by David Ellis
She holds her tongue, the color pouring into her face, then shifts the Taurus back into gear. “If I find out you’re sabotaging this investigation, you’ll need a fancy lawyer of your own.” She guns the car and blows a red light. I grip the armrest and hang on.
26
McDERMOTT LOSES almost an hour in the lieutenant’s office with Commander Briggs, some of the top brass from the county attorney’s office, and the media relations guy for the department. A bunch of politicians readying for the downside and hoping for the upside. He spends less time giving them an update and more time helping them find the right way to say it in a press release that will have to be issued, at some point. These guys have invented hundreds of ways of saying absolutely nothing.
He finds Carolyn Pendry standing by his desk, pacing, on a cell phone. Her grief has morphed into steely resolve, which makes her somewhat easier to deal with. McDermott doesn’t like the soft stuff, dealing with the victims, but the only sign of her tears now is the smeared mascara. He doesn’t know to whom she’s talking, but he knows she’s not enjoying the conversation.
“I appreciate that,” she says. “Yes, I have your cell, too.”
He casts one eye on his desk, which has now been overtaken with material from the Fred Ciancio and Evelyn Pendry homicides. Inventories, preliminary autopsies, photos, trace evidence work-ups—or the lack thereof.
He doesn’t know if the offender is a copycat or not. All he can say with his gut is that whoever it is, he isn’t finished. Next up is a murder with a damn razor blade. That’s no kind of lead at all. But the fourth murder mentions a “Trim-Meter chain saw.” That’s the one. Not just a weapon but a particular model. He needs to track down the area retailers who sell that brand.
“I can absolutely assure you that if I have any comment, you’ll be the first.” Carolyn Pendry closes her cell phone, her face defiant. In other circumstances, McDermott could get a real rise from this one. This woman is really put together. The physical response brings Joyce to mind. You miss everything about your wife when she’s gone. Before they had Grace, and before everything went south, God, they were like hungry animals.
“My colleagues won’t leave me alone,” she tells him. “Everyone calls to send their condolences, but then it always winds around to wanting a comment. Everyone wants the inside story. I can’t take a breath without them standing there.” She reads the look on McDermott’s face. “And no, Detective, the irony is not lost on me.”
“I wasn’t going to say anything.”
“The reason I’m here.” She clears her throat with some difficulty. “Two weeks ago, I did a special on Terry Burgos. The anniversary of his execution. June fifth.”
“Okay.”
She angles her head, struggling. This woman’s job is composure and she’s learned well. “I said that he was insane.” She forces the words out. “That he shouldn’t have been convicted. He should have been locked up and treated, not executed.”
There’s a question or two in there, but it’s better to let this go.
“I think I unleashed someone.” She shakes her head slowly. “I said that anyone who would follow lyrics like this—and take them as the word of God—anyone who would do that must be insane. Regardless of how the state defines insanity.”
Okay. The point being, someone who had like-minded thoughts got upset at being called insane and decided to do something about it.
“Then why your daughter?” he asks.
“Because there’s no—” Her throat closes. She places a hand on her chest to suppress her emotions. She finishes with a whisper: “Because there’s no worse way to hurt me.” She turns her back to McDermott and weeps quietly.
“I understand the thought,” McDermott says gently. “But then we have Fred Ciancio, a guy who called you with ‘information’ back then, and then called Evelyn recently. And it looks like Evelyn was following up with him. And now they’re both dead. If somebody was unleashed, Mrs. Pendry, I’m not sure it was because of your editorial on a TV show.”
She turns back around. She seems to appreciate McDermott’s theory, which absolves her, but she can’t shake the guilt. “I should have stayed on Fred Ciancio back then,” she says. “He sounded so scared on the phone. And then when I went to his house—when he realized I had traced his call back to his house—he was terrified. I really thought there might be something there. But then he refused to say another word to me. He got cold feet. And then everything started happening with the trial.”
