The Woods (3 page)

'Tm TELLING YOU," I SAID YET AGAIN. "It's GlL PEREZ."

"The guy who died with your sister twenty years ago."

"Obviously," I said, "he didn’t die."

I don't think they believed me.

"Maybe it's his brother," York tried.

"With my sister's ring?"

Dillon added, "That ring isn't unusual. Twenty years ago they were all the rage. I think my sister had the same one. Got it for her sweet sixteen, I think. Was your sisters engraved?"

No.

"So we don't know for sure."

We talked for a while, but there was not much to add. I really didn't know anything. They would be in touch, they said. They'd find Gil Perez's family, see if they could make a positive ID. I didn't know what to do. I felt lost and numb and confused.

My Blackberry and cell phone were going nuts. I was late now for an appointment with the defense team in the biggest case of my career.

Two wealthy collegiate tennis players from the ritzy suburb of Short Hills stood accused of raping a sixteen-year-old African-American girl from Irvington named, and no, her name didn't help, Chamique Johnson. The trial had already started, had hit a delay, and now I hoped to cut a jail-time deal before we had to start up again.

The cops gave me a lift to my office in Newark. I knew that opposing counsel would think my tardiness was a ploy, but there wasn't much to be done about that. When I entered my office, the two lead defense lawyers were already seated.

One, Mort Pubin, stood and started bellowing. "You son of a bitch! Do you know what time it is? Do you?"

"Mort, did you lose weight?"

"Don't start that crap with me."

"Wait, no, that's not it. You're taller, right? You grew. Just like a real boy." "Up yours, Cope. We've been sitting here for an hour!" The other lawyer, Flair Hickory, just sat there, legs crossed, not a care in the world. Flair was the one I paid attention to. Mort was loud and obnoxious and showy. Flair was the defense attorney I feared like no other. He was not what anyone expected. In the first place, Flair – he swore it was his real name but I had my doubts, was gay. Okay, that wasn't a big deal. Plenty of attorneys are gay, but Flair was gay gay, like the love child of Liberace and Liza Minnelli, who'd been brought up on nothing but Streisand and show tunes.

Flair did not tone it down for the courtroom, he intentionally ratcheted it up.

He let Mort rant another minute or two. Flair flexed his fingers and studied his manicure. He seemed pleased by it. Then he raised his hand and silenced Mort with a fluttery wave.

"Enough," Flair said. He wore a purple suit. Or maybe it was eggplant or periwinkle, some such hue. I'm not good with colors. The shirt was the same color The Wood s 31 as the suit. So was the solid tie. So was the pocket hanky. So were-good Lord-the shoes. Flair noticed me noticing the clothes.

"You like it?" Flair asked me.

"Barney joins the Village People," I said.

Flair frowned at me.

"What?"

"Barney, the Village People," he said, pursing his lips. "Could you possibly come up with two more dated, overused pop references?" "I was going to say the purple Teletubby, but I couldn't remember his name."

"Tinky Winky. And that's still dated." He crossed his arms and sighed. "So now that we are all together in this clearly hetero-decorated office, can we just let our clients walk and be done with this?"

I met his eye. "They did it, Flair.''

He wouldn't deny it. "Are you really going to put that deranged stripper-cum-prostitute on the stand?" I was going to defend her, but he already knew the facts. "I am." Flair tried not to smile. "I will," he said, "destroy her." I said nothing. He would. I knew that. And that was the thing about this act. He could slice and dice and still make you like him. I'd seen him do it before. You'd think at least some of the jury would consist of homophobes and that they'd hate or fear him. But that wasn't how it worked with Flair. The female jurists wanted to go shopping with him and tell him about their husbands' inadequacies. The men found him so nonthreatening that they thought there was no way he could pull anything over on them.

It made for a lethal defense.

"What are you looking for?" I asked.

Flair grinned. "You're nervous, aren't you?"

"I'm just hoping to spare a rape victim from your bullying."

