Face of a Killer

46

The next morning, Carillo rode shotgun while Sydney drove to San Quentin, because she had to hear it from Wheeler before she could let it go. Hear that he was lying about this. She’d thought he was this innocent man, that her father had befriended him because of the relationship with Wheeler’s father, Francisco… But once again it occurred to her, what did she really know about her father anyway?

And therein lay the crux of the matter. She’d been so distracted about her father’s secret life and that damned photo that McKnight sent that apparently she’d grasped at any little thing that might turn it around, prove it was wrong, even Wheeler’s lies, even though his lies didn’t prove everything else was wrong. In fact, Sydney was still distracted by it all, still upset, so much so that she wasn’t even aware that Carillo was talking to Dixon on the phone. “I’ll let her know,” he said, then disconnected.

He tucked his phone on his belt, looked over at her, and said, “Not sure if it’s a good news, bad news, good news thing.”

“Okay…”

“They arrested Gnoble’s aide, Prescott. Interrogated the shit out of him, got the big deny, deny, deny, until the moment they walked in with his cell phone and pulled up your cell phone number and the time of your threatening call. That was all it took. He admitted to leaving that voice mail on Dixon’s phone, too, and then he confessed to starting the fire. Said he’d unlocked your window, then set up the can of turpentine the day before, when he and Gnoble went out to bring you flowers, so that he could come back, slide the window open, then light it on fire.”

“The bad news?”

“He says that Gnoble didn’t know a thing. Prescott hired a hit man without Gnoble’s knowledge, but decided to do it on his own when the guy kept missing you. So we got Prescott, but Gnoble’s untouchable. Bet you’ll never guess who Prescott did give up. Mrs. Gnoble.”

“Mrs. Gnoble?”

“The one and only. Seems she was worried about McKnight sending you this photo and opening up a big can of worms involving your father, McKnight, and Gnoble. The BICTT scandal. Thought it might interfere with her chances of becoming first lady, so she got Prescott to hire a hit man. They arrested her this morning.”

“Then what’s the good news?”

“The hit man that Prescott hired? Richard Blackwell. Supposed to be the best in the business? Well, just might be. Only he works for CIA. The guy you saw in court, then out on the street? That’s him. He’s the one who made that first phone call to you, pretending to be the Jane Doe killer in order to make Prescott think it was legit. His job was to prevent Prescott from killing you, by pretending to be the one who was going to take you out.”

Cute Guy from the elevator, she thought. How fitting. She glanced over at him, then back at the road, figuring that was why Scotty had gone along with them and not informed her of what was going on at first. She didn’t like it any better, but at least she understood. “Anything else?”

“No. He’ll call us the moment something comes up.”

“So, what exactly did you tell him we were doing?”

“Going out to breakfast.” He leaned his head back, closed his eyes. “Just don’t wake me until it’s over. Long night.”

All too soon, Sydney was seated opposite Wheeler in an interview room. Again.

She was hating this place. Hating that she’d ever walked in here.

“Yeah,” he said. “You got news?”

“I got news,” she replied, watching his face carefully. “I got news that a photo was taken of you climbing in the back of the pizza place, during your second visit, just before you ripped it off.”

He didn’t answer, and Sydney found her gaze drawn to his white eye, the one that couldn’t see, but seemed to see right through her. He looked away. “Don’t know what you’re talkin’ about.”

“They’ve made great strides with technology. They can enhance things that might not have been useful twenty years ago.”

“Yeah, they showed those photos in court. Couldn’t prove it was me. Couldn’t even prove it was the pizza deliveryman.”

“Oh, very funny. Did you go back in to take the money from the safe?”

He refused to look at her, and she realized that he had done that very thing.

“I don’t believe it. I broke every rule I held sacred, put my career on the line investigating this thing, trying to help you, and you lied to me.”

“I didn’t lie. I never said a thing. I didn’t steal nothing. Don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“I’m talking about this.” Sydney laid the photos on the table. He looked at them, his gaze widening at the face shot that DOJ was able to enhance, his hand on the window frame, uninjured, unburned.

