Eye of the Beholder

controls. “I’m going back to my restaurant now,” she says. “I’m going back to my life.”

Gwendolyn puts the pontoon into gear and moves us back toward the shore. She navigates under the canopy and kills the engine. She cranks that large wheel in the opposite direction to moor the pontoon.

She dutifully shakes both our hands and gives me a surprisingly gentle smile. The outburst was out of character for her, clearly, and she regrets it. But I’ve been treated a lot worse.

Shelly and I are quiet as we walk back to the car. I start the car and drive out of view before I ask for her opinion.

“She’s scared,” Shelly says.

That may be. At a minimum, she was dishonest. She went from not remembering Professor Albany to calling him “Frank.”

“I think she’s a good person,” Shelly adds. “But she couldn’t decide what to tell you.”

“I suppose that tells me something right there. But what? She’s protecting someone?”

“You’ll find out soon enough.” Shelly rolls down the window and faces into the wind. “She’ll get in touch with you when she’s ready.”

“Yeah?”

“Trust a woman.” She gives my hand a playful grab.

We drive in silence until I get back on the interstate. I put a lot of faith in Shelly’s judgment of people and I think she was right on here. Gwendolyn is a sincere woman, someone not prone to evasion who was being evasive. I only wish I knew what she was holding back.

I sense Shelly watching me again and I look over at her.

“Something was going on with Cassie back then,” she says. “You think so, too.”

I don’t argue. Instead, I search the roll call of numbers on my cell phone. When I was with the U.S. attorney, I worked a lot with a guy named Pete Storino with Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He moved to Customs a few years later, and now he’s the top guy at the city airport for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I get him on his cell and he spends ten minutes giving me grief. The small talk over, I get to the point.

“I need a favor, Pete,” I tell him. “Passenger’s name is Gwendolyn Lake.”

30

HE’S NOT ANSWERING his cell phone,” Stoletti says. ”His secretary just said he’s out of the office.”

“Okay. We’ll get him soon enough.”

While he waits for what should be a very interesting conversation with Paul Riley, McDermott occupies himself with the reports thus far on Fred Ciancio and Evelyn Pendry. They have shit on Ciancio. The inventory looks meaningless. A complete lack of trace evidence. The only evidence they have, it seems, is the murder weapon and whatever they can discern from the body. He glances over the preliminary findings from the autopsy, which don’t tell him much, other than the fact that Ciancio’s body was ravaged with superficial wounds-

“What’s this?” he says, taking a closer look. He reads it again but he doesn’t recognize the term. “What the hell is a ‘tarsal phalange’?”

Stoletti comes over. “Huh?”

McDermott points to a line in the report, listing the injuries to Fred Ciancio:

Postmortem incision at the base of the fourth and fifth tarsal phalange.

“What’s a ‘tarsal phalange’?” Stoletti asks.

“I just asked you that.” McDermott sighs. “Sounds like a tail. You think Fred Ciancio had grown a tail?”

“Maybe, Mike. Maybe he was a space alien.”

McDermott looks up to see Tony Rezko, one of the CAT technicians. “Say, Tony, any idea what a ‘tarsal phalange’ is?”

Rezko pauses. “No.”

“Then you got something on those notes for me?”

“Something on the second note,” he says.

“Beautiful.” McDermott drops the autopsy report on the pile of evidence. “Let’s hear it.”

I DROP OFF SHELLY andreturn to my office around four. I ignore the blinking light on my voice mail and go straight to the regular mail. I find myself looking for another letter and find none. But then I take a look at the manila envelope at the bottom of the pile. It has my name written on it in Magic Marker, no address. No return address. I open it carefully. Inside is a standard-sized white mailing envelope with the same handwriting, just my name. All indications are, this is another one of these letters. I open the smaller envelope just as carefully. The single page that falls out reads:

Others that hunted ensured respect. Sinners know not our wrath. Our ultimate response shall ensure consequences, reviling ethical traitors.

“Am I even supposed to understand this?” I say to no one. “Betty!”

Betty pops in. “Oh, you’re back. Detective McDermott was looking for you.”

“This was delivered,” I say, holding up the manila envelope. “Not mailed?”

“It came in a delivery.”

“Timing,” I say. “He controls when it gets here.”

“What?”

“Nothing. Betty, get Detective McDermott on the phone. And find out who delivered this envelope.”

Others that hunted. That’s Burgos. Sinners know not our wrath. Apparently, it’s time to show them?

Betty comes in through the intercom. “We have three messengers who dropped off envelopes this morning,” she informs me. “We’ll trace it back.”

It’s probably a dead end. This guy’s been too careful. He wouldn’t contract with a messenger service, leave a credit card or an address.

After a minute, Betty buzzes McDermott’s call through. I tell him that I got another letter, and he should send over a uniform to pick it up.

“Got a better idea,” McDermott tells me. “Why don’t you stop by yourself?”

REZKO, THE CAT TECHNICIAN, is almost a caricature, a bald head and large, square glasses. If he had a squeaky voice, it would be a trifecta.