Hiding Place (9781101606759) (6 page)

Maybe he could land a private security job or do some consulting once the hip was fixed…

“So,” he said, “you’re back in the old homestead.”

“The house you grow up in always seems like home, doesn’t it?” Janet said. She looked trim and fit in her work clothes, and despite the grim news they discussed, her voice and movements possessed a lively energy. “And with me working so much, and Ashleigh in her teenage years, I thought it would be good to have another parental influence around.”

Stynes nodded, but he could tell Janet wasn’t fully convinced by what she was saying. He’d always liked Janet Manning. Even as a kid, in the swirl of her brother’s disappearance, she seemed pretty tough. As a seven-year-old, she didn’t cry or act scared when they interviewed her in the wake of the disappearance. Over the years, she always put on her best face and marched to the parole hearings without hesitation. Stynes knew her mother had died about seven years after her brother, and somewhere along the way Janet ended up pregnant and raising a kid by herself. He never knew—and never asked—who the father was. But she worked and supported herself, and Stynes sensed a measure of ambivalence about moving back into her childhood home. No independent person wanted to move back in with Dad. They did it, but they didn’t like it. Stynes concluded that if he’d had a daughter, he’d want her to be like Janet Manning.

Janet pointed to an overstuffed couch, so he sat. The TV played a political show with the sound down, the screen dominated by a wildly gesticulating host in a tricornered colonial-style hat. “Dad
watches that junk,” she said, turning the TV off. She sat in a love seat perpendicular to the couch.

“You’ve done all this before,” Stynes said, “so I don’t see that I have to give you any pointers.”

“About that,” Janet said. She scooted to the edge of her seat. She rubbed her hands over the tops of her knees as though trying to generate heat. “Do you think—I mean, why am I doing this? Rogers is out now, and everything is over. Do I really have to do more interviews?”

“You don’t have to do it,” he said. “No one can make you.” She nodded a little, so Stynes went on. “People in Dove Point remember the story. We haven’t had many murders here since I was on the force. Certainly none involving children. I encouraged you to do this when the reporter called because I think it’s important we remind people of what has happened and what can happen, even here. To be honest, this is twenty-five years. It’s probably the last time you’ll have to do this.”

Janet still looked distracted. She nodded, as though she understood everything Stynes said and as though it made sense to her, but something told him it wasn’t all getting through. He watched her and realized how young she really was despite all she’d lived through. She was only in her early thirties, a young woman from where Stynes sat, staring down the barrel of retirement.

“If you want,” Stynes said, “you can beg off. I’ll deal with the reporter.”

“I don’t want to inconvenience anyone.”

“Is something wrong?” Stynes asked. “You really seem to be struggling with this.”

“Do you think—?” She stopped. She stared at a fixed point somewhere in the space between her and Stynes. “I guess that article about Dante Rogers got me thinking.”

“About what?” Stynes waited. Janet didn’t answer. “Are you afraid? Do you think he’s going to hurt you or your family?”

“No, not that,” she said. “He looks so pathetic in the picture.”

“That’s what twenty-two years of being in prison for killing a child will do to you.”

Stynes hoped that he could turn the conversation in a different direction, move the focus to the punishment of Rogers rather than Janet’s doubts or anxieties about the past or the present. But who was he to think he could play psychological mind games with the family member of a crime victim? Stynes was who he was—an aging detective in a midsized Midwestern town, a guy who had investigated three murders in almost thirty years as a cop. He too had seen the pathetic picture of a doughy, paunchy Dante Rogers in the morning paper, and like Janet Manning he even felt the questions rise in his own mind: had this guy really lured a little kid away from a playground and killed him? Unlike Janet Manning, Stynes was supposed to know better. Regular-looking people committed awful crimes every day. Appearances didn’t tell the whole story. They never did. Circumstantial or not, Dante Rogers was guilty. He had served his time.

