the Woods (2007) Page 30

  "Anything new?" I asked him.

  "Do you know what time it is?"

  I didn't. I checked the clock. "It's a few minutes after ten," I said.

  "Anything new?"

  He sighed. "Ballistics confirmed what we already knew. The gun Silverstein shot you with is the same one he used to kill Gil Perez. And while DNA will take a few weeks, the blood type in the back of the Volkswagen Beetle matches Perez's. In sports terms, I'd call that game, set, match."

  "What did Lucy say?"

  "Dillon said she wasn't much of a help. She was in shock. Said her father was not well, that he probably imagined some kind of threat."

  "Dillon buy that?"

  "Sure, why not? Either way our case is closed. How are you feeling?" "Peachy." "Dillon got shot once." "Only once?" "Good one. Anyway, he still shows every woman he meets the scar. Turns them on, he says. You remember that."

  "Seduction tips from Dillon. Thanks."

  "Guess what line he uses after he shows them the scar?"

  " 'Hey, babe, want to see my gun?'"

  "Damn, how did you know?"

  "Where did Lucy go after you finished talking to her?"

  "We drove her back to her place on campus."

  "Okay, thanks."

  I hung up and dialed Lucy's number. It went into her voice mail. I left a message. Then I called Muse's mobile. "Where are you?" I asked. "Heading home, why?" "I thought maybe you'd be going to Reston U to question Lucy." "I already went." "And?" "She didn't open the door. But I could see lights on. She's in there."

  "Is she okay?"

  "How would I know?"

  I didn't like it. Her father died and she was alone in her apartment. "How far are you from the hospital?"

  "Fifteen minutes."

  "How about picking me up?"

  "Are you allowed out?"

  "Who's going to stop me? And it's just for a little while."

  "Are you, my boss, asking me to drive you to your girlfriend's house?"

  "No. I, the county prosecutor, am asking you to drive me to the home of a major person of interest in a recent homicide."

  "Either way," Muse said, "I'm so very there."

  No one stopped me from leaving the hospital.

  I didn't feel well, but I had felt worse. I was worried about Lucy and I realized with growing certainty that it was more than normal worry. I missed her. I missed her the way you miss someone you're falling in love with. I could run around that statement, soften it somehow, say that my emotions were on hyperdrive with all that was going on, claim that this was nostalgia for a better time, a more innocent time, a time when my parents were together and my sister was alive, and heck, even Jane was still healthy and beautiful and somewhere happy. But that wasn't it.

  I liked being with Lucy. I liked the way it felt. I liked being with her the way you like being with someone you're falling in love with. There was no need to explain further.

  Muse drove. Her car was small and cramped. I was not much of a car guy and I had no idea what kind of car it was, but it reeked of cigarette smoke. She must have caught the look on my face because she said, "My mother is a chain smoker."

  "Uh-huh." "She lives with me. It's just temporary. Until she finds Husband Five. In the meantime I tell her not to smoke in my car." "And she ignores you."

  "No, no, I think my telling her that makes her smoke more. Same with my apartment. I come home from work, I open my door, I feel like I'm swallowing ashes."

  I wished that she'd drive faster.

  "Will you be okay for court tomorrow?" she asked.

  "I think so, yeah."

  "Judge Pierce wanted to meet with counsel in his chambers."

  "Any idea why?"

  "Nope."

  "What time?"

  "Nine a.m. sharp."

  "I'll be there."

  "You want me to pick you up?"

  "I do."

  "Can I get a company car then?"

  "We don't work for a company. We work for the county."

  "How about a county car?"

  "Maybe."

  "Cool." She drove some more. "I'm sorry about your sister."

  I said nothing. I was still having a hard time reacting to that. Maybe I needed to hear that the ID was confirmed. Or maybe I had already done twenty years of mourning and didn't have that much left. Or maybe, most likely, I was putting my emotions on the back burner.

  Two more people were dead now.

