“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.”
45
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.”
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.