by David Bell
“Why did Ray not want us to mention Justin running away?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t tell you.”
“No, he didn’t. And I didn’t ask. I saw him come home with that dirt on his clothes. I knew what that might mean. But I never asked him about it. He just told me to make sure Michael understood what to say. He told him here at home not to mention running into the woods, but then he wanted me to repeat it at your house. I just assumed it was true. How do I know what you saw at the park?”
“That’s witness tampering, Rose. I think that’s what they call it.”
“Oh, honey, look at me. Should I even care what anyone does to me or thinks about me now? Does any of it matter?”
“It still matters,” Janet said. “It matters a great deal.”
Chapter Fifty
Ashleigh sat on her bed with her earbuds in. The music went on and on, a nearly continuous loop of sound. She barely heard it. She stared out the window, watching the evening fall. The sky glowed red through the large tree in their yard. She did this sometimes, stared into space, felt herself alone, felt her mind drift. It had been a long day. She got up early for her uncle’s funeral service, and then made awkward conversation with the few relatives and friends who came back to the house. She took a nap in the afternoon, but rather than making her feel better, the nap made her feel more tired, more sluggish.
She’d felt off her game for a few days. Lazy, lethargic.
Why?
They finally knew the answer. The man on the porch wasn’t her uncle. There was no prize to bring home for her mother. Ashleigh thought all along that just knowing something for sure would help, but she saw that for what it was-a falsity. A lie. Only one thing could make everything better: bringing her uncle back. Short of that, she had failed. Even the reburial had felt a little hollow. When she stood next to her mom, leaned in against her, felt her warmth and comfort, Ashleigh understood how tough her mom really was. She had been through so much, and still Ashleigh could do little to change it all.
Her grandfather must have knocked more than once. He always acted like such a freak about coming into her room. She knew he wouldn’t just barge in without knocking, so when he opened the door and appeared at the foot of her bed, she knew he must have knocked several times, but she couldn’t hear him over the sound of the music.
She sat up, pulled the buds out of her ears.
The old man stood there, looking down at her. Something showed on his face. Was it fear? Was the old man scared?
“What’s wrong?” Ashleigh asked.
He didn’t answer right away. For a moment, he looked like he couldn’t talk, like he spoke and understood a different language and had no idea what the gibberish coming out of her mouth amounted to. “Grandpa?” she said.
“You should come down and see this,” he said.
The local news was playing on the TV. Neither one of them spoke. They took their spots-Ashleigh on the couch and Grandpa in his chair. What they saw shocked Ashleigh. She had wrongly assumed a plane had crashed or some nutjob had blown up a building. What else would have prompted her grandpa to come to her room and ask her to watch TV with him? But it was bigger than anything she could have imagined.
The screen showed a blond-haired guy, a reporter, holding a microphone and reading off a yellow legal pad. Ashleigh recognized the backdrop. The brick building, the traffic moving in a circle behind the reporter. He was standing near the courthouse and police station downtown, and he was talking about her uncle Justin. It took her a moment to catch up to the words, to really hear them and register them in her brain…
“Sources tell us that the break in the case came about as the result of a witness coming forward, someone who had this information for quite some time but only now chose to reveal it to the authorities. Police are keeping that witness’s name and identity a secret from the media now. And I want to emphasize that no charges have been filed against Raymond Bower, the local man now inside the police station talking to authorities, but sources are saying charges could be filed sometime soon…”
Ashleigh looked at her grandpa. He held one hand to the side of his head, like something or someone had delivered a strong blow. But his eyes remained wide-open, staring at the screen.
“Grandpa? Are you okay?”
He nodded but didn’t speak.
“That name,” Ashleigh said. “Raymond Bower? That’s Michael’s dad, right? I mean, he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?”
“Used to be. A long time ago.”
Ashleigh looked back at the screen. The reporter was gone. In his place was the photo Ashleigh had seen so many times, the one she kept on the shelf near her bed. A portrait of her uncle Justin, smiling, his head turned slightly to his left. It was the only image Ashleigh carried in her mind of him, the only way she ever had and ever would see him.
“Did you-?”
She meant to ask if the news surprised him, if he thought all along that Raymond Bower might be involved in Justin’s death. Surely he suspected something, right? Did things like this ever come out of the blue?
But she broke her words off and stopped. Her grandfather was still staring at the screen, but his eyes were full of tears. That sight shut Ashleigh up, froze her. She didn’t know what to do or say. She’d never seen her grandpa cry.
“I loved that kid,” he said, his chin quivering. “I loved him like my very own.”
Chapter Fifty-one
When Janet came in the door, she saw Ashleigh sitting on the couch, the television playing a game show. Ashleigh never watched that kind of mindless television. She hardly ever watched television at all. But there she sat, her eyes glued to the screen. She looked up when Janet came in.
“Mom?”
Janet heard something in Ashleigh’s voice, a hint of a plea. Or fear. Something not quite right, not quite normal. Or was it just Janet herself superimposing her own emotions onto her daughter’s? Janet had driven the whole way home thinking about what she had learned that day and evening. Michael was gone, Ray with the police. Would it end right there? Would Michael just walk-run-away from her and the town and never look back? Never say good-bye?
