Read The Woods for Free Online Page B

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