Eye of the Beholder

by David Ellis

  He needs a Trim-Meter chain saw. He doesn’t see one.

  “Trim-Meter?” The man shakes his head. “Sir, Trim-Meter hasn’t made a chain saw for years.”

  Leo rocks on his toes, biting down into his lip.

  The man taps Leo on the arm. “I know how you feel. You get loyal to a brand. That’s the kind you’ve always used, am I right?”

  Leo looks at him, sizes him up.

  “Always had a Husky myself. That’s what I’d recommend. Something lightweight, like a 137 here, will do you fine.” He grabs a saw off a tackboard, a long security cord attached to the model.

  Leo stares at the man, his hands at his side.

  The man sighs. “Okay, well—place called Varten’s? Over on Pickamee? Guy over there has lots of old, used saws. I mean, if you’re dead set on Trim-Meter, he might have one.”

  The man gives Leo directions to Varten‘s, like he’s dumb. Like he’s a five-year-old.

  I’m smarter than I look.

  Leo walks back across the store. He lost the black guy. He lost them both.

  Wait.

  The woman’s in line. Okay, different now, she’s not just a watcher, she’s trying to get out of the store ahead of him, she’s going to be waiting for him, or she’s going to tell others—

  They make eye contact, but her eyes dart away, she’s in an express line, she’s next up, she swipes her credit card and picks up two bags, lightbulbs, yeah, sure, lightbulbs, like he’s an idiot.

  Follow her out, see where she goes, keep close but not too close, not until it’s time, sweep the eyes over the parking lot, lots of cars, but hardly any people, can’t tell where the rest of her team is, or how many of them, how many members of her team, watch for an ambush, they could pop out from between any of these cars, head on a swivel—left-right, left-right—quick check behind, they could be anywhere but she was the one who followed, she was the one who stayed back—

  She’s the one who will report back, who will tell them about the Trim-Meter—

  A receipt, carried into the wind, he picks it up, yes, a diversion, a diversion will work, slip out the knife, keep it in the right hand, against his side, close the gap with the woman—

  She stops and turns, next to an SUV, nobody around her but hard to tell, other trucks parked on each side of her, smart of her, good cover, hard to see, hard to—

  Hard to see her with trucks on each side.

  He takes a breath and goes cold.

  He steps left, gets an angle, and moves in. She has the back door open, throwing the bags of lightbulbs in the backseat.

  Ten feet away. Five feet. Leo holds out the receipt. Shows it to her.

  “Oh.” Like she doesn’t know him. She’s well trained. She reaches out and takes the receipt. It happens in a snap. She begins a Thank you, looks up at him as his left hand grips her arm, shoving her into the backseat while he sweeps the knife across her throat with his right hand. Hardly has to move the knife, her neck moving across it, doing the work for him.

  Not a sound. Her lifeless body falls to the floorboard, which immediately fills with her blood. He pushes her legs in the car and closes the door.

  He looks around. All clear. He opens the door again, reaches in, gives the woman his signature touch.

  Look around. All clear.

  Pick up the keys on the ground, use them to open the back hatch, a blanket and a towel, good enough, take them and cover her. No one will notice unless they’re looking hard.

  When he’s done, he wants a drink of water.

  Punch the LOCK button on the remote, clenching sounds of the automatic locks responding, do it again, the car beeps twice, do it again, he likes the sound, beep-beep, no time, walk, casual walk, to the rental car.

  Get in and wait. Nobody coming. They will soon. He will have to hurry.

  Drive in a square, look for tails, look for them, any direction.

  Then find that store that sells the chain saw.

  I MAKE IT TO the police station before five. I give my name to the desk sergeant, who sends me up. The smells of burned coffee and cheap cologne over body odor, the sure signs of any cop house, greet me before Ricki Stoletti does. Behind her, the station house is buzzing. One cop is typing up a report on a computer, with a distressed woman giving him details. Another, in his office, a captain or lieutenant, is having a heated phone conversation. Other people are moving about, handing each other documents and poring over information. Faces I recognize from this morning. The task force at work.

