Hiding Place (9781101606759) (25 page)

“Did this Kollman guy have any visitors? Did you ever see him with anybody?”

“Besides the girl from today?”

“Yes, besides the girl you assaulted. Yes. Any other visitors or friends?”

“There was one guy.”

“Who was he?”

“Just some guy. He came by not long after Kollman moved in. I saw them talking outside the building one night. It looked like the other guy was kind of pissed at Kollman, but then they were okay, you know? The situation calmed down. And then just a few days ago, the guy came back one night. I saw him going into the building. I was cleaning up some trash out back, but it sounded like they were arguing a little. I mean, the voices were raised loud enough a couple of times that I could hear it outside.”

“What happened?”

“I was going to go up and knock on the door and ask them to keep it down. We try to run a tight ship here.”

“I can tell.”

“Thanks. But when I started over to the steps, the other guy was coming down and left the building. That was it.”

“What does this guy look like?”

“I didn’t see him up close. That night on the stairs, I only saw him from behind. I was in the basement and he went out on the first floor.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was kind of tall and thin. He was dressed okay. Not like Kollman, you know? He always looked a little ratty. But this guy looked decent. Kind of middle class, you know?”

“Did you see his car?”

“No.”

“And was that the only visitor for Kollman? No girls? Nothing?”

“Nothing else that I saw. I swear. He was quiet. He was a good tenant, except he didn’t pay.”

Stynes straightened up. “All right, Nick. Thanks.”

“What happens now?”

“A free tour of our justice system, courtesy of the taxpayers of Dove Point, Ohio.”

“Oh.” Reeves closed his eyes, and the tears started again. “Please?”

“Get ahold of yourself.”

Stynes closed the door and turned to the two officers. They walked a few feet away.

“What’s his deal?” Stynes asked.

“He’s clean,” the one said. “Not even a moving violation.”

“Really?”

“And we didn’t find anything weird in his room. A little porn, but no kiddie stuff. No weapons or anything like that.”

Stynes nodded. “He’s all yours.”

“What do you think they’ll do with him, Detective?”

“The prosecutor’s office can sort it out, but I think he’s looking at lewd conduct with a child. They’ll threaten him with a felony, but he might get off with just a misdemeanor. And do me a favor? When you get him to the jail, let him wipe his face off.”

Stynes saw more uniformed officers a couple of buildings away. He walked down there and met a crime scene technician on her way out of the building.

“What’s it look like?” Stynes asked.

The tech looked to be about twenty-five. Like the rookie cops, they grew younger and younger all the time. Sometimes Stynes felt as if the rest of the world were a film being shown in reverse, and everyone grew younger while he aged.

“Not much,” the tech said. She wore a Dove Point PD polo shirt. “Your friend over there pretty well cleaned the place out. We’ve got a notice to hold the Dumpster. We can check it tomorrow in the daylight.”

“Prints?”

“A mess of them,” she said. “It’s a furnished apartment and not a particularly nice one. Every tenant for the last twenty years has touched every surface in there. We got some good ones, but there’s no way to know if they’re from your guy or not.”

“And that’s it?”

“Pretty much,” she said. “What did this guy do?”

Stynes looked up at the window of the apartment. “Right now, I’m not sure.”

The tech shrugged.

Stynes asked, “Is it clear up there? I can go in?”

“It’s all yours.”

Stynes went up the stairs, trying to ignore the smells in the hallway, the cooking smells and body odor and dirty diapers. The door to the apartment stood open, and Stynes went in. Most everything had been cleared away. He wouldn’t say the place had been cleaned, but there was no clutter or garbage present. If not for his arrest, Nick Reeves would be getting ready to rent this palace to the next lucky contestant. His arrest would likely cost Reeves his job.

Stynes looked around the place—kitchen, bathroom, small bedroom. He was on his way back to the living room when his cell phone rang. It was Dispatch.

“Detective Stynes? We found that detective in Columbus, the one you were asking about.”

“Great,” Stynes said. “Let me get a pen.”

“He’s on the line right now, Detective. I can put the call through to your phone.”

“Really?”

“Really. Stand by.”

The wonders of modern technology.

