David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

“No,” he answers. “Mostly, because it didn’t matter. They, like, caught Burgos right away, and he confessed. So, I figured, it was nobody’s business. I thought I owed it to Cassie to keep her confidence. But also, they dropped the part of the case about Cassie, right? So they weren’t concerned with her. The only time I testified was after the conviction, during sentencing-and I didn’t testify about Cassie. I testified about Ellie.” He looks at each of the detectives. “Really, I saw no reason to smear the name of such a great person when there was no reason to do so.”

Mitchum sounds a little defensive here. He’s probably worked through this rationalization before. But he makes sense. And McDermott knows a little something about keeping secrets for the greater good. But he’s thinking more about the dropping of Cassie’s murder from the case. Once again, it has proved to be a reason that a lot of hard questions didn’t get asked.

McDermott goes with the wrap-up. “Is there anything else, Brandon? Anything about this intruder, or Evelyn, or what happened back then-anything we haven’t covered?”

Happens all the time, in the heat of Q and A, witnesses get so caught up responding to specific questions that something important gets lost. He’s had countless re-interviews where he learns new information, and the witnesses politely inform him, You didn’t ask me that before.

Brandon Mitchum makes a small o with his mouth, blinking his eyes quickly. Doesn’t feel like he’s reaching into his memory. He’s debating.

“Anything,” McDermott says. “This guy isn’t going to stop until we catch him.”

“I’m not sure there’s anything else,” he says.

“I’m not sure about that baggie of dope we found in your apartment,” McDermott replies. “Here, we were getting along so well, I was just gonna let you off with a lecture.”

Brandon raises a hand. “Okay, okay. I just-didn’t think it was important. And I don’t know if it’s even true.” He shakes his head. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But you didn’t hear this from me.”

We WALK into Harland’s office, which looks out over the southern view of the city, and then well beyond, a good shot of the river and the new theater being built. He owns some of the property to the south, off the expressway, and has plans for significant big-box retail down there.

I look down at the red oak flooring and the Persian area rug Harland got while in the Middle East, poking through whatever trade barriers may have existed.

Harland stands at the window, rubbing his eyes carefully, like everything else he does, the index finger and thumb massaging his eyelids. “Do you know why I hired you, Paul?”

I think I do, but I don’t like the question. I don’t say anything.

“It wasn’t a thank-you. It might have been perceived as that. But it wasn’t. If I wanted to thank you for putting away my daughter’s killer, I wouldn’t have rewarded you with money. Because that would be cheapening what you did. That would be putting a price on it.”

“I agree.”

“I hired you because I thought you were the best lawyer in the city. And I wanted a lawyer in this city. Here, close to me.”

I don’t know what he expects me to say. Hell yes, he’s a primo client, but he’s gotten plenty in return. I’ve given him my best.

“Harland, the Sherwood Executive Center. Is that where Cassie’s doctors were?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. I think of my own daughter, Elizabeth, realizing that I wouldn’t be able to recall where her doctors practiced when she was growing up. I never took her to a physician; Georgia, my ex-wife, would have handled that chore. And I wouldn’t exactly expect the Bentleys to be a nuclear family, either. I couldn’t imagine Harland or Natalia packing the kid in the station wagon for a physical. It was more likely a chauffeured limousine.

“I remember the building,” he finally says, to my surprise. “When she was, oh, eight or so. She had to have her teeth cleaned. She was so scared she had a cavity. She”-he takes in a breath-“she begged me to go with her. She was so sensitive-so sensitive to-pain.”

I look away, not wanting to gawk at someone reliving a painful memory.

“I made them bring in a chair, and I sat next to Cassie while they cleaned her teeth. She never let go of my hand. She squeezed it so hard. So hard, for such a little girl.”

I clear my throat. I think it might be best, for everyone’s sake, that he move on.

“I think all of her-I think all the health care group was in that building, too,” he adds. “I think it was all one wrap-up group.”

“Like her general practitioner, her ob-gyn, that kind of thing?”

He waves a hand. He thinks so, but he doesn’t know.

“Was she pregnant, Harland?” I ask in a gentler tone.

He takes a moment, then makes a noise, something between clearing his throat and chuckling. “As if she would have told me,” he says quietly. “That little girl who held my hand at the dentist? By the time she was in college, that girl was long gone. No, I had managed to alienate all of the women in my family.”

He runs his hand over the walnut desk, like he’s checking it for dust. Another way of looking at it might be that he’s avoiding my eye contact, which is not like him.

“Why am I here, Harland?”

He considers his fingernails. “You’re probably aware that I have a certain reputation with women.”

“I’m aware that you have excellent taste,” I answer. “If a little fickle.”

He likes that. “A little fickle. Yes.” He looks at me. “A little fickle. And I imagine you’ve heard rumors that I began earning that reputation before the end of my marriage?”

“I don’t listen to rumors,” I say, which is the same thing as answering yes. The word was that Harland was playing around for years on his wife, Natalia. My heartbeat strikes up again.

Harland turns toward the window. He’s turned on overhead lighting that illuminates my space, by the door, but leaves him in semidarkness, also allowing for a picturesque view through the window, lights sprinkled about the evening cityscape like a pinball machine.

“It’s a weakness, really,” he continues. “Younger women. Not that young, of course. I don’t mean teenagers:”

“Harland,” I say.

“Okay, all right.” He takes a moment, looking in my direction, then back at the window, before he spits it out.

“That weakness,” he says, “extended to Ellie Danzinger.”

BRANDON MITCHUM squirms in his bed, uncomfortable with the revelation he’s just laid on the detectives.

McDermott stares at the wall over Mitchum’s head, trying to see where this all fits in. “You’re telling me,” he says, “that Cassie thought her father was sleeping with Ellie Danzinger?”

Mitchum doesn’t answer, but there’s no doubt McDermott heard it right.

“When did Cassie tell you this?” Stoletti wants to know.

“Oh, right about the same time. Just a little before finals, maybe. May, June of that year. I know,” he adds, laughing nervously, “it’s pretty intense.”

Intense, is one way of putting it. But it matches Harland Bentley’s reputation, the wealthy playboy. And it seems that Cassie Bentley was having a rough semester. She thought her best friend was screwing her father, and she was pregnant.

“This was a suspicion,” Stoletti says to him. “Not a confirmed fact.”

“Right. Cassie thought it was true, but she never knew for sure. She said she was going to find out.”

“How do you know she didn’t?” McDermott asks. “How can you be sure she never confirmed it?”