the Woods (2007) Read online

  Did she suffer out in those woods?

  That was what I'd always wondered. What did Wayne Steubens do to her? Did he tie her up and terrify her, like he did with Margot Green? Did she struggle and suffer defensive wounds like Doug Billingham? Did he bury her alive, like those victims in Indiana or Virginia? How much pain had Camille been in? How terrifying were her last moments?

  And now'a the new question: Had Camille somehow gotten out of those woods alive?

  I turned my thoughts to Lucy. I thought about what she must be going through, watching her beloved father blow his head off, wondering about the whys and how's of it all. I wanted to reach her, say some thing, try somehow to comfort her a little.

  There was a knock on my door.

  Come in.

  I expected it to be a nurse. It wasn't. It was Muse. I smiled at her. I expected her to smile back. She didn't. Her face couldn't have been more closed.

  "Don't look so glum," I said. "I'm fine."

  Muse moved closer to the bed. Her expression didn't change.

  "I said-"

  "I already talked to the doctor. He said you might not even have to stay overnight." "So what's with the face?" Muse grabbed a chair, pulled it next to the bed. "We need to talk."

  I had seen Loren Muse make this face before.

  It was her game face. It was her I'm-gonna-nail-da-bastard face. It was her try-to-lie-and-I'U-spot-it face. I had seen her direct this look at murderers and rapists and carjackers and gangbangers. Now she was aiming at me.

  "What's the matter?"

  Her expression didn't soften. "How did it go with Raya Singh?"

  "It was pretty much what we thought." I filled her in briefly be cause, really, talking about Raya felt almost beside the point at this stage. "But the big news is, Gil Perez's sister came to see me. She told me Ca-mille was still alive."

  I saw something change in her face. She was good, no doubt, but so was I. They say that a true "tell" lasts less than a tenth of a second. But I spotted it. She wasn't necessarily surprised by what I said. But it had jolted her nonetheless.

  "What's going on, Muse?"

  "I talked to Sheriff Lowell today."

  I frowned. "He hasn't retired yet?"

  No.

  I was going to ask her why she'd reached out to him, but I knew Muse was thorough. It would be natural for her to have contacted the lead from those murders. It also explained, in part, her behavior toward me.

  "Let me guess," I said. "He thinks I lied about that night."

  Muse did not say yes or no. "It is odd, don't you think? You not staying on guard duty the night of the murder."

  "You know why. You read those journals."

  "Yes, I did. You sneaked off with your girlfriend. And then you didn't want to get her in trouble." "Right." "But those journals also said that you were covered with blood. Is that true too?"

  I looked at her. "What the hell is going on?"

  "I'm pretending that you aren't my boss."

  I tried to sit up. The stitch in my side hurt like hell.

  "Did Lowell say I was a suspect?"

  "He doesn't have to. And you don't have to be a suspect for me to ask these questions. You lied about that night-"

  "I was protecting Lucy. You know this already."

  "I know what you've already told me, yes. But put yourself in my position. I need to handle this case with no agenda or bias. If you were me, wouldn't you ask these questions?"

  I thought about it. "I get it, okay, fine, fire away. Ask me whatever you want."

  "Was your sister ever pregnant?"

  I just sat there, stunned. The question had hit me like a surprise left hook. Probably her intent.

  "Are you serious?"

  "I am."

  "Why the hell would you ask that?"

  "Just answer the question."

  "No, my sister was never pregnant."

  "Are you sure?"

  "I think I'd know."

  "Would you?" she asked.

  "I don't understand. Why are you asking me that?"

  "We've had cases where girls have hidden it from their families. You know that. Heck, we had a case where the girl herself didn't know until she delivered the baby. Remember?" I did. "Look, Muse, I'm pulling rank here. Why are you asking if my sister was pregnant?"

  She searched my face, her eyes crawling on me like slimy worms.

  "Cut that out," I said.

  "You have to recuse yourself, Cope. You know that."

  "I don't have to do anything."

  "Yeah, you do. Lowell is still running the show. It's his baby."