"Moi?" He put a hand to his chest. "I'm insulted."

I just looked at him. As I did, the door opened. Loren Muse, my chief investigator, walked in. Muse was my age, midthirties, and had been a homicide investigator under my predecessor, Ed Steinberg. Muse sat down without a word or even a wave. I turned back to Flair. "What do you want?" I asked again. "For starters," Flair said, "I want Ms. Chamique Johnson to apologize for destroying the reputation of two fine, upstanding boys." I looked at him some more. "But we'll settle for an immediate dropping of all charges." "Dream on." "Cope, Cope, Cope." Flair shook his head and tsk-tsked. "I said no." "You're adorable when you're macho, but you know that already, don't you?" Flair looked over at Loren Muse. A stricken expression crossed his face. "Dear God, what are you wearing?" Muse sat up. "What?" "Your wardrobe. It's like a frightening new Fox reality show: When Policewomen Dress Themselves. Dear God. And those shoes…" "They're practical," Muse said. "Sweetheart, fashion rule one: The words shoes and practical should never be in the same sentence." Without blinking an eye, Flair turned back to me: "Our clients cop to a misdemeanor and you give them probation." "No." "Can I just say two words to you?" "Those two words wouldn't be shoes and practical, would they?" "No, something far more dire for you, I'm afraid: Cal and Jim." He paused. I glanced at Muse. She shifted in her seat. "Those two little names," Flair went on, a lilt in his voice. "Cal and Jim. Music to my ears. Do you know what I'm saying, Cope?" I didn't take the bait. "In your alleged victim's statement… you read her statement, didn't you?… in her statement she clearly says that her rapists were named Cal and Jim."

"It means nothing," I said.

"Well, see, sweetie, and try to pay attention here because I think this could be very important to your case, our clients are named Barry Marantz and Edward Jenrette. Not Cal and Jim. Barry and Edward. Say them out loud with me. Come on, you can do it. Barry and Edward. Now, do those two names sound at all like Cal and Jim?"

Mort Pubin answered that one. He grinned and said, "No, they don't, Flair."

I kept still.

"And, you see, that's your victims statement," Flair went on. "It really is so wonderful, don't you think? Hold on, let me find it. I just love reading it. Mort, do you have it? Wait, here it is." Flair had on half-moon reading glasses. He cleared his throat and changed voices. "'The two boys who did this. Their names were Cal and Jim.'"

He lowered the paper and looked up as if expecting applause.

I said, "Barry Marantz's semen was found in her."

"Ah, yes, but young Barry, a handsome boy, by the way, and we both know that matters, admits to a consensual sex act with your eager, young Ms. Johnson earlier in the evening. We all know that Chamique was at their fraternity house, that's not in dispute, is it?"

I didn't like it, but I said, "No, that's not in dispute."

"In fact, we both agree that Chamique Johnson had worked there the week before as a stripper." "Exotic dancer," I corrected. He just looked at me. "And so she returned. Without the benefit of money being exchanged. We can agree on that too, can't we?" He didn't bother waiting for me. "And I can get five, six boys to say she was acting very friendly with Barry. Come on, Cope. You've been around this block before. She's a stripper. She's underage. She sneaked into a college fraternity party. She got nailed by the handsome rich kid. He, what, blew her off or didn't call or whatever. She got upset."

"And plenty of bruises," I said.

Mort pounded the table with a fist that looked like road kill. "She's just looking for a big payday," Mort said.

Flair said, "Not now, Mort."

"Screw that. We all know the deal. She's going after them because they're loaded." Mort gave me his best flinty-eyed stare. "You do know the whore has a record, right? Chamique"-he stretched out her name in a mocking way that pissed me off, "has already got a lawyer too. Going to shake our boys down. This is just a big payday for that cow. That's all. A big friggin' payday."

"Mort?" I said.

"What?"

"Shh, the grown-ups are talking now."

Mort sneered. "You're no better, Cope."

I waited.

