Eye of the Beholder (41 page)

“Which one of you killed Cassie?” he asks.

Albany’s arm flies away from his body. “What the hell are you
talking
about?”

“Which one of you killed Ellie?”

“See, Bentley says it was you, Professor. You were the one who gained from Cassie dying. You would’ve lost your job if it came out that you were banging a student. And it wasn’t just a he-said, she-said, was it?”

Albany shakes his head furiously.

“No,” McDermott continues, “it wasn’t. Because she was pregnant. That’s pretty solid proof, right, Professor? You were the ‘fucking father.’ Even back then, before DNA, you could identify paternity. You knew you wouldn’t be able to deny it. You knew the paternity test would point to you.”

“You’ve got this wrong,” he insists. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

“You figured, with Ellie out of the way, there’d be no one to talk about pregnancy and paternity tests and abortions.”

“No—”

“You didn’t figure on her telling other people about it, too.”

“No!” Albany slams a fist on the table, floundering in his chair while his arm remains cuffed to the table.

“A deal is made,” McDermott says. “Two girls dead, two secrets covered up.”

“No. No. This isn’t
right.
And what—what about Terry?”

“Oh, framing Terry Burgos was the easy part, Professor. You were, like, his mentor, right? You’d already fucked with his head, showing him all those lyrics about mutilating women, and how the Bible liked that crap. You knew he had a thing for Ellie Danzinger.”

Albany’s eyes, moving about chaotically, now rise to meet McDermott’s.

“He drove that Suburban of his to your printing plant every night, Professor. What, you somehow got hold of his keys? Helped yourself to his truck, and maybe to his basement, too. What I want to know is, how’d you manage to fuck with his mind so he thought he killed those girls?”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus God.” Albany shields his eyes. “Get me a lawyer. Get me a fucking lawyer!”

“Bentley’s gotten a big head start on you,” Stoletti says. “If you have something to tell us, it better be now.”

“We walk out of here,” McDermott adds, “it’s over for you. We’ll get you that lawyer, but it’ll be too late.” After a moment of silence, he nods to Stoletti. “Let’s go, Detective. Let’s get that written statement from Harland Bentley.”

A gasp of air, a bitter snicker, and Albany is shaking his head. McDermott and Stoletti, half out of their seats, sink back down. Albany’s no dummy; he might see through the ruse. Hell, he’s already asked for counsel several times. But he’s been broadsided here, with information he never expected would see the light of day. McDermott’s seen it happen to far better people.

“Harland-fucking-Bentley,” he mumbles. “I should’ve known.”

“Give us your side,” McDermott says.

He looks up at the detectives, a rotted fruit of a face, a pathetic semblance of the defiant man who first sat in the room. “Do you know what’s worse than fucking your daughter’s best friend?” he asks.

McDermott doesn’t answer.

Albany takes a deep breath. His mouth curls into a snarl. “Then you don’t know everything.”

 

WHILE I WAIT FOR the detectives to return, I spend my time on the notes.

What secret did he think I knew? What “help” did I give him?

I prosecuted the damn case. I built a case against Burgos and beat him at trial. What favor could I have performed?

I sit back in the chair, close my eyes, play out the history of the case. That first day, finding the bodies, then Burgos, then getting the confession. Defending the confession in court. Burgos pleaded insanity. Everything turned toward proving his rational thought, his consciousness of guilt.

Did Koslenko ever show himself to me? Was there anything he did? Did he send me one of these notes back—

My eyes open, the adrenaline flooding through me. I pick up the cell phone and dial my law firm.

“Betty,” I say, “remember during the Burgos trial? Remember all that mail we received?”

“Sure,” she says.

“We still have the letters?”

“Sure. For the book you never wrote.”

“Have them ready,” I say. “I’m coming back now.”

L
EO WAITS across the street from Paul Riley’s building. No sign of any of those messengers, with their fluorescent jackets and bike helmets. He thinks of his LeBaron, parked in a lot half a block away. He needs to get back to it. He doesn’t have long.

