That personifying thought whirred the movie projector in my head into motion. In vivid color I envisioned a surreal scene from a horror film…the blue, blue eyes bulging off the page, tugging, pulling with them the rest of the face. Next come the shoulders, torso, waist, legs. In seconds the entire murderous man crouches before us like some half-human beast…
My mouth went dry. I slapped my hand over the killer’s eyes. Erin turned an anxious expression on me, as if we were two plucked strings on the same harp.
“They’re…very blue,” I managed.
She shivered, and in that movement I caught a glimpse of the terror she must have felt when she gazed into the real thing.
We sat for a moment, pulling in air.
When my fingers would not tremble, I covered all but the forehead of the drawing so we could add color to the hair. As for the skin, I experimented on the forehead with a light tone.
Erin said it looked about right.
We were done. With a long exhale, I covered the entire composite and sat back in the chair.
“Okay. I’ll do the rest of the skin later. No need to make you sit here any longer. It’s time to look at the whole drawing.”
She focused on the wall as if she wanted to crawl right through the wood.
“Tell me when you’re ready.”
“I’m…not.” She hid her face and began to cry in silent gulps.
My throat locked up. I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her to my chest. “Poor Erin,” I crooned into her hair.
“I’m sorry. So, so sorry.” Tilting my head toward the heavens, I raged against Dave’s God, who had allowed this to happen.
The evil in this world was too much to bear. Why did this tragedy have to befall the Willits?
Erin cried herself out, leaning against me until her breathing returned to normal.When she pulled away, her cheeks were pallid. She pressed a knuckle into the corner of her eye and rubbed. “I’m ready.” Her lips firmed. “To see the picture now.”
“Okay.”
I reached for the corner of the paper hiding the face of the man who had become our mortal enemy. My heart flopped into an unsteady beat. I hesitated, feeling the miasma of Erin’s dread seeping into my own being. She began to tremble. I wasn’t sure we could do this.
“All right. Here goes. And just remember, I’ll add the final color later if you say this is right.”
Holding my breath, I slid the paper away. Our gazes fell to the drawing at the same time.
The face stared back at us.
The face and those bright-blue eyes.
My stomach wrenched into a knot. Those features—Erin choked into sobs. She pushed back from the desk and swayed to her feet, her cries tumbling through the room.
“That’s…He…” The words pinched off. Sickness mottled her face and she wrenched away, then back. Her hands flung out as if to snatch up the drawing and tear it into a dozen pieces.
“No, Erin!” I shoved out of my chair and grabbed her arms. She fought me, her sudden energy a living, writhing thing. “Erin, it’s okay, it’s okay.” Meaningless words spilled from my mouth as I thrust my arms around her and held on.
“I want my daddy!” Her ragged sobs were muffled against my chest.
“Sure, honey, yes. Let’s get you home.” I pressed her head against myself, away from the hateful picture, and nudged her around the desk. What have I done, what have I done? Despite Erin’s reaction, I didn’t see how the sketch could be right.
We staggered across the room. I fumbled for the doorknob and led her out of the office, into the hall and the great room. Erin’s cries filled the twenty-six-foot-ceilinged expanse, bringing a white-faced Jenna and Kelly out of the TV area. Stephen’s footsteps pounded up the stairs from the lower level. I caught a glimpse of his brooding face as we headed for the exit.
Erin broke away from me. She yanked open the front door and stumbled toward her violated home. I drew to a halt on the porch and watched, barely breathing, as she sprinted across the street and up her steps, then disappeared into her house.
What have I done, what have I done!
“What happened?” Kelly’s voice pulled me back inside. I closed the door and leaned against it.
“Annie?” Jenna took a few steps toward me. “Are you okay?”
No, I wanted to shout, I’m not okay, I’m not okay at all!
But I could only shake my head. Shake it and shake it. Then my feet set in motion, carrying me across the great room, footfalls echoing. I passed Stephen, who ogled me with the ambivalence of teenage cynicism mixed with fright. A detached part of me noted the expression, realized that his blithe attitude toward all this was only half real.
But I could not think about my son now. As a moth to flame, I returned to the office and stared at the picture my hands had wrought. At the unique set of features that had prompted Erin’s fearful outburst.
I could not deny what I knew.
This was a face I’d seen before.
Chapter 11
“Mom, what is going on?” Stephen frowned at me from the office doorway as if I were some strange zoo animal. Kelly appeared behind him, forehead lined.
Jenna was not far behind. “Go on, you two.” She tugged at Stephen’s shoulder.
Kelly protested. “But I want—”
“Go. We can talk about this later. Just give your mom a minute.”
A minute. How about more like a lifetime?
The kids reluctantly moved aside. Jenna slipped into the office and closed the door. I stood behind the desk, half seeing my sister across the room, one of my hands suspended above the sketch as if it could burn me.
“I, uh, take it the drawing worked.”
I nodded.
“Wow, Annie, I knew you could do it!”
Her glad expression faded, and she turned her head to look at me from the corner of her eye—the gesture she used in her rare moments of anxiety. “So…what’s wrong?”
