“Thanks, dear sister, for your words of wisdom.”
Not for the world would I have admitted it, but an uncanny sensation stole over me as I paged through that book, as if I’d discovered something vastly significant that I didn’t even know I’d sought. In particular, the chapters on drawing composites called to me, even as apprehension made my nerves tingle. What would the author say about conducting the interview with the victim? Had I done the right things with Erin? Or would I find that every choice I made was wrong—so wrong that the results could not possibly be right?
I pushed that fear aside. I knew the composite was right.
So did Erin. And I had an encounter on a Redwood City street to prove it.
Jenna and I served Ed and Carol breakfast and lingered with them over coffee, listening with bitter empathy to their reminiscences of Lisa. The entire time, a vague unsettling about that book’s contents worried at the back of my mind.
Once we were in the airplane, I would read the chapters on composites.
Stephen shuffled into the kitchen. “Hey, Mom, when are we getting out of here?”
My son, the wonderful host. I was certain he’d posed the question for our guests’ benefit. One of Stephen’s cheeks was red, as if he’d slept on that side and just pulled himself from bed. He wore a black T-shirt with questionable graphics on the back, and his typical drag-on-the-floor baggy jeans. When I’d first seen the shirt, which he told me a friend had given him, I thought the vaguely drawn outline surrounded in smoke stood for some kind of pot smoking through a pipe, but Stephen had assured me it was just pop art. Looking at it now as he rummaged in the refrigerator, I wondered anew.
“How about saying good morning to our guests, Stephen.”
My tight tone betrayed my embarrassment at his manner.
“Morning,” he mumbled without turning around.
Ed and I exchanged a glance. Although the man said nothing, I sensed that if Stephen were his son, a serious verbal exchange would have followed. I lowered my eyes as a pang of all-too-familiar guilt shot through me—that I was not raising my son strictly enough, that I was losing control.
A part of me wanted to defend myself. Say something about how hard it was to raise a son when his father had abandoned him. But of course I would not.
Carol rescued me. “Did you want to leave this morning?”
Remorse creased her face. “Here we are, just sitting around.”
“Oh no, no.” I threw a narrow-eyed look at Stephen as he pulled out the milk. “It’s not a problem. We’re just going to the Bay Area for a few days. This afternoon is plenty of time for us to head out.”
All the same, and over my continued protests, they packed their suitcases after breakfast and vacated the room. I hoped my son’s behavior hadn’t run them out, even as I knew it had.
“This way you can leave when you want.” Carol smiled. “We’d just planned to be at Dave’s anyway until we go.”
They both hugged me and Jenna, thanking us again and again as we walked them out on the porch. “You’ve done so much for Dave and Erin.” Carol put her arms around me.
“That’s meant more to us than anything.”
When we pulled apart, I saw the tears in her eyes. Her words, supposed to soothe, chafed my heart. How would she feel when they heard the truth behind Lisa’s murder?
How would any of the Willits’ family feel?
We waved a final goodbye as they walked across the street toward Dave’s; then I slipped back into the house with Jenna and closed the door. My sister stood with hands on her hips, mouth pressed. “Annie. Don’t.”
“How can I help it? None of this would have—”
“Well, it has, so that’s that. We can’t look back, Annie; that’s the problem—you’re always looking back. And picking up guilt along the way when it isn’t even yours.”
The words stung. “Come on, Jenna, don’t lecture me now.
I’ve got enough to deal with.”
Her expression softened and she squeezed my wrist. “I know, I’m sorry. I’m just…being Jenna. All this is getting to me, too.” She smiled with one side of her mouth. Sunlight from the front windows cast a sheen on her hair, making her look beautiful and plaintive and vulnerable all at the same time—a rare combination for Jenna. My heart swelled with love for her. She was right; things were difficult for her, too.
I needed to remember that. I wasn’t the one who’d just lost my job.
“It’s okay.” I shook my head and sighed. “Let’s just…get our work done and get out of here.”
I climbed the stairs to gather the sheets and towels from the guest room and throw them over the balcony onto the great room floor. From there I hauled them into the laundry room off the kitchen to wash when we got back. As I returned to the kitchen, I realized I’d better call Vic, since he wasn’t expecting us to leave until the afternoon.
Oh, great. He’d think I was being pushy, not waiting for him to call. Tired as I was, and in my present frame of mind, the conversation could be particularly unpleasant.
So be it.
I picked up the receiver and dialed Vic’s office. At least I didn’t have to call him at home, where Sheryl could answer.
The only thing worse than talking to Vic was talking to Sheryl.
“Hi, Vic, it’s me.”
He wouldn’t even grant me a hello. “I told you I would call.” He sounded irritated.
I tried to keep my voice level. “Sorry, but we’re about to leave early and it couldn’t wait. When can I send the kids to you?”
“Not for a couple weeks, like we planned.”
“What? That’s impossible. I need to send them now! I’ve told you everything that’s going on, and we have to get out of this house!”
“You are getting out—to the Bay Area. Jenna’s got a place there, so what’s the problem?”
