Brink of Death

by Brandilyn Collins

  After the conversation I felt parched from the fire of Vic’s words. I shuffled into the kitchen for a drink and had just shoved a glass under the refrigerator spigot when the phone rang.

  It was the worst possible timing. My defenses were shot, my nerves jittery, and my body and mind craved sleep. If I’d known who was on the other end of the line, I never would have answered.

  Chapter 19

  He slumped before the computer in his spacious office, mouth ajar. Fiery ants ran up and down his nerve endings as he read the online news story and stared at the composite.

  He could not believe it. How could this have happened?

  What had he done?

  He’d been even stupider than he thought.

  It was a good thing he hadn’t gone back there last night.

  The woman was dead.

  He considered that. Yeah, well. So be it. He had far worse things to worry about.

  He stared at the news story and picture again. Everything was okay, it was okay, he was still In Control. Actually, some of the facts suited him. They’d throw the cops off guard. Way off.

  Or the sheriff’s deputies, that is. According to the newspaper, they were handling the case.

  So handle it, whiny little deputies. Chase after your killer.

  Chase all you want. Examine the evidence you think you have, run all over the county. Just keep busy doing that…and I’ll do what I need to do.

  He stared again at the drawing of the suspect. Such details. And in living color. Fascinating. Utterly fascinating.

  But it wouldn’t matter.

  For once life would hand him a silver lining. He’d have the chance to fix this mess. Make up for what happened. So he’d gotten some things wrong, so what? Everybody made a mistake now and then. Everybody. Even him.

  No worries. Even his anger had passed. He was calm once again. Cool. Focused. He knew what he had to do. Better yet, he had time to do it. Time to let things over there settle a bit.

  Time to wait this out. And plan it right.

  He’d just had himself a trial run, that’s all.

  He glanced at the clock. Soon it would be time to visit his sister. He’d promised her some of her favorite homemade cookies today—his own chocolate chip recipe with the thin fudge glaze.

  Pushing back from the computer, he walked down the long hall and into the kitchen. Plucked a chef’s apron off its hook in the pantry and slipped it on.

  Dough on his white designer shirt would never do.

  Chapter 20

  “Annie Kingston?”

  I did not recognize the voice. “Yes.”

  “This is Adam Bendershil from the Record Searchlight.”

  The local Redding newspaper. That snapped me to attention. I was in no shape to handle a reporter.

  He didn’t skip a beat. “Ms. Kingston, I understand you live across the street from the Willits and were one of the first at the scene of the crime.”

  “Well, I wasn’t—”

  “Tell me, how did the fact that you knew the victim affect your ability to draw the composite?”

  I nearly swallowed my tongue. Afraid I’d drop my glass, I walked to the table to set it down, then stood with the phone pressed to my ear, gazing into the great room, searching for an answer. I should have thought about reporters. I should have been prepared for this.

  How much to tell him? My first reaction was to say, “No comment” and bang down the phone. But that response always sounded suspicious. Neither did I want to be unhelpful to the reporter. During my years as a courtroom artist, reporters had been the link to my livelihood. They were the ones who took photos of my drawings for their newspapers or had their cameramen film them for news shows. I understood their need to “get the story,” and I knew what power the media could wield.

  I also knew they could be a royal pain in the neck.

  “Ms. Kingston?”

  How did the fact that you knew the victim…

  The urge to defend myself swept through me, as if the reporter had suggested that my work wasn’t competent. But fear of the unknown stayed my tongue. I still could not remember where I’d seen the Face. If that composite was accurate, he was out there somewhere, no doubt watching the news. Better that he know as little about me as possible.

  The reporter must not have heard that I’d recognized my own drawing. Chetterling, bless him, had kept tight wraps on that fact. If it were to leak to the press, I would really feel vulnerable.

