the Woods (2007)

by Harlan Coben

  Lowell shrugged. "Again: If I was, say, the deputy here and I was given my job by the sheriff who was involved in your murder, what would you think?"

  Muse sat back. "Fair enough," she said. "So what can I do to com fort you?"

  "You can let me take my time identifying the body."

  "You don't want Copeland to know what we found?"

  "He's waited twenty years. What's another day or two?"

  Muse understood where he was going with this.

  "I want to do right by the investigation," she said, "but I don't much relish lying to a man I trust and like." "Life's tough, Investigator Muse." She frowned. "Something else I want too," Lowell went on. "I need you to tell me why that Barrett guy was out there with that little toy of his looking for long-dead bodies."

  "I told you. They wanted to test this machine in the field."

  "You work in Newark, New Jersey. Are you telling me there are no possible burial sites in that area you could have sent them to?" He was right, of course. Time to come clean. "A man was found murdered in New York City," Muse said. "My boss thinks it was Gil Perez."

  Lowell dropped the poker face. "Come again?"

  She was about to explain when Tara O'Neill rushed in. Lowell looked annoyed by the interruption but he kept his voice neutral. "What's up, Tara?"

  "I found something on the body," she said. "Something important, I think."

  After Cope left the car, Lucy sat alone for a good five minutes with the trace of a smile on her lips. She was still swimming from his kiss. She had never experienced anything like that, the way his big hands held her face, the way he looked at her'a it was as though her heart had not only started beating again but had taken flight.

  It was wonderful. It was scary.

  She checked through his CD collection, found one by Ben Folds, put on the song "Brick." She had never been sure what the song was about-a drug overdose, an abortion, a mental collapse-but in the end, the woman is a brick and she's drowning him.

  Sad music was better than drinking, she guessed. But not much.

  As she turned off the engine, she saw a green car, a Ford with New York license plates, pull up right to the front of the building. The car parked in the spot that read no parking. Two men got out-one tall, one built like a square-and strolled inside. Lucy didn't know what to make of it. It was probably nothing.

  The keys to Ira's Beetle were in her bag. She rummaged through the purse and found them. She jammed a piece of gum in her mouth. If Cope kissed her again, she'd be damned if bad breath was going to be a factor.

  She wondered what Ira was going to say to Cope. She wondered what Ira even remembered. They had never talked about that night, father and daughter. Not once. They should have. It might have changed everything. Then again it might have changed nothing. The dead would still be dead, the living still living. Not a particularly deep thought, but there you go.

  She got out of the car and started toward the old Volkswagen. She held the key in her hand and pointed it toward the car. Odd what you get used to. No cars today open with a key. They all have the remote.

  The Beetle didn't, of course. She put the key into the lock on the driver side and turned it. It was rusted and she had to twist hard but the lock popped up.

  She thought about how she had lived her life, about the mistakes she'd made. She'd talked to Cope about that feeling of being pushed that night, of tumbling down a hill and not knowing how to stop. It was true. He had tried to find her over the years, but she had stayed hidden.

  Maybe she should have contacted him earlier. Maybe she should have tried to work through what happened that night right away. Instead you bury it. You refuse to face it. You're scared of confrontation so you find other ways to hide-Lucy's being the most common, in the bottom of the bottle. People don't go to the bottle to escape.

  They go to hide.

  She slid into the driver's seat and immediately realized that some thing was wrong.

  The first visual clue was on the floor of the passenger seat. She looked down and frowned. A soda can. Diet Coke to be more exact. She picked it up. There was still some liquid in it. She thought about that. How long had it been since she'd been in the Beetle? Three, four weeks at least. There hadn't been a can then. Or if there had, she had missed it. That was a possibility.

  That was when the smell hit her.

  She remembered something that happened in the woods near camp when she was about twelve. Ira had taken her for a walk. They heard gunshots and Ira had totally freaked. Hunters had invaded their land. He found them and started yelling that this was private property. One of the hunters had started yelling back. He got close to them, bumping Ira's chest, and Lucy remembered that he smelled horrible.

  She smelled that now.

  Lucy turned and looked in the backseat.

  There was blood on the floor.

  And then, in the distance, she heard a crack of gunfire.

  The skeletal remains were laid out on a silver table with tiny holes in it. The holes made it easier to clean by simply spraying it with a hose. The floor was tile and tilted toward a drain in the center, like the shower room at a health club, which also made it easier to get rid of debris. Muse didn't want to think what got caught up in such drains, what they used to clean it out, if Drano did any good at all or if they had to use something stronger.

  Lowell stood on one side of the table, Muse on the other with Tara O'Neill.

  "So what's up?" Lowell asked.

  "First off, we're missing some bones. I'll go out later and take an other look. Small stuff, nothing major. That's normal in a case like this. I was about to run some X-rays, check the ossification centers, especially up at the clavicle."

  "What will that tell us?"

  "It gives us an idea of age. Bones stop growing as we get older. The last place of ossification is up there, pretty much where the clavicle meets the sternum. The process stops around the age of twenty-one. But that's not important right now."

  Lowell looked at Muse. Muse shrugged.

  "So what's the big thing you found?"

  "This."

  O'Neill pointed to the pelvis.

  Muse said, "You showed me that before. That's the proof that the skeleton belonged to a female."

