The Hiding Place

Chapter Forty-six

Several hours after the graveside service, Janet met Detective Stynes at the entrance of the police station. She followed him inside and back to his desk, which sat crowded in among other desks in the small office. A detective at a nearby desk spoke on the telephone, and two uniformed officers talked near a coffee machine. Stynes offered Janet a seat in an uncomfortable-looking vinyl chair. Stynes sat behind his desk and pulled out his ever present notebook.

“They faxed over some reports from the state welfare office,” Stynes said. “I’ve been going over them this afternoon.”

“His name really is Steven Kollman?” Janet asked.

“It really is. I’m not sure of much in this life, but I’m sure of that. Steven John Kollman. Born in Columbus, 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. Do you feel safe?

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. He’s from Hope House. He’s an orphan, they would whisper to one another. And it wouldn’t be hard to spot the Hope House kids even without the whispers. They tended to wear less stylish and, in some cases, more ragged clothes. And they never stayed long. None of the kids from Hope House lasted for more than a year or two. They passed through St. Anne’s and Dove Point very much as Steven described it-like smoke.

“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 awful things they did or had done to them? You know, someone wet their pants in front of the whole class, and they can tell the story as an adult and act like it was no big deal to be embarrassed and humiliated in that way? I can’t do that. I don’t think I ever will.”

“I remember that day now,” Janet said. “I remember you.”

“It was wet,” Steven said. “It was the late fall, just a few weeks after I came to school there, and it had rained and there were puddles all over the playground.”

“It was one of those Nerf footballs. It was like a sponge.”

“Yes. They’d been on me for weeks about everything. I had a buzz cut, remember? They gave all of the boys at Hope House one because it was simpler and saved time. They knew I lived there. They were on me for the clothes and the hair and for not reading that well. I hated coming to school. I woke up in the morning feeling sick and went to bed feeling worse. I would have done anything to get away.”

“What made this day worse than any other?”

“I stood up to them,” he said. “They were making fun of the way I read in class, and I told Roger Fouts to go to hell. Remember him?”

Janet nodded.

“I said it low and under my breath so the teacher wouldn’t hear. But I made sure Roger heard, and he did. And he told me he was going to get me on the playground. I thought about going to the nurse’s office and pretending I was sick, but some part of me just said, Fuck it. I didn’t care, really. I just wanted them to do what they wanted to do. Maybe I thought if they did that, then they’d leave me alone and go on to someone else. But when we got out there after lunch, they came after me, a group of about seven of them. All boys. All third and fourth graders.”

“Who were they?” Janet asked.

“Does it matter?” Steven asked. “They gathered around me, and they took that ball, and they rolled it in a mud puddle until the ball was soaked and full of water and mud. And they threw it at me. I remember very clearly-the first one hit me right in the chest. Water and mud splattered everywhere, and I knew my shirt was ruined.”

“I’m sorry.”

“They all laughed,” Steven said. His eyes remained dry, but he bit his upper lip. “I can see them all standing around me, just laughing. They looked like animals. They were all teeth and grins. They looked so stupid, so mindless. And then they just picked the ball up and they did it again. And again. They even hit me in the face with one of their throws. Right in the face. The mud was in my hair. It was cold and wet.”

“Where were the teachers?”

“I don’t know, Janet. Where were they? Where were they?” He rubbed his eyes with both hands. “I couldn’t get away. They had me surrounded. And you see, those boys didn’t understand what they were really doing to me. They thought they were just messing up my clothes and teaching me a lesson or whatever they thought of it as. I guess they were making themselves feel better. More dominant or something. But if one of my shirts got ruined, I didn’t get a new shirt to replace it. I only had a couple of shirts and a couple pairs of pants. Not only would I not have those clothes to wear, but I’d get in all sorts of trouble at Hope House. I’d ruined my clothes. I was going to get blamed for that. And it wouldn’t matter what I said or who I blamed-they were going to hold me responsible.”

“What would they do to you?” Janet asked.

“If I was lucky, I’d miss a meal or two. If I was lucky.”

“Why didn’t you tell? Wouldn’t someone intercede on your behalf? Wouldn’t someone from Hope House go to the school and tell the principal?”

Michael shook his head and laughed. “Right. Janet, there were so many kids living in that house, all of them going in so many different directions, they couldn’t be bothered to go to the school on our behalf. We were pretty much on our own unless the problem was right in their face. My ruined clothes were right in their faces.”

The door opened, and Detective Stynes stuck his head in. He looked from Janet to Steven and then back to Janet again.

“It’s okay,” she said. “We’re doing fine.”

Stynes left without saying anything else.

When Janet turned her attention back to Steven, he said, “The only thing that saved me was you.”

“I didn’t save you.”

“You did. You remember, right? You came right into that circle, and you stood right in front of me, and you told them that if they wanted to throw that ball again, they’d have to throw it at you first. And you just stood there, defiant. You weren’t going to move. And those boys just turned and walked away. You backed them down. They listened to you like you were an adult. It was like you scared them. At the time, I couldn’t figure it out, you know? How did you know what was going on? You must have been with the girls at the other end of the playground. How did you know what was happening down there with us?”

Janet knew. She so quickly saw and responded to what happened to Steven because she had been watching someone involved with the unfolding scene. Someone she always watched.

“But you know why you were watching, right?” Steven asked.

Janet nodded. “It was because of Michael Bower. Michael was one of the boys who went after you that day.”