The Hiding Place

by David Bell

  Stynes decided the answer was above his pay grade. All he knew with any certainty was that two halves of the equation, the people suffering over the years as the result of the same murder, could easily make a case that he was to blame for it all. If he’d investigated more thoroughly, if he’d listened to his gut, if he’d stood up to Reynolds. If, if, if…

  So he really didn’t care about jumping the gun. He needed to tell someone like Janet Manning and someone like Dante a little bit of good news, no matter how tenuous it might be.

  The Reverend Fred laughed when Stynes came through the door of the church office. He acted like he had just heard a particularly salty joke. He clapped his hands a couple of times.

  “Well, well,” he said. “The great white hunter. What are you here for? Trying to meet your quota of brothers to arrest?”

  “I’m here to see Dante. Is he here?”

  “Oh, he’s here,” Fred said. “I don’t know if he wants to talk to you.”

  Stynes started down the hallway to the literature room.

  “I got an interesting phone call today,” Fred said. “A reporter.”

  Stynes turned around. “From the Ledger?”

  “Our hometown paper,” Fred said. “Her name’s…Katie something. Katie-”

  “Kate Grossman.”

  “That’s it. Grossman. She sounded very…starched,” Fred said. “You know, they’re only hiring white girls over there.”

  “What did she want?” Stynes asked, although he suspected he knew.

  “She’s just like you. She wanted to talk to Dante. I told her he wasn’t taking calls at the moment, but I represented his interests if she wanted to run something by me. So she did. And guess what she told me?”

  Stynes didn’t answer but wished he could slap the knowing smirk off the Reverend Fred’s face.

  “She told me the police had a new witness come forward in the Justin Manning case,” Fred said. “One who might just be able to exonerate Dante.”

  “She can’t know everything.”

  “I guess she knows enough,” Fred said. “Of course, I just listened mostly. Except I did say that if it were up to me to give good counsel to a brother like Dante, I would suggest he hire a civil rights attorney and take the city of Dove Point and the Dove Point Police and all the investigators who worked the case to court for twenty-two years of pain and suffering at the hands of our criminal injustice system. That’s what I told her I’d do, Detective.”

  “I’m not sure I’d disagree with you about that, Reverend,” Stynes said.

  For a moment, Stynes found joy in the surprised look on the Reverend Fred’s face. If he’d expected a fight, Stynes wasn’t going to give him one. And Stynes couldn’t blame Dante if he did try to recoup what he’d lost as a result of his years in prison.

  “What does Dante think of all this?” Stynes asked.

  It took a moment for Reverend Fred to respond, and while he held Stynes’s gaze, even more of his certainty slipped away. The Reverend Fred held a strong initial hand, but his lack of an immediate answer told Stynes something.

  “We’re still working on that,” Fred said. “As you can imagine, it’s just a bit overwhelming for him after all this time of being treated like a pariah.”

  “I guess you’ll have to keep working on him, won’t you?” Stynes asked.

  “I will. Don’t forget I was a victim here as well.”

  “You mean the money from your accounts?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t worry,” Stynes said. “Mr. Bower will answer for that if need be. We’re already checking to see if other clients of his were stolen from. I suspect they were.”

  Reverend Fred leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. He nodded his head. Stynes took it for a gesture of appreciation.

  “I’m going to go talk to Dante now,” Stynes said. “This is about him, remember?”

  Dante sat at the same sagging folding table as before. Rather than stuffing envelopes, he was surrounded by file folders, and he seemed to be sorting them into stacks. One of the stacks stood so high on the end of the table that it looked like it could pitch over onto the floor at any moment. Dante didn’t look up. He kept shuffling the folders around, his lips moving as he did his work.

  “Dante?”

  He answered without looking up. “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you mind holding off on your work for a minute?”

  Dante stopped. He practically froze in place and still didn’t look up.

  Stynes came farther into the room and pulled a chair out from the opposite side of the table. He sat down, feeling the uncomfortable metal dig into his back.

  “I guess Reverend Fred told you what’s happening with the case.”

  “He did.”

  “Is there anything you want to say to me about it?” Stynes asked.

  Dante swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing on his puffy neck. “I’m glad that family will have some peace.”

  “That’s nice of you to say.”

  Dante shrugged. He picked up one of the folders and held it in his hand. He looked like he wanted to return to his filing, but he didn’t. He just held the folder in his lap, gently tapping it against his thigh.

  “Dante, I want to tell you how sorry I am about your conviction. We made some mistakes during our investigation. We…There were witnesses, but it looks like their testimony was probably influenced by someone in a position of authority.”

  “You mean those children.”

  “That’s right. If we’d listened to what they said that day, right after Justin disappeared…”

  “They were scared. Kids get scared.”

  In his mind, Stynes had pictured the whole scene going another way. He had imagined feeling differently about everything he would say to Dante. He had hoped to speak to him and then feel a wave of relief and calm wash over his body and mind, a release from the burden of guilt he carried. But nothing like that came. Instead, he looked at Dante, a broken middle-aged man, and understood the limits of his own words and actions to make any kind of significant difference in Dante’s life.

