“No, thanks. I won’t be long.”
Stynes tried to remember the last time he had seen Ray Bower. He didn’t know the man outside the confines of the Manning case. If it hadn’t been for the death of Justin Manning, Stynes doubted he would know the man at all. From time to time over the years, they may have crossed paths in the grocery store or at a Dove Point High basketball game, but if they said more than three words to each other, Stynes couldn’t remember them. Every once in a while, Ray Bower sprang for ad time on a local radio station, and some of those commercials slipped through the filter that ordinarily blocked such things from Stynes’s consciousness. The name always conjured up brief thoughts of the Manning case, but those thoughts never coalesced around Ray Bower in any meaningful way.
As Stynes entered the room, the man stood up, removed his half-moon reading glasses, and came around the desk to shake hands. He’d grown thick over the years. His big belly hung over his waist, pushing against the yellow polo shirt he wore and forcing the belt on his khaki pants lower. His hair had turned completely gray but still remained full.
“Have a seat, Detective,” he said, returning to his spot behind the desk.
Stynes sat and brought out his notebook. “I’m sorry to walk in on you like this, but I was in the neighborhood.”
“It’s no problem.” Bower tossed the glasses onto the scattering of papers on his desk. “You do have my curiosity piqued, I have to admit. It’s been a long time since we last crossed paths. I hope it’s nothing as serious as that.”
Stynes smiled. He could picture Bower bellied up to a table at the local country club. Not Indian Lake, the most exclusive club, the one that only Dove Point’s richest residents could afford. More likely Bower would pay the dues at Rolling Hills, the older and less exclusive club, the one that a middle-to upper-middle-class bookkeeper could afford to join. He would be perfectly at ease drinking beer with the boys after a long round, his face florid from the sun and the alcohol, telling jokes and complaining about the national debt or the tax code or the way kids today just didn’t understand the meaning of hard work and sacrifice.
“I’m happy to say it’s not nearly as serious as the Manning murder.”
Bower nodded. He did look relieved. “Good.”
“One of your clients is the Reverend Fred Arling, right?”
Bower made no effort to conceal the eye roll. “Yes, the Reverend Fred. I’ve been doing his books for about ten years. Not much money there, but, you know, it’s a service. Sort of like a lawyer doing pro bono work.”
“You do his books for free?” Stynes asked.
“No, no. He’s just not a very big client, that’s all.”
“Has he ever complained to you about missing money?”
Bower rolled his eyes again. “Only every week for the last three years-Cindy? Cindy?” The girl appeared in the doorway, her face open for whatever task the boss would assig
n. “Can you get me the Reverend Fred’s folder, please?” When she was gone, Bower pointed to his computer and said, “Some of this stuff is still easier to look at on paper.”
“I get it,” Stynes said. “I hate computers.” He looked around. No pictures of a wife or kids or grandkids. Stynes tried to remember if Bower was still married to the same woman. He didn’t wear a wedding ring. But even if he was divorced, why no pictures of his son, Michael? Wasn’t that Small Businessman 101? Scatter the place with pictures of your family so everyone thinks you’re a regular guy?
“I don’t even have a cell phone or one of those BlackBerry things,” Bower said. “If they can’t reach me here, they don’t need me, right?”
“I hear you,” Stynes said. “They make me carry one.”
Cindy breezed back in carrying a manila folder. She brought it around behind Bower’s chair and, while moving about as close to the man as she possibly could, laid it open on his desk. Stynes saw she wore a gold engagement ring on her left hand.
“He needs a phone,” Cindy said. “What if there was an emergency or something?”
Stynes started to see the picture developing. Cindy did everything but give Ray Bower a kiss on the cheek.
“Thank you, Cindy,” Ray said.
She picked up on the hint and left the room.
Ray flipped the folder open when she was gone and let out a long sigh. “Let’s see,” he said. “The Reverend Fred.”
“I’m not looking for every detail of his financial holdings,” Stynes said.
Bower didn’t look up from the file. “You couldn’t do that without a subpoena anyway.”
“I just want to know if there’s validity to his complaint, or is it just a misunderstanding.”
Bower looked up. “Of course there’s no validity to the complaint,” he said. He leaned back in his chair, the springs groaning as he adjusted his weight. “The Reverend Fred is a little too literal-minded to understand the way business works. He thinks if a certain amount of money is in his account at one point during the month or a quarter, then that amount is always going to be there.”
“Shouldn’t it be?”
“A few years back, a rich elderly woman who had been going to Reverend Fred’s church for about forty years up and died. Classic little old lady who lived frugally and tucked her money into nice safe investments and drove the same car for thirty years, and when she died she had a decent amount socked away. She didn’t have any kids, so she left the money to Reverend Fred’s church.”