The drawing’s hard blue eyes bored into me. With a shiver I flipped the sketchpad over. “I know the face. I’ve seen it somewhere before.”
It. Impersonal. I couldn’t say him.
“You’re kidding. You mean you know who he is?”
My head shook back and forth, back and forth.
“Then what?” Jenna drew closer, pulled by curiosity.
“I’ve seen the face. But I don’t know where.”
The implication of my words played across her expression. “Around here, do you think? Somebody in town? Behind a cash register somewhere, or at the gas station?”
“I don’t know!” I exhaled my frustration. “You know what it’s like when you just know a fact, like someone’s name, but it won’t come? It’s stuck in your brain somewhere. And you think, If only I could see or hear it, I’d know it. But without that…” I lifted my hands.
Jenna lay a palm against her face. “You’ve got to tell Detective Chetterling. You’ve got to get him this picture right away.”
“I know, I know.” I flopped into the office chair. “But I think it’s all wrong. While I was drawing, other faces kept coming to my mind. All the faces I’ve drawn in courtrooms in the past. I realized I had to look at one feature at a time, because I was afraid I’d end up drawing a face I already knew.
And now I do know it. So maybe this face isn’t right, don’t you see? Maybe it’s somebody I drew long ago. Maybe even a face I had to practice way back in college.”
“But Erin obviously knew it. It scared her to death!”
“Yes, but…You weren’t here, Jenna.” I gestured at the sketchpad. “I can’t explain the tension we felt as that drawing came into shape. I covered up all but the part we worked on at the moment. And then when we realized we had to look at the whole thing, it was just…terrifying. My heart was beating a mile a minute. I’m sure Erin’s was, too.” I took a deep breath. “So maybe she was just…poised to recognize it.”
Jenna nodded. “Maybe. But seeing her reaction, I doubt it.”
I sagged in the chair, unable to think. Jenna approached the desk. “Can I see it?”
“Go ahead.”
Faint hope rose as I watched Jenna pick up the sketchpad and study the drawing. Her eyes roamed across every feature. Then she lowered it to the desk, turning it over for my sake. She shook her head. “Never seen him before.”
The hope crumbled away.
She came around the desk and tugged at my hair. “Hey.
Miss I-can’t-do-anything-right. It doesn’t matter if I’ve seen this guy or not. What matters is, you did it. This drawing will help find the man.”
I could not manage even the weakest of smiles. Of course, I was glad I’d helped—if that was true. But if the face was right, I was caught in yet another trap. I knew the face…and couldn’t identify it. I had to remember.
“Annie. I know what you’re thinking.” Jenna folded her arms. “But the whole investigation won’t be waiting on just your memory. If you’ve seen this man before, others have, too.
Which means when they put up the posters, calls will start coming in.”
I hoped she was right. But some prescient voice warned me that I’d been taken off the hook—and moved to the noose.
Chapter 12
Detective Chetterling’s large frame filled my father’s office chair. He rested an elbow on the desk, rubbing his lips as he perused the drawing. The sketch was now in full color. I hung back, holding my elbows, feeling like a schoolgirl awaiting a teacher’s pronouncement. At least we were on my turf. Well, my father’s turf. Whenever I got the chance to get in here and clean out his things, I intended to make it my own.
“Those eyes are something, aren’t they?” Chetterling grunted, then leaned back with a sigh. “Good work.” For the first time he gave me a modicum of a smile. “You’ve got a knack, no question. This drawing is far more detailed than what we’re used to. I can’t thank you enough. You managed to pull information out of Erin that we couldn’t.”
“Thanks. Do you recognize it?” It. Still not him. To endow this face with a body, with legs that could stalk and hands that could kill, remained unthinkable. The eyes alone were enough to haunt me.
“No. But I don’t count. The question is, who does?”
He’d unknowingly tossed me my cue, like some mystical ball awaiting my catch. I fiddled with the sleeve of my T-shirt.
“Actually, I’ve…seen it before.”
Chetterling’s gaze cut to me. “You know this guy?” There was anticipation in his voice. Here it came—that noose around my neck. I gathered the courage to kick the chair out from under me.
“I don’t really know him. I just recognize him from somewhere. But I can’t for the life of me remember where.”
The detective’s keen stare did not betray his thoughts.
“Think you’ve seen him around here? Or in town?”
I shook my head. “I just don’t know. I’m sorry. It’s been driving me crazy, but I just can’t…”
“Must have been quite a shock to you.”
“It was.”
His eyes wandered over the bookshelves, the wooden file cabinet. “First time I’ve ever had a forensic artist recognize a sketch. But your inability to remember where you’ve seen the man isn’t unusual. We’ve had lots of calls where the person says, ‘I saw the drawing and knew the face, but it took me a while to remember where.’” He looked at me. “It’ll come to you. Of course, I don’t need to tell you how important that information is.”
The comment swung in the air. “I know.”
I could not bring myself to tell the detective that the drawing may not even be accurate. Dave Willit had called Chetterling and told him Erin said it was right; that was good enough for the detective. But in his experience, Chetterling must have seen the interview process go haywire. It still seemed very possible that Erin, in her traumatized state, had recognized the drawing in error.
