“You said you came out the door at 1:51. I noted that was very precise—”
“I’d just clocked out. That’s how I remember what time it was. I left by the back door.” I gestured behind me.
Beyond us, out in the alley, someone was taking pictures. Someone else was investigating a patch of stringy weeds that had grown up beside the dumpsters.
“So you came out that door and then what did—”
A text pinged my phone. It was my student.
Could you just tell my parents we had a session?
At a hundred dollars an hour?
No.
I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Even though, in this area, my fee was a bargain.
“Ma’am?”
“I’m sorry. Um—” I tried to remember what he’d asked. Tried not to remember the man who was lying there in the alley with blood pooling around his head.
Behind us, the door cracked open. Corrine poked her head out.
The detective raised a finger. “Hold on.” He leaned around me. “Hey!” He raised his voice to be heard over the wind. “Don’t open that door. Please go back inside!”
Corrine ignored him. “You okay, Whit? Just wanted to check on you.”
“Please shut the door. Now.”
“I’m fine, Corrine.” Maybe not right that second, but I would be. I had to be. I didn’t have time not to be.
The detective shook his head as he resumed his questioning. “You came out the door and then what?”
“I don’t know.” I went out the door and then what? “I saw that man. The victim. He was lying there on the pavement. I think he was already dead.”
“Did you hear a gunshot?”
“No.” I was trying hard to keep the detective’s shoulder between me and the dead man so I wouldn’t have to see him. “Is this going to take long?” I needed to get to the library.
The detective shifted.
I could see the body again. The photographer was taking pictures of it from every possible angle.
“Did you hear anything as you opened the door?”
“No.” I heard nothing. I saw everything.
“Right. Okay. So you were—where were you standing?”
I walked back to the door and then took a few steps away from it toward the alley. “I was right here.” As I stood there speaking, the door opened again.
The detective stepped past me and pulled it all the way open.
My manager came out.
“When I said I didn’t want anyone opening this door, I meant it. Could you please just—”
“I’m the manager of this store. I wanted to know if—”
“After I’m done with Ms. Garrison, I’d like to talk to you. But I’ll come around through the front.” He gestured her back through the door. “There’s been a murder. The shooter might have been one of your customers. The victim might have been one of your customers. Either one of them might have come into the alley through this door. That means there could be evidence somewhere in that hall. There might even be some on the door. And every time someone opens it, that evidence gets compromised. So please. Go back inside and tell the others to just stay away.”
The manager hesitated for a long moment and then retreated, letting the door swing shut behind her.
The detective sighed. “Okay.” We retreated back to the shelter of the wall. “So you come out the door, you stop right there”—he pointed—“and you’re facing which way?”
“My back was to the door.”
He made some notes. “Okay. Then what happens?”
“Nothing. Nothing was happening. The man was just lying there.” With a hole in his head, staring up at the sky.
A car tried to drive into the alley. The policeman controlling access waved him off. Told him to turn around.
Out by the dumpster, one of the investigators squatted. Examined something on the ground.
“And what did you do?”
“I wanted to get back inside. But the door had shut. And then I heard something on the roof. I looked up and there was a man there. I think he was holding a gun. He pointed it at me.”
“And then what happened?”
“That’s when the garbage truck came around the corner.” I pointed left, out toward the end of the alley.
The detective wrote some more. “What happened after that?”
“The man on the roof disappeared.”
“Did you notice anything about him?”
“Besides that he was a man?”
“Anything.”
I shook my head. He was a man. He was holding a gun. I was almost certain it was a gun.
“What was he wearing?”
I closed my eyes. Tried to recall. “A jacket? Dark. I couldn’t see him below the waist.”
“What did he do with the gun?”
“He put it into his jacket.”
“Jacket?” He underlined something in his notebook. “Into the pocket?” He patted the outside pocket of his own jacket.
“Inside pocket.”
“Inside jacket pocket. What kind of jacket?”
“Suit jacket.”
The investigators were moving closer. One of them was inspecting the gutter beside us.
“Color?” the detective asked.
“Um. Sorry. What? Color of what?”
“The suit.”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember. It was a dark color.”
“And that was it?”
“That was it. He disappeared.”
He made a few more notes. “Any idea who he was? Had you seen him before?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
We exchanged contact information. He asked me to wait inside the coffee shop until he could work up a statement for me to sign.
As I turned to go, I nearly ran into one of the investigators. She was holding a Blue Dog coffee cup. Our tagline . . . and other fantastical beasts, written in cursive, ringed the bottom edge of the cup.
As I held on to her arm for balance, I saw the label.
It was one I’d put on that cup about half an hour before.
Joe
Soy mocha
One pump
No whip
I walked back to the detective. Caught his attention.
He turned away from the wind as he bent to talk to me. “Think of something else?”
