The Hiding Place

Chapter Nine

Stynes walked Kate to the door and watched her stroll down the walk-her young hips moving back and forth-and climb into a new red Honda Civic. A graduation gift from Dad, Stynes figured, watching her drive away. Most of the reporters he knew drove older cars held together by rust and prayer. One more reason to resent her, even if she did look good both coming and going. A rich college girl turning over the race card. Stynes felt his back molars grind against one another. Let it go. Let it go.

He turned to say good-bye to Janet and found her standing right behind him in the doorway. Before he could say anything, he saw the look in her eyes. Something pleading, almost fearful.

“Don’t worry about that stuff-”

She cut him off with a nod of her head. Toward the porch. She wanted to talk outside.

Stynes held the door, and they stepped out into the heat of the late afternoon. The sun glanced off the chrome and glass of the parked cars. The street shimmered. Stynes didn’t sit, but Janet did. She settled into a lawn chair and looked up.

“I just wanted to talk about all of that,” she said, pointing toward the general area where Kate’s car had been parked.

“Like I said, don’t worry about it. She’s just a kid trying to make a name for herself. She thinks a race angle might play big in a story like this. Little does she know people in Dove Point would rather attend free colonoscopy day at the hospital than dwell on racial issues. It probably won’t even get into the story. I know the features editor at the Ledger-”

“I don’t mean the race stuff,” Janet said.

Stynes shifted his feet. He wore a suit coat over a polo shirt, and he felt the sweat forming on his back. He had about two hours of paperwork to do back at the station, and he wanted nothing more than to get home in time to watch the Reds play the Cardinals. For the first time in years, the Reds had a prayer of reaching the playoffs, and Stynes wanted to enjoy it. The simple things, he called them. The simple things.

“Which stuff do you mean then?” he asked. “You just mean her questions? Did they upset you?”

Janet turned her head and looked over her shoulder to the front door, wanting to make sure her dad wasn’t there listening. When she was satisfied he wasn’t, she spoke in a low voice. “She seemed to be suggesting that Dante Rogers is innocent,” Janet said.

“No, she wasn’t-”

“And I was wondering the same thing,” she said, her voice still low but forceful. “Did you have enough to convict him?”

“We did convict him.”

“But like Kate said, in Dove Point-”

“Hold on.” Stynes held both hands out in front of him like he wanted to push something away. The sweat ran faster down his back and sides and suddenly the thought of his air-conditioned office seemed even more appealing than Kate Grossman’s backside. “Don’t let this girl get into your head. The story this morning, this interview-it’s all just talk. It doesn’t change the past.”

Janet nodded. She looked mollified, and Stynes took quiet pleasure in having found the right words for the right situation and shutting things down effectively. He sometimes thought the ability to talk, to placate, to smooth ruffled feathers in the heat of the moment was the most useful skill any cop or public servant could have.

“Janet, call me if-”

“Was the evidence against him just circumstantial?” she asked.

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?