The Woods

She rose and gave me a perfunctory handshake. 'I assume you have time to see me.' I do.

Glenda Perez did not wait for me to lead the way. She walked head high into my office. I followed her and closed the door. I would have hit my intercom and said, 'No interruptions,' but I got the feeling Jocelyn understood from our body language.

I waved for her to take a seat. She didn't. I moved around my desk and sat down. Glenda Perez put her hands on her hips and glared down at me.

'Tell me, Mr. Copeland, do you enjoy threatening old people?'

'Not at first, no. But then, once you get the hang of it, okay, yeah, it's kinda fun.'

The hands dropped from her hips.

'You think this is funny?'

'Why don’t you sit down, Ms. Perez?'

'Did you threaten my parents?'

'No. Wait, yes. Your father. I did say that if he didn't tell me the truth I would rip his world apart and go after him and his children. If you call that a threat, then yes, I made it.'

I smiled at her. She had expected denials and apologies and explanations. I hadn't given her any, hadn't fueled her fire. She opened her mouth, closed it, sat.

'So,' I said, 'let's skip the posturing. Your brother walked out of those woods twenty years ago. I need to know what happened.'

Glenda Perez wore a gray business suit. Her stockings were that sheer white. She crossed her legs and tried to look relaxed. She wasn't pulling it off. I waited.

'That's not true. My brother was murdered with your sister.'

'I thought we were going to skip the posturing.'

She sat and tapped her lip.

'Are you really going to go after my family?'

'This is my sister's murder we're talking about. You, Ms. Perez, should understand that.'

'I will take that as a yes.'

'A very big, very nasty yes.'

She tapped her lip some more. I waited some more.

'How about if I lay a hypothetical on you?'

I spread my hands. 'I'm all for hypotheticals.'

'Suppose,' Glenda Perez began, 'this dead man, this Manolo Santiago, was indeed my brother. Again just in terms of this hypothetical.'

'Okay, I'm supposing. Now what?'

'What do you think it would mean to my family?'

'That you lied to me.'

'Not just to you, though.'

I sat back. 'Who else?'

'Everyone.'

She started with the lip tap.

'As you know, all four families engaged in a lawsuit. We won millions. That would now be a case of fraud, wouldn't it? Hypothetically speaking.'

I said nothing.

'We used that money to buy businesses, to invest, for my education, for my brothers health. Tomas would be dead or in a home if we hadn't won that money. Do you understand?'

'I do.'

'And, hypothetically speaking, if Gil was alive and we knew it, then the entire case was based on a lie. We would be open to fines and per haps prosecution. More to the point, law enforcement investigated a quadruple homicide. They based their case on the belief that all four teenagers died. But if Gil survived, we could also be accused of obstructing an ongoing investigation. Do you see?'

We looked at each other. Now she was doing the waiting.

'There is another problem with your hypothetical,' I said.

'What's that?'

'Four people go into the woods. One comes out alive. He keeps the fact that he's alive a secret. One would have to conclude, based on your hypothetical, that he killed the other three.' Tapping the lip. 'I can see where your mind might go in that direction.'

'But?'

'He didn't.'

'I just take your word for that?'

'Does it matter?'

'Of course it does.'

'If my brother killed them, then this is over, isn't it? He's dead. You can't bring him back and try him.'

'You have a point.'

'Thank you.'

'Did your brother kill my sister?'

'No, he didn't.'

'Who did?'

Glenda Perez stood. 'For a long time, I didn't know. In our hypothetical. I didn't know that my brother was alive.'

'Did your parents?'

'I'm not here to talk about them.'

'I need to know-'

'Who killed your sister. I get that.'

'So?'

'So I'm going to tell you one more thing. And that’s it. I will tell you this under one condition.' 'What?' 'That this always stays hypothetical. That you will stop telling the authorities that Manolo Santiago is my brother. That you promise to leave my parents alone.'

'I can't promise that.'

'Then I can't tell you what I know about your sister.'

Silence. There it was. The impasse. Glenda Perez rose to leave.

'You're a lawyer,' I said. 'If I go after you, you'll be disbarred-'

'Enough threats, Mr. Copeland.'

I stopped.

'I know something about what happened to your sister that night. If you want to know what it is, you'll make the deal.'

'You'll just accept my word?'

'No. I drew up a legal document.'

'You're kidding.'

Glenda Perez reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the papers. She unfolded them. It was basically a nondisclosure agreement. It also made clear that I would say nothing and do nothing about Manolo Santiago's being Gil Perez and that her parents would be immune from any prosecution.

'You know this isn't enforceable,' I said.

She shrugged. 'It was the best I could come up with.'

'I won't tell,' I said, 'unless I absolutely have to. I have no interest in harming you or your family. I'll also stop telling York or anyone else that I think Manolo Santiago is your brother. I will promise to do my best. But we both know that's all I can do.'

Glenda Perez hesitated. Then she folded the papers, jammed them back into her pocket and headed to my door. She put her hand on the knob and turned toward me.

'Still hypothetically speaking?' she said.

'Yes.'

'If my brother walked out of those woods, he didn't walk out alone.'

My whole body went cold. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak. I tried to say something but nothing came out. I met Glenda Perez's eye. She met mine. She nodded and I could see her eyes were wet. She turned away and turned the knob.

'Don't play games with me, Glenda.'

'I'm not, Paul. That's all I know. My brother survived that night. And so did your sister.'

Chapter 33

Day was surrendering to the shadows when Loren Muse reached the old campsite.

The sign said Lake Charmaine Condominium Center. The land-mass was huge, she knew, stretching across the Delaware River, which separates New Jersey and Pennsylvania. The lake and condos were on the Pennsylvania side. Most of the woods were in New Jersey.

Muse hated the woods. She loved sports but hated the supposedly great outdoors. She hated bugs and fishing and wading and taking hikes and rare antique finds and