David Ellis
Eye of the Beholder
© 2007
For Sally Nystrom
June 1989
The “MansburyMassacre”
A source in the Marion Park Police Department confirms
that the body count is six. Six bodies have been discovered
in the basement of Bramhall Auditorium on the Mansbury
College campus. We have no word yet on whether the bodies
include the missing Mansbury students, Cassandra
Bentley and Elisha Danzinger.
– Carolyn Pendry, Newscenter 4, 1:18 P.M., June 26, 1989
Marion Park Police have arrested Terrance Demetrius
Burgos, 36, a part-time handyman at Mansbury College,
in the murders of six young women who were found murdered
and sexually molested in a campus auditorium.
– Daily Watch, June 27, 1989
1
MONDAY, JUNE 26, 1989, 8:32 A.M.
PAUL RILEY followed his police escort, navigated his car through the barricades, and stopped next to a patrol car. He shifted the gear into park, killed the engine, and said a quiet prayer.
Now the storm.
When he opened the door, letting in the thick, humid air, it felt like someone had jacked the volume on the stereo: An officer’s voice, through a bullhorn, warning the spectators and reporters to respect the police barricades. Reporters shouting questions at any officer they could find, some of them now turning to Riley, a man they didn’t know. Cops and medical and forensic technicians shouting instructions to each other. Other reporters, positioned with microphones, speaking loudly into cameras about the breaking news; hundreds of citizens, gathered from everywhere, speculating on what, precisely, had been found inside Bramhall Auditorium.
Riley knew little more than they. The word was, six bodies, young women, mutilated in various ways. Then there was the one additional fact that had been delivered by his boss in a shaky voice:
“They think one of them is Cassie.”
Cassandra Bentley, he’d meant, a student at Mansbury College, but, more important, the daughter of Harland and Natalia Bentley, a family worth billions. Family money. Political contributors. People who mattered. Even the name sounded wealthy.
Riley looked up at the bruised sky, where three news helicopters circled over this corner of the Mansbury College campus. He clipped his badge-all of three weeks old-to his jacket and looked for a uniform. There were plenty of them, in various colors-blue for Marion Park police, brown for deputies from the county sheriff’s office, white for Mansbury security, black from some other jurisdiction, probably brought in for crowd control.
He gave his name, and his title, something he wasn’t used to saying: “First Assistant County Attorney,” the top deputy to the county prosecutor.
“Who’s in charge?” he asked.
“Lightner,” the cop said, gesturing toward the auditorium.
Bramhall Auditorium took up half the block, a dome-topped structure arising from a large concrete staircase, a threshold supported by granite pillars, with a manicured lawn to each side. Riley counted the steps-twelve-and entered the lobby of the auditorium.
It was only slightly less sticky inside. No air-conditioning. School was out. No one was supposed to be using this auditorium this time of year. Access, Riley thought to himself. Who would have access?
Riley moved cautiously. He was new to this job but not to crime scenes. He’d been an assistant U.S. attorney-a federal prosecutor-for many years, and had spent most of the time working on a street gang that was no stranger to violence. Riley groaned at the number of law enforcement officials inside the place. Fewer was always better, but, as he looked around, he realized that little would be gained from all of the fingerprint dusting going on around him. This was an auditorium, with a decent-sized lobby, and a massive theater that, including the balcony, could probably house several thousand people. It would be easier to figure out who hadn’t left their prints.
To the side of the lobby, a door opened-the door, presumably, leading to the basement and the maintenance locker where the bodies were found. An officer stepped out and lifted his gas mask-with its charcoal-impregnated odor filter-just before he vomited on the floor.
Paul found himself instantly wishing for city cops. As a former federal prosecutor, he had a built-in bias against the city cops, too, but anything was preferable, in his mind, to a suburban cop. But jurisdiction was jurisdiction. He wasn’t working with the FBI anymore.
Riley took the gas mask from the spent officer, who was wiping at his mouth. He told the officer to clean up the mess and get some fresh air. He then took a deep breath and opened the access door.
It was a wide staircase, the steps filthy with shoe prints. He kept his hands off the wooden railing. He hit the landing and turned for the final set of stairs.
There were only two uniforms down there when Riley reached the basement. One of them was in the elevator, which had been shut down. The initial flurry of fingerprinting and photographing had probably already happened.
It was a wide hallway with several heavy doors propped open, several storage rooms already combed over with no results. Riley moved down the hall to the last room in the hallway, the room that mattered, feeling his pace slow.
He steeled himself before he took one shuffle step into that last doorway.
The room was large, with rows of chain-link lockers and shelving units, all containing chemicals and cleaning supplies. Mops and brooms and an oversized garbage can with sprayers containing purple and blue fluids attached. And on the floor, lined up, posed, arms at their sides, legs together, were six corpses.
How to explain? People always said words can’t describe. That wasn’t true. He just wouldn’t have known where to begin or end. He’d seen pictures of Dachau and Auschwitz, but those were photographs, capturing the horror and desperation in only two dimensions. He tried it as a defense mechanism, tried to think of these six butchered girls as photos on a page, ignoring the upheaval in his stomach and the adrenaline pounding through his body. He fought to keep his breathing even, his mind clinical.
The first victim was blond, seemingly a beautiful young girl, though the yellowish hue to her skin made her look more like a wax statue. The blow to her skull could only vaguely be seen from her angled head, near the scalp. Far more prominent was the wound to her chest, where her heart had once been. Calling it a wound was insufficient. It was like the life had been ripped from her.
Second victim: The wound across her neck was so gaping that you sensed if you lifted her the head would detach. Her skin had paled as well. She looked more like a mannequin than a human being, or maybe that was yet another defense mechanism. Maybe it was easier to think of them as objects, at least while you were looking at them. That was usually how the offender viewed them, too.
The victim next to her was also naked, had been burned over her entire body with acid, down to her feet and hands. Most of the skin had been scalded off her face, leaving the skeleton, her eyes protruding from the bone in a ghoulish stare. She would have to be identified through dental records. Looked like one of her hands might still have the skin, too, for fingerprint identification.