When they turned right at the same window I had stood in front of yesterday, Dillon stuck out his hand in front of me, almost in a protective way, as if I were a kid in the front seat and he’d just stopped short. We stayed a good ten yards back, maneuvering so that we stayed out of their line of vision.
It was hard to see their faces. Mr. and Mrs. Perez stood next to each other. They did not touch. I could see Mr. Perez lower his head. He was wearing a blue blazer. Mrs. Perez had on a dark blouse almost the color of dried blood. She wore a lot of gold. I watched a different person—a tall man with a beard this time—wheel the gurney toward the window. The sheet covered the body.
When it was in place, the man with the beard glanced toward York. York nodded. The man carefully lifted the sheet, as if there were something fragile underneath. I was afraid to make a sound, but I still tilted my body a little to the left. I wanted to see some of Mrs. Perez’s face, at least a sliver of profile.
I remember reading about torture victims who want to control something, anything, and so they fight hard not to cry out, not to twist up their face, not to show anything, not to give their tormenters any satisfaction whatsoever. Something in Mrs. Perez’s face reminded me of that. She had braced herself. She took the blow with a small shudder, nothing more.
She stared a little while. Nobody spoke. I realized that I was holding my breath. I turned my attention toward Mr. Perez. His eyes were on the floor. They were wet. I could see the quake cross his lips.
Without looking away, Mrs. Perez said, “That’s not our son.”
Silence. I had not expected that.
York said, “Are you sure, Mrs. Perez?”
She did not reply.
“He was a teenager when you last saw him,” York continued. “I understand he had long hair.”
“He did.”
“This man’s head is shaven. And he has a beard. It’s been a lot of years, Mrs. Perez. Please take your time.”
Mrs. Perez finally wrested her eyes from the body. She turned her gaze toward York. York stopped speaking.
“That’s not Gil,” she said again.
York swallowed, looked toward the father. “Mr. Perez?”
He managed a nod, cleared his throat. “There’s not even much of a resemblance.” His eyes closed and another quake ran across his face. “It’s just…”
“It’s the right age,” Mrs. Perez finished for him.
York said, “I’m not sure I follow.”
“When you lose a son like that, you always wonder. For us, he’ll be forever a teenager. But if he had lived, he would be, yes, the same age as this husky man. So you wonder what he’d be like. Would he be married? Have children? What would he look like?”
“And you’re certain this man isn’t your son?”
She smiled the saddest smile I had ever seen. “Yes, Detective, I am certain.”
York nodded. “I’m sorry to bring you out here.”
They began to turn away when I said, “Show them the arm.”
Everyone turned in my direction. Mrs. Perez’s laser gaze zeroed in on me. There was something there, a strange sense of cunning, a challenge maybe. Mr. Perez spoke first.
“Who are you?” he asked.
I had my eyes on Mrs. Perez. Her sad smile returned. “You’re the Copeland boy, aren’t you?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Camille Copeland’s brother.”
“Yes.”
“Are you the one who made the identification?”
I wanted to explain about the clippings and the ring, but it felt as though I was running out of time. “The arm,” I said. “Gil had that awful scar on his arm.”
She nodded. “One of our neighbors kept llamas. He had a barbed-wire fence. Gil was always a good climber. He tried to get into the pen when he was eight years old. He slipped and the wire dug deep into his shoulder.” She turned to her husband. “How many stitches did he need, Jorge?”
Jorge Perez had the sad smile now too. “Twenty-two.”
That was not the story Gil had told us. He had weaved a tale about a knife fight that sounded like something out of a bad production of West Side Story. I hadn’t believed him then, even as a kid, so this inconsistency hardly surprised me.
“I remembered it from camp,” I said. I gestured with my chin back toward the glass. “Look at his arm.”
Mr. Perez shook his head. “But we already said—”
His wife put a hand up, quieting him. No question about it. She was the leader here. She nodded in my direction before turning back to the glass.
“Show me,” she said.
Her husband looked confused, but he joined her at the window. This time she took his hand and held it. The bearded man had already wheeled the gurney away. York knocked on the glass. The bearded man startled upright. York beckoned him to bring the gurney back toward the window. He did.
I moved closer to Mrs. Perez. I could smell her perfume. It was vaguely familiar, but I didn’t remember from where. I stood maybe a foot behind them, looking between their heads.
York hit the white intercom button. “Please show them his arms.”
The bearded man pulled back the sheet, again using that gentle, respectful technique. The scar was there, an angry slash. A smile returned to Mrs. Perez’s face, but what type—sad, happy, confused, fake, practiced, spontaneous?—I couldn’t say.
“The left,” she said.
“What?”
She turned to me. “This scar is on the left arm,” she said. “Gil’s was on the right. And Gil’s wasn’t that long or deep.”
Mrs. Perez turned to me and put a hand on my arm. “It’s not him, Mr. Copeland. I understand why you’d so much want it to be Gil. But it’s not. He isn’t coming back to us. And neither is your sister.”
CHAPTER 6
WHEN I GOT BACK TO MY HOUSE, LOREN MUSE WAS PACING like a lion near a wounded gazelle. Cara was in the backseat. She had dance class in an hour. I wasn’t taking her. Our nanny, Estelle, was back today. She drove. I overpay Estelle and don’t care. You find someone good who also drives? You pay them whatever they want.
I pulled into my driveway. The house was a three-bedroom split-level that had all the personality of that morgue corridor. It was supposed to be our “starter” house. Jane had wanted to upgrade to a McMansion, maybe in Franklin Lakes. I didn’t care much where we lived. I’m not into houses or cars and would pretty much let Jane have her way on that kind of stuff.