by Harlan Coben
Bedford stopped. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s play your game. Let’s say it is indeed Gil Perez. That he survived that night.”
“Okay.”
“That doesn’t let Wayne Steubens off the hook. Not at all. There are many”—he looked at me hard now—“who believed that maybe Steubens had an accomplice for the first murders. You yourself asked how he could have taken out so many. Well, if there were two of them and only three victims, it makes it all a lot easier, don’t you think?”
“So now you think maybe Perez was an accomplice?”
“No. Hell, I don’t even believe he survived that night. I’m just playing hypotheticals. If that body in the Manhattan morgue did end up being Gil Perez.”
I added a packet of Splenda and some milk to my coffee. “Are you familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?” I asked.
“The guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes.”
“Exactly. One of Sherlock’s axioms goes something like this: ‘It is a big mistake to theorize before one has data—because one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.’”
“You’re starting to try my patience, Mr. Copeland.”
“I gave you a new fact. Rather than trying to rethink what happened, you just immediately found a way to twist that fact to suit your theory.”
He just stared at me. I didn’t blame him. I was coming on hard, but I needed to push.
“Do you know anything about Wayne Steubens’s past?” he asked.
“Some.”
“He fits the profile to a tee.”
“Profiles aren’t evidence,” I said.
“But they help. For instance, do you know that neighborhood animals went missing when Steubens was a teen?”
“Really? Well, that’s all the proof I need.”
“May I give you an example to illustrate?”
“Please.”
“We have an eyewitness to this. A boy named Charlie Kadison. He didn’t say anything back then because he was too scared. When Wayne Steubens was sixteen, he buried a small white dog—what’s the breed, something French…”
“Bichon Frise?”
“That’s it. He buried the dog up to its neck. So only its head was sticking out. The thing couldn’t move.”
“Pretty sick.”
“No, it gets worse.”
He took another dainty sip. I waited. He put the coffee back down and dabbed his mouth with a napkin.
“So after he buries the body, your old camp buddy goes to this Kadison kid’s house. You see his family had one of those riding lawn mowers. He asks to borrow it….”
He stopped, looked at me, and nodded.
“Eeuw,” I said.
“I have other cases like that. Maybe a dozen.”
“And yet Wayne Steubens managed to land a job working at that camp—”
“Big surprise. I mean, that Ira Silverstein seemed like such a stickler for background checks.”
“And no one thought of Wayne when those murders first occurred?”
“We didn’t know any of this. First off, the locals were on the Camp PLUS case, not us. It wasn’t federal. Not at first. On top of that, people were too scared to come forward during Steubens’s formative years. Like Charlie Kadison. You have to also remember that Steubens came from a rich family. His father died when he was young, but his mother shielded him, paid people off, whatever. She was overprotective, by the way. Very conservative. Very strict.”
“Another check mark in your little serial killer profile kit?”
“It isn’t just about his profile, Mr. Copeland. You know the facts. He lived in New York yet somehow managed to be in all three areas—Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania—when the murders occurred. What are the odds of that? And the kicker, of course: After we got a search warrant, we found items—classic trophies—belonging to all the victims on his property.”
“Not all the victims,” I said.
“Enough of them.”
“But none from those first four campers.”
“That’s correct.”
“Why not?”
“My guess? He probably was in a rush. Steubens was still disposing of the bodies. He ran out of time.”
“Again,” I said, “it sounds a bit like fact twisting.”
He sat back and studied me. “So what is your theory, Mr. Copeland? Because I am dying to hear it.”
I said nothing.
He spread his arms. “That a serial killer who slit campers’ throats in Indiana and Virginia happened to be a counselor at a summer camp where at least two other victims had their throats slit?”
He had a point. I had been thinking about that from the get-go, and I couldn’t get around it.
“You know the facts, twisted or not. You’re a prosecutor. Tell me what you think happened.”
I thought about it. He waited. I thought about it some more.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Maybe it’s too early to theorize. Maybe we need to gather more facts.”
“And while you do that,” he said, “a guy like Wayne Steubens kills a few more campers.”
He had another point. I thought about the rape evidence against Jenrette and Marantz. If you looked at it objectively, there was just as much—probably more—against Wayne Steubens.
Or at least there had been.
“He didn’t kill Gil Perez,” I said.
“I hear you. So take that out of the equation, for the sake of this discussion. Say he didn’t kill the Perez kid.” He held up both palms to the ceiling. “What does that leave you with?”
I mulled that over. It leaves me, I thought, wondering what the hell really happened to my sister.
CHAPTER 29
AN HOUR LATER I WAS SITTING ON A PLANE. THE DOOR HAD not yet closed when Muse called me.
“How did it go with Steubens?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you about it later. How was court?”
“Motions and nothingness from what I hear. They used the phrase ‘under advisement’ a lot. Being a lawyer must be so friggin’ boring. How do you not blow your brains out on days like that?”
“It takes work. So nothing happened?”
