Pacific Burn

by Barry Lancet

  The sheriff’s shoulder set erupted in static, then spat out a message that Copeland was on her way.

  Nash’s glance wandered across the yard at Shu, who was once more rocking back and forth. “If anyone can coax an image from our poor little man, Cheré can.”

  * * *

  A slim, big-boned woman with sandy-blond hair waited for us in a large conference room at the Napa County Sheriff’s Department. Her pale skin had a rosy tint from a dose of sun.

  The sheriff introduced us, and Detective Cheré Copeland cast a curious eye at Shu, giving him a big smile at the same time. “Young people make great witnesses. It’s only a matter of deciphering their scale. They don’t understand ‘thirty years old,’ only ‘older or younger than my uncle.’ ”

  We shook hands, then the Suisun City sketch artist took a moment to shake hands with a couple of the deputies she didn’t know. She had probing gray-green eyes, a quiet confidence, and no wedding ring, but a pale circle where one had been. She’s cop, artist, mother. She’s good with everyone. Except maybe the ex-husband.

  Nash escorted us to a long table at the far end of the room.

  “Is this our hero?” Copeland said, looking pointedly at Shu, her fingers skirting playfully along the edge of her belt.

  Shu tracked the lively movement of her hand. When Copeland gave her fingers a final wiggle and raised them to her chin, Shu’s gaze followed.

  On her face was the mischievous smile of a magician. “Do you speak English?”

  Shu cocked his head, waiting.

  Copeland’s bright gray-greens swiveled in my direction. “Should I take that as a no?”

  “You should,” I said.

  She shrugged. “I can work with that. Now, what is it you do? You’re not a cop, but you look familiar.”

  “Friend of the family, part-time police consultant for the SFPD, and not too long ago, I—”

  Something sparked behind her eyes. “Gotcha. You’re the Japantown guy.”

  “Guess you read the papers.”

  “It’s my job to track all NoCal crime. Now, let’s get to work.” To the milling crowd of officers, she said, “The kid and Brodie can stay. I need everyone else gone.”

  A disgruntled murmur percolated up from a cluster of deputies, which had swollen to eight, one comment rising above the rest: “Who does she think she is?”

  Copeland zeroed in on the culprit. “The one who’s gonna toss your butt through the window if you don’t gallop on out of here.”

  The leathery skin around Sheriff Nash’s eyes bunched. “Cheré’s drawings have collared more perps than some of you sad lot, so show the lady some respect.”

  The sheriff tipped his hat in our direction, then sauntered out, with the deputies in tow.

  Cheré turned back to me with a wink. “Boys will be boys,” she said. “Time to see what we can find behind those young eyes.”

  CHAPTER 8

  THE grid came first.

  Detective Copeland drew a rectangle for the head, then divided it into four smaller rectangles with lines down the center each way, horizontally and vertically. Along the horizontal axis, she drew hash marks to approximate the location of the eyes, then lightly penciled in the brows, outer borders, and irises. Two-thirds of the way down the vertical line, she sketched an average mouth, and above that a pair of linked half-loops to signify the bottom of the nose.

  “Believe it or not, our eyes are about in the middle of our face along the horizontal axis,” Copeland said. “I’ve drawn a typical pair as placeholders, and I’ll adjust their position and size depending on what our little man recalls. If he saw a larger forehead, I’ll redraw the top of the head, which will have the effect of shifting the eyes down. A narrower forehead will bring them up.”

  I translated what she said. Shu’s expression turned uncertain.

  Copeland addressed him directly. “You’re the only one who knows what the man looks like, but we’re going to do this together. You and I. Don’t worry about a thing. This will be painless.”

  Her words in translation yielded a nod and an uptick in Shu’s interest.

  Copeland said to me, “What I’m going to do is jog his memory. It’s easier for all of us to recognize than remember, so I’ll supply him with verbal and visual clues.”

  “Fascinating,” I said. “How much training have you had?”