  Whatever happened twenty years ago in those woods'a maybe the local kids were right, the ones who said that a monster ate them or that the boogeyman took them away. Whatever had killed Margot Green and Doug Billingham, and in all likelihood Camille Copeland, was still alive, still breathing, still taking lives. Maybe it had slept for twenty years. Maybe it had gone somewhere new or moved to other woods in other states. But that monster was back now-and I'd be damned if I was going to let it get away again.

  The faculty housing at Reston University was depressing. The buildings were dated brick and shoved together. The lighting was bad, but I think that might have been a good thing.

  "You mind staying in the car?" I said.

  "I have to run a quick errand," Muse said. "I'll be right back."

  I headed up the walk. The lights were out, but I could hear music. I recognized the song. "Somebody" by Bonnie McKee. Depressing as hell-the "somebody" being this perfect love she knows is out there but will never find-but that was Lucy. She adored the heartbreakers. I knocked on the door. There was no answer. I rang the bell, knocked some more. Still nothing.

  "Luce!"

  Nothing.

  "Luce!"

  I knocked some more. Whatever the doctor had given me was wearing off. I could feel the stitches in my side. It felt exactly like it was-as though my very movements were ripping my skin apart. 'PSLuce!'Y=

  I tried the doorknob. Locked. There were two windows. I tried to peer in. Too dark. I tried to open them. Both locked. "Come on, I know you're in there." I heard a car behind me. It was Muse. She pulled to a stop and got out.

  "Here," she said.

  "What is it?"

  "Master key. I got it from campus security."

  Muse.

  She tossed it to me and headed back to the car. I put the key in the lock, knocked one more time, turned it. The door opened. I stepped in and closed the door behind me.

  "Don't turn on the light."

  It was Lucy.

  "Leave me alone, Cope, okay?"

  The iPod moved on to the next song. Alejandro Escovedo musically asked about what kind of love destroys a mother and sends her crashing through the tangled trees.

  "You should do one of those K-tel collections," I said.

  "What?"

  "You know, like they used to advertise on TV. Time Life presents The Most Depressing Songs of All Time" I heard her snort a laugh. My eyes were adjusting. I could see her sitting on the couch now. I moved closer.

  "Don't," she said.

  But I kept walking. I sat next to her. There was a bottle of vodka in her hand. It was half empty. I looked around her apartment. There was nothing personal, nothing new, nothing bright or happy. "Ira," she said. 'PSI'm sorry.'Y=

  "The cops said he killed Gil."

  "What do you think?"

  "I saw blood in his car. He shot you. So yeah, of course, I think he killed Gil." "Why?" She didn't answer. She took another long swig. "Why don't you give me that?" I said. "This is what I am, Cope." "No, its not." "I'm not for you. You can't rescue me." I had a few replies to that but every one reeked of clich-|. I let it go. "I love you," she said. "I mean, I never stopped. I've been with other men. I've had relationships. But you've always been there. In the room with us. In the bed even. It's stupid and dumb and we were just kids, but that's the way it is."

  "I get it," I said.

  "They think maybe Ira was the one who killed Margot and Doug." "You don't?" "He just wanted it to go away. You know? It hurt so much, caused so much destruction. And then, when he
saw Gil, it must have been like a ghost was coming back to haunt him." "I'm sorry," I said again. "Go home, Cope." "I'd rather stay." "That's not your decision. This is my house. My life. Go home." She took another long draw. "I don't like leaving you like this." Her laugh had an edge. "What, you think this is the first time?" She looked at me, daring me to argue. I didn't. "This is what I do. I drink in the dark and play these damn songs.

  Soon I'll drift off or pass out or whatever you want to call it. Then to morrow I'll barely have a hangover." "I want to stay." "I don't want you to." "It's not for you. It's for me. I want to be with you. Tonight especially." "I don't want you here. It will just make it worse." "But-" "Please," she said, and her voice was a plea. "Please leave me alone.

  Tomorrow. We can start again tomorrow."