“Nothing, but you have tomorrow off. The judge wants to see all counsel in chambers first thing Thursday morning.”
“Why?”
“That under-advisement stuff was tossed around, but your assistant whatshisname said it probably wasn’t a big deal. Listen, I have something else for you.”
“What?”
“I had our best computer weenie comb through those journals sent to your friend Lucy.”
“And?”
“And they matched what you already knew. At first anyway.”
“What do you mean, at first?”
“I took the information he gleaned and then I made some calls, did some digging. And I found something interesting.”
“What?”
“I think I know who sent her those journals.”
“Who?”
“Do you have your BlackBerry with you?”
“Yes.”
“There’s a ton here. Might be easier if I e-mail you all the details.”
“Okay.”
“I don’t want to say any more. I’d rather see if you come up with the same answer I do.”
I thought about that and heard the echo of my conversation with Geoff Bedford. “Don’t want me twisting facts to suit theories, eh?”
“Huh?”
“Never mind, Muse. Just send me the e-mail.”
Four hours after I left Geoff Bedford, I sat in the office adjacent to Lucy’s, one normally used by an English professor, who was on sabbatical. Lucy had the key.
She was looking out the window when her TA, a guy named Lonnie Berger, came in without knocking. Funny. Lonnie reminded me a bit of Lucy’s father, Ira. He had that Peter Pan quality, an outcast wannabe. I am not knocking hippies or far-leftists or whatever you want to call them. We need them. I am a firm believer that you need those on both po
litical ends, even (or maybe more so) the ones you disagree with and want to hate. It would be boring without them. Your arguments wouldn’t be as well honed. Think about it at its core: You can’t have a left without a right. And you can’t have a center without both.
“What’s up, Luce? I got a big date with my hot waitress….” Lonnie spotted me and his voice sort of faded away. “Who’s this?”
Lucy was still looking out the window.
“And why are we in Professor Mitnick’s office?”
“I’m Paul Copeland,” I said.
I stuck out my hand. He shook it.
“Whoa,” Lonnie said. “You’re the guy in the story, right? Mr. P or whatever. I mean, I read about the case online and…”
“Yes, Lucy filled me in on your amateur sleuthing. As you probably know, I have some pretty good sleuths—professional investigators, actually—who work for me.”
He let go of my hand.
“Anything you want to share with us?” I said.
“What are you talking about?”
“You were right, by the way. The e-mail did come from the Frost Library bank of computers at six forty-two P.M. But Sylvia Potter wasn’t there between six and seven P.M.”
He started backing away.
“You were, Lonnie.”
He put on the crooked smile and shook his head. Buying time. “That’s a bunch of crap. Hey, wait a second here….” The smile fled as he faked shock and offense. “C’mon, Luce, you can’t believe that I…”
Lucy finally turned toward him. She didn’t say anything.
Lonnie pointed at me. “You don’t believe this guy, do you? He’s…”
“I’m what?”
No reply. Lucy just stared at him. She didn’t say a word. She just stared until he started to wither. Lonnie eventually collapsed into the chair.
“Damn,” he said.
We waited. He hung his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“Tell us,” I said.
He looked up at Lucy. “You really trust this guy?”
“A lot more than I trust you,” she said.
“I wouldn’t. He’s bad news, Luce.”
“Thanks for the glowing recommendation,” I said. “Now why did you send Lucy those journals?”
He started fiddling with an earring. “I don’t have to tell you a thing.”
“Sure you do,” I said. “I’m the county prosecutor.”
“So?”
“So, Lonnie, I can have you arrested for harassment.”
“No, you can’t. First off, you can’t prove I sent anything.”
“Sure I can. You think you’re knowledgeable with computers and you probably are in some two-bit, impress-the-coeds kind of way. But the experts in my office—now, they’re what you call trained professionals. We already know you sent it. We already have the proof.”
He considered that, debating if he should continue to deny it or ride a fresh stream. He chose the fresh. “So what? Even if I did send it, how is that harassment? Since when is it illegal to send a fictional story to a college professor?”
He had a point.
Lucy said, “I can have you fired.”
“Maybe, maybe not. But for the record, Luce, you’d have a lot more to explain than I do. You’re the one lying about your background. You’re the one who changed your name to hide your past.”
Lonnie liked that argument. He sat up now and crossed his arms and looked very smug. I wanted very badly to punch him in the face. Lucy kept staring at him. He couldn’t face her straight on. I moved back a little, gave her room.
“I thought we were friends,” she said.
“We are.”
“So?”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand.”
“Then tell me.”
Lonnie started fiddling with the earring again. “Not in front of him.”
“Yeah, in front of me, Lonnie.”
So much for backing off.
I slapped him on the shoulder. “I’m your new best pal. You know why?”
“No.”
“Because I’m a powerful and angry law-enforcement official. And my guess is, if my investigators shake your tree, something will fall out.”
“No way.”
“Way,” I said. “Do you want examples?”
He kept quiet.
I held up my BlackBerry. “I have your arrest records here. You want me to start listing them for you?”
