Hiding Place (9781101606759) (21 page)

“As I’m sure you know,” Stynes said, “there’s been a lot of attention focused recently on Justin’s death.”

“Okay,” her dad said.

“I’ve been going over the case notes from back then,” Stynes said. “It’s a bad habit I have. Rethinking things, second-guessing myself. Maybe it’s something that happens with age.”

Stynes seemed to be waiting for an answer, so her dad provided one.

“Maybe,” he said. He looked uncomfortable to Janet’s eyes. Tense and nervous, and Janet felt sorry for him. No matter what might or might not transpire between them, he was her father, and she didn’t want to see him made to squirm.

“Detective, can you tell us what this is about?” Janet asked. “You know my dad. He doesn’t like to talk about these things. That’s why I spoke to the newspaper and not him.”

“I understand,” Stynes said. “But this isn’t for the newspaper. This is just for me. I promise I’ll be quick.” He flipped through the notebook, found the page he wanted, and looked up. “I’m curious about your recollections of the day Justin disappeared. Specifically, that morning. Did anything unusual happen before you knew he was gone?”

Her dad shifted his weight in the chair, his posture gaining rigidity and energy. He sat up straighter, making it clear that he was taller than Detective Stynes by at least four inches. “I answered all these questions twenty-five years ago,” he said. “I sat
right in this house the day Justin disappeared and I told you everything I could. So why are you showing up here now and asking me these things?”

Stynes didn’t show any concern. He wasn’t intimidated. “I’m asking you these things because I’m a police officer, and we like it when citizens cooperate with the police. But, okay, I understand that it seems a little strange for me to show up now and ask a question like that.”

“Yes,” Janet said. “It does.”

Both men looked at her, but she didn’t feel embarrassed. Her heart rate started to rise, and her hands, which were clasped together in her lap, felt moist from sweat.

Stynes looked back to her father. “When we interviewed you right after Justin disappeared, you told us that you went to work as usual that morning. You worked for Strand, right?”

“Right.”

“And that night, when we talked to you again, you said the same thing. You said you got up at the usual time and got ready and went to work as usual. I guess your wife called when she realized Justin was missing, and you came home from work. Right?”

“I don’t see the problem,” he said.

“Well, we spoke to your wife that morning, of course, and then again that night.”

Stynes stopped speaking. He let his words hang in the air between the three of them. Again he seemed to be waiting for something. When no one said anything, Stynes went on.

“That night, she told us that you had gone to work that morning like any normal day. But that morning, when we came and spoke to her, she told us that you hadn’t gone in to work at
your usual time. That you’d stayed home, and you were here when Justin disappeared and not at work.”

Janet almost gasped. She sucked a large gulp of air into her lungs and felt it catch there like an obstruction. It took a long moment for her to be able to breathe again, but the men didn’t seem to notice. They were staring each other down, their eyes locked.

“She made a mistake,” her dad said.

“You know that?”

“She was upset when Justin disappeared. She made a mistake. I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. You talked to her about it that night. Here she was racked with grief over her missing child, and you just wanted to pick her words apart like she was a criminal.” He paused. “She was very upset that day.”

Stynes nodded. “Right. Of course. People do make mistakes in stressful situations. And if we checked the records out at Strand to see what time you arrived at work, they’d confirm that you were there?”

“I don’t know what they would confirm after twenty-five years,” her dad said. His voice sounded less steely, less certain.

Stynes held her father’s gaze for a long moment, then tapped the little notebook with his index finger. “Well, I guess I’ll have to see.”

“What do you mean?” Janet asked.

“I mean I might go out to Strand tomorrow morning to take a look at their records.”

“And,” Janet said, “what if the records say my dad didn’t go to work that morning, if such records even exist after all this time? What if they say he wasn’t there? What happens?”

Stynes smiled, his eyes still on her dad. “One old cop will
have his curiosity satisfied, I guess. I’ll just file it away in the drawer of oddities I keep in my mind.” Stynes stood up and tucked the notebook back into its pocket. “I told you it wouldn’t take very long.”