"The only reason you're prosecuting them is because they're wealthy. And you know it. You're playing that rich-versus-poor crap in the media too. Don't pretend you aren't. You know what sucks about that? You know what really burns my butt?"

I had itched an ass this morning and now I had burned a butt. A big day for me.

"Tell me, Mort."

"It's accepted in our society," he said.

"What is?"

"Hating rich people." Mort threw his hands up, outraged. "You hear it all the time. 'I hate him, he's so rich.' Look at Enron and those other scandals. It is now an encouraged prejudice-to hate rich people. If I ever said, 'Hey, I hate poor people,' I'd be strung up. But call the rich names? Well, you have a free pass. Everyone is allowed to hate the rich."

I looked at him. "Maybe they should form a support group."

"Up yours, Cope."

"No, I mean it. Trump, the Halliburton guys. I mean, the world hasn't been fair to them. A support group. That's what they should have. Maybe hold a telethon or something."

Flair Hickory rose. Theatrically, of course. I half-expected him to curtsy. "I think we're done here. See you tomorrow, handsome. And you", he looked at Loren Muse, opened his mouth, closed it, shuddered.

"Flair?"

He looked at me.

"That Cal and Jim thing," I said. "It just proves she's telling the truth." Flair smiled. "How's that, exactly?" "Your boys were smart. They called themselves Cal and Jim, so she'd say that."

He raised an eyebrow. "You think that will fly?"

"Why else would she say that, Flair?"

"Pardon?"

"I mean, if Chamique wanted to set your clients up, why wouldn't she use their correct names? Why would she make up all that dialogue with Cal and Jim? You read the statement. 'Turn her this way, Cal.' 'Bend her over, Jim.' 'Whoa, Cal, she's loving this.' Why would she make that all up?"

Mort took that one. "Because she's a money-hungry whore who is dumber than dirt?"

But I could see that I'd scored a point with Flair.

"It doesn't make sense," I said to him.

Flair leaned in toward me. "Here's the thing, Cope: It doesn't have to. You know that. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it doesn't make sense. But see, that leads to confusion. And confusion has the major hots for my favorite hunk, Mr. Reasonable Doubt." He smiled. "You might have some physical evidence. But, well, you put that girl on the stand, I will not hold back. It will be game, set, match. We both know that."

They headed to the door.

"Toodles, my friend. See you in court."

Muse and I said nothing for a few moments.

Cal and Jim. The names deflated us.

The position of chief investigator was almost always held by some male lifer, a gruff guy slightly burned out by what he'd seen over the years, with a big belly and a heavy sigh and a well-worn trench coat. It would be that mans job to maneuver the guileless county prosecutor, a political appointee like me, through the rings of the Essex County legal system.

Loren Muse was maybe five feet tall and weighed about as much as your average fourth grader. My choosing Muse had caused some nasty ripples among the veterans, but here was my own private prejudice: I prefer hiring single women of a certain age. They worked harder and were more loyal. I know, I know, but I have found this to be true in almost every case. You find a single woman over the age of, say, thirty-three, and she lives for her career and will give you hours and devotion the married ones with kids will never give you.

To be fair, Muse was also an incredibly gifted investigator. I liked talking things out with her. I would say "muse"-ing them over, but then you'd understandably groan. Right now she was staring down at the floor.

"What's on your mind?" I asked her.

"Are these shoes really that ugly?"

I looked at her and waited.

"Put simply," she said, "if we don't find a way to explain Cal and Jim, we're screwed."

I stared at the ceiling.

"What?" Muse said.

"Those two names."

"What about them?"

"Why?" I asked for the umpteenth time. "Why Cal and Jim?"

"Don't know."

"You questioned Chamique again?"

"I did. Her story is frighteningly consistent. They used those two names. I think you're right. They simply did that as a cover, so her story would sound idiotic."

"But why those two names?"

"Probably just random."

I frowned. "We're missing something, Muse."

She nodded. "I know."

