She asked me to take off my shirt, and when I hesitated my grandmother started tugging it out of my waistband like I was a kid, so I took it off and stood before the two women feeling vulnerable and naked.
Maria Guerrero broke an egg into a pitcher of water and poured it over my neck. It oozed down my back and chest. I shivered, a kind of electric energy coursing through my body. Maybe it was nerves, but I didn’t think so. It was unlike anything I’d ever felt before, anything I had ever experienced.
Then she snapped blossoms off gladiolas, crushed them in her hands and rubbed them onto my chest. There was a slight burning sensation, not unpleasant, but it sent more shivers rippling through my body, and my gut churned.
“Somos parte de la naturaleza,” said Maria Guerrero, talking about plants versus people, and how human beings were consumed with vanity and how I had to give up my ego or I would be in trouble.
My desire to believe was battling with my doubt and cynicism, and standing there covered in slimy water, crushed flowers over my heart, the room began to spin, pictures of saints coming in and out of focus, and I thought I might faint. The women took hold of my arms. My grandmother hummed an old lullaby she’d sing to me when I was a boy and Maria Guerrero mumbled some Spanish incantation, and I started to feel better, the dizziness abating, my mind clearing, stomach settling.
Maria Guerrero cleaned the egg off my chest with my white shirt. She rolled it into a ball and told me I had to dump it into a trash bin as soon as I left the store, that the shirt had absorbed the evil spirits, and I must now cast them off. Then she prepared a jar of water with crushed herbs and colored it with a blue dye and told me that over the next week I was to pour portions of it over my hands and it would keep me safe and pure.
When she was quiet I asked a question. “This man who you saw, the one who wants to do me harm, how do I find him?”
Maria Guerrero opened my sketch pad and looked at my drawings.
“Tienes un talento,” she said. “You can see things other people tell you and you can see this man.” She reached out with her fingertips and gently closed my eyes.
When she did, he was there. But just for a second. Like the burning man I’d seen with Denton, but much faster.
“He was there,” I said. “But he’s vanished.”
Maria Guerrero took one of my pencils and swirled it over the votive candles. Then she handed it to me and I started to draw.
Time became elastic, impossible to gauge. I just kept working, the image coming to me.
When I looked at my drawings, I had done it. He was there. On the page.
I was amazed, speechless, staring at this face I had drawn: the tightly knit brows, the taut scowling mouth, all the facial anatomy conspiring to create a classic face of anger to the point of fury and hatred.
“You have seen this man,” said Maria Guerrero. It wasn’t a question and she was right—I had seen him.
“But where?” I had no idea.
“Eleggua will open the road,” she said. “Es tuyo. Tú lo tienes.”
He is yours now. You have him.
What I always said to victims but never fully believed until this moment.
“You will no longer see him in your mind,” she said.
“But how will I find him?” I asked.
“In your own way,” she said.
Outside, I tossed my stained white shirt into a garbage can and felt another wave of unexpected relief. I walked my grandmother home, jacket buttoned up against the cold and to hide the fact that I was shirtless. I kept trying to remember where I had seen the man I had just drawn.
“Para empezar,” my grandmother said. “You are trying too hard. Deja que suceda.”
I knew she was right, but I couldn’t stop.
At the entrance to her apartment building she told me she was proud of me and loved me, that she would pray to Jesus for me. She was going to change clothes now and go to church. Then she kissed my cheek and made the sign of the cross.
50
He stands in the shadow of an abandoned building slathered with city notices, watches a kid balancing a blaring boom box pass by, bobbing to the salsa music.
And there they are.
His optic nerve snaps pictures of the man and the old lady with him. He watches them hug and kiss. The man leaves, the old lady begins to climb the stairs. As he takes another mental picture, the old lady turns and sees him, dark eyes narrowing, and something about the way she looks at him causes him to shudder.
He slinks back into the shadows and waits for the door to close behind her. Then he takes another picture. This is just what he needed.
He thanks God for the idea that has just come to him.
51
When I got home I was flying, adrenaline pumping. I had completed the drawing. It was astonishing. A miracle.
But now what?
I had to show the sketch to Terri, have her run it through every possible mug shot on file and computer. But I did not want to go to the station. I called her cell, got voice mail, and told her to call me.
I closed my eyes and tried to picture the face I had drawn, but could not. What Maria Guerrero had said was true: Now that I’d put him on paper I could no longer see him in my mind. I had the drawing; now all I had to do was figure out who he was and where I had seen him. But how?
I heard Maria Guerrero’s voice. In your own way.
Of course.
I sat down at my work table, flipped to a clean page in my pad, and started drawing.
What was it? I couldn’t place it and it didn’t tell me anything. But there was something about it on the edge of my psyche.
I stared at it, but was trying too hard.
I called Terri’s cell, left another message, then tried her office.
A man answered, O’Connell, I was pretty sure. I hesitated, didn’t know if I could trust him, but took a chance.
