Eye of the Beholder

by David Ellis

  “And I was thinking to myself,” Brandon adds, “I didn’t know who Cassie was talking to about whatever was bothering her. She hated her father—”

  That’s interesting.

  “—And her mother? Nat? I mean, I never met her, but—well, that lady was ‘overmedicated.’ That’s the PC way of saying it. She was a pill popper. And that was her family. Well, there was Gwen, the cousin, when she was around, but even when she was she was no help. I mean, that girl was a freak. She partied harder than Ellie. Those two were peas in a pod. Cassie wasn’t like them.” Brandon comes out of his memories and looks at McDermott.

  McDermott watches him a moment, a common tactic—stare at someone and he’ll keep talking. But Brandon seems finished, and, if anything, his eyes are beginning to cloud as exhaustion and sedation do a one-two on him.

  “All of this, you told Evelyn,” he gathers.

  Brandon nods.

  “And what did she say back to you?”

  “Well, she asked me the same thing you’re gonna ask me—if Cassie was pregnant, and, if so, who would have been the ‘fucking father’?”

  McDermott smiles tightly.

  “I don’t know if she was pregnant,” he continues. “I understand the suspicion. Hell, most people thought she was gay. I admit, I was curious about that myself. So now we’re taking a big jump to not being gay, and being pregnant to boot.”

  “So,” McDermott says, “let’s jump.”

  “Look, I don’t know.”

  There’s an obvious name here, but McDermott doesn’t want to be the first to say it. It would make sense, too. It wouldn’t be the first time a college professor slept with a beautiful coed. And said professor would be none too pleased about that coed turning up pregnant. He could see how Professor Albany might play the risks: If Cassie turned around and accused him, he could always deny it. It would be a he-said, she-said. But if she were pregnant, it would be an entirely different story. Paternity tests. Tangible proof. End of promising career.

  “Cassie didn’t have a lot of friends—certainly not male friends,” Brandon says. “I was pretty much the only guy.”

  Another obvious thought, but McDermott has already discounted it. He trusts his gut, and this kid isn’t pulling any chains—especially now, after he stared death in the face and has a strong sedative calming him. Mitchum isn’t lying. He wasn’t the father.

  Come on, Brandon.

  “Well, okay—here—this was something Evelyn and I talked about, too. There was one guy, a C.S. prof. A—a professor in cultural studies. Oh, right, of course.” He snaps his fingers. “The guy who taught the class that Terry Burgos sat in on. Professor Albany was his name. Frank Albany.”

  Stoletti says, “Why does his name come up?”

  “Oh, he was—” Brandon makes a face. “He was one of those— you know, these professors who socializes with the students? I always thought the guy was kind of creepy, personally, but Cassie really thought he was the shit.”

  “The shit.”

  “Cool, I mean. She really looked up to him.” He thinks for a moment.

  “You discussed that with Evelyn.”

  “Yeah, she was all interested in how much time Cassie spent with Albany.”

  “Did she say why?”

  “Well, I mean, she’s asking about Cassie being pregnant—so, I’m not stupid.”

  “No, I know that,” McDermott assures him. “But did she put it in a bigger context?”

  He shakes his head. “I asked her, but she wouldn’t tell me.”

  They press Brandon more on the details, any names or events or places Evelyn might have mentioned. Seems that it had been a typical conversation with a reporter, where the subject does all the talking. Evelyn Pendry was playing her cards close to the vest.

  “What about this Gwendolyn Lake?” Stoletti asks. “Know where we can find her?”

  He doesn’t. “At the rate she was going, I’d be surprised if she was still alive.”

  “You never saw her again, after the night just before finals—that fight?” McDermott tries. “Never? Like, what about Cassie’s funeral?”

  Brandon’s eyes trail up. “No, no. She wasn’t there.”

  That’s odd. Gwendolyn skipped out on her cousin’s funeral? He looks at his partner. She shrugs at him.

  Stoletti asks, “Did you tell the police about all of this back then? The fight with Gwendolyn? The ‘fucking father’ comment?”