  Detective Stoletti greets me with her usual warmth and enthusiasm. I give her the paper bag that holds the letter I just received from the offender. She hands it off to a uniform and opens her arm to an interview room off the squad room. I follow her in and take a seat. She leaves me in there alone, which feels weird. Before my imagination has the chance to get too far down this road, McDermott walks in with Stoletti. They both make a point of sitting across from me. Stoletti plays with a folder resting in front of her.

  “I confess,” I say, trying to lighten the moment, but I get no takers.

  McDermott stares at me with the poker face.

  “You’ll need to follow up on those messenger services with that last letter,” I add. “See how he got the envelope into my building.”

  “We will,” he says. He rubs his face. “Riley, I’m fucking tired. And I’m in a hurry, because our offender seems to be, too. So help me get my arms around a few things.”

  “Shoot.”

  “You don’t have to—it’s up to you to answer or not.”

  I stare at him, then at Stoletti. “You sound like a guy who’s trying to read me my Miranda rights without reading them to me.”

  As I finish the sentence, I lose my smile. That matches the expression on the faces of the two cops across from me.

  “You’re here voluntarily,” Stoletti says.

  That’s what you tell people to avoid a Miranda warning.

  I adjust in my seat. “Why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?”

  “Why’s this guy picking you?” he asks me.

  “Because I’m the poster boy. I’m the guy who put away Terry Burgos.”

  “So he sends you cryptic notes?”

  I can’t read this asshole’s mind. I point that out to them.

  “Ever heard of the Sherwood Executive Center?” he asks.

  I shake my head. I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “Fred Ciancio,” he says. “He’s working that shopping mall as a security guard, right?”

  “Right,” I say.

  “Well, in June of 1989—about a week before the murders—he puts in for a temporary reassignment. He asks for a transfer.”

  “To the Sherwood Executive Center?” I gather.

  “Give the man a prize.” A joke without a smile.

  “What’s significant about that?”

  McDermott makes a face but doesn’t answer. He wants me to answer.

  “I have no idea,” I say.

  “Cassie Bentley’s doctors were at the Sherwood Executive Center,” he tells me. “Sherwood Heights is right by Highland Woods, where she lived.”

  “Okay?” I don’t know what conclusion I’m supposed to draw from that.

  “Think it’s a coincidence?” he asks me.

  I don’t answer. I wouldn’t know how.

  “Reason Fred Ciancio gave for the transfer,” he continues. “He said that his mother was undergoing chemotherapy at the building. He wanted to be close to her. He asked for a three-week reassignment to that building, to cover the course of her treatment.”

  I think about that. Fred Ciancio got himself transferred by Bristol Security to one of their other buildings—a building that housed Cassie Bentley’s doctors. I’m not a big fan of coincidences, but life can be strange, and, when it comes to coincidences, this is not exactly earth-shattering.

  “The problem,” McDermott adds, “is that Ciancio’s mother had been dead for ten years. So I don’t see where ch
emo was going to help her much.” Now, that’s a little closer to shaking the earth. I feel a flutter in my stomach.

  “Ciancio used an excuse to work at that building, where Cassie’s doctors were, right around when the murders occurred.” This time it’s Stoletti. A one-two punch. She would be the bad cop, but neither of them is showing me much collegiality. “And then, Ciancio calls Carolyn Pendry and says he wants to talk about the Burgos case. But he gets cold feet.”

  Why would a security guard make up a reason to be assigned to a building? I can only think of one reason.

  “He helped someone break in,” I assume. “Someone paid him off to get into one of the offices in that building.”

  McDermott’s eyebrows rise. The notion, of course, has already occurred to him.

  “And you think this is related to Cassie being pregnant,” I add. “And/or having an abortion.”

  “What do you think?” she asks me.

  I shrug. I find myself lacking a lot of answers right now. But it makes sense.

  “You’d never heard about Cassie being pregnant, or having an abortion, back then?”

  She already knows my answer. I gave it to her right after we talked to Professor Albany.

  “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” Now she’s provoking me, enjoying it.

  “Do I need a lawyer?” I ask.

