Eye of the Beholder

forehead, only to have the wind blow it right back between her eyes. “I found out long after. Months after. I don’t think you really understand,” she adds, noting my reaction. “My mother was dead. I never had a father. I’m sure my aunt Natalia was trying to reach me, but she didn’t know where I was. I didn’t answer to anyone. It’s not like there were cell phones, Mr. Riley. And I didn’t exactly leave a forwarding address.”

I try to see it from her perspective. Maybe my initial thoughts on her were a little harsh. Her mother had died in a DUI, and Gwendolyn apparently didn’t know who her father was. I suppose all the money in the world wouldn’t make that any easier.

“It sounds very lonely,” Shelly says.

Gwendolyn smiles at her. Then she looks at me. “Ask me your questions, Mr. Riley.”

“Was Cassie a lesbian?”

“Not to my knowledge.” She smiles plaintively. “You go to an all-girls school and everyone thinks everyone’s gay.”

Okay, fair enough. Mansbury had only recently gone coed when the murders happened.

“Do you think you would know?”

She’s amused by that. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Was Cassie seeing anyone back then?”

“Not that I knew of,” she says. “But that’s not saying much. I don’t recall Cassie dating much, period. She was painfully shy on that level. That was the weird thing. She could be very social sometimes-she would go out and party all night-but I don’t think she had ever been with a man.”

I think of the song lyrics, and of the passage from Deuteronomy, talking about stoning a promiscuous woman.

“You think she was a virgin?” I ask.

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“So I take it you don’t know if she was pregnant?”

“Pregnant?” She draws back. “Why would you think that?”

I see no reason not to share what I know with her. Hell, I’ve come all this way. “One of the people who was murdered recently was a reporter. She had asked that question about Cassie.”

She nods slowly yes, then shakes no. “I have no idea,” she says. “I’m not sure I’m the one Cassie would have told, anyway.”

Great. This whole trip is feeling like a waste of time.

“What can you tell me about Brandon Mitchum?” This was the Mansbury freshman who hung out with Cassie and Ellie. Lightner had just reminded me.

Her face lights up. Recognition. “Brandon Mitchum,” she says with reverence. “How is Brandon?”

“You knew him.”

“Yes.” She nods, a quiet smile on her lips. “Yes, I knew Brandon. God.” She reflects on that memory a moment. “He was a nice guy. Oh”-she frowns-“oh, it must have been hard on him. Cassie and Ellie.”

“Tell me about Ellie.”

“Ellie.” She makes a face. “Now, Ellie, she was more like me. A party girl. And she was afraid of him.” She wags her finger. “She was very afraid of him.”

“Afraid of Brandon?”

“No, not Brandon.”

I look at her, stone-faced.

“You mean Terry Burgos,” Shelly says.

“She thought he would do something,” Gwendolyn continues. “She always said a restraining order didn’t mean anything to a psycho.” She nods with conviction. “No, she was very afraid of him.”

A mild breeze brings relief. This whole thing feels so weird. I’m questioning a witness on a boat. Home turf, I suppose, from Gwendolyn’s point of view.

“Did you know Burgos?” I ask.

She frowns and shakes her head. “God, no. But Ellie would talk about him. He really spooked her.”

“What else can you tell me about Brandon?”

“Well-like I said, he was a nice guy.”

“Nice-looking guy, I recall,” I say. “Anything going on between Ellie and him?”

She opens her hand. “I doubt it, but I don’t know. I would spend time with them when I was in the city, Mr. Riley, but I wasn’t in the city much. More likely, I’d be in Europe, or L.A., or- God, anywhere.”

I take a moment, run through my mental list. “Cassie and Ellie socialized with one of their professors. The one whose class Terry Burgos was in. A guy named Professor Albany.”

She nods uncertainly, then angles her head. “A professor, you said?”

“Yes,” I say. “Does it ring a bell?”

She looks off in the distance. “I don’t know-maybe.”

Maybe. Maybe this whole trip was a boondoggle.

“What about drugs, Gwendolyn?” I ask. “Cassie. Or Ellie. Were they into it?”

Her eyes cast down. She nods meekly.

“Cocaine?” I ask. “Pot?”

“Coke.” She frowns. “Oh, probably both. It was college.”

“You ever see them do it? Ever witness them doing drugs?”

She tucks her lips in. “I think I did drugs with them.”

“You think.”

Her eyes fix on me in anger. She doesn’t like the interrogation. “You ever try to block something out, Mr. Riley? You deny the memory for so long, until it’s not there anymore? So it won’t be there anymore? You stow it in some secret place in your brain and lock the door?”

I open my hands in compromise. “Gwendolyn-”

“Yes,” she spits out. “I’m sure I did blow with them.”

“ ‘Them’ being-”

“ ‘Them’ being Cassie and Ellie and-and sometimes Brandon, and sometimes Frank, and sometimes whoever the hell it was who had it at whatever party I was at. Okay?”

She stands up on the deck, the boat being heavy enough to support her without rocking once, and brings a hand to her red face.

“I had a rough childhood,” Shelly says. “I know what you mean. You don’t just turn the page. You close the book and throw it out.”

Gwendolyn takes a moment, then nods. “Exactly.”

“We didn’t want to come up here and bother you,” Shelly adds. “But we feel like we have no other choice. People are being killed.”

“Well-” She raises a hand, like stop, as she looks over the lake. “I am truly sorry about that. I really am. But it has nothing to do with me.” She gets behind the wheel and works some