time with her best friend, Ellie Danzinger; and her own pregnancy.
Enough to send anyone over the edge. And most of her torment attributable to one person. Harland Bentley.
Which would mean the reason for breaking into Cassie’s doctor’s office had nothing to do with Cassie. It was Gwendolyn. Sure. She probably had the same doctors as Cassie. Why wouldn’t she? Maybe she submitted to a blood test, the first step of a paternity test.
“Cassie would tell you things she wouldn’t tell Ellie,” Stoletti follows up. “You two were especially close.”
Albany smiles with bitterness. “You’re very crafty with your questions, Detective Stoletti. You’re trying to trick me into admitting I had a relationship with Cassie? Well, you don’t have to. She was nineteen, you know. It’s not like I was breaking any laws. She was bright, full of energy-she was a wonderful girl whom I miss very much, to this day. But if she was pregnant, she certainly never told me so.”
McDermott nods at the note on the table. “When did you receive that note?”
Albany, with his free hand holding the cigarette, points to the note, too. “That note was delivered to me by the man in that photo. That is the first, and last, time I’ve seen him.”
“Leo Koslenko.”
“I don’t know his name,” he says. “I never did. He didn’t even let me hold the note. He came to my office and held it up for me to read. I had to give him an answer, right then.”
“And when was ‘right then’? When was this note delivered to you?” McDermott asks.
“I-I don’t know the precise day of the week, but it was a weekday. It was a few days after the bodies were discovered.” He gestures with his free hand. “This man just waltzed into my office, held this up for me to read, and told me he wanted an answer. I told him yes.”
“And you never felt the need to bring this up to the police?” McDermott asks, his tone less than gentle.
“Not when it was obvious to everyone that Terry Burgos killed those poor girls-no, I didn’t.” He taps his cigarette into the black ashtray. “Self-preservation was certainly a motive, I will admit to that. But if I thought it had
McDermott opens his hands.
“I had nothing to do with Cassie or Ellie being murdered.” He drills his finger into the table. “Cassie, in particular, was very dear to me. The notion that I could hurt her-that’s about the worst thing you could say to me.”
“We might come up with worse, Professor.” McDermott pushes himself out of his chair. “You’re gonna need to sit tight awhile.”
By THE TIME I‘D returned to my office, Betty had retrieved the book of mail that we received at the county attorney’s office during the Burgos case. Each piece of mail, at the time, had been date-stamped and filed away. It was a mere precaution. Nothing came of it. And when the case was officially over-when Burgos was executed-and people were scrambling for mementoes, I scooped up the mail. I’d had an idea in the back of my mind that I would write a book, and some of this mail was precious.
But I remember now, one particular piece of mail that stood out. It wasn’t fire-and-brimstone stuff about the Old Testament. It talked about morality, not so much in biblical terms but in-well, nonsensical terms. More than anything, it was just weird. Like the notes that have been sent to me now.
I flip through the pages of the three-ring binder, a full page dedicated to each letter, enveloped in plastic. “Any idea of when that letter came?” I ask Betty.
But she doesn’t even know what I’m talking about. I keep flipping, then suddenly stop. There it is.
I immediately go to work on it:
A-J-O-B-W-E-L-L-D-O-N-E-I-M-A Y-N-E-E-D-O-N-E-
M-O-R-E
A-L-B-A-N-Y.
A JOB WELL DONE. I MAY NEED ONE MORE.
ALBANY.
I check the date stamp on the letter. The letter was received on Tuesday, August 15, 1989.
I open the rings on the binder and remove this page, leaving the letter enclosed in plastic. I place the letter on my desk and stare at it.
Again, “Albany” at the end of the message. But this time, there’s no doubt about the punctuation. The word
“A job well done?” In August of 1989? The case was barely off and running by then. There was nothing to congratulate.
“Betty,” I say into the intercom. “Where is the pleadings file for Burgos?”
“It should already be in your office.”
I find it, tucked in the corner with several accordion files from the case. The pleadings file, which contains most of the documents filed in the Burgos case, is seven volumes, with the documents filed in chronological order, with numbered tabs, and bound at the top. I flip through the first volume, thinking about the date stamp on the letter. If the letter was received on August 15, 1989, then “a job well done” must relate to something that happened before that date.
I flip through June and July. The search warrant, the complaint by which we indicted Burgos, motions concerning bail, the written arguments over Burgos’s attempt to suppress the confession, Burgos’s official plea of insanity. Could this note have been referring to our victory when Burgos tried to have his confession kicked? It’s possible, I guess.
When I get to August-especially before August 15-it is relatively bare. On the first day of the month, a motion was filed by Burgos’s lawyer requesting additional money for psychiatrists. And then there’s a motion filed by the prosecution on August second.
That motion was heard on August 11, 1989-the Friday before this note was received.
“Oh, Christ.”
On August 11, 1989, we asked, and received, permission to drop Cassie Bentley’s murder from the case.
Betty runs into my office. “Paul, you just got another messenger delivery. They stopped the man at the front desk. He says a guy in glasses and a baseball cap stopped him in the lobby and paid him fifty dollars to deliver it.”
“Let me see it,” I say. “And get me Detective McDermott”
46
