Eye of the Beholder Read online

  He comes at an angle, lowers a shoulder, barrels into her, knocks her against the alley wall, smack against the wall, smack and plop, she falls onto a bag of garbage, then rolls onto the wet street.

  Quiet now. Mumbling and crawling, mumble, but don’t scream, can’t scream, pushing herself off the pavement, crawling and crying.

  He raises the tire iron, follows her, it’s over now.

  Quiet now. Quiet.

  People v. Terrance Demetrius Burgos

  Case No. 89-CR-31003

  July 1989

  Riley relayed instructions to an assistant county attorney, who walked with him on his way to the office of the county attorney. “Tell whoever it is at the print lab that it’s me asking, that this is the Burgos case, and this goes first in line,” he said to the man, who was scribbling notes. “And if he can’t put us first, tell him I’ll want a five-page memo, single-spaced, explaining why.” He watched the young ACA run off and chuckled to himself. He’d thought to threaten the guy at the print lab with his job, but making him prepare a written memorandum would be scarier still. He was beginning to get the flavor of county government.

  He took a breath and approached the door of his boss’s office.

  “Come in, Paul, come in.”

  County Attorney Ed Mullaney was a large man in his midfif ties, with a mess of freckles over a drawn, red face. His chin had sagged over the years and hung over the collar of his shirt. He was like an old-fashioned big-city boss, heavyset and cigar-chomping, most comfortable leaning back in that rickety leather chair of his, waxing philosophical about politics and law enforcement. He’d been a big drinker in his time, so the story went, but stomach problems had kept him off alcohol lately, and his mood was less than cheerful as a result.

  Riley collapsed in the chair across the desk.

  “You look like an Irishman who could use a drink,” Mullaney said.

  “Is there any other kind?” Riley tried to smile. It was only six o‘clock. The day was winding down for Mullaney but just beginning for Riley. It had been five weeks since the discovery of the bodies and arrest of Terry Burgos. Riley hadn’t been home before midnight a single day since the murders, something not lost on his wife, Georgia. The investigation had felt like a tidal wave. Riley had assembled a task force of lawyers, investigators, and officers and placed them under his supervision. Delegation was something Riley was trying to learn on the job. So far, not so good.

  By now, every victim had been conclusively identified: the prostitutes by fingerprint analysis and visual identification; Ellie Danzinger by her parents and by fingerprints provided by the South African government; and Cassie Bentley by her mother, Natalia Lake Bentley, and through dental records.

  They had the murder weapons: The knife used to slice open Ellie Danzinger’s chest and slit Angie Mornakowski’s throat—complete with traces of their blood and Burgos‘s, and with Burgos’s prints all over them. The glass container that held the sulfuric acid—battery acid—used to kill Jackie Davis, with several of Burgos’s prints. And the gun that blew out the back of Cassie Bentley’s skull, with Burgos’s latents wrapped all around the handle and barrel.

  They’d found semen matching Burgos’s blood type in the vaginal cavity of every victim. They’d found the victims’ clothes and identification, not to mention blood and hair, in his house. They’d found two large body bags in his basement that, between them, had traces of all of the victims inside. They could put Angela Mornakowski and Sarah Romanski into a blue Chevy Suburban—just like the one Burgos drove—on the nights they went missing. They had Jackie Davis’s thumbprint on his rearview mirror and a latent from Maureen Hollis’s right hand, index finger, on the dashboard. They could put each of the hookers in that truck.

  The physical evidence was simply overwhelming.

  “Things are looking good, man,” said the county attorney. “Smile once.”