“What’s wrong?” Janet asked.
“Did you hear all this?”
Janet understood. Whatever was happening at the police station was playing out on the news. Ashleigh knew. Everyone knew. Ray Bower was talking to the police. He might be charged.
But what about her dad?
Ashleigh read the look on her face, saw the question there.
“He’s in his bedroom,” Ashleigh said. “I think you need to talk to him.”
“He knows?”
Ashleigh nodded. “We watched it together. He came and got me out of my room. It’s weird, Mom. I don’t think he wanted to watch it all alone.”
Janet looked past Ashleigh and down the hallway toward her dad’s room. “Thanks, honey. I’ll go talk to him.”
“Mom? Do you think Ray Bower killed Justin?”
Janet didn’t look at Ashleigh as she answered. “I do, yes, but I have to go talk to your grandpa now.”
Her dad was seated on the side of his bed, his feet on the floor. The TV was off-a rarity. He didn’t look up when Janet came into the bedroom. He remained seated, his head in his hands. Janet closed the door behind her.
“You know?” he asked, his head still down.
“I heard about it.”
“I’m going down there.” He didn’t stand up, but he rocked back and forth a little, creating motion with his body. “I have to.”
“To do what?”
He didn’t answer. He kept rocking.
“Dad? What do you think you can do down there?”
He said something, the sound muffled by his hands.
“What?”
“I don’t know.” He lowered his hands and stared at the wall. “I don’t know.” His rocking stopped. “He took away everything I had. One man. He took it all away.”
/> “Let the police handle it, Dad.”
“He killed my…he killed Justin that day.”
Janet came farther into the room. She moved around the end of the bed to the side near the wall. She sat next to him and placed her arm around his back. “Dad?”
He didn’t resist her touch. He didn’t move closer to her, but he didn’t move away.
“Dad, I thought that since you knew all along, ever since that day, that Justin wasn’t your son…You never talked about him. You never cried for him.”
“Did what you found out about your mother make you love her any less?” he asked.
They both knew the answer without Janet saying anything. Janet had spent many hours thinking about her mother, turning the news about her and Ray over in her mind. No matter how long she worked at it, Janet couldn’t reconcile the two things: the way she felt about her mother and her mother’s infidelity. In the end, she split her mother into two. The woman who raised her and the woman who loved Ray Bower. It was the only way she could do it. To do anything else threatened to strip the gears from her mind.
“Did knowing that I’m not Justin’s father make you love him any less? Or make him any less your brother?” he asked. “I raised him. For four years, I raised him. That makes him mine. I guess I spent twenty-five years trying to pretend he wasn’t, but he is. He’s mine.”
“He’s ours,” Janet said.
Her father’s body still felt rigid under her touch, so she brought her arm down and folded her hands in her lap. She didn’t know where to go next, what to say or do to help her father. She didn’t even know how to help herself.
“Don’t go anywhere, Dad. Promise?”
He brought his hands together, intertwined the fingers and moved them around. They tangled up like knotted roots. The pressure he exerted by squeezing his fingers together looked painful and almost made Janet wince.
“What am I going to do anyway?” he said. “I couldn’t protect Justin from him back then. I couldn’t keep my wife away from him. I couldn’t protect you from…”
“From boys?”
“From a boy,” he said.
“And we have Ashleigh because of it.”
“I know,” he said. “I’ve had to absorb a lot. And accept a lot. It’s not easy for me, with you moving in. I know you had to move in when I lost my job, but it’s not easy for me.” He sighed. “Just do me a favor.”
“What?”
“I know you love that Michael Bower, and I know he’s back in town. Maybe for good. Just promise me something. Promise me that if you have to be with that guy, if you love him and want to be with him, promise me he’s a better man than his father. Can you promise me that?”
“Michael’s gone, Dad. He’s gone, and I don’t think he’s ever coming back to Dove Point.”
Chapter Fifty-two
The noise brought Janet out of her shallow sleep. In her dreams, she saw the faces of Michael and Justin. But it was the noise-something faint, something distant-that woke her.
“Ashleigh?”
She thought someone had knocked on her bedroom door. She never kept the door locked, a habit left over from Ashleigh’s childhood, when Janet felt she always needed to be within reach of her daughter. Janet rose from the bed, pushing the covers away. She walked to the door and pulled it open. The darkened hallway was quiet. The entire house was still. Janet moved down the carpeted hall to the door of Ashleigh’s room. She listened outside until she heard faint, regular breathing sounds.
Had it been her dad?
No, Janet decided. He wouldn’t come to the door, knock, and then disappear. A dream. She concluded it was a dream.
But when she returned to her room and slipped back beneath the covers, the noise came again. A light ticking against the windowpane. Janet moved quickly. She tossed the drapes aside and lifted the window. The thick darkness prevented her from seeing anything. Not even shapes or figures. But then she caught a glimpse, a movement at the edge of the yard. A light-colored fabric darted and then disappeared.
