Harlan Coben - The Woods

Men are pigs, yes. But so are adolescents. It is an odd world. Nature demands that males between the ages of, say, fourteen and seventeen be come walking hormonal erections. You cant help it. Yet, according to society, you are too young to do anything about it other than suffer. And that suffering increased tenfold around a Margot Green.

God has some sense of humor, don't you think?

"I remember," I said.

"Such a tease," Wayne said. "You do know that she dumped Gil?"

"Margot?"

"Yep. Right before the murder." He arched an eyebrow. "Makes you wonder, doesn't it?"

I didn't move, let him talk, hoped he'd say more. He did.

"I had her, you know. Margot. But she wasn't as good as Lucy." He put his hand to his mouth as though he had said too much. Quite a performance. I stayed very still. "You do know that we had a fling before you arrived that summer, right? Lucy and me."

"Uh-huh."

"You look a little green, Cope. You aren't jealous, are you?"

"It was twenty years ago."

"It was, yes. And to be honest, I only got to second base. Bet you got farther, Cope. Bet you popped that cherry, didn't you?"

He was trying to get a rise out of me. I wouldn't play that game.

"A gentleman never kisses and tells," I said.

"Right, sure. And don't get me wrong. You two were something. A blind man could see it. You and Lucy were the real deal. It was very special, wasn't it?"

He smiled at me and blinked rapidly.

"It was," I said, "a long time ago."

"You don't really believe that, do you? We get older, sure, but in most ways, we still feel exactly the same as we did back then. Don’t you think?"

"Not really, Wayne."

"Well, life does march on, I guess. They give us Internet access, you know. No porno sites or anything like that, and they check all our communications. But I did a Web search on you. I know you're a widower with a six-year-old girl. I couldn't find her name online though. What is it?"

Couldn't help it this time-the effect was visceral. Hearing this psycho mention my daughter was worse than having her photograph in my office. I bit back and got to the point.

"What happened in those woods, Wayne?"

"People died."

"Don't play games with me."

"Only one of us is playing games, Cope. If you want the truth, let's start with you. Why are you here now? Today. Because the timing is not coincidental. We both know that."

I looked behind me. I knew that we were being watched. I had re quested no eavesdropping. I signaled for someone to come in. A guard opened the door.

"Sir?" he said to me.

"Has Mr. Steubens had any visitors over the past, say, two weeks?"

"Yes, sir. One."

"Who?"

"I can get that name for you, if you’d like."

"Please do."

The guard left. I looked back at Wayne. Wayne did not appear up set. "Touche," he said. "But there's no need. I will tell you. A man named Curt Smith."

"I don't know that name."

"Ah, but he knows you. You see, he works for a company called MVD."

"A private detective?"

"Yes."

"And he came because he wanted" -I saw it now, those damn sons of bitches -" he wanted dirt on me."

Wayne Steubens touched his nose and then pointed at me.

"What did he offer you?" I asked.

"His boss used to be a big fed. He said that he could get me better treatment."

"Did you tell him anything?"

"No. For two reasons. One, his offer was total nonsense. An ex-fed can't do anything for me."

"And two?"

Wayne Steubens leaned forward. He made sure I was looking him square in the eye. "I want you to listen to me, Cope. I want you to listen to me very carefully."

I held his gaze.

"I have done a lot of bad things in my life. I won't go into details. There is no need. I have made mistakes. I have spent the past eighteen years in this hellhole paying for them. I don't belong here. I really don't. I won't talk about Indiana or Virginia or any of that. The people who died there-I didn't know them. They were strangers."

He stopped, closed his eyes, rubbed his face. He had a wide face. The complexion was shiny, waxy even. He opened his eyes again, made sure that I was still looking at him. I was. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to.

"But-and here's your number-two reason, Cope-I have no idea what happened in those woods twenty years ago. Because I wasn't there. I don't know what happened to my friends-not strangers, Cope, friends-Margot Green or Doug Billingham or Gil Perez or your sister."

Silence.

"Did you kill those boys in Indiana and Virginia?" I asked.

"Would you believe me if I said no?"

"There was a lot of evidence."

"Yes, there was."

"But you're still proclaiming your innocence."

I am.

"Are you innocent, Wayne?"

"Lets focus on one thing at a time, shall we? I am talking to you about that summer. I am talking to you about that camp. I didn't kill anyone there. I don't know what happened in those woods."

I said nothing.

"You are a prosecutor now, right?"

I nodded.

"People are digging into your past. I understand that. I wouldn't really pay too much attention. Except now you're here too. Which means something happened. Something new. Something involving that night."

"What's your point, Wayne?"

"You always thought I killed them," he said. "But now, for the first time, you're not so sure, are you?"

I said nothing.

"Something has changed. I can see it in your face. For the first time you seriously wonder if I had something to do with that night. And if you have learned something new, you have an obligation to tell me about it."

"I have no obligations, Wayne. You weren't tried for those murders.

You were tried and convicted for murders in Indiana and Virginia."

He spread his arms. "Then where's the harm in telling me what you learned?"

I thought about that. He had a point. If I told him that Gil Perez was still alive, it would do nothing to overturn his convictions-because he wasn't convicted of killing Gil. But it would cast a long shadow. A serial killer case is a bit like the proverbial and literal house of corpses: If you learn that a victim wasn't murdered-at least, not then and not by your serial killer-then that house of corpses could easily implode.

I chose discretion for now. Until we had a positive ID on Gil Perez, there was no reason to say anything anyway. I looked at him. Was he a lunatic? I thought so. But how the hell could I be sure? Either way I had learned all I could today. So I stood.

"Good-bye, Wayne."

"Good-bye, Cope."

I started for the door.

"Cope?"

I turned.

"You know I didn't kill them, don't you?"

I did not reply.

"And if I didn't kill them," he went on, "you have to wonder about everything that happened that night-not only to Margot, Doug, Gil and Camille. But what happened to me. And to you."

"Ira, look at me a second."

Lucy had waited until her father seemed his most lucid. She sat across from him in his room. Ira had broken out his old vinyl’s today. There were covers with a long-haired James Taylor on Sweet Baby James and another of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road (with a barefoot and therefore "dead" Paul). Marvin Gaye wore a scarf for What's Going On and Jim Morrison moped sexuality on the cover of the original Doors album. ((T "v)› Ira?

He was smiling at an old picture from their camp days. The yellow VW Beetle had been decorated by the oldest-girl bunk. They put flowers and peace signs all over it. Ira was standing in the middle with his arms crossed. The girls surrounded the car. Everyone wore shorts and T-shirts and sun-kissed smiles. Lucy remembered that day. It had been a good one, one of those you stick in a box and put in a bottom drawer and take out and look at when you're feeling particularly blue.