Brink of Death

by Brandilyn Collins

  The atmosphere of lost dreams and vengeful schemes threatened to choke me as soon as we were seated. We’d been allowed one of the rooms that attorneys use, with a pass-through for documents in the separation glass and a speaker that would allow us to hear the inmate without using phones.

  The tiny room smelled of dust and sweat. One minute of waiting and already I couldn’t wait for this to be over.

  Sybee shuffled into his area on the other side of the glass.

  He looked at me, then Chetterling. Back at me. Vague recognition washed his hazel eyes. With a purposeful sniff he slumped into his chair. Tipped it back and crossed his arms.

  As I’d drawn Edgar Sybee’s face at the trial, I was reminded of a pudgy boy in middle school. His features were as rounded off at the edges as Springer’s were sharp, even though he was only mildly overweight. Sybee’s jawline sort of smudged into his neck, his circular ears lying close to his head. Now, just as at trial, he did his best to display nonchalance, but his darting eyes gave him away. That and the odd tic that jerked his lips to one side.

  “So.” He lifted his shoulders. “What’s up?”

  Detective Chetterling introduced himself and me. Sybee’s eyes bounced back and forth between us.

  “Yeah, they told me who you were.” He looked to me.

  “And I remember you from the trial. You drew pictures.”

  “Yes, I did. But I’m also—”

  “She’s also related to someone important to your case,”

  Chetterling jumped in. “Ms. Kingston is the daughter of Trent Gerralon.”

  That got me the once-over from Sybee. Then his gaze fell for the first time to the notebook in Chetterling’s lap. A veil of distrust draped over his face, as if he sensed this would be a revisitation of the case he’d put behind him—the charge of which he’d been acquitted.

  “Yeah, well, that whole thing’s over and done with, isn’t it.”

  Chetterling refused to be baited. Opening his notebook, he slid out the composite. As he placed it in the pass-through, my eyes were riveted to Sybee’s face. I held my breath. If only Sybee recognized the drawing. If he’d just cooperate, police could be hunting down the killer within the hour…

  Sybee leaned forward and took the drawing. Held it up and looked at it.

  No reaction on his features.

  None.

  This was not my imagination. I watched every inch of Sybee’s face, waiting for a sign, the smallest flicker of recognition. Sybee was not as smart as he’d like to think. Even if he wanted to hide what he knew, some bit of body language, however subtle, would give him away.

  But his face remained blank.

  He pulled in a breath and shrugged. Tossed the sketch back into the pass-through. “Never seen him before.” His eyes moved from me to Chetterling. He must have noted the intensity on our faces, because he pulled back his head a little, frowning. “So who is he? And what’s he supposed to do with me? I don’t get why you guys are here.”

  “We’re here,” Chetterling said quietly, “because we believe this is the man who killed Barry Draye.”

  Sybee’s mouth spread in disdainful surprise. “This guy?

  You’re crazy.”

  Chetterling kept his cool. “Edgar, he’s killed again. A mother, right in front of her young daughter. Think of it; you’ve got a wife and kid yourself. And the man’s likely to keep doing it until he gets what he wants. In fact, knowing what you do, isn’t he a threat to your own family? If you help us, we can stop him.”

  “I tell you, I don’t know the guy. Never seen him before in my life!”

  Chetterling processed the answer. “Then who killed Barry Draye?”

  Sybee’s expression folded over on itself. “Well, I sure didn’t. I was acquitted.”

  “I know that. There was another person with you that night at Draye’s house, wasn’t there. Tip, he calls himself.

  Volatile, unpredictable Tip. He insisted on going with you.

  And when you got there, he pulled out a knife and stabbed Draye.”

  Sybee’s cheeks paled. “Who told you that? I never told anybody that!”

  “But you did, Edgar. You told your attorney, Trent Gerralon. On the last night you ever saw him. He took notes.”

  Sybee’s neck swiveled from Chetterling to me. “I don’t know anything about this story. I don’t know anything about any notes.”

