Eye of the Beholder Read Online Free

whatever information they could before questioning the suspect. That, and he wanted Burgos hungry for lunch. Riley had hoped for more time, but there was no way anyone was letting go of Burgos, and there was only so long you could hold someone and keep lawyers away. Everyone, soon enough, was going to know about Terry Burgos, and it wouldn’t take long for an attorney of some kind or another to be knocking on the door.
    Various cops and prosecutors came in and out of the observation room, peering in on the suspect with morbid curiosity. There was a palpable intensity in the police station because they knew they had their man, and it was the biggest thing this town had ever seen.
    Burgos did not have a clean sheet. Two years earlier, he’d been arrested on suspicion of battery of a young woman, but it ended in a nolle prosequi, meaning the charges were dropped. Paul assumed the woman had failed to show for the hearing. Last year, he had been charged with sexual assault, but the case had been pleaded down to a misdemeanor battery, and he hadn’t done any time.
    Elisha Danzinger had gone to the police to swear out a complaint against Terry Burgos in November of the previous year, 1988. She had alleged that Burgos, at the time a part-time handyman at Mansbury, had been following her around the campus, making threatening comments and generally making her feel uncomfortable. The police had brought Burgos in but hadn’t charged him. There was nothing on which they could charge him. Paul knew, from the Mansbury staff, that this past January Ellie had gotten an order of protection against Burgos, a civil action not contained in the police file, which had prohibited Burgos from coming within five hundred feet of her.
    Burgos was age thirty-six, lived alone, and had worked two jobs. The first was a part-timer for Mansbury until he was fired this February, primarily landscaping but occasional cleaning assignments as well. For his second job, which he still held, he worked in an off-campus printing company owned by Mansbury College professor Frankfort Albany.
    Terry Burgos, by all accounts, was moderately intelligent, if undereducated, and introverted; didn’t get an A plus for hygiene; didn’t complain much; and seemed generally indifferent to life. The unconfirmed word was he’d had a difficult childhood growing up in Marion Park, spousal abuse charges between his parents, and very poor school performance, ending short of a high school diploma.
    Joel Lightner was standing next to Paul, watching through the one-way as Burgos jammed to his music. Lightner was bouncing on his toes, like a pitcher in the bull pen who was about to get the tap on the arm from the coach. “When do we start?” he asked.
    “Do we have the photos?” Riley asked.
    He nodded, handed Riley a file.
    There was no reason to wait much longer. Unless Burgos’s nerves had completely overtaken him, which Riley doubted from looking at him, Burgos was probably hungry. Things like withholding food were bases for a defense attorney to argue coercion.
    Riley sighed and stretched his arms. “You up for this, Detective?”
    Lightner nodded efficiently. “Marion Park’s not Mayberry, Paul. I’m no virgin.”
    That was true enough. Marion Park, a nearby suburb, didn’t have the city’s crime, but at least one prominent gang, the Columbus Street Cannibals, had begun to have a presence down there.
    “Doesn’t mean I’m not open to suggestions.”
    “Okay” Paul looked through the one-way mirror again. “Hands off, first of all.”
    “Only way I do it.”
    “Let’s make it a courtesy, for starters. Don’t let him leave, obviously, but tell him he can. See if he tries.”
    “We’ll do lunch,” he suggested. Riley’s thought exactly. A conversation over lunch was more casual. So they were on the same page. It was standard practice for detectives to interrogate suspects, not ACAs. Paul could overrule that and take it himself, but then he’d be a witness