The Woods

“Are you going to confront them?” Muse asked me.

“Yes.”

“You want me to go?”

I shook my head. Lucy had already insisted on joining me. That would be enough.

“I also have a thought,” she said.

“What’s that?”

“The technology in finding buried bodies is much better now than it was twenty years ago. Do you remember Andrew Barrett?”

“Lab guy at John Jay? Talkative and strange.”

“And a genius. Right, that’s him. Anyway, he’s probably the country’s top expert with this new ground-penetrating radar machine. He pretty much invented it and claims he can cover a lot of ground quickly.”

“The area is too large.”

“But we can try some of it, right? Look, Barrett is dying to try this new baby out. He says he needs the fieldwork.”

“You already talked to him?”

“Sure, why not?”

I shrugged. “You’re the investigator.”

I glanced back at the TV. They were already replaying Bob’s perp walk. He looked even more pathetic this time. My hands tightened into fists.

“Cope?”

I looked at her.

“We gotta go to court,” she said.

I nodded, rose without speaking. She opened the door. A few minutes later, I spotted EJ Jenrette in the lobby. He was purposely standing in my path. He was also grinning at me.

Muse stopped and tried to steer me. “Let’s move to the left. We can go in through—”

“No.”

I kept walking straight. Rage consumed me. Muse rushed to catch up with my steps. EJ Jenrette stayed still, watching my approach.

Muse put a hand on my shoulder. “Cope…”

I didn’t break stride. “I’m fine.”

EJ kept grinning. I met his eye. He stayed in my path. I walked up and stopped so that our faces were inches apart. The idiot was still grinning at me.

“I warned you,” EJ said.

I matched his grin and leaned in very close.

“The word has been passed around,” I said.

“What?”

“Any inmate who gets Little Edward to service him receives preferential treatment. Your boy is going to be the bitch of his block.”

I walked away without waiting for a reaction. Muse stumbled after me.

“That was classy,” she said.

I kept moving. It was a false threat, of course—the sins of the father should never fall to the son—but if that image stuck when EJ laid his head on his goose-down pillow, so be it.

Muse jumped in front of me. “You gotta calm down, Cope.”

“I forget, Muse—are you my investigator or my shrink?”

She put her hands up in a surrender gesture and let me pass. I sat at my seat and waited for the judge.

What the hell had Bob been thinking?

Some days, court is about sound and fury signifying nothing. This was one of them. Flair and Mort knew that they were in deep trouble. They wanted to exclude the pornographic DVD because we hadn’t produced it earlier. They tried for a mistrial. They made motions and handed in findings and research and papers. Their interns and paralegals must have been up all night.

Judge Pierce listened, the bushy eyebrows low. He had his hand on his chin and looked very, well, judicial. He did not comment. He used terms like “under advisement.” I wasn’t worried. They had nothing. But a thought began to worm its way in and gnaw. They had gone after me. They had gone after me hard.

Might they not do the same with the judge?

I watched his face. It gave away nothing. I looked at his eyes, looked for some sort of telltale sign that he wasn’t sleeping. There was nothing there, but that didn’t mean anything.

We finished up by three P.M. I went back to my office and checked my messages. Nothing from Greta. I called her again. Still no answer. I tried Bob’s cell too. More nothing. I left a message.

I looked at those two photographs—the aged Gil Perez, the dead Manolo Santiago. Then I called Lucy. She picked up on the first ring.

“Hey,” Lucy answered. And unlike last night, there was a lilt in her voice. I was thrown back again.

“Hey.”

There was a weird, almost happy pause.

“I got the address for Mr. and Mrs. Perez,” I said. “I want to take another run at them.”

“When?”

“Now. They don’t live far from you. I can pick you up on the way.”

“I’ll be ready.”

CHAPTER 23

LUCY LOOKED FABULOUS.

She wore a green snug pullover that clung exactly as it should. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She tucked a strand behind her ear. She wore glasses tonight, and I liked the way they looked.

As soon as she got into the car, Lucy checked out the CDs. “Counting Crows,” she said. “August and Everything After.”

“You like it?”

“Best debut of the past two decades.”

I nodded.

She slid it into the slot. “Round Here” came on. We drove and listened. When Adam Duritz sang about a woman saying you should take a shot, that her walls were crumbling, I risked a glance. Lucy’s eyes were wet.

“You okay?”

“What other CDs you got?”

“What do you want?”

“Something hot and sexy.”

“Meat Loaf.” I lifted the CD case into view. “A little Bat Out of Hell?”

“Oh my,” she said. “You remember?”

“I rarely travel without it.”

“God, you always were a hopeless romantic,” she said.

“How about a little ‘Paradise By The Dashboard Light’?”

“Yes, but skip to the part where she makes him promise to love her forever before she gives it up.”

“Gives it up,” I repeated. “Love that phrase.”

She turned so her body faced me. “What line did you use on me?”

“Probably my patented seducer.”

“Which is?”

I put a whine in my voice. “Please? Come on, pretty please?”

She laughed.

“Hey, it worked on you.”

“But I’m easy.”

“Right, forgot that.”

She playfully slapped my arm. I smiled. She turned away. We listened to Meat Loaf in silence for a little while.

“Cope?”

“What?”

“You were my first.”

I almost slammed on the brakes.

“I know I pretended otherwise. My father and I and that whole crazy free-love lifestyle. But I never. You were my first. You were the first man I ever loved.”