  “No,” he answers. “Mostly, because it didn’t matter. They, like, caught Burgos right away, and he confessed. So, I figured, it was nobody’s business. I thought I owed it to Cassie to keep her confidence. But also, they dropped the part of the case about Cassie, right? So they weren’t concerned with her. The only time I testified was after the conviction, during sentencing—and I didn’t testify about Cassie. I testified about Ellie.” He looks at each of the detectives. “Really, I saw no reason to smear the name of such a great person when there was no reason to do so.”

  Mitchum sounds a little defensive here. He’s probably worked through this rationalization before. But he makes sense. And McDermott knows a little something about keeping secrets for the greater good. But he’s thinking more about the dropping of Cassie’s murder from the case. Once again, it has proved to be a reason that a lot of hard questions didn’t get asked.

  McDermott goes with the wrap-up. “Is there anything else, Brandon? Anything about this intruder, or Evelyn, or what happened back then—anything we haven’t covered?”

  Happens all the time, in the heat of Q and A, witnesses get so caught up responding to specific questions that something important gets lost. He’s had countless re-interviews where he learns new information, and the witnesses politely inform him, You didn’t ask me that before.

  Brandon Mitchum makes a small o with his mouth, blinking his eyes quickly. Doesn’t feel like he’s reaching into his memory. He’s debating.

  “Anything,” McDermott says. “This guy isn’t going to stop until we catch him.”

  “I’m not sure there’s anything else,” he says.

  “I’m not sure about that baggie of dope we found in your apartment,” McDermott replies. “Here, we were getting along so well, I was just gonna let you off with a lecture.”

  Brandon raises a hand. “Okay, okay. I just—didn’t think it was important. And I don’t know if it’s even true.” He shakes his head. “Okay, I’ll tell you. But you didn’t hear this from me.”

  36

  We WALK into Harland’s office, which looks out over the southern view of the city, and then well beyond, a good shot of the river and the new theater being built. He owns some of the property to the south, off the expressway, and has plans for significant big-box retail down there.

  I look down at the red oak flooring and the Persian area rug Harland got while in the Middle East, poking through whatever trade barriers may have existed.

  Harland stands at the window, rubbing his eyes carefully, like everything else he does, the index finger and thumb massaging his eyelids. “Do you know why I hired you, Paul?”

  I think I do, but I don’t like the question. I don’t say anything.

  “It wasn’t a thank-you. It might have been perceived as that. But it wasn’t. If I wanted to thank you for putting away my daughter’s killer, I wouldn’t have rewarded you with money. Because that would be cheapening what you did. That would be putting a price on it.”

  “I agree.”

  “I hired you because I thought you were the best lawyer in the city. And I wanted a lawyer in this city. Here, close to me.”

  I don’t know what he expects me to say. Hell yes, he’s a primo client, but he’s gotten plenty in return. I’ve given him my best.

  “Harland, the Sherwood Executive Center. Is that where Cassie’s doctors were?”

  He doesn’t answer immediately. I think of my own daughter, Elizabeth, realizing that I wouldn’t be able to recall where her doctors practiced when she was growing up. I never to
ok her to a physician; Georgia, my ex-wife, would have handled that chore. And I wouldn’t exactly expect the Bentleys to be a nuclear family, either. I couldn’t imagine Harland or Natalia packing the kid in the station wagon for a physical. It was more likely a chauffeured limousine.

  “I remember the building,” he finally says, to my surprise. “When she was, oh, eight or so. She had to have her teeth cleaned. She was so scared she had a cavity. She”—he takes in a breath—“she begged me to go with her. She was so sensitive—so sensitive to—pain.”

  I look away, not wanting to gawk at someone reliving a painful memory.

  “I made them bring in a chair, and I sat next to Cassie while they cleaned her teeth. She never let go of my hand. She squeezed it so hard. So hard, for such a little girl.”

  I clear my throat. I think it might be best, for everyone’s sake, that he move on.

  “I think all of her—I think all the health care group was in that building, too,” he adds. “I think it was all one wrap-up group.”

