by David Ellis
“Ellie.” The suspect—the killer, there was little doubt now—pointed at nothing in particular. “He opens a heart once so cruel.”
Opens a heart. Ellie Danzinger’s heart had been removed.
Paul realized he’d been holding his breath, that he was perspiring. He looked at the chief, who returned the same look that Paul assumed was on his own face—not knowing, really, what to think of this spectacle. It was horrific and bizarre and, yes, exciting.
And they had their man, in less than half a day.
“You’re talking about Ellie,” Lightner said.
Burgos seemed lost in thought a moment.
Of course, Riley knew, Burgos was talking about Ellie Danzinger. Opens a heart. He had sliced her heart out—postmortem, according to preliminary findings. They were already trying to contact the Danzinger family in South Africa. This was the man who had been stalking their daughter, the one against whom they had obtained a restraining order. Paul wondered how hard the family had lobbied for Ellie to leave Mansbury, to get distance from Burgos. One thing he knew for sure: That thought would forever haunt the family.
“She was a gift,” Burgos mumbled.
Lightner cocked his head. “Say again, Terry?”
“Ellie.” Burgos lifted a hand, then slowly raised it to his forehead. “She was a gift from God.”
“Ellie was a gift from God. Okay.” Lightner wasn’t entirely sure what to do with that. He held his breath a moment, even shot a glance toward Riley and the others, though he couldn’t see them.
“What was it you were saying about Ellie?” he asked. “‘Opening her heart’ ?”
Burgos had drawn his arms around himself. His head angled downward, as if in deep thought. A long moment passed. Lightner held completely still, watching Burgos.
Slowly, Burgos brought an index finger to his lips. His mouth opened, and everyone in the viewing room craned forward.
He spoke just above a whisper: “A girl who is cool to someone at school until he opens a heart once so cruel.”
Paul remembered the restraining order Ellie Danzinger had obtained against Burgos. He’d been harassing her, stalking her. A girl who was cool to someone at school.
“Hmm.” In the interrogation room, Joel was trying to sound nonchalant, harmlessly curious. He twirled his finger. “Sounds like—a poem or something.”
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.
5
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 b
ullet 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.”
“Enough,” Mr. Bentley said. He turned to the county attorney. “I want this man dead.”
Mullaney nodded. “Of course we’ll seek the death penalty, Harland.”
Bentley then looked at Riley. “You can prove it was this man?”
“Absolutely, sir.”
“No plea bargains. I want this man dead.” He looked again at Ed Mullaney, then reached for his wife’s arm. She pulled it away. She could not be placated.
After some words of comfort from the county attorney, Harland Bentley shook his and Riley’s hands and left with his wife. Mullaney’s posture collapsed as soon as they were out of the office. “Christ, you should have seen Nat when she came out of the morgue,” he said. “I thought we’d need a body bag for her.”
Riley nodded. Distraught families had not been his custom as a federal prosecutor. New terrain for him, and he didn’t like it.
Mullaney drew close to Riley. The man knew how to put on a face for a press conference after a homicide, the wide Irish brow furrowing in sobriety. Riley had seen him do it several times. But this was a different face. This was no ordinary murder. This was a mass homicide. And his biggest financial supporter’s daughter was one of the victims.
“I’ve been to their home,” Mullaney said. “I’ve met Cassie. She was a beautiful, sweet girl.” He squeezed Paul’s arm hard. A vein appeared in his forehead.
“Needless to say, Paul,” he said, “we can have no mistakes.”
6
7:45 P.M.
BY THE TIME Riley visited Ellie Danzinger’s off-campus apartment, the technicians had done their work. He believed in visiting the scenes, regardless, and there was every reason to believe that the first crime Terry Burgos had committed took place in this apartment.
The apartment was well appointed, though Riley understood it had come prefurnished, which made sense for a student on a summer rental. There were four apartments in total, each a duplex, facing a courtyard in the center that made a square.
There was no sign of forced entry. There was a window overlooking the street that was closed. Couldn’t rule out the possibility that Burgos had come through the window in the dead of night, but it seemed unlikely. Riley saw it for himself, the dust that had accumulated on the locks on the window. The downstairs contained a living room, bedroom, half bath, and kitchen. All undisturbed. No trail of blood.
“The fun happened upstairs,” Lightner said. They took carpeted stairs up to a great room and a master bedroom. The top floor looked more lived in, a stereo and television in the great room, a tiny kitchenette that seemed to serve more as a bar. Lightner gestured toward the dishwasher. “It was full. Everything inside was washed.”
