Eye of the Beholder

by David Ellis

  “Or speaking with Lyman.”

  Lyman Kruger is the publisher of the Watch. That option could cut either way. Sometimes, letting a publisher know that you’re very concerned about possibly defamatory articles leads the publisher to clamp down on the reporter, putting pressure on her to either be sure she’s right or drop it. Other times, though, it backfires by piquing the interest of the newspaper.

  I tell him all of that. “It could make things worse,” I say.

  Harland bristles at my advice. Men in his position don’t like being told they are without options. “I want it to stop, Paul. Homaro!” he calls to a man dressed in all white, presumably the chef, who delivers the appetizer—some deep-fried meatballs that smell delicious. They exchange pleasantries, speaking in Japanese, and then the chef leaves the table.

  “I want it to stop,” he repeats to me as he helps himself to the appetizer. He sticks the tiny fork into the meatball with a bit too much enthusiasm.

  IN THAT SNAP of a moment after Evelyn Pendry’s shoulders jerk violently, Leo bursts out. This isn’t the time, not the time—

  You see me.

  —but there’s no choice, and he still has the element of surprise. He rushes toward her, but she has the angle on him and breaks for the living room. He goes low and catches her ankle. She falls to the carpet.

  Keep. Her. Quiet.

  Leo twists her ankle sharply, feeling the snap. She trades terror for pain, crying out but in reaction, not alarm. He comes down on her, pressing the knife against her face. She freezes, breathing rapidly but not making a sound. She’s calculating, yes, calculating, thinking it through, she knows the knife is close enough to end this right now. If she cries out—if she tries to warn them—it’s over.

  He grips her silky blond hair, savors it a moment, then yanks it. She understands. He turns her over so she is on her back, facing him. He puts his knees on her arms and presses the knife against her throat.

  She smells like strawberries.

  22

  MIKE McDERMOTT leans against the wall in the living room, watching Grace read to her grandmother. He does that a lot these days, silently watches his seven-year-old daughter, marveling at how a man who handles violent criminals and visits horrific crime scenes can be laid so bare, so utterly vulnerable and terrified by this small little lady.

  She is an excellent reader, the word her teacher used. She has her mother’s intelligence, her critical reasoning and verbal skills. And her behavior has improved this year. Fewer outbursts. Socializing more.

  Year Four, is how he thinks of it. He doesn’t measure her from birth but from Joyce’s death. She still has the dreams, still asks the unanswerable questions. But Dr. Sutton says there’s no indication of early-onset. Only a third of the children, at most, inherit their parents’ bipolar disorder, he said—meaning about seventy percent don’t. McDermott confronted him with the literature—early-onset can consist solely of depression that evolves into bipolar—but the doctor says she’s a functional little girl who’s finding her way through this.

  She blames herself, the doctor had said, words that filled McDermott’s throat. That’s not unusual. It was her mother, after all.

  McDermott remembers staring at his shoes at that comment, unable to find words.

  So he watches Grace every day, the highs and the lows, looking for the warning signs. Every time she argues or cries or has a tantrum or jumps for joy, he makes a mental note. He was even keeping a journal for a while. Laughed at a cartoon. Complained about her cereal.

  ‘“Matt,”’ Grace reads in a narrative voice, “‘who had seen guests come and go for many years, knew there were two kinds ...”’

  Mike’s mother, Audrey McDermott, is on the floor with Grace, gathering her granddaughter in her arms and reading along with Grace over her shoulder. The sight of it almost moves McDermott to tears.

  The phone rings. They look up but McDermott raises a hand. He gets it on the second ring, and, after listening, mouths the word Shit.

  McDERMOTT MAKES IT TO the apartment building by nine, pulling up behind a squad car, one of six parked along the curbside, lights flashing. There are news trucks and camera crews and reporters in makeup positioning themselves and scribbling notes and checking the artificial lighting. One of them is angling herself by the apartment building, asking her cameraman to evaluate the position.

