The Woods (21 page)

"His boss used to be a big fed. He said that he could get me better treatment."

"Did you tell him anything?"

"No. For two reasons. One, his offer was total nonsense. An ex-fed can't do anything for me."

"And two?"

Wayne Steubens leaned forward. He made sure I was looking him square in the eye. "I want you to listen to me, Cope. I want you to listen to me very carefully."

I held his gaze.

"I have done a lot of bad things in my life. I won't go into details. There is no need. I have made mistakes. I have spent the past eighteen years in this hellhole paying for them. I don't belong here. I really don't. I won't talk about Indiana or Virginia or any of that. The people who died there-I didn't know them. They were strangers."

He stopped, closed his eyes, rubbed his face. He had a wide face. The complexion was shiny, waxy even. He opened his eyes again, made sure that I was still looking at him. I was. I couldn't have moved if I wanted to.

"But-and here's your number-two reason, Cope-I have no idea what happened in those woods twenty years ago. Because I wasn't there. I don't know what happened to my friends-not strangers, Cope, friends-Margot Green or Doug Billingham or Gil Perez or your sister."

Silence.

"Did you kill those boys in Indiana and Virginia?" I asked.

"Would you believe me if I said no?"

"There was a lot of evidence."

"Yes, there was."

"But you're still proclaiming your innocence."

I am.

"Are you innocent, Wayne?"

"Lets focus on one thing at a time, shall we? I am talking to you about that summer. I am talking to you about that camp. I didn't kill anyone there. I don't know what happened in those woods."

I said nothing.

"You are a prosecutor now, right?"

I nodded.

"People are digging into your past. I understand that. I wouldn't really pay too much attention. Except now you're here too. Which means something happened. Something new. Something involving that night."

"What's your point, Wayne?"

"You always thought I killed them," he said. "But now, for the first time, you're not so sure, are you?"

I said nothing.

"Something has changed. I can see it in your face. For the first time you seriously wonder if I had something to do with that night. And if you have learned something new, you have an obligation to tell me about it."

"I have no obligations, Wayne. You weren't tried for those murders.

You were tried and convicted for murders in Indiana and Virginia."

He spread his arms. "Then where's the harm in telling me what you learned?"

I thought about that. He had a point. If I told him that Gil Perez was still alive, it would do nothing to overturn his convictions-because he wasn't convicted of killing Gil. But it would cast a long shadow. A serial killer case is a bit like the proverbial and literal house of corpses: If you learn that a victim wasn't murdered-at least, not then and not by your serial killer-then that house of corpses could easily implode.

I chose discretion for now. Until we had a positive ID on Gil Perez, there was no reason to say anything anyway. I looked at him. Was he a lunatic? I thought so. But how the hell could I be sure? Either way I had learned all I could today. So I stood.

"Good-bye, Wayne."

"Good-bye, Cope."

I started for the door.

"Cope?"

I turned.

"You know I didn't kill them, don't you?"

I did not reply.

"And if I didn't kill them," he went on, "you have to wonder about everything that happened that night-not only to Margot, Doug, Gil and Camille. But what happened to me. And to you."

"Ira, look at me a second."

Lucy had waited until her father seemed his most lucid. She sat across from him in his room. Ira had broken out his old vinyl’s today. There were covers with a long-haired James Taylor on Sweet Baby James and another of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road (with a barefoot and therefore "dead" Paul). Marvin Gaye wore a scarf for What's Going On and Jim Morrison moped sexuality on the cover of the original Doors album. ((T "v)› Ira?

He was smiling at an old picture from their camp days. The yellow VW Beetle had been decorated by the oldest-girl bunk. They put flowers and peace signs all over it. Ira was standing in the middle with his arms crossed. The girls surrounded the car. Everyone wore shorts and T-shirts and sun-kissed smiles. Lucy remembered that day. It had been a good one, one of those you stick in a box and put in a bottom drawer and take out and look at when you're feeling particularly blue.

Ira?

He turned toward her. "I'm listening."

Barry McGuire's classic 1965 antiwar anthem, "Eve of Destruction," was playing. Troubling as this song was, it had always comforted Lucy. The song paints a devastatingly bleak picture of the world. He sings about the world exploding, about bodies in the Jordan River, about the fear of a nuclear button being pushed, about hate in Red China and Selma, Alabama (a forced rhyme, but it worked), about all the hypocrisy and hate in the world-and in the chorus he almost mockingly asks how the listener can be naive enough to think that we aren't on the eve of destruction.

