Eye of the Beholder

by David Ellis

  Carolyn Pendry, in a blue suit and cream silk shirt, sits professionally, her legs crossed, a notepad in her lap. “Thank you for agreeing to speak with me, Mr. Burgos,” she says.

  The screen cuts to him. Convicted murderer Terry Burgos is seated, his posture poor, shoulders slumped forward, in his orange jumpsuit. His thinning hair is in place. His face is rounded from the added weight, damaged from poor nutrition. His eyes are deep-set, a penetrating black; otherwise, his expression is utterly noncommittal.

  “Mr. Burgos, you are scheduled to be executed in four days. The appellate defender’s office is attempting to reinstate your appeal in the federal courts over your objection. What do you say to that?”

  Burgos blinks, his eyes moving away from the reporter. His tongue peeks out, wetting his lips.

  “Are you ready to die, Mr. Burgos?”

  His body reacts slightly, jerking, a semblance of a smile playing on his face. Like he’s amused by a long-forgotten memory. His eyes still far away. “How do you know I’m gonna die?”

  “Are you saying you can’t die?”

  His face goes serious, his eyes opening wider. Like he’s day-dreaming.

  “Mr. Burgos?”

  “You can kill a body. You can’t kill the truth.”

  A pause. A change of topics, perhaps. The subject is not making this easy. Like talking to an infant.

  “Did those women deserve to die?”

  Burgos leans back in his chair. He’s enjoying a thought. Like the reporter isn’t even there. “It’s not for me to decide.”

  “Who decides, then?”

  “You know.” Burgos rocks in a chair that doesn’t assist him. Back and forth, the first sign of animation.

  “God decides,” says Carolyn Pendry. “Did God tell you to kill those women?”

  “‘Course He did.” Burgos punctuates it with a jerk of his head.

  “You said Ellie Danzinger was a ‘gift from God,’ Mr. Burgos. What—”

  “God gave her to me.” The gentle rocking of his body accelerates.

  “How did God do that?”

  Burgos raises his hands for emphasis, two hands slicing the air, the shackle connecting his wrist dancing in the air. “You all think I’m crazy because I see things you don’t. But that don’t make me crazy. You all believe in the Creator and in the Second Coming, but if Jesus came down you wouldn’t believe Him.”

  Camera cuts to the reporter, Pendry. A thoughtful expression on her face.

  “You’d say He’s crazy.” Burgos keeps rocking.

  “Did Tyler Skye tell you to kill those women?”

  Burgos brings up his knees, puts his feet up on the chair. Arms around his knees, a round ball, rocking back and forth.

  “Did—”

  “God did.” He nods his head emphatically.

  “Tyler Skye’s song didn’t tell you to kill those women?”

  “Tyler was a messenger. So am I.”

  “Mr. Burgos, according to that song, weren’t you supposed to kill yourself last? Wasn’t that what Tyler Skye had meant with the last line?”

  Burgos takes a breath. Blinks his eyes slowly. Keeps rocking back and forth.

  “Why didn’t you kill yourself, Mr. Burgos? Why did you kill Cassie Bentley instead?”

  Like he’s in a fog. He doesn’t respond.

  “You said Cassie ‘saved’ you, Mr. Burgos. What did—”

  “Cassie saved me. God told me I wasn’t done. He gave me Cassie instead.”

  He begins to hum to himself. Looks up at the ceiling.

  “Mr. Burgos, did you think your attorney was wrong to call you insane?”

  “Insane. Insane, insane.” Burgos begins to laugh, a giggle.

  “Mister—”

  “What’s that? Insane.” He frowns suddenly, staring off, concentrating. “What’s that?”

  “Insane,” the reporter says calmly, “means you can’t control what’s inside your brain.”

  “That’s everybody.”

  “It means you can’t tell right from wrong.”

  “That’s everybody.”

  “Mr. Burgos, would you kill those girls again if you had the chance?”

  “Kill those girls again.” He stops moving. His eyes are open in slants, staring into space, his shoulders gathered about him. The camera zooms in on his expression.

  “I’m gonna sleep now.”

  “You don’t want to answer my questions?”

  Burgos doesn’t answer, his foggy stare frozen on the screen.