  The building is on the near north side, four stories high, with a courtyard in the middle. Looks like a series of condos, pricey, given the neighborhood, but presumably very small. Evelyn Pendry probably didn’t earn much as a staff reporter for the Watch.

  He takes a wide, inner staircase of concrete steps. There are CAT officers on the stairs, dusting the handrails for prints, though it’s a community staircase full of hundreds of useless finger- and shoe prints. The killer wouldn’t need to touch the handrail, and probably wouldn’t be stupid enough.

  On the third floor, the CAT unit is again at work, brushing for prints and searching outside the apartment in the hallway with paper evidence bags, but they seem to be doing it as an afterthought, as if their work is nearly done. McDermott looks down in the courtyard, where a number of the residents are huddled, looking upward and gossiping about the woman who was murdered. Some of them probably knew Evelyn Pendry.

  Ricki Stoletti, in a dark jacket and jeans, emerges from the apartment. She gives some instructions to the uniforms and then looks down the hallway. She nods at McDermott as another woman walks out, someone he recognizes. Perfectly tossed blond hair, expensive suit.

  Oh, of course. The victim’s mother, Carolyn Pendry. The news anchor.

  Stoletti does an intro. “Detective Mike McDermott, Carolyn Pendry.”

  “Mrs. Pendry, I’m so sorry.”

  Carolyn Pendry is the reason McDermott is here. The call came from the commander himself. She is probably the most prominent newsperson in town, and when her child is murdered she gets the top-ranking detective in Area Four.

  He does the preliminary talk quickly, because he wants to go in.

  “I’m coming with you,” she tells him.

  “Well, Mrs. Pendry—”

  Kid gloves, the commander said. She gets what she wants.

  “It would be better if you—”

  “I’ve already seen her. I want to know what you think.”

  McDermott looks at Stoletti, who gives him a You’re the boss, don’t look at me.

  “Okay,” he relents. “Let’s go.”

  AFTER DINNER WITH HARLAND, I should be in a foul mood. Harland wants me to figure out a “diplomatic” way to shut off Evelyn Pendry’s inquisition, which leaves me with an impossible task. But I’m not in such a bad mood. Correction: I’m flying since my rendezvous with Shelly today. I hate like hell that I’ve surrendered that much of myself, but, what the hell, I’m a tall drink of water, there’s a lot of me to go around.

  I pick up Shelly on my way home. Our conversation is civil—How was your day? Fine, how was yours?—though I’m bursting at the seams.

  I strip off her clothes before she’s taken two steps into the foyer. I think of the staircase, but there’s no carpet, so I carry her into the adjoining room and get busy. I’m still the scrappy basketball player at heart. What I lacked in talent I made up for in hustle, dove for the loose ball, took the charge. I apply the same can-do spirit in the bedroom, or, in this case, the living room, or parlor, or whatever this room is. I may not score a triple-double, but she’ll know I gave her the full Riley effort.

  And it’s different this time, compared to this afternoon. She doesn’t hold back, pressing her tongue into my mouth violently and gripping my neck and wrapping her legs around my waist.

  We need to break up more often.

  “Now, that,” I manage, “was nice.”

  I collapse on her, feeling her heart pounding, her breath on my neck. I inhale the wonderfully fruity smell of her hair, which is not difficult because my nose is buried in it. Calling this moment nice is like calling s
kydiving interesting.

  “I was afraid,” she whispers. “I needed time.”

  I move my face over hers and get my arms underneath her back and press her tightly to me.

  “I love you,” she says.

  I take a couple of breaths and remind myself of everything I’ve learned about playing it cool. Cue the fireworks. She has never said those words to me before.

  McDERMOTT WALKS OUT OF Evelyn Pendry’s apartment and takes in the fresh air. There are nothing but questions now.

  “She didn’t meet me for dinner,” Carolyn Pendry explains, leaning against the railing, looking down onto the courtyard. “I called her at work, home, her cell. She always answers her cell.”