  “I do cop first, then the forensic art as needed. I’ve always painted, but after I went to the FBI forensic facial imaging class out at Quantico, I found my people. Cops and artists rolled into one. I’ll hand any troublemaker his ass if he gets in my face, whether he’s street or badge, but when I sketch, I know I’m making a contribution few others can. The whole force goes out with my drawings. That’s a good feeling. The collar rate with my work is high. That’s a better feeling.”

  I was going to like Cheré Copeland. She was feisty, confident, and shrewd. A good combination. She’d never be dull. If I wasn’t set to pick up things where I’d left them with Rie Hoshino, a new lady acquaintance I’d met a couple of months back in Tokyo, I’d consider asking the detective out.

  As she worked with Shu, Copeland’s gentle side emerged. She touched his hand on occasion and showed him the sketch at every stage, keeping up a running commentary in soothing tones I understood were meant to set the atmosphere of the session and put him at ease. It was working. Shu followed her progress with growing, if solemn, interest.

  “We’re going to have fun,” she told Shu as she continued to block out the drawing. “You’re my first Japanese witness, and a handsome one too.”

  She paused to allow me to translate, and when I finished, said, “Don’t translate this next bit. I’ve worked with Vietnamese, Koreans, Russians, and Latin Americans more times than I can count. I usually start with a questionnaire to get the basics—like type of crime, time of day, and lighting. Then I’ll ask about smells and sounds and such. This part of the process takes them back to the time. Triggers memories. Refreshes them. I’ll spare Shu the gruesome parts, though. Our young man here has been through enough. For the rest of what I say, don’t be afraid to trot right up on the back of my words. Keep it moving.”

  “Got it.”

  She fussed over Shu a bit more, then selected a soft-leaded pencil from an impressive range of artist’s gear—pencils from 9B to 2H, an electric eraser, a collection of “smudgers” for shading and tone, a T-square, a circle template, a magnifying glass, and more.

  With the formalities out of the way, the process began in earnest. Copeland took Shu through a range of general questions, slowly narrowing in on the suspect’s age, height, skin tone, and physique. Once she’d determined the basic framework—thirties, five-nine, slim, darker Asian—she sketched in a vague outline of the head, then added a neck with an Adam’s apple.

  From her bag Copeland pulled a lollipop. Shu’s eyes lit up. While her subject was involved in unwrapping his unexpected windfall, Copeland leaned forward confidentially. “There’s a lot of factors involved. As I ask questions, I’m spooling through a whole catalog of possibilities in my head. For example, there’s age progression for older suspects because we all lose the fat in our lips as we grow older. The ears get longer. The tip of nose does too, believe it or not. If he’s got the age right, it won’t be a factor this time. But I’ll test him with different shapes to double-check his impressions.”

  “I didn’t know that about age progression.”

  “It’s true. Next, we’re going to go through a photo catalog of different head shapes, then hair, eyes, nose, mouth, chin, and so on. They are all photographs of actual criminals. Some of them are headline-grabbers. Even Capone’s in there. They all have a look. A variation of the look.”

  “What if he can’t remember everything? He’s only eight.”

  “That’s the beauty of it. He doesn’t have to remember what he saw, only recognize it when he sees it again. Witnesses do it all the time without effort. The photos nudge the memory. I’ll start to sketc
h whatever he chooses and ask him if what I’ve blocked out is right, or if it needs to be narrower, wider, longer, whatever. That’s how we’ll zero in on each feature, one by one.”

  And that’s exactly what she did.

  I watched in wonder as Copeland led Shu through the process, flipping through a catalog of features—one hundred pairs of eyes, four pages of nose shapes, and on and on with each new feature.

  She stopped frequently to ask if that was how Shu remembered it. She’d have him close his eyes. Or let him toy with her equipment. Even allow him to sketch something on his own.

  After the addition of each new facial feature came the refinements: Should the eyes be larger? Narrower? Closer together? Was the nose long enough? Should it be thinner or fatter? How was the mouth? Mightn’t it be bigger? The lips plumper? Slimmer? Were they wet or dry?

  Slowly the portrait took on a life of its own. Copeland shaded and brushed and added tones with different pencil types, brushes, smudgers, and other tools from her arsenal.