So why did it comfort her?

Because it was true. The world was this terrible, awful place. The planet was on the brink back then. But it had survived-some might even say thrived. The world seems pretty horrible today too. You can't believe that we will get through it. McGuire’s world had been just as scary. Maybe scarier. Go back twenty years earlier-World War II, Nazism. That must have made the sixties look like Disneyland. We got through that too. We always seem to be on the eve of destruction. And we always seem to get through it.

Maybe we all survive the destruction we have wrought.

She shook her head. How naive. How Pollyannaish. She should know better. Ira's beard was trimmed today. His hair was still unruly. The gray was taking on an almost blue tinge. His hands shook and Lucy wondered if maybe Parkinson’s was on the horizon. His last years, she knew, would not be good. But then again, there really hadn't been many good ones in the past twenty.

"What is it, honey?"

His concern was so apparent. It had been one of Ira's great and honest charms – he so genuinely cared about people. He was a terrific listener. He saw pain and wanted to find a way to ease it. Everyone felt that empathy with Ira-every camper, every parent, every friend. But when you were his only child, the person he loved above all else, it was like the warmest blanket on the coldest day.

God, he'd been such a magnificent father. She missed that man so much. "In the logbook, it says that a man named Manolo Santiago visited you." She tilted her head. "Do you remember that, Ira?"

His smile slid away.

"Ira?"

"Yeah," he said. "I remember."

"What did he want?"

"To talk."

"To talk about what?"

He wrapped his lips over his teeth, as if forcing them to stay closed.

Ira?

He shook his head.

"Please tell me," she said.

Ira’s mouth opened but nothing came out. When he finally spoke his voice was a hush. "You know what he wanted to talk about."

Lucy looked over her shoulder. They were alone in the room. "Eve of Destruction" was over. The Mamas and the Papas came on to tell them that all the leaves were brown.

"The camp?" she said.

He nodded.

"What did he want to know?"

He started to cry.

Ira?

"I didn't want to go back there," he said.

"I know you didn't."

"He kept asking me."

"About what, Ira? What did he ask you about?"

He put his face in his hands. "Please…"

"Please what?"

"I can't go back there anymore. Do you understand? I can't go back there." "It can't hurt you anymore." He kept his face in his hands. His shoulders shook. "Those poor kids."

"Ira?" He looked so damn terrified. She said, "Daddy?"

"I let everyone down."

"No, you didn't."

His sobs were uncontrollable now. Lucy got on her knees in front of him. She felt the tears push against her eyes too. "Please, Dad, look at me."

He wouldn't. The nurse, Rebecca, stuck her head in the doorway.

"I'll go get something," the nurse said.

Lucy held a hand up. "No."

Ira let out another cry.

"I think he needs something to calm him down."

"Not yet," Lucy said. "We're just… please leave us alone."

"I have a responsibility."

"He's fine. This is a private conversation. It's getting emotional, that's all." "I'll get the doctor." Lucy was about to tell her not to, but she was gone. "Ira, please listen to me." "No…" "What did you say to him?" "I could only protect so many. Do you understand?" She didn't. She put her hands on his cheeks and tried to lift his head. His scream almost knocked her backward. She let go. He backed up, knocking the chair to the ground. He huddled in the corner. "No… r "Its okay, Dad. Its-" "No!" Nurse Rebecca came back with two other women. One Lucy recognized as the doctor. The other, another nurse, Lucy figured, had a hypodermic needle. Rebecca said, "Its okay, Ira." They started to approach him. Lucy stepped in the way. "Get out," she said. The doctor – her name tag read Julie Contrucci -cleared her throat.

"He's very agitated." "So am I," Lucy said. "Excuse me?" "You said he's agitated. Big deal. Being agitated is a part of life. I feel agitated sometimes. You feel agitated sometimes, right? Why cant he?" "Because he's not well." "He’s fine. I need him lucid for a few more minutes." Ira let out another sob. "You call this lucid?" "I need time with him." Dr. Contrucci folded her arms across her chest. "Its not up to you." "I'm his daughter." "Your father is here voluntarily. He can come and go as he pleases.

No court has ever declared him incompetent. It's up to him." Contrucci looked to Ira. "Do you want a sedative, Mr. Silverstein?" Ira's eyes darted back and forth like the cornered animal he suddenly was. "Mr. Silverstein?" He stared at his daughter. He started crying again. "I didn't say any thing, Lucy. What could I tell him?"

