Eye of the Beholder

by David Ellis

  “Is this connected to Terry Burgos?”

  “Was Terry Burgos innocent?”

  “Did Leo Koslenko kill the Mansbury Six?”

  “Give me a second.” I feel an adrenaline wave, after I’d expect to have nothing left. Maybe it’s anger. Maybe it’s fear. I break away from the cop and make my way to the reporters. Some of them, the veterans, are the same ones who interviewed me when I was prosecuting Burgos. How delectable this must be for them. How willingly their journalistic stomachs growl at the slightest hint of blood in the water.

  “Did you prosecute the wrong man?”

  “What did you say to Governor Trotter?”

  “Was an innocent man executed?”

  The cameras, the bright lights, the microphones all angle in my direction. They continue with the questions until it is clear I won’t answer. Finally, the shouts subside, and they are ready to give me my moment.

  “Leo Koslenko did not kill the Mansbury victims,” I say as evenly as I can manage. “Terry Burgos did. What is happening now may bear some connection to the Mansbury murders. The police have asked for my help and I’m going to solve this. Give me a day or two, tops. I promise you, I will figure this out. But make no mistake. Terry Burgos killed those girls.”

  I pivot and walk back to the cop, the reporters shouting all kinds of follow-up questions to me. We hustle to the squad car and I jump in the back. I lay my head against the back cushion and close my eyes, drowning out the questions being thrown my way from behind the barricade.

  WHENEVER SHE CAME to the house, he felt a lift. She would always make a point of saying hello to him, maybe speak a few words of Russian to him.

  But not this day. She walked straight past him. He followed. She went up the stairs as Gwendolyn was coming down. Leo stayed back. Mrs. Bentley had been mad when he had overheard her conversation with Gwendolyn.

  What did you say to my mother?

  I didn’t say anything she didn’t already know.

  You don’t know anything about my father.

  No, Cassie, I think you’re about the only one who doesn’t know.

  Cassie gripped the handrail. She dropped her head. She was trying to control her anger.

  Don’t take my word for it, cousin. See where he goes. See who he’s with. You might even see someone else you know.

  She looked back up at Gwendolyn. She started to speak but, Leo thought, she was unable. She turned and bounded back down the stairs.

  I can’t wait to hear Uncle Harland’s explanation, Gwendolyn called out. I’ll bet he’ll wish he hadn’t signed that prenup!

  LEO SNAPS OUT OF HIS FOG. The commercials are over. The all-news cable station has been covering the events live. He jumps from his bed as he sees the image of Paul Riley, speaking to reporters outside the police station. He yanks up the volume and holds his breath.

  “Leo Koslenko did not kill the Mansbury women. Terry Burgos did.”

  He closes his eyes as the rest of Paul Riley’s words play out.

  “The police have asked for my help and I’m going to solve this. Give me a day or two, tops. I promise you, I will figure this out. But make no mistake. Terry Burgos killed those girls.”

  The sides of Leo’s mouth curl. Almost a smile.

  McDERMOTT WATCHES the television in the cafeteria, where he has come to refresh his coffee. On the television, live, is Paul Riley, standing outside the station, giving a statement to the press.

  “What kind of nonsense is that?” Stoletti says to him. She was never a big fan of Riley, anyway, and it’s been a supremely shitty day for the two detectives. Stoletti won’t take the hit like her senior partner, but she’ll still take it. “ ‘Burgos killed those girls?’ ‘The police want my help?’ ‘Give me a day or two, tops?’ Does he know something we don’t?”

  McDermott nods absently, watching the news replay the sound bite.

  The police have asked for my help and I’m going to solve this. Give me a day or two, tops.

  Stoletti sighs. “I’m taking off, Mike. There’s nothing left here for us. I’ve had my head kicked in enough for one night.”

  I promise you, I will figure this out.

  “You gonna be here for the Bentley interview? He’ll be in within the hour.”

  He shrugs.

  Make no mistake. Terry Burgos killed those girls.