But Stynes held his own doubts, had held them for the past twenty-five years. Sure, they’d done everything right while they investigated the crime, and the case—circumstantial though it was—held enough water to put Rogers away. Stynes fell back on an old trick, one that had served him well ever since the jury returned with a conviction against Dante Rogers: he told himself to forget about it, to not dwell on things from the past that didn’t need to change. It was over, long over. More important, it was time for everyone to move on.

“Maybe if you think of this as the last time you have to answer these questions, it will make it easier,” Stynes said.

Janet nodded but didn’t seem convinced.

“You know, Janet—” Stynes began. He shifted forward on the couch. He’d always wanted to say something to her but never felt the time or moment was right, even when she was a kid. He decided to take his chance. “No one blames you for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.”

Janet looked surprised by what he said. Her eyes widened a bit, and Stynes worried he’d overstepped his bounds and said the wrong thing.

“Thank you, Detective,” she said.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying so,” he said. “I’ve worried sometimes—”

Janet shook her head and smiled, and Stynes saw the smile contained a hint of bitterness.

“I’m not worried about that at all, Detective,” she said. “In fact, these days, that’s the least of my concerns.”

Janet let the reporter in and wondered if some kind of mistake had been made. The girl—woman?—looked too young to be a newspaper reporter unless it was for her high school paper. The only difference between the whip-thin blond girl entering her living room and Ashleigh’s friends from Dove Point High was her clothes, which looked impeccably professional. Knee-length skirt, white top, black pumps, and a leather bag to match. The girl—
woman
—introduced herself as Kate Grossman of the
Dove Point Ledger
, and she apologized for being late, even though she wasn’t.

Stynes stood and shook hands with Kate, and they all settled into their seats. Kate sat on the opposite end of the couch from Stynes, and Janet noticed the detective take a quick, admiring peek at the reporter’s backside before she sat down. Janet looked at the reporter and then at Stynes. The contrast was striking. The reporter looked to be fresh out of college. Her hair was long and yellow and shined with such good health that Janet involuntarily raised a hand to her own hair and touched her split ends. Detective Stynes looked older than Janet knew him to be. His hair was thin and wiry, and his small physique and below-average height—Janet guessed he was about five feet seven—made him seem more like a high school math teacher than a police detective. He walked with his shoulders slumped a little, as if some unseen weight rested there, pushing down ever so
slightly. But she liked him. He tried to reassure her. He just didn’t understand—or
know
—everything she knew.

“I’m so glad you took the time to talk to me, Mrs. Manning,” Kate said. Her eyes widened when she spoke, as though every word lifted her to a new level of excitement.

“Miss Manning,” Janet said. “Or Ms. Just not Mrs.—I’ve never been married.”

“Right. Of course.” Kate placed a handheld tape recorder on the table.

“Excuse me,” Stynes said. “It was Richie LaRosa who covered this story the last time there was a parole hearing.”

“Mr. LaRosa?” Kate said. She put on an exaggerated frown. “He’s taking an early retirement, even though he’s only in his forties. A lot of the more experienced reporters at the paper are.”

“Oh,” Stynes said.

Kate shrugged. “I begged my editor to let me cover this for the paper. It’s my first big story. Shall we begin?”

Kate’s sorority-girl good cheer had already irritated Janet. Shall we begin? Let’s sing a song! Let’s talk about your awful personal tragedy!

“Miss Manning—”

“Janet’s fine.”

“Great,” Kate said. They were old friends already. “Okay. Janet, is your dad, Bill Manning, is he going to talk to us today?”

“I don’t think so.”

The young woman frowned a little. “Is it too hard for him to talk about it?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

Not only would Dad not talk, but Michael wouldn’t either. Janet checked her watch. Just after two. He could still show, she told herself, but even as she had the thought she doubted it.

Stynes stepped in. “I’ve found over the years that Janet is an excellent advocate for her family. She was always very eloquent before the parole board.”

“Well, Janet.” Kate leaned forward a little. “Can you talk a little about what it’s been like to live without your brother all these years?”

Janet took a deep breath. What had it been like? She’d managed to control—most of the time—the fantasies she used to indulge in, the ones in which she imagined Justin hadn’t died and had instead spent the last twenty-five years growing up, maturing, becoming the young man—and brother—Janet wanted him to be. A college graduate, a businessman, a husband, a father…

“I think about it every day,” Janet said. “I guess I feel like I’ve been cheated out of something.”

