'Hey,' she said.
'You're not going to believe what Gil Perez's sister just told me.'
'What?'
I filled her in. When I got to the part about Camille walking out of those woods, Lucy gasped out loud. 'Do you believe her?' Lucy asked. 'About Camille, you mean?'
'Yes.'
'Why would she say that if it wasn't true?'
Lucy said nothing.
'What? You think she's lying? What would be her motive?'
'I don't know, Paul. But we're missing so much here.'
'I understand that. But think about it. Glenda Perez has no reason to lie to me about that.' Silence. 'What is it, Lucy?' 'It's just odd, that's all. If your sister is alive, where the hell has she been?'
'I don't know.'
'So what are you going to do now?'
I thought about that, tried to settle my mind. It was a good question. What next? Where do I go from here?
Lucy said, 'I talked to my father again.'
'And?'
'He remembers something about that night.'
'What?'
'He wont tell me. He said he'd only tell you.'
'Me?'
'Yep. Ira said he wanted to see you.'
'Now?'
'If you want.'
'I want. Should I pick you up?'
She hesitated.
'What?'
'Ira said he wanted to see you alone. That he won't talk in front of me.'
'Okay.'
More hesitation.
'Paul?'
'What?'
'Pick me up anyway. I'll wait in the car while you go in.'
Homicide detectives York and Dillon sat in the 'tech room,' eating pizza. The tech room was actually a meeting space where they wheeled in televisions and VCRs and the like.
Max Reynolds entered. 'How are you guys?'
Dillon said, 'This pizza is awful.' 'Sorry.'
'We're in New York, for crying out loud. The Big Apple. The home of pizza. And this tastes like something that disobeyed a pooper-scooper law.'
Reynolds turned on the television. 'I'm sorry the cuisine does not measure up to your standards.'
'Am I exaggerating?' Dillon turned to York. 'I mean, seriously, does this taste like hobo vomit, or is it me?'
York said, 'That's your third slice.'
'And probably my last. Just to show I mean it.'
York turned to Max Reynolds. 'What have you got for us?'
'I think I found our guy. Or at least, his car.'
Dillon took another rip like bite. 'Less talk, more show.'
'There is a convenience store on the corner two blocks from where you found the body,' Reynolds began. 'The owner has been having problems with shoplifters grabbing items he keeps outside. So he aims his camera out that way.'
Dillon said, 'Korean?'
'Excuse me?'
'The convenience store owner. He's Korean, right?'
'I'm not sure. What's that got to do with anything?'
'Dollars to doughnuts, he's Korean. So he points his camera outside because some ass wipe is stealing an orange. Then he starts screaming about how he pays taxes when he probably has like ten illegal working in the place and someone should do something. Like the cops should comb through his cheap-ass, blurry-crap tapes to find Mr. Fruit Stealer.'
He stopped. York looked at Max Reynolds. 'Go on.'
'Anyway, yes, exactly, the camera gives us a partial of the street. So we started checking for cars around that age-more than thirty years ago-and look what we found here.'
Reynolds already had the tape keyed up. An old Volkswagen bug drove by. He hit the freeze button.
'That's our car?' York asked.
'A 1971 Volkswagen Beetle. One of our experts says he can tell by the MacPherson strut front suspension and front luggage compartment. More important, this type of car matches the carpet fibers we found on Mr. Santiago's clothing.'
'Hot damn,' Dillon said.
'Can you make out the license plate?' York asked.
'No. We only get a side view. Not a partial, not even the state.'
'But how many original Volkswagen bugs in yellow can there be on the road?' York said. 'We start with the New York motor vehicle records, move to New Jersey and Connecticut.' Dillon nodded and talked while chewing like a cow. 'We should get some kind of hit.'
York turned back to Reynolds. 'Anything else?'
'Dillon was right, the quality isn't great. But if I blow this up'-he hit a button and the picture zoomed-'we can get a partial look at the guy.'
Dillon squinted. 'He looks like Jerry Garcia or something.'
'Long gray hair, long gray beard,' Reynolds agreed.
'That it?'
'That's it.'
York said to Dillon, 'Let's start checking the motor vehicles record. This car can't be that hard to find.'
Chapter 34
Sheriff Lowell's accusations echoed in the still of the woods. Lowell, nobody's fool, thought Paul Copeland had lied about the murders.
Had he? Did it matter?
Muse thought about that. She liked Cope, no question. He was a great boss and a damned good prosecutor. But now Lowells words had brought her back. They reminded her of what she already knew: This was a homicide case. Like any other. It leads where it leads, even if that means back to her boss.
No favorites.
A few minutes later a noise came from the brush. Muse spotted An drew Barrett. Barrett made lanky an art form, all long limbs and elbows and awkward, jerky movements. He was dragging what looked like a baby carriage behind him. It had to be the XJR. Muse called out to him.
Barrett looked up, clearly displeased with the interruption. When he saw who it was, his face lit up.
'Hey, Muse!'
'Andrew.'
'Wow, great to see you.'
'Uh-huh,' she said. 'What are you doing?'
'What do you mean, what am I doing?' He put the machine down.
There were three young people in John Jay sweatshirts trudging along beside him-students, she assumed. 'I'm looking for graves.'
'I thought you found something.'
'I did. Its up ahead another hundred yards. But I thought there were two bodies missing, so I figured, hey, why rest on my laurels, you know what I'm saying?'
Muse swallowed. 'You found a body?'
Barrett's face had a fervor usually reserved for tent revivals.
'Muse, this machine. Oh my, it's just amazing. We got lucky, of course. There hasn't been any rain in this area in, I don't know, how long, Sheriff?'
'Two, three weeks,' Lowell said.
'See, that helps. A lot. Dry ground. You know anything about how ground-penetrating radar works? I stuck an 800 MHz on this baby. That lets me go down only four
