Hiding Place (9781101606759) (28 page)

As he started to turn away, Stynes said, “We’re searching for a man right now.”

Reynolds stopped.

“He’s using Justin Manning’s name and carrying his identification,” Stynes said. “He’s wanted for assault in Columbus. He beat up a social worker over there, someone associated with child protective services.”

Reynolds raised his hands.
So?

Stynes decided he didn’t really know why he had come to Reynolds’s house after all. He knew he wasn’t going to change his former partner’s mind. He knew Reynolds wouldn’t concede any fault or fallibility. He never had.

“You know, you’re right,” Stynes said.

“About what?”

“I’m not going to come back here anymore.”

“Good.”

“But I do want to say something to you. I want to apologize to you.”

Reynolds looked puzzled. He tilted his head to the left, almost like he didn’t believe the words he heard coming his way. “What for?”

“
I
should have been a better cop,” Stynes said. “
I
should have been a better partner to you. You said I did a good job back then, but I didn’t. I should have stood up to you. I should have asked the tough questions. That’s what I was supposed to do, and I didn’t. But I’m going to ask them now, and we’ll see what happens.”

Reynolds waited a long moment, then said, “Are you finished, Oprah?”

“With you, yes.”

“Good.” Reynolds pointed to the car. “Then get the fuck out of here before I beat your scrawny ass.”

Stynes got into the car and started the ignition. As he drove off, he looked back one more time. He watched Reynolds trudging across the lawn, his body a little bent, his posture that of a man in the last phase of his life. Then Stynes caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror, saw the lines around his eyes, the old-man sweat on his forehead.

“You’re almost there,” he told himself. “But not quite yet.”

Janet was surprised to look up from her desk and see Kate Grossman, the reporter from the
Dove Point Ledger
, entering the dean’s office shortly after lunch. Kate waved to Janet and started across the room toward her, and as she did, Janet realized she was about to speak to the only reporter in town who went to work in a skirt and high heels.

Kate’s face lit up as she approached Janet, and she held her hand out for a businesslike shake.

“It’s so good to see you again, Ms. Manning.”

“Janet. Remember?”

“Of course. Sorry. I still feel like a kid, you know?”

Janet couldn’t imagine what the reporter wanted with her. Follow-up questions? Another story? Her dad would love that. And Janet’s curiosity only rose higher when Kate leaned in a little closer and asked if the two of them could speak somewhere in private.

“Sure,” Janet said.

Madeline watched the proceedings from her desk, not even trying to disguise her curiosity about the visitor. Janet didn’t stop to explain but simply told Madeline that she’d be back in a few minutes. She led Kate Grossman out of the dean’s office and across the hall to a seldom-used conference room. They went
inside, and once Janet had closed the door, the two women sat next to each other at one end of the table.

“What is this about?” Janet asked. During the short walk to the conference room, Janet had reminded herself not to get worked up and not to engage in too much speculation about the nature of Kate’s visit. But she couldn’t control her own reactions. Janet imagined a little bit of everything and then some before she sat down. She didn’t want to wait while Kate warmed up to the topic.

“I have some good news for you,” Kate said.

“What?”

Did they find Justin? Is it him?

Is it over?

Kate smiled. “We received a lot of positive feedback regarding the stories we ran about your brother’s murder. More letters and e-mails than we normally get.”

Kate paused briefly. She seemed to want Janet to say something to this, so Janet said, “That’s great. What are you here to tell me?”

Kate looked a little disappointed. She appeared to want more praise, or a more detailed discussion of her reportorial skills. When it didn’t come, she went on. “A lot of people were moved by your plight. Anyway, this morning, we received something in the mail at the newspaper office. Something addressed to you.”

“What is it?”

“We’re not sure,” Kate said. “We didn’t open it.”

“Then how do you know it’s good news?”

Kate didn’t miss a beat. “I have a positive feeling.” She bent down and reached into her oversized purse. When she came up, she held an envelope out to Janet. “See?”

