Down To The Needle

by Mary Deal

  “I don't get it.”

  “Well, the way I understand—and that's not to say I do—the shrink says line art is a masculine form of expression.” Det. Britto touched his temple as if remembering. “After the abduction, Winnaker—or Becky Ann, if that's who she is—grew up identifying with only her father.” He paused, making sure she followed along. “It's my guess that when she suppressed her memory of you, ma'am, she must have also suppressed her feminine side and opted for masculine straight lines instead of curly feminine ones.” Det. Britto held a deep pensive look in his eyes as he concentrated. Perhaps the mind of this detective held only piecemeal understanding, but with this new information, he might help make some sense of it all.

  She was about to say something when Det. Britto continued.

  “The fact that your daughter drew line art before she was abducted, curly or straight, may be the special something in her memory that kept prompting later on. After all, she was an artist before and remained an artist after the abduction.” He held a hand in the air so they wouldn't interrupt him and break his train of thought. “The fact that she may have been more closely associated with her father, that closeness to the masculine wouldn't let her forget the masculine line art she already knew.” When he spoke, he had an intense, interrogating way of staring, as if the detective in him was throwing out information to see what stuck.

  Joe stepped away. “This seems like a big riddle. The more we learn, the more confusing it gets.”

  Abi reached for his hand. She couldn't allow his interest to wane. “There are lots of possibilities. I need to examine them all.”

  “She's right, Arno. Her little girl drew masculine style art. Let's suppose that after the abduction, what was buried inside her mind kept prompting her to remember.”

  “So you're saying her connection to her dad is why she couldn't remember the feminine lines?”

  Abi tried hard to understand, to find something believable to grasp. “Being abducted would have been a nightmare for her. Becky had to start a completely new life. Any memories she had from before age five might have been suppressed because they didn't fit with the new lifestyle.” Abi talked fast, trying to formulate a cohesive theory, inadvertently cementing the clues she had hoped to disprove. Becky first drew soft curly line art. After being abducted, she suppressed memories of her mother and the feminine, associated with only her dad, and began to draw masculine straight-line art. It seemed so simple, and finding not one but two drawings weighed heavily in favor of Megan being Becky. Abi covered her mouth to stop herself from saying more.

  For a moment, no one said anything. They looked at one another. Det. Britto placed his arm sympathetically around her shoulder. “I hope there's some other explanation. I wouldn't wish this on anyone.”

  This time, Joe noticed Det. Britto's covert gesture before she moved away. “If the abduction caused Becky to change into a hateful person, she well could have committed the crime.”

  Abi diverted her attention to the decorated walls. Suddenly it hit her. She had been so enthralled comparing the drawings and needing to prove or disprove their findings, that what they turned up almost certainly meant her daughter was in prison a few short months away from lethal injection. She covered her face with her hands.

  “There's another possibility.” Det. Britto gently placed the framed cypress drawing back onto its stand on the bookshelf. He had their attention.

  “What other possibility?”

  “Well, there are some differences from this group of drawings on the wall to these you just found at the cabin.”

  Abi needed to thoroughly understand. “We just agreed that it might be due to her suppressing her talent, right?”

  “True, but don't forget. Winnaker is an artist in her own right.” Det. Britto smiled nervously but Abi couldn't read what lay behind the detective's expression.

  “What are you getting at, Britto?”

  “Give me a second.” He touched his temple again. “I gotta think like a friend of mine. She's a criminal psychologist and I want to throw this out.” He stroked his beard again as he stared at the wall in thought. Finally, he turned to face her and Joe. “Suppose now—just suppose—Winnaker got her hands on your daughter's art.”

  Again, he waited for her reaction and that unnerved her. “And?”

  “Then this woman in prison isn't your daughter.”

  “What you're saying is that Megan could have known my daughter and somehow gotten hold of her art and kept it? You mean she's trying to impersonate Becky?”

  “We have no proof.” He motioned with both hands. “Just throwing it out there. Gotta try to understand the reasoning behind why someone would want to impersonate like that. There's so much difference in the drawings from before, then after the abduction. Then she just stopped. No more of these line drawings exist, right?”

  “Wait.” Joe lifted the portfolio onto the single twin bed. “There is more.”

  Chapter 15

  “Those loose drawings we found at my cabin seem to have been made by a child. But these….” He rummaged through the loose pages in the portfolio till he came to the three line drawings and laid them out across the foot of the bed. “Look at these. These are the ones I saw Megan produce in my studio.”

  Now they had three sets of line art examples to compare; Becky's art prior to age five hanging on the walls, the ones from the cabin; and now the ones Winnaker drew more than eight years earlier in Joe's studio.

  Now Abi saw something curious. “The art from the cabin, some of it is old and some newer. The newer ones are just like the ones in this portfolio.”

  “That means she took the real old art with her to my cabin to try to remember. She was trying to remember.”

  After a moment, they agreed a distinct difference existed between all three sets. The varying levels of ability could mean that at least two different artists were involved; one who created the very old pieces and one who tried to imitate them.

  Abi's mind reeled. “I guess I'm following this.”

