Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

“What’s going on?”

“Mom, I’m really sorry, but I’ve done a lot of thinking about going to San Quentin. I heard he has new attorneys working the case. That means he could get out.”

“Not again. I can’t imagine how you ever came up with such an idiotic idea to go there.”

“Mom-”

“Trying and doing are two different things. I don’t want you near that man.”

At least Sydney was smart enough to have waited until she was pulling up to the prison gates before she’d called. “I need to know why he killed him.”

“Jake!” Her mother shrieked her stepfather’s name. “Jake! Will you come here and try to talk some sense into Sydney!”

“Mom. I have to go,” she said, not wanting to talk to Jake at all. He always took the day off on the anniversary so that her mother wouldn’t be alone, which only served to intensify her guilt for driving out to San Quentin on this day of days.

“You promised to be at Uncle Don’s campaign rally tonight,” her mother said. “What am I supposed to tell him?”

“You don’t need to tell him anything. I’ll be there.”

“Sydney-”

“I’m sorry, Mom. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“Jake!”

“Sydney?” Her stepfather’s voice was calm, quiet. “What’s going on?”

If anyone could talk her out of this, Jake could. Her father’s best friend after he moved them out to California, Jake had stepped in to help her mother after her father was killed, and almost a year later, they’d married. He’d always been the calm one, taking charge when her mother’s emotions got the best of her, which, thanks to him, was less and less as the years went on. But he’d also been a strict disciplinarian, and even now that Sydney was grown, no longer living under his well-ordered roof, she hesitated, not wanting to incur his anger.

“Sydney?”

“I’m sorry. I have to go.” She heard her mother crying just before she disconnected, then left the phone on the car seat beside her, wracked with guilt, but knowing she couldn’t go through with this and not tell her. She’d never lied to her mother. Never. But the truth was that the emotions of all this were overwhelming her, and when it came right down to it, she wanted to know that her mother, even Jake, cared as deeply as she did about her father, that they understood why she could not stand by and allow the man who had killed him to forget what day it was, or to escape justice by conning his misguided attorneys into believing he was innocent. But it was more than that, she realized. So much more. This was the chance her mother had denied her, the chance to face the man who had killed her father.

He had exhausted all his appeals and was supposed to be put to death for the murder, but the wheels of justice turn slowly, too slowly in his case. And though no one else might care, Sydney knew just why she’d made the trip. She wanted, needed to know what, if anything, this man had thought about during these past two decades.

She wanted to know if he was sorry.

That thought fled the moment she took her first real look at the entrance of San Quentin. She had never been there before. Had no wish to go. But she was there now, and what came to her mind was the absurd and surreal thought that the prison appeared to be a gothic fortress set on the shores of a windswept coastline. The picturesque effect was ruined, however, by the guard towers and fourteen-foot-high razorwire fences-and the fact she had to stop just inside the first gate and place her gun in a gun locker before driving through the second gate.

Sydney parked in a lot adjacent to the bay, where the cold wind whipped the water into a froth of whitecaps and the waves pounded the retaining wall, sending white spray over the top and misting the air with salt. She pulled her blazer tightly about her and glanced up at the dark sky, hoping the rain would hold off until after she finished with her interview and was back in her car.

Inside the building, after passing all security checkpoints, she ran her fingers through her windblown hair, in hopes of looking a bit more professional for the prison official who had agreed to help her when she’d called that morning. He was waiting in a conference room that smelled of coffee that had been percolating too long. He stood when she entered, his uniform neatly pressed, his shoes shined to perfection. “Thomas Sullivan?” she asked. “I’m Special Agent Sydney Fitzpatrick. I appreciate you seeing me through this.” “Not a problem.” He nodded at an empty pink bakery box on the table. “You just missed the last of the donuts. Or do Feds eat donuts?”

“This Fed does. But after my late night, what I really need is coffee,” she said, anxious to get the interview started, yet willing to stall at all costs.

“That we got plenty of,” he replied, and walked over to the counter. He poured coffee into two Styrofoam cups, then brought them to the table, indicating she should sit. “You ever been here before?”

“Other prisons, not this one.” Not until today.

“California’s oldest prison. I’m thinking if they had a crystal ball when they built the place back in 1852, they might’ve held out for condos. Think of the money they would’ve made. Four hundred thirty-two acres of priceless bay-side real estate, right here beneath our feet, not that the prisoners give a rat’s ass.”

She smiled, then sipped at the sharp coffee, nervous. He must have sensed it, because he asked, “How do you want to do this?”

“I’d like to interview him face-to-face with no partition.” “Anything else?”

“What’re the chances of not giving him my name? I’m… not here officially.”

“Don’t see a problem, long as we know who you are and log it. Not like you’re interrogating him or anything.”

Not in the real sense, she thought, and before she knew it, she was being led into another interview room in a secured part of the prison. Their footsteps echoed down the long hallway, and she thought that if she were smart, she’d turn back, ignore the temptation to ask this man why he’d done what he’d done. What did it matter? It was not going to bring her father back. It was stupid on her part. He wasn’t worth the effort, and after what Scotty had dropped in her lap, she didn’t need the emotional turmoil. But then they led him in, shackled at his hands and his feet, and her heart started pounding.

Johnnie Wheeler.

This was the man who had changed her life forever.

The guards seated Johnnie Wheeler at the table across from Sydney. When they turned to leave, she stood, desperate, wanting them to stop. She’d changed her mind. She did not want to be alone, not with this man, this murderer, and she was about to call out, tell them to wait. But her throat went dry, her voice failed her. Suddenly she was thirteen again, finding her father dead, and his pizza parlor burning down around her.

And now she was locked in the same room as the man who had killed him, and her lungs constricted. She sat, weakkneed, told herself to breathe normally.

Just breathe.

Slow and steady. Don’t give him the satisfaction of knowing his presence affected her.

With considerable effort, she willed herself to calm, then truly looked at him. Even though she had seen his photograph in that newspaper article, she was surprised by the man before her. Dressed in prison blues, he was average height, early forties, thin face, dark skin, one dark eye that seemed to take in everything, the other eye clouded, bluishwhite; she wasn’t even sure he could see through it. One more thing she didn’t recall from the photograph. That and his tightly curled hair, short and peppered with gray. All she had apparently committed to memory from the photo was the scar she’d seen that ran across his right cheek. She’d pictured someone much bigger, but figured it had something to do with being only thirteen at the time the crime occurred.