Web of Lies (6 page)

I know very well how God can talk to people. The way He led me — and other Christians, including Dave — to pray while the Poison Killer was still on the Redding streets had been undeniable. “Jenna, I hear you. But remember the news stories from Redwood City. You have to admit Chelsea Adams knows what she’s talking about.”

Jenna folded her arms. “Fine, but why drag
you
into it? There are plenty of forensic artists in the Bay Area.”

My mouth opened, then closed. She had a point.

She jabbed a finger at me. “Don’t you go getting mixed up with her, Annie. That would be all you need. All
we
need.”

So much for help from my sister. She was all gut reaction with no Christian wisdom. I’d headed out the door to talk to Dave about the phone call. As I crossed the street, I registered the distant rumble of tractors beginning work at the Grove Landing airstrip. At least
that
would make Jenna happy.

In Dave’s kitchen I told my tale once again. He listened with an expression of wariness and intrigue. When I finished, he laid a hand at the back of his neck and stared out the window. Vestiges of my past narrow escapes haunted his expression. “Well. I don’t know what this is all about.” The words came reluctantly. “But yes, I’ll pray about it today. Sounds like it might be something important that God needs you to do.”

Now, as I drove into the medical center parking lot, it struck me we were all being a little silly. So Chelsea Adams wanted me to draw a composite. Big deal. I did that on a regular basis. And most of the time it was a normal project, no danger involved.

Most of the time.

Annie, stop now. You’ve got other things to think about.

I pulled into a parking space, climbed out of the SUV, and opened the back door to retrieve my drawing kit. The sun beat through my knit shirt as I crossed the lot. Suddenly a car pulled out of a space right in front of me. I jerked to a halt, then drifted backward, giving him room. A middle-aged man. He didn’t even see me.

Hospitals. I’d never felt comfortable around them. People inside and out wrapped up in their pain. Two and a half years ago, after my father’s death from a heart attack, I’d crossed this same parking lot, head down, arms hugging my chest, barely noticing the rain or cars. I could only imagine how Toby’s mother must have felt yesterday as she hurried into the hospital to see her son.

Justice, Toby. We’re going to find who did this to you.

A few minutes later I entered the young man’s room. He occupied the first bed, the curtains drawn back. The second bed was empty.
Good.
We’d have some privacy during the interview.

A woman sat beside Toby, both of them staring blank-faced at an old movie on TV. Her brown hair was uncombed, her posture slumped. Seeing me, she clicked off the show and pushed to her feet, questions in her weary brown eyes. She was a few inches shorter than my five-foot-five frame. Worry lines jagged across her forehead, and her mouth drooped. My heart ached for her. Had she been here all night?

“Mrs. Brown?” I held out my hand to her. “I’m Annie Kingston.”

“Yes.” She gave me a weak handshake and tried to smile. “I recognize you. Can’t tell you how glad I am you’re the one going to draw the picture. I know we’ll find the man who did this to my boy, with your help.”

I managed to smile back. If she only knew what kind of pressure those words heaped upon me. The more tragedy I’d seen, the more I hated crime. Every victim deserved justice,
every one
. But all too often it proved elusive. “Those of us working on this case will do the best we can, Mrs. Brown, I promise you that.”

“Yes. Thank you.” She laced and unlaced her fingers. “And please, call me Sheila.”

I nodded, holding her gaze with all the warmth I could muster. She looked so nervous, and my heart went out to her. “Okay. Sheila.”

Setting down my portfolio of art supplies, I turned toward Toby. He lay with the covers pulled midchest, hands resting on his stomach, fingers interlaced. His thumbs batted at each other. The bed had been cranked up to elevate his head, numerous pillows used to cushion. I could imagine his mother fussing with those pillows, trying to do what little she could to ease his discomfort. Even now her hand hovered over him, seeking something to do — any small act that could afford some sense of control over her son’s fate.

“Hi, Toby.” I laid a gentle hand on his shoulder, noting the faint color in his face. “You look a lot better now than the last time I saw you.”

The sides of his mouth lifted. “That’s not saying much.”

“I understand they removed the bullet from your leg and got you patched up. And you’re going home tomorrow?”

“Praise God,” his mother whispered behind me.