  “Any sense, Mrs. Pendry, of who might do something like this?”

  Evelyn Pendry was tortured. Her body was peppered with knife wounds before the fatal wound to the left temple. The weapon of choice, your basic switchblade, was found in the trash can in the small kitchen.

  Same brutality as last night, at Fred Ciancio’s. Different weapon.

  “She covers the crime beat.” Carolyn touches her eyes.

  “I know,” McDermott says. “I saw her yesterday.”

  Carolyn looks at him, tries to read his face.

  “By any chance,” he tries, “does the name Fred Ciancio mean anything to you?”

  She freezes a moment, like it rings a bell, then she lets out a gasp. She backs into Stoletti, his partner, and covers her mouth.

  “You know him,” he gathers.

  “Call Paul Riley,” she says.

  “Paul—”

  “Paul Riley.” She moves to him, takes his arm. “The man who prosecuted Terry Burgos.”

  23

  I MAKE IT THROUGH the reporters and up to the third floor of the apartment complex, courtesy of some uniformed officers who are expecting me. They were vague on the phone, first a cop named McDermott, then Carolyn Pendry, who grabbed the phone away and gave me a little detail.

  I see Carolyn first, talking with a heavyset guy who looks familiar to me. He is moving his hands and, it seems, trying to reassure her. She is nodding along. She paints the contrast, the beautiful hair and clothes, a perfectly etched face that is now drawn and beaten with sorrow, a slumped posture.

  When she sees me, she says, “Paul,” and drags the guy with her. “This is Commander Briggs. Paul Riley.”

  We shake hands. They brought the big brass in. The commander showing up after ten o‘clock to a murder scene? Well, it is the daughter of Carolyn Pendry.

  Carolyn’s face melts in anguish. She touches my arm. “Thank you—thank you—”

  “Carolyn, my God. Anything I can do. I’m so sorry to hear.”

  She pulls me along, just as a woman appears in the doorway of the apartment that must be Evelyn’s. A tall woman, midforties, with a shield hanging from her neck.

  “This is Detective Stoletti.”

  “Paul Riley.”

  “I know who you are.” She gestures inside.

  Nice to meet you, too.

  “Don’t touch anything,” she tells me.

  I don’t answer but heed her advice. A tall, ruddy-faced guy, almost my height but with a little more size in the torso, introduces himself as Mike McDermott. Friendlier on the surface than Stoletti, but seemingly no more pleased to see me.

  I consider reminding them it wasn’t my idea to come here. I was lying in bed with a beautiful, naked woman thirty minutes ago and was in no hurry to move.

  He gives me the same lecture about tampering with evidence. Looking over McDermott’s shoulder, I can see that they’ve already combed it, anyway. The place is what I would expect, a tiny apartment with a kitchen you could barely turn around in, then a single living room with a single piece of furniture, an L-shaped couch. Patches of carpeting have been lifted from the living room, the main room in the apartment. The kitchen is taped off, with a long counter that’s been dusted.

  I walk into the living room, which is undisturbed. The fun, I assume, will begin in the bedroom, the other half of the condo. I feel an adrenaline spike. This is what I used to do. Chasing bad guys. Solving puzzles.

  As I get closer to the archway between the living room and bedroom, I feel my body slow, a defense mechanism. I look down and a noise escapes my throat. It doesn’t matter that I knew it was going to be Evelyn Pendry. I can’t stifle the shock upon seeing this happen to the person who hounded me yesterday with questions.

  She is lying on the carpet, naked to her underwear, her arms and legs spread, her head rolled to the right. Her left temple wears an ugly, bloody gash, what looks like a deep wound. Her mouth is open. The color of her skin has already begun the death fade. She looks like she was in midsentence, as if something had just occurred to her, something important, or like she hadn’t completed what she’d set out to do.

  The bright lights in the room seem garish under the circumstances, plunging this murdered woman into a spotlight at the point in time where she most deserves privacy. I want to cover her in a blanket and close her eyelids. I watch her vacant eyes, waiting for her to blink.