Stynes waited, listening to a couple of clicks. The dispatcher told him to go ahead. “You’re speaking with Detective Helton of Columbus PD.”

“Detective Stynes?” a surprisingly young voice said.

“That’s me. Thanks for taking the call.”

“No problem. We’re always happy to help out our brothers in the rural provinces.”

Shithead,
Stynes thought.

“You’re wanting to know about an assault case, one that involved a Justin Manning.”

“Yes, that’s it,” Stynes said. “I know it might be a long shot you would remember anything, but I wanted to try.”

“I’ve got the file and my notes here.” Helton hummed to himself while he apparently looked at the file. “I do remember this. Kind of.”

“What happened?” Stynes asked.

“Standard stuff. Manning got into it with some guy. There was pushing and shoving. I guess your boy Manning took a swing at the other dude and clocked him in the jaw. Guy wasn’t really hurt, but he wanted to press charges. Misdemeanor assault. Manning didn’t have a record, so he walked with a fine. Except he never bothered to pay the fine, so the warrant was issued. Happens every day in the big city. Why are you interested? What did Manning do?”

“Let’s call it identity theft.”

“Well, I can send you a copy of this report if you’d like.”

“Thanks. That would be great.”

There was a long pause. Stynes thought the connection had been lost. He was about to ask when Helton spoke again.

“Shit,” Helton said.

“What?”

“This name. Manning. And Dove Point. I read about this.” Another pause. “Shit. This guy’s pretending to be…”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

“Trying? Isn’t it obvious he isn’t the kid? He stole a dead kid’s identity.”

“That would be my guess, too. But we have to make sure.”

“I’m going to look at that story again.” Helton made the humming noise again. “Yeah, I have in my notes that Manning seemed like an odd duck. He had that twenty-mile stare, you know? But that’s half the perps we deal with here.”

Perps? Stynes thought. Did people really talk that way?

“If you could just send it on over.”

“You got it,” Helton said. “And I guess an identity theft case is a nice break from prosecuting cow tippers?”

“Right,” Stynes said. He hung up, then added, “Asshole.”

Ashleigh looked at the photos from the box under her bed. There weren’t that many, which surprised her. Did people take many pictures back then? Her mom once explained that taking photographs used to be expensive. You had to bring the film to a place that developed it and then wait for the pictures to come back. You bought them whether they were any good or not. Sometimes her mom talked like she grew up in the nineteenth century.

But there were maybe only fifty photos total of her uncle. Some were posed portraits, the kind they took at the mall. Others were candid—birthday parties, Christmas. Ashleigh studied the portraits, trying to see a resemblance. But she’d seen the man on the porch for only a few minutes—and from a distance. What was she going to be able to see?

Someone knocked on the door again. Ashleigh sighed and threw the pictures back in the box, then slid it under the bed.

“Hold on,” Ashleigh said.

She made sure the box was hidden and opened the door. Except it wasn’t her mom—it was her grandpa. He stood there in the hallway looking as uncomfortable as he always did when he came to her room. Ashleigh didn’t know why he acted so weird about coming near her personal space—he’d raised a daughter before. But the old guy always looked afraid when he
stood in the doorway of her room, like he was expecting a training bra or a tampon to leap up and bite him on the neck.

“Hi,” Ashleigh said. “Is something wrong?”

“Your mom asked me to check in on you.”

“I’m fine,” Ashleigh said.

She thought that would be it. Ordinarily that would be it, but for some reason her grandpa lingered around the door as if he wanted to talk or something. Except he didn’t say anything. He stood there, hands in pockets. Ashleigh didn’t know what to do.

“Are you watching the Reds game?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah,” he said. “Seventh inning. They’re winning. Do you want to watch the end of the game?”

“Um…”

“It’s okay if you don’t. I know you’re not a big sports fan.”

“I guess I was going to read something,” Ashleigh said, although, in truth, she didn’t have a new book to read and needed to go to the library. She just really didn’t want to watch baseball with the old man. She’d done it before, and even with the game on to provide a distraction, sitting there with him felt awkward.

“That’s okay.” But he still didn’t turn away. “Hey,” he said, “I meant to ask you. When that man today tried to, you know, touch you?”

