David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

WHEN GWENDOLYN LAKE excuses herself for the ladies’ room, I use my cell phone to call Mike McDermott. I get his voice mail and leave him a vague message that I need to speak with him right away.

Now we have an ID, the mysterious “Leo.” Connected to the Bentley family, pictured in the background of that photograph of Harland and the reporters.

Gwendolyn returns from the restroom and drops in the seat opposite me.

“Is he committing these crimes?” she asks me. “Just tell me.”

“Leo? I think so,” I concede.

She moans. “I think he was-not all there. Mentally, I mean.” She looks at the table. “I didn’t exactly hang out with the staff. But he seemed-a little off. Y‘know, like he’d hold his stare on you or he’d be mumbling to himself. My mother once said he’d had some problems in Russia.”

“Russia?”

“Oh, yeah. He was an immigrant. I think his family knew my mother’s family there. My grandmother was a dancer in Russia-”

“Right, I know.”

“-Okay. And I think his family asked if he could stay with us. Like, as a favor.”

“What kind of problems did ‘Leo’ have in Russia?”

She shakes her head. “Beats me. I don’t think I said two words to him. But Cassie, she was different. The staff loved her.”

My mind races through my talking points. Last time I talked to Gwendolyn, I didn’t do such a good job of interviewing her. I’ve been given a reprieve, and I want to cover everything.

A waitress passes us with a cholesterol special, hash browns and dripping eggs and bacon. The smell of fried food turns my stomach in knots.

“Gwendolyn,” I say, “where were Cassie’s doctors located?”

“Her doctors? I have no-well, wait,” she says, stopping on that. “Probably the same as mine, actually. I had a doctor named Sor-I think it was Sorenson? Yeah, Dr. Sorenson.” She nods. “Yeah. Dr. Sorenson was my general practitioner. When I’d come to the States, I’d usually get a checkup.”

“Where was Dr. Sorenson located?”

“Oh.” She sighs. “It was in some building in the next town over.”

“The Sherwood Executive Center?”

She shrugs. “The name of the building? I have no idea.”

“On Lindsey Avenue in Sherwood Heights? A brick building?”

“Yeah.” Her eyes trail off. “Right, Lindsey. It was the Mercy Group, or something like that. Yeah, it was, like, maybe ten or twelve stories, something like that” She looks at me again. “Why?”

“They might want to talk to Cassie’s doctors.”

The waitress refills her coffee. Gwendolyn smiles at her. I have hardly touched mine because it’s weak, like the stuff at work.

I sit back in my chair and try to digest this. Looks like Cassie and Professor Albany had something going on. Cassie was pregnant. She must have had an abortion. Her doctors were located in that building in Sherwood Heights where Fred Ciancio transferred the week of the murders.

“You need to talk to the police,” I say.

She nods, though she’s not exactly jumping at the prospect.

“Are you staying here with Nat?”

She seems surprised by that. “I just got into town. I was planning to go back.”

“Talk to Detective McDermott” I take a business card and write his cell number on the back, as well as my own. “Don’t go far, Gwendolyn,” I tell her.

WITH A TREMBLING HAND, Natalia Lake signs the consent form and hands it back to McDermott.

“Thank you, Mrs. Lake.”

“You will let me know what comes of this, I trust.” Her eyes search his face for something. McDermott has seen that look too many times. Family members of victims, looking for the cop to tell them it will be okay, that if they close their eyes and pray their loved one will come back.

“Of course I will.” He takes her cold hand and holds it an extra beat.

When he turns for the door, she grabs his arm. He looks back at her. She looks as if she has aged during their conversation, the composed, well-groomed woman replaced with a grieving mother with memories that have returned with a vengeance.

“You think that what is happening now is because of this? Because of Cassie’s abortion? Someone is covering this up?”

McDermott offers what he can, a compromising expression and generic words of comfort. He does not know the answer. And in many ways, he doesn’t care. He is not here to solve a sixteen-year-old case.

He is here to find Leo Koslenko.

ONCE BACK INSIDE Shelly Trotter’s apartment, Leo slides the glass door closed again and wipes the sweat off his forehead. He takes a moment to catch his breath. What to do first?

He looks back into the living room, where the chain saw rests in his gym bag. Then he checks his watch.

Soon. Very soon.

McDERMOTT WALKS into the station at a barely controlled pace. Powers comes up to him and tells him, “The affidavits are on your desk. Albany will be here any minute.”

McDermott checks his cell phone, hears a message from Riley.

“We’re looking for Harland Bentley, too. There’s a G-lady here for you?” He gestures to McDermott’s desk. “Got a real mouth on her, that one.”

McDermott allows himself a smile. That much is true.

“Hey, Mickey.” Special Agent Jane McCoy gets out of her chair and winks at him.

“‘Mickey’?”

“Yeah, it’s my new nickname for you.”

“You got tired of ‘Shithead,’ did you? How’s business in CT?”

“Business is booming. Can we talk somewhere?”

The cops and the FBI are generally none too friendly with one another. But years ago, when McDermott was a new detective and McCoy was in Narcotics, they worked together on a large-scale bust of a west-side street gang.

Nowadays, McCoy is in counterterrorism. Since she’s the only fibbie he knows, and it’s close enough to immigration, he called her in on this.

They sit in the same conference room that McDermott has taken over as his own, filled with information on Terry Burgos. McCoy, never one to miss much, manages to take it all in without comment.

She throws a file on the desk. “This is the A-file on Leonid Koslenko. You’re not supposed to have this. Copy what you want. Give it all back.”

McDermott takes the manila folder and nods. “Thanks, Jane.”

“The guy at ICE who ran Koslenko retired ten years ago. He was kept in a general assignment pool after that.”

McDermott shakes his head. He doesn’t get the meaning.

“Meaning,” McCoy says, “since he’d been in the country for ten years without incident, there was no one in particular assigned to look at him. Sounds like maybe there’s a reason to look at him now?”

“That’s a fair statement.” He smiles at her.

“You’re talking like a fed now, Mickey. You’re scaring me.” She tucks her curly hair behind her ear and holds her stare on him a moment too long. Then she blinks it off, turning serious. “Leonid Koslenko was born in 1967 to a wealthy family in Leningrad. When he was fifteen-1982-he was sent to an institution in Lefortovo. He was released almost exactly two years later.”

“An institution? You mean an insane asylum?”

She shrugs her shoulders. “Asylum, prison-sometimes hard to tell the difference in the Soviet Union. But the records showed it was a mental illness, yes.”

“Okay. But he was released after two years?” McDermott recoils. “What, he was cured?”

McCoy is with him on that, one side of her mouth curling up. “He was diagnosed with ‘creeping paranoid schizophrenia.’”

“Which means?”

“Which means, from what I understand, absolutely nothing. Understand, back then, the Soviets locked up political dissidents, Christians, all sorts of people they didn’t want in the general populace. But they didn’t lock them up in prisons. They locked them up in loony bins.”