The Woods
“He was a kid on guard duty. He didn’t know how serious it was.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“He came clean later, right?’
Lowell did not respond.
“I read the file,” Muse said. “He goofed off and didn’t do what he was supposed to on guard duty. You talk about devastation. How about the guilt he must feel over that? He misses his sister, sure. But I think the guilt eats at him more.”
“Interesting.”
“What?”
“You said the guilt eats at him,” Lowell said. “What kind of guilt?”
She kept walking.
“And it’s curious, don’t you think?”
“What is?” Muse asked.
“That he left his post that night. I mean, think about it. Here he is, a responsible kid. Everyone said so. And suddenly, on the night that these campers sneak out, on the night that Wayne Steubens plans on committing murder, Paul Copeland chooses to slack off.”
Muse said nothing.
“That, my young colleague, has always struck me as a hell of a coincidence.”
Lowell smiled and turned away.
“Come on,” he said. “It’s getting dark and you’re going to want to see what your friend Barrett found.”
After Glenda Perez left, I didn’t cry, but I came awfully close.
I sat in my office, alone, stunned, not sure what to do or think or feel. My body was shuddering. I looked down at my hands. There was a noticeable quake. I actually did that thing when you wonder if you’re dreaming. I did all the checks. I wasn’t. This was real.
Camille was alive.
My sister had walked out of those woods. Just like Gil Perez had.
I called Lucy on her cell phone.
“Hey,” she said.
“You’re not going to believe what Gil Perez’s sister just told me.”
“What?”
I filled her in. When I got to the part about Camille walking out of those woods, Lucy gasped out loud.
“Do you believe her?” Lucy asked.
“About Camille, you mean?”
“Yes.”
“Why would she say that if it wasn’t true?”
Lucy said nothing.
“What? You think she’s lying? What would be her motive?”
“I don’t know, Paul. But we’re missing so much here.”
“I understand that. But think about it. Glenda Perez has no reason to lie to me about that.”
Silence.
“What is it, Lucy?”
“It’s just odd, that’s all. If your sister is alive, where the hell has she been?”
“I don’t know.”
“So what are you going to do now?”
I thought about that, tried to settle my mind. It was a good question. What next? Where do I go from here?
Lucy said, “I talked to my father again.”
“And?”
“He remembers something about that night.”
“What?”
“He won’t tell me. He said he’d only tell you.”
“Me?”
“Yep. Ira said he wanted to see you.”
“Now?”
“If you want.”
“I want. Should I pick you up?”
She hesitated.
“What?”
“Ira said he wanted to see you alone. That he won’t talk in front of me.”
“Okay.”
More hesitation.
“Paul?”
“What?”
“Pick me up anyway. I’ll wait in the car while you go in.”
Homicide detectives York and Dillon sat in the “tech room,” eating pizza. The tech room was actually a meeting space where they wheeled in televisions and VCRs and the like.
Max Reynolds entered. “How are you guys?”
Dillon said, “This pizza is awful.”
“Sorry.”
“We’re in New York, for crying out loud. The Big Apple. The home of pizza. And this tastes like something that disobeyed a pooper-scooper law.”
Reynolds turned on the television. “I’m sorry the cuisine does not measure up to your standards.”
“Am I exaggerating?” Dillon turned to York. “I mean, seriously, does this taste like hobo vomit, or is it me?”
York said, “That’s your third slice.”
“And probably my last. Just to show I mean it.”
York turned to Max Reynolds. “What have you got for us?”
“I think I found our guy. Or at least, his car.”
Dillon took another riplike bite. “Less talk, more show.”
“There is a convenience store on the corner two blocks from where you found the body,” Reynolds began. “The owner has been having problems with shoplifters grabbing items he keeps outside. So he aims his camera out that way.”
Dillon said, “Korean?”
“Excuse me?”
“The convenience store owner. He’s Korean, right?”
“I’m not sure. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Dollars to doughnuts, he’s Korean. So he points his camera outside because some asswipe is stealing an orange. Then he starts screaming about how he pays taxes when he probably has like ten illegals working in the place and someone should do something. Like the cops should comb through his cheap-ass, blurry-crap tapes to find Mr. Fruit Stealer.”
He stopped. York looked at Max Reynolds. “Go on.”
“Anyway, yes, exactly, the camera gives us a partial of the street. So we started checking for cars around that age—more than thirty years ago—and look what we found here.”
Reynolds already had the tape keyed up. An old Volkswagen bug drove by. He hit the freeze button.
“That’s our car?” York asked.
“A 1971 Volkswagen Beetle. One of our experts says he can tell by the MacPherson strut front suspension and front luggage compartment. More important, this type of car matches the carpet fibers we found on Mr. Santiago’s clothing.”
“Hot damn,” Dillon said.
“Can you make out the license plate?” York asked.
“No. We only get a side view. Not a partial, not even the state.”
“But how many original Volkswagen bugs in yellow can there be on the road?” York said. “We start with the New York motor vehicle records, move to New Jersey and Connecticut.”
Dillon nodded and talked while chewing like a cow. “We should get some kind of hit.”
York turned back to Reynolds. “Anything else?”
“Dillon was right, the quality isn’t great. But if I blow this up”—he hit a button and the picture zoomed—“we can get a partial look at the guy.”