“Quinn has been wonderful through all this,” Emma said.
“Black Chevy,” Helen said, “parked near the corner.”
Everyone filed into the elevator, including Charlie Vinson. Excluding Helen. Vinson used his aluminum walker to help create standing room.
Helen stayed back.
“Are you taking the stairs?” Emma asked in disbelief.
“I’d prefer it,” Helen said. “That athlete thing. Builds endurance in the legs.”
Charlie Vinson, leaning on his walker, smiled at her. “We’ve got to learn to face our fears, Helen.”
Helen said, “Why?”
26
After the brief drive to Q&A it didn’t take Richard Warfield, the sketch artist, long to get set up. Quinn sat back and watched.
Warfield borrowed a small card table and two chairs. He placed the chairs so two people sitting in them would be directly across from each other. Then he removed two small laptop computers from his leather attaché case. He placed the two computers in the center of the table, their screens facing away from each other.
The two people in the chairs would be facing each other. Warfield and Charlie Vinson would be looking at identical screens.
“So this is what sketch artists have come to,” Vinson said, understanding how this process was going to work. Warfield could not only get information from Vinson about what the perpetrator looked like; he could also watch Vinson on PIP react as the likeness on the screen before him took shape and went from pixel to person.
“This and a stylus are much more effective than a sketch pad and pencil, or a lot of false mustaches,” Helen said.
“It takes the same sort of talent and expertise,” Warfield said.
Helen could see that it would. She’d observed Warfield work several times and been impressed.
“I’ll use the stylus directly on my screen,” Warfield said. “And I’ll use it much as I’d use charcoal or pencil on a sketch pad.” He peered around his up tilted laptop screen. “I might ask you to do some basic drawing to get across what you’re trying to describe.”
“I can’t draw anything but water,” Vinson said.
“That’s okay. The process will concern your memory rather than any artistic talent. And mostly, I’ll be responding to your descriptions. I’ll fill in when I think you’ve been too light, but other than that, it’s your show. Then we’ll discuss what we have and hone and sharpen the likenesses.” He glanced around. “Is everybody comfortable?”
Everyone said that they were. No one switched chairs or positions. The only change was that two people asked for bottled water, which was supplied.
Warfield booted up and adjusted both computers. Their monitors showed blank backgrounds.
Warfield picked up his stylus and held it lightly, as he would a piece of chalk, or a flute he was about to play.
“Remember,” he said to Vinson, “what will be happening on my screen will be happening on yours. Much of what I say will be determined by the software. Don’t use your stylus unless I tell you.” He touched stylus to screen. “Ready?”
Vinson said that he was.
Warfield said, “We’ll begin with a perfect oval.”
Vinson watched a black line appear on his TV screen.
“Now I’m going to make it more egg-shaped.”
Before Warfield, the oval on the monitor became slightly smaller at the bottom. More like a real egg. But a perfect egg.
“That about right?” Warfield asked.
Vinson, knowing the figure was to be the basic shape of the killer’s head, said, “Maybe a little smaller at the base.”
“Okay. Pointed chin?”
“Yes!” Vinson said. “Now that you mention it. Definitely pointed. One of his ears was pointed, too.”
“One of his ears?” Quinn asked.
“Yeah. The right one, I think. It looked like he’d done some boxing. Or he mighta been injured or something when he was a kid. Like some bigger kid had him in a headlock and messed up the ear. Broke the cartilage.
“What about his left ear?”
“Nothing. I don’t recall exactly, though. He did have hair long on the sides, so maybe it was covered.”
“Show us.”
Vinson did some crude sketching, then Warfield neatened it up.
“Somebody said he was wearing a baseball cap.” Quinn said.
“Might have been, but I don’t recall it. He was just some little guy in a hurry to get downstairs, trying to get on the elevator.”
Warfield played with the keyboard, mouse, and stylus. The shape on Vinson’s monitor changed slightly. Then he gave the subject longer hair on the sides, and a pointed cauliflower ear, and it underwent a definite alteration.
“That it?” Warfield asked Vinson.
“We’re getting there. The hair on the sides was still a little longer, like wings.”
The digital image on Warfield’s computer changed again. The face on the monitor was looking more familiar. Still, there should be a definite click of recognition. That hadn’t happened yet.
Vinson was getting a better idea of how this was going to work. It was going to be a grueling job. Already his back was getting sore from sitting leaning forward in concentration.
“I do feel like there are things swimming just beyond my thoughts, but I can’t get to them,” Vinson said, looking at Quinn.
“That’s okay. Memory’s like that.”
“What about his nose?” Warfield asked Vinson.
“Long and pointed.” No hesitation there.
“Like Pinocchio’s?”
“Good Lord, no. The guy wasn’t a freak.”
Quinn thought, Not on the outside.
Warfield sketched in a smaller nose. “That it?”
“Not quite. There was a little hump in his nose. Know what I mean?”
Warfield brandished his stylus. “Like so?”
“No. Not quite that big.”
Warfield made minor adjustments.
“No, no, no, better, better, too much—that’s it! Now, can you make the eyes closer together?”
“Sure.” Warfield accommodated. He seemed to be having fun now.
“Perfecto!” Vinson said.
“Eye color?” Quinn asked.
Vinson shook his head. “Sorry, Lieutenant.”
“It’s Captain.”
“Sure.”
Quinn smiled. Civilian, actually.
“Did he have any facial hair?” Warfield asked.
“Like a mustache or beard?” Vinson asked.
“Or anything else,” Quinn said.
“Not as I can recall, Cap’n.”
Cap’n.
Was Vinson messing with him? Quinn stared at the man, detecting no irony. So Vinson wasn’t another Harold.
“Tattoos, warts, scars, anything noticeable?” Warfield asked Vinson.
“He had a chin with a line in it.”
“Vertical?”
“Up and down.”
“Cleft chin?” Helen asked.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“What was he wearing?” Quinn asked.
“Like I said a couple dozen times, he mighta had on some sort of work outfit. Green, gray, blue. One of those colors that changes a little according to what color room they’re in.”
“What color are the forty-third-floor walls and carpet?”
“By the elevators?”
“Yes.”
“Tell you the truth, I’d be guessing,” Vinson said.
That, Quinn thought, probably was the truth.
Warfield did a little touching up. Then he stood and finished with a flourish. Quinn thought he might kick his chair away like a rock star to share and express his enthusiasm, but he merely stepped back.
“Not a spittin’ image,” Vinson said, “but I don’t think anybody could do it better. It captures the essence.”
“You an art critic?” Harold asked seriously.
Quinn knew it was one of those seemingly unrelated questions that Harold sometimes asked, and sometimes led somewhere the other detectives hadn’t known existed. Harold’s World.
“In my spare time,” Vinson said.