  For a moment I dared to hope. He’d shown no recognition of the Face, but now he was blatantly lying about the file.

  Maybe his blank reaction to the composite had been faked after all.

  “It’s okay to talk to us,” Chetterling soothed. “I’ve seen the notes from Trent Gerralon’s files on the case.”

  Sybee shoved back in his chair, pulse beating in his neck.

  Chetterling and I waited in silence. Anxiety quivered across Sybee’s face, then an abrupt relaxing, as if he’d just realized some point of major significance. His gaze fell to the floor, and when his eyes met the detective’s again, they were full of puzzlement.

  “Wait a minute.” He interlocked his fingers. “Tell me again what that drawing has to do with Draye?”

  There it was again—that anesthetized expression of ignorance. This was no masquerade. This was real.

  Chetterling sensed it, too. Although he did not move, I could feel the swell of doubt around his wide shoulders.

  “Tell me something, Sybee. How much longer you got in here?”

  A shrug. “About three months.”

  The detective nodded. “And with Tip on the streets, do you believe your family will be safe during those three months?”

  Sybee’s lips parted. His tongue found his top row of teeth and slid from one side to the other. “I think you’d better stop threatening me.”

  “I’m not threatening you at all, Edgar. I’m just reminding you of the danger that could exist. Now, I understand why you’re afraid to talk. Like you told your attorney, Tip’s threatened to hurt your family if you say anything. But the guy’s unpredictable, Edgar. And if you point us in the right direction, we can pick him up before he can do anyone harm.”

  Sybee locked eyes with the detective. “I don’t know the guy.” His face slipped into a sneer and he pushed to his feet.

  “Forget this, I’m out of here.”

  He banged on the door with his fist, head turned away as he waited to be let out. There was not one thing more we could say.

  The door opened. Edgar Sybee strode through it without so much as a backward glance.

  Chapter 37

  Chetterling and I trudged across the street in silence. Fears and defenses sizzle-danced through my head like water droplets on a hot griddle. I couldn’t deny the truth that spat at me.

  “Where are you parked?” Chetterling asked as we hit the curb.

  “In the garage over there.” I gestured with my chin.

  “I’m up the street at a meter, so I guess we’ll part here.”

  The detective looked spent, as if the interview with Sybee had eaten up his last spark of energy. He shifted his weight and passed the notebook from one hand to the other.

  “He was telling the truth, wasn’t he? Not about the murder but about the composite.”

  Chetterling’s eyes closed. “Either that or he deserves an Academy Award.”

  I worried my lip between my teeth and stared at a large stain on the pavement. Distractedly I scuffed at it with the toe of my shoe. “Which means I made a mistake.” The words came out flat.

  Chetterling gazed into the distance, saying nothing.

  “I don’t know how it happened.” The words spilled from me. “But when I was drawing the composite, I kept remembering all the faces I sketched in the past. And I think maybe…

  maybe I sort of unconsciously remembered that particular face and drew it. And then when Erin saw it, she was just so upset and scared, expecting to recognize it, that she did…”

  The detective rubbed his jaw with a knuckle. For the first time
, I noticed he did not wear a wedding ring. “But the man you drew…he did have reason to break into your house.

  That file on the Draye murder was in your dad’s office.”

  “But he didn’t come to my house; he went to the Willits’.

  I don’t know, maybe he really did want something from Dave’s house. Maybe this has nothing to do with me at all!”

  I swallowed hard. My gaze fell again to the stained cement beneath my feet. “Nothing, that is, except that I’ve made a terrible mistake. Cost you and the other detectives a good four days in your investigation—the most important four days.”

  Chetterling’s shoulders rose with a deep intake of air.

  “Annie, I am too tired right now to think through all this.

  Can’t think through much of anything except to get to my hotel room and into bed. My head’ll be clearer tomorrow.”