“Yeah.” Toby shifted his head against the pillows. “They just want to watch me for today, ’cause I was bleeding some. But they said I was lucky. The bullet didn’t hit a bone or nerve or anything.” He swallowed. “I want to thank you for helping me yesterday. As bad as it was, you helped keep me calm. There was just something about you being there . . .”

That was Jesus’ presence, Toby, not mine.

I pulled a chair close to the bed. His mother hesitated. “The detective told me I should leave while you do your work.”

“Yes.” The presence of any face could skew Toby’s memory as he tried to recall the suspect’s features. Even I would sit at an angle so he would not look directly at me. “But let’s just talk for a while first, all right?”

“Okay.”

I sat down while Sheila resumed her seat on the other side of the bed. For a good half hour we simply chatted. Although Toby already seemed to trust me, I wanted to put him more at ease. My work would require him to “see” again the face that caused his trauma. He needed to be eased into emotional readiness for the task. I asked him about school, his friends, if he planned to go to college. I told him about my kids, wondering if he’d ever met Kelly or Stephen, perhaps at a football game.

“No, don’t think so,” Toby said, “but maybe I will sometime.”

Sheila told me the names of Toby’s younger brother and sisters. Carla was thirteen; Jeremy, ten; and Maria was seven.

“From what I heard, Toby, you help take care of them.” I kept my voice light, conversational.

He shrugged. “I do what I can.”

I didn’t want to stray into the topic of their financial difficulties. Toby had other worries to concentrate on. “And you’ll be back at it. Soon.”

We fell silent. Toby pulled in a slow breath and his countenance shifted. I’ve learned to read the signals — resolve steeling across a victim’s features, an aura of expectation misting the air. He was ready.

I looked to his mother. Sheila clasped her son’s arm, then rose with a final, pleading look at me —
Take care of my boy. Help him remember.
I nodded.

She crossed to the door and closed it softly behind her. I brought her chair over beside mine to use as a place to lay my materials. Reaching into my portfolio, I first pulled out an eleven-by-fourteen-inch Bristol pad with smooth finish. As an artist who tends to draw with as much detail as an interviewee’s memory will allow, I use this paper rather than others of a rougher texture. Then came various pencils, both hard lead and soft, some with rounded tips for the initial, proportional drawing of the face, and others sharpened to a point for the finer details. A kneaded rubber eraser for creating highlights, and a harder vinyl one for full erasure.

“All right, Toby.” I scooted my chair farther away from the bed. “I’m going to move over here. I’d like you to focus straight ahead, or close your eyes, or do whatever you need to relax. We’re going to work together to do the best we can. But I want you to know that composites are not photographs, so don’t be disappointed if the drawing doesn’t look perfect to you. A composite is an investigative tool. It can be a lot of help to law enforcement even if it doesn’t look like a portrait.”

“Okay.”

I smiled at him and positioned the drawing pad.
Lord, give me the ability to hear, to interpret. Help me draw an effective composite.
“Toby, we’re going to focus on the facial description of the man who shot you rather than all the details of what happened.”

“You mean I don’t have to tell that story for the millionth time?”

“That’s right.”

He sighed. “Good.”

In a purely cognitive interview it would have been necessary for Toby to recount everything, and through his remembering events, I would have extracted memories of the assailant’s face. But over the past year I’d settled into using a different technique — the composite-specific interview. As Toby recalled facial features, I would sketch the proportions first, then fine-tune the drawing with the help of photographs from the FBI
Facial Identification Catalog
.

“Okay, Toby. Tell me what you remember about the man who shot you.”

Toby began talking and I listened, jotting notes. This was a crucial time in the interview, a time for free recall with no distraction. When Toby fell silent, I waited until he was ready to continue. A general image formed. A man perhaps in his early thirties, around six feet tall . . . Dark hair, short and combed back with no part . . . A squared face, protruding brown eyes . . . Prominent chin . . .

I began to sketch.

Time fell away. Noises of the hospital — voices, footsteps, a cart rattling by — faded into the background, a wash of gray on canvas. My concentration honed, my senses alert to Toby’s every word. The familiar scent of lead and eraser, the scratches of pencil against paper, absorbed me. I registered every sniff that Toby made, the rustle of sheets when he paused to shift position. I could practically hear his mind churning, churning to remember more.
Come on, Toby, you can do it.
It was like this in every interview — my words and thoughts, the fibers of my being, straining to connect with the person, to shape the shifting sands of memory.

