She nodded.
I turned to her. 'That's why I'm here.'
'You're here to avenge your sister?'
'No,' I said. 'I'm here to find her.'
'But I thought she was dead. Wayne Steubens murdered her.'
'That was what I used to think.'
Raya turned away for a moment. Then she looked right through me. 'So what did you lie about?' 'Nothing.' The eyes again. 'You can trust me,' she said.
I do.
She waited. I waited too.
'Who is Lucy?'
'She's a girl who was at the camp.'
'What else? What's her connection to this?'
'Her father owned the camp,' I said. Then I added, 'She was also my girlfriend at the time.'
'And how did you both lie?'
'We didn't lie.'
'So what was Manolo talking about?' 'Damned if I know. That's what I'm trying to find out.' 'I don't understand. What makes you so sure your sister is alive?' 'I'm not sure,' I said. 'But I think there's a decent enough chance.' 'Why?' 'Because of Manolo.' 'What about him?' I studied her face and wondered if I was getting played here. 'You clammed up before when I mentioned the name Gil Perez,' I said. 'His name was in those articles. He was killed that night too.' 'No,' I said. 'I don't understand.' 'Do you know why Manolo was looking into what happened that night?' 'He never said.' 'Weren't you curious?' She shrugged. 'He said it was business.' 'Raya,' I said. 'Manolo Santiago wasn't his real name.' I hesitated, seeing if she would jump in, volunteer something. She didn't. 'His real name,' I went on, 'was Gil Perez.' She took a second to process this. 'The boy from the woods?' 'Yes.' 'Are you sure?' Good question. But I said, 'Yes,' without any hesitation. She thought about it. 'And what you're telling me now-if it's true-was that he was alive this whole time.' I nodded. 'And if he was alive…' Raya Singh stopped. So I finished it for her. 'Maybe my sister is too.' 'Or maybe,' she said, 'Manolo-Gil, what ever you call him – killed them all.'
Strange. I hadn't thought of that. It actually made some sense. Gil kills them all, leaves evidence he was a victim too. But was Gil clever enough to pull something like that off? And how do you explain Wayne Steubens?
Unless Wayne was telling the truth…
'If that’s the case,' I said, 'then I'll find that out.'
Raya frowned. 'Manolo said you and Lucy were lying. If he killed them, why would he say something like that? Why would he have all this paperwork and be looking into what happened? If he did it, he would know the answers, wouldn't he?'
She crossed the room and stood directly in front of me. So damn young and beautiful. I actually wanted to kiss her.
'What aren't you telling me?' she asked.
My cell phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID. It was Loren Muse. I hit the On button and said, 'What's up?' 'We got a problem,' Muse said. I closed my eyes and waited. 'It's Chamique. She wants to recant.'
My office is in the center of Newark. I keep hearing that there is a revitalization going on in this city. I don't see it. The city has been decaying for as long as I can remember. But I have gotten to know this city well. The history is still there, beneath the surface. The people are wonderful. We as a society are big on stereotyping cities the way we do ethnic groups or minorities. It is easy to hate them from a distance. I remember Jane's conservative parents and their disdain for all things gay. Her college roommate, Helen, unbeknownst to them, was gay. When they met her, both her mother and father simply loved Helen. When they learned Helen was a lesbian, they still loved her. Then they loved her partner.
That was how it often was. It was easy to hate gays or blacks or Jews or Arabs. It was more difficult to hate individuals. Newark was like that. You could hate it as a mass, but so many neighborhoods and shopkeepers and citizens had a charm and strength that you couldn't help but be drawn in and care about and want to make it better.
Chamique sat in my office. She was so damned young, but you could see the hard written on her face. Life had not been easy for this girl. It would probably not get any easier. Her attorney, Horace Foley, wore too much cologne and had eyes spaced too widely apart. I am an attorney, so I don't like the prejudices that are made against my profession, but I was fairly confident that if an ambulance drove by, this guy would jump through my third-floor window to slow it down.
'We would like to see you drop the charges on Mr. Jenrette and Mr. Marantz,' Foley said.
