by David Ellis
He waves his arms angrily. His eyes fill. “Now someone’s doing it again and it’s going to be my fault all over again.”
Having been on the defense side for some time now, I can see his point in a way I never could, as a prosecutor. He’s right. In some ways I did blame him. Everyone did. He fed this material to a monster who used it to kill six women.
“We’re waiting,” I say to him.
He takes a moment, a couple of heavy sighs, a wipe at his face, a long shake of the head. “I told that reporter that I didn’t know what she was talking about,” he says evenly. “Cassie was fighting a lot of demons. What, precisely, I didn’t know. On the surface, she had everything. But she couldn’t get past whatever was troubling her. She should have been the most popular girl on campus, but Ellie was her only friend. Yes, I knew her a little bit. Yes, I occasionally socialized with the students. But I didn’t know those kinds of details.”
Stoletti is smart enough to let this thing ride out, and we remain quiet until we’re sure he’s done. Done for the moment, at least. There’s more, but I don’t know what. I was bluffing before, of course. We don’t have Evelyn Pendry’s notes from her interview with Albany or with anyone else. We’re completely in the dark. I just recognized something in his eyes and acted on it.
“Tell us the details,” I try.
“I’m saying I don’t know the details.” He waves his hands, pleading. “I don’t know if she was even pregnant, much less whether she got an abortion.”
“Keep going,” I say instinctively. In my job, you learn to control your reactions. I want to keep the focus on him so it’s not on Stoletti or me. Stoletti has a notepad and she casually scribbles something.
Pregnancy? Abortion?
Cassie Bentley?
I feel a burn through my chest. All of this is news to me.
The professor, deflated now, shakes his head. He has nothing more to tell us. I believe him.
“Who told Evelyn about this?” I ask. “How did she know to ask these questions?”
“I have no idea. She’s a reporter. She probably wouldn’t have told me if I asked. And I didn’t.”
True enough. Christ, Evelyn said nothing about this to me. Then again, I didn’t give her much of a chance.
“Did Cassie even have a boyfriend?” I ask, feeling something swimming in my stomach. That’s a question to which I, of all people, should know the answer.
The rumor had been she was gay. And then none of the details of her personal life mattered, not for the case, once we dropped the charges on her murder.
“I have no idea,” Albany says.
Stoletti looks at me and I shrug. She slips him her card and gives the standard line, If you think of anything else, don’t be a stranger. I walk out first, through the hallway, down the stairs and out the door, not entirely sure where I am.
But having some idea where I need to go. I call Shelly on my cell phone.
“What are you doing this afternoon?” I ask her.
28
STOLETTI AND I drive back in silence. She was never exactly warm to me, but since learning that I’m Harland Bentley’s lawyer the temperature has dropped still further. It feels odd, the silence, because both of us were floored upon hearing this talk of Cassie possibly having been pregnant and gotten an abortion. Such a blockbuster, and Stoletti treats me like a passenger in a taxicab. I sense that this supposed open-door policy has become decidedly one way.
When she drops me off at the station, I switch to my car. I dial information on my cell phone and ask for a number in Lake Coursey, where Harland thought his niece might still be living. “Gwendolyn Lake,” I say.
The operator tells me there are two numbers. “A Gwendolyn Lake on Spring Harbor Road, and a Gwendolyn’s Lake Diner on County Road 29.”
Party girl-heiress Gwendolyn Lake runs a diner?
I tell him I want addresses as well as phone numbers, and I’ll take them for both entries. Then I call my assistant, Betty, and tell her to get directions to both addresses off MapQuest.
I swing by the law school where Shelly works. She’s waiting out front. She didn’t have to be in court today and it’s summer, so she’s casual in a blouse and blue jeans. My disillusionment with Professor Albany’s revelations notwithstanding, I feel an immediate lift.
She jumps into the car, and I take in her scent. I consider reaching over to kiss her, but then I think, Slow. I promised.
But I don’t resist when she turns my face toward her and plants one on me.