“O’Connell?”
“Rocky?”
“Yeah.”
“Listen, there’s trouble here,” he said. “But I can’t talk.”
“Trouble with what?”
“The G has something.”
“DNA?”
“I don’t know. Just that they want to see you,” he whispered.
I froze a moment, not sure what to say, then, “Where’s Russo?”
“With Denton. I can’t talk.”
I hung up, my hand shaking. They must have gotten the DNA results from the pencil. And now they’d come looking for mine. But this was too fast, wasn’t it? Maybe I was wrong. But what else could it be? And what was going on with Terri and Denton? Whatever it was, I’d know soon enough.
I looked back at the sketches I’d made and it happened. One of those brain flashes. I saw it, the lettering on the door, though I couldn’t make sense of it till I got it down on paper.
Of course. This had to be where I had seen him.
I called the precinct and asked for Detective Schmid in Special Victims.
She answered on the third ring.
I tried to sound casual. “Hi, it’s Nate Rodriguez. Remember me?”
“Sure, the sketch artist. You did a good job for me. And you know we caught that guy, the rapist.”
“Yeah, I heard that.” Two good signs; she was not acting like anything was wrong, and she remembered she owed me.
“So what can I do for you?”
“Public Information is down the hall from you, right?”
“Yes, what about it?”
“That day I did the sketch for you I was there—”
“Why were you in DPI?”
“I wasn’t. Not exactly. It was when I was dropping off the sketch.” I wasn’t sure what to say or how to say it. “I need to find someone in that office.”
“Who?”
I described him.
“Has to be Tim Wright. He’s the only man in that office. But you won’t be asking him any questions.”
“Why not?”
“He’s been canned.�
�
“When?”
“Just. I don’t know the details,” said Schmid. “From what I hear he’d been missing lots of days, just not showing up, so they fired him. Why’d you want to talk to him?”
“No longer matters,” I said.
I called Public Information.
A receptionist answered.
“I’m calling from…Personnel. We’re going to need Tim Wright’s address and phone number to process his dismissal.”
I listened while she tapped on a keyboard. A moment later she gave it to me.
Tim Wright lived in Queens.
I had to reach Terri. We had to go there. But Terri was with Denton. And if I was wrong about Tim Wright, her job would be on the line.
I had to find out if Wright was the man in my sketch. I didn’t know for sure. But it was the guy I had seen in the hallway coming out of Public Information. I’d logged his face into my brain. We had exchanged the briefest greeting and he’d smiled. I could see it now, a big smile, all lips, no eye muscles, totally fake.
But I needed proof and had to get it now. While I still had a chance. Once they had my DNA, that was it.
There was no rational way to explain Maria Guerrero or crushed gladiolas or an egg dripped over my neck as the method by which I had completed the sketch. Hell, it sounded crazy to me, how was it going to sound to the cops and the feds?
I called Julio and asked to borrow his car. He asked why, and I said, “Because I need it.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“No. I just need your car.”
“Hey, pana, whatever it is, you can tell me.”
“I will. Later.”
“You want me to come with you—wherever it is that you won’t tell me you’re going?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted my best buddy along with me, but no way. It was bad enough I was going without authorization or back up. I couldn’t get him involved.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he said.
I hoped I did too.
I thought about the way I had finished the drawing, and how Maria Guerrero had said I would find the man in my own way. I needed to keep going, have faith, and trust my instincts. I had to believe.
“You have to trust me, Julio.”
“I always trust you,” said Julio. “You know that.”
“Then let me have your damn car and stop asking questions.”
Qué pasa, man?” The parking attendant, who knew me, tried to make conversation, but I just nodded. I slid into Julio’s dark blue Mercedes SLK350 Roadster, drove it out of the lot, and pulled to the curb, my hands shaking too badly to drive.
This was crazy, a mistake. I needed backup. A witness. A partner.
There was only one person for the job and I didn’t know if she would do it, or if I could ask. I’d pretty much lived my life without asking anything of anyone and now, when I needed to, I didn’t know how to do it.
A couple, arm in arm, passed in front of my windshield like a framed video, a picture of happiness, smiling faces, actually looking at each other.
Maybe I was afraid of asking because then I’d have to give something and I didn’t know if I had it in me.
The couple disappeared and the glass became a monitor, images flashing across it every time I blinked: Cordero dead, my pencil at the scene, the drawing with my tattoo.
Terri answered her cell on the second ring.
“It’s me.”
“Where are you?”
“Did you get my messages?”
“Yes. But—” I heard her take a breath. “They’ve got DNA from the pencil,” she whispered. “They want to test you.”
I could see it all happening—my DNA matching, the arrest, trial, my mother and grandmother sitting behind me in court.
“Are you there?”
“Yes.” I tried to ignore the nightmare in my head. “I finished the sketch. The portrait of the unsub.”
“How?”
