The Woods (22 page)

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 whats his name said it probably wasn't a big deal. Listen, I have some thing 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 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 political 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 cant have a left without a right. And you cant 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, yah-dude exterior, try to use that crooked-smile charm, but ifyou 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 Muses 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 Cope-land-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."

Alexander "Sosh" Stekierky 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.

As a young child, Sots family had gotten ensnared in the horrible siege of Leningrad. The Nazis surrounded the city and caused unspeakable suffering. Sosh had turned five on October 21, 1941, a month after the blockade began. He would turn six and seven with the siege still on. In January of 1942, with rations set at a quarter pound of bread a day, Soshs brother, Gavrel, age twelve, and his sister, Aline, age eight, died of starvation. Sosh survived eating stray animals. Cats mostly. People hear the stories, but they can't fathom the terror, the agony. You are power less. You just take it. But even that, even that horror-you get used to it. Like comfort, suffering can become the norm.

Sosh remembered when he first came to the USA. You could buy food anywhere. There were no long lines. There were no shortages. He remembered buying a chicken. He kept it in his freezer. He couldn't believe it. A chicken. He would wake up late at night in a cold sweat. He would run to the freezer and open it up and just stare at the chicken and feel safe.

He still did that.

Most of his old Soviet colleagues missed the old days. They missed the power. A few had returned to the old country, but most had stayed. They were bitter men. Sosh hired some of his old colleagues because he trusted them and wanted to help. They had history. And when times were hard and his old KGB friends were feeling particularly sorry for themselves, Sosh knew that they too opened their refrigerators and marveled at how far they'd come.

You don't worry about happiness and fulfillment when you're starving.

It is good to remember that.

You live among this ridiculous wealth and you get lost. You worry about nonsense like spirituality and inner health and satisfaction and relationships. You have no idea how lucky you are. You have no idea what it is like to starve, to watch yourself turn to bones, to sit by hopelessly while someone you love, someone otherwise young and healthy slowly dies, and a part of you, some horrible instinctive part of you, is almost happy because now you will get a bite-and-a-half-size sliver of bread today instead of just a bite size.

Those who believe that we are anything other than animals are blind. All humans are savages. The ones who are well fed are just lazier. They don't need to kill to get their food. So they dress up and find so- called loftier pursuits that make them believe that they are somehow above it all. Such nonsense. Savages are just hungrier. That was all. You do horrible things to survive. Anyone who believes that they are above that is delusional.

The message had come in on his computer.

That was how it worked nowadays. Not by phone, not in person. Computers. E-mails. It was so easy to communicate that way and not be traced. He wondered how the old Soviet regime would have handled the Internet. Controlling information had been such a large part of what they did. But how do you control it with something like the Internet? Or maybe it wasn't that big of a difference. In the end, the way you rounded up your enemies was through leaks. People talked. People sold one another out. People betrayed their neighbors and loved ones. Some times for a hunk of bread. Sometimes for a ticket to freedom. It all de pended on how hungry you were.

Sosh read the message again. It was short and simple and Sosh wasn't sure what to do about it. They had a phone number. They had an ad dress. But it was the first line of the e-mail that he kept coming back to. So simply stated.

He read it again:

WE FOUND HER.

And now he wondered what he should do about it.

I put a call in to Muse. "Can you find Cingle Shaker for me?"

"I guess. Why, what's up?"

"I want to ask her some questions about how MVD works."

"I'm on it."

I hung up and turned back to Lucy. She was still looking out the window.

"You okay?"

"I trusted him."

I was going to say I'm sorry or something equally hackneyed, but I decided to keep it to myself. "You were right," she said. "About?" "Lonnie Berger was probably my closest friend. I trusted him more than anyone. Well, except for Ira, who's got one arm locked in the strait-jacket as it is."

I tried to smile.

"By the way, how’s myself-pity act? Pretty attractive, right?"

"Actually," I said, "it is."

She turned away from the window and looked at me.