He adjusts his glasses—fake ones with clear lenses—and tugs down on his baseball cap. Disguises aren’t that important here, the key is simply that he can’t be identified.

If I go into the building, they’ll catch me on camera. But I don’t have time.

Leo drops his head, his heartbeat ricocheting. He crosses the street with pedestrians and walks into the building. He looks at the escalator, and the security up on the mezzanine.

They’re looking for me.

At that moment, Leo sees one of the messengers taking the escalator down, toward him. He breathes in relief. The man is young, an empty bag over his shoulder.

Leo waves to him, holding the envelope in one hand, a fifty-dollar bill in the other.

 

McDERMOTT WATCHES PROFESSOR ALBANY slowly recover his bearings. He’s taking the whole thing in, McDermott realizes. He’s thinking through his options and seeing no reason why he shouldn’t spill whatever it is he has to say.

“What’s worse than fucking your daughter’s best friend?” McDermott asks.

The professor pops a cigarette in his mouth and lights it. He blows out smoke and looks up at the ceiling.

“Fucking your wife’s sister,” he says, exhaling.

Your wife‘s—what?

“You’re talking about Natalia’s sister?”

A hint of a smile creeps onto his face. “Mia Lake,” he says. “Gwendolyn’s mother.”

“Harland was sleeping with Mia Lake?”

Albany nods. “Cassie was talking about paternity? I’ll bet she was talking about Gwendolyn.”

McDermott falls back in his chair. “Harland is Gwendolyn’s father?”

Albany seems satisfied with the revelation. “Apparently, while Natalia was expecting, and presumably not open to sexual advances, he turned to her sister.” He shrugs. “You don’t believe me, just ask Gwendolyn. Hell, test her.”

McDermott looks at Stoletti.

“You can imagine,” Albany continues, “how a man who married an heiress—with an ironclad prenup, by the way—would feel about that information coming out. Cassie sure didn’t think her father would want it public.”

This, McDermott realizes, is the knockdown, drag-out fight that Brandon Mitchum described, just before finals at Gwendolyn’s house. This was what sent Cassie running out of the house.

“Wait a second.” McDermott places his palm on the table. “Cassie told you this.”

“Sure, she did. How else would
I
know? Gwendolyn told Cassie, Cassie told me. Oh, that Gwendolyn was a piece of work. She hated Cassie. She wanted to spite her.”

“And who else knew? Cassie told you. Who else knew?”

“You mean, did
Ellie
know?” Albany savors his cigarette a moment. “It would stand to reason, but I couldn’t tell you.”

No, McDermott’s not thinking of Ellie. He’s thinking of Harland Bentley. Maybe a phone call Cassie made to Harland:

Maybe Cassie wasn’t talking about her own pregnancy on that phone call that Brandon Mitchum overheard. She was talking to her father about Gwendolyn.

That’s why she was so distraught. A trifecta—her father had sired another daughter, whom Cassie had always taken as her cousin; her suspicion that her father was at it again, this time with her best friend, Ellie Danzinger; and her own pregnancy.

Enough to send anyone over the edge. And most of her torment attributable to one person. Harland Bentley.

Which would mean the reason for breaking into Cassie’s doctor’s office had nothing to do with Cassie. It was Gwendolyn. Sure. She probably had the same doctors as Cassie. Why wouldn’t she? Maybe she submitted to a blood test, the first step of a paternity test.

“Cassie would tell you things she wouldn’t tell Ellie,” Stoletti follows up. “You two were especially close.”

Albany smiles with bitterness. “You’re very crafty with your questions, Detective Stoletti. You’re trying to trick me into admitting I had a relationship with Cassie? Well, you don’t have to. She was nineteen, you know. It’s not like I was breaking any laws. She was bright, full of energy—she was a wonderful girl whom I miss very much, to this day. But if she was pregnant, she certainly never told me so.”