  I walk within a few feet of her and bend over. The foul smell coming from the young girl’s body is urine and feces; her sympathetic nervous system had broken down as she’d fought the killer. Or fought the pain.

  The wound to her head aside, Evelyn Pendry’s body has been ravaged with knife cuts. Some are superficial, others deeper. There is blood from each wound, which means they happened before her heart had stopped circulating blood.

  She was tortured before he killed her, before he put one through her brain.

  I look back at the detective and see that Carolyn isn’t in the room with us. I’m glad for that, though she’s obviously already seen this.

  “He enjoyed himself first,” I say, taking another look, bending down. There is no blood that I can see splattered around. “He held her down right here and went to work on her.”

  I look at the detectives, neither of whom seems impressed so far. I don’t know what they expect from me. I still am not entirely sure why I’m here.

  “How’d he get in?” I ask.

  Nobody answers at first. I don’t expect them to like me, but I don’t really care.

  “How’d he get in?” I repeat.

  McDermott shrugs. “No forced entry. Either he picked the lock or she let him in.”

  “Was there sexual trauma?” My eyes avoid Carolyn, who is in the room with us now.

  McDermott shakes his head no. “He just wanted to hurt this girl.”

  I stand up and look at the detective. “You don’t think she let this guy in,” I say.

  He doesn’t respond to that.

  “The bathroom,” he says. “Tread lightly.”

  I turn and walk carefully into the bathroom. The light is already on. I look first with my eyes down on the floor. Then I catch it in my peripheral vision. I look up at the mirror and see my reflection, with ghoulish words written on the glass in red lipstick:

  I step back, almost losing balance. I look at the cops, who seem to be making something out of my reaction.

  “That mean something to you?” Stoletti asks.

  I let it happen, let it rip through me, grip my insides and twist them in knots.

  “You okay?” McDermott asks me.

  I walk past them and again look at Evelyn, squat down carefully to examine the wound to her head. A young one. Never got her age, but she had so much ahead of her. Smart and ambitious. I recall what I said to her the last time we talked, my dismissive brush-off. There’s always that regret if you left on a bad note, said something negative, like I did. But there is more than one reason now that I wish I had listened to her.

  “Switchblade, right?” I look at them. “That’s what he used here?”

  “Right,” McDermott says, as Stoletti asks, “How did you know that?”

  “This wasn’t the first victim, though.”

  Nobody answers, at least not verbally. Their expressions are e
nough. The detectives look at each other.

  “She’s the second victim,” I say. “There was a first. Right?”

  “Right.” McDermott nods. “What was the weapon there?”

  “An ice pick,” I say.

  His look tells me I’m right. “What the fuck,” he mumbles.

  Carolyn parts the detectives. “Is this another song, Paul?”

  I stand up and look back at the bathroom. My heart rattles against my chest.

  “Same song,” I answer. “Second verse.”

  People v. Terrance Demetrius Burgos

  Case No. 89-CR-31003

  August 1989

  First Assistant County Attorney Paul Riley placed the tape in the cassette and hit PLAY, reading along with the lyrics, which had been printed on poster board and left in one of the designated war rooms for the Burgos case. Tyler Skye, the lead singer of Torcher, screamed, over angry guitar chords, what he called the second verse of the song “Someone”:

  A second verse a wretched curse a fate no worse a hate perverse

  Both the guitar and percussion kicked up after this introduction, as Tyler Skye’s voice erupted, spitting out a litany of violent lyrics faster than the human ear could follow:

  An ice pick a nice trick praying that he dies quick

  A switchblade oughta be great for lobotomy insane a call to me

  Precision blade incisions made a closer shave a bloody spray

  Trim-Meter chain saw cheerleader’s braia’s all paint on the stained wall

  Machete in the head he isn’t ready to be dead I can’t explain why I’m in pain why I’m unable to refrain from getting in somebody’s brain