Eye of the Beholder

“I’m surprised she even told the police about her daughter killing Ellie. She didn’t have to do that. I take it that was your idea?”

She remains still, looking off in the distance through her shades. I’m right, of course. Natalia never wanted anyone to know that Cassie killed Ellie. She’d have let Terry Burgos, Professor Albany-anyone else-take that blame.

“You told her if she didn’t tell the police, you would.”

Again, she doesn’t answer, or even look at me.

“You ran away before,” I say. “Back then. On Wednesday, the week of the murder spree. You flew to France.”

We’ve already been over this. I’m bringing it up for a reason and she knows it.

“France doesn’t extradite its citizens to the U.S.,” I continue. “Roman Polanski can tell you that. Which, I assume, is why you left back then.”

She doesn’t answer.

“And why you’re here now,” I add.

She looks up at me.

“You understand,” I say, “that the murder of Cassie Bentley remains unsolved. That case, technically, was never prosecuted. You know that, right?”

“I know that.” Her voice is flat, defiant. “Of course I know that.”

And yet she returned to the United States, anyway, albeit three years later.

“Do I have a clear picture of Cassandra Alexia Bentley?” I ask. “The destructive affair with her professor. The mood swings. Finding out Harland fathered the girl she thought was her cousin. Harland’s affair with Ellie. And then she snaps. It’s too much. She storms into Ellie’s apartment, after seeing Daddy come out, and she gives her one on the brain. Is all of that true?”

A tear appears beneath the sunglasses. She wipes at her face, her mouth contorted into a snarl, but she remains motionless otherwise.

“Look at me,” I say, “and convince me that everything I’ve just said is true.”

She stares into the ground. She is choking up a bit, sniffling and clearing her throat. After a time, she removes her sunglasses and looks up at me with red, wet eyes.

“Okay,” I say. “And there was no pregnancy. No abortion. That was a natural assumption. The break-in to the Sherwood Executive Center. Everyone thinks it was to steal a pregnancy test, or abortion records, or paternity records. That’s all crap, right?”

She says nothing.

“But it’s believable,” I say. “Evelyn Pendry assumed it. The cops assumed it. Hell, I assumed it.” I take a breath. “And then I fed it to you when I came to see you at the lake.”

She’s smart enough to stay silent.

“And once I put that idea in your head,” I continue, “you took it and ran with it. You and Natalia, you got your stories straight afterward. The next day, you both came to us ‘voluntarily’ and told us how Cassie Bentley had been pregnant and had had an abortion. You wanted us to believe that. You wanted us to believe that because it made Professor Albany look guilty. That had been Natalia’s plan all along, right? If anything went south? Blame Professor Albany.”

Burn Albany.

“But that was all just a lie. Right?”

Her eyes drift off as she considers her answer.

“The truth,” I demand. “You have to convince me that I’m doing the right thing.”

She laughs with a tinge of bitterness. “ ‘The right thing.’ You think you know who killed Cassie-”

“No, that’s not going to work,” I say.

She watches me carefully, a slight tilt of her head, narrowing of the eyes. She’s getting the picture now. The walls of this impressive estate are beginning to close in.

She gets out of the chair, turning in all directions as if seeking shelter from this. Finally, she turns to me, regarding me in a different light. Newfound respect. Maybe newfound fear.

“Did you like what Koslenko pulled with Shelly?” I ask. “The chain saw? The poor girl in the bathtub?”

She looks away. Otherwise, she doesn’t respond, but she must have appreciated the irony. Old habits die hard, she must have been thinking.

It took me a while to figure it out, I admit. But I can connect a dot or two.

The murder in the bathtub-the unidentifiable mass of bones and tissue- was one.

Koslenko’s note, for another: If you behave, she will live, too.

Too. As in, also. As in, like others lived.

And Koslenko’s explanation about how Ciancio figured everything out: At the Sherwood Executive Center that night, Ciancio had given Koslenko the keys and left him to commit his burglary. Ciancio only figured it out afterward, Koslenko told me, when the police came to that building on the Burgos case.

But there was only one reason the police came to that building after the bodies were discovered.

“A couple weeks ago,” I say, “I was talking to Harland. We were chasing this red herring about the Sherwood Executive Center. I asked him if his daughter’s doctors were at that building. You know what he said?”

She freezes. She has no idea, of course, but it seems she’s interested.

“I figured he’d have no idea about his daughter’s medical care. But you know what? He did. He remembered taking her there to have a cavity filled when she was a little girl.”

Her face contorts. A fresh tear falls. Her shoulders begin a slow tremble.

“You helped out, too,” I tell her. “When you were describing Cassie’s reaction, seeing her father walk out of Ellie Danzinger’s apartment.”

In the midst of her sobbing, she nods. I imagine, in hindsight, she realized that, too.

You can’t imagine anything so revolting, so disgusting, she had said. A little too personal, too heartfelt, for a secondhand account.

“Natalia sent you off to Paris,” I say. “Wednesday of that week. I assume it’s not entirely different from how you described it-you were a mess. A basket case. You had no idea what was happening. You had no idea what was going to happen.”

“Of course I didn’t.” She looks at me. “ ‘Basket case’ is a good description. I was confused and scared and, by that point, overmedicated. I was a zombie when I got on that plane.”

I believe her. I can’t imagine otherwise. “You didn’t wonder about the passport?”

She shakes her head. “I-I probably should have-but, no.”