'Then you know,' I said, speaking as a seventeen-year-old would. 'She's a beast.'
'There is an old Russian expression,' my mother countered, raising a finger to clarify her point. 'A rich girl is beautiful when she stands on her money.'
That was the first thought that came through my mind when I met Greta. Her parents, my former in-laws, I guess, still the grandparents of my Cara, are loaded. My wife came from money. It is all in trust for Cara. I'm the executor. Jane and I discussed long and hard the age at which she should get the bulk of the estate. You don't want someone too young inheriting that kind of money, but hey, on the other hand, it is hers.
My Jane was so practical after the doctors had announced her death sentence. I couldn't listen. You learn a lot when someone you love goes down for the count. I learned that my wife had amazing strength and bravery I would have thought unfathomable before her illness. And I found that I had neither.
Cara and Madison, my niece, were playing in the driveway. The days were starting to get longer now. Madison sat on the asphalt and drew with pieces of chalk that resembled cigars. My own daughter rode one of those motorized, slow-moving minicars that are all the rage with today’s under-six crowd. The kids who own them never play on them.
Only visitors on play dates do. Play dates. Man, I hated that term.
I stepped out of the car and shouted, 'Hey, kiddos.'
I waited for the two six-year-old girls to stop what they were doing and sprint over to me and wrap me in big hugs. Yeah, right. Madison glanced my way, but she couldn't have looked less interested without some sort of surgical cerebral disconnect. My own daughter pretended not to hear. Cara steered the Barbie Jeep in a circle. The battery was fading fast, the electric vehicle churning at a speed slower than my uncle Morris reaching for the check.
Greta pushed open the screen door. 'Hey.'
'Hey,' I said. 'So how was the rest of the gymnastics show?'
'Don't worry,' Greta said, shading her eyes with her hand in a pseudo salute. 'I have the whole thing on video.'
Cute.
'So what was up with those two cops?'
I shrugged. 'Just work.'
She didn't buy it but she didn't press. 'I have Cara's backpack inside.'
She let the door close behind her. There were workers coming around back. Bob and Greta were putting in a swimming pool with matching landscaping. They'd been thinking about it for several years but wanted to wait until Madison and Cara were old enough to be safe.
'Come on,' I said to my daughter, 'we need to go.'
Cara ignored me again, pretending that the whir of the pink Barbie Jeep was overwhelming her aural faculties. I frowned and started toward her. Cara was ridiculously stubborn. I would like to say, 'like her mother,' but my Jane was the most patient and understanding woman you ever met. It was amazing. You see qualities both good and bad in your children. In the case of Cara, all the negative qualities seemed to emanate from her father.
Madison put down the chalk. 'Come on, Cara.'
Cara ignored her too. Madison shrugged at me and gave me that kid-world-weary sigh. 'Hi, Uncle Cope.'
'Hey, sweetie. Have a good play date?'
'No,' Madison said with her fists on her hips. 'Cara never plays with me. She just plays with my toys.'
I tried to look understanding.
Greta came out with the backpack. 'We already did the homework,' she said.
'Thank you.'
She waved it off. 'Cara, sweetheart? Your father is here.'
Cara ignored her too. I knew that a tantrum was coming. That too, I guess, she gets from her father. In our Disney-inspired worldview, the widowed father-daughter relationship is a magic one. Witness pretty much every kid film, The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, A Little Princess, Aladdin, you get the point. In movies, not having a mother seemed to be a pretty nifty thing, which, when you think about it, is really perverse. In real life, not having a mother was just about the worst thing that could happen to a little girl.
I made my voice firm. 'Cara, we're going now.'
Her face was set, I braced for the confrontation, but fortunately the gods interceded. The Barbie battery went totally dead. The pink Jeep stopped. Cara tried to body- language the vehicle another foot or two, but Barbie wouldn't budge. Cara sighed, stepped out of the Jeep, and started for the car.
'Say good-bye to Aunt Greta and your cousin.'
