The Woods

The air stopped, crackled. I moved my gaze from the gun to Ira’s eyes. We were that close, the gun pointed straight at my face. And I saw it. He was going to shoot and kill me. They wouldn’t get to him in time. The police were here now. It was over for him. He had to know that. But he was going to shoot me anyway.

“Dad! No!”

It was Lucy. He heard her voice and something in those eyes changed.

“Drop the gun now! Do it! Now!”

York again. My eyes were still locked on Ira’s.

Ira kept his eyes on me. “Your sister is dead,” he said.

Then he turned the gun away from me, put it in his own mouth and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER 38

I PASSED OUT.

That was what I was told. I do have dim memories, though. I remember Ira falling on me, the back of his head gone. I remember hearing Lucy scream. I remember looking up, seeing the blue sky, watching the clouds fly by me. I assume I was on my back, on a stretcher, being taken to the ambulance. That was where the memories stopped. With the blue sky. With the white clouds.

And then, when I started to feel almost peaceful and calm, I remembered Ira’s words.

Your sister is dead.…

I shook my head. No. Glenda Perez had told me that Camille had walked out of those woods. Ira wouldn’t know. He couldn’t.

“Mr. Copeland?”

I blinked my eyes open. I was in a bed. A hospital room.

“My name is Dr. McFadden.”

I let my gaze travel the room. I saw York behind him.

“You were shot in the side. We stitched you up. You’re going to be fine, but there will be soreness—”

“Doc?”

McFadden had been using his best doctor singsong, not expecting such an early interruption. He frowned. “Yes?”

“I’m okay, right?”

“Yes.”

“Then can we talk about this later? I really need to speak to that officer.”

York hid a smile. I expected an argument. Doctors are even more arrogant than attorneys. But he didn’t give me one. He shrugged and said, “Sure. Have the nurse page me when you’re done.”

“Thanks, Doc.”

He left without another word. York moved closer to the bed.

“How did you know about Ira?” I asked.

“The lab guys matched carpet fibers found on the body of, uh…” York’s voice drifted off. “Well, we still don’t have an ID but if you want we can call him Gil Perez.”

“That would be good.”

“Right, anyway, they found these carpet fibers on him. We knew that they came from an old car. We also found a security camera that was near where the body was dumped. We saw it was a yellow Volkswagen, matched it to Silverstein. So we hurried over.”

“Where’s Lucy?”

“Dillon’s asking her some questions.”

“I don’t get it. Ira killed Gil Perez?”

“Yep.”

“No question?”

“None. First off, we found blood in the backseat of the Volkswagen. My guess is, it’ll match Perez. Two, the staff at that halfway house confirmed that Perez—signing in as Manolo Santiago—visited Silverstein the day before the murder. The staff also confirmed that they saw Silverstein leave in the Volkswagen the next morning. First time he’d been out in six months.”

I made a face. “They didn’t think to tell his daughter?”

“Staff who saw him weren’t on duty the next time Lucy Gold came in. Plus, hey, as the staff told me repeatedly, Silverstein has never been declared incompetent or anything like that. He was free to come and go as he pleased.”

“I don’t get it. Why would Ira kill him?”

“The same reason he wanted to kill you, I guess. You were both looking into what happened at that camp twenty years ago. Mr. Silverstein didn’t want that.”

I tried to put it together. “So he killed Margot Green and Doug Billingham?”

York waited a second, as though expecting me to add my sister to the list. I didn’t.

“Could be.”

“And what about Wayne Steubens?”

“They probably worked together somehow, I don’t know. What I do know is, Ira Silverstein killed my guy. Oh, another thing: the gun Ira shot you with? It’s the same caliber as the one used to shoot Gil Perez. We’re running a ballistic test now, but you know it’ll be a match. So you add that to the blood in the backseat of the Beetle, the surveillance tapes of him and the vehicle near where the body was dumped off…I mean, come on, it’s overkill. But hey, Ira Silverstein is dead, and as you know, it is very difficult to try a dead man. As for what Ira Silverstein did or didn’t do twenty years ago”—York shrugged—“hey, I’m curious too. But that’s someone else’s mystery to solve.”

“You’ll help, if we need it?”

“Sure. Love to. And when you do figure it all out, why don’t you come into the city and I’ll take you for a steak dinner?”

“Deal.”

We shook hands.

“I should thank you for saving my life,” I said.

“Yeah, you should. Except I don’t think I did.”

I remembered the look on Ira’s face, his determination to kill me. York had seen it too—Ira was going to shoot me, consequences be damned. Lucy’s voice had been what saved me more than York’s gun.

York left then. I was alone in a hospital room. There are probably more depressing places to be alone, but I couldn’t think of one. I thought about my Jane, how brave she was, how the only thing that really scared her, terrified her, was being alone in a hospital room. So I stayed all night. I slept in one of those chairs that can be made into the most uncomfortable bed on God’s green earth. I don’t say that to get applause. It was Jane’s one moment of weakness, the first overnight at the hospital, when she grabbed my hand and tried to keep the desperation out of her voice when she said, “Please don’t leave me alone here.”

So I didn’t. Not then. Not until much later, when she was back home, where she wanted to die because the thought of being back in a room like the one I’m in now…

Now it was my turn. I was alone here. It didn’t scare me too much. I thought about that, about where my life had taken me. Who would be here for me in a crisis? Who could I expect to be at my bedside when I woke up in a hospital? The first names that popped into my head: Greta and Bob. When I cut my hand last year slicing open a bagel, Bob had driven me, Greta had taken care of Cara. They were family—the only family I had left. And now they were gone.