The killer’s face began to emerge. But I would need a better sense of its proportions.

In time, Toby’s words ran out. “I can’t — I don’t know any more.” He lifted a hand off the sheet, let it fall.

“All right, you’re doing great.” I perused my sketch, deciding what to ask first. “You said he had a square face. Just how wide would you say his jaw was in comparison to the cheekbones?”

Toby thought for a moment, then described as best he could.

I nodded. “Good. And tell me about his eyes. How far apart were they?”

We continued back and forth, the image refining. I switched from more open-ended questions to those with dual-choice answers. Were the lips thinner or fuller? Was the nose more pointed or flatter? Then I began to select pages in the
Facial Identification Catalog
for Toby to review. One showed various pictures of protruding eyes; another, selections of jutting chins. I changed pencils, erased, concentrated, listened, and drew. Toby became more animated with the process, his eyes widening at flash memories of certain features.

Not once did I look at my watch. An hour had passed, perhaps. Maybe longer.

“Ready to look at the refined drawing, Toby? It’s not final yet but I think we’re getting closer.”

“I’m ready.” Toby’s mouth hung open, forming a little
O
. He lifted his head off the pillows, winced, then laid it back down.

“You all right?”

“Yeah. Just moved my leg enough to remind me why I’m here.” He swallowed. “Don’t worry about
it. I want to see the drawing.”

“Here goes.” I turned the pad around and held it up.

Toby’s eyes roved over the page. “Wow. Yeah. That’s him . . .” He frowned. “I mean, it is, but there’s something . . . It’s not quite right yet. I’m not sure why.”

“That’s okay; it’s what I expected.” I moved my chair closer to his bed. “Let’s go over the composite point by point now. It’s never too late to make changes. You still have the energy to do that?”

He nodded.

We started at the top and worked down. The eyes had a little less upturn at the outer corners, the cheeks a little more fullness. Toby stared at the drawing. “And the mouth looked harder somehow. Maybe less curve at the top. He just looked . . . I mean, everything about him was so
cold
.”

Sometimes at this point in an interview, when a vague “something” is still missing, I’ve needed to lead the witness through a context reinstatement, asking the person to close his eyes and replay all the events. Almost always, something new about the features comes up. But it’s an emotional and frightening experience, and I only do it if the person is able and willing. I could see Toby was tiring. I didn’t want to put him through that ordeal.

Please, God, let this be right.

I held up the pad. “Okay, Toby, look at the face as a whole now. See anything else that needs to be fixed?”

He stared, frowning. His lips tightened, fingers hooking into the sheets. “No, nothing. That’s . . . You got it.”

“You sure?”

He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, then nodded. “Yeah. I’m sure.”

Thank You, God.
I put down the pad. Already his expression was flattening with fatigue. “You did a great job, Toby. Thank you. Hope you’ll get some rest now.”

He gave me that victim’s smile I’ve come to know — one of pained and weary gratitude. My heart swelled at the sight. I squeezed his shoulder, uttering a silent prayer for him, and said good-bye.

When I slid into my car, the clock read three thirty. Dave would have picked up the girls at school by now. They were probably already home. I pulled out of the medical center parking lot and headed toward the Redding Police Station to log in the composite. From there it would be sent immediately to law enforcement agencies in surrounding towns, to the
Record Searchlight,
and local TV. My work on the case was nearly over.

So why did I feel uneasy?

The tape of Chelsea Adams’s voice whirred a rewind in my head.
Click.
Press play.
“God sent me a vision. I have to admit it was terrifying. Then when it faded, I saw a face . . .”

Whir.
Rewind. The tape played again.

My fingers drummed the steering wheel. Jenna was right. Why did Chelsea call
me
? I should at least have asked what her vision was about. How unthinking of me! Now my overactive brain, fueled with adrenaline from the task I’d just completed, projected wild explanations. What if the vision she saw was about this shooting? Maybe the face she saw was the one I’d just drawn. Or another person who was somehow involved.