Eye of the Beholder (45 page)

“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.

I get in the car and take a deep breath. It’s time to go see Natalia Lake. It’s time to learn how well I play poker.

WHEN I GET OUT of my car at seven o‘clock, a woman dressed in all white awaits me, hands clasped behind her back.

“Good morning, Mr. Riley.”

“Morning.”

She opens her body to the door. “Mrs. Lake is expecting you.”

I follow the woman through one of the front doors into an elaborate foyer. She leads me into a parlor with a baby grand piano and antique furniture. It is a clean, elaborately designed room that screams of wealth and sadness.

“Thank you, Marta.”

I turn to see Natalia Lake, my mind instantly flashing to long ago, when she’d just identified her daughter’s body. She has aged well, by my estimation with some significant cosmetic surgery on the face and neck. The artificial tightness of her skin lends an unusually severe tinge to her expression.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me, Mrs. Lake.”

“Oh, please, it’s Nat.” Nat is wearing a lavender blouse with three-quarter sleeves and white slacks. She takes my hand with both of hers. “After everything, it’s Nat.”

We sit together on a couch. The tips of her spindly fingers touch my arm. “This was a woman you were involved with? Shelly Trotter?”

I nod my head.

“Lang’s daughter. Oh, my.” She focuses on me. “Paul, please tell me that Harland is not responsible for any of this.”

“Harland is not responsible for any of this.”

She takes a breath. A reaction, but I don’t know what kind.

“What has happened this week is a cover-up,” I say. “And Harland has nothing to cover up. True, he did many shameful things. He slept with your daughter’s closest friend. He fathered a child with your sister. But he didn’t kill anyone back then, Nat. Which means he’d have no reason to kill anyone now. There’s nothing for him to protect.”

I let my comments sit, hoping Natalia might fill the silence. The line of her mouth adjusts into a frown. She is disappointed, I think, by my assessment, but I don’t expect her to say so. She occupies herself with her cigarettes, opening the small pearl case, lighting up, and smoking in silence.

I’m not entirely sure what I’m looking for here. I know there’s something. And I’m pretty good at digging.

“You know how to reach Leo Koslenko,” I say.

“I certainly do
not.”
But her response is too readied, too defensive in its delivery. She was prepared for the accusation.

“You’re the one who brought him over, Nat. It was your family in the Soviet Union that was friendly with his. He was a sick, tortured man who was loyal to you and only you.”

Natalia taps her cigarette into a marble ashtray. She has never, in her life, had to answer to anyone. She is not about to start now.

She will need some prompting.

“Leo Koslenko killed Ellie Danzinger,” I tell her. “At your direction.”

“Oh.” A burst of amusement escapes her lips. She turns to me, holding that expression, a combination of disdain and delight. “And—is that all? Did I direct the murders of all of those girls? Including my own daughter, Paul?”

Her tone is patronizing, but her eyes have caught fire now. She leaves the cigarette burning in the ashtray and moves from the couch, adjusting a piece of art on the wall. It looked straight to me, which tells me she’s getting uncomfortable, maybe stalling for time.

“You didn’t want to kill your daughter,” I say. “But you had no choice. Cassie figured out what you’d done to Ellie. And you knew she wouldn’t keep quiet.”

What I’m saying isn’t true. At least, I don’t think it is. But the best I can do is shake the tree. This feels like a pretty good tree to shake.

Something catches my eye to the left, a momentary alteration in the hallway lighting. Like a faint shadow.

Someone is in the hallway.

“You were the one who wanted the charges dropped on Cassie’s murder,” I say. “You were afraid of anyone taking too close a look at that. Or at her.”

Natalia places her hands behind her back and nods slowly. “What you are saying is not only ridiculous, Paul. It is also something you could never prove.”

“Don’t be so sure.” I open my shoulders toward the hallway without being obvious. I start to pace—again, to move closer to the hallway—and speak in that direction, with my back to Natalia. I want to make sure that both Natalia and the person in the hallway hear this.

“We’ll start by exhuming Cassie’s body,” I say.

“That’s a bluff,” she answers to my back. “You’ve already convicted a man of—”

She stops, and I smile at the irony. Thanks to Natalia,
nobody
was convicted of Cassie’s murder. Her case has never been prosecuted.

“That’s a bluff,” she repeats.

“It’s no bluff, Nat. Governor Trotter intends to have me appointed as a special prosecutor to investigate Cassie’s murder. My first official act will be to arrest you on suspicion of murder.”

None of that is true, but it’s believable, which is all that matters.

“Technology has come a long way in sixteen years,” I advise her. “I can only imagine what we’ll find on Cassie’s body.”

The truth is, I doubt there would be much to gain. But she doesn’t know that. And in any event, that isn’t the point.

“And you’ll tear down everything you accomplished,” Natalia warns me. “You’ll destroy the banner achievement of your career.”

It isn’t a question, so I don’t answer. I keep my eyes on the hallway.