  Chapter 40

  Dr. Tara O'Neill rarely slept more than four, five hours a night. She just didn't need sleep. She was back in the woods by six a.m., at first daylight. She loved these woods-any woods, really. She'd gone to undergrad and medical school in the city, at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. People thought that she'd love it. You're such a lovely girl, they said. The city is so alive, so many people, so much happening. But during her years in Philadelphia, O'Neill had returned home every weekend. She eventually ran for coroner and made extra money working as a pathologist in Wilkes-Barre. She tried to figure out her own life philosophy and came up with something she once heard a rock star-Eric Clapton, she thought-say in an interview about not being a big fan of, uh, people. She wasn't either. She preferred-as ridiculous as it sounded-being with herself. She liked reading and watching movies without commentary. She couldn't handle men and their egos and their constant boasting and their raging insecurities. She didn't want a life partner.

  This-out in the woods like this-was where she was happiest.

  O'Neill carried her tool case, but of all the fancy new gizmos that the public had helped pay for, the one she found most useful was the simplest: a strainer. It was nearly the exact same as the kind she had in her kitchen. She took it out and started in the dirt.

  The strainers job was to find teeth and small bones.

  It was painstaking work, not unlike an archeological dig she had done after her senior year in high school. She had apprenticed in the Badlands of South Dakota, an area known as the Big Pig Dig because, originally, they had found an Archaeotherium, which was pretty much a huge ancient pig. She worked with pig and ancient rhinoceros fossils. It had been a wonderful experience.

  She worked through this burial site with the same patience-work most people would find mind-deadeningly tedious. But again Tara O'Neill thrived.

  An hour later, she found the small piece of bone.

  O'Neill felt her pulse quicken. She had expected something like this, realized that it was a possibility after the ossification X-rays. But still. To find the missing piece'a

  "Oh my!"

  She said it out loud, her words echoing in the stillness of the woods. She couldn't believe it, but the proof was right there, right in the palm of her rubber-gloved hand.

  It was the hyoid bone.

  Half of it anyway. Heavily calcified, brittle even. She went back to her search, sifting as fast as she could. It didn't take long now. Five minutes later, O'Neill found the other half. She held up both pieces.

  Even after all these years, the bone fragments still fit together like a jigsaw.

  Tara O'Neills face broke into a beatific smile. For a moment, she stared at her own handiwork and shook her head in awe.

  She took out her cell phone. No signal. She hurried back half a mile until two bars appeared. Then she pressed Sheriff Lowell's number. He picked up on the second ring.

  "That you, Doc?"

  "It is."

  "Where are you?"

  "At the burial site," she said.

  "You sound excited."

  "I am."

  "Why?"

  "I found something in the dirt," Tara O'Neill said.

  "And?"

  "And it changes everything we thought about this case."

  One of those random hospital beeping noises woke me. I stirred slowly, blinked open my eyes and saw Mrs. Perez sitting with me.

  She had pulled the chair right next to my bed. The purse was in her lap. Her knees touched. Her back was straight. I looked into her eyes. She'd been crying.

  "I heard about Mr. Silverstein," she said.

  I waited.

  "And I also heard that they found bones in the woods."

  I felt parched. I looked to my right. That yellow-brown plastic water pitcher, that one unique to hospitals and specifically designed to make the water taste awful, sat on the stand next to me. I was about to reach for it, but Mrs. Perez was up before I could do so much as lift my hand. She poured the water into a cup and handed it to me.

  "Do you want to sit up?" Mrs. Perez asked.

  "That's probably a good idea."

  She pressed the remote control and my back began to curl into a sit.

  "Is that okay?"

  "That's fine," I said.

  She sat back down.

  "You won't leave this alone," she said.

  I didn't bother responding.

  "They say that Mr. Silverstein murdered my Gil. Do you think that's true?"

  My Gil. So the pretense was down. No more hiding behind a lie or a daughter. No more hypothetical. "Yes." She nodded. "Sometimes I think Gil really did die in those woods.

  That was how it was supposed to be. The time after that, it was just borrowed. When that policeman called me the other day, I already knew. I'd been expecting it, you see? Part of Gil never escaped from those woods."

  "Tell me what happened," I said.

