That made such sense. “Then what did I hear?”
My sister shook her head. “I’m not sure. But you know how sometimes the mechanism of the grandfather clock sort of clunks? Maybe that was it.”
“Oh, great, Mom.” Stephen wagged his head at me. “You brought four sheriff’s deputies here in the middle of the night because of a clock noise?”
“Nobody asked you, Stephen.” Jenna’s black look could have killed.
My son flicked his eyes, lips tightening. Dave looked from him to me, understanding of my motherhood challenges creasing his features.
How would Stephen feel if he lost me like Erin lost her mother? Would he even care?
By the time the deputies returned, my legs shook from standing, although we couldn’t have waited more than fifteen minutes. The house was clear.
The deputies milled about, reassuring me when I said the blame was all mine. My conscience wouldn’t allow them to include Jenna in their judgment. Too little sleep and too active an imagination, I admitted, adding that next time I’d believe the alarm—if it was activated, we were safe. Deputy Franz, the tall, wiry one, reiterated Dave’s words. After what happened, he said with an empathetic nod to Dave, we could not afford to take chances. And the Sheriff’s Office wouldn’t want us to.
I tried to tell myself Chetterling would not hear of this incident, but knew that was a fool’s dream. First my locked-up memory of the Face, now this. He would think me a total idiot.
By the time I crawled back into bed with Kelly, it was nearly three o’clock. Jenna had retrieved the gun from the kitchen drawer and hid it in her nightstand. The mere thought of that killing machine in my house made me shiver.
I could not sleep. My nerves still tingled, and the Where did I see him? mantra resumed its chant in my head. Dread grew within me—the sense that this murder investigation was far from over, and that it would suck me further in like a leaf caught in a whirlpool. I tried to tell myself the coming day held promise. Someone, perhaps many, would recognize my drawing.
Please let it be so, I prayed to no one as my limbs weighted and my thoughts turned to sludge. Please…please…
The trapdoor of sleep opened and I tumbled inside.
Chapter 18
I awoke Tuesday morning to memories of the night. They ghosted me like images from a black-and-white horror film.
I may have been wrong about what I’d heard, but that didn’t lessen the terror I’d felt. Another night in the house, the neighborhood, loomed unfathomable. If I hadn’t promised to take in a couple of Dave’s relatives, and if I didn’t feel I should stay close to Erin, I’d be making plans to pack up the kids and have us all fly out with Jenna.
Tick-tock, tick-tock. Time was slipping away. It was already past nine. I needed another six hours of sleep. Better yet, I’d have liked to crawl under the covers and hide out for the next week. But the clock was ticking, and I would enjoy no more rest now. Some thirty-two hours had passed since Lisa’s murder. Almost half of the crucial seventy-two. With each hour the trail grew colder, as surely as the scent of hounds’ prey scatters to the wind.
But this morning maybe we’d get a break. The composite should be in the newspaper.
Please, God of Dave Willit, if you’re there—let it lead the detectives to a suspect today.
Pulling myself from bed, I headed down to the kitchen.
Jenna had already brought the newspaper to the breakfast table.
“Look. It’s on the front page.Your first piece of forensic art.”
And my last. I wondered at her odd remark as my eyes fell to the composite. The Face stared mockingly at me, sending a jolt through my body. Shuddering, I folded the paper and pushed it away. Someone had to recognize this face today. This morning. Now. The sooner it happened, the sooner detectives could move in and arrest the man.
“You still don’t remember, do you?” Jenna was reading my mind again. She had a knack for doing that.
I shook my head.
“It’ll come.” She crossed to the coffeemaker. “Out of nowhere, something will trigger it. Or maybe nothing at all.
But it’ll come.” She poured the coffee into mugs, set one before me, and joined me at the table. “Maybe when someone else identifies him, you’ll remember.”
“Maybe.”
I had to hand it to my sister. After the fear I put her through last night—put the whole family through—she’d chosen to reassure me.
