The Hiding Place by David Bell Page B

here from Oxford a year ago.”
    “We’ve been fortunate,” Stynes said. “Major crimes aren’t a big problem in a city this size.”
    “You must not have been a detective for very long,” Kate said.
    “Only about a year. I’d been on the force longer than that.”
    “And what was the key to solving the case and making an arrest?” Kate asked.
    Janet watched Stynes while he answered the questions. He seemed thoughtful, almost professorial as he spoke, but she detected something beneath his words, something that always seemed to lie beneath his speech and his gestures. The man seemed, for lack of a better word, tired. Weary, Janet guessed would express it better. Early in the morning, in the middle of the day, whenever she saw Detective Stynes he looked like a man weighed down by something, and that force seemed to be drawing his facial features a little lower, adding slack to the skin around his jaw, slowing his legs when he walked. Janet knew he didn’t have a wife—at least he never mentioned one—and no children. She wondered if that weight had to do with his personal life, or was it something else?
    “Like we just heard,” Stynes said, “Janet was there in the park that day, and so was her friend Michael Bower. They were both small children themselves. Seven years old. But they
did see
”—Janet noticed the emphasis he placed on those words—“a man talking to Justin. So they told us, and we had a sketch artist draw a composite of the man they saw. We circulated that through the media. Dante Rogers’s aunt—he was living with her at the time—thought the sketch bore a strong resemblance to Dante and called us. We went and talked to him and found out he was at the park that day.”
    “And I understand he had a stash of child pornography in his room,” Kate said, her reporter eyes narrowing just a little at the mention of the juicy detail.
    “We did find some pornographic materials in his room,” Stynes said, his voice level. “He also had a prior arrest for improper contact with a minor child. In addition to the pornographic materials, Dante had a collection of newspaper clippings about the case. And his aunt said his behavior had changed after Justin’s disappearance. He had become withdrawn, moody, paranoid.”
    “Janet said that there were a lot of adults at the park that day,” Kate said.
    “A number of adults testified to seeing Dante in the park that day. They saw him talking to Justin and some of the other children.”
    “But Dante always said he was innocent, that he didn’t hurt Justin.”
    “Dante still says he’s innocent,” Stynes said. “I read your story this morning.”
    Kate’s cheeks flushed, and she suppressed a little smile. But the gesture almost seemed too practiced, too aw-shucks. Could someone train her body to blush at will?
    “I’m so glad to hear that. This is my first big series, and I’m kind of nervous about it.”
    “It’s my experience, Miss Grossman, that whether you catch someone drinking and driving or you’re dealing with Dante Rogers, people almost never admit what they did wrong. If they did, we’d have a more efficient justice system.”
    “Right.” Kate leaned back in her seat and raised her pen to her mouth. She chewed on the end, her straight white teeth taking a few quick chomps on the plastic. Janet sensed Kate hadsomething she wanted to say but wasn’t sure how to say it. She removed the pen from her mouth and looked at Stynes. “Okay, so like I said, I just moved here to Dove Point. This is my first job. But I’ve noticed that there really aren’t a lot of black people here in Dove Point. Right?”
    “It depends on how you define ‘a lot,’ ” Stynes said. “We’re kind of a smaller town.”
    “Do you remember, Detective Stynes, if anybody on Dante’s jury was black?”
    Stynes took a long moment to answer. “I don’t think so.”
    Kate nodded and chewed the pen again. She wore a look that said,
Isn’t that