  “Like her general practitioner, her ob-gyn, that kind of thing?”

  He waves a hand. He thinks so, but he doesn’t know.

  “Was she pregnant, Harland?” I ask in a gentler tone.

  He takes a moment, then makes a noise, something between clearing his throat and chuckling. “As if she would have told me,” he says quietly. “That little girl who held my hand at the dentist? By the time she was in college, that girl was long gone. No, I had managed to alienate all of the women in my family.”

  He runs his hand over the walnut desk, like he’s checking it for dust. Another way of looking at it might be that he’s avoiding my eye contact, which is not like him.

  “Why am I here, Harland?”

  He considers his fingernails. “You’re probably aware that I have a certain reputation with women.”

  “I’m aware that you have excellent taste,” I answer. “If a little fickle.”

  He likes that. “A little fickle. Yes.” He looks at me. “A little fickle. And I imagine you’ve heard rumors that I began earning that reputation before the end of my marriage?”

  “I don’t listen to rumors,” I say, which is the same thing as answering yes. The word was that Harland was playing around for years on his wife, Natalia. My heartbeat strikes up again.

  Harland turns toward the window. He’s turned on overhead lighting that illuminates my space, by the door, but leaves him in semidarkness, also allowing for a picturesque view through the window, lights sprinkled about the evening cityscape like a pinball machine.

  “It’s a weakness, really,” he continues. “Younger women. Not that young, of course. I don’t mean teenagers:”

  “Harland,” I say.

  “Okay, all right.” He takes a moment, looking in my direction, then back at the window, before he spits it out.

  “That weakness,” he says, “extended to Ellie Danzinger.”

  BRANDON MITCHUM squirms in his bed, uncomfortable with the revelation he’s just laid on the detectives.

  McDermott stares at the wall over Mitchum’s head, trying to see where this all fits in. “You’re telling me,” he says, “that Cassie thought her father was sleeping with Ellie Danzinger?”

  Mitchum doesn’t answer, but there’s no doubt McDermott heard it right.

  “When did Cassie tell you this?” Stoletti wants to know.

  “Oh, right about the same time. Just a little before finals, maybe. May, June of that year. I know,” he adds, laughing nervously, “it’s pretty intense.”

  Intense, is one way of putting it. But it matches Harland Bentley’s reputation, the wealthy playboy. And it seems that Cassie Bentley was having a rough semester. She thought her best friend was screwing her father, and she was pregnant.

  “This was a suspicion,” Stoletti says to him. “Not a confirmed fact.”

  “Right. Cassie thought it was true, but she never knew for sure. She said she was going to find out.”

  “How do you know she didn’t?” McDermott asks. “How can you be sure she never confirmed it?”

  Mitchum shakes his head slowly, causing himself some pain in the process. He touches the bandage on his face. “She would have told me,” he says confidently. “She would’ve had to tell me. I made her promise.”

  “You made her promise?”

  “Yeah.” Mitchum’s tongue runs over his dry lips. “I was afraid of what she might do. I wanted to be close to her, so she wouldn‘t— so she—” His eyes narrow, frozen in a sixteen-year-old memory.

  McDermott says, “So she wouldn’t take her own life?”

  “It—yeah, it had crossed my mind. Who knew what she might’ve done? ”

  Mitchum’s head falls back against the pillow. McDermott looks over at Stoletti, wondering if she’s thinking about what, exactly, Cassie Bentley might have done.

  Like confront her father, maybe.

  A LONG SILENCE HANGS between Harland and me. I finally repeat the words, to be sure I actually heard them.

  “You and Ellie were having an affair?”

  “Oh, an ‘affair,’ I don’t know. But, from time to time, yes. She was so—so ...”

  He doesn’t move from the comfort of the darkness on his side of the room. His head angles up. He sighs whimsically. Jesus, this guy really couldn’t keep his dick in his pants. He couldn’t keep his paws off Cassie’s best friend?

  “She was so what, Harland? Young? Sexy? Forbidden?”

  “Vibrant.”

  “Oh, she was vibrant. Oh, that explains it, then.”