“It was natural for you to drop it,” he tells her. “You looked into him, he was a security guard at a shopping mall who refused to talk to you. There was nothing there.”
She shakes her head. “I always told Ev, don’t be lazy. See it through. Keep trying different avenues. Get your story.”
Which, apparently, is what she was doing with Fred Ciancio.
“Did you mention Ciancio to your daughter?” he asks.
She nods. “Oh, it must have been quite a while ago.” Her eyes drift off. “Years, I mean. Many years. I used to tell her stories about what I did. She’s very good about retaining information. It’s why she’s such a”—her throat catches—“I mean, was—excuse me, I’m sorry.” She brings a fist to her mouth, shuts her eyes.
“No problem, Mrs. Pendry.” He can imagine how Evelyn must have reacted, having heard from her mother a long-ago story about Fred Ciancio, a lead that hadn’t panned out, a gnawing doubt—and then suddenly the same Mr. Ciancio called Evelyn to talk.
McDermott’s cell phone rings.
“Have they found her computer yet?” Carolyn asks.
“No.” Evelyn had a laptop computer but it was not at her house and not at her office. The assumption is, the offender took it after he killed Evelyn.
McDermott checks the caller ID and excuses himself from the desk.
“Kopecky.”
“Mike, that Vicky in the Dumpster. The one in your hood?”
“The Vicky in the—Kopecky, what the hell? You’re supposed to be—”
“We got a call from the lab,” Kopecky says. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
27
We WAIT, Stoletti and I, outside the Green Building, on the campus at Mansbury College. The building is in the quad—the central square of campus, where the students hang out in small groups and toss Frisbees, and probably smoke a little weed when no one’s looking.
“Down the street, through those buildings,” I say, “is Bramhall Auditorium.”
The sun has come out, warming my face and making me uncomfortable in my suit. It’s a beautiful day, though probably not such a great one for summer school students. I did that once, in high school. Took typing class over the summer. They wouldn’t let us wear shorts to school—the same Catholic school dress code applied in the summer—and we baked as the sunlight poured in. I once told one of the nuns that there was nothing in the Bible that prohibited air-conditioning. She didn’t take it in the spirit of whimsy with which it was offered.
“No prints from Ciancio’s house?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“What about Evelyn’s?”
“Nothing.” Stoletti puts a stick of gum in her mouth. “Guy didn’t leave shit for forensics. Either place. Hey, does it bother you, this guy goes to the second set of verses?”
“The first verses, Burgos already did,” I say.
“My point exactly. If he’s a copycat, he’s not copying.”
“Let’s ask him,” I say, motioning to the stairs of the Green Building, where Professor Albany is walking out, a bag over his shoulder, chatting in a friendly manner with a female student. We get close enough to be seen, and wait for him to finish his conversation with the adoring student. He glances at us and begins to stride down the walkway. Then he stops and looks back at me, recognition registering in his eyes.
Stoletti says, “Soft-pedal Burgos, remember?”
I nod to Albany, and Stoletti and I walk up to a man who doesn’t seem very happy to see
either of us. Stoletti has kept her shield in her jacket pocket, but she has that recognizable swagger. He could probably make her for a cop.
“Mr. Riley,” he says, like they’re curse words. Up close, I see that time hasn’t changed him much. Fiery eyes, a goatee with more pepper than salt that matches long, disheveled hair. The life of a professor seems a fairly easy one, as stress goes. Which makes me wonder how this guy is still a professor.
He’s stepped it up in the wardrobe department, I notice. His sport coat is caramel, with a light yellow tailored shirt with spread collar, a tie that pulls colors from both the jacket and the shirt. I dig clothes, and I like the good stuff, but you keep it simple. First-rate but simple. This guy looks like a pretty boy. But, wow, nice threads. What are they paying tenured professors these days?
Which makes me wonder, again, how this guy ever got tenure.
