The Hiding Place

Chapter Twenty-three

Janet took a few deep breaths and then opened the door to Detective Stynes. She thought she knew what he was there for. He had heard about the man from the porch. Someone had called to report him-maybe even Madeline, maybe someone else at work-and Stynes was at the house to ask Janet what she knew about the man.

And if he came in asking questions about the man, her dad would hear. Everyone would know the secret she’d been carrying with her.

Janet gathered her wits and decided to keep Detective Stynes out on the porch and handle the situation out of her dad’s earshot, but Stynes changed things by saying, “I wanted to talk to your dad for a few minutes.”

“My dad?”

“Is he home?” Stynes asked. “I’m sorry I didn’t call.”

“He’s here,” Janet said, but she didn’t turn or make any effort to call for him. She hoped that by standing in the doorway long enough Stynes would feel compelled to explain the purpose of his visit. But apparently the detective possessed better waiting skills than Janet. He wore a patient look on his face, his eyes calm, his expression mild. He looked like a man without a care in the world-and all the time to pass. “Come on in,” Janet finally said.

The detective followed Janet inside, where they found her dad standing beside his chair, the TV turned off. His face still looked agitated from their argument, and before Janet could say anything, her dad said, “I don’t want to hear about all of this stuff anymore, Janet. I’m just tired of it.”

“It’s Detective Stynes,” she said. “And he says he needs to talk to you.”

Stynes nodded to her father, ignoring his complaint. For his part, her dad looked surprised and rendered speechless by the detective’s appearance. Janet wasn’t sure anyone could look good or react well when the police unexpectedly showed up on their porch.

“Is something wrong?” her dad said.

“No,” Stynes said. “Do you mind if I sit?”

He didn’t wait for an invitation. He took a spot on the end of the couch, and with nothing else to do that seemed reasonable, Janet and her dad sat down as well, her dad back in his chair and Janet on the opposite end of the couch from Detective Stynes.

“Like I said, Mr. Manning, I’m sorry I didn’t call. But this shouldn’t take long.”

“This? What’s this?”

Stynes reached into the inside pocket of his sport coat and brought out a small spiral-bound notebook. Then he brought out a pen and clicked it with his thumb. While Janet watched, she couldn’t help but think his movements and gestures had become practiced and meaningful over the years. He wasn’t just taking out a notebook and a pen-he was stalling, drawing out the moment so the person on the other end of his questions grew more nervous and agitated as he waited.

So then why was he giving this treatment to her dad?

Did Detective Stynes suspect her dad of something, possibly some involvement with Justin’s death? Janet felt a hint of outrage start to grow, but just as quickly reined it in. Why would it bother her to see Detective Stynes think that when she had just been thinking the same thing minutes earlier?

“As I’m sure you know,” Stynes said, “there’s been a lot of attention focused recently on Justin’s death.”

“Okay,” her dad said.

“I’ve been going over the case notes from back then,” Stynes said. “It’s a bad habit I have. Rethinking things, second-guessing myself. Maybe it’s something that happens with age.”

Stynes seemed to be waiting for an answer, so her dad provided one.

“Maybe,” he said. He looked uncomfortable to Janet’s eyes. Tense and nervous, and Janet felt sorry for him. No matter what might or might not transpire between them, he was her father, and she didn’t want to see him made to squirm.

“Detective, can you tell us what this is about?” Janet asked. “You know my dad. He doesn’t like to talk about these things. That’s why I spoke to the newspaper and not him.”

“I understand,” Stynes said. “But this isn’t for the newspaper. This is just for me. I promise I’ll be quick.” He flipped through the notebook, found the page he wanted, and looked up. “I’m curious about your recollections of the day Justin disappeared. Specifically, that morning. Did anything unusual happen before you knew he was gone?”

Her dad shifted his weight in the chair, his posture gaining rigidity and energy. He sat up straighter, making it clear that he was taller than Detective Stynes by at least four inches. “I answered all these questions twenty-five years ago,” he said. “I sat right in this house the day Justin disappeared and I told you everything I could. So why are you showing up here now and asking me these things?”

Stynes didn’t show any concern. He wasn’t intimidated. “I’m asking you these things because I’m a police officer, and we like it when citizens cooperate with the police. But, okay, I understand that it seems a little strange for me to show up now and ask a question like that.”

“Yes,” Janet said. “It does.”

Both men looked at her, but she didn’t feel embarrassed. Her heart rate started to rise, and her hands, which were clasped together in her lap, felt moist from sweat.

Stynes looked back to her father. “When we interviewed you right after Justin disappeared, you told us that you went to work as usual that morning. You worked for Strand, right?”

“Right.”

“And that night, when we talked to you again, you said the same thing. You said you got up at the usual time and got ready and went to work as usual. I guess your wife called when she realized Justin was missing, and you came home from work. Right?”

“I don’t see the problem,” he said.

“Well, we spoke to your wife that morning, of course, and then again that night.”

Stynes stopped speaking. He let his words hang in the air between the three of them. Again he seemed to be waiting for something. When no one said anything, Stynes went on.

“That night, she told us that you had gone to work that morning like any normal day. But that morning, when we came and spoke to her, she told us that you hadn’t gone in to work at your usual time. That you’d stayed home, and you were here when Justin disappeared and not at work.”

Janet almost gasped. She sucked a large gulp of air into her lungs and felt it catch there like an obstruction. It took a long moment for her to be able to breathe again, but the men didn’t seem to notice. They were staring each other down, their eyes locked.

“She made a mistake,” her dad said.

“You know that?”

“She was upset when Justin disappeared. She made a mistake. I don’t see why that’s such a big deal. You talked to her about it that night. Here she was racked with grief over her missing child, and you just wanted to pick her words apart like she was a criminal.” He paused. “She was very upset that day.”

Stynes nodded. “Right. Of course. People do make mistakes in stressful situations. And if we checked the records out at Strand to see what time you arrived at work, they’d confirm that you were there?”

“I don’t know what they would confirm after twenty-five years,” her dad said. His voice sounded less steely, less certain.

Stynes held her father’s gaze for a long moment, then tapped the little notebook with his index finger. “Well, I guess I’ll have to see.”

“What do you mean?” Janet asked.

“I mean I might go out to Strand tomorrow morning to take a look at their records.”

“And,” Janet said, “what if the records say my dad didn’t go to work that morning, if such records even exist after all this time? What if they say he wasn’t there? What happens?”

Stynes smiled, his eyes still on her dad. “One old cop will have his curiosity satisfied, I guess. I’ll just file it away in the drawer of oddities I keep in my mind.” Stynes stood up and tucked the notebook back into its pocket. “I told you it wouldn’t take very long.”

And that was it? Janet thought. But what did it mean? She tried to wrap her head around Detective Stynes’s visit, but she could reach only one conclusion: Stynes had suspicions about her father, and he was following up on them.

It was as though Stynes had tapped into the dark thoughts growing inside Janet…

“Let me ask you something, Detective,” her father said.

Stynes stood still, looking down on her dad, who remained in his seat.

“Yes?”

“Have you investigated a lot of murders over the years?”

“A few.”

“And other crimes? Robberies? Rapes?”

“Of course.”

“Do you pay these kinds of visits to the parents of those victims, or am I just special?”

Stynes considered this and said, “Some things stay with us longer than others, I guess.”