“It’s funny the effect alcohol will have on people,” Steven said. “If you give them enough of it, they’ll tell you anything. It helps if they’re a little desperate to share their story, especially with someone they think really knows or understands them. Michael didn’t see me as the loser kid from Hope House that night. He didn’t see me as the kid he watched get smacked with a soggy football. He saw me as a guy from his past, someone who had lived in the same town and gone to the same school. He thought we shared something. It let him open up to me.”
“What did he tell you?”
“What didn’t he tell me?” Steven laughed. “You know, I have to be honest with you-a part of me talked to him because I wanted to find out something about you. I’d taken on Justin’s identity. I’d looked you up in the phone book and on the Internet. I knew where you worked. Hell, I’d driven by your old house, the one you used to rent before you moved in with your dad. That’s how I figured out you’d moved. But Michael, he didn’t want to talk about you. I asked about Janet Manning, but he kept changing the subject. He wanted to talk about something else. Or someone else, I guess.”
“Who?”
“His old man. His dad.”
“What did he say about him?” Janet asked.
“He’s not a big fan of his dad. I can tell you that. Apparently, the old man used to support him. He sent Michael money out in California. Michael made it sound like he just needed the money for the short term, but I got the sense it was more than that. I figure the old man was carrying Michael a lot of the time. I guess Michael’s dad left his mom at some point, and he’s an only child. You can see that the old man might feel so much guilt he’d shell out whatever he could to keep the kid happy. I wish I had someone who could do that for me.”
“I hear his dad is getting remarried.”
“Right. Well, maybe that’s why the old man cut him off. And Michael didn’t like that one bit. Who would, right? If you have a nice meal ticket, who wants to see it go away? But I’m not really interested in Michael’s ramblings about his dad. I couldn’t care less if he hates his old man. I wish I knew my old man so I could hate him, but I don’t. So I tried to steer the conversation back to you again. I thought, what’s the one thing I could bring up about you that might get him off this riff about his dad? Do you know what that is?”
“The murder?”
“The murder. I remembered from growing up that Michael was there that day. I knew the two of you were close friends. So I ask, what happened that day in the park? Do you mind talking about it?”
“And did he?”
“Did he? No, he didn’t mind. He spilled his guts. How you all were playing there and how your brother ran away into the woods and Michael went to bring him back to the playground. He told me all of that. And he said that he saw his old man in the woods that day, right where they ended up finding Justin’s body. I guess, from the look on your face, that you’ve heard all of that before.”
“Michael told me.”
“So the system chewed up another black man, another less fortunate, for a crime he didn’t commit.”
Janet couldn’t meet his eye then. She felt the guilt twist in her gut, a metal coil that wound through her insides.
“You feel bad about it, right?” Steven leaned forward, trying to resume eye contact.
“Of course.”
“And you understand why I would take that information and use it to get closer to you? Here I was looking for a way to find out about your life and establish some sort of relationship with you, and Michael just handed it to me. What would you want more than anything else except to know what really happened to your brother?”
“Why didn’t you just come and tell me that? Or better yet, why not go to the police and tell them?”
“I had a warrant out on me, remember? And what was I going to tell them? Some guy who used to bully me in grade school told me he thinks his dad murdered some kid twenty-five years ago? What would they think of that?”
“You could have tried.”
“I told you.”
“You didn’t tell me anything,” Janet said. “You strung me along.”
“I did. You’re right. I figured that was my one chance to get close to you, to give you something, so I tried to make it last. I shouldn’t have done that.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Janet said.
“I guess you told Michael I came and saw you.”
“I did.”
“He came to see me a couple of times. He came not long after that first night we talked in the bar. And then he came again after I talked to you on campus.”
“Why did he come to see you?” Janet asked.
“Good question.”
Janet waited. “Are you going to answer it?” she finally asked.
He nodded. “Sure. Why not?” He licked his lips. “I guess you told him that some strange guy had shown up at your house in the middle of the night, and Michael wanted to know if it was me. I admitted it was, of course. I didn’t have anything to hide, even though I suspected he wanted to chew me out for bothering you. You know, the whole knight in shining armor thing. Right?”
Janet didn’t answer, but she did want to think Michael was there on her behalf.
Steven smiled. “Well, he must have left his white knight suit at the cleaners. He didn’t come to tell me to lay off you. Quite the contrary. He was only mad at me because I wasn’t pushing his version of the story. See, he wanted me to go to you and tell you that his old man killed your brother. He wanted me to push his agenda instead of my own. When I told him to screw off, we got into an argument, a pretty loud one.”
Janet felt something drop inside her, like a driver in the midst of a long descent.
“He just wanted to use me,” Steven said. “He wanted me to get you stirred up, to get you to come around to his way of thinking about the murder. He wanted you to believe his dad committed the crime as much as he did.” Steven leaned back in his chair, looking smug. “He wanted me to be just another pawn in his game.”
Chapter Forty-eight
Stynes was on the phone when Janet Manning emerged from the detention area of the station. A uniformed officer guided her out, and Stynes could see, even from across the room, that the conversation with Steven Kollman had left Janet shaken and disturbed. She looked at the floor as she walked, and her step lacked its characteristic energy. Stynes ended the call he was on and wondered if his first instinct hadn’t been correct-that he shouldn’t have let Janet talk to Kollman.
“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
