by David Ellis
McDermott drops his head. “I’m talking about a guy who can get past a locked door. Who can come in and out without a trace. A guy who knows how to torture for information.”
She nods. “He’d be the perfect candidate. He had mental problems, so deniability would be easy. They’d just put an idea in his head, wind him up, and turn him loose.”
Put an idea in his head, wind him up, and turn him loose.
“This conversation never happened,” she reminds him. “No foolin’.”
Right. The government doesn’t want to admit it let a psychotic into the country. There can be no blowback, she’s saying. That’s why McCoy came herself to tell him, and why she needs the A-file back. Because no one was supposed to tell him any of this. It could mean her job, if it came out.
“So the Soviets taught this guy how to torture and kill and sent him here.”
“What I’m hearing,” she replies, “is that the Koslenko family had serious sway in the government. They got wind of what he was doing and got him out. They played it like he was a political dissident unfairly accused of a mental disorder to silence him. And like you already know, he had help on this side.”
“Great. That’s a real consolation.”
“Mike, none of this came out until the nineties, and, even then, it wasn’t something we could prove. And, look, from what we knew, this guy had been a good citizen while he was here.”
A good citizen. A good citizen, that is, until someone put an idea in his head, wound him up, and turned him loose.
43
McDERMOTT STANDS in the conference room, his head against the wall. “I’m thinking, that’s what I’m doing,” he says before Stoletti can ask.
“Professor Albany’s here, Mike. What did the fed tell you?”
McDermott gives Stoletti the Reader’s Digest. She takes a seat as she listens. He ends with the reminder, nobody can know about this. “McCoy put her ass on the line to tell me.”
“A KGB henchman,” she says. “Holy Christ.”
McDermott pushes himself off the wall. “It explains his proficiency. We’re looking at a professionally trained paranoid schizophrenic.”
One of the detectives, Williams, pokes his head in. “Mike, Paul Riley’s on the phone.”
“Okay, tell him—”
“He says it’s urgent, Mike,” says Williams. “You should probably take it.”
“THE GUY IN THIS PHOTO is named Leo Koslenko.” Riley shows them the photo, points at the tough guy in the background. “He was an immigrant laborer for the Bentleys.”
McDermott isn’t sure how to play this. He’s off guard here, in every way. He didn’t sleep a wink last night and feels the effects, the fuzzy brain, dirty clothes, heavy eyes. Maybe he should feign surprise, but neither he nor Stoletti has the spirit for it.
Riley’s no dummy, anyway, reading their expressions. “You know this,” he says.
“Just found out. We raided his house a few hours ago.” He nods in acknowledgment at Riley. “He left his prints on Brandon’s door, like you said.”
“He has a sheet,” Riley says. Otherwise, prints would be useless. He waits for the details but the detectives keep mum.
Stoletti says, “Tell us about this Gwendolyn Lake.”
Brandon Mitchum had mentioned her last night, too.
Riley says what he knows. Cassie’s cousin, orphaned wild child, flying around the globe, mingling with the rich and famous. Yesterday, Riley says, he visited her up north, had a follow-up with her this morning. She told him about Koslenko, who supposedly had a crush on Cassie and may have been mentally unstable. Gwendolyn told him that Cassie was having an affair with Professor Albany. And she told him that Cassie was pregnant near the time she was murdered.
“Someone broke into that medical center to steal the records of the pregnancy,” Riley concludes. “Or the records of the abortion. Or both. It must be Albany, right?”
McDermott still plays it coy, giving nothing. He knows all of this now, and more. He knows that Leo Koslenko has a thing for killing prostitutes—or girls who look like prostitutes, in the case of the woman at the hardware store. He knows that Koslenko had a note in his bedroom drawer that was obviously written for Professor Albany, probably back during the time of the murders, threatening him to keep quiet about Ellie Danzinger’s affair with Harland Bentley.
Does Riley know that Harland Bentley was sleeping with Ellie Danzinger?
