Harlan Coben - The Woods

He stopped for a second. His smile was sad. "Camille."

"Yes."

"Poor thing."

"Did he mention her?"

"I loved your dad, you know. Such a sweet man, so hurt by life."

"Did Gil mention what happened to my sister?"

"Poor Camille."

"Yes. Camille. Did he say anything about her?"

Ira started to climb again. "So much blood that night."

"Please, Ira, I need you to focus. Did Gil say anything at all about Camille?" "No." "Then what did he want?" "Same as you." "What's that?" He turned. "Answers." "To what questions?" "The same as yours. What happened that night. He didn't under stand, Cope. Its over. They're dead. The killer is in jail. You should let the dead rest." "Gil wasn't dead." "Until that day, the day he visited me, he was. Do you under stand?"

"No."

"It's over. The dead are gone. The living are safe."

I reached out and grabbed his arm. "Ira, what did Gil Perez say to you?" "You don't understand." We stopped. Ira looked down the hill. I followed his gaze. I could only make out the roof of the house now. We were in the thick of the woods. Both of us were breathing harder than we should. Ira's face was pale.

"It has to stay buried."

"What does?"

"That's what I told Gil. It was over. Move on. It was so long ago. He was dead. Now he wasn't. But he should have been."

"Ira, listen to me. What did Gil say to you?"

"You won't leave it alone, will you?"

"No," I said, "I won't leave it alone."

Ira nodded. He looked very sad. Then he reached underneath his poncho and pulled out a gun, aimed it in my direction, and without saying another word, he fired at me.

"What we have here is a problem/'

Sheriff Lowell wiped his nose with a handkerchief that looked large enough to be a clowns prop. His station was more modern than what Muse had expected, but then again her expectations weren't high. The building was new, the design sleek and clean with computer monitors and cubicles. Lots of whites and grays.

"What you have here," Muse replied, "is a dead body."

"That's not what I mean." He gestured toward the cup in her hand. "How's the coffee?" "Outstanding, actually." "Used to be crap. Some guys made it too strong, some too weak. It got left on the burner forever. And then last year, one of the fine citizens of this municipality donated one of those coffee pod machines to the station. You ever use one of those things, the pods?"

"Sheriff?"

"Yes."

"Is this your attempt at wooing me with your aw-shucks, homespun charm?"

He grinned. "A little."

"Consider me wooed. What's our problem?"

"We just found a body that's been in the woods, by early estimates, a pretty long time. We know three things: Caucasian, female, height of five-seven. That's all we know for now. I have already combed through the records. There were no missing or unaccounted girls within a fifty-mile radius who match that description."

"We both know who it is," Muse said.

"Not yet we don't."

"You think, what, another five-foot seven-inch girl was murdered in that camp around the same time and buried near the other two bodies?"

"I didn't say that."

"Then what did you say?"

"That we don't have a definite ID. Doc O'Neill is working on it. We've ordered Camille Copeland's dental records. We should know for sure in a day or two. No rush. We have other cases."

"No rush?"

"That's what I said."

"Then I'm not following."

"See, this is where I have to wonder, Investigator Muse-what are you first and foremost? Are you a law enforcement office or a political crony?"

"What the hell does that mean?"

"You're the county chief investigator," Lowell said. "Now, I'd like to believe a person, especially a lady your age, reached that level based on her talent and skill. But I also live in the real world. I understand graft and favoritism and ass kissing. So I'm asking-"

"I earned it." "I'm sure you did."

Muse shook her head. "I can't believe I have to justify myself to you."

"But, alas, my dear, you do. Because right now, if this was your case and I came waltzing in and you knew that I was going to run right home and tell my boss-someone who was, at the very least, involved-what would you do?"

"You think I'd sweep his involvement under the rug?"

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… 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.