  Stoletti walks up next to him, gesturing to the television, featuring Paul Riley’s angry, flustered mug. “Oh, hell, I guess the guy’s entitled to blow off some steam. Not exactly a banner day for him, either. But he’s making himself look like an idiot.” She raps him on the arm and leaves.

  “Maybe,” McDermott mumbles. Maybe he’s acting like an idiot.

  Or maybe he’s “behaving.”

  Friday

  June 24, 2005

  48

  I SIT IN THE HALLWAY on the top floor of my house, leaning against the railing of the staircase, staring at the alarm pad on the wall. The alarm is not set. It’s not even hooked up to the police. But even disarmed, it covers five entry points to the house, plus motion sensors on the ground floor and along the final flight of stairs. If an entry point is breached, the number assigned to that position lights up. There will be no consequence—no shrill alarm, no call to the police—but at least I will know.

  Zone One for the front door. Two for the sliding glass door. Three for the door from the basement. Four and five for windows on the ground floor.

  My eyes close. My stomach is reeling, my head throbbing, my body beyond exhaustion. My eyes pop open after only a moment, I think, as I try to snap myself out of disorientation.

  I look at the zone numbers on the alarm pad, still dark.

  AT FIVE MINUTES AFTER one in the morning, Harland Bentley walks in with counsel. He’d been told to be here by one o‘clock sharp, so he’s late, and McDermott considers saying so. Could be a minor difference in clocks, but McDermott supposes Bentley was deliberate in his arrival. Bentley is wearing a navy tailored suit that no cop could afford with a month’s salary, and he supposes that decision was intentional, too.

  McDermott, now and from here on out, will be a spectator. At some point in the lieutenant’s office after McDermott was excused, the commander, the governor, State Police Superintendent Edgar Trotter, and their staffs came up with the astonishingly bad decision that Edgar Trotter would conduct the interview with Harland Bentley, accompanied by one of his top aides.

  McDermott walks into the central observation room, chin up— he’s not bowing down to these idiots, not when he’s done nothing wrong—and stands quietly next to the commander. Inside Interview Room One, Harland Bentley adjusts his coat and whispers to his attorney. The lawyer looks familiar. A large, handsome black guy done out nicely in a three-piece gray pinstripe. These two look immaculate, crisp, and well coiffed, for a hastily called interview in the middle of the night. No accident there. They are ready for the show.

  They perk up as Edgar Trotter enters the room with his lieutenant. They are out of their chairs quickly.

  “Harland,” says Trotter. He nods to Bentley’s lawyer. “Mason.”

  Mason. Oh, that’s it. Mason Tremont—the man who until recently served as the U.S. attorney for the jurisdiction that includes the city. Not surprising that Bentley has brought in the heavy artillery.

  They start in with the condolences. How are you holding up? How’s the governor? How’s your mother? Oh, this must be so tough on Abby.

  McDermott looks at the commander with his eyebrows raised. This is quite the start to the interrogation. These guys are old friends. Harland Bentley has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Governor Trotter’s campaigns, and Mason Tremont was appointed the top federal prosecutor by the Republican president at the request of the governor, who tapped Tremont, if memory serves, as a thank-you for his impressive ability to raise campaign cash.

  And now the governor’s son will question two of the governor’s closest allies.

  After they are seated, Mason
Tremont asserts himself. “Of course, Edgar, of course we want to do whatever we can to help. But there”—he looks at Harland, almost laughs, as if incredulous—” there is a difference between being asked to help as a friend and being threatened as if Harland were a suspect. The officer—I think his name was McDermott—he left us with the impression that, somehow, there was suspicion directed—”

  “McDermott’s off this case,” says Edgar Trotter. “You’re talking to me now.”

  McDermott steels himself. He tries to resist the rising urge to see Edgar Trotter fail, to watch him flail about ineffectively until, with no other choice, he reluctantly taps his arm toward the bull pen and brings in McDermott to do this right. He can’t deny the satisfaction it would bring him, but, more than anything, he just wants to know what the hell Bentley knows.