I have always been pretty good about partitioning my life. We all are, but I am especially good at it. I can create separate universes in my own world. I can deal with one aspect of my life and not have it interfere with another in anyway. Some people watch a gangster movie and wonder how the mobster can be so violent on the streets and so loving at home. I get that. I have that ability.

I'm not proud of this. It is not necessarily a great attribute. It protects, yes, but I have seen what actions it can justify.

So for the past half hour I had been pushing away the obvious questions: If Gil Perez had been alive this whole time, where had he been?

What had happened that night in the woods? And of course, the biggest question: If Gil Perez had survived that awful night…

Had my sister survived too?

"Cope?"

It was Muse.

"What's going on?"

I wanted to tell her. But now was not the time. I need to sort it through myself first. Figure out what was what. Make sure that body really did belong to Gil Perez. I stood and walked toward her.

"Cal and Jim," I said. "We have to figure out what the hell that's all about, and fast."

My wife's sister, Greta, and her husband, Bob, lived in a McMansion on a new cul-de-sac that looks almost precisely the same as every other new cul-de-sac in North America. The lots are too small for the ginormous brick edifices that stretch across them. The houses have a variety of shapes and shades but somehow still look exactly the same. Everything is a little too brushed, trying to look aged and only looking more faux.

I had met Greta first, before my wife. My mother ran away before I turned twenty, but I remember something she told me a few months before Camille went into those woods. We were the poorest citizens in our rather mixed town. We were immigrants who had come over from the old Soviet Union when I was four. We had started out okay, we had arrived in the USA as heroes, but things turned very bad very quickly.

We were living on the top floor of a three-family dwelling in Newark, though we went to school at Columbia High in West Orange. My father, Vladimir Copinsky (he anglicized it to Copeland), who had once been a doctor in Leningrad, couldn't get a license to practice in this country. He ended up working as a house painter. My mother, a frail beauty named Natasha, the once-proud, well-educated daughter of aristocratic college professors, took on a variety of cleaning jobs for the wealthier families in Short Hills and Livingston but could never hold on to one for very long.

On this particular day, my sister, Camille, came home from school and announced in a teasing voice that the town rich girl had a crush on me. My mother was excited by this.

"You should ask her out," my mother said to me.

I made a face. "Have you seen her?"

"I have."

"Then you know," I said, speaking as a seventeen-year-old would. "She's a beast."

"There is an old Russian expression," my mother countered, raising a finger to clarify her point. "A rich girl is beautiful when she stands on her money."

That was the first thought that came through my mind when I met Greta. Her parents, my former in-laws, I guess, still the grandparents of my Cara, are loaded. My wife came from money. It is all in trust for Cara. I'm the executor. Jane and I discussed long and hard the age at which she should get the bulk of the estate. You don't want someone too young inheriting that kind of money, but hey, on the other hand, it is hers.

My Jane was so practical after the doctors had announced her death sentence. I couldn't listen. You learn a lot when someone you love goes down for the count. I learned that my wife had amazing strength and bravery I would have thought unfathomable before her illness. And I found that I had neither.

Cara and Madison, my niece, were playing in the driveway. The days were starting to get longer now. Madison sat on the asphalt and drew with pieces of chalk that resembled cigars. My own daughter rode one of those motorized, slow-moving minicars that are all the rage with today’s under-six crowd. The kids who own them never play on them.

Only visitors on play dates do. Play dates. Man, I hated that term.

I stepped out of the car and shouted, "Hey, kiddos."

I waited for the two six-year-old girls to stop what they were doing and sprint over to me and wrap me in big hugs. Yeah, right. Madison glanced my way, but she couldn't have looked less interested without some sort of surgical cerebral disconnect. My own daughter pretended not to hear. Cara steered the Barbie Jeep in a circle. The battery was fading fast, the electric vehicle churning at a speed slower than my uncle Morris reaching for the check.

Greta pushed open the screen door. "Hey."

