The Woods
Lucy looked at her father. Her father looked at her.
“We’d like to be alone,” Lucy said to the nurse.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Nurse Rebecca thought that talking would make him worse. The truth was just the opposite. Something was locked up there, in Ira’s head. They had to confront it now, finally, after all these years.
Ira said, “Rebecca?”
“Yes, Ira?”
“Get out.”
Just like that. The voice wasn’t cold, but it hadn’t been inviting either. Rebecca took her time smoothing her skirt and sighing and standing.
“If you need me,” she said, “just call. Okay, Ira?”
Ira said nothing. Rebecca left. She did not close the door.
There was no music playing today. That surprised her.
“You want me to put some music on? Maybe a little Hendrix?”
Ira shook his head. “Not now, no.”
He closed his eyes. Lucy sat next to him and took his hands in hers.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too. More than anything. Always. Forever.”
Lucy waited. He just kept his eyes closed.
“You’re thinking back to that summer,” she said.
His eyes stayed closed.
“When Manolo Santiago came to see you—”
He squeezed his eyes tighter.
“Ira?”
“How did you know?”
“Know what?”
“That he visited me.”
“It was in the logbook.”
“But…” He finally opened his eyes. “There’s more to it, isn’t there?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he visit you too?”
“No.”
He seemed puzzled by this. Lucy decided to try another avenue.
“Do you remember Paul Copeland?” she asked.
He closed his eyes again, as though that hurt. “Of course.”
“I saw him,” she said.
The eyes popped open. “What?”
“He visited me.”
His jaw dropped.
“Something is happening, Ira. Something is bringing this all back after all these years. I need to find out what.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I do. Help me, okay?”
“Why…?” His voice faltered. “Why did Paul Copeland visit you?”
“Because he wants to know what really happened that night.” She tilted her head. “What did you tell Manolo Santiago?”
“Nothing!” he shouted. “Absolutely nothing!”
“It’s okay, Ira. But listen, I need to know—”
“No, you don’t.”
“Don’t what? What did you say to him, Ira?”
“Paul Copeland.”
“What?”
“Paul Copeland.”
“I heard you, Ira. What about him?”
His eyes almost looked clear. “I want to see him.”
“Okay.”
“Now. I want to see him now.”
He was growing more agitated by the second. She made her voice soft.
“I’ll call him, okay? I can bring him—”
“No!”
He turned and stared at his painting. Tears came to his eyes. He reached his hand toward the woods, as if he could disappear into them.
“Ira, what’s wrong?”
“Alone,” he said. “I want to see Paul Copeland alone.”
“You don’t want me to come too?”
He shook his head, still staring at the woods.
“I can’t tell you these things, Luce. I want to. But I can’t. Paul Copeland. Tell him to come here. Alone. I’ll tell him what he needs to hear. And then, maybe, the ghosts will go back to sleep.”
When I got back to my office, I got yet another shock.
“Glenda Perez is here,” Jocelyn Durels said.
“Who?”
“She’s an attorney. But she says you’ll know her better as Gil Perez’s sister.”
The name had slipped my mind. I beelined into my waiting area and spotted her right away. Glenda Perez looked the same as she had in those pictures on the fireplace mantel.
“Ms. Perez?”
She rose and gave me a perfunctory handshake. “I assume you have time to see me.”
“I do.”
Glenda Perez did not wait for me to lead the way. She walked head high into my office. I followed her and closed the door. I would have hit my intercom and said, “No interruptions,” but I got the feeling Jocelyn understood from our body language.
I waved for her to take a seat. She didn’t. I moved around my desk and sat down. Glenda Perez put her hands on her hips and glared down at me.
“Tell me, Mr. Copeland, do you enjoy threatening old people?”
“Not at first, no. But then, once you get the hang of it, okay, yeah, it’s kinda fun.”
The hands dropped from her hips.
“You think this is funny?”
“Why don’t you sit down, Ms. Perez?”
“Did you threaten my parents?”
“No. Wait, yes. Your father. I did say that if he didn’t tell me the truth I would rip his world apart and go after him and his children. If you call that a threat, then yes, I made it.”
I smiled at her. She had expected denials and apologies and explanations. I hadn’t given her any, hadn’t fueled her fire. She opened her mouth, closed it, sat.
“So,” I said, “let’s skip the posturing. Your brother walked out of those woods twenty years ago. I need to know what happened.”
Glenda Perez wore a gray business suit. Her stockings were that sheer white. She crossed her legs and tried to look relaxed. She wasn’t pulling it off. I waited.
“That’s not true. My brother was murdered with your sister.”
“I thought we were going to skip the posturing.”
She sat and tapped her lip.
“Are you really going to go after my family?”
“This is my sister’s murder we’re talking about. You, Ms. Perez, should understand that.”
“I will take that as a yes.”
“A very big, very nasty yes.”
She tapped her lip some more. I waited some more.
“How about if I lay a hypothetical on you?”
I spread my hands. “I’m all for hypotheticals.”
“Suppose,” Glenda Perez began, “this dead man, this Manolo Santiago, was indeed my brother. Again just in terms of this hypothetical.”
“Okay, I’m supposing. Now what?”