Hiding Place (9781101606759) (10 page)

“You were in the woods right then, right before…”

A long pause settled over the conversation. Janet didn’t realize it, but she had gathered a paper napkin into her hand and was slowly, surely grinding it between her thumb and forefinger, turning the napkin into small, pulpy balls that littered the tabletop. When she noticed the mess, she stopped and brushed the napkin pieces aside, behind the little dish that held sugar packets and artificial sweeteners.

Janet looked at him. “What is it, Michael? What did you want to tell me?”

“I told you I’ve been to therapy to try to remember things about that day.”

“Sure.”

“There’s something I’ve been able to remember, something I’ve never told anyone else.”

“What is it?” she asked.

He swallowed once, his Adam’s apple bobbing. Janet became
aware of the tension in her own muscles. They felt taut as steel cables waiting for Michael’s words.

“I think my dad was there in the woods that day. I saw him when I went in there after Justin and the dog.”

The noise in the coffee shop stopped. People were still moving. The waitress wandered from table to table. The teenagers nearby continued to play. But Janet didn’t hear them. She concentrated on Michael’s face, locked in on him as she processed his words.

“But that’s not possible, Michael,” Janet said. “Your father wasn’t there. He wasn’t in the park that day. Or in the woods.”

“He was, Janet. I can picture it.”

“What was he doing?” she asked.

“I don’t know. That part isn’t clear. But I feel very certain about this, Janet. My father was there in the woods. He was there the day Justin died.”

Even though she hadn’t seen Michael for years, since he’d moved away immediately after high school, and even though they had rarely spoken in that time, Janet still trusted Michael almost as much as anyone else she knew. She felt she could tell him anything, and he would listen without judgment.

“Michael.” She picked up another napkin and went to work on it. “There’s something I want to say, too, something about Justin.”

The room still felt still and quiet, a bubble that enclosed them both. Michael nodded, encouraging her to go on.

“That man who came to the house,” she said. “His face—it’s frozen in my mind. All I have to do is close my eyes, and I can see him. Every detail, even though I only saw him once.” She stopped working on the napkin. “There’s something familiar about his face. The shape of it, the color of his hair. The shape of
his eyes and the prominence of his chin. I see my dad there, Michael, when I think of that face. I see Justin.”

“Justin?” Michael looked confused. “Where are you going with this?”

“Michael, sometimes I think, I really, really think that man who came to the door? I think that man is Justin. He didn’t die that day in the woods, and he’s back to tell us all what happened.”

“Oh, Janet,” he finally said.

“You think I’ve lost it. You think I’m mad with grief and guilt—”

“No, no, I didn’t say that at all. I think it’s natural that you have a lot of emotions connected to this, Janet. It’s a huge rent in your life.”

“But?”

She felt her cheeks flush—embarrassment this time and not desire. How awful to be embarrassed in front of Michael. She didn’t want that. Never that. Even after all those years, she still couldn’t help but feel he was the cool kid she had to impress.

“Think about what you’re saying,” he said. “You saw this man once.”

“How is what I’m saying any less valid than what you said about your dad?”

“There was a body, Janet. They found a body in the woods. Right in those woods Justin ran into. I’m not trying to be dismissive, but is it really possible?”

Michael’s words restored some reality. They were a splash of cold water against her face. What was she thinking? Michael was right—they’d found a body. They’d had a funeral. Everyone else had moved on, years ago.

What had she seen in that face? A real resemblance? Or did she simply see what she wanted to see? Could her memory of
that man’s face be trusted any more than Michael’s memory of his father in the woods?

Janet felt tired all of a sudden. The day had whipped her—the reporter, Michael’s return, the conversation with Stynes, the fight with Ashleigh. Work waited for her in the morning, and she contemplated doing something she never did—taking a personal day and spending the entire day in bed.

She knew she wouldn’t. But it sounded tempting.

“I should go,” she said. “It’s late.”

Janet dug in her purse for her wallet. She tossed some bills onto the table, intending to cover the cost of Michael’s coffee as well as her tea.

“We can talk about this more, Janet. I want to.”