So nothing could be taken from any of the glasses. But that seemed like a dead end, anyway. There was no chance Ellie Danzinger had invited Terry Burgos in for a drink.
Riley walked slowly into the bedroom. The bed was unmade. The comforter was bunched at the bottom of the bed. There were spatters of blood on the wall and some on the bed, but not much. To the left of the bed, however, was a sizable bloodstain, encrusted on the carpet fibers.
“The M.E. thinks she died on the bed,” Lightner explained. “She was hit over the head, and she bled out right there.” He motioned to the bloodstain. “M.E. says she lost over a liter and a half of blood.”
Riley didn’t know if these details were significant.
Lightner got close to the bed but not too close. “M.E. figures Ellie was lying on the bed, faceup, right? Her head was hanging over the side of the bed. That’s the only explanation.”
“Why is that the only explanation?”
“The amount of blood,” he answered. “Other than ripping her heart out—which we know he did at his house—the only other wound on her body is the blow to the head. A significant blow, but not normally enough for her to bleed that much. Gravity played a part. Her head was lower than the rest of her body.”
Okay. That made sense. “This is relevant?”
Lightner shrugged. “To bleed out that much, Ellie must have been lying there for at least an hour. The M.E. says there’s no way she would have bled that much any quicker.”
Riley thought it over. “So he didn’t move her right away. He waited at least an hour. Why?”
“Maybe for nightfall to come,” Lightner speculated.
“But she’d been in bed.” Riley shook his head. “It would’ve already been night.”
“Yeah. I don’t know.” Lightner looked tired. It had been quite a day for all of them.
“Maybe that’s when he had intercourse with her,” Riley suggested. “It is a bed, after all.” It was quite the image. The intercourse, according to the M.E., had clearly been postmortem.
It was a possibility. But Lightner didn’t know. Nobody knew, yet.
“They find that professor yet?” Riley asked. “The guy who employed Burgos?”
“Albany,” Lightner said. “We’ll find him.” He hit Riley on the arm. It was time to head back to the station. Nobody had any illusions about going home anytime soon.
7
11:45 P.M.
IT WAS NEAR MIDNIGHT. Someone had turned on a television in the police station. The local channels had been covering this all day, flashing in and out of soap operas and game shows and, later, prime-time offerings. The “Mansbury Massacre,” they were calling it.
Riley and several others pulled together two detectives’ desks to form something like a conference table. Riley played with a cup of lukewarm coffee and looked around the table at Chief Clark and Detective Lightner. None of them had eaten all day. Clark had subsisted on coffee and cigarettes; Lightner, coffee only. Riley’s stomach was crying to him but he knew he couldn’t eat. Nothing would go down if he tried. The station, at this point, smelled like a locker room. They were coming down from the initial high of the brutal murders and then, in the same day, catching the killer. Everyone was catching his breath. Virtually everything had been done, and what hadn’t yet been done could wait. But Paul already knew
that the physical evidence would tie up Burgos. He wanted to know more about the hideous poetry Burgos was reciting when describing the murders. He knew this wasn’t about guilt or innocence anymore.
It had been a song, as they’d suspected. And it hadn’t taken them long to find it. Burgos had been listening to the tape on his headphones before the questioning. The tape was amateur grade, bearing a makeshift label with the name of the musical group—“Torcher”—handwritten in bloodred ink in a thick Gothic font like calligraphy. The title of the tape—“Someone”—was written beneath it in the same manner.
The song with the relevant lyrics bore the same title, “Someone,” a song that lasted less than three minutes. It started slowly with an acoustic guitar playing single notes, but then all hell broke loose, violent guitars, thumping bass, incessant drumming, while the vocalist screamed the lyrics like machine-gun fire. If you closed your eyes and listened, you wouldn’t comprehend anything. But they had a copy of the lyrics, which they had found handwritten on a piece of paper in Terry Burgos’s bedroom.
The lyrics from the first verse of “Someone” described six murders, in more or less the precise manner that Burgos had committed them:
A girl who is cool to someone at school until he opens a heart once so cruel
Thespian lesbian glamorous actress rejection so reckless Colombian necklace
His poetry flattery just didn’t matter she told him to scatter assault with a battery
A senior so prim her figure now trim since she got rid of him eye for eye limb for limb
A neighbor’s daughter nobody fought her until someone taught her to sleep underwater
Now it’s time to say good-bye to someone’s family stick it right between those teeth andfire so happily