“Yeah?”

“You’re telling the truth that nothing else happened, right?”

“I am, Grandpa.”

“Because that shouldn’t happen to a young girl like you, and I just wanted you to know that it’s okay.”

“What’s okay?”

“If you want to tell me anything else.”

Ashleigh’s cheeks flushed with warmth. She understood. The old guy was looking out for her. He was being protective. “It’s okay, Grandpa,” she said again. “I told everything there is to tell. He didn’t hurt me.”

He nodded, and Ashleigh thought she saw his shoulders lift a little with relief. “Good,” he said.

“Grandpa?”

“Yeah?”

“You know how I got away?”

“How?” he asked.

“Remember you taught me once how to get away if someone grabbed me from behind?”

“I do,” he said. “You used that?”

“I swung my arm back and hit him in the gut. And then, when he doubled over, I kicked him in the face.”

Her grandpa smiled bigger than she had ever seen him smile. “I didn’t even teach you that.”

“I know. I just did it.”

“Great.”

Then they didn’t know what to say to each other again.

“Well,” he said.

He went back down the stairs. Ashleigh went into her room but didn’t shut the door. She didn’t return to the bed or look for a book to read. Without thinking of it too much, she left and went downstairs, following in her grandpa’s wake. He was sitting in his chair, the baseball game playing at high volume. He looked up when she came into the living room, his face showing surprise. He appeared even more surprised when she sat down on the couch and looked at the TV, but he didn’t say anything.

Ashleigh tried to decipher the action of the game. She read
the score in the upper left-hand corner of the screen. The Reds appeared to be playing and beating a team from New York, one that wore orange-and-blue uniforms. The Yankees? Or was it the Mets? They were from New York, right? Otherwise, she couldn’t follow beyond the basics—balls and strikes, outs and hits. When the players ran around the bases and things happened, she lost track of what it all meant.

During a commercial, her grandpa said, “Your mom never liked baseball.”

“I don’t really like it either,” Ashleigh said.

Ashleigh knew what he was thinking:
Then why are you sitting here?
But he didn’t say it. During the next round of commercials, Ashleigh said, “Grandpa, what do you think happened to Uncle Justin?”

He didn’t look away from the TV. “He’s dead, Ashleigh.”

She didn’t know how to respond. She’d expected some debate, some hedging of bets based on the events of recent days. But there was none of that—just a flat statement of fact.

“How can you be sure?” Ashleigh asked.

He still didn’t look away from the TV. “It’s been so long,” he said. “I just know it.”

The game started again, and one of the batters for the Reds did something impressive because all the fans were cheering. When it quieted down, Ashleigh said, “Do you mean that because Uncle Justin is your son, you can feel if he’s alive or not?”

“I’ll say something about all of this.” He used the remote control to turn the volume down a little but didn’t look at her. “I have a feeling we’re going to learn something in the coming days, all of us. Too many people are nosing around and getting worked up.”

“We’re going to learn something about who really killed him?”

“Just something,” he said. “Your mom told me tonight before she left the house that we were in the middle of all of this and we couldn’t avoid it.” He turned the volume back up on the TV. The crowd cheered more. Someone had hit a home run. “I think she’s right.”

Michael led Janet to the opening to the path into the woods. She stopped there, peering ahead into the darkness.

“Why are we here?” she asked. “Is this what you want to show me?”

“Yes.”

“Why here?”

“It’s just…” Michael searched for the right words. “It will help to do it in there.”

Janet tried to remember the last time she had gone into the woods. She had been there only once since the day Justin died. When Ashleigh was small and asking questions about Justin’s death, Janet had relented and took her into the clearing and showed her the spot. The place fascinated Ashleigh. She wanted to sit and pepper Janet with questions about the day Justin disappeared and died, but Janet made them leave before Ashleigh could say anything. It didn’t feel right to Janet to be there. If she didn’t want to be defined by the events that happened in that place, then there was no point in returning to it time after time. Likewise, she spent little time in the cemetery where her mother and brother were buried. She hoped they would rest together someday, if only for the symbolic nature of having them side by side—not because she wanted to spend every Sunday bringing flowers and tending to their graves.