The Woods

“You don’t want all these people here,” Dave whispered to me.

We pulled back from the embrace. He had a smile on his face, but I got the message. I cleared everyone out of my office. Joan Thurston stayed behind. I knew her pretty well. The U.S. Attorney’s office was right down the street. We tried to cooperate, help each other out. We had similar jurisdiction—Essex County had plenty of crime in it—but she was only interested in the big stuff. Right now that mostly meant terrorism and political corruption. When her office stumbled across other crimes, they let us handle it.

As soon as the door closed, leaving the three of us alone, the smile slipped off Dave’s face. We sat at my conference table. I was on one side. They took the other.

“Bad?” I said.

“Very.”

I put my hands out and gestured with my fingers for them to bring it on. Dave looked at Joan Thurston. She cleared her throat.

“As we speak, my detectives are entering the offices of the charitable institution known as JaneCare. They have a warrant. We’ll be taking records and files. I had hoped to keep it quiet, but the media already has a hold of it.”

I felt my pulse do a two-step. “This is crap.”

Neither one of them spoke.

“It’s Jenrette. He’s pressuring me to go easy on his son.”

“We know,” Dave said.

“So?”

He looked over at Thurston.

“So that doesn’t make the charges untrue.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Jenrette’s investigators went places where we never would. They found improprieties. They brought them to the attention of one of my best people. My guy did more digging. We tried to keep it quiet. We know what charges can do to a charity.”

I didn’t like where this was going. “You found something?”

“Your brother-in-law has been skimming.”

“Bob? No way.”

“He’s diverted at least a hundred grand.”

“To what?”

She handed me two sheets of paper. I scanned down them.

“Your brother-in-law is putting in a pool, right?”

I said nothing.

“Fifty grand was given to Marston Pools in various payments and listed here as a building expansion. Did JaneCare have a building expansion?”

I said nothing.

“Another almost thirty grand was given to Barry’s Landscaping. The expense is listed as beautifying the surrounding areas.”

Our office was half a converted two-house dwelling in downtown Newark. There were no plans to expand or beautify. We didn’t need more space. We were concentrating on raising money for treatments and cures. That had been our focus. I saw too much abuse in the charity system, what with fund-raising expenses far outpacing the amount that went into the good works. Bob and I had talked about that. We had the same vision.

I felt sick.

Dave said, “We can’t play favorites. You know that.”

“I do,” I said.

“And even if we wanted to keep it quiet for friendship’s sake, we couldn’t. The media has been tipped off. Joan here is about to hold a press conference.”

“Are you going to arrest him?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

She looked at Dave. “He’s in custody now. We picked him up an hour ago.”

I thought about Greta. I thought about Madison. A pool. Bob had stolen from my wife’s charity to build a goddamn pool.

“You spared him the perp walk?”

“No. They’re going to run him through the gauntlet in about ten minutes. I’m here as a friend, but we both agreed we would go after cases like this. I can’t play favorites.”

I nodded. We had agreed. I didn’t know what to think.

Dave rose. Joan Thurston followed. “Get him somebody good, Cope. It’s going to be ugly, I think.”

I flicked on the TV and watched Bob’s perp walk. No, it wasn’t carried live on CNN or Fox, but News 12 New Jersey, our local twenty-four-hour news station, carried it. There would be pictures in all the big Jersey papers like the Star-Ledger and the Bergen Record. Some of the local major network affiliates might run something, though I doubted it.

The perp walk lasted seconds. Bob was cuffed. He didn’t duck his head. He looked, as so many do, dazed and childlike. I felt nauseous. I called Greta at home and on her cell. No answer. I left messages on both.

Muse sat with me throughout. When they moved on to another story, she said, “That sucked.”

“It did.”

“You should ask Flair to rep him.”

“Conflict of interest.”

“Why? Because of this case?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see how. They’re unconnected.”

“His client’s father, EJ Jenrette, started the investigation.”

“Oh, right.” She sat back. “Damn.”

I said nothing.

“You in the mood to talk about Gil Perez and your sister?”

“I am.”

“As you know, twenty years ago they found their ripped clothes and blood in the woods.”

I nodded.

“All the blood was O positive. So were both of the missing. Four out of ten people are, so it’s not that surprising. They didn’t have DNA tests back then, so there was no way to know for certain. I checked. Even if we rush it, the DNA tests will take a minimum of three weeks. Probably longer.”

I was only half listening. I kept flashing to Bob, to his face during that perp walk. I thought about Greta, sweet, kind Greta, and how this was going to destroy her. I thought about my wife, my Jane, how this namesake charity was about to be leveled. I had set it up as a memorial to the wife I’d failed in life. Now, again, I had failed her.

“Plus with DNA tests, we need something to compare it to. We could use your blood for your sister, but we’d need a member of the Perez family to cooperate too.”

“What else?”

“You don’t really need the DNA on Perez.”

“Why’s that?”

“Farrell Lynch finished the age progression.”

She handed me two photographs. The first was the morgue shot of Manolo Santiago. The second was the age-progression shot derived from the photograph I’d given her of Gil Perez.

A total match.

“Wow,” I said.

“I got you the address for Perez’s parents.” She handed me a slip of paper. I looked at it. They lived in Park Ridge. Less than an hour from here.