“All those years?”

“Yes. My whole family. I have a daughter who will never know her uncle. I wanted her to know him.” Janet cleared her throat. “She said she’d be here today…She must be running late.”

“Are your memories clear of what happened the day Justin disappeared?” Kate asked.

What happened that day, Janet?
Michael had asked. She wanted to say she was surprised he didn’t show up for the interview, but she wasn’t. Reliability and predictability had never been his strong suits. Janet learned that early on, during childhood. Why would anything change now, all these years later?

But why show up at her job, asking that question?

What do you remember from that day, Janet?

“I can’t forget,” Janet said. “It’s something I’ll never forget. My mom sent us to the park to play, just the two of us.”

“Was that unusual?” Kate asked.

“Yes, it was,” she said. Then she added, “That was the first time that ever happened.”

“Why do you think she did that?” Kate asked.

Janet had been wondering the same thing for twenty-five years. And she had never asked her mother. “Maybe she just needed some time alone. She thought we were old enough to go to the park alone and give her a little break. There were a lot of people there.”

Kate nodded.
Go on.

“We played,” she said. “We ran around. We went on the slides. We went on the swings. There were other kids there, and a lot of parents. We weren’t alone. And Michael showed up, and we all played together.”

“This is Michael Bower?” Kate asked.

“He was my best friend.” Janet decided not to mention having just seen Michael and asked him to come to the interview. “His parents and my parents were friends, so we played together a lot.”

“Now, at some point, you saw Dante Rogers there, right?”

“Yes,” Janet said. She didn’t think about her answer. She had said the same thing so many times over the years—to the police, to the prosecutor, to other reporters and the parole board—that she didn’t even have to think about it. She just said it—
yes
. But had she really? Did she know anymore that she had seen Dante Rogers in the park?

“You saw Dante with your brother, right?”

Yes, she did. Janet closed her eyes for just a moment, and she saw the image: the park on that hot summer day. And there was her brother with a black man she had never seen before. That picture was always there in her mind, available for easy summoning.

But did she really see it? How could she know after all this time? And why would someone else—the man on the porch—claim to know otherwise? And why would Michael ask that question at work?

What do you think really happened that day, Janet?

Janet opened her eyes. “A lot of people saw Dante in the park that day. He was there, and so were we.”

“And let me just be clear,” Kate said, “Dante has never denied being in the park when Justin disappeared. Never.”

“But he denies killing Justin.”

“I totally understand that this is tough,” Kate said.
Totally.
Kate shifted in her seat a little, scooted closer to the edge of the couch, so that Janet thought Kate might reach out and take her hand. “Now, do you remember what happened next? I mean, when did you notice that Justin wasn’t there?”

Janet found herself easing back a little, away from Kate. Something about Kate’s behavior seemed too familiar, too cloying, and she knew the young woman just wanted to get a good story. She probably hoped Janet would cry so the opening line of the feature would read,
Through heavy tears, Janet Manning remembered her brother today…

“I’m not really sure about that part.”

“Did you notice it, or did someone tell you?” Kate asked.

“I’m just not sure,” Janet said. “I know Michael was there. I know I must have mentioned it to Michael. Then a bunch of adults were there. My mom. Michael’s dad. All of the adults and the police and the reporters…” She felt the tears misting her eyes, saw the room swim in her vision a little. She fought back against them, refused to give in.
Don’t be an ass,
she told herself.
You’re not saying anything new here.
She took a quick swipe at her eye with the knuckle of her right index finger, then
straightened up. She saw Kate clearly in her vision. “He was just gone then. Gone.”

Kate nodded. Her mouth was pressed into a tight, sympathetic line.
I feel your pain,
the young reporter’s look said.
I get it.

But she didn’t. It was just an act, and Janet knew it. Just like all the people at work and in the town and even Detective Stynes. None of them really understood it. Only Michael. He was there…