“Annie.” Jenna leaned over the table and touched my arm.
“I’m really proud of what you did. That drawing is amazing.
For once I think Stephen’s right—maybe you should look into doing forensic art.”
I frowned at her. “Hey, enough trying to run my life, okay?
Not one day ago you twisted my arm to do this drawing. As if that weren’t enough, now you want me to make it a career?
Why on earth would I want to put myself in the middle of…
of…death all the time?”
“Not all crimes involve murder, Annie. Besides, even for those that do, you wouldn’t exactly be in the middle of death.
More like…on the brink.”
“Oh, well, that’s comforting.”
“All right, all right.” She busied herself pouring cream into her coffee. “But eventually you’re going to have to find something to do around here. I mean, after you clean out the office and plant flowers and whatever else you’ve got tucked away in your brain. Making this house yours—”
“Ours.”
“Okay, fine. Making it ours won’t take forever. The summer’s going to end, the kids’ll go back to school—and what are you going to do out here? You can’t even fly the plane, for heaven’s sake.”
“It’s your plane now, and when you’re not here, it’s with you in the Bay Area, remember? Besides, I have no desire to learn how to fly.”
She gave me a look. “You’re trying to change the subject.”
“I am not! You brought up flying.”
Leaning back in her chair, she smacked her tongue against her teeth. Summoning her patience. Her eyes met mine and held, heralding the pronouncement of some profound thought. “Last night, after you and Kelly went to bed? I couldn’t sleep, so I did something for you.”
For me. Coming from Jenna, those were threatening words. “Oh, really.”
Jenna ignored my tone. The way she could do that just infuriated me sometimes. “I got on the computer in the office and looked up forensic art—”
“Jenna, come on.”
“Wait now, just hear me out. I found this interesting book—like a textbook of all the different kinds of forensic art, everything from drawing a composite to making a sculpture of a face from skull bones.”
“Oh, yay. Sounds so appetizing.”
“It’s written by a woman who’s an expert in the field. So I ordered it for you, express delivery.”
Air puffed from my mouth. “What did you do that for?”
“Now don’t go getting all defensive. I do think it would be an interesting field for you, but that’s not why I bought the book. There’s a chapter in there about interviewing a witness in order to draw a composite. All the things you should and shouldn’t do. After your success yesterday, I thought it would be interesting for you to read, to make you more confident about the drawing. Apparently, you did everything right.”
The mere idea of reading the book raised my hackles. I hadn’t known what I was doing yesterday at all. I’d stumbled and bumbled around, and it was only pure luck that I’d drawn a face Erin recognized. The last thing I needed was to have an expert point out everything I did wrong.
No way was I going to crack that book.
Jenna sipped her coffee. “Okay, don’t thank me. But you should. That book cost me almost a hundred dollars.”
“A hundred dollars!”
She shrugged. “We’re rich now, remember?”
That we were. It wasn’t a concept I’d quite gotten used to.
&
nbsp; “So quit your job and come here and live with us.”
“Annie.” Jenna’s tone turned impatient. “My life is in the Bay Area. I like all the people, the excitement. I like my job.
I like going on dates to fine restaurants.”
“Your job is winding down. You could get laid off anytime and you know it. You’re without a boyfriend and nobody seems interesting. The traffic is terrible. Your hangar at the San Carlos airport is five minutes’ drive away and costs over six hundred dollars a month. Here it’s on the other side of that door—” I pointed toward the back of the kitchen—”and it’s free.”
I wagged my head at her. Why shouldn’t I try to run her life for a change? Besides, on this morning, after the last horrible thirty-two hours, it felt downright refreshing to argue about something familiar.
“Well now, aren’t you clever.” Jenna regarded me with her mixture of affection and pique. “Last I remember, we were talking about your life, not mine.”
“Yeah, well, I thought we’d try something different.” With a sigh I rose from the table. “I need to get dressed. We’ll have company sometime today and there’s cleaning to do. I suppose you’ll be leaving soon.”