  It was true that, by and large, things had gone quite well. Last week, Burgos’s court-appointed attorney, Jeremy Larrabee—a lifer in the public defender’s office, a wild-eyed guy with colorful suits, a ponytail, and the Bill of Rights surgically implanted to his chest had taken his best shot and lost. Larrabee had moved to suppress Terry Burgos’s statements to the police, where he had identified each victim by name and all but confessed to their murders. The argument was that Burgos hadn’t received Miranda warnings. Judge Albert Donaghue had ruled that Miranda warnings weren’t required because Burgos hadn’t been in custody—in the tape-recorded conversation, Detective Joel Lightner had clearly informed Burgos that he was free to leave at any time. Larrabee tried to argue that the cops baited Burgos by keeping him over the lunch hour, and then offering him his favorite meal—tacos-if he stayed. Judge Donaghue wryly noted that he had read over the Constitution and the framers hadn’t mentioned anything about free Mexican food.

  After the state appellate and supreme courts denied Burgos an immediate appeal, it was clear that Burgos’s incriminating statements would be introduced at trial. Just yesterday, the day after the supreme court denied the appeal, Terry Burgos entered a plea of not guilty by reason of insanity to six counts of first-degree murder.

  This case was no longer about proving Burgos committed these crimes. This case was now about proving that Burgos was sane when he did so.

  “Sounds like you have the prostitutes locked down,” Mullaney said.

  Riley nodded. Not only could they put each of the hookers in the truck; they also had learned that Burgos was acquainted with each of them. Other prostitutes had easily identified Terry’s photograph as a regular customer with Angie, Jackie, Sarah, and Maureen, though when asked none of them knew the name “Terry Burgos.”

  Burgos had always called himself “Tyler Skye.”

  The time frame worked, too. The police had been working under the assumption that the women had been murdered in the order they’d been placed in the auditorium basement. The medical examiner had backed that up, more or less, and of course the manner of death had matched the song lyrics sequentially.

  From what they knew, the evidence also supported this chronological theory. Ellie Danzinger, the first woman killed, had ordered food into her apartment at 5:35 P.M. on Sunday, June 18, so she was at least alive at that time. From her answering machine, they knew that she had received five phone messages, beginning at 10:15 P.M. that same night, that Ellie had never checked, much less returned. So the operating theory was that Burgos had broken into her condo sometime between those time intervals, beaten her, and abducted her.

  And now they had been able to pinpoint the last-known whereabouts of every prostitute, too, confirming that Burgos had killed these women on consecutive days. Angie Mornakowski on Monday, June 19, between nine and nine-thirty; Jackie Davis on Tuesday night, around ten-thirty; Sarah Romanski on Wednesday night, around ten; and Maureen Hollis on Thursday, again around ten.

  “Cassie Bentley is more difficult,” Riley said. It was ironic, he thought, that hookers would be easier to pinpoint in terms of LKWs than the students, Ellie Danzinger and Cassie Bentley. Given their line of work, it would be easy to vanish a hooker. But college girls?

  “Students who are not students during the summer,” said Mullaney.

  That, of course, was one of the problems. School was not in session, not even summer school yet, and these two rich girls didn’t have jobs. The other problem was, the best person to ask about the whereabouts of each of these girls was the other one.

  Cassie had had dinner with her mother at their home on Tuesday, June 20, before going back to campus in preparation for summer school the following Monday. They never heard from her again. The fact that Wednesday through Saturday had passed without a word from Cassie had been the reason for Harland’s call to County Attorney Mullaney the day before the bodies were found.

  “Especially Cassie,” Riley added. “She’s a real question mark.”

  “The timing, you mean.” Mullaney was a big-picture guy, but he had kept close tabs on Cassie Ben
tley’s case. He’d recently told Riley that Harland Bentley called him twice a day.

  The problem was, it appeared that Burgos had killed the girls on consecutive days, beginning with Ellie on Sunday, through Maureen, on Thursday. If the pattern followed suit, Cassie should have been murdered on Friday, June 23, the day after Maureen Hollis. But that hadn’t matched with the medical examiner’s estimate. The M.E. calculated Cassie’s death had most likely been Sunday, June 25—the day before all the girls were discovered.

  Which meant Burgos had skipped two days before killing Cassie.

  “Serial killers usually escalate their pace,” Riley said. “Not slow it down.”

  Mullaney nodded with concern.