  The screen shrinks and moves to the corner of the television picture. Anchorwoman Carolyn Pendry, today, looks into the camera with a crisp, professional manner.

  “Fifteen years ago today, Terrance Demetrius Burgos was sentenced to death. The jury rejected his lawyer’s claim of insanity and imposed five counts of capital punishment. My brief interview with Mr. Burgos, eight years ago, was the last, and only, time he granted an interview.”

  The camera angle adjusts. Carolyn Pendry turns. “Did Terry Burgos really view the violent lyrics of Tyler Skye’s music as a call from God? Did he deserve death for his actions? The debate rages on even today.

  “But in this reporter’s opinion, the verdict is in. Anyone who would take sophomoric, abusive lyrics and read them as signs from an almighty being is not someone who lives in our world. Terry Burgos wanted to kill, to lash out at an indifferent society, and his brain was searching for an excuse.”

  A dramatic pause. Camera angle adjusts again. “Terry Burgos did not fit the legal definition of insanity because he knew that what he was doing was against the law. But that doesn’t mean he was sane. Terry Burgos suffered from severe paranoid schizophrenia and killed because of it. The fact that he may have been aware that a criminal law existed, that forbade him from doing what he did, does not change that fact.

  “Terry Burgos deserved to be locked up and treated. He did not deserve death.” She nods her head. “For Sunday Night Spotlight, I’m Carolyn—”

  In the dark room, nestled in the corner, beyond the view of the sole window, Leo puts down the remote control, stares at the television screen, dissolving to a dot and flickering with static. Dissolve and flicker, flicker and dissolve. He brings his knees to his chest and holds his breath, squeezes his eyes shut, listening for the faintest sound, listen, listen.

  The house buzzes from the utter silence.

  I’m not like him.

  He jumps at the ring of the phone. His eyes cast about the room as the rings echo. The answering machine kicks on. Leo hears his own monotone request that the caller leave a message, followed by a long, tortured beep.

  “Leo, this is Dr. Pollard. You’ve missed two sessions, Leo, and you’ve not returned our calls. Are you taking your meds? We’ve talked about the importance of doing that.”

  I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you anymore.

  “I’m going to give you my home phone number, Leo. It’s important you call me.”

  Leo buries his head in his lap. He waits for the doctor to complete his message, the machine to click off. With the room once more silent, he raises his head again.

  I’m not like him.

  He takes a breath. Thinks about it.

  I’m better.

  Sunday

  June 19, 2005

  10

  LEO CRAWLS up the dark staircase, his body spread over four carpeted stairs, his limbs splayed about like a spider. The body weight is transferred evenly. Stairs don’t groan from the burden. No chance of slipping or stumbling. No groan, no slip, no stumble.

  You can’t hear me coming.

  At the top of the staircase, he can see into the bedroom. The darkness is thinned by the light through the window, from a street-lamp below. The room is quiet save for the contorted snores of Fred Ciancio, like his nose is battling his throat.

  Leo rises slowly. One of his knees cracks and he holds absolutely still. Fred Ciancio doesn’t move. Loud, uneven, wet snores, his head cocked to the right on the pil
low.

  Weapons. Look for weapons. Eyes adjusting now.

  No weapons. Nothing.

  He wasn’t expecting Leo.

  He slips it out of the back of his pants. Holds it in his right hand.

  Ciancio stirs. Unconscious response to Leo’s body heat, to the adjustment in the room temperature.

  But Leo is not hot.

  “What—?” Ciancio’s head pops up.

  Two long strides and he’s at the bed. He lands on his chest, presses Ciancio’s head down to the pillow with his left hand, his palm over Ciancio’s mouth.

  He shows it to him, the tip of the weapon between Ciancio’s eyes. His face moves in toward Ciancio‘s, so the old guy can make him out. The sharp weapon moves from the bridge of Ciancio’s nose. He runs it along Fred’s pajama top, down his chest, feeling for the rib cage. He finds a seam between the ribs.

  You shouldn’t have called, Fred.

  He doesn’t die quickly.

