The Woods Read Free

hell?"
    "Who exactly do you think you're talking to, Detective?"
    "A guy running for office who wouldn't want us to take this directly to the press."
    "Are you threatening me?"
    York stepped in. "Nobody is threatening anything."
    But Dillon had hit me where I lived. The truth was, my appointment was still only temporary. My friend, the current governor of the Garden State, had made me acting county prosecutor. There was also serious talk of my running for Congress, maybe even the vacant Senate seat. I would be lying if I said I didn't have political ambitions. A scandal, even the fake whiff of one, would not play well.
    "I can't see how I can help," I said. "Maybe you can't, maybe you can." Dillon rotated the cinder block. "But you want to help if you can, don't you?" "Of course," I said. "I mean, I don't want your ass itching any more than it has to."
    He almost smiled at that one. "Then get in the car."
    "I have an important meeting this afternoon."
    "We'll have you back by then."
    I expected a beat-up Chevy Caprice, but the car was a clean Ford. I sat in the back. My two new friends sat in the front. We did not speak for the ride. There was traffic at the George Washington Bridge, but we just hit our siren and sliced through it. When we were on the Manhattan side, York spoke.
    "We think Manolo Santiago might be an alias."
    I said, "Uh-huh," because I didn't know what else to say.
    "You see, we don't have a positive ID on the victim. We found him last night. His driver's license reads Manolo Santiago. We checked it out. It doesn't appear to be his real name. We ran his prints. No hits. So we don't know who he is."
    "And you think I will?"
    They did not bother answering.
    York's voice was as casual as a spring day. "You're a widower, Mr. Copeland, right?"
    "Right," I said.
    "Must be tough. Raising a kid on your own."
    I said nothing.
    "Your wife had cancer, we understand. You're very involved in some organization to find a cure."
    "Uh-huh."
    "Admirable."
    They should only know.
    "This must be weird for you," York said.
    "How's that?"
    "Being on the other side. You're usually the one asking the questions, not answering them. That's gotta be a little strange."
    He smiled at me in the rearview mirror.
    "Hey, York?" I said.
    "What?"
    "Do you have a playbill or a program?" I asked.
    "A what?"
    "A playbill," I said. "So I can see your past credits, you know, before you landed the coveted role of Good Cop." York chuckled at that. "I'm just saying, it's weird is all. I mean, have you ever been questioned by the police before?"
    It was a setup question. They had to know. When I was eighteen years old, I worked as a counselor at a summer camp. Four campers- Gil Perez and his girlfriend, Margot Green, Doug Billingham and his girlfriend, Camille Copeland (aka my sister) sneaked into the woods late one night.
    They were never seen again. Only two of the bodies have ever been found. Margot Green, age seventeen, was found with her throat slit within a hundred yards of the campsite. Doug Billingham, also seventeen, was found half a mile away. He had several stab wounds, but cause of death was also a slit throat. The bodies of the other two, Gil Perez and my sister, Camille, have never been found.
    The case made headlines. Wayne Steubens, a rich-kid counselor at the camp, was caught two years later, after his third summer of terror-but not until he murdered at least four more teens. He was dubbed the Summer Slasher, an all-too-obvious moniker. Waynes next two victims were found near a Boy Scout camp in Muncie, Indiana. Another victim was attending one of those all-around camps in Vienna, Virginia. His last victim had been at a sports camp in the Poconos. Most had their throats slit. All had been buried out in the woods, some before death. Yes, as in buried alive. It took a fair amount of time to locate the bodies. The Poconos kid, for example, took six months to be found. Most experts believe that there are others still out there, still