right? Chamique'-he stretched out her name in a mocking way that pissed me off, 'has already got a lawyer too. Going to shake our boys down. This is just a big payday for that cow. That's all. A big friggin' payday.'
'Mort?' I said.
'What?'
'Shh, the grown-ups are talking now.'
Mort sneered. 'You're no better, Cope.'
I waited.
'The only reason you're prosecuting them is because they're wealthy. And you know it. You're playing that rich-versus-poor crap in the media too. Don't pretend you aren't. You know what sucks about that? You know what really burns my butt?'
I had itched an ass this morning and now I had burned a butt. A big day for me.
'Tell me, Mort.'
'It's accepted in our society,' he said.
'What is?'
'Hating rich people.' Mort threw his hands up, outraged. 'You hear it all the time. 'I hate him, he's so rich.' Look at Enron and those other scandals. It is now an encouraged prejudice-to hate rich people. If I ever said, 'Hey, I hate poor people,' I'd be strung up. But call the rich names? Well, you have a free pass. Everyone is allowed to hate the rich.'
I looked at him. 'Maybe they should form a support group.'
'Up yours, Cope.'
'No, I mean it. Trump, the Halliburton guys. I mean, the world hasn't been fair to them. A support group. That's what they should have. Maybe hold a telethon or something.'
Flair Hickory rose. Theatrically, of course. I half-expected him to curtsy. 'I think we're done here. See you tomorrow, handsome. And you', he looked at Loren Muse, opened his mouth, closed it, shuddered.
'Flair?'
He looked at me.
'That Cal and Jim thing,' I said. 'It just proves she's telling the truth.' Flair smiled. 'How's that, exactly?' 'Your boys were smart. They called themselves Cal and Jim, so she'd say that.'
He raised an eyebrow. 'You think that will fly?'
'Why else would she say that, Flair?'
'Pardon?'
'I mean, if Chamique wanted to set your clients up, why wouldn't she use their correct names? Why would she make up all that dialogue with Cal and Jim? You read the statement. 'Turn her this way, Cal.' 'Bend her over, Jim.' 'Whoa, Cal, she's loving this.' Why would she make that all up?'
Mort took that one. 'Because she's a money-hungry whore who is dumber than dirt?'
But I could see that I'd scored a point with Flair.
'It doesn't make sense,' I said to him.
Flair leaned in toward me. 'Here's the thing, Cope: It doesn't have to. You know that. Perhaps you're right. Perhaps it doesn't make sense. But see, that leads to confusion. And confusion has the major hots for my favorite hunk, Mr. Reasonable Doubt.' He smiled. 'You might have some physical evidence. But, well, you put that girl on the stand, I will not hold back. It will be game, set, match. We both know that.'
They headed to the door.
'Toodles, my friend. See you in court.'
Chapter 4
Muse and I said nothing for a few moments.
Cal and Jim. The names deflated us.
The position of chief investigator was almost always held by some male lifer, a gruff guy slightly burned out by what he'd seen over the years, with a big belly and a heavy sigh and a well-worn trench coat. It would be that mans job to maneuver the guileless county prosecutor, a political appointee like me, through the rings of the Essex County legal system.
Loren Muse was maybe five feet tall and weighed about as much as your average fourth grader. My choosing Muse had caused some nasty ripples among the veterans, but here was my own private prejudice: I prefer hiring single women of a certain age. They worked harder and were more loyal. I know, I know, but I have found this to be true in almost every case. You find a single woman over the age of, say, thirty-three, and she lives for her career and will give you hours and devotion the married ones with kids will never give you.
To be fair, Muse was also an incredibly gifted investigator. I liked talking things out with her. I would say 'muse'-ing them over, but then you'd understandably groan. Right now she was staring down at the floor.
'What's on your mind?' I asked her.
'Are these shoes really that ugly?'
I looked at her and waited.
'Put simply,' she said, 'if we don't find a way to explain Cal and Jim, we're screwed.'
I stared at the ceiling.
'What?' Muse said.
'Those two names.'
'What about them?'
'Why?' I asked for the umpteenth time. 'Why Cal and Jim?'
'Don't know.'
'You questioned Chamique again?'
'I did. Her story is frighteningly consistent. They used those two names. I think you're right. They simply did that as a cover, so her story would sound idiotic.'
'But why those two names?'
'Probably just random.'
I frowned. 'We're missing something, Muse.'
She nodded. 'I know.'
I have always been pretty good about partitioning my life. We all are, but I am especially good at it. I can create separate universes in my own world. I can deal with one aspect of my life and not have it interfere with another in anyway. Some people watch a gangster movie and wonder how the mobster can be so violent on the streets and so loving at home. I get that. I have that ability.
I'm not proud of this. It is not necessarily a great attribute. It protects, yes, but I have seen what actions it can justify.
So for the past half hour I had been pushing away the obvious questions: If Gil Perez had been alive this whole time, where had he been?
What had happened that night in the woods? And of course, the biggest question: If Gil Perez had survived that awful night…
Had my sister survived too?
'Cope?'
It was Muse.
'What's going on?'
I wanted to tell her. But now was not the time. I need to sort it through myself first. Figure out what was what. Make sure that body really did belong to Gil Perez. I stood and walked toward her.
'Cal and Jim,' I said. 'We have to figure out what the hell that's all about, and fast.'
My wife's sister, Greta, and her husband, Bob, lived in a McMansion on a new cul-de-sac that looks almost precisely the same as every other new cul-de-sac in North America. The lots are too small for the ginormous brick edifices that stretch across them. The houses have a variety of shapes and shades but somehow still look exactly the same. Everything is a little too brushed, trying to look aged and only looking more faux.
I had met Greta first, before my wife. My mother ran away before I turned twenty, but I remember something she told me a few months before Camille went into those woods. We were the poorest citizens in our rather mixed town. We were immigrants who had come over from the old Soviet Union when I was four. We had started out okay, we had arrived in the USA as heroes, but things turned very bad very quickly.
We were living on the top floor of a three-family dwelling in Newark, though we went to school at Columbia High in West Orange. My father, Vladimir Copinsky (he anglicized it to Copeland), who had once been a doctor in Leningrad, couldn't get a license to practice in this country. He ended up working as a house painter. My mother, a frail beauty named Natasha, the once-proud, well-educated daughter of aristocratic college professors, took on a variety of cleaning jobs for the wealthier families in Short Hills and Livingston but could never hold on to one for very long.
On this particular day, my sister, Camille, came home from school and announced in a teasing voice that the town rich girl had a crush on me. My mother was excited by this.
'You should ask her out,' my mother said to me.
I made a face. 'Have you seen her?'
'I have.'