"Are we going to try again, Cope? I mean, after this is all done and we figure out what happened to your sister. Are we going back to our lives-or are we going to try to see what could happen here?"

"I love when you beat around the bush."

Lucy wasn’t smiling.

"Yeah," I said. "I want to try."

"Good answer. Very good."

"Thanks."

"I don't always want to be the one risking my heart."

"You're not," I said. "I'm there too."

"So who killed Margot and Doug?" she asked.

"Wow, that was a quick segue."

"Yeah, well, the faster we figure out what happened…" She shrugged. "You know something?" I said. "What?" "It's just so damn easy to remember why I fell for you." Lucy turned away. "I am not going to cry, I am not going to cry, I am not going to cry…" "I don't know who killed them anymore," I said.

"Okay. How about Wayne Steubens? Do you still think he did it?"

"I don't know. We do know that he didn't kill Gil Perez."

"Do you think he told you the truth?"

"He said he hooked up with you."

"Yuck."

"But that he only got to second base."

"If he counts the time he intentionally bumped into me during a softball game and copped a feel, well, then technically he's telling the truth. Did he really say that?"

"He did. He also said he slept with Margot."

"That's probably true. Lots of guys had Margot."

"Not me."

"That's because I snagged you as soon as you arrived."

"That you did. He also said that Gil and Margot had broken up."

"So?"

"Do you think it's true?" I asked.

"I don't know. But you know how camp was. It was like a life cycle in seven weeks. People were always going out and then breaking up and then finding someone new." True. "But?" "But the common theory was that both couples went into the woods to, uh, mess around." "Like we were doing," she said.

"Right. And my sister and Doug were still an item. Not in love or anything, but you know what I mean. My point is, if Gil and Margot were no longer together, why would they have been sneaking into the woods?"

"I see. So if she and Gil were broken up-and we know Gil didn't die in those woods…" I thought about what Raya Singh had suggested – a woman who had clearly known and even been close to Gil Perez, aka Manolo Santiago.

"Maybe Gil killed Margot. Maybe Camille and Doug just stumbled across that."

"So Gil silenced them."

"Right. Now he’s in trouble. Think about it. He's a poor kid. He has a brother with a criminal record. He'd be under suspicion as it was."

"So he faked like he died too," she said.

We both sat there.

"We're missing something," she said.

"I know."

"We might be getting close."

"Or we might be way off."

"One of the two," Lucy agreed.

Man, it felt good to be with her.

"Something else," I said.

"What?"

"Those journals. What were they talking about-you finding me covered with blood and me saying we can't tell anyone?"

"I don't know."

"Let's start with the first part-the part they got right. About how we sneaked away." "Okay." "How would they know that?" "I don't know," she said. "How would they know you led me away?" "Or"-she stopped, swallowed-"how I felt about you?" Silence. Lucy shrugged. "Maybe it was just obvious to anyone who saw the way I looked at you."

"I'm trying hard to focus here and not smile."

"Don't try too hard," she said. "Anyway, we got part one of the journal. Let's move on to part two."

"The stuff about me covered in blood. Where the hell did they come up with that?"

"No idea. But you know what really creeps me out?"

"What?"

"That they knew we got separated. That we did lose sight of each other."

I had wondered about that too.

"Who would know about that?" I asked.

"I never told a soul," she said.

"Neither did I."

"Someone could have guessed," Lucy said. She stopped, looked up at the ceiling. "Or…"

"Or what?"

"You never told anyone about us getting separated, right?"

"Right."

"And I never told anyone about us getting separated."

"So?"

"So then there's only one explanation," Lucy said.

"That being?"

She looked straight at me. "Someone saw us that night."

Silence.

"Gil maybe," I said. "Or Wayne."

"They're our two murder suspects, right?"

"Right."

"Then who murdered Gil?"

I stopped.

"Gil didn't kill himself and move his body," she went on. "And Wayne Steubens is in a maximum security facility in Virginia."