And that was it? Janet thought. But what did it mean? She tried to wrap her head around Detective Stynes’s visit, but she could reach only one conclusion: Stynes had suspicions about her father, and he was following up on them.

It was as though Stynes had tapped into the dark thoughts growing inside Janet…

“Let me ask you something, Detective,” her father said.

Stynes stood still, looking down on her dad, who remained in his seat.

“Yes?”

“Have you investigated a lot of murders over the years?”

“A few.”

“And other crimes? Robberies? Rapes?”

“Of course.”

“Do you pay these kinds of visits to the parents of those victims, or am I just special?”

Stynes considered this and said, “Some things stay with us longer than others, I guess.”

Stynes expected to hear the door slam at his back, but it didn’t. Instead, Janet Manning came through the door behind him and out onto the front porch. Stynes stopped at the edge of the steps and looked back, surprised to see the woman standing there, arms folded, lips pressed tight.

Stynes thought he might have overplayed his hand. What did he really have to go on anyway? In the confusion of events in the aftermath of a kidnapping, two children jumbled their stories and a distraught mother misspoke about her husband’s whereabouts. Was it worth chasing and waking ghosts over things like that?

He wondered if Janet was going to chew him out for the indelicacy of his visit, coming as it did just days after the twenty-fifth anniversary of her brother’s murder. She would have a point, Stynes admitted to himself. But then again, Bill Manning did act a little off balance about the question of his whereabouts that morning. Did it mean anything? Or did the guy just feel ambushed by a twenty-five-year-old question?

Janet didn’t say anything. She stood on the porch looking into the distance, toward where a neighbor washed his car, the hose creating a fanning spray of water in the sunlight.

“Did you want to ask me something, Janet?” Stynes said.

It took her a moment, but she spoke without facing him. “What was that about, Detective?”

“I was following up on something related to your brother’s case,” he said.

“After all this time?”

“I think we both know time doesn’t matter so much with this case.”

“Why didn’t the police follow up on this back then?” she asked. “If someone gave conflicting stories twenty-five years ago, why didn’t you explore it?”

Stynes saw Reynolds’s face in his mind’s eye, heard his claim that Mrs. Manning’s story didn’t matter because we all knew who committed most of the crimes in Dove Point.

“It was determined at the time that your mother was simply confused about the course of events,” he said. “Your parents were distraught, obviously, and those of us investigating the case decided we didn’t want to push them. We felt we had more evidence pointing in the direction of Dante Rogers. We have to make those judgments during an investigation.”

She turned to face him. She studied him.

“You don’t think Dante did it, Detective, do you?”

Stynes wanted to tell her. He wanted to admit his doubts about his performance on the case all those years ago, that he should have worried less about his stature as a young detective and more about finding the truth, whatever it was. He recognized that of all the people he knew—Reynolds, his fellow officers, his few friends and acquaintances—Janet Manning might be the person he was most likely to tell what he really thought about Dante and what Stynes had come to think of as his alleged role in the crime. But Stynes knew he had already tipped his hand too much. Janet Manning wasn’t a dummy. She only needed to
listen to the questions Stynes directed at her father to know that there was suspicion in that direction, that a follow-up on the man’s whereabouts meant Stynes harbored some doubts about her father and the events of that morning.

“What do you remember about that day, Janet? Do you remember talking to me in the park?”

Her mouth twisted a little as she thought. She shook her head. “Not really. It’s fuzzy. I know the police were there. I remember seeing the police cars at the park, more than one of them.”

“But you don’t remember what you said?”

She shook her head. “I’ve read about it in the paper so many times that I know what I said, but I don’t remember saying it.”

“Do you remember talking to us that night? Here at the house?”

“I don’t know. I really don’t. I just remember a lot of people coming and going. I remember feeling empty all the time. Justin was gone, and something wasn’t right. But I can’t look back there and tell you what I was thinking.”