  “Sorry. Uh, Adam, you said your name was? I will only say that my…friendship with Lisa Willit, the victim, did not hinder me in any way from doing the task that the Redding Sheriff’s Office requested of me. If you’d like more information about that, you’ll have to talk to Detective Chetterling, as I’m not at liberty to discuss my work.”

  How stilted the statement sounded. I envisioned the printed quote, stark black ink on white newsprint, and cringed.

  The reporter tried to extract more from me but I held my ground. I made an excuse that I had to go and hung up the phone, trembling.

  Within half an hour, a woman reporter from KRCR news, the local ABC station, called. She got nothing more than Adam Bendershil had. But I was careful not to sound too brusque. One thing I had learned from being Trent Gerralon’s daughter: hounds though they could be, you never knew when you might need the media.

  And as long as they were running pictures of the Face, whose identity still eluded me, that time was now.

  Chapter 21

  Twelve-thirty a.m.

  I sat alone in the great room, racking my brain for the thousandth time. Everyone else was in bed, including our guests, Ed and Carol Something. Another crucial day had gone, another weary night to pass. But I could not imagine sleeping. Tick-tock, sounded the grandfather clock. It had counted down to this—the final of the seventy-two hours.

  And still I could not remember.

  By late afternoon Wednesday the Sheriff’s Office had received only a few tips about who Lisa’s killer might be—everything from a previous renter at Shasta Station who blamed the folding of his business on his landlord, Dave, to a new parolee on the streets of Redding. A few more had trickled in about the composite. One woman thought that “if you stretched your mind,” it kind of resembled a former neighbor. Another surmised that the features reminded her of a clerk at a twenty-four-hour gas station south of Redding on Interstate 5. None of the leads checked out. Not one.

  I slumped on a couch, eyes closed, forcing my mind over faces, locations, events. But the harder I tried to remember where I’d seen the Face, the more elusive the memory became.

  The clock’s hands moved. Twelve-thirty five. About this moment three days ago, Lisa Willit was murdered.

  This afternoon would be her funeral. I dreaded being surrounded by all those mourners. How difficult the day would be for Dave and Erin. And the heartrending sight would only make me feel more responsible that justice for Lisa was slipping away.

  I stared through the front windows into the darkness.

  Tick-tock. Twelve-forty. Around this time Erin would have awakened on the floor. She would find her mother in the kitchen, call 911. The countdown would start.

  Seventy-two hours ago.

  Our time was up.

  Chapter 22

  The New Life Church sanctuary was packed for Lisa’s funeral.

  The service was unlike anything I’d expected and very different from my father’s. The gathering to memorialize Trent Gerralon had been a dignified, cold event. A pastor hired for the service—one we did not know, since we never attended church—said all the right things and recited words from the Bible. But those biblical promises of a blissful hereafter seemed as untouchable to me as the moon. How could those verses have anything to do with my father? I’d never known him to care one whit for God. In fact, it seemed to me he did everything to spit in God’s face. He was a womanizer, a liar; he was hardhearted and arrogant and power-hungry.

  Now, upon his death, he was to be trans
ported to a heaven where God is worshiped for eternity?

  At Lisa’s funeral people still appeared shocked, and the sight of the flower-laden open casket seemed unbearable. Yet the service proved both grief-stricken lament and victorious send-off. Family members and friend after friend took the podium to speak of Lisa’s faith in Christ. How her life had been a living testament to “her Lord.” The Bible verses read—some of them the very same as at my father’s funeral—did not fall as words spoken into a chasm but seemed to soar like birds on the wind. What amazed me most were the two emotions underlying every story: a deep inner joy despite the pain of the current circumstances…and hope. They permeated the sanctuary as tangibly as droplets of dew in chilled morning air.

  Even my nonchalant and self-absorbed son appeared to notice. Numerous times I glanced at Stephen to see that he soaked in every word, although puzzlement filtered across his face. I understood his ambivalence. I too wanted to believe all I heard. I wanted to dwell in the claims that Christ as God’s Son died to redeem all mankind and that he now lives again, offering each of us a personal relationship with him on this earth and a future with him for eternity.