I thought about that.

"So if the killer wasn't Wayne and it wasn't Gil," she said, "who else is there?"

"Found her," Muse said, as she walked into my office.

Cingle Shaker followed. Cingle knew how to make an entrance, but I wasn't sure that was a conscious effort on her part. There was some thing fierce in her movements, as if the air itself better make way. Muse was no potted plant, but she looked like one next to Cingle Shaker.

They both sat. Cingle crossed the long legs.

"So," Cingle said, "MVD is after you big-time."

"Looks that way."

"It is that way. I've checked. It's a scorched-earth operation. No expense spared. No lives spared either. They destroyed your brother-in-law already. They sent a guy to Russia. They've put people on the street, I don't know how many. They had someone try to bribe your old buddy Wayne Steubens. In short, they're going to carve out any piece of your ass they can get their blade into."

"Any word on what they got?"

"Not yet, no. Just what you already know."

I told her about Lucy's journals. Cingle nodded as I spoke.

"They've done that before. How accurate are the journals?"

"A lot is wrong. I never stumbled across blood or said we have to keep this secret or anything like that. But they know how we felt about each other. They know we sneaked away and how and all that."

"Interesting."

"How would they have gotten their information?"

"Hard to say."

"Any thoughts?"

She mulled it over for a few moments. "Like I said before, this is how they operate. They want to stir something up. It doesn't matter if it's the truth or not. Sometimes you need to shift reality. Do you know what I mean?"

"No, not really."

"How to explain…?" Cingle thought about it a moment. "When I first got to MVD, do you know what I was hired to do?"

I shook my head.

"Catch cheating spouses. Its big business-adultery. My own firm too. It used to be forty percent, maybe more. And MVD is the best at it, though their methods are a tad unorthodox."

"How?"

"Depends on the case, but the first step was always the same: Read the client. In other words, see what the client really wants. Do they want the truth? Do they want to be lied to? Do they want reassurance, a way to get a divorce, what?"

"I'm not following. Don't they all want the truth?"

"Yes and no. Look, I hated that end of the business. I didn't mind surveillance or background checks-you know, following a husband or wife, checking out credit card charges, phone records, that kind of thing. That's all a tad seedy, but I get that. It makes sense. But then there's this other side of the business."

"What other side?"

"The side that wants there to be a problem. Some wives, for example, want their husbands to be cheating."

I looked at Muse. "I'm lost."

"No, you're not. A man is supposed to be faithful forever, right? I know this one guy. I'm talking to him on the phone-this is before we ever met face-to-face-and he's telling me how he would never, ever cheat, how he loves his wife, blah, blah, blah. But the guy is some ugly slob who works as an assistant manager at a CVS or something-so I'm thinking to myself, 'Who is going to come on to him?' Right?"

"I'm still not following."

"It is easier to be a good, honorable guy when there is no temptation. But in cases like that, MVD would shift reality. By using me as bait."

"For what?"

"For what do you think? If a wife wanted to nail her husband for cheating, my job would be to seduce him. That's how MVD worked. The husband would be at a bar or something. They would send me out as a"-she made quote marks with her fingers-"fidelity test."

So?

"So I hate to sound immodest, but take a look." Cingle spread her arms. Even dressed down in a loose sweater, the sight was indeed impressive. "If that's not unfair entrapment, I don't know what is."

"Because you're attractive?"

"Yep."

I shrugged. "If the guy's committed, it shouldn't make a difference how attractive the woman is." Cingle Shaker made a face. "Please." "Please what?" "Are you being intentionally dense? How hard do you think it would be for me to get Mr. CVS, for example, to look in my direction?"

"To look is one thing. To do more than that is another."

Cingle looked at Muse. "Is he for real?"

Muse shrugged.

"Let me put it this way," Cingle said. "I probably ran, oh, thirty or forty of these so-called fidelity tests. Guess how many married guys turned me down?" "I have no idea."

"Two."

"Not great stats, I admit-"