The Hiding Place

Stynes deflated. So much for my placating skills, he thought.

“This isn’t CSI: Dove Point. We don’t have oodles of DNA and fiber evidence when someone commits a crime here. Usually, someone knows the person or knows someone who knows the person, and nobody is surprised when they find out who did what to whom. Now, we had witnesses who saw Dante with your brother, including you, and we had the pornography and the newspaper clippings, the prior arrest, and the testimony of his aunt. Twelve citizens of this community listened to the evidence and rendered a verdict. Who cares if they were white or black?”

Stynes waited again while Janet processed his words. He thought he’d made another good pitch, but while Janet didn’t say anything else, she didn’t look at peace with his explanation.

“Janet?” Stynes asked. “Is there something else at play here? Why are you so worked up about this?”

Janet looked back to the door again, her lips pressed into a tight line.

“Is this about your father?” Stynes asked. “Is he upset about something?”

She turned back around, shaking her head. “It’s something you said. Or didn’t say, I guess.”

“What did I say?”

“When that reporter asked you about Dante’s trial and conviction, you didn’t say he was guilty.”

“Yes, I did.”

Janet shook her head with more force, like a dog in the rain. “You said the world was a better place with him behind bars.”

“What’s the difference?”

“You didn’t say he was guilty.”

Stynes raised his hand to his forehead. He wiped droplets of sweat away, then brushed his fingertips against his pant leg. Wasn’t it the same thing? Wasn’t it the same thing as saying he was guilty?

“Maybe it was a mistake to have you do this interview,” Stynes said. “Maybe it’s just bringing up unpleasant memories for you. Like I said, this is probably the last time you’ll have to do this. Maybe it just needs to be over for all of us.”

“Were there other suspects?” Janet asked. “Was there anything that indicated it wasn’t Dante?”

“Has someone been talking to you about this?” Stynes asked. “Is it Dante? Did he try to talk to you? Because the conditions of his parole-”

“No.”

“I can’t help you or even protect you if you don’t tell me.”

Janet took a long time to answer, but then she shook her head. “There’s nothing wrong, Detective. No one is bothering me.”

“You’re sure?”

“I am.”

Stynes paused, examining her face. She didn’t reveal anything. She didn’t crack or speak. If there was something going on-and Stynes suspected there was-she wasn’t ready to give it up to him. Not right then. Stynes checked his watch and told her he had to get back to the station.

“But you know how to reach me if you need something, right?”

“I do. Thanks.”

Stynes went down the walk, his mind turning over the events of the past hour. Not just the reporter’s questions but Janet’s as well. His own doubts were stirring, like silt in the bottom of a clear streambed.

And how do you plan to navigate these troubled waters, Stynes? What are you going to do?

Chapter Ten

Ashleigh walked home from the park. She took the long way, exiting the park closer to where Kevin’s family lived than on the side near her own house. She wanted the extra time to think. She ignored the heat and let her mind work, trying to process what she’d seen-who she’d seen-in the middle of the woods.

As soon as Dante ran off and disappeared from sight, Ashleigh regretted letting him go. She wished she had continued after him, running hard so she could catch up and ask him what he had been doing at the place her uncle died. The question circled in her brain. And even while she thought about it and imagined catching up to the man, a more rational, more logical voice spoke in her brain as well: What would you do if you caught up to him? Tackle him? Punch him? Take him to coffee? What would a fifteen-year-old girl do with a convicted murderer?

Ashleigh put her hair up as she trudged along in the heat. The sun beat against the back of her neck, but she minded that less than the stickiness of the sweat that plastered her hair to her skin. She passed quiet homes that looked cool and comfortable. She thought about the air-conditioned comfort inside them-and she also thought about the normal lives their inhabitants led. No one behind those doors and windows was caught up in pursuing crazy leads in a twenty-five-year-old murder. Were they?

But Ashleigh knew the truth. No, they might not be doing that exactly, but every home contained some craziness. She knew that from the kids at school. Alcoholism, abuse, infidelity. Her friends saw it all. Despite all her complaints about her mother and grandfather, they didn’t subject her to anything awful. But, still, a murder in the family past stood out as pretty crazy…

She hadn’t even called or texted Kevin. She would eventually, but she didn’t want to call him at work, especially if he’d already been made late by their trip to Steven Kollman’s apartment.

And then there was the other part of it.

She felt a little weird-sometimes-talking to Kevin about Dante Rogers because of one simple fact: Dove Point contained a fair share of racist assholes. No, nobody burned crosses on anybody’s lawn. And plenty of black people- including Kevin’s dad, who handled all the IT for a bank-held prominent positions in town and did very well, but Ashleigh knew the truth. Most people didn’t feel comfortable seeing a black guy and a white girl hanging around together. She could tell the way some of them-friends of hers from school and even once a science teacher-asked a question:

Are you and Kevin dating?

She and Kevin were not dating-they were just friends. But Ashleigh thought about dating Kevin all the time. She liked to look at his face when he didn’t know she was watching, and she enjoyed the electrical charge that coursed through her body if they inadvertently brushed their arms against each other. But they weren’t dating. They hadn’t even come close. Ashleigh’s mom and grandpa acted a little weird whenever Kevin’s name came up, but Ashleigh knew that wasn’t really about race. She understood that the adults in her family were more worried about her going out and getting knocked up like her mom did in high school.

But sometimes she worried about what Kevin thought. He always acted like he didn’t mind. He made jokes all the time about his race, going so far as to refer to the two of them as the “salt and pepper twins” when they went places together, but she absolutely didn’t want him to ever think the views of certain narrow-minded and stupid people in the town had somehow become her own. She didn’t want to suffer guilt by association, so sometimes she avoided the topic of Dante.

The house came into view, and every time it did, Ashleigh’s heart dropped a little. It wasn’t a bad house. The rooms were big enough, and her mom and grandpa did a decent job of keeping it in shape. But it wasn’t her house. For the past three years, she and her mom had rented a cute little bungalow near downtown on Park Street. The morning sun lit Ashleigh’s bedroom there, and they lived side by side with young couples and college kids. At least once a month, Ashleigh asked her mother why they couldn’t just move out and get their old place back, just the two of them. Her mom always explained that this was a financial decision, that when Grandpa lost his job he needed help in order to keep the family home. And besides, Grandpa needs us, her mom would say. We’re all he’s got.

Ashleigh never said it out loud, but she thought it: He doesn’t have me. Only a few more years, and I’m off to college. Ohio State. Miami. Cincinnati. Bowling Green. As long as it’s college and as long as it’s away.

Ashleigh entered the dark, quiet house. No surprise. Her grandfather liked to keep the place closed up and sealed. Like a bank vault. Or a morgue. Both Ashleigh and her mom went around behind the old man, opening blinds