Jenna had the decency to look apologetic. “In a couple hours.”
Before exiting the kitchen, I plucked the newspaper off the table. Doomed by my curiosity, I would read the article in the privacy of my own bedroom—where my daughter still lay in much-envied sleep.
Tick-tock. The grandfather clock chimed the minutes away.
The mantra played like a stuck record in my head. Where have I seen the Face? I consoled myself that soon my poor memory wouldn’t matter; any moment now newspaper readers would be calling tips into the Sheriff’s Office.
I dusted the empty guest bedroom and laid out fresh towels. The bathroom needed cleaning after my sloppy son had used it. “Stephen,” I warned him, “you’re sharing this bathroom for the next couple nights. Don’t dump wet towels on the floor.”
Shortly after noon our guests arrived—one of Dave’s cousins and his wife, Ed and Carol…something. They must have told me their last name but I did not retain it. The couple put their things in the guest room, voicing their thanks and extolling the house’s beauty. Then they crossed the street toward the Willits’, informing me they’d be back only in time to sleep.
The clock ticked and the mantra chanted. And I tried not to think of the coming night.
Where have I seen him?
By two that afternoon I was going crazy. Every moment hung with portent. The memory I sought felt no closer, though numerous times I thought I was almost upon it. Like a cricket in daylight, it mocked me with its song, daring me to creep close and find it. Then as my footsteps drew near, it would fall silent, hunching in the shadows of my mind. Only when I retreated once more, occupying myself with chores about the house, would it creak into song again.
Each time I passed a phone, the receiver would tug at my eyes, inviting me to pick it up, call Detective Chetterling, and beg for information. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I knew he was busy with the investigation. And besides, I was afraid to talk to him after the stunt I pulled last night.
Out of desperation I called Gerri Carson’s cell phone, catching her at her church office.
“Annie, I just heard about last night and was about to call you. How are you and the kids doing?”
“Okay, but Gerri, did you hear about the composite?” My mouth launched into words before I could stop it. “I know I’ve seen the guy, but I don’t know where. I just can’t remember. The whole thing’s driving me nuts, and the only way I can keep my sanity is to tell myself somebody else will recognize his face. And then maybe that’ll help me remember.”
I stopped for a breath. “Do you know anything? Have the detectives been getting calls?”
A faint squeak sounded, presumably from Gerri’s office chair. I imagined something ancient and wooden. “I did hear that you recognized your own drawing. I can imagine what a shock that would be. But I’m sorry to say I don’t have any information for you. I don’t keep up minute by minute with investigations. Tell you what, though—I could ask Detective Chetterling to call you.”
My heart sank. “You couldn’t just talk to him for me? Ask him what’s going on?”
“I’m sorry, no. I’m not able to pass on information like that. But what are you thinking? You sound almost afraid to talk to him.”
Well now, couldn’t she see right through me. “Yes, because I have nothing to tell him! I still can’t remember. And I know the pressure on these guys when they’re trying to catch somebody like this. If I were Chetterling, I’d want to beat me to a pulp out of pure frustration.”
She chuckled. “I really don’t think he wants to beat you to a pulp.”
“Okay, half a pulp then.”
“Annie. It’s okay. Let me ask Detective Chetterling to call you. I’m sure he’ll ease your mind.”
I doubted that. But what else could I do but give in?
The clock ticked.
I waited for Chetterling’s call.
Jenna was out in the hangar, doing her preflight check on the plane. The Cessna turbo 210 would get her to the San Carlos airport in less than an hour. I tried not to think about her leaving me alone. Stephen was back at his computer games on the lower floor. Erin came over for a while, seeking solace in Kelly’s company. I held her tightly before sending her upstairs. She clung to me but her eyes were dry.