“So this is how you entertain your dates?” she asks me. “A witness interview?”
I start driving. “It’s up north,” I explain. “Your kind of country.”
Shelly grew up downstate, where her father was a prosecutor before running statewide for attorney general, and later governor. She’s a city girl now, but she’s complained more than once about not seeing the stars at night and how she misses the clean, crisp, unpolluted air.
“While we’re up there,” I add, “we can look for a second home. Some place on a lake with a boat.”
She doesn’t take the bait, so I keep going.
“But first things first: We have to get you pregnant. And then the wedding, of course, at the governor’s mansion. I’ve got a preliminary invitation list. Is two thousand too many?”
I keep my face straight and my eyes forward.
“You mock me, Mr. Riley.”
I take her hand, which she reluctantly yields, and kiss it.
“Ms. Trotter, you’ve never known slow like I’m going to show you.”
“Don’t forget, Paul, I’ve seen you on the jogging path.”
Life is grand. I’m like a teenager after his first kiss.
“Tell me about last night,” she requests.
I had to leave Shelly last night when I got the call about Evelyn Pendry. I give her the long version, and because we have almost a hundred miles to go I tell her about Professor Albany today, too.
When I’m finished, she says, “Whoever’s doing this has an agenda.”
The interstate is relatively clear midday. I push it past seventy as we head through the northern part of the state, mostly underdeveloped, rural flat land.
“The victims aren’t random,” she elaborates. “Evelyn called Fred Ciancio, and both of them are dead. And he lets you see the weapons, from the song. He writes ‘I’m not the only one.’ He’s not hiding what he’s doing. The question is, why?”
She’s right about the victims. Ciancio can be linked back to the Burgos case because of the phone call he made to Carolyn Pendry. And then, recently, he called Carolyn’s daughter, Evelyn. This is not random.
“The other question,” she adds, “is where Cassie Bentley comes in. The thing about pregnancy and the abortion. You didn’t know anything about that?”
I shake my head. “The word, back then, was that Cassie had been ‘troubled.’ That was the word we always heard. Intensely private, too. She had, like, two friends. And her closest friend was Ellie, one of the other victims, so we never learned too much about her.”
“Troubled how?”
“Like locking herself in her room. Not going to class. Not socializing. Not even eating.” I shrug. “Rich kid who can’t be happy: ”
I feel Shelly’s eyes on me.
“Don’t be dismissive. It’s not easy having a famous family.”
Well, Shelly would know. She didn’t exactly have a winning relationship with her folks as her father ascended to the highest office in the state.
“Apparently,” I say, “it got worse around the time she died. She went into a cocoon.”
Shelly doesn’t respond, but I know the same words are on the tip of her tongue as mine. Pregnancy. Abortion. Enough to send an already troubled college girl into a nosedive.
“Did Terry Burgos know Cassie?”
“Not so far as we could tell. He certainly never said so.”
“Do you think these things going on in Cassie’s life have anything t
o do with why Burgos killed her?”
“No,” I answer. “I think he killed Cassie because she was Ellie’s friend. He needed another victim and she was it.”
“What sin did Cassie commit? I mean, each victim had a specific sin, right?”
“Well, that’s the thing. The last murder in the first verse was suicide. ‘Now it’s time to say good-bye to someone’s family. Stick it right between those teeth and fire so happily.’ He’s talking about killing himself. Burgos knew, I think, that he was supposed to kill himself but he didn’t want to. He came upon Cassie and killed her instead. Thus, she ‘saved’ him.”
“How did he ‘come upon’ Cassie?”
We don’t know. Burgos didn’t testify, and when he talked to the shrinks all he talked about was God and sinners. He didn’t get into specifics with any of the girls. I tell Shelly all of that.
“So you don’t know how he abducted Cassie.”
I feel like I’m on the witness stand. I’ve seen Shelly cross-examine witnesses and I wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end.
“Does that bother you?” she asks me.
“No, it doesn’t bother me.”
“Then why are we going to Lake Coursey, Paul?”