  And then there was Burgos’s comment to Lightner about Cassie during the interrogation: “Cassie saved me.” What did that mean? How did Cassie “save” Terry Burgos? Was he referring to some salvation for completing his murder spree?

  Mullaney was nodding with too much enthusiasm. He wagged a finger at Paul. “Cassie’s a problem,” he said. “She could muck this whole thing up.”

  Riley rolled his neck. Exhaustion swept over him. He needed to get out of this chair and back into the office. “Oh, we’ll figure it out, boss. We’re not there yet but we will be.”

  “No, I’m concerned. I’m very concerned about this, Paul.”

  “Now that he’s pleading insanity,” Riley said, “he’s conceding he did it. We’ll be fine.”

  Mullaney shook his head and eased his large frame out of his chair. “We still have to prove the elements on every one of these girls. And who knows what Larrabee will try to do with that time frame. This is a problem.”

  Riley watched his boss. Mullaney wasn’t a worrier. Not for this kind of stuff. He hired people like Riley to do the worrying.

  When Mullaney had summoned him, Riley had assumed it was a periodic update—almost daily since the murders. Now, he wasn’t so sure.

  “Something on your mind?” Riley asked.

  Clearly, something was. Mullaney yanked up his pants and sighed heavily, moving toward the window. “Paul,” he said, “I gave Harland my word that his daughter wouldn’t be dragged through the mud.”

  The slow, compliant nod of Paul’s head became a shake, no. “The victims’ personal lives are going to be front and center, boss. Burgos had a specific reason for each of them. Each of them committed a sin, in his eyes—at least, that’s what he’s going to say. I don’t know how well he knew Cassie from that class that he sat in on, but whatever he’s going to say about her, he’s going to say. She was a whore, she was a lesbian—”

  “Oh, yes.” Mullaney waved a hand. “I had to ask Harland, you know. I had to ask this grieving man if his daughter was a dyke. I don’t think he can handle that kind of thing in the public eye.”

  Riley nodded like a good soldier, trying to read between the lines.

  “The Bentleys aren’t just any family, you know. You say something about one of them, it’s in every newspaper in the country. Word gets out that Cassie may have been gay, or these other things we’re hearing—missing class, not eating, turning away her friends—these things, when you’re talking about someone famous, Paul—they get magnified. The media will turn Cassie into some kind of a crazy, suicidal freak:”

  Riley didn’t speak.

  “Hell, Paul, look at the coverage on Harland and Natalia’s separation last week.”

  Riley had read it, too. Reports were that the Bentleys were divorcing. The skinny was, their daughter Cassie had been the only thing holding them together.

  Mullaney turned to Paul and leaned on the windowsill. “Paul, another thing that concerns me here is putting all our eggs in one basket.”

  Riley watched his boss without responding. The thought had crossed his mind as well. In a multiple—murder case, one school of thought was to hold back one of the victims. In the unlikely event that something went south and the defendant beat the charges, you could always charge him again with the other, remaining victim. Two bites at the apple.

  “What are you saying to me, boss?” Riley asked.

  Mullaney opened his hands. “This is going to be a circus, as it is. Subtract the Bentleys—”

  “And it’s still a circus.”

  The county attorney smiled politely, but his eyes went cold. After an appropriate pause, he said, delicately, “The family of one of the victims, recognizing that their daughter is going to be dragged through the mud, and recognizing that the other five murders will be prosecuted, has requested that her murder be prosecuted at a later time. And we wouldn’t agree to this, of course, unless we also felt that it was a sound legal strategy. In this particular case, it clearly is good strategy.”

  Riley suppressed a smile, a sour one. Mullaney’s words could have been plucked directly from a press release. But the words brought ice to his chest.

  The county attorney was telling Riley to drop Cassie’s murder from the charges.

  “You said yourself, Paul, her case was the toughest.”

  “I did.”

  “Answer me this,” said Mullaney. “Does dropping the charges on Cassie prejudice your ability to convict this animal? Does it hinder you in the slightest?”

  “No,” Riley conceded.