  Stoletti looks at her partner. “He doesn’t want to answer, Detective. That’s his right.”

  “I had never heard anything about Cassie having an abortion or even being pregnant,” I say, not hiding the anger. “You want to tell me what the hell is going on?”

  McDermott speaks again. “Usually, when you’re on a case, you work up the victim’s background. How is it you didn’t know Cassie was pregnant right before she was murdered?”

  An icy smile creeps across my face. “First of all,” I say, “we don’t know she was pregnant or had an abortion. We just have a suspicion. You may have learned in cop school about the difference between facts and hunches. And second of all, the reason we didn’t delve deeply into Cassie’s background is—”

  I freeze on that. From the faces of the cops across from me, this is the next topic.

  “Because you dropped the charges on Cassie’s murder,” Stoletti says. “At the request of Harland Bentley, I assume?” She slides the photograph across from me, the one of Harland and the reporters, with the ghoulish guy with the scar in the background. “The same Harland Bentley in this photo, which we found in Fred Ciancio’s closet, hidden in a shoe box?”

  “The same Harland Bentley,” McDermott joins in, “who hired you and gave you all of his legal business, less than a year later?”

  “You, a guy who’d practiced criminal law his whole life,” Stoletti punches, “suddenly given responsibility for millions of dollars of civil litigation for BentleyCo.”

  I sit back in my chair and take a moment. My insides are on fire. I feel the sweat on my forehead, my heart pounding against my shirt.

  In my law practice, I will often counsel people who are targets of a criminal investigation. I give them all the same advice. Don’t talk about the case with anyone. You never know who’s wearing a wire. And if the government calls, don’t say a damn thing to them without me—or some lawyer—present.

  The human impulse is to talk, to explain away something that appears to be incriminating. The instinct is also to lie, or if not lie, to massage the truth. Cops and prosecutors count on the vast majority of people succumbing to these basic principles. Federal prosecutors make a living on it. Even if they can’t prove an underlying charge against you, if you abused the truth a little they will get you on that, and use that to flip you, or put you behind bars, for that reason alone.

  Resist the impulse, I tell them. Let the government remain suspicious of you. It’s better than being caught in a lie. You can always talk later.

  Thing is, I have nothing to hide.

  Stoletti is enjoying this. McDermott is trying to read me.

  “This,” I tell them, “is bullshit.”

  “Another name that’s come up in the investigation,” McDermott says, “Amalia Calderone. That name ring familiar to you?”

  I shake my head no.

  “You never made her acquaintance?” Stoletti asks.

  “It doesn’t ring a bell,” I answer.

  “Two nights ago,” McDermott joins, “she was bludgeoned to death. Does that ring a bell?”

  Bludgeoned. Bludgeoned. It doesn’t fit with the second verse’s lyrics. Next up is a straight razor, then a chain saw, then a machete.

  “It doesn’t ring a bell,” I repeat. “Should it?”

  Stoletti takes the folder from McDermott and produces three eight-by-ten glossies, in color, that she slides across the table.

  I take one of the photos and a groan escapes my throat. It’s a close-up of her face, turned to the right. A wound to the right temple, and then massive contusions on the top of the skull. A violent death. She was beaten severely. Whoever did this enjoyed doing it.

  “Molly,” I say. The woman who lured me outside of Sax‘s, when I got jumped and robbed. I look up at the cops. “You don’t honestly think I killed her?”

  “You tell me, Counselor,” McDermott says. “Explain to me why your fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.”

  31

  THE SIGN OVER the front of the store says VARTEN’S TOOLS AND CONSTRUCTION EQUIPMENT, a run-down shack attached to a large lumberyard. A bell rings as Leo walks in. The store is empty, save for the clerk, an old guy behind the counter on the phone. Leo walks up to the counter as he looks over the chain saws attached to the wall.

  Leo looks at the clerk, who holds up an index finger to him while he finishes his phone call. Leo drums his fingers as he looks around the store, looking casually, just strolling through the neighborhood, thought you might have a chain saw, yeah. Then his eyes move back to the clerk, and then to the counter behind which the clerk is sitting.

