would mean they convicted the right guy, and he did his time.”
“I don’t know…”
“You don’t know?” Kevin asked. “Are you mad because he didn’t go to jail long enough?”
“Not that. I don’t really care about that. I’m not like those stupid people who live for revenge, who foam at the mouth if they think someone should have gone to the electric chair.”
“Then what is it?”
Ashleigh watched the fireflies and tried to think of the right words.
“I want the story to change,” she said finally. “My whole life, that’s been the story. Dante Rogers killed my uncle. He went to jail. My grandmother died from grief. All of that happened before I was born, but I’ve lived with it my whole life. It’s been a black cloud over my head and the whole family.” She turned to him. “But when that guy showed up at the house saying the story wasn’t true, that something else happened to my uncle, I felt something change. I don’t know…There was a chance.”
“A chance to change the story? Your family’s story?”
“Yes.” She kicked at the ground. “When that guy-Steven-first showed up, I thought he just meant that Dante didn’t kill my uncle the way they said he did. Or maybe he just meant that Dante didn’t kill him and someone else did.”
“But?”
“But what if he means something more? What if he’s trying to say that my uncle didn’t die? What if he’s still alive?”
Kevin took a deep breath. “Holy shit, Ash. You don’t know that. You don’t have any evidence for that.”
“I know. But there’s something happening with this guy. I can feel it.”
She knew Kevin would understand. She wanted to tell him because she knew he would get it without a lot of explanation. They
“It makes sense,” he said. “I understand why you want to find this guy and talk to him. But there’s one potential problem with all of this.”
“What’s that?”
“What if you find out something different did happen, just like that guy said, and what if it ends up being worse than what you know now?”
As quickly as Ashleigh wanted to celebrate her friendship with Kevin, she just as quickly wanted to curse him. Being friends with him-and maybe being good friends with anyone-meant that he knew exactly how to cut to the heart of a matter, even if it meant saying something Ashleigh didn’t want to hear.
“It can’t be,” she said. “Anything is better. My mom, you know? She’s living her life and everything, but has anyone ever needed a different story more than her? Hell, sometimes-and I can’t believe I’m going to say this-but sometimes-”
“You even feel sorry for your grandpa.”
“Yes.”
Kevin laughed. Ashleigh spent so much time complaining about the old man that she knew it struck him as funny to hear her express any sympathy for him. But she really felt that way. He might be a grumpy old man, but he was her grandfather.
“So, what are you going to do next?” Kevin asked. “Call the police, I hope.”
“And report a guy hanging out in a park?”
“A murderer, Ash. If he’s out, he’s on parole. He can’t just go wherever he wants or do whatever he wants.”
“How do you know what he can and can’t do?” she asked.
Kevin chuckled. “I’m black, Ash. I may be middle class and respectable, but black men don’t grow up not knowing about these things. If he’s out on parole, I guarantee he’s not allowed to come near your family or that park. He could get sent right back to jail.”
“I won’t call the police on him,” she said.
“Then what?”
“I’m going back,” she said. “I’m going back to talk to Steven Kollman.”
Chapter Eighteen
Stynes called into the station before he left his house for his noon-to-nine shift. He spoke to the desk officer and asked if anything was brewing in Dove Point that morning, anything that required his immediate attention. He waited while the officer checked, and while he stood there he looked down at his little notebook. He revisited the details that Reverend Fred had provided-six times in the last eighteen months money had disappeared from the church account. Not big amounts. They all ranged between three hundred and eight hundred dollars. The money always returned, usually without the reverend having to say anything to his bookkeeper.
But still, the reverend wondered, where was that money going?
The desk officer came back and told Stynes all was clear.
“I’m going to be checking on a complaint from the Reverend Fred Arling,” Stynes said. “It shouldn’t take long.”
He hung up and took a last look at the name of the bookkeeper before he left the house.
Ray Bower. Michael Bower’s father.
Could it just be a coincidence?
A converted Cape Cod with a wide front porch housed Ray Bower’s bookkeeping office on Lincoln Street, just two blocks off the circle. Stynes stepped into what had once served as the living room of the home. A large desk and a photocopier took up most of the space, and the young woman behind the desk took up the rest with the size of her smile.
“Can I help you?” she said.
The woman, who looked to be about twenty-five, wore her hair pulled back into a businesslike ponytail. Stynes made a point of not staring at the exposed skin where her black V-neck shirt dipped low enough to reveal a strip of black bra. A large bouquet of flowers took up one corner of the desk.
“Is Mr. Bower in?” Stynes asked.
“He sure is. Did you have an appointment?”
“No,” Stynes said. “I just wanted to talk to him.” Stynes decided to cut to the chase. He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small leather billfold. He felt a little like a cliche from a TV show, letting one half of the billfold fall open, revealing his shiny gold badge. “Is he in?”
The smile remained in place but the wattage dimmed. She stood up. “Just one second. I’ll tell him.”
She went through an open door at the back of the front room, one that must have led to the original kitchen. She disappeared inside, and Stynes heard their murmured voices while he looked around at the Rotary Club plaques and citations from the Dove Point Small Business Association that decorated the walls. It took less than twenty seconds for the girl to come out.
“You can go right on back,” she said.
“Thanks.”
“Would you like some coffee or something?”
“No, thanks. I won’t be long.”
Stynes tried to remember the last time he had seen Ray Bower. He didn’t know the man outside the confines of the Manning case. If it hadn’t been for the death of Justin Manning, Stynes doubted he would know the man at all. From time to time over the years, they may have crossed paths in the grocery store or at a Dove Point High basketball game, but if they said more than three words to each other, Stynes couldn’t remember them. Every once in a while, Ray Bower sprang for ad time on a local radio station, and some of those commercials slipped through the filter that ordinarily blocked such things from Stynes’s consciousness. The name always conjured up brief thoughts of the Manning case, but those thoughts never coalesced around Ray Bower in any meaningful way.
As Stynes entered the room, the man stood up, removed his half-moon reading glasses, and came around the