  He ran a hand across his eyes. “We can’t do anything else right now anyway. The composite is set to go into papers tomorrow. Let’s see what kind of leads that generates. In spite of what Sybee insists, we know that this guy—” he gestured at the notebook—”is in the area, because you saw him here.

  Somebody’s bound to lead us to him, and then we can see if he’s got anything to do with our case or not.”

  Our case. I couldn’t help but latch onto that word. It had slipped from Chetterling’s mouth without his awareness.

  “Okay. You’re right. We just have to wait.” I started to head for my car, then turned back. “You’ll phone me tomorrow, won’t you? When the calls start coming in? I promise I won’t insist on going everywhere with you, but I just…have to know.”

  He nodded. “I’ll do it.”

  When I’d walked a few steps away from him, he called my name. I looked over my shoulder.

  “When you get back to your sister’s place, check up on that boy of yours.”

  I hesitated, not sure if his words were a veiled chastisement—or empathy. “Don’t worry, I will.”

  Ten minutes later I dragged myself through Jenna’s door, and she immediately beset me for all the details. Tired and defeated, I told her what had transpired.

  “I’m going to read some more of that forensic art book tonight.” I forced determination into my tone. “Maybe there’s some kind of clue in it. At the very least I’ll know more about where I went wrong.”

  One more thing I had to do—check up on Stephen. And it had better be a good report. Reluctantly I dialed Nate’s house.

  “They were doing fine here,” Nate’s mom assured me.

  “They’re out right now.”

  Out. What was that supposed to mean? I worked to keep my tone steady. “Did you drive them somewhere?”

  “A friend came by and picked them up. I haven’t seen them since. But they’re supposed to be back for dinner.” She sounded not the least bit worried. What if Nate was not the harmless friend I’d thought him to be? With a single mother who was not watching over him…

  My conversation with Chetterling rang in my head.

  Like you, Annie, not watching over your own son. She’s no worse than you.

  “Well, as soon as they get back, please tell him to call me.”

  “Sure. That shouldn’t be too long.”

  I hung up the phone and wandered back into the living room, where I dropped onto Jenna’s beige leather couch. She was slumped in the matching love seat. We exchanged silent, grim looks.

  “Tomorrow.” She nodded firmly. “Tomorrow’s going to break this case. I just feel it.”

  “Yeah, right. If it doesn’t kill me first.”

  Later I would remember her words.

  And mine.

  Chapter 38

  His cell phone rang. Driving with one hand, he snatched the phone off his car’s center console. “Yes.”

  Cars whizzed by him on the freeway. Everybody was always in such a hurry. He always chose the slow lane. Easy does it, nice and methodical, that was his motto. Other people, idiots all of them, were likely to get themselves killed. But not him.

  He was always careful.

  No getting killed.

  No getting caught.

  He was In Control.

  The male voice spoke in his ear. He knew this voice. Whiny, obsequious. (He liked to use that word: obsequious. Only superior people used such words.) The voice never failed to grate on his nerves. But the man was a necessary evil. Kept an eye on a certain person. A person who needed to be watched.

  A person who, in time, would be dead.

  His teeth clamped together as he listened to the jailhouse snitch. Once again Sybee had been visited—by someone other than his pretty young wife. This was not good—oh, no, no, no.

  Look at the mess the idiot had caused the last time he saw that Gerralon attorney alive. Gotten all soft and talkative. How quickly he’d forgotten the penalties he’d pay if he started spouting.

  But he’d been reminded, hadn’t he. A few pictures of his wife and kid outside on their lawn, sent to his home address, had reminded him just fine. No message. Just…pictures.

  How he wished he could have seen Sybee’s face when his puzzled wife took those pictures to the jail.

  “So who were the visitors?” he growled into the phone.

  “He didn’t give names. Some detective from Redding, and get this—a woman who’s the daughter of his lawyer. The one that died.”

  Acid and ice slid down his spine. For a moment he couldn’t form words. He could only press the phone to his ear, grip the steering wheel, as sinuous thoughts like twisted seaweed floated through the brine in his head.