Janet wanted to call out, but didn’t want to wake everyone else in the house.
Steven Kollman was in jail.
It could be only one person. Janet dressed and set out to follow him.
The park was quiet.
Janet hoped, as she approached, that she would find Michael waiting in one of the public areas-a picnic shelter or the jungle gym. Tall sodium arc lights lit portions of the park, some attempt by the police to keep unsavory elements away after dark, and in their hazy glow Janet saw no sign of Michael, no sign of another soul. The absence of any other people set Janet even further on edge. She didn’t expect anyone to be in the park, and when they weren’t there, she felt even more alone. She knew where Michael would be waiting. Back in the woods at the scene of Justin’s murder. All she needed to do was turn around and go back to her house. If he really wanted to see her or needed to see her, he could knock on the door in daylight. But he would not do that.
Janet couldn’t deny the fundamental truth-she couldn’t walk away and risk not seeing him again. Her dad was right: knowing certain things about certain people didn’t change Janet’s feelings about them. Janet wondered if she was going into the woods to prove that her feelings about Michael hadn’t changed-or to make sure they did.
Janet moved down the path. The humid night stuck to her skin. As she walked, she listened for Michael, but she heard nothing except herself. Every step she took seemed magnified. The rustling of the leaves and branches she passed sounded like the shifting of tectonic plates. While she walked, Janet thought of home, of Ashleigh and her dad. She hadn’t left a note, hadn’t told them she’d gone out of the house. With Steven in jail and Ray in custody, they should be safe. Then she had to ask herself, were they safer than she was?
Janet passed the pond. In the darkness, something plunked into the water. Janet gasped, raised her hand to her chest. Was it just a fish? A turtle? She looked ahead in the darkness. The opening to the clearing came into view. Janet approached slowly, squinting into the night, trying to make out a shape or a human figure. Anything, really.
“Michael?”
She listened. She thought she heard breathing.
“Michael? It’s me. I can’t see you.”
“Over here.”
His voiced sounded faint, a little worn and cracked.
“Where?”
“Keep coming,” he said.
Janet entered the clearing and still didn’t see him. “Michael, I can’t-”
“Over here,” he said.
He sounded insistent. She tracked the sound of his voice and went through the clearing and out the other side where the vegetation grew thicker and denser. Several yards off the clearing, she made out Michael’s figure, his white shirt glowing in the darkness.
He sat on the ground, Indian-style. The shirt hung open at his throat, and his olive-colored pants blended into the darkness, appearing to become one with the earth. Janet let her eyes take him in. He looked tired, ragged. He breathed heavily, as if he’d just run a distance, even though he looked to have been sitting in that same spot for quite a while.
“What’s wrong, Michael?”
“You talked to Steven, didn’t you? You had to. I know he’s in the jail. He must have told you and the police what I said to him in that bar.”
“He told me that you wanted him to get me thinking about the murder again,” Janet said. “He said that you told him about Ray, and you wanted Steven to come to me and get me to think Ray did it. Why did you do that, Michael?”
“I wanted him punished.”
“You’re getting your wish, aren’t you?” Janet said. “I talked to Detective Stynes, and he has Ray at the police station. He was hoping for a confession so it can all be over with.” Then Janet thought to add, “And he says they’re not really worried about pressing charges against you. I guess if you beat the crap out of a murderer they don’t worry about charging you for it.”
Michael didn’t
look up.
“Do you understand what you did to me? To my family? You got our hopes up. That guy came to the house, and I…I thought he was Justin.”
“I didn’t make you think that.”
“But you set it in motion. I thought everything was going to be different. And that man, Steven, he could have been dangerous. How was I to know what he intended? We’re supposed to be friends, Michael. We’re supposed to care for each other after all these years.”
“What do you remember from that day, Janet?” he asked.
The question took Janet off guard. His voice sounded flat, wooden. It came out with a rasp, as though the words had passed through barbed wire.
“Your dad killed Justin,” she said. “Isn’t that what we’ve all found out?”
He didn’t answer.
“Michael? What is it?”
He still didn’t lift his eyes. He started to speak, stopped, and then said, “I heard my parents argue that morning. I could tell by the way they were fighting that it was different than other fights they’d had. They seemed like they meant it, like they were building up to something final. You know?”
“They were. Your dad was leaving your mom to be with mine.”
“I know,” he said. “They said one name over and over before they sent me out of the house. Can you guess what name they said?”
It took Janet a moment, but then she said it: “Justin.”
“Yes,” he said. “Justin. That name over and over. And it made me mad, Janet. Angry. I understood, at that time, that somehow Justin was the cause of what was going wrong between my parents. It just seemed that way to me.” He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “It makes sense now, knowing what we do about the DNA test. Why else would they be fighting about a four-year-old boy?”
“And?”
“So I was angry. Angry about Justin, even though I didn’t know why. And then he ran off into the woods and wouldn’t come back, when I came back here and told him he had to go back to the park with us…and he wouldn’t-I…”