  “And, in fact, doesn’t it give us a second chance at him if he somehow gets off on insanity with the other five girls?”

  “Also true.”

  “All right, then.” Mullaney nodded, like the deal was sealed. “Can I trust that the look on your face will be gone when you walk out of this office?”

  That surprised Riley. He always prided himself on playing it straight. And he didn’t have a big problem with the maneuver. It made sense. He just didn’t like the fact that a wealthy political contributor was making decisions for the prosecution.

  “I don’t like it,” Riley said.

  “I didn’t ask you if you liked it.” Mullaney turned back to him. “I asked you if you were going to be a team player on this.”

  Paul felt the room shrink. He was new to a political office, but he wasn’t stupid. The coach was telling him that he could change quarterbacks anytime. The play had already been called, to move the analogy. It was just a question of who would take the snap.

  “I appointed you as my top deputy, over a number of deserving people already in this office,” Mullaney said, carefully, “because you’re the best trial lawyer in the city. And I want the best trial lawyer in the city prosecuting this animal.”

  Riley didn’t answer. He was being snowed. Riley had been brought in precisely because he was an outsider—a federal prosecutor, above the tarnish of local politics. There had been a scandal that had exploded only a few months ago, a few county prosecutors found to be on the take, in concert with some dirty defense lawyers and cops—and Mullaney had brought in a consummate outsider to show his commitment to an overhaul. It was political cover, and it was insulting for Mullaney to pretend otherwise.

  “I’m going to need an answer right now,” Mullaney said.

  Riley cleared his throat, his eyes moving from the floor to the county attorney, who stood at the window.

  “Grow up, Paul,” he said earnestly. “You said yourself, this is good trial strategy. If a victim declined to press charges, we’d drop a case, right? This is basically the same thing, except the victim can’t ask. Her family can. They don’t want her bloodied any more. Don’t let your imagination—or your pride—get in the way here.”

  Riley got to his feet, stuffed his hands in his pockets, chewed on his lip. He couldn’t believe he was being threatened. And he knew what Ed Mullaney was thinking—this was the biggest case a prosecutor could hope for. And it had fallen into Paul Riley’s lap.

  Riley looked beyond Mullaney, through the window and onto the plaza. It was a warm, sunny day. Riley pictured himself leaving this office, crossing the plaza to the federal building, knocking on the door and asking for his old job back.

  Mullaney was next to him now, a look of com
promise on his face.

  Riley knew, suddenly, that his days at the county attorney’s office were numbered. Yet Riley wanted this case. He wanted to put away this monster. He didn’t believe, in any way, that Terry Burgos deserved to beat these charges. He had used rational thought all along the way as he butchered those women. He hadn’t come close to meeting the legal definition of insanity.

  And regardless of how new Riley was to the job, Burgos had killed these women on his watch.

  Riley did the math. It would probably take six to nine months before this case was over. He would convict Terry Burgos, and then he would resign.

  “From here on out,” Riley said, “I make the calls.”

  “All of them.” The county attorney put a hand on Riley’s shoulder. “Now, go convict us a mass murderer.”

  Tuesday

  June 21, 2005

  16

  WAIT, SHELLY. Just wait,” I say, then open my eyes. A brief moment of panic, disorientation, then I lift my head and see the street. Dillard Street, I assume, where I last remember escorting the young lady who called herself Molly. I look for my watch and find only the impression of one, like a tan line, on the skin of my wrist. I make the mistake of touching the back of my head, moist and raw. I manage to get to my feet on shaky legs and instinctively wipe at my suit, damp from lying on rain-soaked trash. I could make a decent salad out of what I brush off my tuxedo.

  I’m in an alley that intersects Dillard, where a pair of garbage bags just served as my bed for the last hour or so. I’m still in my clothes, at least, but that’s about all I can brag about. No money, no keys. Still have my wallet and credit cards and license, only the cash missing. They probably figured they wouldn’t have time to spend the limit before I canceled them tonight—they being the woman, “Molly,” and whoever hit me with the sledgehammer, which is how I choose to remember it.