David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

On the other side of the glass, Chief Clark turned to Paul. “We’ll go through his books,” he said.

“Could be a song.” Paul gestured toward the headphones and Walkman resting next to Burgos in the interrogation room. “Start with that music right there,” he said.

Someone behind Paul asked, “What’s this shit about a ‘gift from God’?”

“Talk to me about Cassie Bentley, Terry,” Lightner said to Burgos. “Was she a gift from God, too?”

“Cassie.” Burgos shook his head slowly, brought a hand over his heart. “Cassie saved me.”

“How’s that?” Lightner scratched his cheek, doing his best to be casual. “How did Cassie save you, Terry?”

Burgos rubbed his eyes furiously, then clasped his hands together on top of his baseball cap. It was as if he hadn’t even heard Lightner.

“You said, ‘A girl who is cool to someone at school,’ Terry.” Lightner was trying another way in. “Is that ‘someone’ you, Terry? Did someone treat you badly at Mansbury? Maybe deserve what they got coming? You mean Ellie, right?”

Paul winced. Lightner was trying to bring Burgos back to the table. Trying everything in the book-empathy now. Maybe trying too hard.

“Did Ellie piss you off, Terry? Did she need to be taught a lesson?”

Terry Burgos looked around the room, put his hands on his hips. His eyes seemed to move in all directions except toward Detective Joel Lightner.

“I think I’m ready to go home now,” Burgos said.

6:45 P.M.

TIME BECAME an irrelevant concept. Orders were given, information retrieved. New revelations came every few minutes. The forensic pathology staff had worked immediately on the bodies, coming back with preliminary reports on each of them. Information was coming in slowly about the various victims, and about Burgos. Riley knew that the overload would have to be contained. Several days, at a minimum, would be needed to process and categorize all the information.

Riley glanced at his watch and couldn’t believe it was evening. There had been a shift change but none of the cops on duty had left, and even those off duty that day had come into the station to volunteer. The station house was swollen with law enforcement personnel ready to do whatever was necessary to put Terry Burgos away.

Marion Park was close to the city, but still-it wasn’t the city. It had its share of crime, but this particular crime was in a different category. And this had happened at Mansbury College, one of the most prestigious liberal arts schools in the country, a school that had propped up this small suburb, made its name known across the country. The town wasn’t just horrified. It was outraged.

Terry Burgos had refused any further questioning. Detective Lightner had given him Miranda warnings at that time and asked him pointed questions about each of the victims by name-Elisha Danzinger, Angela Mornakowski, Jacqueline Davis, Sarah Romanski, Maureen Hollis, and Cassandra Bentley. Burgos had refused to answer or even look at Lightner, moving toward the corner and tapping the wall lightly with his foot. So Lightner had processed Burgos, and the investigation had turned to pursuing several angles to bolster the case.

Riley was reading the Bible, looking at the passages cited on that piece of paper in Burgos’s basement, when the buzz in the station house suddenly grew quiet. Riley looked up and saw County Attorney Edward Mullaney walking with two people, immaculately dressed and well-coiffed. He had never met the Bentleys before but he recognized them immediately, anyway. Mullaney caught Riley’s eye. Riley followed them into the chief’s office.

Chief Clark was shaking Harland Bentley’s hand when Riley walked in. Natalia Lake Bentley was sitting passively in a chair, her face swollen and red. Mullaney took Riley’s arm and whispered in his ear: “Mrs. Bentley just identified Cassie.”

Riley nodded and introduced himself. Harland Bentley was all business, giving his name while he gripped Riley’s hand, relying on the formalities of a business transaction, familiar territory for him. The formality was forced. A defense mechanism. He could see the anguish across Mr. Bentley’s face, his wavering attempt to contain his emotions.

Mrs. Bentley briefly looked up at Riley. She had been raised well, and kept her posture perfect, but her face was wound tightly, her eyes deep and sunken-the eyes of a mother who had just identified a cold, beaten body as her only child.

“Mrs. Bentley,” Riley said. “I’m so sorry. We found the man who did this.”

“Tell me what he did,” Harland Bentley said, his mouth curled. “I want to know everything he did.”

Riley stiffened, and nodded toward Mrs. Bentley.

“I just identified what was left of my daughter,” she said, without looking at him. “Do you think that anything you’re going to say will shock me?”

The medical examiner had already made preliminary findings. Riley preferred to think of it in clinical terms: fractures of the mandible, maxilla, lachrymal, hyoid, ethmoid, and frontal bones-fractures of virtually every facial bone and most of the cranial bones-but it came down to the simple fact that her face, and most of the front and top of her skull, had been crushed by multiple powerful blows. Pieces of bone were lodged in her brain. Most of her teeth were found in her throat. They would need dental records to make the identification formal, but all Riley needed to do was look at Mrs. Bentley’s face to know that it was Cassie.

And stated in clinical terms or otherwise, the Bentleys had seen their daughter, or what was left of her. They knew what Burgos had done to her face. That wasn’t what Mr. Bentley was asking about.

“Postmortem,” Riley said, “he fired a single.38-caliber bullet through the back of her mouth.”

Mr. Bentley held his stare. He knew that, too.

“There was intercourse,” Riley conceded. “Postmortem.”

Harland Bentley closed his eyes, his jaw clenched. For a long moment, he said nothing. He seemed unsteady on his feet.

“And Ellie, too?” Mrs. Bentley asked.

“Yes, ma‘am.”

Natalia Bentley placed a hand near her throat, struggling for a moment. There would be time to question her, but Riley wasn’t one to wait.

“Mrs. Bentley, I’m sorry to ask-there’d been some talk of Cassie having some trouble? Some disciplinary issues?”

“Disciplinary issues didn’t get my daughter murdered,” said her husband.

Riley didn’t respond. Surely, even in their grief, they could understand the reason for the question.

“I would say emotional issues.” Mrs. Bentley’s eyes grew foggy as she weighed the memory. “She was trying to find her place. She hadn’t yet succeeded.”

“Like any girl her age,” Harland added.

“No, not like any girl.” Mrs. Bentley looked in his direction but not at him. “Any girl isn’t born into such wealth and privilege. It’s a burden that is hard to appreciate. It isn’t easy forming relationships when everyone is thinking about how much money you have, and what that money could do for them.”

It made sense. But Riley wasn’t sure if Natalia was talking about her daughter or herself. It was hard not to detect a rift between husband and wife. He made note that Mrs. Bentley had not even looked at her husband.

“I thought of it as testing boundaries,” she added. “She could be dramatic. But she never hurt anyone but herself.” She looked up at Riley, who clearly wanted something more specific. “She’d become insular. She’d miss class, refuse to eat, refuse to talk to anyone. Things like that. But she never projected anything onto anyone else. And inside, she was as sweet and generous a person as you will ever meet.”