  "Lowell? That hick hasn't worked on this case since they arrested Wayne Steubens eighteen years ago."

  "Still. It's his case. He's the lead."

  I wasn't sure what to make of this. "Does Lowell know about Gil Perez being alive this whole time?"

  "I told him your theory."

  "So why are you suddenly ambushing me with questions about Ca-mille being pregnant?"

  She said nothing.

  "Fine, play it that way. Look, I promised Glenda Perez that I would try to keep her family out of it. But tell Lowell about it. Maybe he'll let you stay involved-I trust you a lot more than the backwoods sheriff. The key thing is, Glenda Perez said my sister walked out of those woods alive."

  "And," Muse said, "Ira Silverstein said she was dead."

  The room stopped. The tell was more obvious on her face this time. I looked at her hard. She tried to hold my gaze, but eventually she broke.

  "What the hell is going on, Muse?"

  She stood. The door opened behind her. A nurse entered. With nary a hello, she strapped a blood pressure collar around my arm and started pumping. She stuck a thermometer in my mouth.

  Muse said, "I'll be right back." The thermometer was still in my mouth. The nurse took my pulse. The rate had to be off the charts. I tried to call out around the thermometer.

  "Muse!"

  She left. I stayed in bed and stewed.

  Pregnant? Could Camille have been pregnant?

  I couldn't see it. I tried to remember. Did she start wearing loose clothes? How long was she pregnant for-how many months? My father would have noticed if she was showing at all ' the man was an ob-gyn. She couldn't have hid it from him.

  But then again maybe she didn't.

  I would say this was nonsense, that it was absolutely impossible that my sister had been pregnant, except for one thing. I didn't know what the hell was going on here, but Muse knew more than she was saying.

  Her question wasn't haphazard. Sometimes a good prosecutor needs to do that with a case. You need to give the crazy notion the benefit of the doubt. Just to see. Just to see how it could possibly fit.

  The nurse finished up. I reached for the phone and dialed home to check up on Cara. I was surprised when Greta answered with a friendly "Hello."

  "Hi," I said.

  The friendly fled. "I hear you're going to be fine."

  "That's what they tell me."

  "I'm here with Cara now," Greta said, all business. "I can have her stay at my place tonight, if you'd like." "That would be great, thanks." There was a brief lull. "Paul?" She usually called me Cope. I didn't like that. "Yes?" "Cara's welfare is very important to me. She is still my niece. She is still the daughter of my sister."

  "I understand that."

  "You, on the other hand, mean nothing to me."

  She hung up the phone.

  I sat back and waited for Muse to return, trying to turn it over in my aching head. I went through it step-by-step.

  Glenda Perez said my sister walked out of those woods alive.

  Ira Silverstein said she was dead.

  So who do I believe?

  Glenda Perez appeared to be somewhat normal. Ira Silverstein had been a lunatic.

  Point: Glenda Perez.

  I also realized that Ira had kept talking about wanting things to stay buried. He killed Gil Perez-and was about to kill me-because he wanted us to st
op digging. He would have figured that as long as I thought my sister was alive, I would search. I would dig and raze and do whatever was necessary, consequences be damned, if I thought there was a chance I could bring Camille home. Ira clearly didn't want that.

  That gave him a motive to lie-to say she was dead.

  Glenda Perez, on the other hand, also wanted me to stop digging. As long as I kept my investigation active, her family was in real danger. Their fraud and all the other quasi-crimes she'd listed could be exposed. Ergo, she too would have realized that the best way to get me to back off was to convince me that nothing had changed from twenty years ago, that Wayne Steubens had indeed killed my sister. It would have been in her interest to tell me my sister was dead.

  But she didn't do that.

  Point: Glenda Perez.

  I felt the hope-there was that word again-rise in my chest.

  Loren Muse came back into the room. She closed the door behind her. "I just talked to Sheriff Lowell," she said. "Oh?" "Like I said, its his case. I couldn't talk about certain things until I got his okay."

  "This is about your pregnancy question?"

