The Woods

He had a point.

Lucy said, "I can have you fired."

"Maybe, maybe not. But for the record, Luce, you'd have a lot more to explain than I do. You're the one lying about your background. You're the one who changed your name to hide your past."

Lo

"I thought we were friends," she said.

"We are."

"So?"

He shook his head. "You don't understand."

"Then tell me."

Lo

"Yeah, in front of me, Lo

So much for backing off.

I slapped him on the shoulder. "I'm your new best pal. You know why?" "No." "Because I'm a powerful and angry law-enforcement official. And my guess is, if my investigators shake your tree, something will fall out."

"No way."

"Way," I said. "Do you want examples?"

He kept quiet.

I held up my Blackberry. "I have your arrest records here. You want me to start listing them for you?"

That made the smug go bye-bye.

"I have them all, my friend. Even the sealed stuff. That's what I mean when I say I'm a powerful and angry cop. I can screw with you five ways to Sunday. So cut the crap and tell me why you sent those journals."

I met Lucy's eye. She gave me the smallest of nods. Maybe she understood. We had talked strategy before Lo

He looked at Lucy now. "I didn't have a choice," he said.

Starting to spout excuses. Good.

"Truth is, I did it for you, Luce. To protect you. And, okay, myself. See, I didn't list those arrests on my Reston application. If the school found out, I'd be out. Just like that. That's what he told me."

"Who told you?" I said.

"I don't know the names."

"Lo

"I'm serious. They didn't say."

"So what did they say?"

"They promised me that this wouldn't hurt Lucy. They had no interest in her. They said what I was doing would be for her good, too, that"-Lo

He looked at me as hard as he could, which wasn't very hard. I waited for him to yell, "J'accuse!" When he didn't, I said, "Just so you know: On the inside I'm quaking."

"They think maybe you had something to do with those murders."

"Wonderful, thank you. So what happened next, Lo

"Yes."

"Who wrote them?"

"I don't know. I guess they did."

"You keep saying they. How many of them were there?"

"Two."

"And what were their names, Lo

"I don't know. Look, they were private eyes, okay? Like that. They said they'd been hired by one of the victim's families."

One of the victim's families. A lie. A bald-faced lie. It was MVD, the private investigation firm in Newark. It was suddenly starting to make a lot of sense. All of this was.

"They mentioned the name of this client?"

"No. They said it was confidential."

"I bet. What else did they say?"

"They told me that their firm was looking into these old murders. That they didn't believe the official version, blaming them on the Summer Slasher."

I looked at Lucy. I had filled her in on my visits with Wayne Steubens and Geoff Bedford. We talked about that night, our own role, the mistakes we made, the past certainty that all four were dead and that Wayne Steubens had killed them.

We had no idea what to think anymore.

"Anything else?"

"That's it."

"Oh, come on now, Lo

"That's all I know, I swear."

"No, I don't think so. I mean, these guys sent Lucy those journals to get her to react, right?" He said nothing. "You were supposed to watch her. You were supposed to tell them what she said and did. That's why you came in here the other day and told her how you found out all that stuff online about her past. You hoped that she'd confide in you. That was part of your assignment, wasn't it? You were supposed to exploit her trust and worm your way even deeper into her good graces."

"It wasn't like that."

"Sure it was. Did they offer you a bonus if you got that dirt?"

"A bonus?"

"Yes, Lo

"I didn't do this for money."

I shook my head. "That would be a lie."

"What?"

"Let's not pretend it was all about fear of being exposed or altruism in finding a killer. They paid you, didn't they?"

He opened his mouth to deny it. I closed it before he bothered.

"The same investigators who dig up old arrests," I said. "They have access to bank accounts. They can find, for example, five-thousand-dollar cash deposits. Like the one you made five days ago at the Chase in West Orange."

The mouth closed. I had to hand it to Muses investigating skills. She really was incredible.

"I didn't do anything illegal," he said.

"That's debatable, but I'm not in the mood right now. Who wrote the journal?" "I don't know. They gave me the pages, told me to feed it to her slowly."

"And did they tell you how they got that information?"

"No."

"No idea?"

"They said they had sources. Look, they knew everything about me. They knew everything about Lucy. But they wanted you, pal. That's all they cared about. Anything I could get her to say about Paul Cope-land-that was their main concern. They think maybe you're a killer."

"No, they don't, Lo

Perplexed. Lo

"Do me a favor, Lo

Chapter 30

Alexander "Sosh" Stekierky stood alone in his penthouse.

Man gets used to his environment. That was how it was. He was getting comfortable. Too comfortable for a man with his begi

As a young child, Sots family had gotten ensnared in the horrible siege of Leningrad. The Nazis surrounded the city and caused unspeakable suffering. Sosh had turned five on October 21, 1941, a month after the blockade began. He would turn six and seven with the siege still on. In January of 1942, with rations set at a quarter pound of bread a day, Soshs brother, Gavrel, age twelve, and his sister, Aline, age eight, died of starvation. Sosh survived eating stray animals. Cats mostly. People hear the stories, but they can't fathom the terror, the agony. You are power less. You just take it. But even that, even that horror-you get used to it. Like comfort, suffering can become the norm.

Sosh remembered when he first came to the USA. You could buy food anywhere. There were no long lines. There were no shortages. He remembered buying a chicken. He kept it in his freezer. He couldn't believe it. A chicken. He would wake up late at night in a cold sweat. He would run to the freezer and open it up and just stare at the chicken and feel safe.