The Woods
“What do you think it would mean to my family?”
“That you lied to me.”
“Not just to you, though.”
I sat back. “Who else?”
“Everyone.”
She started with the lip tap.
“As you know, all of our families engaged in a lawsuit. We won millions. That would now be a case of fraud, wouldn’t it? Hypothetically speaking.”
I said nothing.
“We used that money to buy businesses, to invest, for my education, for my brother’s health. Tomás would be dead or in a home if we hadn’t won that money. Do you understand?”
“I do.”
“And, hypothetically speaking, if Gil was alive and we knew it, then the entire case was based on a lie. We would be open to fines and perhaps prosecution. More to the point, law enforcement investigated a quadruple homicide. They based their case on the belief that all four teenagers died. But if Gil survived, we could also be accused of obstructing an ongoing investigation. Do you see?”
We looked at each other. Now she was doing the waiting.
“There is another problem with your hypothetical,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Four people go into the woods. One comes out alive. He keeps the fact that he’s alive a secret. One would have to conclude, based on your hypothetical, that he killed the other three.”
Tapping the lip. “I can see where your mind might go in that direction.”
“But?”
“He didn’t.”
“I just take your word for that?”
“Does it matter?”
“Of course it does.”
“If my brother killed them, then this is over, isn’t it? He’s dead. You can’t bring him back and try him.”
“You have a point.”
“Thank you.”
“Did your brother kill my sister?”
“No, he didn’t.”
“Who did?”
Glenda Perez stood. “For a long time, I didn’t know. In our hypothetical. I didn’t know that my brother was alive.”
“Did your parents?”
“I’m not here to talk about them.”
“I need to know—”
“Who killed your sister. I get that.”
“So?”
“So I’m going to tell you one more thing. And that’s it. I will tell you this under one condition.”
“What?”
“That this always stays hypothetical. That you will stop telling the authorities that Manolo Santiago is my brother. That you promise to leave my parents alone.”
“I can’t promise that.”
“Then I can’t tell you what I know about your sister.”
Silence. There it was. The impasse. Glenda Perez rose to leave.
“You’re a lawyer,” I said. “If I go after you, you’ll be disbarred—”
“Enough threats, Mr. Copeland.”
I stopped.
“I know something about what happened to your sister that night. If you want to know what it is, you’ll make the deal.”
“You’ll just accept my word?”
“No. I drew up a legal document.”
“You’re kidding.”
Glenda Perez reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the papers. She unfolded them. It was basically a nondisclosure agreement. It also made clear that I would say nothing and do nothing about Manolo Santiago’s being Gil Perez and that her parents would be immune from any prosecution.
“You know this isn’t enforceable,” I said.
She shrugged. “It was the best I could come up with.”
“I won’t tell,” I said, “unless I absolutely have to. I have no interest in harming you or your family. I’ll also stop telling York or anyone else that I think Manolo Santiago is your brother. I will promise to do my best. But we both know that’s all I can do.”
Glenda Perez hesitated. Then she folded the papers, jammed them back into her pocket and headed to my door. She put her hand on the knob and turned toward me.
“Still hypothetically speaking?” she said.
“Yes.”
“If my brother walked out of those woods, he didn’t walk out alone.”
My whole body went cold. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t speak. I tried to say something but nothing came out. I met Glenda Perez’s eye. She met mine. She nodded and I could see her eyes were wet. She turned away and turned the knob.
“Don’t play games with me, Glenda.”
“I’m not, Paul. That’s all I know. My brother survived that night. And so did your sister.”
CHAPTER 33
DAY WAS SURRENDERING TO THE SHADOWS WHEN LOREN Muse reached the old campsite.
The sign said Lake Charmaine Condominium Center. The landmass was huge, she knew, stretching across the Delaware River, which separates New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The lake and condos were on the Pennsylvania side. Most of the woods were in New Jersey.
Muse hated the woods. She loved sports but hated the supposedly great outdoors. She hated bugs and fishing and wading and taking hikes and rare antique finds and dirt and general posts and lures and prize pigs and 4-H fairs and everything else she considered “rural.”
She stopped at the little building that housed the rent-a-cop, flashed her ID, expected the gate to rise. It didn’t. The rent-a-cop, one of those bloated weightlifter types, brought her ID inside and got on the phone.
“Hey, I’m in a hurry here.”
“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
“My panties in a…?”
She fumed.
There were flashing lights up ahead. A bunch of parked police cars, she figured. Probably every cop within a fifty-mile radius wanted in on this one.
The rent-a-cop hung up the phone. He sat in his booth. He didn’t come back to her car.
“Yo,” Muse called out.
He didn’t respond.
“Yo, buddy, I’m talking to you here.”
He turned slowly toward her. Damn, she thought. The guy was young and male. That was a problem. If you have a rent-a-cop who is on the elderly side, well, it is usually some well-intentioned guy who’s retired and bored. A woman rental? Often a mother looking to pick up some extra money. But a man in his prime? Seven out of ten it was that most dangerous of muscle-heads, the cop wannabe. For some reason he didn’t make it onto a real force. Not to knock her own profession, but if a guy sets his sights on being a cop and doesn’t make it, there is often a reason, and it wasn’t something you wanted to get anywhere near.