I introduce Stoletti, and we walk in silence to his office. We pass a memorial that Harland built for his daughter and for Ellie Danzinger. Where a small park was once located now stands a small monument, a four-columned canopy, past which is a large park with a fountain on a marble base and a manicured garden and concrete walls with quotes from Gandhi and Bob Dylan and Mother Teresa and similar folks, talking about love and peace and forgiveness.
Albany has a decent-sized office that gets good sunlight. In terms of organization, it’s a train wreck. Books everywhere, paper haphazardly placed in piles. There is classical music coming from speakers on a shelving unit behind his desk.
Genius at work, or something like that.
“I read the article this morning,” he says, taking his seat behind a large oak desk. “Please.” He motions to the two leather chairs.
“Which article was that?” Stoletti asks. I stifle the instinct to roll my eyes. That’s a bad start, the dummy routine. You use that when you’re looking to put somebody in something. Feign ignorance and let them dig a hole. This guy knows exactly why we’re here. I have no doubt that Evelyn Pendry paid him a visit, and you only needed to spend a nanosecond on the Watch this morning to learn that one of its reporters was murdered last night.
“You ever talk to Terry after he was convicted?” I ask.
“No.” He makes a face like I asked him if he has lice. “Never.”
“Professor,” Stoletti says, all but throwing an elbow at me. “Do you know a woman named Evelyn Pendry?”
“The murder victim,” he says. “The reporter. Yes, she contacted me.”
“When?”
“She came by last Friday.”
“Tell me about that.”
He digs at his ear. “She mostly covered background. She wanted to know the part I played, that sort of thing.” He nods his head aimlessly, playing with a fancy pen on his desk. I look around the shelving behind him and see no indication of a significant other. No ring on his finger, either.
“The part you played,” Stoletti says.
“I was a witness, Detective. Surely, you know that. Surely, Mr. Riley has carried on at length about his brilliant performance. Everyone hailed the greatprosecutor! Everyone scorned the professor, who had the misfortune of employing a mass murderer.”
Yeah, that confirms my vibe from back then. He felt it, too. We looked him over pretty hard after we arrested Burgos. Checked his alibis, even searched his house, with his consent. In the end, he proved to be a valuable witness for the prosecution, but he didn’t enjoy the guilt by association, and we weren’t exactly delicate with the guy.
“Let’s stay on track here, Professor,” Stoletti says. “Tell me everything Evelyn said to you, and you to her.”
“It was pretty much historical background. I guess that’s redundant.” He waves a hand, but keeps his eye on the desk. “She wanted to confirm dates. She asked me about Terry, the kind of person he was. She confirmed that Cassie Bentley and Ellie Danzinger took my class on violence against women. It was really just a time line and basic confirmation of facts.”
“Nothing else.” Stoletti’s foot wags, but she’s otherwise still.
“It really didn’t take very long at all.” He sighs, then looks at Stoletti. “Oh, she asked me about another man. His name was Fred but I didn’t get the last name.”
“Ciancio.”
“Yes. Yes, exactly.” He seems surprised she made the connection. “She asked me if I knew him or had heard the name. I told her I never had.”
“Was that the truth?”
He pauses a beat, then chuckles. “Well, of course it was. I have never heard that man’s name before she asked.”
Stoletti nods and sighs.
“How was she killed?” Albany asks.
Stoletti takes a moment with that. I decide to keep it between the two of them. Maybe Stoletti has another clever response. “We’re not sure yet. You got any thoughts?”
“Just curious.”
“Why so curious?”
Albany’s eyes flicker to mine, in a way intended to be covert, I think. “I thought it might be an ice pick,” he says.
“Why do you say that?” Stoletti asks. “An ice pick?”
Albany smiles at her, like he might at a student who couldn’t keep up. “Should we say it together, Mr. Riley?” He closes his eyes and recites from memory. “ ‘An ice pick, a nice trick, praying that he dies quick.”’ He opens his eyes and looks at her with satisfaction.
I put my hands together and applaud silently. Albany doesn’t know that Ciancio was first, so he got the ice pick. Evelyn got the switchblade.
