David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder

I’m scared.

I know you are, but the plan is working. Riley will help us now.

He drops on the bed, puts his head against the pillow, momentarily satiated but never expecting sleep.

ELEVEN O‘CLOCK. The detectives’ squad room is like a train station, the commander taking up residence in the lew’s office, where e he and Governor Trotter confer. The governor’s son, Edgar Trotter, who is the chief of the state police, is in there, too, barking out orders and bringing in his top lieutenants in what appears to be a coup d’état. The younger Trotter stopped short of kicking McDermott off the case but made a point of saying the task force needed more effective leadership and suggesting that, if the slow-footed local cops had been quicker on the chase, maybe “this” wouldn’t have happened.

Stick around, he told McDermott. We might need you for details.

Media relations is all over this, coordinating things with the governor’s people, preparing statements, twisting and refining words so that they say just enough to give the appearance of sufficiency. The national press has arrived, too, lending a heightened sense of attention, if not panic, to the press people.

Panic, as he thinks about it, is not a bad way to describe the current state of affairs. There is unquestionably a defensiveness about the brass, a reaction, justified or not, to the feeling that the police are to blame for Shelly Trotter’s murder. If that is ultimately the way this shapes up, there’s no doubt who will take the bullet. It’s unfair-Leo Koslenko got a tremendous head start on them, and they identified him within a handful of days of the onset of his murder spree-but fairness has never been an ingredient in the stew of local politics.

They all but tied an anchor to his foot. He’s just a consultant on the case now, and when it’s over, however it ends, who knows what he’ll be doing?

It won’t be foot patrol. That would be a level three. The union wouldn’t stand for it. No, it will be a job at a desk-a desk in the basement, something that will force him to leave. When all is said and done, maybe McDermott will muster the energy to care.

He pops his head into the conference room and checks on Riley. Riley, he realizes, will take it harder than anyone. If this turns out the way it’s looking, he either convicted the wrong man or failed to catch an accomplice, a coconspirator. If his client, Harland Bentley, is involved, the media will have their choice of motives-Riley obstructed the investigation either to hide his own negligence sixteen years ago or to protect his client.

But what the press, and maybe the county attorney, do to Riley will be nothing compared to what he will do to himself. This will never leave him. It will recede at times but return with violence, and without warning. It will temper every moment of happiness, color every scene.

McDermott knows it better than anyone.

Mommy did this, he would tell Grace, so many times he lost count. It was Mommy. Mommy was sick and wanted to go to Heaven.

He doesn’t know exactly how it happened. He never will. He plays it out like he would revise a painful memory of his own, finding the path of least resistance: All she wanted from Grace was to get the shoe box from the closet; she was going to send Grace downstairs, so she wouldn’t have to see it happen; she was going to call her husband first, to come for Grace; maybe she wasn’t even sure she was going to use the gun. Maybe she was going to change her mind.

The gun went off. It was an accident. She didn’t tell her daughter to pull the trigger. No, no matter how tormented her mind, she wouldn’t put that on her daughter. It was an accident.

But he doesn’t know. He never will.

Mommy did this. Hoping that the repetition would confirm the memory. Say it enough times and she’ll believe it. Do three-year olds even have memories? His earliest one, he was five. Sitting on a brick stoop by a fireplace, playing with toy animals and a barn. But three?

Dr. Sutton says no. Only a very minimal chance she would retain that information. If she ever appreciated it to begin with. If it even happened that way.

Riley is motionless in a chair, oblivious to McDermott’s presence. His eyes are bloodshot and sunken into a washed-out face. His hair is a mess. His tie has disappeared. However this might end up, McDermott has made up his mind: Riley is guilty of no crime. He could play with the facts either way, but his gut has taken him pretty far and he trusts it. Why, after all, did Riley visit Gwendolyn Lake? Why did he go see Brandon Mitchum?

Because whether he admitted it to himself or not, he wanted to know if he missed something during the Burgos prosecution. He didn’t let it go. He pursued it. He was willing to tear down the banner achievement of his professional career to get to the truth.

“Burgos fell into your lap,” he tells Riley. “He had motive, he had opportunity, he had evidence all over his house. He confessed. I read the transcript. Anyone in your position would have stopped right there, with the guy in front of you.”

It’s as if Riley can’t hear him. He is smoothing his hands over the tabletop, like he’s brushing away sand from an artifact. Like he’s looking for words.

“I need your help, Riley. Your head clear enough to help?”

Riley says nothing. But McDermott’s got nothing to lose. Maybe catching Riley off guard, defenses down, is a good play. Maybe it will be good for him, too, focusing on the case instead of the pain.

So he lays it out for Riley, though Riley probably knows or suspects much of it. Harland is Gwendolyn’s father-something Cassie discovered near her death. Cassie was pregnant, and had an abortion, near her death-confirmed by Cassie’s mother-and she’d been involved with Professor Albany. Cassie thought her father was sneaking around with her best friend, Elite-again, near the time of both of their deaths.

He doesn’t need to tell Riley that this points toward both Harland Bentley and Professor Albany. But if there’s any doubt, he seals it with the note he found in Koslenko’s possession, now confirmed by Albany: Harland made a trade with Albany-keep quiet about my affair, I keep quiet about yours.

Lots to lose. Wealthy wives, tenure-track positions. Lots to gain with the deaths of two young women.

Riley doesn’t speak. Not a word from him yet. McDermott begins to wonder why he’s even sharing this with Riley.

Riley pushes himself out of his chair. He walks to the corner of the room, staring off into space.

“Harland Bentley had his daughter whacked, Paul. And Ellie, too. He used a ranch hand with a history of mental instability and violence to do the wet work. He didn’t keep his marriage together but his wife was too messed up to fight him, so she threw him a cool twenty million just to make him go away, and he took it. All told, not a bad deal for the guy.”

Riley doesn’t move. McDermott’s just talking to himself.

“I don’t know how Albany fits in yet. I think he helped with the other murders. He’d probably be able to get keys to the auditorium where the bodies were left. He’d probably be able to snatch Burgos’s keys, too, to use his Suburban to get the women, and to get into Burgos’s house. I’m sure it was his idea to use those song lyrics-I mean, Christ, who knew those song lyrics better than Albany?”

Riley puts a hand against the wall.

“The other murders covered up Ellie’s and Cassie’s. Made it look like a murder spree spawned by the song lyrics. And just to be sure about Cassie, they made you drop the charges on her murder. It all makes sense, Riley. It does. But that doesn’t get us any closer to finding Leo Koslenko. I think this guy’s off the reservation. Whoever was controlling him-Bentley, Albany-they’re not controlling him now.”