  “Though we mourn Lisa Willit, as she has passed on from this life,” Pastor Jim Storrel declared, “we can rest assured that she still lives—now a new and joyous life in the very presence of Christ. As John 5:24 says, ‘I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.’”

  At these words from the New Life pastor, I scanned the congregation, taking in the clutched tissues and pinched faces—and the nods of agreement, the whispered amens, the tears that mixed joy and pain. They knew what this man was talking about, knew it deep within their beings.

  My father had always sneered at Christianity. “Religion’s for the weak,” he would say. I never made the conscious decision to agree with him, but his attitude did affect me. Over the years his acidic comments burned their way into my being. I hadn’t become an open cynic like him. Rather I did not think of Christ at all. Perhaps God floated in the ether somewhere, but I couldn’t imagine he cared about what happened on earth. If he did, he’d make it a more comforting place.

  If he did, Lisa Willit would still be alive.

  As Pastor Storrel spoke, I found myself wondering if a path existed between the person I was to the kind of people who now surrounded me. Most likely not. They must have been born from different stock, somehow destined to have this intimate communication with God.

  The service was drawing to an end. Kelly started to cry. I pressed a tissue into her hand and she leaned against my shoulder. Ten rows in front of us Dave and Erin sat stolidly, for the moment out of tears. Pastor Storrel announced he would close in prayer. “Dear Lord Jesus,” he began…

  But I heard no more.

  Two unexpected things occurred in rapid succession.

  First, the surprising effect of those three words, particularly in light of what I’d just been feeling. They knifed me like a poisoned stiletto. My vague desires to know God as those around me knew him seeped away. In their place mounted a cold anger. Wait just a minute. Why should Jesus demand that these people call him “Dear Lord” when he let Lisa Willit be attacked? When he let her die? I should not covet their blind devotion. The more I thought about it, the more it sickened me. All that Dave believed, all that these New Life people believed, couldn’t possibly be right.

  My jaw hardened. I stared at my lap, unwilling to close my eyes, wanting nothing more than to snatch my children out of that sanctuary and run home. I focused on the black fabric of my dress, staring through it until it blurred. Trying to shut my ears and block all other thought. I glared at the weave of that cloth until it seemed to wriggle alive.

  Then the second thing happened.

  My staring at the fabric hurled my thoughts to the total black that Lisa Willit’s killer had worn. And with that prompting, my internal movie projector ground into motion, flashing vivid stills of Lisa’s murder like a horror film under strobe lights.

  Flash—his hands at her throat, her mouth open, eyes bulging

  Flash—her claw-fingers latched onto his

  Flash—ice blue eyes narrowed in hatred and resolve

  Flash—the same blue eyes squinting in sudden daylight.

  The Willits’ hallway has dissolved into a familiar street in Redwood City, one block from the San Mateo county courthouse.

  I stand at my car, portfolio in one hand, keys in the other, surprised by the voice that has caused me to turn…

  I gasped. Kelly slipped her fingers into mine, thinking I had choked back a sob. My eyes squeezed shut and I couldn’t breathe. I sat still, as if the smallest movement might cause the memory to poof away.

  Think, think!

  Three months after my father’s death—that’s when it happened. I’d been in court all day, covering the trial of Walter Best, who’d allegedly robbed half a dozen Bay Area banks.

  I’d walked to my car after court adjourned. My key was in the car door…

  “Hey, you draw some great pictures,” says a male voice behind me.

  I turn, expecting to see a face I recognize. A stranger stands on the sidewalk, hands in his pockets. Squinting into the setting sun. Bright-blue eyes. Blond hair—unusually so, given the man’s apparent age of around fifty. A long face. Saggy jowls. His lips turn down at the corners, hidden in skin folds, so that even as he smiles, he doesn’t look friendly.