  Stynes reached into his suit coat and brought out one of his business cards. He wrote his home phone number on the back of the card and handed it over.

  “If there’s ever anything I can do to help,” he said. “If you need a job or anything, let me know.”

  “Thank you.”

  Dante tucked the card into the pocket of his jeans without reading it. He tapped the folder again.

  “Okay, I’ll let you get back to your work.”

  “Okay.”

  “Dante?” Stynes said. “Why did you keep those newspaper clippings about Justin Manning in your room? Why were you interested in the case?”

  Dante stared at the tabletop when he spoke. “I remembered that boy from the park. I saw him that day. I played with him, carried him on my shoulders and made him laugh. I could do that with some kids, make them laugh. After he disappeared and you all started asking me questions, I started keeping the newspaper stories. I just felt connected to the whole thing, I guess.” He paused, then went on. “I’m not saying I wanted to, you know, touch him that day. But I might have done it if I’d had the chance. It was a close call for me.”

  “Why are you so calm, Dante? If someone put me in jail for something I didn’t do, I don’t know if I could control myself. You act like nothing happened.”

  Dante didn’t answer, so Stynes stood up and moved toward the door. But before he left the room, Dante said, “Prison helped me a little.”

  “What’s that?” Stynes said, turning back to the table where Dante sat.

  “It helped me,” he said. “I found God there.”

  “You can find God out here, too, Dante. You’re in a church.”

  “I had desires back then.” He started shuffling the folders again and talked while he shuffled. “I had a desire for small children. Being in prison helped me with that.”

  “Are you sayin
g it cured you?” Stynes asked.

  “God did. He healed me.”

  “So you don’t have those desires anymore?”

  Dante put his head down and kept working. He acted like Stynes had already left the room.

  “You should get help, Dante. Counseling of some kind.”

  “The Reverend Fred counsels me.”

  “I mean a real counselor.” Stynes tried to correct himself. “The reverend is fine with the spiritual side of things, and I’m sure he’s been a good friend to you. But you have to believe me about this-I’ve seen other guys like you. Other guys with your…desires, let’s say. My experience is they tend not to go away.”

  “Not without counseling?” Dante asked.

  Never, Stynes wanted to say. For guys like you, they never go away.

  But he didn’t say it.

  “Just keep at it, okay, Dante? Keep fighting the good fight.”

  Dante nodded and added the file in his hand to the tall stack, pushing it that much closer to toppling over.

  Chapter Forty-nine

  Janet drove to Rose Bower’s house. She turned the air-con-ditioning off and rolled down the windows, letting fresh warm air into the car as she moved through town. She turned the car radio off as well. She didn’t want distractions. She didn’t want to hear happy music or sad news or anything really. Nothing except Michael’s voice, telling her he hadn’t been using her, that he hadn’t been trying to use Steven against her. She wanted to hear Michael say they weren’t just pawns as Steven had said.

  She’d known him her whole life. She hoped she would get to the house and Michael would be there, opening the door to her. And they’d talk the whole thing through, the way they would have when they were kids. And she’d understand, and it would all make sense.

  But when Rose Bower opened the door to the little house, Janet could tell by the look on her face-something between surprise and pity-that Michael wasn’t there.

  Janet followed Rose inside, and the two women sat. Rose wore a housecoat, and her hair looked limpid and dirty, as if she hadn’t bathed for a couple of days.

  “Did he leave, Rose?” Janet asked. “Did he leave town?”

  Rose didn’t answer. She rubbed her hands up and down the tops of her thighs, back and forth across the gray floral-patterned material.

  “Rose? Just tell me.”

  “He packed some things earlier today,” she said.

  “He was here?”

  “He was here and gone. He threw his clothes into bags. He said he’d stayed too long as it was, and he needed to get out of town.”

  “Where was he going?” Janet asked.

  “He didn’t say. I didn’t ask, I guess. I don’t want to be a nag.”

  “He’s your son.”

  “I know, but…” Her words trailed off. She seemed to not have the will to finish.

  “Do you know the police are going to the hospital to question Ray?” Janet asked.

  Rose’s eyes widened.

  “They found another witness who saw him in the woods that day. They’re going to ask Ray if he’s ready to confess to killing Justin. They’re hoping to do the whole thing without a trial.”

  Rose stopped rubbing the tops of her thighs. She raised one hand to her mouth, covering it as though she might cough or say something inappropriate. But she didn’t speak. She held the hand there for a long moment.

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that, Rose.”

  She nodded her head. “It’s okay, honey.”

  “Why do you think Ray would kill his own child?” Janet asked. “He knew, or suspected, that Justin was his son. Why would he hurt him like that?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Ray wasn’t violent. He never hurt Michael. He never laid a hand on me. He didn’t hurt us that way.”

  “Was Michael ever violent?” Janet asked.

  Rose scooted back on the couch a little. “Michael? Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because he beat the hell out of Ray the other night,” Janet said. “And I saw him, right after he did it. He looked…different, Rose. There was something wrong with him.”