I didn’t know what to say, how to explain it. “I need to show it to you and I need you to…”
“What?”
“I need you to help me.”
A moment passed. I pictured Terri, cell phone to her ear, considering my plea, weighing consequences. “Where are you?”
I gave her the address.
“Stay there.”
I sat in Julio’s car wondering what was going to happen next. Would Terri turn me in? Would I suddenly be surrounded by cop cars? I didn’t know if I trusted her, didn’t know what I meant to her, or what she meant to me. I couldn’t stop the pictures in my head—a by-product of a life spent inventing them—and right now I saw myself being led into a patrol car, cuffs on my wrists.
The sketch pad was on the seat beside me, open to the finished drawing. I touched the edge of the paper to make sure it was real.
Was this man simply a phantom who had been in my head for so long, or was he real? I had to know.
When I looked up I saw Terri’s Crown Victoria slowing to a stop. Her window rolled down just beside mine.
“So what you’d do, Rodriguez, steal a car?” She shook her pretty head and smiled.
It opened up something unexpected in me, a flood of emotion, and I laughed to cover it. “Yeah,” I said. “Get in before the cops get here.” I closed the pad and tried to move the jar of Maria Guerrero’s blue water, but too late.
“What the hell is this?” she asked as she slid in.
“If I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.” I hardly believed it myself.
Then I showed her the sketch.
“I know him,” she said. “I mean…I’ve seen him. I’m sure of it.”
“His name’s Tim Wright. Works out of Public Info, at the station house.”
“Jesus Christ. That’s it! Where I’ve seen him.”
“He was fired a day or two ago.”
“How the hell did you get this, Rodriguez?”
I wasn’t sure how to begin, but I realized something: My drawing had been confirmed. It was Tim Wright. Terri recognized him. It wasn’t total lunacy. “I just did what you’ve been asking me to do, to draw, and do that transference thing I do, remember?”
Terri’s eyes narrowed. There it was again, the look of skepticism.
“You don’t believe me?”
“I believe you, Rodriguez, I just don’t know how the fuck you do it and…it’s a little scary, you know?”
I did know.
“You’ve got to come in,” she said.
“Aren’t you the person who told me I couldn’t, that they had too much that couldn’t be explained away—the tattoo, the drawing, my pencil?”
Terri sighed. “I don’t see an alternative.”
“We go find Wright.”
“No. You come in and I’ll send out an APB on Wright.”
“How? There’s no way they can search his premises. Where’s your probable cause? What are you going to say to the judge—Rodriguez concocted a forensic sketch out of thin air, your honor? Come on, Terri. There’s not a judge in New York who will grant you a search warrant, and you know it.”
Terri sat there a minute. I could see the doubt shifting to worry or maybe even the onset of fear, eyebrows raised and knit together.
“This is my job, Rodriguez. I do this and it turns out it’s not Tim Wright, I’m fucked, you understand what I’m saying? My career, over.”
“I know that.” I touched her hand. “But I need you to believe in me for all the reasons you wanted me on the case to begin with.”
“Stop touching me.” She tugged her hand away. “I can’t think if you’re touching me.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh.
I didn’t say anything. I just sat back and watched her.
Terri looked back at Nate and tried to make sense of what she was seeing and thinking. Was she actually going to do this, take a chance on this guy? Her luck with men had always been bad and she didn’t se
e why it was suddenly going to change. And this was bigger. Much bigger. Screwing up a relationship was one thing, but screwing up her job—for a guy? No, she didn’t think so.
“Look, Rodriguez, I just—”
“It’s okay,” said Nate. “I knew it was a crazy thing to ask you to do. I understand.”
“Oh, fuck that,” said Terri. She sighed again and touched his hand. “You know how to fucking drive this boat, or what?”
I gripped the steering wheel as I headed over the 59th Street Bridge, Terri right beside me. We hadn’t said much after I started driving. I’d told her Wright lived in Queens. She told me again that I was crazy, that she was crazy, then she just stared straight ahead. Every few minutes I looked over at her, worry and fear etched on her face, lips tight, lines around her mouth and on her forehead. She didn’t have to tell me how she felt.
Crossing the 59th Street Bridge brought me back to when Julio and I were kids and we’d boost a car and drive over to Long Island City, park in some abandoned lot, get stoned, and gaze back at the city floating over the East River like Xanadu, bridges strung like Christmas lights, majestic skyscrapers lit up winking against a night sky. It was thrilling. Now it was the same bridge, but the thrill was infused with fear. I could have used a little of the dope Julio and I used to smoke.
“So what’s with this?” Terri held the jar of blue water up to the light. “You into watercolors?”
I thought about saying yes, but didn’t want to lie to her. “It’s something…from my grandmother. Well, from her friend, actually. It’s hard to explain.”
“Try me.”
I did. I told her about the bótanica and the limpia, and the way Maria Guerrero had released something that allowed me to finish the drawing.
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