Eye of the Beholder

truth. Here’s the kicker: You’re going to love who helped him in the States.”

He doesn’t have to guess. But why burst her bubble?

“Harland Bentley,” she announces. “The Harland Bentley. And his wife, Natalia.”

He nods.

“I’m not surprising you,” she gathers.

“Not with that part, no. Jane, he went into that asylum in 1982. He got out in 1984. He got over the Soviet border in 1986 and came to America.”

She doesn’t say anything.

“What happened in those two years? Eighty-four to eighty-six.”

She smiles, but only for a moment. “That’s why they pay you the big bucks, Mickey.” She leans forward, touches the file she has given him. “And that’s why you’re not supposed to have this file.”

I RETURN TO MY OFFICE after talking to Gwendolyn. I still haven’t heard back from McDermott. I return to the notes that were delivered to me, spread out on my desk. I’ve been over these notes a dozen times over the past few days, but I’m certain that I’m still missing something.

The first one:

If new evil emerges, do heathens ever link past actions? God’s answer is near.

Second:

I will inevitably lose life. Ultimately, sorrow echoes the heavens. Ever sensing. Ever calling out. Never does vindication ever really surrender easily. The immediate messenger endures the opposition, but understanding requires new and loving betrayal and new yearning.

Third:

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

The first note makes sense, at least. He’s talking about a link between his crimes and Terry Burgos’s murders. The third one makes some sense, too, I guess. Our ultimate response shall ensure consequences, reviling ethical traitors. Reviling ethical traitors? It seems awkward, forced.

The more I think about it, the more I agree with Stoletti about the second note. The word choices are odd. Some of it is nonsensical.

Never does vindication ever really surrender easily.

But understanding requires new and loving betrayal and new yearning.

Why did he insert ever in a sentence that didn’t need it? Why use new twice?

Maybe-maybe these notes aren’t meant to be taken literally. We’re expecting someone following Burgos’s crusade to be mentally ill, like him, mixed in with some pathological religious fer vor. These notes bear the markings of all of that.

But maybe there’s more to these notes. Maybe these are in some kind of code.

I get out a separate piece of paper and play with the words, looking for anything. I read it with every other word. Every third word. I don’t discern a pattern. I try to focus on the extra words, what they might mean. I come up empty. But I can’t shake the feeling that some of these words look like they don’t belong-not just ever and now but words like reviling.

Forced.

Why did he need these words, in particular? What role did they play in this code?

Wait a second. Wait a second.

I start scribbling, playing out my theory. My heart starts to pound as it crystallizes. He chose those words because he needed a word that started with that particular letter. He chose ever because he needed an e.

I write the first letter from each word in the first note.

I-N-E-E-D-H-E-L-P-A-G-A-I-N.

Jesus Christ.

I need help again.

The second note:

I-W-I-L-L-U-S-E T-H-E S-E-C-O-N-D V-E-R-S-E T-I-M-E T-O B- U-R-N A-L-B-A-N-Y.

I will use the second verse. Time to burn Albany. The third note:

O-T-H-E-R-S K-N-O-W-O-U-R S-E-C-R-E-T.

Others know our secret.

He wrote these notes to me. He needs my help again. Now he will burn Albany. Others know our secret.

Our secret? He needs my help? Again?

What the hell does this mean?

IT’S TIME. TIME NOW.

Leo walks over to the window overlooking the street: A woman is showing a piece of real estate to a couple of men on the other side of the street and down about eight houses; a FedEx truck is parked up the street a ways; two Latino women and their small children walk on the sidewalk, eating fresh corn dipped in butter and salt.

Leo puts on the plastic smock and fastens the ties behind his neck and back. Then he walks over to the stereo in the apartment. On top of the receiver is a framed photograph of Shelly Trotter and Paul Riley in a park, waving to the camera. He waves back.

Hello, Paul. You see what I’m about to do?

The CD already in the player is classical piano music. He pauses a moment, closes his eyes, listens to the graceful, spirited hands of Horowitz. Katrina had played, though not this beautifully of course, her young, inexpert hands clanking clumsily over the keys. Mother taught her. She’d wanted to teach Leo, too, but Father wouldn’t allow it. Men of the world had no time for such trivialities, he’d said, but Leo had been envious of Kat, and was sure that she’d continued her play over the years as one of many ways to taunt her younger brother, to display her dominance over him. Oh, they hadn’t seen it in Kat, even afterward, the many ways she’d seduced and manipulated the entire family, her treachery, the evil in her soul, until his moment finally came on the ice when she’d slipped and was finally at last vulnerable, unable to gain traction with her skates, as he fell on top of her, pressed his thumbs into her throat, and, yes, he cried, though she’d given him no choice, only he had