That’s when I hear your old man, ’cause he asked, ‘How’d you get in?’ Thought he was talkin’ to me. Like he knew.
I froze. Then I realize he ain’t talkin’ to me. He talkin’ to someone else.”
“Who?”
“Don’t know. Like I told the cops. Mighta been this guy
I saw sittin’ in the parking lot when I first got there. He’s the one watchin’ me, but I figure, you know, he’s waitin’ for someone. But whoever this guy was inside, your father didn’t like him none. Least not him bein’ there right then. In his face about it.”
“Arguing?”
“Yeah. Words. What’d the guy think he was doin’ back there.”
“Back where?”
“Just back, like he came back for somethin’. That’s why I’m thinkin’ he’s that guy I saw outside. You know. Already been there.”
“Then what?”
“They got in each other’s face.”
“About what?”
“The other guy’s saying, you do what you plannin’, you gonna lead ’em all right back to him, and he worked too hard to get where he was. Your old man, he says, get over it, he ain’t changin’ his mind.’ And the guy says he ain’t gonna lose it all just ’cause of him. No way.”
“Lose what?”
“Don’t know. So I’m thinking, time to go. I turn around, gonna climb back out, and boom.”
She closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine her father being shot
… It took her a moment to shake it off, force herself to look at him. “You saw him pull the trigger?”
“No, but who coulda done it? Next thing I know, I hear this clinking from behind the bar, like someone pulling bottles out, then I hear splashing, and someone lights a fire.”
“And what did you do?”
“What else? Guy’s gotta gun. I’m thinkin’ he’s shootin’ me next, so I ain’t moving until I’m sure he’s gone. And then I got the hell out, same way I got in.”
She glanced at the twisted scars on his hands. “How did you get burned, then?”
“What was I s’posed to do? I went to see if your old man was dead, but the flames shot up and I knew I had to get out of there.”
She wasn’t sure if she believed him. But she knew one way to find out. She pulled out her cell phone, called Carillo, and told him to bring her briefcase from his car. He brought it to her a few minutes later, and the guard let him in. “You want me to wait here?” he asked.
“No.”
Carillo left without further comment.
She took out her sketch pad, wondering if she even had a chance of success, because there were two things against her. One, she wasn’t even sure he was telling the truth. Two, she’d never elicited a sketch from someone for a crime that had occurred that long ago. Usually it was a matter of hours from when the crime occurred, though she’d done some sketches months, even a couple of years after. But not twenty years… Cognitive recall worked under normal circumstances. Would it work for a case that happened two decades before?
“Do you think you could identify the man you saw?” Sydney asked him.
“Back then, yeah. Now? How am I s’posed to know?”
“Pretend twenty years hasn’t gone by. We have pictures of all these people, how they looked. Could you identify him?”
“I been in this cage every night seein’ his face, knowin’ his ass should be here, not mine. Yeah. I can do it. You got pictures for me to see?”
“No. We’re going to make one.”
He looked dubious. “I already described him.”
“But not to me.” She took out her sketchbook, a pencil, and set them on the table. Then, with a prayer for the truth at last, Sydney said, “What I want you to do is go back about an hour before you broke in. What were you doing?”
“Leaving JJ with Aunt Jazz and driving up to Santa Arleta.”
“What was the weather like?”
“Why you askin’?”
“Humor me.”
“Cold. Windy. And there’s stars out, when I drove over the bridge. I remember the stars, ’cause Aunt Jazz always told me to make a wish. Like they ever come true, you know? So, yeah. I remember the stars.”
She simply nodded. More important to let him talk, remember the little details, even if they were innocuous thoughts, anything to retrieve the tiniest slivers of memories that would help him remember what she needed for the drawing…
He continued to ramble for a bit, then said, “And I park around the corner and wait, figuring your old man gotta be gone by then, you know? He was just ’bout ready to leave when I saw him that first time, maybe that’s who was waitin’ for him in the parking lot. His ride. And I decide to walk up the back, see the windows. And I figure, you know, the place is closed up for the night, so I can just climb in the back. No one’s gonna be back there.”
“Do you remember hearing any noises?”
“Nothing. Quiet. Figure it’s closed. Quiet’s good.”
“So you break in. What was the room like around you?”
“Dark. Lots of cans. Stuff around. And then I hear, ‘What are you doing here?’”
“Okay. You hear that and you…”
“I look out the door.”
“At what point did you see the other guy’s face? The killer?”
“When he tells your father he ain’t gonna lose it all. It’s like he was lookin’right at me. Like he saw me, knew I was there. That’s when I turn to leave. That’s when I’m thinkin’, yeah, he’s that same guy sittin’ in that parking lot when I walk in. Ain’t no customer. He’s waiting for your old man. Waitin’ to kill him. That’s why I think he set me up.”
“I want you to look at that face, that moment when he looked right at you. What was the shape, the outline of the head?”
He drew a circle in the air. And so it began. He described, Sydney drew. If he hesitated, she would bring him back to that moment. The moment she didn’t want to relive, but had to over and over. Look at his face. Tell her what he saw. All to get a sketch, a sketch that may or may not be the face of the man who killed her father.
And as Sydney sketched, she wondered how she would know. How would she know if he was telling the truth? How would she know this was the face of a killer?
She needed to keep her mind open. Needed to not prejudice the drawing with her own beliefs, because she didn’t yet know the truth. And eventually she saw it begin to take shape.
And her heart skipped a beat.
Had she drawn this, or was it his sketch?
Was it something she wanted to believe, or was it the truth?
She had to be sure. And so, on purpose, she lengthened and squared the chin, made it different. She had to know that this was coming from his mind, not hers.
“Yeah,” he said, and her heart sank. Her drawing, she thought. Not his. Why should she be surprised he had lied? This was his last shot at freedom. Tomorrow was his last day on this earth. “Yeah,” he said again, nodding. “That’s the man that killed your father.”
She’d witnessed numbers of false sketches over the years, someone trying to conjure a suspect in their mind to clear themselves, agreeing that the sketch she’d done was “perfect.” Another dead end, she thought, and, to prove her point, asked him, “Is there anything you’d do to make it look more like the man you saw? Any changes?”
She expected none, and sure enough he shook his head, saying, “Nothing. Looks just like him…” She gave a perfunctory smile, started to put the sketchbook away, when he said, “Except the chin ain’t his. Wasn’t square. Like, maybe shorter and more round, like this,” he said, taking his finger and tracing it where he thought it should be.
“You’re sure?”
“Yeah. Didn’t want you to think, you know, that you’re a bad artist, but that ain’t his chin,” he said, and her heart started pounding.
His drawing after all…
She changed the sketch. Showed it to him.
He nodded. “Yeah. That’s him. That’s the man that killed your father.”
Gnoble.
Back before he’d ever grown that trademark goatee.
His wife had just been arrested. And if she knew his secrets, he had to be worried. Desperate. And he lived in the same town as her mother. Her sister.