Eye of the Beholder

by David Ellis

  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:

  You’re the fucking father.

  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.

  You’re the fucking father.

  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.

  As justice or belief will eternally live, likewise do others need evil. I must ask your new, educated elite: Does opportunity now evade morality or respect ethics and love? Behold a new year.

  I immediately go to work on it:

  A-J-O-B-W-E-L-L-D-O-N-E-I-M-A Y-N-E-E-D-O-N-E-

  M-O-R-E-

  A-L-B-A-N-Y.

  A JOB WELL DONE. I MAY NEED ONE MORE.

  ALBANY.

  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 i
ntercom. “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.

  That motion was heard on August 11, 1989—the Friday before this note was received.

  “Oh, Christ.”

  On August 11, 1989, we asked, and received, permission to drop Cassie Bentley’s murder from the case.

  A job well done.

  Betty runs into my office. “Paul, you just got another messenger delivery. They stopped the man at the front desk. He says a guy in glasses and a baseball cap stopped him in the lobby and paid him fifty dollars to deliver it.”

  “Let me see it,” I say. “And get me Detective McDermott”

  46

  McDERMOTT STANDS alone in the interview room where Paul Riley sat thirty minutes ago.

  “He ran back to his office,” a uniform says. “He said you could call him there.”

  “He did, did he?” McDermott frowns at the officer, but Riley wasn’t in custody, he was free to waltz out. He goes to his desk just as the phone rings, startling him. Why does that always happen to him?

  “McDermott.”

  “Mike, Bentley just got back from whatever meeting he was in.”

  “Tell him to get his ass in here right now. Tell him right now, Tom, or I come to him, and it’s not pretty.”

  “Okay, Mike. Listen, he won’t be coming alone. He’s got a lawyer.”

  A lawyer. “Paul Riley?”

  “No, not Riley. Some other guy. Don’t know him.”

  Now, that’s interesting. Bentley isn’t using Riley.

  He places the phone in the cradle and it rings immediately. “Dammit.” He lifts the receiver. “McDermott.”

  “It’s Paul Riley.”

  “Oh, well, speak of—”

  “He just dropped off another note. He stopped a messenger in the lobby, about ten minutes ago.”

  “Bring it to me,” he tells Riley. “I’ll get some uniforms over there.”

  “He was wearing glasses and a blue baseball cap. A button-down shirt and trousers,” says Riley. “But he’s probably in the wind by now.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Riley. Get the hell in here.” McDermott makes a call, dispatches some uniforms to the scene, but he’s less than optimistic.

  SWITCH NOW, after dropping off the note at Riley’s building, back to the parking garage, take the elevator to eight, get in the Chrysler LeBaron with state license plate J41258—the one they just described on the radio, be on the lookout, calling all cars, but, guess what, everyone—

  Back out the car and drive down one floor to the beige Toyota Camry, another rental car, different rental company, he’s not stupid, different rental company, different fake name, it’s a good time of day to make the transfer, not first thing in the morning or quitting time, good time, not many cars, not many people, transfer the contents, transfer quickly, okay, good, that’s done, that’s done, now, one more thing, they always underestimate him, crazy Leo, he must be stupid, he’d never think of this—

  Go to a secluded corner, a small alcove off the main strips of the parking garage, look at the cars parked against the cement wall, a sedan, parked nose in, but with a little space to maneuver between the front of the car and wall, enough space to duck in with a screwdriver, remove the front license plate, they’ll never know, won’t be looking at the front of the car when they get in, won’t see it until later when it’s way too late—

  Take that license plate, exchange it with the LeBaron’s plate, they probably won’t search a parking garage, but, if they do, if they drive by and see a Chrysler LeBaron, they’ll see the license plate doesn’t match and move on, lazy, stupid cops, this is easy, he’s smarter—

  Pull out into traffic and head toward the interstate. Almost done now.

  I TAKE A CAB to the police station, carrying the manila envelope in a plastic shopping bag Betty gave me. I also bring the coded note I received on August 15, 1989, still encased in plastic. I give the cab bie a twenty and don’t wait for change. McDermott is waiting for me at the top of the stairs and waves me past the desk sergeant.

  “You just come and go as you please now?”

  I hand him the shopping bag and follow him to his desk. Ricki Stoletti, at her desk nearby, comes over.