  “Would add credence to the theory that Winnaker tried to impersonate your daughter, if we're talking about two separate sets of art here.”

  Abi sighed heavily. “But why?”

  Det. Britto explained that the same person could have drawn all the art, and that maybe her daughter had already been running from something. “On the run, using the Winnaker alias. A last ditch effort to escape the wheels of justice. Buying her some time, maybe.”

  “Only it didn't work, Britto. Maybe she started to remember and the picture in the magazine that brought her here is another piece of that memory.”

  “Then the trauma of being arrested. Megan, or my daughter, if that's who she is, never had a chance.”

  “Those ideas are only my legal training conjecture.”

  No one ever made anything of Winnaker's memory lapses or her claim of looking for family, which were discredited as part of a charade that she hadn't had time enough to pull off. Abi didn't place much credence in the theory. “If she was already running, would saying she felt familiar with the magazine pictures have bought her anything? Would mentioning looking for her family have helped at all?”

  “Unless she meant to find family to get help.” Det. Britto once again scanned the art on the walls. “I'd have to know what she was running from. Winnaker didn't carry anything identifying her as anyone other than who we found her to be.” He leaned in close again. “If you want my opinion, none of this fits. Someone comes to town and just up and burns a house and kills people while she's trying to assume a new identity? No way.”

  “If my daughter was trying to assume a new identity, then it's still possible that Megan could be Becky.”

  “It's just a theory. We gotta look at all the possibilities, you know?”

  The theory could also be reversed. “If Megan is really who her ID said she is, and she was trying to impersonate my daughter, then she knows how to find Becky.”

  “Just throwing out scenar
ios.” The detective sighed. “Actually, we have no proof that one is one or the other. No mole on the cheek; nothing that says Winnaker isn't who she claimed to be.”

  The marked difference in the portfolio art did seem to merely imitate the earlier drawings. “If Becky had blocked her earlier ability, then tried to recall it, there would be differences.”

  “You would think so, ma'am.” Det. Britto stroked his chin hairs thoughtfully, as if that was the only way he could dredge up something from deep inside his mind. “You know, Winnaker doesn't necessarily fit the profile of a person who would commit the crime she was convicted of.” He admitted that he thought she had been framed. “Quite a few people agree with that. especially after what she's accomplished in prison.”

  Abi was long past the point of stepping out of this investigation. “What else is in her favor?”

  “Well, she's soft spoken. Sometimes afraid of her own shadow too. You know that, Arno.”

  “Yeah, but timid people can kill.”

  Abi felt repulsed at having to think of her daughter that way. “Couldn't the psychiatrist exploit her personality and come up with something in her favor?”

  “Dunno. Way back then…” Det. Britto gestured with a thumb. “This whole thing drove me nuts. I couldn't crack this case. It cost me a promotion. I coulda' made it to Commissioner before retir—”

  “Britto!”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know. That's neither here nor there. Sorry.” He waved a hand. “I never gave up on this case though. Yet, every shred of information I came up with always came to nothing. Good information, good evidence.” He leaned toward her and Joe again. “Something or someone was always there to negate it, like this whole case is one big tangled web of deceit.”

  Abi gathered the art back into the portfolio and leaned it against the bookcase. Why was this detective admitting such confidential information? Were he and Joe such good friends that maybe now Det. Britto saw a chance to investigate further, with their help, and reclaim his reputation? Megan had very little in her favor. They would have to turn up something extraordinary. Abi didn't want to build false hopes, but Det. Britto made the idea of a conspiracy sound plausible; a conspiracy that got an innocent person sentenced to death.

  “So you still believe she was framed, Britto?”

  “Too many unanswered questions.” He paused, thinking. “Let me move forward with this.” He sighed and continued speaking low as if he were afraid someone might hear. “You'll see how it all ties together.”

  Abi took the drawing tablet from Joe and placed it on a shelf. “Let's go downstairs again, please.”

  As Det. Britto made a last visual sweep of the room, the lump of clay caught his attention. He picked it up and ran a fingertip over the tiny now smooth indentation. He smiled sadly and held the clay so the ceiling light shined directly onto it. “No prints left.” Then he realized they were watching. “I believe you must feel as close to this as any of these drawings, ma'am.” He handed it to her.

  “Her hand print when she was so little.” She choked up and gently placed it back on the shelf.

  Joe touched a fingertip to the mole in one of the photos. “I'm almost afraid of what I'm thinking.” His eyes had a look of knowing.

  Abi voiced his thoughts. “Did either of you notice any trace of a scar?”

  “I never got close enough, not even in my studio.”

  “But you photographed her.”

  “From a distance only. She was so timid. I never got within five feet of her during a shoot. By the time she started coming to my office, her hair had grown back in.” Joe shifted his gaze, a sign he was searching his memory.

  “You said she shaved her head before the fire.”

  “Saw her only once after she did that. And I don't recall anything noticeable on her cheek.” He sighed heavily. “I wish the absence of that mark could be the end of it.”

  “You mean you wish it would prove Megan Winnaker is not my daughter?”

  “Well, yes, but it doesn't. Not only that. I'm probably the one who can tell you the most about her.”

  “You were that involved, Joe?”