“So I went in the back way. That don’t make me a killer.”

“You ripped him off. That makes you highly suspect when you said that he gave you the money.”

“And he did. The money from the till. Never touched the safe.”

“But you went back for more.”

“No, I didn’t. Those pictures don’t prove shit.”

“They’ll speak pretty loudly when the governor is looking at your case for clemency. When’s the big day? Tomorrow? The next?”

He was quiet, looking like he was wrestling with something. His life, no doubt. And Sydney thought about the little things he told her, the things that he couldn’t have known unless her father had told him. Was she wrong? “You told me my father said that you could pay him back on Tuesday.”

“I don’t remember what day he said. I just said Tuesday, ’cause you asked, and it was the day after he was killed.”

And her heart sank. She supposed she’d been so eager to believe him, because by doing so, it meant her father was good, altruistic.. . She’d put her hopes in that he, Wheeler, had the most incentive to tell the truth. How was it that she’d overlooked that he also had the most incentive to lie?

“Why? You went back to steal the money from the goddamned safe! What happened? Did he catch you?”

“Just ’cause I’m a thief, don’t make me no murderer. No, he didn’t catch me. He was too busy talking to someone else.”

“There was someone else there?” Sydney said. “How convenient.”

“And true.”

“You forget to mention that to the cops? Sort of when you forgot to mention that you climbed into the back of the building after he’d already given you money?”

“I told them I saw that guy there. Probably the same guy I saw sitting out in the car when I show to get my green. They did that Identikit thing. I just didn’t say when I saw him, or where I was when I saw him that second time.”

“Why not?”

“You saying I was s’posed to tell them? Hey, by the way, while I was breakin’ in the back way to rob the place? That guy in the parking lot came in and blew away the owner? You nuts? I got my black ass breaking into a white man’s business in a rich white man’s town. I can’t go tellin’ them I was rippin’ the place off. They convict me for sure, I say that. ’Specially I say that after the fact. Like I’m makin’ it up, or somethin’.”

She simply stared at him. Couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She got up, slapped her hand on the door to be let out. “Do you know how many people suffered because you lied?”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell ’em everything. I told ’em what they needed to know. Ain’t my fault they ain’t listening. And I didn’t kill him.”

The guard opened the door. “You done?”

“Yeah,” she said, then turned back to Wheeler, trying so hard not to say something smart-assed. “I’m done.”

“You gotta understand!” He rose, placed both shackled hands on the table. “If I told you right off, you wouldn’t help me! You know that’s true!”

She ignored him, walked out, her footsteps echoing down the long concrete corridor, trying not to think about how much time and energy-and emotion-she’d wasted on this case, how she’d so wanted to believe him, because that meant her father’s life was worth something

… And she couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t been distracted by Wheeler’s lies, would Prescott have ever gotten close enough to her to set her apartment on fire? Endanger her sister? Maybe she would’ve foreseen some of the events, been smart enough not to think that everything about her father and his death was a big government conspiracy to cover up the truth, that they weren’t out there manufacturing evidence, that her father wasn’t trying to blackmail someone to pay off a boat. That the photo meant nothing-

She stopped in her tracks. Realized what she’d failed to see there the whole time. Of course it wasn’t about the photo. Not in the sense they’d been looking at. It was the timing. Cisco’s Kid… “Oh my God,” she whispered.

She pivoted, strode back to the interview room where the guard was leading Wheeler back to his cell. “Give me just a couple more minutes,” she said.

The guard nodded, and Wheeler sat back down and Sydney thought of him climbing through that window. “If my father gave you money to get to this job, why would you come back and rip him off?”

“Gotta understand. That was a long time ago. Me being young. Stupid. I got mad at my girlfriend ’cause she was taking off, leaving me with a new baby. My aunt’s all over my ass, gotta grow up, kick the drugs, ’cause I gotta be a father.

We got in a fight over it. What kinda man’s gotta beg for a double-saw from his aunt? That’s why I called your father.