She did so in a voice sullen enough to make a teenager envious.
When we got home, Cara snapped on the TV without asking permission and settled in for an episode of Sponge Bob. It seems as though Sponge Bob is on all the time. I wonder if there is an all-Sponge Bob station. There also only seems to be maybe three different episodes of the show. That did not seem to deter kids, though.
I was going to say something, but I let it go. Right now I just wanted her distracted. I was still trying to put together what was going on with both the Chamique Johnson rape case and now the sudden reemergence and murder of Gil Perez. I confess that my big case, the biggest of my career, was getting the short end of the stick.
I started preparing dinner. We eat out most nights or order in. I do have a nanny-housekeeper, but today was her day off. 'Hot dogs sound good?'
'Whatever.'
The phone rang. I picked it up.
'Mr. Copeland? This is Detective Tucker York.'
'Yes, Detective, what can I do for you?'
'We located Gil Perez's parents.'
I felt my grip tighten on the phone. 'Did they identify the body?'
'Not yet.'
'What did you tell them?'
'Look, no offense, Mr. Copeland, but this isn't the kind of thing you just say over the phone, you know? 'Your dead child might have been alive this whole time-and oh yeah, he's just been murdered'?'
'I understand.'
'So we were pretty vague. We're going to bring them in and see if we can get an ID. But here's the other thing: How sure are you that it's Gil Perez?'
'Pretty sure.'
'You understand that's not really good enough.'
'I do.'
'And anyway, it's late. My partner and I are off duty. So we're going to have one of our men drive the Perezes down tomorrow morning.'
'So this is, what, a courtesy call?'
'Something like that. I understand your interest. And maybe you should be here in the morning, you know, in case any weird questions come up.'
'Where?'
'The morgue again. You need a ride?'
'No, I know my way.'
Chapter 5
A FEW HOURS LATER I TUCKED MY DAUGHTER INTO BED. Cara never gives me trouble at bedtime. We have a wonderful routine. I read to her. I do not do it because all the parenting magazines tell me to. I do it because she adores it. It never puts her to sleep. I read to her every night and not once has she done as much as doze. I have. Some of the books are awful. I fall asleep right in her bed. She lets me.
I couldn't keep up with her voracious desire for books to be read to her, so I started getting books on audio. I read to her and then she can listen to one side of a tape, usually forty-five minutes, before it is time to close her eyes and go to sleep. Cara understands and likes this rule.
I am reading Ronald Dahl to her right now. Her eyes are wide. Last year, when I took her to see the stage production of The Lion King, I bought her a terribly overpriced Timon doll. She has it gripped in her right arm. Timon is a pretty avid listener too.
I finished reading and gave Cara a kiss on the cheek. She smelled like baby shampoo. 'Good night, Daddy,' she said.
'Good night, Pumpkin.'
Kids. One moment they're like Medea having a bad mood swing, the next they are God-kissed angels.
I snapped on the tape player and snapped off her light. I headed down to my home office and turned on the computer. I have a hook-up to my work files. I opened up the rape case of Chamique Johnson and started poring over it.
Cal and Jim.
My victim wasn't what we call jury-pool sympathetic. Chamique was sixteen and had a child out of wedlock. She had been arrested twice for solicitation, once for possession of marijuana. She worked parties as an exotic dancer, and yes, that is an euphemism for stripper. People would wonder what she was doing at that party. That sort of thing did not discourage me. It makes me fight harder. Not because I care about political correctness, but because I am into, very into, justice. If Chamique had been a blond student council vice-president from lily-white Livingston and the boys were black, I mean, come on.
Chamique was a person, a human being. She did not deserve what Barry Marantz and Edward Jenrette did to her.
And I was going to nail their asses to the wall.
I went back to the beginning of the case and sifted through it again. The frat house was a ritzy affair with marble columns and Greek letters and fresh paint and carpeting. I checked telephone records. There was a massive amount of them, each kid having his own private line, not to mention cell phones, text messaging, e-mails,