McDermott nods at the note on the table. “When did you receive that note?”

Albany, with his free hand holding the cigarette, points to the note, too. “That note was delivered to me by the man in that photo. That is the first, and last, time I’ve seen him.”

“Leo Koslenko.”

“I don’t know his name,” he says. “I never did. He didn’t even let me hold the note. He came to my office and held it up for me to read. I had to give him an answer, right then.”

“And when was ‘right then’? When was this note delivered to you?” McDermott asks.

“I—I don’t know the precise day of the week, but it was a weekday. It was a few days after the bodies were discovered.” He gestures with his free hand. “This man just waltzed into my office, held this up for me to read, and told me he wanted an answer. I told him yes.”

“And you never felt the need to bring this up to the police?” McDermott asks, his tone less than gentle.

“Not when it was obvious to everyone that Terry Burgos killed those poor girls—no, I didn’t.” He taps his cigarette into the black ashtray. “Self-preservation was certainly a motive, I will admit to that. But if I thought it had
anything
to do with the murders, I would have said something. Terry immediately confessed to all of the murders. Why on earth would I reveal painful secrets about myself and others when it was utterly irrelevant?”

McDermott opens his hands.

“I had nothing to do with Cassie or Ellie being murdered.” He drills his finger into the table. “Cassie, in particular, was very dear to me. The notion that I could hurt her—that’s about the worst thing you could say to me.”

“We might come up with worse, Professor.” McDermott pushes himself out of his chair. “You’re gonna need to sit tight awhile.”

 

By THE TIME I‘D returned to my office, Betty had retrieved the book of mail that we received at the county attorney’s office during the Burgos case. Each piece of mail, at the time, had been date-stamped and filed away. It was a mere precaution. Nothing came of it. And when the case was officially over—when Burgos was executed—and people were scrambling for mementoes, I scooped up the mail. I’d had an idea in the back of my mind that I would write a book, and some of this mail was precious.

But I remember now, one particular piece of mail that stood out. It wasn’t fire-and-brimstone stuff about the Old Testament. It talked about morality, not so much in biblical terms but in—well, nonsensical terms. More than anything, it was just weird. Like the notes that have been sent to me now.

I flip through the pages of the three-ring binder, a full page dedicated to each letter, enveloped in plastic. “Any idea of when that letter came?” I ask Betty.

But she doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. I keep flipping, then suddenly stop. There it is.

I immediately go to work on it:

I check the date stamp on the letter. The letter was received on Tuesday, August 15, 1989.

I open the rings on the binder and remove this page, leaving the letter enclosed in plastic. I place the letter on my desk and stare at it.

Again, “Albany” at the end of the message. But this time, there’s no doubt about the punctuation. The word
Albany
stands alone. Maybe it’s a colon. “I may need one more: Albany.” Or maybe it’s a sign-off. Maybe he’s telling me it’s him—Albany.

“A job well done?” In August of 1989? The case was barely off and running by then. There was nothing to congratulate.

“Betty,” I say into the intercom. “Where is the pleadings file for Burgos?”

“It should already be in your office.”

I find it, tucked in the corner with several accordion files from the case. The pleadings file, which contains most of the documents filed in the Burgos case, is seven volumes, with the documents filed in chronological order, with numbered tabs, and bound at the top. I flip through the first volume, thinking about the date stamp on the letter. If the letter was received on August 15, 1989, then “a job well done” must relate to something that happened before that date.

I flip through June and July. The search warrant, the complaint by which we indicted Burgos, motions concerning bail, the written arguments over Burgos’s attempt to suppress the confession, Burgos’s official plea of insanity. Could this note have been referring to our victory when Burgos tried to have his confession kicked? It’s possible, I guess.

When I get to August—especially before August 15—it is relatively bare. On the first day of the month, a motion was filed by Burgos’s lawyer requesting additional money for psychiatrists. And then there’s a motion filed by the prosecution on August second.