  He sees a scrap of paper taped down on the counter, a single word on it: TRIM-METER.

  He sucks in his breath. Trim-Meter. Pretend to cough, buy some time.

  “Help you, sir?”

  Leo nods to the wall. He says the words again: Chain saw. He isn’t looking at the clerk when he says it, but he notes the pause, a couple beats too long, long pause—

  “Any, uh, any brand in particular?”

  Shrug the shoulders, act casual. Like you don’t care.

  Look at the man, elderly guy, spotted forehead, tiny neck, seems relieved, he likes the answer—

  Leo says the brand the other guy mentioned: Husky.

  “Sure, yeah, sure.” That makes the man even happier, he taps the counter and comes around it, now much more animated, happy, shiny and happy“ ‘Course, the Husky isn’t gonna be the cheapest.”

  Follow him to the wall, good, he’s away from the counter, follow up with him, he said Husky isn’t the cheapest, ask him what is.

  “Cheapest? Honestly, whatever’s oldest.” The man nods to the wall. “Got a Burly 380 that’s good for shrubbery or small trees. Think it’s about ten years old.” He slaps another one. “This here’s a Trim-Meter 220. Has a little wear and tear on it. Probably fifteen years old. These two are my oldest. What do you need it for?”

  Same thing the other guy asked.

  “Sir, what I mean is, what are you sawing? Shrubs, tree branches, that kind of thing?”

  Nod your head yes.

  “Give you either one for fifty,” the man says.

  Shrug your shoulders, ask him something, say something, say something—

  What do you recommend? What do you recommend?

  But he doesn’t speak so well.

  The man puts a hand on Leo’s arm, like he’s trying to help out someone stupid.

  Leo recoils, a sharp pivot to the right.

  The man withdraws his hand. His lips part and he breaks eye contact with Leo. He begins to slowly backpedal. “Okay, sir, well—well,
I’ll tell you what, I—I might have something in the back that’s cheaper.”

  Leo shakes his head.

  The man freezes, looks into Leo’s eyes, then over toward the counter—

  “Take whatever you want, sir,” he says. “Please.”

  He feels a chill. He opens and closes his hands. Looks at the elderly man.

  “I wish,” Leo tries. “I wish it—wasn’t me.”

  Do it fast, use your hands, no blood, snap-snap.

  Scan the place for cameras. Anyone watching? No time. Drag him through a door that says EMPLOYEES ONLY and arrange some boxes in front of his body, in the corner. Go to the front door and reverse the OPEN sign to CLOSED, go back to the employees’ room and finish up with the man.

  Grab the Trim-Meter chain saw from the wall, open the door, the chime bids Good-bye. He makes it to the car before the pain in his stomach doubles him over.

  McDERMOTT LIFTS HIS HEAD off his hand after Paul Riley finishes his story. Stoletti, next to him, is writing down an occasional note, but McDermott likes to observe. When you’re writing, you’re not watching.

  Stoletti is taking the lead among the two of them, though if anyone is in the lead here, it’s probably Riley. Stoletti wanted to do the questioning. She has a real thing with Riley.

  Way she explained it to McDermott earlier today, a few years back, Riley defended a guy accused of murder, up in the northern suburbs, which fell into the multijurisdictional Major Crimes Unit, where Stoletti worked at the time. Seems Riley took a pretty good piece out of the arresting officer, a guy named Cummings, during the trial. Took him apart like a cheap model airplane, was how Stoletti put it. Cummings took a Level One—a single-grade demotion—when Riley’s client was acquitted and someone had to be blamed. Seems Cummings was a mentor to Stoletti, and Stoletti is none too friendly nowadays toward Mr. Paul Riley, Esquire.

  McDermott thought Stoletti’s hostility to Riley was amusing before, but now it could be a problem. Because now Paul Riley’s fingerprints were found on the tire iron used to bash in the side of Amalia Calderone’s head.

  Riley, who is done with his story, looks at the two cops. Stoletti is writing a note. McDermott just wants to think this through a minute.