He started sobbing again. The doctor looked at Lucy. Lucy looked at her father. "It's okay, Ira."

"I love you, Luce."

"I love you too."

The nurses went over. Ira stuck out his arm. Ira smiled dreamily when the needle went in. It reminded Lucy of her childhood. He had smoked grass in front of her without worry. She could remember him inhaling deeply, his smile like that, and now she wondered why he'd needed it. She remembered how it had picked up after the camp. During her childhood years the drugs were just a part of him -a part of the "movement." But now she wondered. Like with her drinking. Was there some kind of addiction gene working? Or was Ira, like Lucy, using out side agents-drugs, booze-to escape, to numb, to not face the truth?

"Please tell me you're joking/'

FBI Special Agent Geoff Bedford and I were sitting at a regulation-size diner, the kind with the aluminum on the outside and signed photographs of local anchors on the inside. Bedford was trim and sported a handlebar mustache with waxed tips. I'm sure that I had seen one of those in real life before, but I couldn't recall where. I kept expecting three other guys to join him for a little barbershop quartet work.

"I'm not," I said.

The waitress came by. She didn't call us hon. I hate that. Bedford had been reading the menu for food, but he just ordered coffee. I got the meaning and ordered the same. We handed her the menus. Bedford waited until she was gone.

"Steubens did it, no question. He killed all those people. There was never any doubt in the past. There is no doubt now. And I'm not just talking about reasonable doubt here. There is absolutely no doubt at all."

"The first killings. The four in the woods."

"What about them?"

"There was no evidence linking him to those," I said.

"No physical evidence, no."

"Four victims," I said. "Two were young women. Margot Green and my sister?"

"That's right."

"But none of Steubens's other victims were female."

"Correct."

"All were males between the ages of sixteen and eighteen. Don't you find that odd?"

He looked at me as if I had suddenly grown a second head. "Look, Mr. Copeland, I agreed to see you because, one, you're a county prosecutor, and two, your own sister died at the hands of this monster. But this line of questioning…"

"I just visited Wayne Steubens," I said. "I am aware of that. And let me tell you, he is one damn good psychopath and pathological liar." I thought about how Lucy had said the same thing. I also thought about how Wayne had said that he and Lucy had a little fling before I got to camp.

"I know that," I said.

"I'm not sure you do. Let me explain something to you. Wayne Steubens has been a part of my life for nearly twenty years. Think about that. I've seen how convincing a liar he can be."

I wasn't sure what tack to take here, so I just started tramping around. "New evidence has come to light," I said. Bedford frowned. The tips of the mustache down turned with his lips. "What are you talking about?"

"You know who Gil Perez is?"

"Of course I do. I know everything and everyone involved in this case."

"You never found his body."

"That's right. We didn’t find your sister's either."

"How do you explain that?"

"You went to that camp. You know that area."

"I do."

"Do you know how many square miles of woods there are out there?"

"I do."

He lifted his right hand and looked at it. "Hello, Mr. Needle?" Then he did the same with his left. "Meet my friend Mr. Haystack."

"Wayne Steubens is a relatively small man."

"So?"

"So Doug was over six feet tall. Gil was a tough kid. How do you think Wayne surprised or overpowered all four of them?"

"He had a knife, that's how. Margot Green was tied up. He simply sliced her throat. We aren't sure of the order of the others. They may have been tied up too-in different places in the woods. We just don't know. He ran down Doug Billingham. Billingham's body was in a shallow grave halfa mile from Margots. He had several stab wounds, some defensive wounds on the hands too. We found blood and clothes be longing to your sister and Gil Perez. You know all this."

I do.

Bedford tilted his chair way back so that his feet went up on the toes. "So tell me, Mr. Copeland. What is the new evidence that has suddenly come to light?"

"Gil Perez."

"What about him?"

"He didn't die that night. He died this week."

The chair dropped forward. "Pardon me?"

I told him about Manolo Santiago being Gil Perez. I would say that he looked skeptical, but that makes it sound more in my favor than the reality. In reality, Agent Bedford stared at me as if I were trying to convince him that the Easter Bunny was real.

"So let me get this straight," he said when I finished. The waitress came back with our coffees. Bedford added nothing to it. He lifted the cup carefully and managed to keep the rim off his mustache. "Perez's parents deny it's him. Manhattan homicide doesn't believe it's him. And you're telling me-"

"It's him."

Bedford chuckled. "I think you've taken up enough of my time, Mr. Copeland." He put down his coffee and started to slide out of the booth. "I know it's him. It's just a question of time before I prove it." Bedford stopped. "Tell you what," he said. "Let's play your game. Let's say it is indeed Gil Perez. That he survived that night."