Indeed, it was an envelope addressed to Janet, care of the
Ledger
. A plain white business envelope. Janet wasn’t sure what to think, and she didn’t understand why Kate Grossman would show up making such a production out of what was probably a note of support or some crank’s speculations about what really happened to Justin.

Janet studied the address. It was printed, not handwritten. The postmark said Dove Point, but the envelope lacked a return address.

“Go ahead and open it,” Kate said.

But Janet didn’t move right away. She thought about taking the envelope back to her desk and opening it away from Kate Grossman. Or maybe just throwing it in the trash. Did she need to know anything else?

But Janet turned it over and started to slip her index finger under the sealed flap.

“Just one second,” Kate said.

Janet looked up.

“I know it’s weird, but I brought a camera with me. Would you mind if I—?”

“Yes, I’d mind.”

Janet completed the work of opening the envelope and looked inside. She didn’t see much. Just a white piece of paper. She drew it out and unfolded the sheet.

“Well?” Kate asked.

Janet didn’t respond. She didn’t know what to say. She turned the paper over. It was blank on the back. The whole thing seemed like a joke. Was it some sort of crank attempting to mess with her again?

“Oh, God, Ms. Manning,” Kate said. “Is it something awful? Did someone say something nasty to you?”

“Why did you come in here and say you had good news?” Janet asked. “Do you know what this says?”

Kate shook her head. She really did look young, like a kid who thought she might be in trouble. “I don’t know,” she said. Her shoulders sagged, and she lost the shiny, confident smile. “See, my editor thought coming and watching you open the letter personally would make a good follow-up story. I guess we were just
hoping
it would be good news.”

“Hoping?”

“Is it? Or is it something bad?”

Janet folded the letter and tucked it back into the envelope. “I need to call the bank.”

“Here, use my phone.”

“I don’t know the number.”

“It’s a smartphone. I’ll look it up.”

Janet told her who to call, and within a few minutes Janet was speaking with the branch manager. She explained who she was and asked if he could tell her anything over the phone about something being opened in her name.

The manager seemed circumspect at first, reluctant to give out too much information. But Janet insisted.

“If this is some kind of sick joke, then I have to call the police,” Janet said. “Do I need to call the police?”

After a short pause, the manager said, “No, you don’t have to call the police. This isn’t a joke at all, Ms. Manning. No joke at all.”

Ashleigh was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of cereal even though it was after five o’clock in the evening, when her mom came through the back door. Her mom usually whisked through the world with breezy efficiency. She moved quickly, but always with purpose, her body and movements under her complete control. But that evening her mom seemed out of sorts when she came into the house. She dropped her keys on the kitchen floor. They fell in a rattling jumble against the linoleum. Rather than take her purse to her room, as she always did, she dropped it onto the floor as well. Her face was flushed, and Ashleigh didn’t think it was just from the heat.

“Hi, Mom.”

Janet stopped in the kitchen and leaned back against the counter by the sink. She let out a deep breath and then moved to the refrigerator, where she pulled out a bottle of wine. While it wasn’t unusual for her mom to have some wine in the evening, it was unusual for her to open a bottle before she was even ten steps in the door. She still hadn’t spoken to or looked at Ashleigh.

“Is everything okay?” Ashleigh asked.

Janet filled a glass and took a long first swallow. She came over to the table and sat across from her daughter.

“Would you believe me if I told you someone gave us ten thousand dollars today?” Janet asked.

“No.”

“I don’t believe it either, but they did.”

“Who gave you ten thousand dollars?” Ashleigh asked. She studied her mother’s face. Had she been drinking before she came home? Had the stress of the last few days driven her to say crazy, nonsensical things? Her mother’s eyes looked clear. She didn’t slur her words or seem fuzzy-headed.

“Someone created a fund at the bank in my name,” Janet said. “An anonymous donor. They set it up because they read the story in the paper about Justin, and they wanted to give us the money to move Justin’s grave next to your grandma’s.”

“An anonymous donor did this? Someone we don’t know?”

Her mother swallowed more wine. “The bank manager doesn’t even know who did it. The whole thing was set up by a lawyer or something. But the money’s there. I saw the paperwork at the bank.”