'Can't do that,' I said. I looked at Chamique. She did not have her head down, but she wasn't exactly clamoring for eye contact. 'Did you lie on the stand yesterday?' I asked her.
'My client would never lie,' Foley said.
I ignored him, met Chamique's eyes. She said, 'You're never going to convict them anyway.' 'You don't know that.' 'You serious?'
I am. Chamique smiled at me, as if I were the most naive creature that God had ever created. 'You don't understand, do you?'
'Oh, I understand. They're offering money if you recant. The sum has now reached a level where your attorney here, Mr. Who-Needs-A-Shower-When-There's- Cologne, thinks it makes sense to do it.'
'What did you call me?'
I looked at Muse. 'Open a window, will you?'
'Got it, Cope.'
'Hey! What did you call me?'
'The window is open. Feel free to jump out.' I looked back at Chamique. 'If you recant now, that means your testimony today and yesterday was a lie. It means you committed perjury. It means you had this office spend millions of tax dollars on your lie-your perjury. That's a crime. You'll go to jail.'
Foley said, 'Talk to me, Mr. Copeland, not my client.'
'Talk to you? I can't even breathe around you.'
'I won't stand for this-'
'Shh,' I said. Then I cupped my ear with my hand. 'Listen to the crinkling sound.'
'To what?'
'I think your cologne is peeling my wallpaper. If you listen closely, you can hear it. Shh, listen.'
Even Chamique smiled a little.
'Don't recant,' I said to her.
'I have to.'
'Then I'll charge you.'
Her attorney was ready to do battle again, but Chamique put her hand on his arm. 'You won't do that, Mr. Copeland.' 'I will.'
But she knew better. I was bluffing. She was a poor, scared rape victim who had a chance of cashing in – making more money than she would probably see again in her lifetime. Who the hell was I to lecture her on values and justice?
She and her attorney stood. Horace Foley said, 'We sign the agreement in the morning.'
I didn't say anything. Part of me felt relief, and that shamed me. Jane Care would survive now. My father's memory-okay, my political career-wouldn't take an unnecessary hit. Best off, I was off the hook. It wasn't my doing. It was Chamiques.
Chamique offered me her hand. I took it. 'Thank you,' she said.
'Don't do this,' I said, but there was nothing left in my try. She could see that. She smiled. Then they left my office. First Chamique, then her attorney. His cologne stayed behind as a memento.
Muse shrugged and said, 'What can you do?'
I was wondering that myself.
I got home and had dinner with Cara. She had a 'homework' assignment that consisted of finding things that were red in magazines and cutting them out. This would seem like a very easy task, but of course, nothing we found together would work for her. She didn't like the red wagon or the model's red dress or even the red fire engine. The problem, I soon realized, was that I was showing enthusiasm for what she'd find. I would say, 'That dress is red, sweetie! You're right! I think that would be perfect!'
After about twenty minutes of this, I saw the error of my ways. When she stumbled across a picture of a bottle of a ketchup, I made my voice flat and shrugged my shoulders and said, 'I don't really like ketchup.'
She grabbed the scissors with the safety handles and went to work.
Kids.
Cara started singing a song as she cut. The song was from a cartoon TV show called Dora the Explorer and basically consisted of singing the word backpack over and over again until the head of a nearby parent exploded into a million pieces. I had made the mistake about two months ago of buying her a Dora the Explorer Talking Backpack ('back pack, backpack,' repeat) with matching talking Map (song: 'I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map,' repeat). When her cousin, Madison, came over, they would often play Dora the Explorer. One of them would play the role of Dora. The other would be a monkey with the rather interesting moniker 'Boots.' You don't often meet monkeys named for footwear.
I was thinking about that, about Boots, about the way Cara and her cousin would argue over who would be Dora and who would be Boots, when it struck me like the proverbial thunderbolt.
'Daddy?'
'One second, kitten.'
I ran upstairs, my footsteps shaking the house. Where the hell were those bills from the frat house? I started tearing apart the room. It took me a few minutes to find them-I had been ready to throw them all away after my meeting this morning.
Bang, there they were.