  “If there is one thing I don’t come to my attorney for,” he says evenly, “it’s the passing of judgment. I come to my attorney for protection. I don’t want this to come out, Paul. It’s nobody’s business.”

  He’s right, to a point, but that doesn’t stop my stomach from churning. I don’t like being left out of the loop, not when I’m prosecuting a case. He could have told me back then. We would have seen it for what it was—a nonstarter, an irrelevant detour. We caught Burgos red-handed, and it took only hours before he was admitting to killing all of the women. Ellie Danzinger’s extracurricular activities would have had nothing to do with Burgos’s guilt.

  “Who knew about this?”

  He clears his throat. “Ellie,” he says, “and me.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Discretion is one thing we both understood.”

  “I can’t believe this,” I mumble.

  “I’m not concerned with what you can believe.” Harland emerges from the darkness of the corner. “You’ve defended murderers. You’ve defended executives who steal from their shareholders. You defended us, with that pollution problem in Florida. I’m guilty here of far less. So defend me, Paul. Keep all of this quiet.” He stands face-to-face with me now. “Or I’ll find someone who will.”

  I stare at him. Again, he’s holding his money over me. He knows there are dozens of lawyers at my firm who would be on the street without his business.

  “Find someone who will,” I say.

  I see that I’ve surprised him, as much as Harland ever shows surprise. His eyes search my face for a break in my reaction.

  “You’re afraid.” He nods his head once, slowly. “I’ve never seen that from you.”

  He’s not talking about our relationship. He’s not talking about the millions of dollars of business he sends my way every year.

  And he’s right.

  “Who killed my daughter?” he asks me.

  I say it quickly, “Terry Burgos,” but the answer surprises both of us, the speed of my response, the fact that the question is even remotely credible. Three days ago, it wasn’t.

  His expression lightens a bit, amusement, he wants me to think. Like he’s not afraid of anyone.

  “I’m going to find out what’s going on,” I tell him.

  “Even if it proves you wrong.”

  “Even if.”

  I turn for the door. I navigate the hallway, my legs shaky. The Britis
h guard eyes me suspiciously as I push open the front door and head to the elevator.

  “IT DIDN’T MATTER,” Brandon says. “What’s the point of ripping apart these people’s lives when it served no purpose?”

  “I’m not asking why you didn’t tell the police back then,” McDermott says. “I want to know why you didn’t want to tell us tonight. And why we ‘didn’t hear this from you.’ You afraid of someone, Brandon?”

  Brandon waves off the notion, trying to give the impression that McDermott’s off base. But he’s not. He can read it all over Mitchum.

  “Harland Bentley,” he guesses.

  Brandon’s eyes shoot to McDermott, then retreat. He might as well have said yes.

  “Tell me about you and Harland Bentley, Brandon.”

  “Look, it’s not just me.” He says it like it’s wrong, whatever it is. “Mr. Bentley is one of the biggest benefactors to the arts in this city. He gives money to a lot of artists.”

  Oh. Right. Mitchum is an artist.

  “He endowed a grant through the City Arts Foundation for me,” he concedes. “Okay?”

  McDermott drops his head and peeks over at Stoletti.

  “When did this happen?” Stoletti asks.

  “When I graduated Mansbury. That was ‘ninety-two.”

  “He gave you a grant in 1992?”

  “Yeah. Well—it’s a continuing grant. He refreshes it every year.”

  “How much does he ‘refresh’ it?” McDermott asks.

  “Oh.” Brandon waves a hand. “Started out at twenty-five thousand. Now it’s seventy-five thousand a year.”

  “Seventy-five thousand?” McDermott makes a face. “And what do you do for this refresher, Brandon? Why you?”

  The coloring on the face of the young artist has changed to a light crimson. This is not a topic he enjoys. “He told me that Cassie would have wanted him to help. He said he appreciated that I was there for Cassie.”

  A doctor comes into the room and wants to know if they’re done. McDermott says he needs five more minutes. Mitchum, it seems, was hoping for a reprieve. The doctor stands next to McDermott to let him know the clock is ticking.