  Muse sat down as if she were afraid the chair might break. She put her hands in her lap. That was weird for her. Muse usually gestured like an amphetamine-fueled Sicilian who's nearly gotten clipped by a speeding car. I had never seen her so subdued. She had her eyes down. My heart went out to her a little bit. She was trying so hard to do the right thing. She always was.

  "Muse?"

  She raised her eyes. I didn't like what I saw.

  "What's going on here?"

  "Do you remember my sending Andrew Barrett up to the camp site?"

  "Of course," I said. "Barrett wanted to try out some new ground- penetrating radar gizmo. So?"

  Muse looked at me. That was all she did. She looked at me and I saw her eyes go wet. Then she nodded at me. It was the saddest nod I have ever seen.

  I felt my world drop with a splat. Hope. Hope had been gently cradling my heart. Now it spread its talons and crushed it. I couldn't breathe. I shook my head but Muse just kept nodding. "They found old remains not far from where the other two bodies were found," she said.

  I shook my head harder. Not now. Not after all this.

  "Female, five-foot-seven, probably been in the ground between fifteen and thirty years."

  I shook my head some more. Muse stopped, waiting for me to get my bearings. I tried to clear my thoughts, tried not to hear what she was saying. I tried to block, tried to rewind. And then I remembered something. "Wait, you asked me if Camille was pregnant. Are you saying this body'a that they can tell that she was pregnant?"

  "Not just pregnant," Muse said. "She gave birth."

  I just sat there. I tried to take it in. I couldn't. It was one thing to hear that she'd been pregnant. That could have happened. She could have had an abortion or something, I don't know. But that she carried to term, that she delivered a baby, and that now she was dead, after all this'a

  "Find out what happened, Muse."

  "I will."

  "And if there is a baby out there'a"

  "We'll find that too."

  Chapter 39 a] HAVE NEWS."Alexei Kokorov was still an impressive, though hideous, specimen. In the late eighties, right before the Wall came down and their lives changed forever, Kokorov had been Sosh's underling at In Tourist. It was humorous when you thought about it. They had been elite KGB men back home. In 1974, they'd been in "Spetsgruppa A"-the Alfa Group. The group was supposedly counterterrorism and crime, but on a cold Christmas morning in 1979, their unit had stormed the Duralumin Palace in Kabul. Not long after that, Sosh had gotten the In Tourist job and moved to New York. Kokorov, a man Sosh had never particularly gotten along with, had gone too. They had both left their families be hind. This was how it was. New York was seductive. Only the most hardened Soviet would be allowed to go. But even the most hardened needed to be watched by a colleague he didn't necessarily love or trust. Even the most hardened needed to be reminded that there were loved ones back home who could be made to suffer.

  "Go on," Sosh said.

  Kokorov was a drunk. He had always been one, but in his youth, it almost worked to his advantage. He was strong and smart and drink made him particularly vicious. He obeyed, like a dog. Now the years had crept up on him. His children were grown and had no use for him.

  His wife had left him years ago. He was pathetic, but again, he was the past. They had not liked each other, true, but there was still a bond. Kokorov had grown loyal to Sosh. So Sosh kept him on the payroll.

  "They found a body in those woods," Kokorov said.

  Sosh closed his eyes. He had not expected this and yet he was not totally surprised. Pavel Copeland wanted to unearth the past. Sosh had hoped to stop him. There are things a man is better off not knowing.

  Gavrel and Aline, his brother and sister, had been buried in a mass grave.

  No headstone, no dignity. It had never bothered Sosh. Ashes to ashes and all that. But sometimes he wondered. Sometimes he wondered if Gavrel would rise up one day, point an accusing finger at his little brother, the one who'd stolen an extra bite of bread more than sixty years ago. It was just a bite, Sosh knew. It hadn't changed anything. And yet Sosh still thought about what he'd done, the stolen bite of bread, every morning of his life.

  Was that how this was too? The dead crying out for vengeance?

  "How did you learn of this?" Sosh asked.

