Anatomy of Fear

35

I pulled myself out of bed around eight. I was feeling edgy and sad but didn’t want to analyze it. I got my art supplies together and headed down Seventh Avenue, the morning sky over Manhattan silver, the tops of skyscrapers dissolving, a talc-like snow turning everything into sculpture.

Penn Station was crowded, people rushing for trains balancing briefcases and Starbucks. I bought a ticket for the ten-twenty Acela Express, which shaved the trip down to just under four hours. I got a seat to myself, and opened the latest issue of Rolling Stone but couldn’t concentrate on the music reviews or a story about Al Gore and his fight to save the environment, my mind going from Terri to the case to the sketch I was trying to make.

I closed my eyes and tried to picture something else: Terri, nude, the first thing that came to me, distracting but hardly relaxing. I exchanged it for a memory: sandy beach, blue sky, my first and only trip to Puerto Rico when I was nine years old, my father beside me, the enormous sand castle that had taken us half the day to build and five minutes for a wave to wash away. I could still picture the soft mounds of the castle’s remains and hear my father’s soothing voice: We can always build another. But I don’t think we ever did.

He watches the man leave, art supplies tucked under his arm, follows him on foot to Penn Station, where he stands on a ticket line, cap tugged low over his features, only three people between them, once again thrilled to be so close yet anonymous. When he hears the man ask for a ticket to Boston, he cuts out of the line, walks back to his building, slips inside behind a couple of workers who are not paying attention, takes the elevator and waits until the hallway is empty, then sets to work on the apartment’s shitty hardware-store lock, which is easy to pop.

The place reminds him of a big cage, no America the Beautiful accoutrements that make life worth living: no Ethan Allen sofa, matching chair, and ottoman; no acrylic nonstain rug. Nothing about the place makes any sense to him-no actual rooms, a beat-up sofa in the center of the space, lamp on a wooden crate that’s been painted blue, bed behind a half-wall, unmade, blankets tossed about, enough to set him itching. He can’t imagine that anyone would want to live like this. Clearly the man doesn’t know any better, more proof that some human beings have evolved and others have not.

He moves away from the bed, afraid it will contaminate him, and crosses the space to a long table covered with dozens and dozens of sketches, pencils, erasers, drawing stumps, sharpeners, graphite and wood shavings, a mess, even worse than the bed.

He switches on the high-intensity lamp and begins to sort through the sketches, studies the man’s style, the way he must hold his pencil to make such marks. It’s not difficult, the line and tone uncomplicated. He hates to admit it, but the man has some talent.

He taps the iPod resting in the docking station, and salsa music blasts into the room, shrill and ugly. He tries to stop it and knocks it to the floor. When he goes to retrieve it, he sees the drawing pad propped under the table, opens it, and freezes.

It’s true, what that reporter wrote! He can hardly believe it. How is it possible? A mud man with such a gift. Of course this is why he has been following him; he just didn’t expect to find it.

He grips the pad, gloved hands shaking as he stares at the incomplete portrait. He is about to rip it from the pad, tear it to pieces, but no, he can’t. The man must never know he was here. He has to think this through, figure out what to do. He closes his eyes and waits. He knows God will tell him.

The train was delayed in New Haven and again in Hartford and I arrived in Boston almost two hours late. I caught a cab, which dropped me in front of the impressive granite-and-glass building that housed the PD and their state-of-the-art DNA and Ballistics labs, as well as a couple of in-house forensic artists I’d met the last time I was here, computer variety, who had obviously failed to deliver, which gave me a slight jolt of schadenfreude.

A uniform led me to Detective Nevins’s office, which was bigger and better than the cubicle she’d had three years ago. The lettering on the door indicated she was now heading up Robbery.

She glanced up and pushed the blond hair out of her eyes. She looked good.

“Congrats on the promotion,” I said.

“You’re late,” she said. “The witness has already left.”

“Hey, not my fault. The train was delayed. Can you get him back?”

“Not till morning. Any chance you can stay overnight?”

I didn’t see any reason why not. “Sure,” I said, giving Detective Nevins a smile.

She didn’t return it. She raised her left hand and wiggled her ring finger to show off the gold band.

“Wow,” I said. “Congrats again. When did that happen?”

“Year ago. You didn’t think I was going to wait around for you, did you?”

The last time I’d come to Boston she’d been so happy with my sketch she’d taken me out for a drink and one thing led to another.

“When you didn’t call, I wrote you off as just another jerk.”

“That’s me,” I said.

“There’s a hotel in Crosstown Center, walking distance. We’ll reimburse you,” she said.

It has not taken long for God to provide an answer. Though He is busy, He is always there for him. God reminded him that nothing is more important than the mission, the role he is playing pivotal, that he will be remembered, written about, his name passed down by generations of men and women as a martyr to the cause.

He closes the pad that contains his half-finished portrait and slides it back under the table. The cracked iPod he arranges to look like an accident: book plucked from a shelf above the table and placed onto the docking station as if it had fallen, iPod on the floor just below it. He feels pleased to have broken the sketch artist’s toy.

He peruses the man’s drawings, page after page of sketches, and stops at one in particular to study the partially drawn faces, details of features-eyes, noses, lips, a slightly open mouth-and carefully notes again the man’s technique, the way he uses his pencil to create line, tone, and shadow.

He does not think this one will be missed.

He folds the page into his pocket along with a pencil.

At the door he takes his time refitting the lock, getting all the screws back in place.

Outside on the street, he feels calm. Though the man is creating his portrait, it no longer worries him. He will go home, do the work, come back, and finish up.

He peers up at the sky and whispers, “Thank you.”