  “What did they want?”

  “Some weird thing about whether he recognized a drawing of some guy. And they wanted him to tell them how the Draye thing went down.”

  “Why?”

  “They claimed to know something about that night. Stuff he told his attorney. I don’t know what, but…maybe it goes back to that other time I told you about before the trial.”

  The words knifed him in the gut. His thoughts lurched and he nearly hit the car in front of him. He needed to exit the freeway. Needed to pull over and just think, think, think. This was bad news, terrible news. They’d traced him here.

  They were putting the pieces together.

  Thoughts of his sister left alone in the world crowded into his brain. He flung them aside.

  Keep calm, man, keep calm.

  “What’d he tell ‘em?”

  “Nothin’.”

  “How do you know?”

  “He said he didn’t, man, and I believe him. He acted all ticked that they’d bothered him. Like he didn’t get what the deal was.”

  That would be Sybee. Not smart enough to understand much of anything. Not smart enough to put it all together.

  Still, the guy could get cocky. He could be just dumb enough to forget the lessons Tip had taught him. Start thinking he should be done with Tip once and for all. Start thinking the Sybee family could hide behind the law’s protection…

  “All right, man, thanks a lot.”

  “Yeah. Don’t forget what you owe me now.”

  The guy made him sick. “Don’t worry. You’ll have plenty of goodies waiting when you get out.”

  He smacked off the phone and threw it on the seat. The seaweed slimed in his head.

  Annie Kingston had found the file.

  She’d taken it to those Redding sheriff’s deputies.

  She found it because he missed it. By a mile.

  He let loose a stream of curses. The words bounced around the car, taunting him like the long-ago, hoarse voice of his father.

  The Whipple exit stretched out ahead. He turned onto it and headed east, toward the flatlands butting up to the Bay and the San Carlos airport. Jerking his car to a stop, he nearly hit a dog that was bounding about, waiting for its master to take it running on the trail. Still cursing, he turned off the engine and banged the side of his head once, twice, against the window.

  He was In Control.
It wasn’t his fault he’d gotten into the wrong house. Hadn’t found the file. It wasn’t his fault that woman came downstairs and caught him. And it certainly wasn’t his fault she was dead. He hadn’t even tried to kill her—just to stall her enough so he could run.

  Nothing was his fault. He was the Man. A leader. Cunning.

  Taking payback out of a world that had knocked him down since the day he was born.

  Take it easy now, man. Think, think, think!

  He raised his head from the window, leaned it back against the seat. His fingers flexed against his meaty thighs. He stared across the flats, absently watching the runners and walkers and dogs. Watching a private plane descend for a landing at the airport. Slowly his breathing returned to normal.

  Okay. So there’d been a few setbacks.

  No more.

  First, he’d see to it that Sybee didn’t talk. Give the man a

  … gentle reminder. He ground out a chuckle.

  Then there was Annie Kingston. She’d gotten too sneaky for her own good. Someday she just might open her mouth in a courtroom and chatter like a jaybird.

  That could never happen.

  He worked things, that’s what he did. Changed events.

  Caused certain…upsets.

  The composite drawing of that Willit woman’s killer was the perfect example.

  He tapped a manicured nail on the steering wheel.

  Tap…tap…tap.

  Thinking about what needed to be done.

  Tap…tap…tap.

  Nice and slow, like a metronome beating out a death march.

  Chapter 39

  The Face stared at me from the pages of the Mercury News, complete with an article about the murder. Chetterling had been cunning in what he told the reporter. Just enough for a good story. Enough to warn the public that a killer was at large. But he’d given away no more than he had to. People with information about the man in the drawing were asked to call the Shasta County Sheriff’s Department.

  Which in turn, I knew, would immediately contact Chetterling if any leads came in.

  No. When the leads came in. Like Chetterling said, someone had to recognize this man, even if he had nothing to do with Lisa’s murder. I’d seen him on a Redwood City street; I knew he existed.