  “Where’s Gwendolyn Lake now?” she asks.

  I tell her I have no idea. “I gave you her cell number.”

  “Yeah, and she didn’t answer.”

  “I told her to call you,” I say, but my focus is on McDermott, who is wearing latex gloves and opening the top of the manila envelope with a letter opener. He dumps out a regular-sized white envelope.

  He nods to me. “What else is in here?”

  I show it to him, the note I received from August 15, 1989.

  “A job well done,” he says, reading the Post-it I attached to it. “Any idea what a ‘job well done’ might have been?”

  I clear my throat and tell him. The letter was referring to the dismissal of Cassie’s murder from the case.

  “Oh.” He coughs out the word, like a laugh. “How’s that Burgos case looking now, Counselor?”

  “She had a secret,” I say. “Whoever wrote this was glad it stayed a secret.”

  McDermott stares at me. “Y‘know, Riley, for a guy who everyone says is so smart—”

  “Open the note, McDermott.”

  He takes the white envelope and slices open the top, dumps out a single piece of paper, folded in three. With his gloved hands, he smooths out the paper.

  I grab a notepad and pen off his desk as all three of us read it:

  If For Years Others Urge Blind, Evil Hypocrisy And

  Vindicate Evil, Soon Heathens Engage Willingly. I Laugh,

  Love, Learn. I Vow Eternity To Other Opponents.

  I scribble it out as quickly as I can:

  I-F-Y-O-U-B-E-H-A-V-E-S-H-E-W-I-L-L-L-I-V-E-T-O-O. IF YOU BEHAVE, SHE WILL LIVE, TOO.

  McDermott says, “If you—”

  I brush past him and pick up his phone, dialing the numbers so quickly I mess it up the first time.

  “Children’s Advocacy Project.”

  “Shelly Trotter, please.”

  “Shelly—is not in. Can I—”

  “Has she been in?”

  “Has she—who am I speaking to?”

  “This is Paul Riley,” I say.

  Voices in the background. I make out Rena Schroeder, the supervising attorney. Shelly’s boss. I hear my name thrown out, then the phone changing hands.

  “Paul, this is Rena.”

  “Rena, where’s Shelly?”

  “I was going to ask you that. She didn’t show up today. She missed court, she missed our monthly—”

  I drop the phone.

  McDermott says, “Write down her address.” Stoletti runs to get her coat. I scribble the address on the notepad and jog toward the exit, as I hear McDermott say into the phone, “Dispatch, I need all units to respond. We have a possible 401 in progress...”


  THREE SQUAD CARS HAVE already double-parked in front of Shelly Trotter’s brownstone when McDermott pulls up his sedan. For the third time he says to Riley, “We go in first,” but before the car has even come to a stop Riley’s pushing himself out of the passenger’s door.

  A couple of uniforms, standing at the door, look at McDermott. He points at Riley and shakes his head. He jogs toward the door with Stoletti.

  “This is the governor’s daughter, right?” she asks.

  “It sure fucking is.”

  The uniforms block Riley, who struggles with them. “Paul, you can come up in a minute,” McDermott says. “Let us do our job first.”

  “Shelly!” Riley is calling out as McDermott heads up the stairs. At the second-floor landing another uniform awaits them, shaking his head.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  McDermott and Stoletti bound up the final sets of stairs and slow their pace as they walk through the entrance to the apartment. They step in and see another uniform standing next to a bloody chain saw.

  They walk slowly toward the bathroom, pure dread filling McDermott’s stomach. Wanting to do anything but—the damn bathroom, of all places—he sticks his head in, the putrid smell nothing compared to what he sees.

  Blood spatters have reached well beyond the bathtub to the sink, the walls, even to the entrance. Inside the tub is a bloody mess, like remnants from a butcher shop.

  “Mary, Mother of God,” McDermott mumbles. He takes a careful step into the bathroom and looks in the tub. Stoletti looks in and draws an abrupt breath.

  He caught her in the shower. The body appears to be naked, which is only to say there is no evidence of clothing. There is little to draw from the body because, as one would define a body—a torso with limbs, a neck, a head—there is no body anymore.

  “He took his time with her,” he says, trying to keep a clinical perspective. The body has been sawed into a hundred pieces at least. No arms, no legs, no neck, no head. Everything has been sliced through. Just little parts.