“Gwendolyn Lake was Cassie’s cousin.” Other than Ellie Danzinger and a young guy whose name I can’t recall, Cassie’s cousin, Gwendolyn, is the only person I can think of. She wasn’t around when Cassie was murdered, but she apparently flew into town now and then and spent time with Cassie.
“No,” Shelly says. “I mean, why are you going?”
A smile creeps to my lips. Shelly can read me pretty well.
“You can’t stand the thought that something happened on that case that you didn’t know about.”
Maybe I can’t. But instead of responding, I punch the speed dial on my cell phone for Joel Lightner. I press the phone’s SPEAKER button and place it between Shelly and me.
“Hey,” he answers, having caller ID.
“Joel, I’m in the car with Shelly.”
“With—oh, great. Shelly!”
“Hi, Joel.”
I give him a brief rundown on what’s happened. Lightner is the only person in the world who knows as much as I do about Terry Burgos.
“Cassie was pregnant?” he says. “I thought she was a dyke. I mean—a member of the gay and lesbian community, Shelly.”
“You’re a true Renaissance man, Joel,” she calls back.
“Joel, I talked to Harland the other night. Evelyn Pendry had spoken with him, too. Asked him all kinds of questions about Cassie.”
“These kinds of questions? Pregnancy and abortion?”
“He never specified, but my guess would be yes. And he was very concerned about these things getting out. You know, ‘Cassie’s already suffered enough,’ that kind of thing. He wanted me to keep a lid on Evelyn.”
“Pretty good lid on her now.”
Yeah, that sure is true. I take my foot off the accelerator as I see what has the makings of a police car, hidden behind an overpass.
“Joel, what do you remember about Gwendolyn Lake?”
“Gwendolyn,” he muses. “Cassie’s cousin. The party queen? I remember nothing, that’s what I remember. Mean and nasty, if memory serves—but she was in Europe during the murders so she didn’t really matter.”
“Right.” I sigh. “What was the name of Cassie’s friend? The guy who hung out with Cassie and Ellie?”
“Oh, the studly guy.”
“Yeah, he was a good-looking guy—”
“Cried like a baby,” Lightner says.
He did. He was an emotional guy. Held up pretty well while I prepped him for his testimony at the sentencing phase but broke down on the stand. Sobbed like a child.
“Handsome and sensitive,” Shelly says. “Is he single?”
“Mitchum,” Lightner recalls.
“Brandon Mitchum. Right, right. Joel, find him for me, okay?”
“Why?”
“Why? Because I pay you to do what I ask, not to ask what I do.”
“Is this you acting tough in front of your girlfriend?”
I look over at Shelly, who blushes.
“I mean, you guys are boyfriend-girlfriend again, right?”
She laughs. I feel the color on my cheeks, too.
“Well, thank Christ,” he says. “So—Brandon Mitchum? Seriously, Riley—why?”
Same thing Shelly asked. An itch I need to scratch, or something like that.
“Hey,” he says. “Who are the cops you’re working with?”
“Mike McDermott,” I say. “And Ricki Stoletti.”
“Don’t know Stoletti.”
“She transferred from the suburbs a couple years ago. Major Crimes.”
“McDermott’s a good man,” Lightner says. “I know him a little. He’s good. A cop’s cop. Went through a tough thing there with his wife.”
“How’s that?”
“Few years back,” he says, “his wife ate a gun.”
Shelly recoils. McDermott’s wife committed suicide? “Oh, Jesus.”
“She was a—what was it?—manic-depressive, I guess. Bipolar in a bad way. He comes home one day, she’s splayed out in the bathroom. Three-year-old daughter is curled up in the shower, sucking her thumb.”
“Holy shit.” I bring a hand to my face. “Three-year-old daughter?”
That explains McDermott’s reaction, at the task force meeting, to the “whack job” comment. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like for him.
“She didn’t see it happen, at least. But, still. Walking in on that? Your mother, with the back of her head blown out? When you’re three years old?”