  Toward the end, she tackled the headgear. Shu had mentioned a baseball cap. The Suisun City police artist questioned him about the shape of the hat, how it fell over the forehead, the curve of the bill, whether the cap portion was baggy or fit snugly. Then she penciled the outline of the hat on the drawing so we could see through it to the hair and shape of the head underneath. Despite the killer’s intention to obscure the view with the ball cap, Copeland had captured the essence of his look while giving viewers impressions of the suspect with and without head covering. Very clever.

  “We’re almost done.” She smiled brightly and I translated. “There’s only two types of ears—average and Dumbo ears.”

  For the first time in the session, Shu laughed. Dumbo needed no translation.

  “Average,” Shu said with another boyish giggle.

  After Copeland penciled in the ears, she turned the portrait around one last time for him to look at it and he nodded eagerly.

  “That’s him,” he told me with a new enthusiasm.

  The face that stared out at us had high cheekbones, a broad nose, narrow eyes, and a strong jawline. The eyes dominated. They were clear and laser focused.

  Copeland leaned forward. “Now do me a favor. Give this sketch a rating between one and ten. Ten being a perfect match, just like a photo, and one meaning it looks nothing like the suspect.”

  Shu drew the drawing toward him and studied it for a long moment, then gave it an eight.

  The detective beamed. “Good. He gave the perfect answer. A seven or eight means I’ve reproduced a workable facsimile we can use. A perfect ten tells me the witness has lost the image in his head and is covering up, or is lying to us. That’s because reproducing a suspect’s portrait with photographic accuracy is theoretically impossible. I’ve gotten several nines, and those scare the hell out of me because, realistically, hitting that level of accuracy should be out of reach. But the couple of times we caught an offender with a nine rating, it really was uncanny how close I got. So nines are acceptable, if a little spooky.”

  “Will they catch him now?” Shu asked.

  “Count on it,” I said.

  “Ask her too.”

  I did, and Copeland said they would and he’d be the first to know.

  Shu grinned, then in the corner penciled in his approval with an OK. The K was backward.

  “You need that too,” he told his new Suisun City friend.

  Copeland blushed, abashed at his childish sign of approval. As her eyes lingered on the backward K, she nearly lost it.

  * * *

  Sheriff Nash squinted at the sketch, then at me. “You’re the only noncop in the room besides our little fella. Would you buy a car from this man?”

  I gazed at Copeland’s work. “Probably not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I see something raw. Untrustworthy. I’d probably hesitate, or make an excuse and walk away.”

  “Good. We got our killer.” Nash took Renna and me aside. “The ME sent up his preliminary findings. He says the skull struck the statue multiple times.”

  Renna looked thoughtful. “Backs up the boy’s story.”

  “Yep. ME reckons the killer slammed the father’s head against the statue’s leg three or four times.”

  My anger flared. “Forced him down at gunpoint, then bashed his head in.”

  Nash nodded. “Way I see it too. Then slipped off the shoe, ran it through the oil, and put it back on. ME said the sock is bunched up a bit too much.”

  “Good to know,” I said.

  The killer was a planner, I thought.

  “We got the beginnings of a pattern,” Nash said. “Asian vic, Asian killer.”

  “But why not just shoot his target?” I asked.

  “Could be a lot of reasons. Gives the killer more getaway time. Confuses things for a while. We thought we had an accident for a goodly spell. Then there’s the noise factor. Gunshots carry, especially at night. Killer doesn’t use his piece, it’s still virgin. He’s not walking around with a murder weapon.”

  Nash was staring at the sketch. “Cheré, what’s the doodle in the corner?”

  Copeland’s face softened. “Sweetest thing you ever saw. After I finished, little Shu personally okayed my work.”

  The sheriff looked down at Shu. “Did he now?” The sheriff rummaged in his pocket and came out with a replica of his badge. “This is for you, son. Now you’re one of us.”