  “I know he did that to his father,” Rose said. “But that was his father. Michael was gentle-”

  “He wasn’t, Rose.”

  Janet’s words came out hard and flat, like a smack against the top of the table. Rose flinched.

  Janet continued. “He enjoyed it when other kids were bullied in school. That man in the jail, the one pretending to be Justin. Michael egged other kids on when they bullied him. He wasn’t always peaceful or benevolent.”

  “Why do you hate him so much?” Rose asked. “Michael paid a price for what happened in that park. He’s lived with it all these years, too. I know what it was like for him after he came home that day.” Rose fussed with the hair at the back of her head before resuming. “He was upset. Very upset. He cried and cried because something had happened to Justin.” Rose’s eyes grew misty as she thought about her son in distress or pain. “He told me it was his fault. He said he was right there, and it was his fault that Justin didn’t come back out of the woods. I guess he ran after him or something.”

  “And what did you tell him?”

  “I told him it wasn’t his fault, of course. I told him there were bad people in the world, and sometimes they wanted to hurt small children. We didn’t believe in sheltering Michael. Not really.”

  “And did Ray say anything?”

  “He was adamant that Michael not blame himself. Adamant.”

  “And did that help Michael settle down?” Janet asked.

  It took Rose a long time to answer. Before any words came out of her mouth, she started slowly turning her head back and forth. Finally she said, “He only calmed down when we agreed to let him see you.”

  “See me?”

  “He went to your house.”

  “Why?”

  Again, Rose hesitated.

  “Why?” Janet asked.

  “Because your dad called and asked if we could bring Michael over to your house.”

  “Why would he do that? After everything he knew.”

  “You were upset, too. Just like Michael. You know what that’s like, to see your child upset or sick or scared. You wouldn’t calm down, and you kept asking to see Michael. After everything he found out that morning, of course your father didn’t want Ray or any of us coming near his house. And I didn’t want your mother coming near us. But, you see, eventually Bill gave in. He couldn’t take seeing you so unhappy, so he called over here. He said Michael could come over to your house if I brought him over there. He said if Ray showed up he couldn’t be held responsible for his actions. But I could do it if I wanted.”

  “And you did?”

  “I didn’t want to,” Rose said. “I was sick, too. Just sick. Physically, I felt ill after what Ray had told me that morning. I didn’t think I’d even be able to walk.” She shook her head. “I wish I’d had the guts to kick Ray out-I really do. But I never had them. I never did. It’s sick for me to admit this, but if he knocked on that door today, I might just take him back.”

  Rose’s admission gave Janet a touch of sickness in her gut. “So you came to our house with Michael.”

  “Your dad let me in. The house, your house-it was just crazy. There were police there and reporters outside with cameras. A lot of your parents’ friends were over. People your dad worked with. Women from the church who knew your mom. It was a bit of a madhouse.”

  “Did my mom see you? Did you talk to her?”

  “I don’t know where she was,” Rose said. “Maybe she was lying down or resting. Your dad met me at the door and he led us upstairs. You were in your room, alone. He didn’t…we didn’t…”

  “You didn’t talk about what had happened?”

  “No. We were the aggrieved parties. But it seemed petty to mention anything like that when Justin had been taken. We just wanted to settle the two of you down. I remember your dad standing in the doorway of your ro
om after we got there. You and Michael sat right on the floor together and started playing. As soon as you two saw each other, the crying stopped. The look on your dad’s face,” Rose said. “When I saw him at the door, he looked older, worn down. He looked like a very sad man. But for just a moment, when he stood there looking at you in your room with Michael, and because you had stopped crying, he almost looked happy. I know how heavy his heart was, but he did look happy.”

  Janet had been there, but she didn’t remember any of what Rose was telling her. She felt her emotions catch in her own throat as she thought back, wishing she could have seen that look on her dad’s face, a moment of contentment as everything in his world fell apart. She wished she could see that look on his face in the present.

  “So you just sat with us while we played?”

  “Someone called your dad away. His happiness didn’t last long. I don’t know if it was the police or a reporter, but someone called his name, and I saw the weight lower onto him again. He left the room and closed the bedroom door. We were in there together, you and Michael and me. For an hour or so, and when we left, we promised we’d let you two play together again the next day if you wanted.”

  “And I guess we talked to the police while you were there,” Janet said.

  “You remember that?”

  “I don’t remember it really. But I know it happened because we told them about seeing Justin in the park with Dante Rogers.” Then something occurred to Janet. “Did you say you sat with us alone in my room after my dad left?”

  “For just a little while.”

  “Did you tell us what to say?” Janet asked. “That night, did you tell us to tell the police that we saw Dante and Justin together in the park? And did you tell us not to mention seeing Justin run into the woods chasing after that dog?”

  Rose didn’t answer. But Janet understood. All she had to do was think back just a few minutes to Rose’s admission that she would still take Ray back if he knocked on the door right then. If she felt that way in the present, what would she have done for him in the past? Janet had recently begun to wonder how Ray Bower could have reached them if her father knew about the affair. It was simple-he didn’t have to. Rose did the dirty work for him.