I ain’t never heard of this church, and I’m starting to think maybe they’re like some kind of cult, I mean, what they doin’ pickin’ some loser like me from the streets, gonna make me their project? Aunt Jazz tells me to be careful, but maybe this is my chance, and I think, yeah, this is my chance. I think if I had enough green, I wouldn’t have to borrow nothing to get no job in San Mateo. I could maybe buy a couple bricks, turn it over real quick.”

She was fascinated by the novelty of what Wheeler was saying, the fact it seemed more the unvarnished truth of a young kid who sees opportunity knocking, and is too mixed up to make the right decisions. “So what really happened?” “I show up just like he says, get this gas money to drive down to San Mateo, and he’s busy washin’ glasses. He tells me to look in that little can but there’s only some change, then tells me there’s a twenty under the till. And then I leave.” “And?” Sydney asked, leaning against the door. He hesitated. “So I park around the corner, and I climb in through the back window. A storeroom. Lots of cans of stuff.

That’s when I hear your old man, ’cause he asked, ‘How’d you get in?’ Thought he was talkin’ to me. Like he knew.

I froze. Then I realize he ain’t talkin’ to me. He talkin’ to someone else.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know. Like I told the cops. Mighta been this guy

I saw sittin’ in the parking lot when I first got there. He’s the one watchin’ me, but I figure, you know, he’s waitin’ for someone. But whoever this guy was inside, your father didn’t like him none. Least not him bein’ there right then. In his face about it.”

“Arguing?”

“Yeah. Words. What’d the guy think he was doin’ back there.”

“Back where?”

“Just back, like he came back for somethin’. That’s why I’m thinkin’ he’s that guy I saw outside. You know. Already been there.”

“Then what?”

“They got in each other’s face.”

“About what?”

“The other guy’s saying, you do what you plannin’, you gonna lead ’em all right back to him, and he worked too hard to get where he was. Your old man, he says, get over it, he ain’t changin’ his mind.’ And the guy says he ain’t gonna lose it all just ’cause of him. No way.”

“Lose what?”

“Don’t know. So I’m thinking, time to go. I turn around, gonna climb back out, and boom.”

She closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine her father being shot

… It took her a moment to shake it off, force herself to look at him. “You saw him pull the trigger?”

“No, but who coulda done it? Next thing I know, I hear this clinking from behind the bar, like someone pulling bottles out, then I hear splashing, and someone lights a fire.”

“And what did you do?”

“What else? Guy’s gotta gun. I’m thinkin’ he’s shootin’ me next, so I ain’t moving until I’m sure he’s gone. And then I got the hell out, same way I got in.”

She glanced at the twisted scars on his hands. “How did you get burned, then?”

“What was I s’posed to do? I went to see if your old man was dead, but the flames shot up and I knew I had to get out of there.”

She wasn’t sure if she believed him. But she knew one way to find out. She pulled out her cell phone, called Carillo, and told him to bring her briefcase from his car. He brought it to her a few minutes later, and the guard let him in. “You want me to wait here?” he asked.

“No.”

Carillo left without further comment.

She took out her sketch pad, wondering if she even had a chance of success, because there were two things against her. One, she wasn’t even sure he was telling the truth. Two, she’d never elicited a sketch from someone for a crime that had occurred that long ago. Usually it was a matter of hours from when the crime occurred, though she’d done some sketches months, even a couple of years after. But not twenty years… Cognitive recall worked under normal circumstances. Would it work for a case that happened two decades before?

“Do you think you could identify the man you saw?” Sydney asked him.

“Back then, yeah. Now? How am I s’posed to know?”

“Pretend twenty years hasn’t gone by. We have pictures of all these people, how they looked. Could you identify him?”

“I been in this cage every night seein’ his face, knowin’ his ass should be here, not mine. Yeah. I can do it. You got pictures for me to see?”

“No. We’re going to make one.”

He looked dubious. “I already described him.”

“But not to me.” She took out her sketchbook, a pencil, and set them on the table. Then, with a prayer for the truth at last, Sydney said, “What I want you to do is go back about an hour before you broke in. What were you doing?”