  I translated and Shu accepted the badge in wonder, excitement bubbling just under the surface. While one of the deputies helped Shu pin it on, Nash turned to Copeland. “You happy with this?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  “Good deal.” Sheriff Nash clapped his hands together and the rest of the crew assembled. A number of new deputies had joined the pack, including three women. “Okay, boys and girls, we got ourselves a live sketch. Get copies out through the usual channels.”

  The room cleared out. Copeland watched Renna and Nash wander off to discuss some final details, then turned troubled gray-greens in my direction. “Just between you and me, it’s accurate but there’s something not right.”

  “Tell me.”

  “I’ve done this hundreds of times, so I know I mined everything I could from the witness. But I’m seeing something I can’t put my finger on.”

  “So it’s not as accurate as you told the sheriff?”

  “No, it’s functional. If the killer is still around, they’ll catch him with my drawing. That’s all the deputies need to know. It’s just that there’s an itch noodling around in my head. I tell the sheriff, he might hold back when he shouldn’t.”

  “Okay. So what is it?”

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, if either of you run across something new, something different, call me. Then I’ll tell the sheriff.”

  “You sure about this?” Renna asked.

  “Not about the what, but I’m damn sure about the where.” She gazed intently at her sketch. “It’s in there someplace.”

  CHAPTER 9

  FROM the Napa County Sheriff’s Department, I called Japan and spoke to Ken Nobuki, Shu’s grandfather. My artist friend was due to arrive next week to discuss the Kyoto–San Francisco exhibition exchange, but in the wake of his son’s murder, he and his wife would catch the next flight out and pick up Shu. His spouse would take their grandson back to Kyoto while Ken would remain behind to liaise with the mayor’s people and handle the details for transporting his son’s body back to Japan.

  After the call, I attempted to pry Shu loose, but Napa County officials saw a major lawsuit should anything go awry under my care, so Ken’s grandson remained behind with social services. I left my phone number with Shu’s minders, and he and I talked several times over the next two days until his grandparents arrived.

  Renna and I drove back to the city and made our goodbyes. Exhausted and grieving, I drove to my antiques shop. I flipped on the shop sign, and hung up some new scroll paintings as I brooded over the de
teriorating state of mind of Ken’s grandchild.

  In a singularly misguided thought, I figured things could only get better from here.

  * * *

  “Jim, let me introduce you to—”

  “He bloody well knows who I am, Sarah,” Sean Navin said, inflamed green eyes panning my way.

  His wife’s fractured smile served as an apology. “My husband’s agreed to listen to what you have to say after all.”

  I studied her lesser half with skepticism. A major upside to running your own operation is you don’t have to put up with anyone’s bull.

  Her husband said, “I still say we can do better across town.”

  “Door’s behind you,” I offered.

  “Boys, boys. Play nice.”

  They were a curious couple. Sarah came from a well-to-do family in Palo Alto, where she’d attended the “local university,” which happened to be a place called Stanford. She was smart, with sparkling gray eyes and an auburn pixie cut. Sean was a hardscrabble Irish boy who made good as a construction contractor, despite capping his education after high school.

  “You’re charging too much,” he said. “It’s crockery, for Chrissake.”

  His wife’s brow darkened. “Darling, I explained—”

  “Let me handle this, Sarah.”

  He was a stocky man with large bones and large shoulders. Dark-brown hair framed a pale face red from hurling a fierce stare my way.

  “Fine, honey. There’s some new Japanese furniture I want to look at.”

  “Don’t get too attached to anything.” She wandered off toward the back of the shop, favoring him with a breezy smile.

  Sean’s glare swung back toward me. “I don’t hand out cash I sweated blood for without a good look-over. If we’re gonna deal you’re gonna have to cut me some slack on your overpriced dishware.”

  “Tea bowl,” I said. “A Japanese Oribe tea bowl from the eighteenth century.”

  Sarah had taken up the tea ceremony, and her collection of bowls grew as her infatuation with the traditional Japanese ritual increased. To date, all of her pieces were contemporary and hovered in the five- to ten-thousand-dollar range. Now she wanted to add a classic Oribe work that would leave her previous price range in the dust.