  My artist’s eye records all this within a split second. “Thank you.” Normally I would ask how he knows who I am. But something about this man is unnerving. Turning back to the car, I unlock the door, hoping to end the encounter.

  “Sorry, should have introduced myself. The name’s—” He tells me the name but I fail to listen, focused as I am on getting in my car, on leaving. His voice, droning on, pulls me back.

  “… work around here as a courier. Most of the legal eagles have used me to ferry documents back and forth. Your dad used me numerous times, just recently on the Edgar Sybee case.”

  I flinch. Sybee’s case was the last my father handled. “Oh.”

  My lips draw into a weak smile. “Well. Nice to meet you.” I pull open my car door.

  “I was very sorry to hear about your father. He was a great attorney. I miss him.”

  At this I can only nod.

  The man turns as if to continue down the sidewalk. Then swivels back. “Hey, I’m just curious. Even though the trial’s over and everything. There was a file on the Sybee case that Sid Haynes wanted. But it never turned up, as far as I know. Something having to do with a conversation between your father and Sybee.

  Haynes asked me if I’d ever seen it. It occurs to me now that maybe your father had it with him in that other house of his—the one up near Redding. Apparently, that’s where he was when he had the heart attack. You happen to come across that file?”

  I twist to face the man once again. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  He stares at me a second too long. Then shrugs.

  “Not that I’ve cleaned out the office up there.”

  Now why did I bother to say that? If Sid Haynes wants some old files of my father’s, I’ll make sure he gets them, but that is not this man’s affair. What difference will files of the Sybee case make now, anyway? Edgar Sybee was acquitted, and even fresh evidence will never put him in jail for the crime he committed.

  “When I do—” I turn away, dismissing him—”I’ll see that Mr. Haynes gets everything he should.”

  Before the man can say more, I slide into my sun-warmed car and shut the door. The man raises his pudgy chin at me in a gesture of farewell and moves on down the sidewalk. I pull out of my parking place and drive in the opposite direction…

  I sat frozen in the New Life sanctuary, Kelly pressed against my side, the scene playing and replaying in my head.

  Four days and three nights of begging my mind for the memory�
�and it springs forth like a taunting jack-in-the-box.

  How could I not have remembered this until now?

  My eyes would not open; my brain reeled as it tried to logic through the memory and its implications.

  I had never seen that man again. Nor had I thought of him until this moment. What a terrible, tragic mistake. Perhaps I would have, if my life hadn’t been so embroiled in changes. Jenna and I had been in the midst of selling Dad’s Hillsborough house. My move to Grove Landing was only days away, and I was packing and dealing with resistance from the kids. Especially Stephen, who was sulky and rebellious, sneaking out with his friends at night, getting into trouble at school. If I hadn’t felt so overwhelmed, maybe I would have considered the man’s odd request and his claims. A file courier? Maybe, but it didn’t make sense between two partners in the same law firm.

  That other house of his—the one up near Redding.

  The man’s words faded into Dave’s grief-stricken voice: He was in my office, looking for something. Why?

  The house up near Redding.

  My father’s house, at the end of Barrister Court.

  Across the street from the Willits’.

  An eel slimed its way through my gut. Far, far away Pastor Sorrel droned his prayer to the living God, the protecting God, the one who now sheltered Lisa in heaven. But the words could not reach me. Far away Kelly laid her head on my shoulder. But I had whisked away to some other plane, frozen and desolate—and inescapable.

  That man in Redwood City was Lisa’s killer.

  But he went to the wrong house.

  He’d meant to break into my father’s house. Into my house. Find some file in attorney Trent Gerralon’s office and flee with it into the night.

  The knowledge stuck to me like burning oil.

  This funeral, the droning prayer, was not supposed to exist. Lisa was the victim of a mistake, a wrong turn under the veil of night. She should not be dead. I should. My body lying in that casket, my hands folded across my chest. My son and daughter, motherless.