Okay.

"That doesn't let Wayne Steubens off the hook. Not at all. There are many"-he looked at me hard now-"who believed that maybe Steubens had an accomplice for the first murders. You yourself asked how he could have taken out so many. Well, if there were two of them and only three victims, it makes it all a lot easier, don't you think?"

"So now you think maybe Perez was an accomplice?"

"No. Hell, I don't even believe he survived that night. I'm just playing hypotheticals. If that body in the Manhattan morgue did end up being Gil Perez."

I added a packet of Splenda and some milk to my coffee. "Are you familiar with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle?" I asked.

"The guy who wrote Sherlock Holmes."

"Exactly. One of Sherlock's axioms goes something like this: 'It is a big mistake to theorize before one has data-because one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to suit facts.'" "You're starting to try my patience, Mr. Copeland."

"I gave you a new fact. Rather than trying to rethink what happened, you just immediately found a way to twist that fact to suit your theory."

He just stared at me. I didn't blame him. I was coming on hard, but I needed to push. "Do you know anything about Wayne Steubenss past?" he asked, borne.

"He fits the profile to a tee."

"Profiles aren't evidence," I said.

"But they help. For instance, do you know that neighborhood animals went missing when Steubens was a teen?" "Really? Well, that's all the proof I need." "May I give you an example to illustrate?" "Please." "We have an eyewitness to this. A boy named Charlie Kadison. He didn’t say anything back then because he was too scared. When Wayne Steubens was sixteen, he buried a small white dog-what's the breed, something French…"

"Bichon Frise?"

"That's it. He buried the dog up to its neck. So only its head was sticking out. The thing couldn't move." "Pretty sick." "No, it gets worse." He took another dainty sip. I waited. He put the coffee back down and dabbed his mouth with a napkin.

"So after he buries the body, your old camp buddy goes to this Kadi son kid's house. You see his family had one of those riding lawn mowers. He asks to borrow it…"

He stopped, looked at me, and nodded.

"Eeuw," I said.

"I have other cases like that. Maybe a dozen."

"And yet Wayne Steubens managed to land a job working at that camp-" "Big surprise. I mean, that Ira Silverstein seemed like such a stickler for background checks." "And no one thought of Wayne when those murders first occurred?"

"We didn't know any of this. First off, the locals were on the Camp PLUS case, not us. It wasn't federal. Not at first. On top of that, people were too scared to come forward during Steubenss formative years. Like Charlie Kadison. You have to also remember that Steubens came from a rich family. His father died when he was young, but his mother shielded him, paid people off, whatever. She was overprotective, by the way. Very conservative. Very strict."

"Another check mark in your little serial killer profile kit?"

"It isn't just about his profile, Mr. Copeland. You know the facts. He lived in New York yet somehow managed to be in all three areas- Virginia, Indiana, Pennsylvania-when the murders occurred. What’re the odds of that? And the kicker, of course: After we got a search war rant, we found items-classic trophies-belonging to all the victims on his property."

"Not all the victims," I said.

"Enough of them."

"But none from those first four campers." "That’s correct."

"Why not?"

"My guess? He probably was in a rush. Steubens was still disposing of the bodies. He ran out of time." "Again," I said, "it sounds a bit like fact twisting." He sat back and studied me. "So what is your theory, Mr. Cope-land? Because I am dying to hear it."

I said nothing.

He spread his arms. "That a serial killer who slit campers' throats in Indiana and Virginia happened to be a counselor at a summer camp where at least two other victims had their throats slit?"

He had a point. I had been thinking about that from the get-go, and I couldn't get around it. "You know the facts, twisted or not. You're a prosecutor. Tell me what you think happened."

I thought about it. He waited. I thought about it some more.

"I don't know yet," I said. "Maybe it's too early to theorize. Maybe we need to gather more facts." "And while you do that," he said, "a guy like Wayne Steubens kills a few more campers."

He had another point. I thought about the rape evidence against Jenrette and Marantz. If you looked at it objectively, there was just as much-probably more-against Wayne Steubens.

Or at least there had been.

"He didn't kill Gil Perez," I said.

"I hear you. So take that out of the equation, for the sake of this discussion. Say he didn't kill the Perez kid." He held up both palms to the ceiling. "What does that leave you with?" I mulled that over. It leaves me, I thought, wondering what the hell really happened to my sister.