Eye of the Beholder

“Maybe this would be a time for a short break,” Tremont suggests.

Bentley spins and looks at Trotter. “You’re telling me that-that teacher- and my daughter?”

Trotter doesn’t respond to the question. Instead, he says, “We know that you kept up your end,” Trotter continues. “You endowed a chair for Professor Albany.”

“Well, yes, I-” Harland Bentley freezes in midsentence. His head moves slowly upward, his eyes dancing about, his lips moving almost imperceptibly, uttering something unintelligible.

“I’ll need a minute with my client,” says Tremont.

Something doesn’t feel right here.

“Oh, that is rich,” Bentley mumbles. “That is rich.”

49

INTERVIEW ROOM ONE is silent. Harland Bentley continues to shake his head, even wearing an ironic smile at one point, but choosing not to speak for the moment. Edgar Trotter has made the decision to let this happen of its own course.

McDermott thinks again about Harland Bentley’s reaction to the note. It wasn’t like with Albany. Bentley read every word. And if he was bluffing by his look of surprise, he’s as good a bluffer as McDermott has seen.

Harland Bentley did not write that note.

“I didn’t write that note.”

Trotter picks up his copy of the note and looks it over, or at least makes a show of doing so. “This note is describing someone else?”

“No,” Bentley concedes. “This note is describing me. It‘s-it’s true about Ellie Danzinger and me. I admit that. Yes. But I didn’t write that note. I’ve never seen it before.”

“So you endowed this chair at Mansbury College for the professor-”

“Yes.”

“-but you’re saying, it wasn’t because of a trade-off with the professor.”

“Correct.”

“This is just a coincidence. Whoever wrote this note can predict the future?”

No, that’s not what he’s saying, either. If he’s telling the truth, then whoever wrote that note knew about his affair with Ellie. And knew about Cassie’s affair with Professor Albany.

And would have some ability to influence a decision like endowing a chair for a college professor.

And would know Leo Koslenko, who delivered the note to Professor Albany.

“Natalia,” McDermott says aloud.

In the interview room, Harland Bentley shakes his head again, lost in thought. “When Natalia and I divorced-well, I could hardly blame her. She not only wanted out, but she wanted out immediately. She could have tried to enforce the prenup, fought me in court, but she gave me a lump-sum settlement. That told me everything I needed to know: she wanted me gone, and gone right away.” He sighs. “She said the money was mine, with only one condition.”

“The endowment for Albany,” Trotter says.

He nods solemnly. “She said, he’d been a mentor to Cassie. Cassie had spoken so highly of him. And now, because of what that-that monster did, this professor would probably lose his job. He didn’t have tenure yet. He’d never teach again.” He clears his throat, steadies a hand in the air. “I was not unaware of my deficiencies as a husband. If Nat wanted that one favor from me, I was going to do it. If I’d known, if I’d even suspected that he’d put his hands on my daughter-”

McDermott glances at the commander, who remains silent. The cold shoulder. McDermott doesn’t have a say anymore. For all he knows, the commander doesn’t have much of one, either.

Fuck it. This is McDermott’s case, like it or not. And it’s just gotten more interesting.

It’s breaking up for the night. It’s close to two in the morning. A long day for the Trotters, for the cops, for everyone. Nothing more will be done tonight, other than the frantic search for Leo Koslenko’s vehicle.

Natalia Lake had that note delivered to Albany. She didn’t want her daughter’s affair with Professor Albany to come to light. She didn’t want her husband’s affair with Ellie to come out. She divorced Harland only weeks after Cassie’s and the other murders.

Why?

“Go home, Detective,” the commander says to him.

McDermott says nothing but nods his head. There’s nothing more for him to do here. It’s time to leave.

But he’s not going home.

TIME BECOMES THE ENEMY. I sit in the hallway outside my bedroom, swimming against the current, until five-thirty in the morning, nodding off and popping awake, checking the alarm pad on the top-floor hallway with blurry eyes. I pop a couple of aspirin and take a quick shower. I move about my house quietly, listening, anticipating. I force a piece of toast down my throat. I head out the back door, expecting it to happen there. But I walk undisturbed to my car. I open the garage door and brace myself, but there is nothing in there but my Cadillac and a few lawn and garden tools.

I get in the car and take a deep breath. It’s time to go see Natalia Lake. It’s time to learn how well I play poker.

50

WHEN I GET OUT of my car at seven o‘clock, a woman dressed in all white awaits me, hands clasped behind her back.

“Good morning, Mr. Riley.”

“Morning.”

She opens her body to the door. “Mrs. Lake is expecting you.”

I follow the woman through one of the front doors into an elaborate foyer. She leads me into a parlor with a baby grand piano and antique furniture. It is a clean, elaborately designed room that screams of wealth and sadness.

“Thank you, Marta.”

I turn to see Natalia Lake, my mind instantly flashing to long ago, when she’d just identified her daughter’s body. She has aged well, by my estimation with some significant cosmetic surgery on the face and neck. The artificial tightness of her skin lends an unusually severe tinge to her expression.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me, Mrs. Lake.”

“Oh, please, it’s Nat.” Nat is wearing a lavender blouse with three-