What to do next? I started some laundry. Wandered into my father’s office and heaved myself into the desk chair, remembering how pristine I’d found the room when I rushed here on the day of his death. Nothing was out of place. Now I stared at the large wooden file cabinet, thinking how well it would hold my things. I’d planned to turn the office into a studio, do some painting, which I hadn’t done for years.
The phone rang. I steeled myself, then picked up the receiver. “Hello?”
“Annie, it’s Detective Chetterling. I hear you had a scare last night.”
“Oh.” I cringed. “Yes. But we’re okay.”
“Good. I know it’s a hard time for the whole neighborhood. So don’t worry about being cautious.”
“Okay. Thank you.”
“Gerri asked me to call you and let you know what’s happening.” He hesitated and I sensed his frustration. “We haven’t gotten any solid leads yet. But I’m sure they’ll come.”
“Not one?”
“Nothing that’s checked out.”
Desperation rose within me. “But all those people seeing the paper this morning. Somebody has to have seen him.”
Somebody had.
Me.
No doubt the detective was thinking the same thing.
“We’ll keep hoping. The next call could be the right lead.
Meanwhile you keep racking your brain, all right? Call me the second you think of something.”
He didn’t need to tell me that. “I will. I’m sorry I haven’t been any help yet.”
“I’d hardly say that. Without you we wouldn’t even have a composite.”
I hung up the phone and checked the clock on the office wall. Two forty-five. The seventy-two hours were more than half over.
Why hadn’t anyone else seen the Face? Why only me?
Maybe Erin’s recognition was wrong after all. Maybe her fear got the best of her.
I gazed at my father’s bookshelves, trying to imagine what the next few days, weeks, would be like for my family if nothing came of the investigation. My concern for the kids was greatest. Hard to admit but Stephen was proving right. What was the sense of keeping him and Kelly here when danger seemed all around us?
Oh, great. I’d forgotten to call Vic.
Sighing, I aimed an accusing look at the phone, as if the whole situation were its fault. I hated calling Vic. I hated his phone numbers; I hated the sound of the lines ringing. I hated his voice. Our conversations were never just about what they were about. Talking to hi
m was like crossing a rickety swinging bridge above roiling waters.
Vic would be at work, of course. His amazing opportunity job that whisked him states away from his children with nary a backward glance. Well, why not? He had Sheryl to make the journey with him.
I picked up the phone and dialed his direct number. He answered on the third ring, sounding pushed for time. Vic always sounded pushed for time.
Might as well jump right in. “Look, Vic, we have a problem, and I’d like to send the kids to you early.”
“Annie, what is it?” In the background I heard shuffling papers. “We’ve already decided on the middle of August, because that’s when Sheryl and I have vacation time. You know I can’t take them now.”
Vic’s typical lackadaisical attitude toward his children.
Seemed to me, parenthood required a certain amount of flexibility.
“Our neighbor across the street was murdered Sunday night. In her home. The mother of Kelly’s best friend here.
The neighborhood isn’t safe. Sheriff’s deputies were here at three o’clock this morning, checking on suspicious noises in the house. The detectives have no idea who committed the murder and probably won’t find the guy anytime soon. No doubt my well-being doesn’t concern you in the least. However, it occurred to me that you, as our children’s father, might think that Kelly and Stephen would be safer with you.
Vacation time or not.”
For the first time in my life I succeeded in making Vic stumble for words.
Then he proceeded to grill me like some marine sergeant.
Didn’t our house have a burglar alarm? Well, wasn’t it on last night? Did the deputies find anything? By the time he said he’d check with Sheryl, Vic had used my reluctant admissions to paint the situation in a far lighter hue. Yes, a murder on the block was a scary thing. But I’d no doubt let my imagination run away with me the previous night. He hoped I wasn’t scaring the kids unnecessarily.
I wilted into my father’s chair, too worn to defend myself.
Vic insisted he needed until the end of the week to decide what to do. By that time, he commented, the murderer would probably be caught anyway.
Brink of Death Page 10