When Riley’s finished, McDermott glances at Stoletti. Both of them are wondering about Riley, whether to share with him, whether Riley is on their side.
No way that Riley killed these people. Koslenko looks like the guy, every way you view it. But someone wound him up and turned him loose, to use McCoy’s phrase, and the identity of that person is of particular interest. Harland Bentley’s not a bad bet, but Riley works for Bentley.
It looks like Riley saved Brandon Mitchum’s life, but, then, maybe he knew Koslenko was headed there.
He thinks about that. Maybe Riley knows what’s happening but he can’t say so, because of attorney-client privilege or something. Maybe he’s trying to stop the murders without breaking any confidences.
“You figure Albany’s dirty here?” he asks Riley. “You think he’s killing a bunch of people now because he doesn’t want anyone to know he knocked up Cassie Bentley?”
Riley shrugs, exasperated. “I don’t know what else it could be.”
McDermott bursts out a small laugh. “You can’t think of any other reason?”
“Give me a better one,” Riley challenges.
McDermott smiles at him. Nothing doing. Not yet, anyway. “So tell me about these notes. This code.”
Silently, McDermott cusses himself out. These notes contained a code? He wasn’t even looking for one. He thought the ramblings of a madman were nothing more than that.
“He uses the first letter of every word.” Riley lays out his copies of the notes he received on the conference-room table. “That’s why the notes seem nonsensical. They are. He needs words that start with certain letters, like Stoletti said.”
“Ah, shit.” McDermott claps his hands. “There were indentations on the second note. He’d been trying to come up with words that start with V and E. The first letter mattered. Jesus.” He looks down at Riley’s work:
I NEED HELP AGAIN.
I WILL USE THE SECOND VERSE. TIME TO BURN
ALBANY.
OTHERS KNOW OUR SECRET.
“I’ll be damned.” McDermott shakes his head furiously, trying to clear his thoughts. He’s a little old to be pulling all-nighters. “This is a very easy code—once you realize you’re looking for a code.”
Riley agrees with that. “Took me ten minutes, once I started looking. I guess that’s the point. I had to be able to decipher it.”
“He needs help again,” Stoletti says. “He’s talking to you, Riley.”
“I know.” Riley shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Others know our secret.” McDermott looks at Riley. “You and this guy have a secret.”
“He’s telling you what he’s going to do,” says Stoletti. “He says he needs your help, the secret is out. He tells you he’s going to use the ‘second verse’ and it’s time to burn Albany.”
McDermott tries to size up the situation. These notes, if anything, implicate Riley. Why would he bring these notes to their attention?
“ ‘Time to burn Albany.’ He’s telling you to implicate the professor,” Stoletti says. “He’s saying, keep our secret by pointing the finger at Albany.”
“Maybe,” Riley agrees. “Or maybe we have the punctuation wrong. Maybe there’s a period after ‘burn.”’
“ ‘Time to burn. Albany.’ Like he’s signing his name, in case you don’t get it.” Yeah, McDermott thinks, that might make sense.
A knock on the conference-room door. Detective Sloan, the one who was investigating the murders at the two hardware stores, waves a hand to McDermott.
“
Have a seat,” McDermott tells Riley. “Give us a second.”
McDERMOTT AND STOLETTI leave Riley in the conference room and huddle with Detective Sloan.
“We got a vehicle and a plate,” Sloan says proudly. “Chrysler LeBaron, plates J41258. He rented it from a Car-N-Go downtown with a phony license. Paid in cash for two weeks.”
“Good job, Jimmy. Get that on the wire. Right now.” He looks over at Williams, who is walking back into the station.
“Albany’s here,” Williams says. “He’s crying for a lawyer already.”
“What about Harland Bentley?”
“Still looking for him. The office doesn’t seem to know where he is.”
“Find him, Barney. Go.”
McDermott turns to Stoletti, who raises her eyebrows.
“What the hell do we do?” she asks.
“The question,” he answers, “is what we do first.”
44
I WANT MY LAWYER.”