That made the smug go bye-bye.
“I have them all, my friend. Even the sealed stuff. That’s what I mean when I say I’m a powerful and angry cop. I can screw with you five ways to Sunday. So cut the crap and tell me why you sent those journals.”
I met Lucy’s eye. She gave me the smallest of nods. Maybe she understood. We had talked strategy before Lonnie got here. If she was alone with him, Lonnie would fall back on being Lonnie—he would lie and tell stories and tap-dance and skate and try to use their close relationship against her. I knew the type. He would put on the cool, yahdude exterior, try to use that crooked-smile charm, but if you put enough pressure on him, a guy like Lonnie caves every time. More than that, fear produces a quicker and more honest response with a Lonnie than playing on his supposed sympathies does.
He looked at Lucy now. “I didn’t have a choice,” he said.
Starting to spout excuses. Good.
“Truth is, I did it for you, Luce. To protect you. And, okay, myself. See, I didn’t list those arrests on my Reston application. If the school found out, I’d be out. Just like that. That’s what he told me.”
“Who told you?” I said.
“I don’t know the names.”
“Lonnie…”
“I’m serious. They didn’t say.”
“So what did they say?”
“They promised me that this wouldn’t hurt Lucy. They had no interest in her. They said what I was doing would be for her good, too, that”—Lonnie made a production of turning around toward me—“that they were trying to catch a killer.”
He looked at me as hard as he could, which wasn’t very hard. I waited for him to yell, “J’accuse!” When he didn’t, I said, “Just so you know: On the inside I’m quaking.”
“They think maybe you had something to do with those murders.”
“Wonderful, thank you. So what happened next, Lonnie? They tell you to plant these journals, right?”
“Yes.”
“Who wrote them?”
“I don’t know. I guess they did.”
“You keep saying they. How many of them were there?”
“Two.”
“And what were their names, Lonnie?”
“I don’t know. Look, they were private eyes, okay? Like that. They said they’d been hired by one of the victim’s families.”
One of the victim’s families. A lie. A bald-faced lie. It was MVD, the private investigation firm in Newark. It was suddenly starting to make a lot of sense. All of this was.
“They mentioned the name of this client?”
“No. They said it was confidential.”
“I bet. What else did they say?”
“They told me that their firm was looking into these old murders. That they didn’t believe the official version, blaming them on the Summer Slasher.”
I looked at Lucy. I had filled her in on my visits with Wayne Steubens and Geoff Bedford. We talked about that night, our own role, the mistakes we made, the past certainty that all four were dead and that Wayne Steubens had killed them.
We had no idea what to think anymore.
“Anything else?”
“That’s it.”
“Oh, come on now, Lonnie.”
“That’s all I know, I swear.”
“No, I don’t think so. I mean, these guys sent Lucy those journals to get her to react, right?”
He said nothing.
“You were supposed to watch her. You were supposed to tell them what she said and did. That’s why
you came in here the other day and told her how you found out all that stuff online about her past. You hoped that she’d confide in you. That was part of your assignment, wasn’t it? You were supposed to exploit her trust and worm your way even deeper into her good graces.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Sure it was. Did they offer you a bonus if you got that dirt?”
“A bonus?”
“Yes, Lonnie, a bonus. As in more money.”
“I didn’t do this for money.”
I shook my head. “That would be a lie.”
“What?”
“Let’s not pretend it was all about fear of being exposed or altruism in finding a killer. They paid you, didn’t they?”
He opened his mouth to deny it. I closed it before he bothered.
“The same investigators who dig up old arrests,” I said. “They have access to bank accounts. They can find, for example, five-thousand-dollar cash deposits. Like the one you made five days ago at the Chase in West Orange.”
The mouth closed. I had to hand it to Muse’s investigating skills. She really was incredible.
“I didn’t do anything illegal,” he said.
“That’s debatable, but I’m not in the mood right now. Who wrote the journal?”
“I don’t know. They gave me the pages, told me to feed it to her slowly.”
“And did they tell you how they got that information?”
“No.”
“No idea?”
“They said they had sources. Look, they knew everything about me. They knew everything about Lucy. But they wanted you, pal. That’s all they cared about. Anything I could get her to say about Paul Copeland—that was their main concern. They think maybe you’re a killer.”
“No, they don’t, Lonnie. They think maybe you’re an idiot who can muddy up my name.”
Perplexed. Lonnie worked very hard on looking perplexed. He looked at Lucy. “I’m really sorry. I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that.”
“Do me a favor, Lonnie,” she said. “Just get the hell out of my face.”
CHAPTER 30
ALEXANDER “SOSH” SIEKIERKY STOOD ALONE IN HIS PENThouse.
Man gets used to his environment. That was how it was. He was getting comfortable. Too comfortable for a man with his beginnings. This lifestyle was now the expected. He wondered if he was still as tough as he once was, if he could still walk into those dens, those lairs, and lay waste without fear. The answer, he was certain, was no. It wasn’t age that had weakened him. It was comfort.