“Leaving JJ with Aunt Jazz and driving up to Santa Arleta.”

“What was the weather like?”

“Why you askin’?”

“Humor me.”

“Cold. Windy. And there’s stars out, when I drove over the bridge. I remember the stars, ’cause Aunt Jazz always told me to make a wish. Like they ever come true, you know? So, yeah. I remember the stars.”

She simply nodded. More important to let him talk, remember the little details, even if they were innocuous thoughts, anything to retrieve the tiniest slivers of memories that would help him remember what she needed for the drawing…

He continued to ramble for a bit, then said, “And I park around the corner and wait, figuring your old man gotta be gone by then, you know? He was just ’bout ready to leave when I saw him that first time, maybe that’s who was waitin’ for him in the parking lot. His ride. And I decide to walk up the back, see the windows. And I figure, you know, the place is closed up for the night, so I can just climb in the back. No one’s gonna be back there.”

“Do you remember hearing any noises?”

“Nothing. Quiet. Figure it’s closed. Quiet’s good.”

“So you break in. What was the room like around you?”

“Dark. Lots of cans. Stuff around. And then I hear, ‘What are you doing here?’”

“Okay. You hear that and you…”

“I look out the door.”

“At what point did you see the other guy’s face? The killer?”

“When he tells your father he ain’t gonna lose it all. It’s like he was lookin’right at me. Like he saw me, knew I was there. That’s when I turn to leave. That’s when I’m thinkin’, yeah, he’s that same guy sittin’ in that parking lot when I walk in. Ain’t no customer. He’s waiting for your old man. Waitin’ to kill him. That’s why I think he set me up.”

“I want you to look at that face, that moment when he looked right at you. What was the shape, the outline of the head?”

He drew a circle in the air. And so it began. He described, Sydney drew. If he hesitated, she would bring him back to that moment. The moment she didn’t want to relive, but had to over and over. Look at his face. Tell her what he saw. All to get a sketch, a sketch that may or may not be the face of the man who killed her father.

And as Sydney sketched, she wondered how she would know. How would she know if he was telling the truth? How would she know this was the face of a killer?

She needed to keep her mind open. Needed to not prejudice the drawing with her own beliefs, because she didn’t yet know the truth. And eventually she saw it begin to take shape.

And her heart skipped a beat.

Had she drawn this, or was it his sketch?

Was it something she wanted to believe, or was it the truth?

She had to be sure. And so, on purpose, she lengthened and squared the chin, made it different. She had to know that this was coming from his mind, not hers.

“Yeah,” he said, and her heart sank. Her drawing, she thought. Not his. Why should she be surprised he had lied? This was his last shot at freedom. Tomorrow was his last day on this earth. “Yeah,” he said again, nodding. “That’s the man that killed your father.”

She’d witnessed numbers of false sketches over the years, someone trying to conjure a suspect in their mind to clear themselves, agreeing that the sketch she’d done was “perfect.” Another dead end, she thought, and, to prove her point, asked him, “Is there anything you’d do to make it look more like the man you saw? Any changes?”

She expected none, and sure enough he shook his head, saying, “Nothing. Looks just like him…” She gave a perfunctory smile, started to put the sketchbook away, when he said, “Except the chin ain’t his. Wasn’t square. Like, maybe shorter and more round, like this,” he said, taking his finger and tracing it where he thought it should be.

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah. Didn’t want you to think, you know, that you’re a bad artist, but that ain’t his chin,” he said, and her heart started pounding.

His drawing after all…

She changed the sketch. Showed it to him.

He nodded. “Yeah. That’s him. That’s the man that killed your father.”

Gnoble.

Back before he’d ever grown that trademark goatee.

His wife had just been arrested. And if she knew his secrets, he had to be worried. Desperate. And he lived in the same town as her mother. Her sister.

She called for the guard, grabbed her sketchbook, then took out her phone, punched in Dixon’s number. “You know that case I wasn’t investigating…?”