“Of course.”

“I think we both have a lot we’re working through from that day.”

“I’ll call you,” Janet said.

She stood up, expecting him to walk out with her or at least make sure she made it to her car safely. But Michael stayed seated. As she turned to go, he signaled the waitress and asked for a refill.

The desk officer approached Stynes, who was hunched over his keyboard entering reports from the last two days. He hadn’t had a spare moment to get caught up, and he’d entered the station that morning—early, before anyone else had arrived—with only one thought in mind:
Give me some peace and quiet.

The desk officer approached cautiously. Stynes saw her coming out of the corner of his eye, but he didn’t look up. He was hoping she wouldn’t notice him and would just walk past. She was a new recruit, kind of timid, and Stynes didn’t know her name yet.

“Detective?”

“I died and didn’t leave a forwarding address.”

“Excuse me?”

Stynes looked up. The girl was pretty, but so, so young. Another reason to retire. When the new recruits looked like high schoolers, it was time to go. “Wishful thinking on my part. What is it?”

“There’s a woman here, and she needs to see a detective.”

Stynes pointed to the computer. “Does this promise to be as fascinating as yesterday’s stolen purse or last night’s vandalism at the school?”

“She says she has a complaint about Dante Rogers,” the young officer said.

“Dante Rogers?”

“Yes, sir. You know, he’s the guy—”

Stynes held up his hand, cutting off the rookie’s words. “I know who he is.”

Stynes had spent the past two days going about his business as a cop, all the time trying to reassure himself that there was nothing to what the reporter had said, nothing to Janet’s nervousness and doubts. But here was Dante Rogers—again—and he seemed to be falling into Stynes’s lap, insisting on being heard.

The day did just get a little more interesting, he thought to himself.

Stynes drove east out of downtown, taking High Street, one of the four spokes off Memorial Circle. For a short time he passed businesses—a pizza parlor, a Laundromat, a bike shop—then his car rattled over an uneven set of railroad tracks, traveled down an incline, and—presto—he entered what passed for a black neighborhood in Dove Point. Literally and figuratively, at least in the minds of most of the town’s white citizens, the wrong side of the tracks.

There was truth to back up the belief. More crime happened on the east side—East Dove Point, as some had taken to calling it. A public housing project as well as a collection of run-down low-rent apartment complexes meant a lot of transients, a lot of comings and goings and drugs. A murder was still rare, but assaults and gun-related crimes were up. What was that movie? The one with the crazed killer—
No Country for Old Men.
Stynes felt that way when he drove over to the east. He was too old for this shit and thankful he had only a couple of years to go. He couldn’t imagine what East would look like in another decade.

Stynes made two turns, a right and a left. He knew everyone in their yards and on the street corners made him out as a cop. Even the little kids. The shiny car, the white man in a shirt and tie. They looked at him like he was an alien, the contempt dripping off their faces. Stynes stopped in front of the Reverend Fred Arling’s First Church of Zion, a low brick building with an overgrown yard that looked no more like a church than Stynes’s car looked like a fighter jet. A sign out front advertised the upcoming sermon:
WHO IS YOUR BROTHER? WHO IS YOUR NEIGHBOR?

Before Stynes climbed out of the car, his cell phone rang. He recognized the number and answered.

“I was just thinking of you,” he said.

“Why?” the familiar voice answered.

“I was thinking about being old and retired, so naturally I thought of you.”

“Fuck you.”

Terry Reynolds was Stynes’s first partner. They’d worked the Justin Manning murder together. Stynes would never say it out loud—certainly not to Reynolds—but he owed his former partner a great deal. He learned more about being a cop just from watching Reynolds work than from anything else. Reynolds had been retired for close to eight years. He’d remarried and spent his days playing with his grandchildren and digging in his garden.

“Guess where I am?” Stynes asked.

“A home for bald-headed perverts?”

“I’m at Reverend Arling’s Zion Church.”

“Jesus. Did you do something wrong in a previous life?”

“You know who works here, right?”

“Did you get a message saying I wanted to play Trivial Pursuit over the phone?”