  "Well, yes. The pelvis is wider, like I said before. Plus we have the less prominent ridge and smaller bone density-all the signs that she's female. There is no doubt in my mind. We are looking at the skeletal remains of a female."

  "So what are you showing us?"

  "The pubic bone."

  "What about it?"

  "You see here? We call this notching-or better, the pitting of the pubic bones." "Okay." "Cartilage holds bones together. That's basic anatomy. You probably know this. We mostly think of cartilage in terms of the knee or elbow. It's elastic. It stretches. But you see this? The marks on the face of the pubic bone? That's formed on the cartilaginous surface where the bones once met and then separated."

  O'Neill looked up at them. Her face was glowing.

  "Are you following me?"

  Muse said, "No."

  "The notches are formed when the cartilage is strained. When the pubic bones separate." Muse looked at Lowell. Lowell shrugged. "And that means?" Muse tried. "That means that at some point in her life, the bones separated.

  And that means, Investigator Muse, that your victim gave birth."

  Chapter 37

  Things do not slow down when you have a gun pointed at you. To the contrary, they speed up. When Ira pointed the gun at me, I expected to have time to react. I started to raise my hands, the primitive demonstration of being harmless. My mouth began to open to try to talk my way through this, to tell him I would cooperate and do what he wanted. My heart raced, my breathing stopped, and my eyes could only see the gun, nothing but the opening of that barrel, the giant black hole now facing me.

  But I didn't have time for any of that. I didn't have time to ask Ira why. I didn't have time to ask him what had happened to my s
ister, if she was alive or dead, how Gil had gotten out of the woods that night, if Wayne Steubens was involved or not. I didn't have time to tell Ira that he was right, I should have let it lie, I would let it lie now and we could all go back to our lives.

  I had no time to do any of that.

  Because Ira was already pulling the trigger.

  A year ago I read a book called Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. I don't dare simplify his arguments but part of what he says is that we need to rely on our instincts more-the animal part four brain that will automatically jump out of the way if a truck is bearing down on us. He also notes that we make snap judgments, sometimes seemingly based on little evidence, what we used to call hunches, and that they are often right. Maybe that was at work here. Maybe something in Ira's stance or the way he pulled out the gun or whatever made me realize that there would indeed be no talking to him, that he was going to fire and that I was going to die.

  Something made me jump right away.

  But the bullet still hit me.

  He had aimed for the center of my chest. The bullet hit my side, ripping across my waist like a hot lance. I fell hard on my side and tried to roll behind a tree. Ira fired again. He missed this time. I kept rolling.

  My hand found a rock. I didn't really think. I just picked it up and, still rolling, threw it in his direction. It was a pitiful move, born out of desperation, something a child lying on his stomach might try.

  The throw had no power behind it. The rock hit him but I don't think it mattered. I realized now that this had been Ira's plan all along. This was why he wanted to see me alone. This was why he had taken me into the woods. He wanted to shoot me.

  Ira, that seemingly gentle soul, was a killer.

  I looked behind me. He was too close. I flashed to that scene in the original In-Laws movie, a comedy where Alan Arkin is told to avoid bullets by running "serpentine." That wouldn't work here. The man was only six, eight feet away. He had a gun. I was already hit, could feel the blood leaking out of me. I was going to die.

  We were stumbling down the hill, me still rolling, Ira trying not to fall, trying to gain enough balance to take another shot. I knew he would. I knew I only had a few seconds.

  My only chance was to reverse direction.

  I grabbed the ground and made myself break. Ira was caught off balance. He tried to slow. I grabbed a tree with both hands and whipped my legs toward him. It, too, was a pathetic move, I thought, a bad gymnast on a pommel horse. But Ira was just within striking range and just enough off balance. My feet hit against the side of his right ankle. Not all that hard. But hard enough.

  Ira let out a shout and tumbled to the ground.

  The gun, I thought. Get the gun.

  I scrambled toward him. I was bigger. I was younger. I was in much better condition. He was an old man, his brain half-fried. He could fire a gun, sure. There was still power in his arms and his legs. But the years and the drug abuse had slowed the reflexes down.

  I climbed on top of him, searching for the gun. It had been in his right hand. I went for that arm. Think arm. Only arm. I grabbed it with both my hands, rolled my body on it, pinned it down and then bent it back.

  The hand was empty.

  I had been so preoccupied with the right hand that I never saw the left coming. He swung in a long arc. The gun must have dropped when he fell. He had it no-win his left hand, gripping it like a rock. He crashed the butt against my forehead.

  It was like a lightning bolt had seared through my skull. I could feel my brain jerk to the right, as though ripped from its moor, and start to rattle. My body convulsed.

  I let go of him.

  I looked up. He had the gun pointed at me.

  "Freeze, police!"

  I recognized the voice. It was York.

  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 re member 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'a

  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'a" 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. Silver stein 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 survei
llance tapes of him and the vehicle near where the body was dumped off'a 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'a

  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.

  I remembered the last time I was hospitalized. When I was twelve years old I came down with rheumatic fever. It was pretty rare then, even rarer now. I spent ten days in the hospital. I remember Camille visiting. Sometimes she brought her annoying friends because she knew that would distract me. We played Boggle a lot. Boys loved Camille. She used to bring the cassette tapes they made for her-groups like Steely Dan and Supertramp and the Doobie Brothers. Camille told me what groups were great, what groups were lame, and I followed her taste as though it were biblical.