  Trotter starts with the basics. He says them as suspicions, not fact: that Harland was sleeping with Ellie Danzinger; that Harland had fathered Gwendolyn Lake, in addition to Cassie; that Cassie had been pregnant and had an abortion near the time of her death. Leo Koslenko, he says, worked at the home belonging to Mia Lake and her daughter, Gwendolyn. “Information we have received,” he calls all of it.

  “Do you know where Leo Koslenko is, Harland?”

  “I don’t. Edgar, I’m not sure I can even recall who the man is. Certainly, I’ve not spoken to him, at least not any time I can recall.”

  Trotter slides the photograph across the table, the one found in Fred Ciancio’s closet in a shoe box: Harland addressing reporters, Koslenko in the background.

  “This man in the background, I suppose?” Bentley says. “You say he worked at Mia’s house, not ours?”

  Giving himself distance from Koslenko.

  Trotter cocks his head. “You didn’t help him get asylum in this country?”

  Closing that distance a little. A good response, and well delivered, played just about right—he said it like he was curious, without threat.

  “If I did, I don’t recall that. I’d think that would fall more into Natalia’s camp.”

  Trotter takes a moment with that. Nods his head slowly but doesn’t speak. A good interrogation technique. Silence is uncomfortable in a conversation. Suspects like to fill the space. They usually elaborate, and often dig a deeper hole.

  But Harland Bentley is no ordinary suspect.

  “Shelly was a wonderful young woman,” Bentley says. “I’d met her only recently.”

  Trotter listens to him, holds his stare, and says, “Were you having an affair with Ellie Danzinger around the time she died?”

  Mason Tremont raises his hand from the table. “Edgar, I wonder if that’s really necessary. We are more than happy to help you pursue any meaningful leads, but we’re talking about something a lifetime ago.”

  “I appreciate that, Mason, I really do.” He nods his head emphatically without making eye contact. “But Leo Koslenko didn’t kill my sister because the past is irrelevant. So I’d like an answer, please.”

  The lawyer, Tremont, puts a hand on Bentley’s forearm. “Edgar—”

  “Either he’s willing to answer or he isn’t.” Trotter drops the pen from his hand and sits back in his chair. “I’m waiting.”

  The temperature has dropped in the room.

  Tremont adjusts his gold-rimmed glasses. “I’ve advised my client to limit his answers to things that are relevant. Personal smears are e not relevant.”

  “What about Gwendolyn Lake, Harland? Are you her father?”

  Tremont bows his head slightly. Seems to be a signal to his client.

  “Yes, that’s true,” Harland says.

  McDermott nods. Not surprising. And not surprising he’d admit that, either. Gwendolyn is still alive. A simple paternity test could answer that question. He’s giving them something they could get without him and, in the process, appearing to be forthcoming.

  Edgar Trotter removes a document from the folder in front of him. McDermott lifts himself with the balls of his feet to get a better look. It’s the note they found in Leo Koslenko’s bedroom. McDermott has a copy, too:

  I know that you know about my relationship with Ellie. And

  I know about your relationship with my daughter. If you

  tell, so will I. But if you keep quiet, I will endow a chair in

  your name at Mansbury College.

  I need your answer right now.

  Bentley leaves the note on the table, so that his attorney can read along. He reads in silence for a moment, then snatches it off the table to get a closer look. Tremont, who can no longer read it, gives his client some space.

  McDermott watches Bentley’s eyes move across the page. His mouth parts, his eyebrows tremble. Soon he is mouthing the words as he rereads it, his face contorting in mounting horror.

  Something isn’t sitting right. Something in McDermott’s gut.

  “My God,” Bentley says.

  “This note was delivered to Professor Albany,” Trotter says without affect. “He’s already admitted receiving it. And he’s already admitted answering yes to the request.”

  The lawyer, Tremont, puts his hand on his client’s arm.

  Bentley pops out of his chair and paces in the corner of the room, a hand on his face.

  “Maybe this would be a time for a short break,” Tremont suggests.

  Bentley spins and looks at Trotter. “You’re telling me that—that teacher—and my daughter?”