Chetterling pulled the composite from the sketchpad and slipped it into an oversize folder. “We’ll get this up around town right away. And to the paper.” He checked his watch.
“I’ll need to hurry to make tomorrow’s edition. I warned them it may be coming. Meanwhile we’ll start checking it against our own mug shots tonight. I’ll take it over to Dave Willit first, though, since some tie to his business seems most likely. It’d be great if he recognized it.”
He headed toward the office door in his purposeful, heavy tread. I followed, wishing to know if he’d discovered anything else yet, some piece of evidence that could share the investigative burden now resting so heavily upon the drawing.
“Could I ask you what you found at the autopsy?”
The detective turned back, clutching the folder as if it were gold. “She died from a blow to her left temple. She’d been choked but that didn’t kill her. The findings fit Erin’s story—when she said her mom was thrown aside, into the kitchen.
Lisa apparently hit her head on the corner of the counter.”
Choked…hit her head. I pressed my teeth together, knowing my mental projector would click on. I saw the face in my sketch
drawing his mouth in a rictus of hatred, blue eyes glazed.
His hands squeeze Lisa’s throat. Gurgling noises erupt from her lips, her eyes widening in disbelief and panic. She fights for her life, clawing at those hands, her skin purpling. The man throws her aside. Her temple crashes into the counter, the sickening sound like meat and bone slapped against a cutting block. She bounces off, crumples into a heap. The Face leans in, narrowing its eyes at Lisa’s still body, calculating the next move. Erin freezes before him, then faints, thinking her life is over. The Face watches her hit the floor, its murderous mind deciding whether or not to kill her…
My breath stilled. In that instant glimpses of the heinous scene—Lisa’s body, Erin, the Face—collided like red-hot pieces of iron to brand its image into my brain. Deep within my being I felt the composite was right.
Which meant I had to remember where I’d seen that man.
“Annie?” From a distance I heard the detective’s voice.
“You think of something?”
I worked to pull my mind back to the present. “I’m sorry, I was just…No. I didn’t remember anything.”
A minute later I stood on the porch, watching Chetterling mount the Willits’ steps, folder in hand. Some prophetic knowledge told me that Dave would not recognize the drawing. It seemed an eternity before the detective reappeared. I ventured down the front walk as he made a beeline toward his car. He knew what I waited for.
He shook his head. “No go.” Disappointment coated his voice.
I nodded, my eyes drawn to the folder. “You’ll get calls tomorrow, once it’s in the paper.” I hoped I sounded more certain than I felt.
“Yeah, no doubt.” Chetterling opened his car door, then considered me over the roof. “You remember anything yet?”
The inevitable question. The words hit my chest like bricks. “No. I’ll keep trying.”
“You do that. You think of anything, call me right away.”
He drove off and I stepped back into the house. Tick-tock.
The seventy-two crucial hours were counting down.
Who was the Face? What cobwebbed corner of my memory must I search to find the answer?
And most important, how long would it take?
Chapter 13
Oh no. We still had casseroles that belonged to the Willits.
Four of them stared me in the face when I opened the refrigerator door to start preparing dinner. Dave would need those to feed his gathering family. Reluctantly I put my cooking on hold. I did not want to look Dave in the eye. Did he know I recognized the Face but hadn’t a clue as to where I’d seen it?
He’d probably want to shake the memory right out of me.
Sighing, I took the casseroles out of the refrigerator and slid them into two doubled plastic grocery bags.
Two minutes later I stood at Dave’s front door.
“Oh
, here, let me help.” He took one of the bags from my hand.
I followed him into the kitchen and set my bag on the counter next to his. Dave stood with one hand halfway into the pocket of his khaki slacks. His face looked chiseled, strained. He was so different in coloring than his fair wife and daughter. His skin was tanned, a faint outline from sunglasses running across each temple.
“Do you need help putting these away, Dave?”
“Don’t worry, Sara will do it.” He took a deep breath.
“I was just about to call you. Chetterling said you recognized…him.”
Him. Embodying the Face when I could not. I felt so small standing before this grieving man. “Yes. But I can’t remember where. Believe me, I’ve been thinking of hardly anything else since. I’m sure it’ll come.”
He nodded. “You’ll remember. I’ve been praying.”
I didn’t know how to respond. How could he feel confident that God would care about his prayer? If such a concerned God existed, why hadn’t he protected Lisa in the first place?
My mind flitted like a bird over flooded ground, seeking a place to land. “I talked to Detective Chetterling some. He said they don’t have much to go on.”
Dave’s gaze slid to the floor. “The man wore gloves. I suppose you heard that.”
“Yes.”
“Which means no fingerprints. You’d think in the…
struggle, a hair would come out. Something.” His voice tinged with desperation. “But no. I just keep coming back to one thing, Annie. He was in my office, looking for something.
Why? If he’d wanted to steal jewelry or something, he wouldn’t go there. If he’d come intending to…hurt someone, he wouldn’t go there. I’ve gone over and over it. I don’t think he came to kill anybody. I think if Lisa hadn’t come downstairs at that moment, he’d have found what he wanted and left. She’d still be alive.”
Brink of Death Page 7