“I can think of a couple right off the bat. First, that she’s got a two-bedroom condo and we’re four people. More important, the Bay Area’s the last place I want Stephen to be, thanks to all his skuzzy friends. If you’ll remember, that’s why I moved away from there.”
“Yeah, and look where it’s gotten you.” Vic always knew how to hit below the belt.
I pressed my teeth together. “Look, Vic, could we stay on the subject for once? I need to send the kids to you.”
“What you need, Annie, is to not run away from your problems. Watch Stephen while he’s in the Bay Area, that’s all. Don’t let him see his friends.”
“Do you know how hard that’s going to be? Stephen in Jenna’s town house all day, and doing what?”
“Motherhood isn’t always easy, Annie.”
Anger shot up my spine. “No thanks to you.” I breathed hard into the phone. “Tell me why you can’t take them.”
“Because we don’t have vacation now. And Sheryl doesn’t trust them in the house alone.”
That really fried me. Deceptive, husband-stealing Sheryl didn’t trust my kids? I couldn’t find my tongue for a worthy response.
But the anger was good, good. Better than the self-deprecation Vic usually made me feel. I latched onto it, piling it up within me like kindling for a fire.
“The loving father, putting his children first.” My words seethed. “As he always does.”
Vic made a disgusted sound in his throat. “I thought you wanted to stay on the subject.”
“I am staying on the subject. The problem is that the subject never changes!”
“Annie—”
“Never mind, Vic! Just never mind. I don’t want to hear anything else you have to say. And in fact I don’t want to send my children to you. They don’t like you very much, anyway, since you chose to walk out on them. And in case you didn’t know it, they really don’t like Sheryl!”
Mouth twisting, I punched off the line. Wishing the receiver was the kind that could be banged down for good measure.
“Whoa.” Jenna’s voice came over my shoulder. “That was good. I’ll gi
ve you a seven.”
I puffed out air. “Seven? What would I have to do for a ten?”
She shook her head. “To that creep? You don’t want to know.”
I leaned against the kitchen table, my wrath turning into quiet desperation. “What are we going to do now, Jenna?
We’re stuck with the kids.”
My sister shrugged. “We’ll handle it, that’s all.”
“Stephen’s going to drive us crazy.”
“Yeah, I know. But we’ll…cross that bridge when we come to it. For now let’s just head out.”
By noon the four of us were loaded in the Cessna, headphones on and ready to go. My book on forensic art lay at my feet, leaning against the side of the plane, waiting to be read once we were in the air. The hangar door was closed, the house locked, and the alarm set at the highest level. I couldn’t help gazing at the Willits’ house as Jenna prepared to fire up the engine. The only car left out front belonged to Ed and Carol.
“Clear!” Jenna yelled out her window, then started the engine. The airplane tail rose from the force created by the churning propeller; dust in the street whisked away on the hot wind. A July noon in the Redding area meant sunny skies and high temperature. We were all sweating. Rising to a cooler altitude would be pleasant indeed.
We reached the run-up area just off the runway, where all systems of a plane are checked before takeoff. That done, Jenna turned the Cessna in a complete three-sixty for a sky check—an extra precaution taught by her flight instructor some seven years ago. Declaring over the radio that she was
“taking the active,” Jenna closed her window, pulled onto the runway, and gunned the engine. Seconds later we rose effortlessly into the air despite the heat outside, which could reduce the lifting ability of a lesser plane.
The airstrip beneath us fell away, bouncing up into a package of green forest ribboned with rural roads leading toward Interstate 5. From the air, the dividing line that is Redding is even more pronounced than on the ground. To the city’s south lie miles of boring flatness. To the north, the interstate crosses beautiful Lake Shasta, then begins a long, arduous climb through verdant hills.
Jenna’s ability to fly never ceased to amaze me. Our father had been a private pilot for so long that I hadn’t thought much about it. But when Jenna began ground school, then flying lessons, I was amazed. She’d spout to me what she learned about the various instruments and how to read the navigational maps, which seemed incomprehensible to me. They still do.
Had we been raised in the same household?
The plane turned south. As if a ghostly hand had plucked at its spine, the forensic art book fell over, landing on my feet.
I picked it up. The book lay in my hands, a weighty tome filled with information that could threaten what I knew about Lisa’s killer. As frightening as my discoveries of the Face had been, it would be even more frightening to have them all taken away, to be pushed back to complete ignorance of who he might be or what he looked like.
Jenna glanced at me and raised her eyebrows. Her support gave me the courage I needed.
I opened the book.
Chapter 32
The beginning chapters looked safe enough. Putting off the inevitable, I decided to skim them before immersing myself in the pages about interviewing.
First came an introduction to forensic art, followed by a chapter on its history. The drone of the airplane engine and voices of other pilots in my headset faded as I found myself pulled into the book. I was fascinated by various composites next to photos of the apprehended suspects. Some composites were more detailed than others. Some looked exactly like the suspects; others were not as good. But all had led to the arrest of the person in question. How amazing that artists could play such an important part in law enforcement.