Professor Frank Albany, wearing a light purple shirt, matching tie, and dark sport coat, folds his arms as McDermott and Stoletti enter the interview room.
“This is pure harassment.”
Police officers picked up Albany at his office, scooped him up and threatened handcuffs. Not a fun way to come down to the station. The best way to rattle a witness.
“Tell me where Leo Koslenko is,” McDermott says. “And I’ll let you go.”
“Who?” Albany cocks his head. His lips part but he doesn’t elaborate.
“Don’t bullshit me, Professor.”
Albany gets out of his chair, directing a finger at McDermott. “You have no right—”
McDermott grabs his arm at the wrist, cuffs him, and attaches the second cuff to the ring in the center of the table. As Albany whines and protests, McDermott holds out his hand to Stoletti, who hands him a mug shot of Leo Koslenko from one of his arrests.
McDermott slaps the mug shot down on the table and stands back. He sees the recognition in Albany’s eyes immediately. His eyes move from the photo to McDermott. He doesn’t even try to deny it.
“Leo Koslenko,” McDermott repeats.
“I want a lawyer.”
McDermott reaches into the file and places a copy of the note found in Leo Koslenko’s bedroom on the table.
I know that you know about my relationship with Ellie. And I know about your relationship with my daughter. If you tell, so will I. But if you keep quiet, I will endow a chair in your name at Mansbury College.
I need your answer right now.
Albany begins to read it, then looks away, his face crimson. He closes his eyes and turns his head so he cannot see the note.
That’s as good as a confession. He couldn’t have read more than a line of it. Had he no idea of its contents, he would have read the whole thing.
McDermott takes a seat across from Albany. Stoletti does the same.
“We already know what your ‘answer’ was,” he tells Albany. “It was yes. You kept quiet about his affair and he kept quiet about yours, plus he threw in the endowed chair.”
The professor deteriorates slowly, his face melting in fear, his skin glistening with hot sweat. His position is awkward, his body turned away from the table but his right arm cuffed to the center of the table.
McDermott can smell him now, that acidic scent of pure terror. Some are easier to break than others. This college professor is a cupcake.
“Harland Bentley already gave you up,” he adds. McDermott is largely in the dark here; deception is one of the few cards he holds, so he goes with the standard interrogation in a multiple-defendant case—claim that one turned on the other. Last one to confess loses.
“I want a lawyer.” It comes out as a trembling whisper.
“The only question I have now,” McDermott continues, “is which one of you killed the girls.”
Albany’s head whips around, his wet, bloodshot eyes moving over the detectives.
“He says it was your idea.” McDermott falls back in his chair, calm with the upper hand. “Want a chance to give your side?”
“I want a lawyer—”
“See, here’s why that’s a bad idea, Professor. This is like a race now. The first one to cut a deal wins. Me, I figure each of you is guilty of something. One of you’s getting the needle. I don’t really care which. But, see, Bentley, he has those fancy lawyers, he’ll cop to something probably that doesn’t involve much jail time. You feel like taking on Harland Bentley, one on one? Who do you think’s gonna win?”
“That‘s”—the professor, having lost all composure, sprays the room as he shouts—“That’s—all a lie! How could anything have been my idea? He gave me that note!”
McDermott doesn’t answer, but he’s already gotten something here. Albany has admitted to receiving the note from Harland Bentley.
“Which one of you killed Cassie?” he asks.
Albany’s arm flies away from his body. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Which one of you killed Ellie?”
“What?”
“See, Bentley says it was you, Professor. You were the one who gained from Cassie dying. You would’ve lost your job if it came out that you were banging a student. And it wasn’t just a he-said, she-said, was it?”
Albany shakes his head furiously.
“No,” McDermott continues, “it wasn’t. Because she was pregnant. That’s pretty solid proof, right, Professor? You were the ‘fucking father.’ Even back then, before DNA, you could identify paternity. You knew you wouldn’t be able to deny it. You knew the paternity test would point to you.”
“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.”
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.