“You think this is connected to that song?” Stoletti asks.
“Who can say?” He nods at me. “I assume that’s why Mr. Riley is here. Last I heard, the counselor was doing quite well in the private sector. Evelyn Pendry comes to my door asking about Terry Burgos, then she’s murdered, then here is Mr. Riley himself.”
“You have an opinion on the subject?” she asks.
“Not—I’m a teacher,” he answers. “Terry took the words of a troubled high school student and read into them biblical implications. Is someone else doing the same? I don’t know. I do know there are an awful lot of Web sites devoted to Terry.”
“We’re looking at those,” she says. “Do you? Look at the Web sites, I mean?”
“I’ve seen them. To the extent that what he did to those women has been glorified, it’s part of my class.”
“You’re still teaching that class?” I ask.
He smiles at me. “More popular, and relevant, than ever. You listen to any hip-hop music lately? They talk about beating and sexually abusing women more often than ever. They talk about having intercourse so violent that it destroys a woman’s vaginal walls.”
Stoletti nods at him. “And what do you think about that?”
“I think it’s disgusting. But, I must say from a cultural standpoint, fascinating, too. We focus on the first verse of the song, by the way,” he adds. “The first verse identifies victims—not by name, of course, but how they affected Tyler Skye. Girls who rejected him. Girls who mocked him. The second verse—well, the ice pick lyrics are directed at a man. A couple of them are specifically directed at women. Some of them don’t specify a gender. And none of them explains why he’s killing them. There’s nothing about being rejected or betrayed or insulted. The second verse is simply a description of how the murders will be committed.”
That’s true. The second verse was less personal.
“We’ll need a copy of your course materials.” Stoletti thinks a moment. “And a list of your students for the past few years.”
“Well, the course materials, no problem: ” The professor shrugs. ”The students’ names could be problematic. I think you need to speak with the administration. There are privacy laws, yes?”
Neither of us answers. Albany swivels in his chair and reaches into a cabinet, pulling out three-ring binders, getting together the course materials. Stoletti looks at me with her eyebrows up. Albany slides a course packet across his desk to Stoletti and asks, “Anything else?�
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I can see that his initial nerves have subsided and now he’s back to being the arrogant asshole I’ve always known. Good. Now it’s time.
“Yeah, one more thing,” I say. “You can tell us everything that you and Evelyn Pendry discussed.”
He gives me a look, like he already did that.
I fix a look right back on him. He’s no fan of mine, but I’m pretty sure he still has a switch I can flip. “Professor, we have the notes that Evelyn wrote up from your interview. We know what you talked about with her. So let’s hear it.”
Albany looks away, then leans back in his chair and crosses a leg. Then he crosses his arms. A defensive posture. “If you already have her notes, then why are you asking me what you already know?”
“It’s your call, Professor. You can tell us or lie to us, like you already have.”
Albany loses the color in his face. He’s been down the road of accusation with me before. He didn’t like it so much last time.
“Then maybe—” Albany’s throat closes, which betrays his attempt to stay cool. The smirk is long gone. “Maybe I should have a lawyer present?”
“I’m a lawyer,” I say.
“Hey, Professor,” Stoletti chimes in. “It’s your office. You can kick us out. We’ll come back later. Maybe in the middle of one of your classes. I’ll bring my handcuffs.”
“Listen to me,” I say. “You’ve made false statements to a police officer. That’s a felony. But if you come clean with us right now—and I mean right now—you have corrected your statement. No crime. Once we leave, that statement is complete. And false.”
The professor gives a wide, bitter smile, coughs a brief laugh, before getting out of his seat and pacing behind his desk. “You blame me for what happened to those girls.” He looks at me. “I know you do. Everyone does. I taught a class, teaching about the demeaning ways popular media depicts women, and suddenly I’m the poster boy for violence against women. The one person trying to stop it is now the one known throughout the country, throughout the academic community, for sponsoring it.”