David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

“I appreciate that,” she says. “Yes, I have your cell, too.”

He casts one eye on his desk, which has now been overtaken with material from the Fred Ciancio and Evelyn Pendry homicides. Inventories, preliminary autopsies, photos, trace evidence work-ups-or the lack thereof.

He doesn’t know if the offender is a copycat or not. All he can say with his gut is that whoever it is, he isn’t finished. Next up is a murder with a damn razor blade. That’s no kind of lead at all. But the fourth murder mentions a “Trim-Meter chain saw.” That’s the one. Not just a weapon but a particular model. He needs to track down the area retailers who sell that brand.

“I can absolutely assure you that if I have any comment, you’ll be the first.” Carolyn Pendry closes her cell phone, her face defiant. In other circumstances, McDermott could get a real rise from this one. This woman is really put together. The physical response brings Joyce to mind. You miss everything about your wife when she’s gone. Before they had Grace, and before everything went south, God, they were like hungry animals.

“My colleagues won’t leave me alone,” she tells him. “Everyone calls to send their condolences, but then it always winds around to wanting a comment. Everyone wants the inside story. I can’t take a breath without them standing there.” She reads the look on McDermott’s face. “And no, Detective, the irony is not lost on me.”

“I wasn’t going to say anything.”

“The reason I’m here.” She clears her throat with some difficulty. “Two weeks ago, I did a special on Terry Burgos. The anniversary of his execution. June fifth.”

“Okay.”

She angles her head, struggling. This woman’s job is composure and she’s learned well. “I said that he was insane.” She forces the words out. “That he shouldn’t have been convicted. He should have been locked up and treated, not executed.”

There’s a question or two in there, but it’s better to let this go.

“I think I unleashed someone.” She shakes her head slowly. “I said that anyone who would follow lyrics like this-and take them as the word of God-anyone who would do that must be insane. Regardless of how the state defines insanity.”

Okay. The point being, someone who had like-minded thoughts got upset at being called insane and decided to do something about it.

“Then why your daughter?” he asks.

“Because there’s no-” Her throat closes. She places a hand on her chest to suppress her emotions. She finishes with a whisper: “Because there’s no worse way to hurt me.” She turns her back to McDermott and weeps quietly.

“I understand the thought,” McDermott says gently. “But then we have Fred Ciancio, a guy who called you with ‘information’ back then, and then called Evelyn recently. And it looks like Evelyn was following up with him. And now they’re both dead. If somebody was unleashed, Mrs. Pendry, I’m not sure it was because of your editorial on a TV show.”

She turns back around. She seems to appreciate McDermott’s theory, which absolves her, but she can’t shake the guilt. “I should have stayed on Fred Ciancio back then,” she says. “He sounded so scared on the phone. And then when I went to his house-when he realized I had traced his call back to his house-he was terrified. I really thought there might be something there. But then he refused to say another word to me. He got cold feet. And then everything started happening with the trial.”

“It was natural for you to drop it,” he tells her. “You looked into him, he was a security guard at a shopping mall who refused to talk to you. There was nothing there.”

She shakes her head. “I always told Ev, don’t be lazy. See it through. Keep trying different avenues. Get your story.”

Which, apparently, is what she was doing with Fred Ciancio.

“Did you mention Ciancio to your daughter?” he asks.

She nods. “Oh, it must have been quite a while ago.” Her eyes drift off. “Years, I mean. Many years. I used to tell her stories about what I did. She’s very good about retaining information. It’s why she’s such a”-her throat catches-“I mean, was-excuse me, I’m sorry.” She brings a fist to her mouth, shuts her eyes.

“No problem, Mrs. Pendry.” He can imagine how Evelyn must have reacted, having heard from her mother a long-ago story about Fred Ciancio, a lead that hadn’t panned out, a gnawing doubt-and then suddenly the same Mr. Ciancio called Evelyn to talk.

McDermott’s cell phone rings.

“Have they found her computer yet?” Carolyn asks.

“No.” Evelyn had a laptop computer but it was not at her house and not at her office. The assumption is, the offender took it after he killed Evelyn.

McDermott checks the caller ID and excuses himself from the desk.

“Kopecky.”

“Mike, that Vicky in the Dumpster. The one in your hood?”

“The Vicky in the-Kopecky, what the hell? You’re supposed to be-”

“We got a call from the lab,” Kopecky says. “You’re not gonna believe this.”

We WAIT, Stoletti and I, outside the Green Building, on the campus at Mansbury College. The building is in the quad-the central square of campus, where the students hang out in small groups and toss Frisbees, and probably smoke a little weed when no one’s looking.

“Down the street, through those buildings,” I say, “is Bramhall Auditorium.”

The sun has come out, warming my face and making me uncomfortable in my suit. It’s a beautiful day, though probably not such a great one for summer school students. I did that once, in high school. Took typing class over the summer. They wouldn’t let us wear shorts to school-the same Catholic school dress code applied in the summer-and we baked as the sunlight poured in. I once told one of the nuns that there was nothing in the Bible that prohibited air-conditioning. She didn’t take it in the spirit of whimsy with which it was offered.

“No prints from Ciancio’s house?” I ask.

“Nope.”

“What about Evelyn’s?”

“Nothing.” Stoletti puts a stick of gum in her mouth. “Guy didn’t leave shit for forensics. Either place. Hey, does it bother you, this guy goes to the second set of verses?”

“The first verses, Burgos already did,” I say.

“My point exactly. If he’s a copycat, he’s not copying.”

“Let’s ask him,” I say, motioning to the stairs of the Green Building, where Professor Albany is walking out, a bag over his shoulder, chatting in a friendly manner with a female student. We get close enough to be seen, and wait for him to finish his conversation with the adoring student. He glances at us and begins to stride down the walkway. Then he stops and looks back at me, recognition registering in his eyes.

Stoletti says, “Soft-pedal Burgos, remember?”

I nod to Albany, and Stoletti and I walk up to a man who doesn’t seem very happy to see either of us. Stoletti has kept her shield in her jacket pocket, but she has that recognizable swagger. He could probably make her for a cop.

“Mr. Riley,” he says, like they’re curse words. Up close, I see that time hasn’t changed him much. Fiery eyes, a goatee with more pepper than salt that matches long, disheveled hair. The life of a professor seems a fairly easy one, as stress goes. Which makes me wonder how this guy is still a professor.

He’s stepped it up in the wardrobe department, I notice. His sport coat is caramel, with a light yellow tailored shirt with spread collar, a tie that pulls colors from both the jacket and the shirt. I dig clothes, and I like the good stuff, but you keep it simple. First-rate but simple. This guy looks like a pretty boy. But, wow, nice threads. What are they paying tenured professors these days?