"Hey," I said. "So how was the rest of the gymnastics show?"

"Don't worry," Greta said, shading her eyes with her hand in a pseudo salute. "I have the whole thing on video."

Cute.

"So what was up with those two cops?"

I shrugged. "Just work."

She didn't buy it but she didn't press. "I have Cara's backpack inside."

She let the door close behind her. There were workers coming around back. Bob and Greta were putting in a swimming pool with matching landscaping. They'd been thinking about it for several years but wanted to wait until Madison and Cara were old enough to be safe.

"Come on," I said to my daughter, "we need to go."

Cara ignored me again, pretending that the whir of the pink Barbie Jeep was overwhelming her aural faculties. I frowned and started toward her. Cara was ridiculously stubborn. I would like to say, "like her mother," but my Jane was the most patient and understanding woman you ever met. It was amazing. You see qualities both good and bad in your children. In the case of Cara, all the negative qualities seemed to emanate from her father.

Madison put down the chalk. "Come on, Cara."

Cara ignored her too. Madison shrugged at me and gave me that kid-world-weary sigh. "Hi, Uncle Cope."

"Hey, sweetie. Have a good play date?"

"No," Madison said with her fists on her hips. "Cara never plays with me. She just plays with my toys."

I tried to look understanding.

Greta came out with the backpack. "We already did the homework," she said.

"Thank you."

She waved it off. "Cara, sweetheart? Your father is here."

Cara ignored her too. I knew that a tantrum was coming. That too, I guess, she gets from her father. In our Disney-inspired worldview, the widowed father-daughter relationship is a magic one. Witness pretty much every kid film, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, A Little Princess, Aladdin, you get the point. In movies, not having a mother seemed to be a pretty nifty thing, which, when you think about it, is really perverse. In real life, not having a mother was just about the worst thing that could happen to a little girl.

I made my voice firm. "Cara, we're going now."

Her face was set, I braced for the confrontation, but fortunately the gods interceded. The Barbie battery went totally dead. The pink Jeep stopped. Cara tried to body-language the vehicle another foot or two, but Barbie wouldn't budge. Cara sighed, stepped out of the Jeep, and started for the car.

"Say good-bye to Aunt Greta and your cousin."

She did so in a voice sullen enough to make a teenager envious.

When we got home, Cara snapped on the TV without asking permission and settled in for an episode of Sponge Bob. It seems as though Sponge Bob is on all the time. I wonder if there is an all-Sponge Bob station. There also only seems to be maybe three different episodes of the show. That did not seem to deter kids, though.

I was going to say something, but I let it go. Right now I just wanted her distracted. I was still trying to put together what was going on with both the Chamique Johnson rape case and now the sudden reemergence and murder of Gil Perez. I confess that my big case, the biggest of my career, was getting the short end of the stick.

I started preparing dinner. We eat out most nights or order in. I do have a nanny-housekeeper, but today was her day off. "Hot dogs sound good?"

"Whatever."

The phone rang. I picked it up.

"Mr. Copeland? This is Detective Tucker York."

"Yes, Detective, what can I do for you?"

"We located Gil Perez's parents."

I felt my grip tighten on the phone. "Did they identify the body?"

"Not yet."

"What did you tell them?"

"Look, no offense, Mr. Copeland, but this isn't the kind of thing you just say over the phone, you know? 'Your dead child might have been alive this whole time-and oh yeah, he's just been murdered'?"

"I understand."

"So we were pretty vague. We're going to bring them in and see if we can get an ID. But here's the other thing: How sure are you that it's Gil Perez?"

"Pretty sure."

"You understand that's not really good enough."

"I do."

"And anyway, it's late. My partner and I are off duty. So we're going to have one of our men drive the Perezes down tomorrow morning."

"So this is, what, a courtesy call?"

"Something like that. I understand your interest. And maybe you should be here in the morning, you know, in case any weird questions come up."

"Where?"

"The morgue again. You need a ride?"

"No, I know my way."