“It was confusing.”

“Yes. I know Michael came over one night and we played together. The adults were in another room, I guess.” Janet smiled, almost laughed.

“Why are you smiling?” Stynes asked.

“Michael.”

“What about him?”

“I cried for him. Not for Justin.”

“What do you mean?”

“I cried because I wanted to see Michael and play with him. I guess my parents didn’t think I needed to be playing or goofing around, you know? I don’t know if that was the first day or
later. But somehow Michael ended up coming over to our house and we played together.”

“He was here that night. I remember that.”

“It must have been then. I just remembered that,” she said. “I hadn’t thought of that for a while.” She shook her head a little. “But that’s about it.”

“I heard he’s back in town.”

“Michael?”

“Yes.”

“He is.”

“Have you seen him?” Stynes asked.

“A few times. Why? Do you want to talk to him?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Stynes said. “But if you think of anything else about that day or that time—anything at all—you let me know.”

“It’s funny, Detective,” she said. “I always told myself when I was growing up and then when I left home that I wouldn’t be defined by that day in the park. I saw what it did to my mother, and to a lesser extent my father.”

“Why a lesser extent for him?” Stynes asked.

“He’s a man, I guess. He’s always kept things inside and been hard to reach. But my mother was very open and loving until Justin died. She lost something then, some spark of life.” Janet sighed. “Anyway, I said I wasn’t going to be like them, looking backward all the time. I had a daughter to raise, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to let her get dragged into all of this.”

“Sounds like a good idea,” Stynes said.

“And if it’s such a good idea,” Janet said, “why are we all standing in the same place, in the same town, at the same house, still talking about that day twenty-five years later?”

Despite Kevin’s long legs and height advantage, he struggled to keep up with Ashleigh on the way to the Manning house. She no longer felt the aftereffects of the run from the apartment building. Quite the opposite. Both her body and her mind felt renewed in some way, as if energy were shooting through her and lighting up the cells and circuits of her body.

Had she done it? Had she found her uncle?

Could she make everything okay for her family again?

They didn’t speak much on the way. Ashleigh kept her eyes focused on the walk ahead, imagining as they went along the look on her mother’s face when she told her about the man. Even her grandfather, a man who showed no emotion about anything—not even his own dead son—might lose control of himself and be forced to admit that something more than extraordinary had happened.

“Hey,” Kevin said.

Ashleigh kept walking.

“Ash? Hey.”

“What?” she said, stopping.

“Are you sure you want me to go with you?” he asked.

“What?”

“Me,” he said. “Should I tag along here? Your grandpa isn’t exactly a fan of mine, and if he’s been asking if we’re dating—”

“Just come,” she said, starting to walk again. “What do you mean, he’s not a fan of yours?”

“I don’t want him getting pissed at me, you know? Just because you and I have been hanging out.”

“He won’t care.” Ashleigh slowed down and looked at Kevin. “We’re about to tell him his son is still alive. Don’t you think that trumps everything else?”

Kevin nodded, although he didn’t look entirely certain.

Ashleigh tugged on his arm. “Come on.”

Ashleigh’s mind continued to race. Would they all jump in the car and drive to the man’s apartment? No, they couldn’t do that. He was gone. Plus, the creepy manager would be there. Ashleigh decided not to tell her mom about that part of the story. She didn’t want the two things mixed up—the discovery of her uncle’s whereabouts and the pervert groping her. No, they wouldn’t drive right over there. But they’d have to do something, right? Celebrate or something?

What on earth did people do when something like that happened?

Did stuff like that ever happen to anyone else on earth?

Ashleigh saw the house ahead, and slowed her pace a little. She started to reimagine the scenario of telling them, and wondered what would transpire as the weeks passed. What if they did meet the man, and he really was her uncle? What would happen then? Would he move into the house with them? Would he come over for Thanksgiving and Christmas?

Was he even right in the head, wandering around in the middle of the night, knocking on doors and not identifying himself?

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.

“Just thinking.”