moved to Dove Point when he was eight, and didn’t stay very long. Mother deceased. Father missing in action. Entered the foster system at age five and was in it until he was eighteen. One of his former foster families recognized the photo we sent out and called us. Apparently, they hadn’t seen him since he was sixteen or so, but they thought it was him.”
“He lived in more than one foster home?”
“Looks that way.”
“And no one else recognized him?”
Stynes shrugged. “A lot of kids pass through that system. They either forgot him or they just didn’t care to call. A lot of these foster families don’t want to have anything to do with the police.”
Janet let that sink in. She thought of Ashleigh and wondered how people could let any child in their care just slip away from them like a lost memory. “Why did he start all this pretending to be Justin?”
“He won’t talk to us,” Stynes said. “Still won’t, even though we know who he is. He’s facing some pretty serious identity theft charges, plus the outstanding warrant in Columbus. He’d be wise to do something to protect himself. He goes before the judge tomorrow, now that we know who he is. We won’t keep him here. He’ll probably go to the county lockup and wait for a trial if he doesn’t plead.”
“What did he do when he lived in Dove Point?” Janet asked. “I mean…what kind of life did he have?”
“You might know better than any of us.”
“What do you mean?”
Stynes tapped the notebook. “He went to school with you in the third grade. Steven Kollman? You don’t remember the name?”
Janet shook her head. She didn’t remember at all.
Stynes brought Steven Kollman into the small interview room where Janet was waiting. Steven slumped into a chair on the opposite side of the scarred wooden table. Stynes looked at Janet.
“Are you okay with this?” he asked.
Janet knew what he meant.
She did, and she told Stynes she was fine. So he left. She knew he or other officers wouldn’t be far away if something did go wrong. But Janet doubted it would. She looked at Steven in his chair. He couldn’t meet her eye. He wore an orange inmate jumpsuit and stared at the floor. Janet felt a little angry that she had ever let this man manipulate her.
“Are you going to look at me, Steven?” she asked.
He did, raising his eyes slowly until they met Janet’s ever so briefly across the table. Just as quickly he lowered them again.
“Are you being treated okay in here?” she asked.
“It’s fine,” he said. “It’s not the worst jail I’ve been in.”
“Detective Stynes tells me we went to school together in the third grade.”
“Briefly.”
“I don’t remember you. Did we know each other?”
“I told you we knew each other a long time ago. Remember?”
“I remember you saying that. But I don’t remember you. Like you said, that’s been a long time, so maybe you could help me place you.”
Steven lifted his eyes. He scooted closer to the table. “Do you know what it’s like to not be remembered? To pass through people’s lives like smoke? That’s always been the way for me, Janet.”
Janet told herself not to listen to what he said, to not be absorbed into his self-pity trap. “I just want to know why you came and did this to my family. Why did you pretend to be my brother?”
“I thought you wanted to know how we knew each other.”
“I do.”
“Okay,” he said. “I can tell you that. And in the course of telling you that, I’ll answer your other question, the one about why I pretended to be Justin.”
Janet thought about leaving. She considered the possibility that just listening to this man, sitting across from him and hearing his story, would draw her deeper into his web. And she’d be better off just standing up and going and letting the police handle him the rest of the way. But she knew it was a bluff. She knew she couldn’t turn away. She had to hear. And she suspected he knew that as well.
“Did the detective tell you I was a foster child?”
Janet nodded.
“That’s how I came to live in Dove Point,” he said. “Do you remember a place called Hope House? It was over on Market Street.”
“I do.” She remembered what looked like an average residential home. But the children she went to school with knew differently. Kids from Hope House showed up at St. Anne’s from time to time, and when they did, the other kids somehow found out the secret.
“I was one of those kids,” Steven said. “I came to school with you in the third grade. You were in another class, but I had Miss Stanton. Remember?”
Janet searched, turning the name over in her mind-Steven Kollman. Was it familiar to her? When she thought she saw her brother’s face, had she really just been seeing a glimmer of a boy she knew in grade school?
“I want to know what this has to do with Justin.”
“You saved me once, Janet. Don’t you remember that? You saved me from the other kids.”
“Saved you?”
“Do you know what it’s like to be the new kid? To show up in a school where all the other kids know each other and have grown up together for years? And then I come into that from Hope House. My white shirt is gray. My pants don’t fit because I grew so fast I had to wear another kid’s. My shoes are scuffed. And I have no idea what’s going on academically because I’ve been in another school for the first part of the year, so I don’t know the math or the reading. And they just put me in the lowest track because they don’t know what else to do with me. That’s what it was like for me, Janet. I don’t even know how many times that happened. I can’t tell you how many different schools I went to. Public, private. Big and small. I can’t even tell you the number.”
“I don’t know what that’s like. I’ve lived here my whole life. But I do know what it’s like to have people say things about you. Everyone in town knew about my brother. And then my mother. People treated me different sometimes because of that.”
“Exactly,” Steven said. He nearly leapt out of his chair. “You get it, don’t you? We’re alike, you and I. We understand each other.”
“I’m not sure we do.”
“You know what it’s like to be ostracized. To be on the outside looking in.”
“You haven’t told me about Justin yet. You haven’t told me anything.”
“I haven’t?” Steven said. His tone shifted. A trace of anger slipped into his voice. “I’ve told you about my life.”
“You said you were going to tell me why you came here and why you came to me.”
He leaned forward and tapped the table with the tip of his index finger, emphasizing every word. “Because you saved me, Janet. Don’t you remember? You saved me.”
“From what?”
“From the boys at the school. Don’t you remember what they used to do to kids like me?”
“Are you talking about-?”
And then Janet knew. She remembered the segregated playground, boys on one end, girls on the other. She remembered the boys playing rough games-football and dodgeball-while the girls played hopscotch or jumped rope. And Janet knew-they all did-what the boys, even as early as second or third grade, did to kids they didn’t like.
Steven nodded. “You remember now.”
“The football?” Janet asked.
Steven nodded. “Have you ever known people who can look back on their childhoods and laugh about the
