the Woods (2007)

by Harlan Coben

  "Hold up," Lowell said.

  The sun continued to dip. Lowell's profile was in silhouette. He took off his hat and again sniffled into his handkerchief. "This is where the Billingham kid was found."

  Doug Billingham.

  The woods seemed to settle at the words, and then the wind whispered an old song. Muse looked down. A kid. Billingham had been seventeen. He had been found with eight stab wounds, mostly defensive.

  He had fought his assailant. She looked at Lowell. His head was lowered, his eyes closed.

  Muse remembered something else-something from the file. Low ell. That name. "Peripherally, my ass," she said. "You were the lead."

  Lowell did not reply.

  "I don't get it. Why didn't you tell me?"

  He shrugged. "Why didn't you tell me you were reopening my case?"

  "We weren't really. I mean, I didn't think we had anything yet."

  "So your guys hitting pay dirt," he said. "That was just dumb luck?"

  Muse didn't like where this was going.

  "How far are we from where Margot Green was found?" Muse asked. "A half mile due south." "Margot Green was found first, right?" "Yep. See, where you came in? The condos? That used to be where the girls' side of the camp was. You know. Their cabins. The boys were to the south. The Green girl was found near there." "How long after you found Green did you locate the Billingham boy?"

  "Thirty-six hours."

  "Long time."

  "A lot of land to cover."

  "Still. He was just left out here?"

  "No, there was a shallow grave. That's probably why it was missed the first time through. You know how it is. Everybody hears about missing kids and they want to be the good citizen so they come out and help us cover ground. They walked right over him. Never knew he was there."

  Muse stared down at the ground. Totally unremarkable. There was a cross like those makeshift memorials for car-accident deaths. But the cross was old and nearly fallen over. There was no picture of Billingham. No keepsakes or flowers or stuffed bears. Just the beat-up cross. Alone out here in the woods. Muse almost shivered.

  "The killer ' you probably know this ' his name was Wayne Steubens.

  A counselor, as it turned out. There are a lot of theories on what happened that night, but the consensus seems to be that Steubens worked on the vanished kids-Perez and Copeland-first. He buried them. He started to dig a grave for Douglas Billingham when Margot Green was found. So he took off. According to the hotshot down at Quantico, burying the bodies was part of what gave him his thrill. You know Steubens buried all his other victims, right? The ones in the other states?"

  "Yeah, I know."

  "You know two of them were still alive when he buried them?"

  She knew that too. "Did you ever question Wayne Steubens?" Muse asked. "We talked to everyone at that camp." He said that slowly, carefully. A bell rang in Muse's head. Lowell continued.

  "And yes, the Steubens kid gave me the creeps-at least, that's what I think now. But maybe that's hindsight, I don't know anymore. There was no evidence linking Steubens to the murders. There was nothing linking anybody, really. Plus Steubens was rich. His family hired a lawyer. As you can imagine, the camp broke up right away. All the kids went home. Steubens was sent overseas for the next semester. A school in Switzerland, I think."

  Muse still had her eyes on the cross.

  "You ready to keep moving?"

  She nodded. They started hiking again.

  Lowell asked, "So how long have you been chief investigator?"

  "A few months."

  "And before that?"

  "Homicide for three years."

  He wiped the huge nose again. "It never gets easier, does it?"

  The question seemed rhetorical, so she just kept trekking.

  "It's not the outrage," he said. "It's not the dead even. They're gone.

  Nothing you can do about that. It's what's left behind-the echo. These woods you're walking through. There are some old-timers who think a sound echoes forever in here. Makes sense when you think about it.

  This Billingham kid. I'm sure he screamed. He screams, it echoes, just bounces back and forth, the sound getting smaller and smaller, but never entirely disappearing. Like a part of him is still calling out, even now.

  Murder echoes like that."

  Muse kept her head down, watched her feet on the knotty ground.

  "Have you met any of the victims' families?"

  She thought about that. "One is my boss, actually."

  "Paul Copeland," Lowell said.

  "You remember him?"

  "Like I said, I questioned everybody at that camp."

  The bell in Muse's head sounded again.

  "Is he the one who got you to look into the case?" Lowell asked.

  She didn't reply.

  "Murder is unjust," he went on. "It's like God had this plan and there is this natural order He set up and someone took it upon them selves to mess with that. If you solve the case, sure, it helps. But it's like you crumbled up a piece of aluminum foil. Finding the killer helps you spread it out again, but for the family, it never really regains its form."

  "Aluminum foil?"

  Lowell shrugged.

  "You're quite the philosopher, Sheriff."

  "Look into your boss's eyes sometimes. Whatever happened in these woods that night? It's still there. It still echoes, doesn't it?"

  "I don't know," Muse said.

  "And I don't know if you should be here."

  "Why's that?"

  "Because I did question your boss that night."

  Muse stopped walking. "Are you saying there's some kind of conflict of interest?"

  "I think that might be exactly what I'm saying."

  "Paul Copeland was a suspect?"

  "It is still an open case. It is still, despite your interference, my case.

  So I wont answer that. But I will tell you this. He lied about what happened."

  "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 s
aid 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 wont 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 rip like 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 ass wipe is stealing an orange. Then he starts screaming about how he pays taxes when he probably has like ten illegal 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."

  Dillon squinted. "He looks like Jerry Garcia or something."

  "Long gray hair, long gray beard," Reynolds agreed.

