Eye of the Beholder Read Free

electrified, his head woozy, Riley made his way back up the stairs. Neither the hallway nor the staircases showed any signs of blood. The fun hadn’t taken place here. They’d been murdered somewhere else and transported to this auditorium.
    When he opened the door into the lobby, a tall, skinny man with dark curly hair nodded at him. “Paul Riley? Joel Lightner. Chief of Detectives at M.P.”
    Riley removed his gas mask and shook Lightner’s hand. Lightner looked midthirties and baby-faced. Riley wondered how many detectives a small town like Marion Park could possibly have.
    “Chief Harry Clark,” Lightner said, motioning behind him. Clark was one of those guys who would look sloppy without the uniform, bad posture, a sizable midsection, soft in the chin, with small eyes, and a military cut to his thin hair.
    “And Walter Monk, head of security at Mansbury.”
    They all shook hands and exchanged notes. Lightner flipped open his notepad and read off the list of injuries. The first girl, a blow to the skull and her heart had been removed; second girl, throat slit near the point of decapitation; third girl, burned with sulfuric acid; fourth girl, arms and legs severed, eyes gouged out; fifth girl, strangulation, or drowning; final girl, beaten savagely about the face and skull, with a single gunshot wound through the back of the mouth.
    “There was intercourse in each case,” Lightner added. “The M.E. thinks the first victim is about a week old. Each one seems more recent than the—it looks like maybe it was one murder a day, for a week. The last one, they figure, was probably yesterday.”
    “They were down here a whole week and no one noticed?”
    Monk, the security guy, had to be near sixty. His long, beaky face nodded slowly. “Between spring semester and summer school, there’s a two-week period off. The whole school basically shuts down.”
    And whoever did this, Riley thought, knew that.
    “The last one is Cassie Bentley?” he asked. “The rich girl?”
    Monk sighed. “Hard to tell for sure, she was beaten so badly.”
    Riley surely agreed with that. The poor girl’s face had been crushed. They’d need dental records for confirmation.
    “But, yeah,” Monk said, “I think so. Especially because the first one’s Ellie, so it makes sense.”
    Riley perked up. He was playing catch-up here.
    “Elisha Danzinger,” Lightner explained. “Ellie. She and Cassie shared a dorm room. Best friends.”
    Riley turned to Monk. “How many kids here at Mansbury?”
    He made a face. “About four thousand.”
    “Four thousand. And how is it you know these two girls so well? ”
    Monk grunted a laugh. “Oh, well, everyone knows Cassie Bentley. She’s a Bentley.” His face turned sour. “And she’s had her share of trouble. Disciplinary things. Cassie’s a little—kind of a troubled young girl.”
    Lightner hit Monk with the back of his hand. “Tell him what you just told me about Ellie.”
    “Yes, Ellie.” Monk took a breath. “Ellie had had some trouble with a college employee. A part-time handyman. He did odd jobs. Painting, blacktopping, maintenance. He’d been assigned this block of buildings when he worked here.”
    “And?”
    “And he’d been following Ellie around campus. Stalking her. She’d gone to court last year and gotten a restraining order. And we fired him, of course.”
    Riley thought about that. A handyman. Keys to buildings like this auditorium. Knowledge of the school schedule. “Ellie’s the one, her heart was ripped out? The first one?”
    They all nodded.
    “So you know this guy? This handyman?”
    “His name is Terry Burgos,” Monk said. “I have his home address right here.”
    Riley looked at Lightner. Did he really need to say the words?
    “I’m taking a couple cars with me,” said Lightner.
    “Wait,” Riley said. “I need a phone. And someone find me one of the ACAS. We’re not taking any chances. Surround the house right now. If you can get his consent for