  Monday

  June 20, 2005

  11

  CHIN UP, HECTOR,” I remind him, as the elevator door opens. The reporters are waiting in the lobby of the federal building, perking up as I emerge from the elevator bank with State Senator Hector Almundo, who has just pleaded not guilty to eleven counts of fraud, extortion, bribery, and theft. The senator, smartly dressed in a gray suit and black tie, heeds my advice, moving stoically past the reporters as they shout questions at him. It’s like taking a punch to the groin. There’s no easy way to do it.

  We stop short of the revolving doors. The reporters close in and push their microphones in front of the senator’s face, until they realize that it will be me doing the talking. I say the usual, about the charges being false and how much we look forward to the opportunity to vindicate ourselves at trial. I leave out the part about Senator Almundo sobbing in my office an hour earlier, asking me how many people he’d have to flip on to avoid jail time.

  After this needless exercise, we head outside, where I put Hector in a waiting car. As he drives off with his wife and brother, I wave off a handful of reporters. Dutch Reynolds and Andy Karras want to talk on background, but I’m not in the mood. “Thanks, everyone, that’s all,” I say with finality.

  One reporter catches my attention because I don’t recognize her, and because she’s a damn sight easier on the eyes than most of the print media. She looks like someone who belongs in front of a camera, tall and fair complected, television skinny, with an oval, pink face, a perfect nose, and expressive blue eyes. And a damn nice sky blue suit, too. I take her hand graciously, but my tongue instantly swells, that problem I have with the cute ones. If there is such a thing as the battle of the sexes, it’s the most lopsided battle I’ve ever fought.

  “Paul Riley? Evelyn Pendry from the Watch.”

  That’s what I thought, print media. The newspaper. The name rings a bell.

  “No comment, Evelyn.”

  “I wanted to wish you a happy anniversary,” she says, waiting for a reaction. “Sixteen years.”

  “Sixteen—oh, is it? Right.” I’d forgotten. This is the week, sixteen years ago, when we found the bodies. I’m still shaking her hand and I have to remind myself to let go. I cast aside my carnal instincts for the moment—a few seconds, at least—because she’s a reporter, and you’re always careful with them. “I’m running late for something,” I say.

  “Getting Hector’s defense ready?” she asks, playing with me. “He’ll be singing within three months.”

  If she were less attractive, or wrong, I might be more annoyed. I point to my watch.

  “I was wondering if you might have some time for me,” she says.

  I like that, the suggestive wording of the question. Or maybe it’s just my hormones. I would probably find something provocative in the way she asked for hemorrhoid medicine.

  “On or off the record?” I ask.

  A quaint smile appears on her face. She keeps her eye contact. “That would be up to you.”

  Oh, I do believe this breathtaking woman is flirting with me. A cynic might substitute the word manipulating, but why go through life cynical?

  “Do you mind?” She holds a small tape recorder near my chest. Without waiting for an answer—they never do—she flips it on and starts with the basics, names and dates.

  “You’ve been in private practice for fifteen years,” she says to me. “Shortly after convicting Terry Burgos, you opened your own law firm?”

  I say nothing, though I flash that Riley smile that has won women over across the globe.

  “And when did Harland Bentley hire you as the lawyer for all of his holdings?” She cocks her head, still holding the recorder near my chin. When I don’t answer, she says, “I just want some basic background here, Paul. We’re running a story on the Almundo indict ment. This is free publicity.”

  I nod my head politely and stare at the recorder. “You’re Carolyn Pendry’s daughter, aren’t you?” I ask, making the connection.

  She frowns at the non sequitur, especially that one. Apparently, this woman wants to make it on her own, without her anchorwoman mother’s bootstraps. Seems that transcendent beauty runs in the family, but the last time I was within breathing distance of a Pendry I was wiping her dinner off my shoe.

  “Running late,” I say. I hand her my card.

  Preemptively, she moves to block my path. “Just a few questions, Paul. Background is fine with me. I’ll buy you a drink. C‘mon, one harmless drink after work? ”

  She’s trying to recover now, back to the flirtation. It probably works for her most of the time, her looks alone. Why not? If I looked like that, I’d use it, too. A fellow like me has to rely on his winning personality.

