David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

“You’ve got this wrong,” he insists. “You’ve got this all wrong.”

“You figured, with Ellie out of the way, there’d be no one to talk about pregnancy and paternity tests and abortions.”

“No-”

“You didn’t figure on her telling other people about it, too.”

“No!” Albany slams a fist on the table, floundering in his chair while his arm remains cuffed to the table.

“A deal is made,” McDermott says. “Two girls dead, two secrets covered up.”

“No. No. This isn’t right. And what-what about Terry?”

“Oh, framing Terry Burgos was the easy part, Professor. You were, like, his mentor, right? You’d already fucked with his head, showing him all those lyrics about mutilating women, and how the Bible liked that crap. You knew he had a thing for Ellie Danzinger.”

Albany’s eyes, moving about chaotically, now rise to meet McDermott’s.

“He drove that Suburban of his to your printing plant every night, Professor. What, you somehow got hold of his keys? Helped yourself to his truck, and maybe to his basement, too. What I want to know is, how’d you manage to fuck with his mind so he thought he killed those girls?”

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, Jesus God.” Albany shields his eyes. “Get me a lawyer. Get me a fucking lawyer!”

“Bentley’s gotten a big head start on you,” Stoletti says. “If you have something to tell us, it better be now.”

“We walk out of here,” McDermott adds, “it’s over for you. We’ll get you that lawyer, but it’ll be too late.” After a moment of silence, he nods to Stoletti. “Let’s go, Detective. Let’s get that written statement from Harland Bentley.”

A gasp of air, a bitter snicker, and Albany is shaking his head. McDermott and Stoletti, half out of their seats, sink back down. Albany’s no dummy; he might see through the ruse. Hell, he’s already asked for counsel several times. But he’s been broadsided here, with information he never expected would see the light of day. McDermott’s seen it happen to far better people.

“Harland-fucking-Bentley,” he mumbles. “I should’ve known.”

“Give us your side,” McDermott says.

He looks up at the detectives, a rotted fruit of a face, a pathetic semblance of the defiant man who first sat in the room. “Do you know what’s worse than fucking your daughter’s best friend?” he asks.

McDermott doesn’t answer.

Albany takes a deep breath. His mouth curls into a snarl. “Then you don’t know everything.”

WHILE I WAIT FOR the detectives to return, I spend my time on the notes.

I NEED HELP AGAIN.

I WILL USE THE SECOND VERSE. TIME TO BURN

ALBANY.

OTHERS KNOW OUR SECRET.

What secret did he think I knew? What “help” did I give him?

I prosecuted the damn case. I built a case against Burgos and beat him at trial. What favor could I have performed?

I sit back in the chair, close my eyes, play out the history of the case. That first day, finding the bodies, then Burgos, then getting the confession. Defending the confession in court. Burgos pleaded insanity. Everything turned toward proving his rational thought, his consciousness of guilt.

Did Koslenko ever show himself to me? Was there anything he did? Did he send me one of these notes back-

My eyes open, the adrenaline flooding through me. I pick up the cell phone and dial my law firm.

“Betty,” I say, “remember during the Burgos trial? Remember all that mail we received?”

“Sure,” she says.

“We still have the letters?”

“Sure. For the book you never wrote.”

“Have them ready,” I say. “I’m coming back now.”

LEO WAITS across the street from Paul Riley’s building. No sign of any of those messengers, with their fluorescent jackets and bike helmets. He thinks of his LeBaron, parked in a lot half a block away. He needs to get back to it. He doesn’t have long.

He adjusts his glasses-fake ones with clear lenses-and tugs down on his baseball cap. Disguises aren’t that important here, the key is simply that he can’t be identified.

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.”