“I know who the victim is.”
“But you said before that you didn’t recognize him.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. But that cup?” I pointed to the investigator who was bagging it. “I gave that cup to that man just before I got off work.”
He reached past me and gestured to the woman. Took the bag from her.
I pointed to the label.
The detective read it. “Joe?”
“He came in every day around one thirty. For a mobile order.”
“So you did know him?”
“I don’t know anything about him except that he usually ordered a soy mocha. One pump. No whip.”
He gave the bag back, pulled out his notebook, and made a few more notes. “So we’ve got a couple of men with the garbage truck who might have seen a guy running down the sidewalk right before they turned into the alley and who may or may not have heard a gunshot when they were on the other side of the street. They were right in the middle of a debate about whether the Nats are going to make it into the playoffs, so they can’t say for sure.” He flipped the notebook shut. “And then there’s you. You saw the killer and you knew the victim. At least we have you.”
That was the moment I was dreading. The moment I finally had to tell him. “Not really. You don’t really have me at all.”
Chapter 3
The detective took me around the block and into the coffee shop. It was mostly deserted. A police officer seemed to be wrapping up an interview with a pair of customers.
We sat at an empty table. The manager brought us some water. By that point, I was long past late for the library. I
had already stood up my second student and I’d texted the third and fourth to let them know I wasn’t coming.
The detective opened up his notepad and took out his pen. “Do you mind if we go over this again? You’re the only one who saw the murderer and you just told me you can’t be a witness?”
“Not in the traditional way.”
“We don’t have the victim’s wallet. We don’t have his phone. Don’t have any identification for him at all. All we have is you and a coffee cup.”
“I know, and I wish—”
“And now you’re saying all we have is the coffee cup?”
The contrast between the mugginess outside and the coolness of air-conditioning had been refreshing at first. Not anymore. I pulled one of my hands up into the sleeve of my red blouse and then tucked it underneath my other arm.
“Is that what you’re saying?”
“No.”
“No?”
I shook my head.
“Then what are you saying? I need to understand. Are you asking for a lawyer?”
I smiled; I couldn’t help myself. If all went well during my bar exam, then I would be able to do a half-decent job of representing myself. Even though, of course, no smart lawyer would do that. “No. Back in the alley, when I told you that you didn’t have me, what I meant was, it’s not that I didn’t see the killer or know the victim—it’s that I can’t remember them.”
He sat back. “Oh. Don’t worry. That’s not unusual. Murder is traumatic. It might come back to you in pieces, in flashes of memory. Or it could replay in an endless loop. The mind is funny that way.”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to say. My mind is particularly funny.”
“In what way?”
“I can’t remember faces. I have face blindness.”
“I don’t know what that is. What does that mean?”
“My brain can’t process faces.”
“So maybe we work with a forensic artist to sketch an image of the shooter. That’s fine.”
He wasn’t listening to me, so he didn’t understand. But that was typical. “That won’t help. It’s as if the software that stores facial recognition inside my brain has been deleted.”
“So what you’re saying is what, exactly?”
“I can’t remember the face of the killer because it was never stored in my brain in the first place. I can tell you the killer wore a suit jacket, but I will never be able to tell you what his face looked like.”
“Ever?”
“Never.”
“If we can come up with a suspect, would a lineup help jog a memory?”
“There is no memory.” Hysteria fought its way up into my throat. I took a deep breath as I tried to think of another way to explain. I put my hand up and held it in front of my eyes so that it obscured his face from my view. “This is what it’s like when I look at you. I know that your hair is black. I can see that you’re wearing a blue suit jacket and a white shirt.” He had square shoulders and several chest hairs peeking through his open collar. “But I can’t tell you anything about your face.”
“Ever? But what if you were to look right at me and I asked you, ‘What color are my eyes?’”
“Always. This is always how it is. It’s how it always has been. And that’s all I would be able to tell anyone, ever.”
“So what you’re telling me is that you would never be able to recognize the shooter.”
Finally! “Yes.”
* * *
He asked me a dozen more questions about the condition, and I gave him the same answer to every one.
I can’t remember faces.
One of the investigators came in. The detective excused himself for a moment to join her. As they talked, he gestured once or twice at me. I didn’t have to strain to hear their conversation.
“But she said she saw the shooter.” The investigator seemed exasperated.
“I know. And she did. It’s just that she can’t remember.”
False. I could remember. I could remember everything. The only thing I couldn’t remember was the face of the killer. I hadn’t told anyone at work about my condition, but just then I felt like standing on the chair and announcing it so everyone could hear. But even if I did, I knew it wouldn’t matter. I’d still be the weirdo. It was better just to let people talk and get it over with.
The detective was still speaking. “She says she has face blindness.”
“Face blindness? Is that a thing?”
“It’s a thing.”