  “I was a witness.” He passed it off with a wave of a hand, as if to avoid more disclosure. But it was too late for them both, too unfair to keep secrets.

  Abi's eyes widened. She grabbed his arm. “For or against her, Joe?”

  “For her, Abi, for her.”

  “How? What did they ask you?”

  “Mostly about her character, and to say that I never saw her wear earrings.”

  “I want to hear everything you know.” Her tone was meant to warn that she would not rest till he told all. She led them out of the room. “When can we see her, Det. Britto?”

  They reached the entry foyer where shifting afternoon sunlight began pouring in through the windows. Abi retrieved the detective's jacket.

  Det. Britto seemed unsettled but ready to leave as he shrugged into his coat. “I suspect there was a leak somewhere in the department.” He mumbled as if thinking out loud. “I just never understood that. Evidently our blue wall had some holes in it.”

  Those were heavy allegations to disclose despite who she was, or even to Joe. Perhaps spending time in Becky's art room, and what he had just learned, made him feel trusting of them. It was a trust she intended never to break.

  “Any movement in this case got immediate media coverage. Glad me and my studio were left out of it.”

  “The media always got the details too soon. Sometimes the public knew things before all of us at the PD learned about them. It was frustrating.”

  “If a cover-up has been going on all these years, why hasn't a new investigation been launched?”

  “Guess I'm looked upon as a short-timer.” He gestured upward. “The upper echelons think maybe I'm trying to wring out every last drop so I can go out in a blaze. I got nearly thirty-five years in the PD.” He turned to her again. “Don't get me wrong, ma'am. I haven't been able to turn up much since Winnaker's conviction.”

  Severe cutbacks had limited officers and personnel. Abi smiled in sympathy. “I never understood how the Police Department kept up with the caseloads,” In some of the cases, officers had little time to gather scant circumstantial evidence and only hoped for a conviction while they were forced to move on to investigating newer cases.

  “So many crimes. Too few officers.”

  “What about the innocent?”

  “That's what I mean. Being spread so thin, how would I or anyone ever turn up what you two just did?”

  Abi was momentarily shaken by the thought that she having kept secret the information in the upstairs bedroom might have prevented new light being shed in her daughter's plight.

  “So, these leaks? What's that about?”

  “Not just the Winnaker case, Arno… ma'am, but others too.”

  “What about a bug in your office, Britto, when you handled the case?”

  “Nothing turned up in there. But I did observe a couple of uniforms suspiciously hanging around while the search was in progress, trying to be too helpful. Know what I mean?”

  “Did you check those guys out?”

  “Couldn't make 'em.”

  “If only they could catch someone like that involved with Megan's case.” Abi sighed, knowing they were in for an uphill battle.

  “A cop caught in the act will sing, if he doesn't choose to die first. But I didn't come here to tell you my problems.”

  At that moment, Abi didn't care to hear about a cover up. But if Det. Britto's friendship with Joe allowed him to talk about case details that usually aren't divulged, she would listen. Anything he had to say was already public information anyway. “What did you find out when you investigated Megan and her dad?”

  “Followed up on her ID. That lifestyle she lived, her and her dad didn't associate with anyone except those Aryan types.”

  “How sad.” Somehow Abi had to face that her daughter could have been forced into anything.

  “Yeah,
Winnaker said mostly everyone's got extended family. She wanted to find hers but didn't know where to search till she saw that magazine.”

  “What if she is Abi's daughter and her dad made her live her life as Megan Winnaker? That means Megan's dad was Preston, Abi's husband.”

  “You got relatives, ma'am?”

  “None. Can you imagine how happy Preston and I first were when we had a child? After Mom died, there was only Preston, Becky, and me, from both of our families. Then Preston changed.”

  “I'm sorry. I'll do some checking for a Becky Ann and Preston back where Winnaker came from in Idaho. With you turning up, and now this…” He gestured upstairs toward Becky's room. “I'll check any new lead. I never thought this case should have gone the way the jury said.” He shook his head. “Never found anything to disprove the court's case though.”

  “You'll help us?”

  “And not just because it's my job, ma'am.” He smiled warmly into her eyes. “By the way, the PD may still have that magazine that brought her here.”

  “Oh, please, can we see it?”

  “It's been buried in Property all these years, along with other evidence. I'll see what I can do.”

  If Megan Winnaker was really her daughter, Becky must have hated her father for isolating her once she began to realize the truth about the man. “Will we have to relinquish these drawings as evidence?” Abi's heart beat wildly. She didn't want to give them up. If Megan was, in fact, Becky Ann, her daughter had created them. How could she part with them?

  Det. Britto looked as if about to open the door to leave but changed his mind and stepped aside again. He reached for her hand. “Keep 'em for now, and keep this hush-hush, both of you, till I can put together something substantial.”

  Abi went to open the door. “When can we see her, Det. Britto? Her face.”

  “Not right now, and certainly not without her attorney present.”

  “How long do we have to wait?”

  “Well, Arno, ever since you called me last week, I thought I'd refresh my recollection, if you know what I mean. I just learned Winnaker's been brought to the hospital here in Seaport. Media hasn't gotten it yet.”