  "Since Pavel's visit, I've been watching the local news," Kokorov said. "On the Internet. They reported it." Sosh smiled. Two old KGB toughies using the American Internet to gather information-ironic.

  "What should we do?" Kokorov asked.

  "Do?"

  "Yes. What should we do?"

  "Nothing, Alexei. It was a long time ago."

  "Murder has no statute of limitations in this country. They will investigate."

  "And find what?" Kokorov said nothing. "Its over. We have no agency or country to protect anymore." Silence. Alexei stroked his chin and looked off. "What is it?" Alexei said, "Do you miss those days, Sosh?" "I miss my youth," he said. "Nothing more." "People feared us," Kokorov said. "They trembled when we passed." "And what, that was a good thing, Alexei?" His smile was a horrible thing, his teeth too small for his mouth, like a rodents. "Don't pretend. We had power. We were gods."

  "No, we were bullies. We were not gods-we were the dirty hench men of the gods. They had the power. We were scared, so we made everyone a little more scared. That made us feel like big men-terrorizing the weak."

  Alexei waved a dismissive hand in Sosh's direction. "You're get ting old." "We both are." "I don't like this whole thing coming back." "You didn't like Pavel coming back either. It's because he reminds you of his grandfather, doesn't he?" "No." "The man you arrested. The old man and his old wife." "You think you were better, Sosh?" "No. I know I wasn't." "It wasn't my decision. You know that. They were reported, we took action." "Exactly," Sosh said. "The gods commanded you to do it. So you did. Do you still feel like such a big man?" "It wasn't like that." "It was exactly like that." "You'd have done the same."

  "Yes, I would have."

  "We were helping a higher cause."

  "Did you ever really buy that, Alexei?"

  "Yes. I still do. I still wonder if we were so wrong. When I see the dangers freedom has wrought. I still wonder."

  "I don't," Sosh said. "We were thugs."

  Silence.

  Kokorov said, "So what happens now-now that they found the body?"

  "Maybe nothing. Maybe more will die. Or maybe Pavel will finally get the chance to face his past."

  "Didn't you tell him that he shouldn't do that-that he should let the past stay buried?"

  "I did," Sosh said. "But he didn't listen. Who knows which one of us will be proven right?"

  Doctor McFadden came in and told me that I was lucky, that the bullet went through my side without hitting any internal organs. It always made me roll my eyes when the hero get
s shot and then goes on with his life as though nothing ever happened. But the truth is, there are plenty of gunshot wounds that do heal like that. Sitting in this bed wasn't going to make it any better than resting at home.

  "I'm more worried about the blow to your head," he said. "But I can go home?" "Let's let you sleep awhile, okay? See how you feel when you wake up. I think you should stay overnight."

  I was going to argue but there was nothing to be gained by going home. I felt sore and sick and achy. I probably looked like hell and would scare Cara with my appearance.

  They had a found a body in the woods. I still couldn't wrap my brain around that one.

  Muse had faxed the preliminary autopsy to the hospital. They didn't know much yet, but it was hard to believe that it wasn't my sister. Lowell and Muse had done a more thorough examination of missing women from that area, seeing if there were any other women unaccounted for who could possibly fit this bill. The search had been fruitless-the only preliminary match for the computer records of the missing was my sister.

  So far the coroner had come up with no cause of death. That wasn't unusual in a skeleton of this shape. If he had sliced her throat or buried her alive, they probably would never know. There would be no nicks on the bone. The cartilage and internal organs were long gone, the victims of some parasitic entity that had feasted on them long ago.

  I skipped down to the key item. The pitting of the pubic bone.

  The victim had given birth.

  I again wondered about that. I wondered if that was possible. Under normal circumstances, that might give me some hope that it wasn't my sister they'd dug up. But if it wasn't, what could I conclude exactly? That around the same time some other girl-a girl no one can account for- had been murdered and buried in the same area as the ones at that camp?

  That didn't make sense.

  I was missing something. I was missing a lot.

  I took out my cell phone. There was no service in the hospital but I looked up York's number on it. I used my room phone to make the call.