Their conversation went on like that for a while. I finally dug around in my backpack for my phone and sent a text to my dad, asking how his day was.
He texted back, I’m thriving.
Thriving? That didn’t sound like my dad. As I was puzzling over it, he sent another text.
You
I eyed the single word with suspicion. No complete sentence? No punctuation? I felt like asking him for his identification. Maybe he was following my advice and taking one of the social media classes down at the community center back home.
I texted back, Fine. Except for the murder. Busy day.
Chance of rain anytime soon?
After a fall and winter that had featured nonstop rain, the Pacific Northwest was now in danger of becoming a tinderbox.
He texted me a cactus emoji.
What was going on? In the space of two hours, my whole world had turned upside down. I’d stumbled into a murder and my father had discovered emojis.
The detective came back. “Ms. Garrison? I’d like you to watch the footage from the security camera with me.”
“Sure. Yes. Of course.”
“See if anything—I mean, I know you won’t recognize anybody, but maybe you’ll see something that will help you remember. Something that’s not a face. I’ll take anything that will help us identify the victim. Or the killer. The manager said she’d meet me in the office?”
“It’s behind there.” I pointed to the swinging door behind the counter.
He took a step forward. Paused. “How do we get back there?” The work area was completely enclosed by the counter.
“There’s another door. In the back hall. But you said you didn’t want anyone using the hall earlier.”
“It’s fine now. We’ve gone over it.”
I led him back to the door. Punched in the code.
The manager was at her desk. She stood when she saw us.
“I’ll set everything up here.” She gestured to her desk and then leaned close to me. “The sooner the police can solve this, the sooner business gets back to normal.”
As I put my things into a locker, she sat down in front of her computer. By the time I joined them, she had brought up some footage and maximized it to fill the screen.
It was from after the shooting. Police officers and detectives walked in and out of view. One of them knelt and picked up something in the alley. Put it into some sort of bag.
The image froze and then disappeared as the manager tinkered with the program. Then more footage appeared. “This is the start of the shift, when the first barista came in at four this morning.” She vacated the chair.
The detective sat down. Turned to me. “You said the shooting happened when?”
“At 1:51.” I stopped myself. “Actually, at some point before 1:51. That’s when I came out the door.”
“Can we fast-forward?” he asked the manager. “I’m just looking, at the moment, to see who used that door. Besides Ms. Garrison.”
She leaned over and pointed to a button. Then she straightened and headed toward the swinging door that led to the counter area. “I’m going out on the floor. Let me know if you need anything else.”
After the manager left, I watched over the detective’s shoulder as he reviewed the footage.
The camera was positioned right above the door. Its fish-eye view captured the keypad and a narrow band of the alley. Its purpose seemed to be to identify who was coming and going through the back door.
/> At 1:43, the door opened into the frame and a man appeared. The camera caught the top of his head. The door retreated as he stepped into full view. As he walked into the alley, the wind flattened his hair against his skull. Holding a hand up in front of his eyes, he turned to his left, to his right. Then he took a drink from his cup. Seemed to look at his watch. Took another drink. Turned to look over his shoulder and then down the alley again. Took a drink. Turned his face up to the camera.
The detective paused the footage. Pulled out his phone. Called someone. “Hey.” He listened a moment before speaking. “Can you send someone to check out the roof again? Take another look?” He paused again. “Yeah. Thanks. And we need to see if anyone else had a camera in the alley or along the street out in front. Go down to the metro station, see if we can get their footage too.” He spoke for a few more moments and then hung up. “You good?” he asked me.
I nodded.
“Okay. I want you to explain to me exactly what you can see and what you can’t. For instance—” He rewound the footage to the place where the victim turned his face full-on to the camera. “What can you see here?”
“The man—the victim—he turned around. Before, he was facing the dumpster across the alley. Now he’s facing the camera.”
“So you know where his face is.”
“Generally speaking, a person’s head is on top of their shoulders.”
“I’m not trying to take a cheap shot here. I’m trying to understand what you can and can’t see. It’s important. The longer it takes to solve this, the greater the chance the shooter gets away with it.”
“I’m sorry.” I sighed. “I apologize. Face blindness has a continuum. Some of us are more affected than others. Here’s how it works with me. When I look at someone, I can tell if they’re a child or an adult. I have trouble distinguishing adult-size age unless I can see someone as they walk or I get an up-close look at their hands or their neck. Or their hair. But people can color their hair. Is a balding man with dark hair a young man or is he just vain? I would need other clues in order to tell you.”
“What kind of clues?”
“Clothes. Shoes. Those aren’t always accurate, but they can usually get me safely to one side of sixty or the other. Unless it’s a woman having a midlife crisis. Or one trying to keep up with a teenage daughter. In that case, knees are a dead giveaway. If I can hear someone speak, that usually helps me too.”
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