  “I could mention Burgos,” she says, walking alongside me. Unless I throw her an elbow, or jump in a cab and close the door quickly, it looks like she’s not taking no for an answer. “Never hurts to remind everyone that you convicted the most famous serial killer our city has ever seen.”

  That much is true. Almost every potential client I meet gets around to asking about it. Inevitably, I find myself recounting the details, the grizzly murder scene, the flamboyant defense team, the rush of hearing the jury announce that the aggravating factors outweigh the mitigating factors. I leave out the part that, however time-consuming and publicized the case may have been, the prosecution of Terry Burgos was one of the easier cases I handled.

  “Speaking of—are you close to the Bentley family?” she asks me. “Ever talk to Natalia? Or Gwendolyn Lake?”

  She needs to work on her segues. Why even pretend she’s running a piece on Hector Almundo, when she obviously wants to talk about Burgos and the Bentley family?

  “Would you describe Cassie Bentley as a troubled girl? Emotional problems?”

  I stop, having reached the end of the courthouse plaza, and face Evelyn. Her hope springs eternal, the recorder poised before my face, as she chews on her lip. She seems to be formulating yet another question, but I’m more interested in the movement of her mouth. Dr. Freud had a point.

  Harland Bentley had married Natalia Lake, heiress to the Lake mining fortune. Natalia’s sister, Mia Lake, had lived with her daughter Gwendolyn on the other side of Highland Woods from Natalia and Harland—two enormous mansions, one for each Lake sister, essentially framing the wealthy suburb. Mia Lake died long ago, early eighties or something, leaving Natalia to serve basically as the mother to her niece, Gwendolyn Lake. But these people had something like a billion dollars, all told, so nobody went hungry.

  Natalia and Harland divorced shortly after their daughter, Cassie, was murdered by Terry Burgos. Natalia moved over to the other mansion, where her dead sister once lived, and where Gwendolyn Lake, her niece, might still live, for all I know. I never had the pleasure of meeting Gwendolyn, though from what I heard, it wouldn’t have been a pleasure.

  I don’t know why Evelyn’s asking about this. But I don’t enjoy cat and mouse, unless I get to be the cat. Or is it the mouse? “Cassie Bentley wa
s a promising young woman whose murder was a tragedy,” I say. “Natalia Lake handled herself with incredible grace and dignity. I wish her, and her niece Gwendolyn, the very best.”

  Evelyn is quiet. Didn’t get what she wanted there. What did she expect? I’m a lawyer. I play with words all day.

  I give Evelyn a wide smile. “And Senator Almundo is innocent,” I add.

  She deflates. I gently take her recorder and slide the cue to the off position. “Evelyn,” I say, “when I cross-examine someone, I like to ask questions in the abstract, out of order, so the witness doesn’t see where I’m going. Then I tie it all together, in my favor, before they have a chance to fix the damage. But we’re not in court, I’m not under oath, and I don’t have to play your game. So do me a favor—say hi to your mother and have a nice day. If you want to play straight with me, you’ve got my number.”

  I bid her adieu and leave her at the corner of the plaza. She calls out to me, “I’ll play straight, then,” but now she’s incurred penalties for lack of courtesy. I’ll return her phone call one of these days, but not this week.

  I GET BACK TO my office just before three. I take a moment to savor the stenciled name SHAKER, RILEY & FLEMMING at the elevator bank of the building, or the same name in extruded gold lettering, set off against a marbled wall, over the receptionist’s head when I step off the elevator into our suite. The reception area is finely manicured, complete with cushy sofas and a mock courtroom to the side that reminds clients that we are preeminent trial lawyers. Best decision we made, that courtroom, when we moved into this space. Clients eat it up. Almost every case ends in settlement these days, but every client wants a warrior just in case.

  I say hello to the receptionist but I’ve forgotten her name. That’s the downside. Time was, we were a handful of lawyers, Judge Shaker and I getting the firm started, with one prized client—Harland Bentley—and six hungry lawyers, chasing after business and trying as many cases as we could. We ate pizza every Wednesday night, while we looked anxiously over revenue projections and talked eagerly about new clients and upcoming trials, and which weekend we were all going to come in to put a new coat of paint on the walls. We drank scotch every Friday night before heading home. We even had a hoops team in the bar association league.