“Have you ever had that much money before?” Ashleigh asked.

“Just in my retirement account. And I can’t touch that.”

Ashleigh ignored her cereal. The Cheerios looked fat and milk swollen. “You seem pretty upset about this,” Ashleigh said. “Aren’t you happy? You said you wanted this to happen. You’ve always said that.”

Her mother didn’t speak for a long time. She finished her glass of wine, then went to the counter and poured another one. When she came back, Ashleigh studied her mom’s face again. Her mother didn’t look very old up close. She was younger than most of the other parents of the kids Ashleigh went to school with, and in the slanting late-afternoon light that came through the kitchen window, Ashleigh noticed again how pretty her mother’s eyes were. They were light blue, and the sun picked up
flecks of a gold color in the irises that Ashleigh had never noticed before. Her mother never dated, but she could. No doubt about it, Ashleigh concluded: her mother could be out on the market finding a nice guy and having a little fun. And Ashleigh wished her mother would do that, would choose to have a little bit of fun. She deserved it.

“I don’t know what to make of this, Ash,” she said.

“Someone just wants to help. There are rich people who can write a check for thousands of dollars just like that.” Ashleigh snapped her fingers to demonstrate. “We don’t know any of them, but I’m sure they exist.”

“Isn’t it strange that this is happening right when this guy is here saying he’s Justin? What if the two are related?”

“You mean that guy might have given the money? No way. You didn’t see his sketchy apartment, Mom.”

“I guess I don’t trust anyone anymore,” her mom said. “I feel like there’s a trap around every corner. I feel like—”

“Like Grandpa,” Ashleigh said, her voice low. The old man was back in his room, the TV on. But she still didn’t want to risk having him hear her.

“What do you mean?”

“He’s so angry. So bitter. He thinks the world is out to get him.”

“I know.” Janet nodded, then said, “He wasn’t always like that. He could be warm and fun when I was a little kid. I can remember him laughing and playing sometimes. He’s had a rough ride.”

“No rougher than you.”

Janet smiled. She reached out and squeezed Ashleigh’s hand. “That’s sweet of you to say. But he lost a son. Maybe I can’t imagine.” Janet let go and sat up in her chair. “But you’re right.
I don’t want to look at everyone like they’re a suspect or like they’re up to something.”

“So just take the money and have Uncle Justin moved. You’d feel better—”

But Ashleigh stopped talking. She recognized the problem with what she was saying at the same time the words came out of her mouth.

A chill went through Ashleigh’s torso, shaking her upper body hard enough to make her teeth rattle against one another.

“Mom, if that’s not Uncle Justin in there…”

“I don’t know, honey. I don’t know.”

Stynes arrived at the Manning house after nine o’clock. He’d received a call from Janet Manning that afternoon, something about money being donated to her for the purposes of—

He couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t listened to the message carefully, and he didn’t replay it. Other things were cluttering his mind.

He had called in advance of his arrival at the Mannings’. He wanted to tell them in person, before they found out about it on the news or some other way. But he hadn’t given many details over the phone. He simply said they needed to talk, that there’d been a development in the case and he needed to speak to them as soon as possible. Was it too late?

Janet Manning assured him it wasn’t.

She opened the door for him seconds after he knocked. She was barefoot but otherwise still wearing the clothes she’d probably worked in. Her father wasn’t in the room, but Ashleigh was. The two of them sat on opposite ends of the couch, the TV playing one of those shows where they redecorate an entire home for fifty bucks or something like that. Janet turned it off, and Stynes sat in a chair, noting the empty wineglass on the end table by Janet’s arm.

“Detective,” Janet said, “this house has just about exhausted its potential for hearing strange or disturbing news.”

Stynes almost laughed. He looked at the two of them on the couch, the daughter a more petite version of the mother, but undeniably mother and child. He admired them, even liked them. Hell, if it weren’t for the complications surrounding the twenty-five-year-old murder of one of their close relatives, he’d really enjoy spending time with them.