“IT DIDN’T MATTER,” Brandon says. “What’s the point of ripping apart these people’s lives when it served no purpose?”
“I’m not asking why you didn’t tell the police back then,” McDermott says. “I want to know why you didn’t want to tell us tonight. And why we ‘didn’t hear this from you.’ You afraid of someone, Brandon?”
Brandon waves off the notion, trying to give the impression that McDermott’s off base. But he’s not. He can read it all over Mitchum.
“Harland Bentley,” he guesses.
Brandon’s eyes shoot to McDermott, then retreat. He might as well have said yes.
“Tell me about you and Harland Bentley, Brandon.”
“Look, it’s not just me.” He says it like it’s wrong, whatever it is. “Mr. Bentley is one of the biggest benefactors to the arts in this city. He gives money to a lot of artists.”
Oh. Right. Mitchum is an artist.
“He endowed a grant through the City Arts Foundation for me,” he concedes. “Okay?”
McDermott drops his head and peeks over at Stoletti.
“When did this happen?” Stoletti asks.
“When I graduated Mansbury. That was ‘ninety-two.”
“He gave you a grant in 1992?”
“Yeah. Well-it’s a continuing grant. He refreshes it every year.”
“How much does he ‘refresh’ it?” McDermott asks.
“Oh.” Brandon waves a hand. “Started out at twenty-five thousand. Now it’s seventy-five thousand a year.”
“Seventy-five
The coloring on the face of the young artist has changed to a light crimson. This is not a topic he enjoys. “He told me that Cassie would have wanted him to help. He said he appreciated that I was there for Cassie.”
A doctor comes into the room and wants to know if they’re done. McDermott says he needs five more minutes. Mitchum, it seems, was hoping for a reprieve. The doctor stands next to McDermott to let him know the clock is ticking.
“There’s nothing wrong with accepting a grant,” Mitchum says.
McDermott nods at him. “You and Mr. Bentley ever discuss what we’ve just discussed?”
He shakes his head. “Never.”
Stoletti asks, “You think he knew that
“No,” he insists. “I don’t know if there’s even anything
The doctor moves between the detective and the patient. “That’s enough for tonight, guys. Really.”
“We’ll have a guard at your door,” McDermott tells Brandon. “You think of anything, I want you to call me.”
They step out into the hallway. Stoletti digests the conversation while McDermott checks for messages on his cell phone. None.
So Cassie is pregnant and having unpleasant conversations with whoever the father is, who seems to want to deny it. Then Cassie is murdered. Then someone gets Fred Ciancio to help break into the building where Cassie’s medical records are located. None of this, save Cassie’s murder, is confirmed. But it makes sense.
Nor can it be confirmed that Cassie’s father was playing around with Ellie’s best friend. But if he was, then Cassie was having a pretty rough time right before she was murdered.
“You think Cassie confronted her daddy?” Stoletti asks. “He marries into a billion dollars, and he’s afraid of his wife finding out that he was screwing their daughter’s best friend?”
“And,” McDermott adds, “we have another someone who doesn’t want Cassie’s pregnancy to come out. Professor Albany sure looks good for the ‘fucking father.”’
“And just about this time,” she replies, “Ellie and Cassie conveniently turn up dead.”
Right. But they don’t have proof that Cassie was pregnant, and they don’t have proof Harland Bentley was stepping out with Ellie Danzinger.
Only one way to find out. He’s supposed to see Natalia Lake Bentley, who is returning from vacation tomorrow morning early. And they have Harland Bentley at ten.
“We’ll need to add the professor to our social calendar tomorrow,” he says.
37
McDERMOTT MAKES it back to the station after leaving the hospital. Grace is already asleep when he calls. His mother says she had a good night. It’s only the third night since Joyce died that McDermott hasn’t put her to bed and read to her. He misses it. It’s part of his pact with her.
What would he do without his mother, Grace’s gramma? A nanny on a cop’s salary would almost break him. His mother, seventy-four next month, is the one now holding this together. She’s healthy as a horse, but he can see she’s slowing down. He thinks about it every day. What would happen to Grace without her?
He shakes away the thought. He pushes out the memory of Joyce lying dead on the floor, the bathroom floor and rug soaked with her blood. He turns from the sight of Grace, huddled in the bathtub, her eyes shut, hands over her ears.
He pretends he didn’t say those things to Joyce, the night before her death.
Joyce was sick, and it had become too much for a husband who worked ten-hour days. Worse yet, there was Grace. If something had happened to her under Joyce’s watch, he’d never forgive himself. Joyce loved Grace more than life, but that wasn’t the point. Sickness was sickness. You can love your daughter with all your heart, but what good does that do if you’ve locked yourself upstairs while your three- year-old daughter is downstairs, wailing for her mommy?
That’s when he’d made the decision, after arriving home late from a double homicide, after gathering his hungry, soiled daughter in his arms as he searched the house for his wife, his heart rattling against his chest in anger and terror with such fury that he could hardly push the calls to his wife out of his lungs. He found her in the spare bedroom, in the corner, wrapped in a ball, weeping quietly. She’d lost track of time, hadn’t any sense of whether Grace had eaten dinner or whether she’d had a nap. She was losing control.
It was time-past time-to institutionalize her.
He’d consulted an attorney the week earlier. Involuntary commitment was an option. But he wanted so badly for Joyce to agree with him. He wanted her to feel like part of a solution, not a prisoner being locked up.