  Trotter doesn’t respond to the question. Instead, he says, “We know that you kept up your end,” Trotter continues. “You endowed a chair for Professor Albany.”

  “Well, yes, I—” Harland Bentley freezes in midsentence. His head moves slowly upward, his eyes dancing about, his lips moving almost imperceptibly, uttering something unintelligible.

  “I’ll need a minute with my client,” says Tremont.

  Something doesn’t feel right here.

  “Oh, that is rich,” Bentley mumbles. “That is rich.”

  49

  INTERVIEW ROOM ONE is silent. Harland Bentley continues to shake his head, even wearing an ironic smile at one point, but choosing not to speak for the moment. Edgar Trotter has made the decision to let this happen of its own course.

  McDermott thinks again about Harland Bentley’s reaction to the note. It wasn’t like with Albany. Bentley read every word. And if he was bluffing by his look of surprise, he’s as good a bluffer as McDermott has seen.

  Harland Bentley did not write that note.

  “I didn’t write that note.”

  Trotter picks up his copy of the note and looks it over, or at least makes a show of doing so. “This note is describing someone else?”

  “No,” Bentley concedes. “This note is describing me. It‘s—it’s true about Ellie Danzinger and me. I admit that. Yes. But I didn’t write that note. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “So you endowed this chair at Mansbury College for the professor—”

  “Yes.”

  “—but you’re saying, it wasn’t because of a trade-off with the professor.”

  “Correct.”

  “This is just a coincidence. Whoever wrote this note can predict the future?”

  No, that’s not what he’s saying, either. If he’s telling the truth, then whoever wrote that note knew about his affair with Ellie. And knew about Cassie’s affair with Professor Albany.

  And would have some ability to influence a decision like endowing a chair for a college professor.

  And would know Leo Koslenko, who delivered the note to Professor Albany.

  “Natalia,” McDermott says aloud.

  In the interview room, Harland Bentley shakes his head again, lost in thought. “When Natalia and I divorced—well, I could hardly blame her. She not only wanted out, but she wanted out immediately. She could have tried to enforce the prenup, fought me in court, but she gave me a lump-sum settlement. That told me everything I needed to know: she wanted me gone, and gone right away.” He sighs. “She said the money was
mine, with only one condition.”

  “The endowment for Albany,” Trotter says.

  He nods solemnly. “She said, he’d been a mentor to Cassie. Cassie had spoken so highly of him. And now, because of what that—that monster did, this professor would probably lose his job. He didn’t have tenure yet. He’d never teach again.” He clears his throat, steadies a hand in the air. “I was not unaware of my deficiencies as a husband. If Nat wanted that one favor from me, I was going to do it. If I’d known, if I’d even suspected that he’d put his hands on my daughter—”

  McDermott glances at the commander, who remains silent. The cold shoulder. McDermott doesn’t have a say anymore. For all he knows, the commander doesn’t have much of one, either.

  Fuck it. This is McDermott’s case, like it or not. And it’s just gotten more interesting.

  It’s breaking up for the night. It’s close to two in the morning. A long day for the Trotters, for the cops, for everyone. Nothing more will be done tonight, other than the frantic search for Leo Koslenko’s vehicle.

  Natalia Lake had that note delivered to Albany. She didn’t want her daughter’s affair with Professor Albany to come to light. She didn’t want her husband’s affair with Ellie to come out. She divorced Harland only weeks after Cassie’s and the other murders.

  Why?

  “Go home, Detective,” the commander says to him.

  McDermott says nothing but nods his head. There’s nothing more for him to do here. It’s time to leave.

  But he’s not going home.

  TIME BECOMES THE ENEMY. I sit in the hallway outside my bedroom, swimming against the current, until five-thirty in the morning, nodding off and popping awake, checking the alarm pad on the top-floor hallway with blurry eyes. I pop a couple of aspirin and take a quick shower. I move about my house quietly, listening, anticipating. I force a piece of toast down my throat. I head out the back door, expecting it to happen there. But I walk undisturbed to my car. I open the garage door and brace myself, but there is nothing in there but my Cadillac and a few lawn and garden tools.