Gwendolyn Lake makes her first appearance, stepping into the threshold of the parlor in a long T-shirt and gray sweats.

“Sweetheart—” Natalia comes forward, into my peripheral vision.

I nod to Gwendolyn.

“You’re wrong,” she says to me.

 

NEVER COME BACK, don’t ever return, an order, must obey—

Never come back, never set foot in Highland Woods, take the money, more if you want, don’t ever come back, no one can know—

The neighborhood looks different, some houses remodeled, some brand-new, nice neighborhood, Highland Woods—

Never come back. But there are exceptions. Like when Paul Riley visits Mrs. Bentley—now Mrs. Lake.

Leo passes her house, Mrs. Lake’s house now, used to be her sister‘s, a quick pass, then he parks at the bottom of the hill. The maze of streets is a loop, all roads leading to Browning Street at the bottom. He will wait for Riley here, parked at a meter, with a cup of coffee and a newspaper.

It has been an endless week. But today will be the end.

 

NATALIA LAKE STEPS BETWEEN Gwendolyn and me. “No, sweetheart, no—”

“Aunt Natalia.” Gwendolyn tries to move around Nat.

“No, honey—”

“Aunt Natalia. Aunt Natalia!” She takes Nat by the shoulders and looks at her squarely.
“Aunt Natalia,
I’m saying this. I know you want to protect Cassie’s memory, but it’s not worth
this.”

After a momentary struggle, Nat finally relents, her posture easing. She walks past me, without a word or glance, toward the window.

I look back at Gwendolyn. In her long T-shirt and sweats, her sleep-flattened hair and tired eyes, there is an air of nakedness, candor, about her. I don’t speak, for fear of stopping the momentum. Gwendolyn has come to me. She is rolling down a hill now. Shelly, I realize, ignoring the ache in my chest, had been right about her: She would tell me eventually. It just took some prompting from me.

“You’re right about me,” Gwendolyn says to me, her voice free of any affect. “Harland is my biological father. My mother told me before she died. She hadn’t wanted to tell me, but she felt like I had a right to know.” She fixes on Natalia, who is now staring out the window, motionless. “She was so horrified by her pregnancy, initially, that she flew to France. To our place at Cap-Ferrat. She was planning, I think, to have—well, to end the pregnancy.”

I nod. Mia Lake changed her mind, obviously, decided against the abortion and gave birth to Gwendolyn on the French Riviera.

“I told Cassie about it,” she concedes. “When I was in town that summer. In hindsight, it wasn’t a nice thing—I shouldn’t have. I didn’t know what Cassie was dealing with at the time. I didn’t know any of that until it was too late.”

“You’re telling me that Cassie killed Ellie Danzinger,” I confirm.

It was how I figured it. After everything I heard last night, I couldn’t see any other way. But there are a few things I don’t know yet.

“We found out later,” Gwendolyn continues. “Cassie told us afterward. And, no, we didn’t say anything. We didn’t do anything. We just—well, I didn’t know what to do.”

“You left town,” I say. “The Wednesday of the murder spree.”

She nods. “I wasn’t the type—back then especially—I didn’t think I’d hold up under police questioning.” She takes a moment, her breathing escalated. “You understand, we knew when they found Ellie, they’d come find Cassie. They were best friends. And I didn’t want to have to answer any questions. I was just popping into town for a visit, anyway, so it would be perfectly natural for me to leave.”

I look back at Natalia, standing immobile by the window, then back to Gwendolyn. Tears threatening her eyes, her skin now a ghostly shade, she nevertheless seems to be relieved.

“And then what?” I say to Gwendolyn—really, to either of them.

Gwendolyn shakes her head, blinks away the moisture in her eyes. “Then, nothing. I left. Aunt Natalia and Cassie just held their breath and waited for the police to come. But they never did. So they went on with their lives, and then Cassie was murdered.”

I shake my head, like I’m still a few pieces short of the puzzle.

Gwendolyn shrugs. “Terry Burgos must have seen it happen. He was stalking Ellie, wasn’t he? He must have seen it happen. And then he killed Cassie because of it. I mean, you tell me, Mr. Riley. It’s anyone’s guess.”

Anyone’s guess? I think not. Not to the two women in this room, at least. But I’d like to hear the rest of this, anyway.

“What about Leo Koslenko?” I ask.

“He knew, too. Cassie told the three of us.”

I open my hands. “And?”

“And nothing.” She shrugs. “He didn’t do anything.”

“We don’t know why Leo’s doing what he’s doing now.” This from Natalia, who turns from the window. “In some way, we think he’s trying to protect Cassie.”

It’s an unsatisfactory explanation, but it’s not surprising. They know more than they’re saying, but I wasn’t expecting help from them on this point.

And I didn’t come here for this story. I came here to accomplish two things. One of those things, I achieved just by showing up. And the other, I might be close to acquiring.

“So my first act as special prosecutor,” I say, “is to formally acquit Terry Burgos of Ellie’s murder and identify Cassie as the killer.”