“Your boy, Dante Rogers.”

A long pause. Stynes could hear Reynolds breathing. “Really,” he said. “Shit, I saw in the paper he was working in a church, but I didn’t put it together that it was that one.”

“Someone came in today and filed a complaint about him.”

“What did he do? If he violates, we can send his ass right back—”

“That’s what I’m here to find out, boss.”

“I never understand why these guys don’t move out of state. Everybody in fucking Dove Point knows who he is. If he sneezes on somebody they’re going to call the cops.”

“I was planning on calling you when I was done here,” Stynes said. He looked out his window. Two kids went by on the same bike. One of them pedaled while the other perched on the back. They laughed when they saw Stynes. “I was going to give you an update on Dante, and I wanted to talk to you about some other stuff. You have any time?”

“I have nothing but time, unless Jeannie sends me to the store for a loaf of bread.”

“Or more adult diapers.”

“I saw that story in the paper yesterday, the one with you and the Manning woman.”

“Yeah?”

“Nice of the reporter to make the whole town look racist.”

“She’s a kid.”

“I don’t miss that shit, I tell you.”

Stynes gathered a pad and pen from the center console and slipped them into his jacket pocket. “I’ve got to go in here now,” he said. “But I’ll call you later. We can get together.”

“Sure,” Reynolds said. “And give Reverend Fred a message from me.”

“What would that be?”

“Tell him I said, ‘Fuck you.’ ”

The Reverend Fred Arling stood six feet tall and was rail thin. His mostly gray hair had receded half the distance across the top of his large head. He opened the side door wearing a black suit, white shirt, and narrow black tie. He looked at Stynes over the top of small gold reading glasses and smiled.

“Detective.”

“Reverend.”

“Here to be saved?”

The reverend stepped back and showed Stynes down a short hallway into a small room that served as an office. The room was surprisingly clutter free—as opposed to Stynes’s own desk, which swam in paper—and smelled like it had just been cleaned. A new laptop sat open on the desk, and next to it was a well-worn, leather-bound Bible.

“Are you running a special?” Stynes asked.

“Always.”

The two men sat on opposite sides of the desk. The reverend’s posture made him seem even taller than he was, and Stynes wondered what it was like for a member of his flock to sit down in this room seeking guidance or forgiveness.

“I understand you have Dante Rogers working here,” Stynes said.

“Let me guess,” the reverend said. “A woman named Letitia Myers came to see you.”

“Go on.”

“Sister Myers read the newspaper story about Dante, saw
that he was working here in my church, and—how do you white folks say it—had a cow?”

“She doesn’t think a convicted child killer should be working in a church around small children.”

“Did she accuse Dante of something?”

“Not directly.”

“Are you here to arrest him?”

“Not yet. But just being around small children could be seen as a violation of his parole. There are restrictions on where he can go and what he can do.”

The reverend removed his glasses and leaned forward, folding his hands on the desk. “Let me explain something to you, Detective. Do I look like I’m stupid? Do you think I’d let a man who might harm children, or harm anyone, around my congregation?”

“Why is he working here?” Stynes asked.

“Detective, I’m sure you can imagine what it would be like for a middle-aged black man, three years out of prison, with no education and not much in the way of smarts to begin with, to try to get a job? Don’t you think a church like mine has a role to play in making a brother’s life a little more tolerable? I counseled Dante when he was in prison, and then I continued that work after he got out. About a year ago, I gave him the chance to work at the church part-time, and he never, ever works with or around children. Now, I didn’t make a big deal out of him working here. I didn’t exactly tell any members of my congregation he was doing it. I figured if he wasn’t working with the congregation, then no one needed to know.”

“You might want to reconsider that stand,” Stynes said. “You’re just going to get more complaints. I know you’re not a
for-profit operation here, but how are you going to keep the donations flowing in with someone like Dante around?”

“I have a higher calling to answer to.” The reverend raised his right index finger and scooted back.

“Is he here?”

“
He
is everywhere.”

“I mean Dante. And keep in mind his parole officer already told me he’s working here today.”