“No longer matters,” I said.
I called Public Information.
A receptionist answered.
“I’m calling from…Personnel. We’re going to need Tim Wright’s address and phone number to process his dismissal.”
I listened while she tapped on a keyboard. A moment later she gave it to me.
Tim Wright lived in Queens.
I had to reach Terri. We had to go there. But Terri was with Denton. And if I was wrong about Tim Wright, her job would be on the line.
I had to find out if Wright was the man in my sketch. I didn’t know for sure. But it was the guy I had seen in the hallway coming out of Public Information. I’d logged his face into my brain. We had exchanged the briefest greeting and he’d smiled. I could see it now, a big smile, all lips, no eye muscles, totally fake.
But I needed proof and had to get it now. While I still had a chance. Once they had my DNA, that was it.
There was no rational way to explain Maria Guerrero or crushed gladiolas or an egg dripped over my neck as the method by which I had completed the sketch. Hell, it sounded crazy to me, how was it going to sound to the cops and the feds?
I called Julio and asked to borrow his car. He asked why, and I said, “Because I need it.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“No. I just need your car.”
“Hey, pana, whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“I will. Later.”
“You want me to come with you-wherever it is that you won’t tell me you’re going?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted my best buddy along with me, but no way. It was bad enough I was going without authorization or back up. I couldn’t get him involved.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.
I hoped I did too.
I thought about the way I had finished the drawing, and how Maria Guerrero had said I would find the man in my own way. I needed to keep going, have faith, and trust my instincts. I had to believe.
“You have to trust me, Julio.”
“I always trust you,” said Julio. “You know that.”
“Then let me have your damn car and stop asking questions.”
Qué pasa, man?” The parking attendant, who knew me, tried to make conversation, but I just nodded. I slid into Julio’s dark blue Mercedes SLK350 Roadster, drove it out of the lot, and pulled to the curb, my hands shaking too badly to drive.
This was crazy, a mistake. I needed backup. A witness. A partner.
There was only one person for the job and I didn’t know if she would do it, or if I could ask. I’d pretty much lived my life without asking anything of anyone and now, when I needed to, I didn’t know how to do it.
A couple, arm in arm, passed in front of my windshield like a framed video, a picture of happiness, smiling faces, actually looking at each other.
Maybe I was afraid of asking because then I’d have to give something and I didn’t know if I had it in me.
The couple disappeared and the glass became a monitor, images flashing across it every time I blinked: Cordero dead, my pencil at the scene, the drawing with my tattoo.
Terri answered her cell on the second ring.
“It’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“Did you get my messages?”
“Yes. But-” I heard her take a breath. “They’ve got DNA from the pencil,” she whispered. “They want to test you.”
I could see it all happening-my DNA matching, the arrest, trial, my mother and grandmother sitting behind me in court.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.” I tried to ignore the nightmare in my head. “I finished the sketch. The portrait of the unsub.”
“How?”
I didn’t know what to say, how to explain it. “I need to show it to you and I need you to…”
“What?”
“I need you to help me.”
A moment passed. I pictured Terri, cell phone to her ear, considering my plea, weighing consequences. “Where are you?”
I gave her the address.
“Stay there.”
I sat in Julio’s car wondering what was going to happen next. Would Terri turn me in? Would I suddenly be surrounded by cop cars? I didn’t know if I trusted her, didn’t know what I meant to her, or what she meant to me. I couldn’t stop the pictures in my head-a by-product of a life spent inventing them-and right now I saw myself being led into a patrol car, cuffs on my wrists.
The sketch pad was on the seat beside me, open to the finished drawing. I touched the edge of the paper to make sure it was real.
Was this man simply a phantom who had been in my head for so long, or was he real? I had to know.
When I looked up I saw Terri’s Crown Victoria slowing to a stop. Her window rolled down just beside mine.
“So what you’d do, Rodriguez, steal a car?” She shook her pretty head and smiled.
It opened up something unexpected in me, a flood of emotion, and I laughed to cover it. “Yeah,” I said. “Get in before the cops get here.” I closed the pad and tried to move the jar of Maria Guerrero’s blue water, but too late.
“What the hell is this?” she asked as she slid in.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” I hardly believed it myself.
Then I showed her the sketch.
“I know him,” she said. “I mean…I’ve seen him. I’m sure of it.”
“His name’s Tim Wright. Works out of Public Info, at the station house.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s it! Where I’ve seen him.”
“He was fired a day or two ago.”
“How the hell did you get this, Rodriguez?”
I wasn’t sure how to begin, but I realized something: My drawing had been confirmed. It was Tim Wright. Terri recognized him. It wasn’t total lunacy. “I just did what you’ve been asking me to do, to draw, and do that transference thing I do, remember?”
Terri’s eyes narrowed. There it was again, the look of skepticism.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, Rodriguez, I just don’t know how the fuck you do it and…it’s a little scary, you know?”
I did know.
“You’ve got to come in,” she said.
“Aren’t you the person who told me I couldn’t, that they had too much that couldn’t be explained away-the tattoo, the drawing, my pencil?”
Terri sighed. “I don’t see an alternative.”
“We go find Wright.”
“No. You come in and I’ll send out an APB on Wright.”
“How? There’s no way they can search his premises. Where’s your probable cause? What are you going to say to the judge-Rodriguez concocted a forensic sketch out of thin air, your honor? Come on, Terri. There’s not a judge in New York who will grant you a search warrant, and you know it.”
Terri sat there a minute. I could see the doubt shifting to worry or maybe even the onset of fear, eyebrows raised and knit together.
“This is my job, Rodriguez. I do this and it turns out it’s not Tim Wright, I’m fucked, you understand what I’m saying? My career, over.”
“I know that.” I touched her hand. “But I need you to believe in me for all the reasons you wanted me on the case to begin with.”
“Stop touching me.” She tugged her hand away. “I can’t think if you’re touching me.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh.
I didn’t say anything. I just sat back and watched her.
Terri looked back at Nate and tried to make sense of what she was seeing and thinking. Was she actually going to do this, take a chance on this guy? Her luck with men had always been bad and she didn’t see why it was suddenly going to change. And this was bigger. Much bigger. Screwing up a relationship was one thing, but screwing up her job-for a guy? No, she didn’t think so.
“Look, Rodriguez, I just-”
“It’s okay,” said Nate. “I knew it was a crazy thing to ask you to do. I understand.”