  "That it?"

  "That's it."

  York said to Dillon, "Let's start checking the motor vehicles record. This car can't be that hard to find."

  Chapter 34

  Sheriff Lowell's accusations echoed in the still of the woods. Lowell, nobody's fool, thought Paul Copeland had lied about the murders. Had he? Did it matter?

  Muse thought about that. She liked Cope, no question. He was a great boss and a damned good prosecutor. But now Lowells words had brought her back. They reminded her of what she already knew: This was a homicide case. Like any other. It leads where it leads, even if that means back to her boss.

  No favorites.

  A few minutes later a noise came from the brush. Muse spotted An drew Barrett. Barrett made lanky an art form, all long limbs and elbows and awkward, jerky movements. He was dragging what looked like a baby carriage behind him. It had to be the XJR. Muse called out to him.

  Barrett looked up, clearly displeased with the interruption. When he saw who it was, his face lit up.

  "Hey, Muse!"

  "Andrew."

  "Wow, great to see you."

  "Uh-huh," she said. "What are you doing?"

  "What do you mean, what am I doing?" He put the machine down.

  There were three young people in John Jay sweatshirts trudging along beside him-students, she assumed. "I'm looking for graves."

  "I thought you found something."

  "I did. Its up ahead another hundred yards. But I thought there were two bodies missing, so I figured, hey, why rest on my laurels, you know what I'm saying?"

  Muse swallowed. "You found a body?"

  Barrett's face had a fervor usually reserved for tent revivals.

  "Muse, this machine. Oh my, it's just amazing. We got lucky, of course. There hasn't been any rain in this area in, I don't know, how long, Sheriff?"

  "Two, three weeks," Lowell said.

  "See, that helps. A lot. Dry ground. You know anything about how ground-penetrating radar works? I stuck an 800 MHz on this baby. That lets me go down only four feet-but what a four feet! Most of the time, they look too deep. But very few killers dig beyond three, four feet. The other problem is, the current machines have trouble differentiating between like-size items. Like, say, a pipe or deep roots versus what we want-bones. The XJR not only gets you clearer cross-sectional underground images of the soil, but with the new 3-D enhancer-"

  "Barrett?" Muse said.

  He pushed up his glasses. "What?"

  "Do I look like I give the smallest rats buttock how your toy works?"

  He pushed the glasses up again. "Uh'a"

  "I just care that your toy works. So please tell me what you found before I shoot someone?"

  "Bones, Muse," he said with a smile. "We found bones."

  "Human, right?"

  "Definitely. In fact, the first thing we found was a skull. That's when we stopped digging. The pros are excavating now."

  "How old are they?"

  "What, the bones?"

  "No, Barrett, that oak tree. Yes, the bones."

  "How the hell would I know? The coroner might have an idea. She's at the site now."

  Muse hurried past him. Lowell followed. Up ahead she could make out big spotlights, almost like a movie set. She knew that lots of excavation teams used powerful voltage even when they were digging in the direct sunlight. As one crime-scene-unit guy had told her, bright lights help differentiate the flotsam from the gold: "Without the bright lights, its like judging how hot a chick is by being drunk in a dark bar. You may think you have something, but in the morning, you want to bite your arm off."

  Lowell pointed toward an attractive woman wearing rubber gloves.

&n
bsp; Muse figured it was another student-she couldn't have been thirty years old. She had long, cave black hair perfectly pulled back, like a flamenco dancer.

  "That's Doc O'Neill," Lowell said.

  "She's your coroner?"

  "Yep. You know it's an elected position out here?"

  "You mean they have campaigns and stuff? Like, hi, I'm Doctor O'Neill, I'm really good with the dead'?"

  "I'd make a witty comeback," Lowell said, "but you city slickers are too clever for us yokels."

  As Muse got closer, she could see that "attractive" may have been understating it. Tara O'Neill was a knockout. Muse could see that her looks were something of a distraction to the crew too. The coroner is not in charge of a crime scene. The police are. But everyone kept sneaking glances at O'Neill. Muse stepped quickly toward her.

  "I'm Loren Muse, chief investigator for Essex County."

  The woman offered the glove hand. "Tara O'Neill, coroner."

  "What can you tell me about the body?"

  She looked wary for a second, but Lowell nodded that it was okay. "Are you the one who sent Mr. Barrett out here?" O'Neill asked. "I am." "Interesting fellow." "As I'm well aware."

  "That machine works, though. I don't know how on earth he found these bones. But he's good. I think it helped that they ran over the skull first."

  O'Neill blinked and looked away.

  "There a problem?" Muse asked.

  She shook her head. "I grew up in this area. I used to play right here, right over this spot. You'd think, I don't know, you'd think I would have felt a chill or something. But nope, nothing."

  Muse tapped her foot, waited.

  "I was ten when those teens vanished. My friends and I used to hike out here, you know? We'd light fires. We'd make up stories about how the two kids who were never found were still out here, watching us, that they were the undead or whatever, and that they were going to hunt us down and kill us. It was stupid. Just a way of getting your boyfriend to give you his jacket and put his arm around you."

  Tara O'Neill smiled and shook her head. "Doctor O'Neill?" "Yes." "Please tell me what you found here." "We're still working on it, but from what I can see we have a fairly complete skeleton. It was found three feet down. I'll need to get the bones to the lab to make a positive ID."