  "I thought I knew. All these years. But maybe I never learned the truth. Maybe Gil lied to me." "Tell me what you do know." "You were at the camp that summer. You knew my Gil."

  "Yes."

  "And you knew this girl. This Margot Green."

  I said that I did.

  "Gil fell for her hard. He was this poor boy. We lived in a burnt-out section of Irvington. Mr. Silverstein had a program where children of workers got to attend. I worked in the laundry room. You know this."

  I did.

  "I liked your mother very much. She was so smart. We talked a lot. About everything. About books, about life, about our disappointments. Natasha was what we call an old soul. She was so beautiful but it was fragile. Do you understand?"

  "I think so, yes."

  "Anyway, Gil fell very hard for Margot Green. It was understand able. He was eighteen. She was practically a magazine model in his eyes. That's how it is with men. They are so driven by lust. My Gil was no different. But she broke his heart. That too is common. He should have just suffered for a few weeks and then moved on. He probably would have."

  She stopped.

  "So what happened?" I asked.

  "Wayne Steubens."

  "What about him?"

  "He whispered in Gils ear. He told him that he shouldn't let Mar-got get away with it. He appealed to Gil's machismo. Margot, he said, was laughing at Gil. You need to pay that tease back, Wayne Steubens whispered in his ear. And after a while-I don't know how long-Gil agreed."

  I made a face. "So they slit her throat?"

  "No. But Margot had been strutting all over camp. You remember this, yes?" Wayne had said it. She was a tease. "There were many kids who wanted to knock her down a peg. My son, of course. Doug Billingham too. Maybe your sister. She was there, but that might have been because Doug talked her into it. It's not important."

  A nurse opened the door.

  "Not now," I said.

  I expected an argument but something in my voice must have worked. She backed up and let the door close behind her. Mrs. Perez had her eyes down. She stared at her purse as though afraid someone would snatch it.

  "Wayne planned it all very carefully. That's what Gil said. They were going to draw Margot out to the woods. It was going to be a prank. Your si
ster helped with the lure. She said that they were going to meet some cute boys. Gil put a mask on his head. He grabbed Margot. He tied her up. That was supposed to be the end of it. They'd leave her there for a few minutes. She'd either escape from the rope or they'd untie her. It was dumb, very immature, but these things happen."

  I knew that they did. Camp was full of "pranks" back then. I remembered one time we'd taken a kid and moved his bed into the woods.

  He woke up the next morning alone, outside, terrified. We used to shine a flashlight in a sleeping camper's eyes and make a train noise and shake them and yell, "Get off the tracks!" and watch the kid dive off his bed.

  I remembered that there were two bully campers who used to call the other kids "faggots." Late one night, when both were deep in sleep, we picked one up, took off his clothes, put him in bed with the other. In the morning, the other campers saw them naked in the same bed. The bullying stopped.

  Tying up a total tease and leaving her in the woods for a little while'a that wouldn't have surprised me.

  "Then something went very wrong," Mrs. Perez said.

  I waited. A tear escaped Mrs. Perez's eye. She reached into her purse and pulled out a wad of tissues. She dabbed her eyes, fought them back. "Wayne Steubens took out a razor blade."

  I think my eyes widened a little when she said that. I could almost see the scene. I could see the five of them out in the woods, picture their faces, their surprise.

  "You see, Margot knew what was going on right away. She played along. She let Gil tie her up. Then she started mocking my son. Made fun of him, said he didn't know how to handle a real woman. The same insults women have thrown at men throughout history. But Gil didn't do anything. What could he do? But suddenly Wayne had the razor blade out. At first, Gil thought it was part of the act. To scare her. But Wayne didn't hesitate. He walked over to Margot and slashed her neck from ear to ear." I closed my eyes. I saw it again. I saw the blade going across that young skin, the blood spurting, the life force leaving her. I thought about it. While Margot Green was being slaughtered, I was only a few hundred yards away making love to my girlfriend. There was probably poignancy in that, in that most horrible of mans actions running adjacent to his most wondrous, but it was hard to see it now.