The skin on my arms tingled. In my own little and amateurish way, I’d linked myself with true professionals—heroes—in the field.
Okay. Get on with it, Annie. I told myself I really should skip to the chapters on composites.
But not yet.
Shouldn’t I at least skim the chapter on capturing the face—everything from features to facial proportions to drawing materials? Lighting. Profiles. Accessories. Disguises. I stared at the now famous composite of the Unabomber, with his large sunglasses and hood. Although the eerie drawing had been plastered all across America, it was a tip from the Unabomber’s brother, and not the composite, that had led to his arrest.
My fingers turned pages. Before I was ready, I faced the chapter on interviewing. The temptation to skip over it, read something else— anything else—surged through me. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and plunged in.
Certain information jumped out at me right away.
First, that trauma can badly affect memory, depending upon how involved the witness was as a victim in the crime.
Erin had certainly been “involved.”
Second, that sleep can help such a person recall events.
Take that, Chetterling. I’m the one who begged you to let her rest.
That victims sometimes fall into unconscious transference, in which a face they see in some other context becomes blurred with the face of the criminal. That younger children and the elderly usually make less accurate witnesses than young adults, while teenagers often seem to notice details that others miss.
What did that mean for Erin? She was no longer a young child and not yet a teen, although close to it. Did that place her in the “more reliable” category?
In spite of my anxiety, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by a section on victims who lie. According to the author, sometimes composite artists could pick up on these lies, noting inconsistencies in a witness’s descriptions. The forensic artist who had interviewed Susan Smith, the young mother who was later convicted of killing her two sons, had sensed that something was amiss. Later he was proven right. The kidnapper of her children did not exist.
Did not exist.
For some reason those words taunted me. I pushed them from my mind.
My heart tapped an extra beat as I began reading about the composite-specific interview, which was based on cognitive methods for retrieving memory from a victim’s mind.
“The forensic artist should take time to establish rapport with the victim,” wrote the author. The artist should not view pictures of suspects ahead of time, nor should there be pictures of faces on the walls where the interview takes place. And the interview should occur in a comfortable environment.
So far, so good.
I raised my head for a moment, glancing out the window.
We were approaching the edge of the richly soiled Napa Valley. Vineyards stretched before us, running up hills and striding over flatlands, parting around the magnificent homes of wineries. Although my brain registered the luscious landscape, I barely noticed.
Maybe buying this book would prove to be the best thing Jenna could have done for me. Maybe its words would validate everything I’d done, secure my knowledge of the Face with the strength of a dead bolt in a lock.
My eyes returned to the book. I pressed the knuckles of my right hand against my chin and continued reading.
The next boldfaced sentences clanged through me like a warning bell.
An artist should not face the interviewee, the book said, but the two should sit side by side. And they should not make eye contact at all. Looking at the artist’s face, the victim could inadvertently recall similar features. My breath pooled in my lungs. Erin had been facing me until I first showed her the picture. I closed my eyes, reviewing each feature of the Face.
Were there any that even remotely resembled mine? If not individual features, did the proportions?
No, not at all. And even if Erin had faced me, she hadn’t really looked at me, had she? Hadn’t she looked down, away, squeezed her eyes shut?
The book turned worse from there. Oh, there were numerous things I had done right, but I couldn’t note them for all those I hadn’t. I should have listened
to a complete run-through of the man’s description before I started drawing. I should have majored more on proportions of the face, rather than worrying first about its separate components.
Once Erin looked at the drawing and we needed to fine-tune individual features, I should have shown her pictures of faces, using perhaps mug shots or the FBI Facial Identification Catalog, neither of which I’d possessed.
I sank my thumb into the paper. Detective Chetterling must know about this catalog. Why hadn’t he told me I should use something like it? Why had he set me up without help— me, with no experience and a heart too close to the victim?
I read on.
The pictures were to be shown judiciously, the book said, and not too many of them. The artist shouldn’t overwhelm the victim with too many features to choose from.
Well, I can’t exactly be faulted for that mistake.
But I had pushed Erin in her exhausted state—another thing that should not be attempted—to clarify each feature from her memory. And during her tiredness, instead of only allowing her short viewings of the drawing, I let her see individual features for long stretches at a time while I worked.
For long stretches at a time.
Blazing each feature into her memory.
Her exhausted memory.
Her child’s…traumatized…susceptible memory.
Wait. What was that part about unconscious transference?
I turned back and reread the passage. Victims indeed could remember the wrong face. The book noted that composites have even been known to end up being the face of a policeman at the scene of the crime, or someone else who’d stopped to help.
What about the artist? I flipped pages. Had artists ever been known to unconsciously transfer a face they’d seen to the drawing before them? I skimmed more pages, then checked the list of contents in the front. Nothing on the artists. Nothing.
Terrific.
No doubt I’d be the first. A real case study. Wouldn’t the author of this book be fascinated to hear the havoc I’d wreaked.
Breath caught in my throat. The plane felt claustrophobic. If only we were in a car, where I could open a window and get some air.
Brink of Death Page 16