“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
“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
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
“I know.” Riley shakes his head. “I don’t get it.”
“Others know
“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
44
I WANT MY LAWYER.”
