David Bell - The Hiding Place

“Rough going in there?” he asked when she reached his desk.

Janet nodded.

“Here,” he said. “Sit.” He held out a chair, and Janet sat. When she was settled, he said, “That’s the most he’s talked to anybody since he’s been in here.”

“I don’t know if that’s a good thing,” she said.

“Can I get you some water or something?”

“No, I’m okay.”

“What did he tell you?” Stynes asked. “I don’t mean to be so blunt about it, but if he told you something I need to know about your brother’s case, then I’d like to hear it.”

“He told me a lot of things,” Janet said. “I don’t know how much is relevant to you. I’m still trying to get my mind around it all.”

Stynes took a seat in the chair opposite Janet. He needed to tell her a few things before she left the station. He hoped that what he had to tell her would be seen as good news and go some of the way toward mitigating whatever she experienced with Steven Kollman. He decided not to press her on the conversation with Steven, at least not yet. He had other things to tend to, so he decided to give her time to decompress.

“I’ve been working on something about your brother’s case,” Stynes said. “This morning I found out about a witness who will also testify to seeing Ray Bower in the woods that day.”

Janet looked up, her face alert.

“I can’t reveal much more than that, but I can say that his testimony pretty strongly corroborates what Michael Bower has told you. It’s someone who was in the park on the day Justin died, someone who was unwilling to come forward in the past but will now. We’re not at the point of filing charges yet, but we’ve been in touch with Ray Bower’s attorney. Apparently, Ray is feeling better, but he’s still in the hospital, and soon we’re going to be able to speak to him and ask him some of these questions.”

Stynes stopped talking. He’d already said too much about the case. He chose to tell Janet only because…because things with her and the Mannings just seemed different. After twenty-five years and all the false hopes, they deserved to know something definitive. And he wanted to give that to them-to her-if he could.

But he couldn’t read Janet. Her face didn’t change. Maybe it was the encounter with Kollman or maybe it was the impact of his words, but she didn’t seem to be fully processing what he was saying to her. He had expected a more substantial response. Grief, elation, regret-something.

“Michael,” she said.

“Michael?”

Her eyes cleared a little. “Does he know? Michael.”

“I was going to ask you about that,” Stynes said. “We want him to come in and give a statement as well, but he’s nowhere to be found. Still. Even his mother hasn’t heard from him.”

“It’s weird,” she said.

“What is?”

“He was so determined to see Ray punished. Why would he leave now?”

“Maybe it’s too hard for him.”

Stynes saw the hurt on her face-and the fear, the fear that Michael left without saying good-bye. His paternal instincts toward Janet kicked in. He made a silent wish that she’d find someone to treat her decently before too long. And if Michael Bower served as a continuing source of pain or anxiety in her life, then he wished he would finally stay away. He just needed him to make that statement-and if Ray Bower felt like unburdening his soul without a trial, he wouldn’t even need that much.

“Well, I have another stop to make before I’m able to go to the hospital,” he said. “I do want to talk to you more about what you discussed with Steven Kollman. We’re going forward with the charges against him as well.” Stynes stood. “Do you need a ride somewhere?” he asked.

“No, I’m fine. I can drive.”

“Are you sure? I can get an officer to give you a lift.”

The steel returned to Janet’s posture. She stood up, pushed her shoulders back. “Really, Detective,” she said. “I’m doing just fine.”

Stynes drove across the tracks into East. While he bounced over the uneven railroad ties and into the neighborhood that didn’t want him, he thought about what he was about to do. He may have given a measure of false hope to Janet Manning by telling her about Ray Bower before any confession or plea agreement had been struck. But it was a calculated risk. Stynes weighed her years of frustration against the possibility that he’d spoken too soon about a suspect in the case. What he couldn’t be sure of anymore, what he really couldn’t decide no matter how much he thought about it, was who had suffered more: Dante Rogers or the Mannings? Which was worse: losing a loved one and spending a life not knowing how it happened? Or spending the prime of your life incarcerated for a crime you didn’t commit?

Stynes decided the answer was above his pay grade. All he knew with any certainty was that two halves of the equation, the people suffering over the years as the result of the same murder, could easily make a case that he was to blame for it all. If he’d investigated more thoroughly, if he’d listened to his gut, if he’d stood up to Reynolds. If, if, if…

So he really didn’t care about jumping the gun. He needed to tell someone like Janet Manning and someone like Dante a little bit of good news, no matter how tenuous it might be.

The Reverend Fred laughed when Stynes came through the door of the church office. He acted like he had just heard a particularly salty joke. He clapped his hands a couple of times.

“Well, well,” he said. “The great white hunter. What are you here for? Trying to meet your quota of brothers to arrest?”

“I’m here to see Dante. Is he here?”

“Oh, he’s here,” Fred said. “I don’t know if he wants to talk to you.”

Stynes started down the hallway to the literature room.

“I got an interesting phone call today,” Fred said. “A reporter.”

Stynes turned around. “From the Ledger ?”

“Our hometown paper,” Fred said. “Her name’s…Katie something. Katie-”

“Kate Grossman.”

“That’s it. Grossman. She sounded very…starched,” Fred said. “You know, they’re only hiring white girls over there.”

“What did she want?” Stynes asked, although he suspected he knew.

“She’s just like you. She wanted to talk to Dante. I told her he wasn’t taking calls at the moment, but I represented his interests if she wanted to run something by me. So she did. And guess what she told me?”

Stynes didn’t answer but wished he could slap the knowing smirk off the Reverend Fred’s face.

“She told me the police had a new witness come forward in the Justin Manning case,” Fred said. “One who might just be able to exonerate Dante.”

“She can’t know everything.”

“I guess she knows enough,” Fred said. “Of course, I just listened mostly. Except I did say that if it were up to me to give good counsel to a brother like Dante, I would suggest he hire a civil rights attorney and take the city of Dove Point and the Dove Point Police and all the investigators who worked the case to court for twenty-two years of pain and suffering at the hands of our criminal injustice system. That’s what I told her I’d do, Detective.”

“I’m not sure I’d disagree with you about that, Reverend,” Stynes said.

For a moment, Stynes found joy in the surprised look on the Reverend Fred’s face. If he’d expected a fight, Stynes wasn’t going to give him one. And Stynes couldn’t blame Dante if he did try to recoup what he’d lost as a result of his years in prison.

“What does Dante think of all this?” Stynes asked.

It took a moment for Reverend Fred to respond, and while he held Stynes’s gaze, even more of his certainty slipped away. The Reverend Fred held a strong initial hand, but his lack of an immediate answer told Stynes something.