I shake my head. “Okay, well, I’m going. Off to learn about Cassie Bentley.”
Lightner doesn’t answer immediately. Usually, he’s quick with a line. “Suddenly, you have a personal interest in this thing?”
“Maybe I do,” I say. “Find me Brandon Mitchum.” I punch out the phone.
ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER HOTEL. This one in the suburbs, a midlevel chain.
Leo laps the place in his car three times, peeking into the lobby, watching in the mirror for any new cars that might be entering the parking lot, because they’d keep their distance, they wouldn’t be so obvious.
He is tentative, approaching the lobby, surveying the ambush points, the roof, any cars suddenly moving in the parking lot, but doing it without appearing to do it. He’ll be ready when it comes, but they won’t be ready for him.
The lobby is empty when he enters, but he steps just inside the main doors and hides in the recesses, waiting for anyone to pass, holding a magazine open, should anyone wonder what he’s doing, reading a magazine, just reading, but his eyes are outside, still looking for them. He’s pretty sure he wasn’t followed, but he’ll take no chances.
Five minutes, ten minutes, then he approaches the counter and gives false identification and pays in cash for one night, picks up a complimentary newspaper, takes the elevator up one level and steps out onto the mezzanine overlooking the lobby. Making sure he wasn’t followed.
So he waits, casually opening a copy of the Watch. The front page is splattered with the news, murder, brutal murder, shocking murder, staff reporter, daughter of television anchor Carolyn Pendry, young reporter, crime-beat reporter, nothing in there about how quickly she could move, Leo knows, he has the pulled hamstring to prove it, bad pull, bad leg.
A strong will, he could see it in Evelyn’s eyes, the defiance on her face, even as he exerted complete domination over her. Like Kat, a lot like Kat, the way she steeled her jaw as she stared at death, not like most of them—most of them, doesn’t matter male or female, they freeze up, accept it at the end, the very end, accept it even if they can’t believe it—
He takes the elevator and slides a key card into the door. The beds are a pair of twins. He spent so much of the night avoiding a tail, he needs some sleep. He’d prefer a bigger bed, but he’s used to a whole lot worse than th
is. In Lefortovo, the metal rods supporting the thin cushion were spaced so far apart the cushion would fall through. He learned to take newspaper or magazines—whatever he was allowed to read—and stuff them between the rods to provide additional support. But he could never shake the feeling that he was sleeping on a set of monkey bars. They did that on purpose, he knew. They didn’t want the inmates well rested. At least not inmates like him.
He falls on the bed and thinks of Kat. She had them all fooled. They saw her as a sweet girl who could never be part of something evil. He remembers tears—his own tears—falling on her face as she stared up at him. She almost made him believe, too.
Two years it took them—twenty—three months and seven days—because he kept count on the wall. Two years of staring into a black door, communicating with fellow inmates by talking into the toilet bowl, down the piping to another cell. Two years of conjuring up ways to get up the wall to the single lightbulb in the ceiling to light a cigarette stub. Two years before they discovered he was right, before the men in the blue piping came for him.
He closes his eyes, feels the exhaustion sweep over him, his eyes sinking beneath the shade of his eyelids.
But then the lightning strike in the stomach, the burning acid. He springs into a ball, the hamstring again, too, he can’t relax, can’t sleep, not until he’s done, and he’s not done, not after Evelyn, it has to be tonight, and he doesn’t even know where Brandon Mitchum lives yet, lot of work to do, because it has to be tonight—
Leo gets off the bed and heads for the door.
ONCE WE’RE OFF THE INTERSTATE, Shelly reads me the written instructions from Betty. I follow a couple of county roads before I get to the point of intersection between Gwendolyn’s house and the diner that bears her name. As it’s nearing two-thirty, I call the diner. The woman who answers says Gwendolyn’s not around, so I decide to go to her house.
“Fresh,” Stoletti had said about interviewing witnesses. No notice. It makes sense. I’d just as soon pop in on Gwendolyn and see what I can find out.
