Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

“What makes your detective believe she was a prostitute?” Sydney asked.

“She had a tattoo, and a pocket full of condoms.”

“And what do you think?”

“Me? I think she was somebody’s daughter. Isn’t that what counts?”

The officer’s words surprised her. Touched her. “Yes,” she said quietly. “It is.” Then, putting her own thoughts aside, Sydney asked how she intended on getting the FBI involved if the case investigator objected.

She gave a sheepish smile. “I was sort of hoping you could help me with that part. I mean, I don’t know if it is related to the case San Francisco picked up the other night. Even if it isn’t, we need to get her identified.”

“Do you have a card?” Glynnis gave Sydney her business card, and she set it on the tabletop. “I have no idea when I might be able to get down there, but I’ll try. That’s all I can promise.”

“Thank you,” Glynnis said, then, after shaking Sydney’s hand once more, she stood, picked up her paper coffee cup, and left.

Sydney didn’t follow, just sat there, sipping her coffee, thinking about Officer Glynnis and her persistence and determination to do the right thing, even if it meant going against the tide. And she thought about how a rookie’s perspective should serve to remind the rest of them why they’d gotten into law enforcement.

She knew why, would never forget. But there were others, more seasoned than she, who did forget, their interest in anything but high-profile cases quickly waning. And finishing her coffee, she wondered how many cases fell victim to such apathy.

That was not something she liked to think about. To believe that others out there didn’t care as Glynnis cared. Or others cared like Donovan Gnoble cared, for all the wrong reasons. They forgot that a victim could be someone’s daughter, or mother.

Or father.

She picked up the business card, ran her fingertip along the edge, knowing she should go to Hill City, help out, but right now what occupied her mind was that damned envelope sitting at her house. How could she think about a case when her father’s reputation was at stake? And how was it that her father’s reputation suddenly became an issue so close to the execution date of the man convicted of killing him? A man whose guilt bore shades of doubt?

That was a coincidence she wasn’t willing to overlook. What she needed was answers, and it occurred to her that there was one man who might have them. One man, who happened to have an office in this very building.

Senator Donovan Gnoble.

Richard Blackwell waited a good five minutes after Special Agent Fitzpatrick left the cafe and was seen stepping onto the elevator before he dumped his coffee and the newspaper, and left. Not until he was standing outside the federal building did he call Prescott, only to have Gnoble’s damned secretary put him on hold. He didn’t like waiting. Had it been anyone else he wouldn’t have.

“You learn anything?” Prescott asked when he finally came on.

“I followed her into court. She was a bit of a smart-ass on the stand. I thought you said she was straitlaced and by-thebook?”

“According to the senator she is.”

“More importantly, it might be hard to get close. She seems to pay attention to her surroundings.”

“Yeah. Found that out last night.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing,” Prescott said quickly. “For God’s sake, you get anything we can use?”

“Maybe,” he said, then waited as two women walked past. The moment they were out of earshot, he said, “She might be assisting an outside agency with a sketch. The officer who requested it thinks it might be tied to a case the Bureau picked up the other night.”

“And what the hell good is that going to do? Following her into court? Finding out what she’s working?”

“Because you never know what gems might turn up.”

“Oh shit.” Prescott lowered his voice to a whisper. “Guess who’s walking into the senator’s office as we speak. Find out everything you can on the cases. Get back to me. More importantly, get back to me with something we can use.”

“Will do.”

Blackwell dropped the phone into his pocket, then glanced over to the long row of cars parked in front of the building, most with placards in the window identifying them as Bureau cars. Agent Fitzpatrick’s car was the fifth from the corner, a dark blue Crown Vic, one of many dark blue Crown Vics. The Bureau wasn’t too imaginative when it came to doling out the wheels. He glanced back into the building just to be certain he wasn’t being followed. Prescott had gone to great lengths to get him an ID to get in and out. A start. But Blackwell definitely made a mistake in following her to court, then laughing at something she said. He didn’t normally slip up like that, but her comment had been unexpected.

Unfortunately, she’d looked at him. Made a connection to his face.

That was something he couldn’t afford.

Sydney had worked in the federal building for six months now and never once visited Senator Gnoble’s office when he was here, or one of his other offices, and not in D.C. Of course, he lived in the same town as her mother, and she’d never visited him there, either, but it really had more to do with the fact that he was her mother’s friend, a generational thing. That might be why he appeared genuinely surprised when his secretary showed her in.

“Come in, sit down,” he said, waving her toward one of the thick-cushioned leather chairs. “Can I get you something to drink?”

“No, thank you.” She sat in the almost silken leather, a bit beyond the government-issued chairs she was used to in the Bureau offices. Senator Gnoble smiled at her, waiting, and she wondered just what she really expected of him. He’d always told her that no matter where he was, what he was doing, his door was always open to her, because her father would’ve done the same if something had happened to him and he’d had children. When Sydney had graduated high school, her mother had said he’d even offered to pay her way through college, though she hadn’t needed it, because of her scholarship. But sitting here in the senator’s office, it was hard to think of him as her mother’s friend, the man she’d grown up calling Uncle Don. “I was hoping you might have a few minutes.”

“If it’s about that article, Sydney-”

“It’s about McKnight’s suicide.”

His gaze flicked to the open door. He got up, closed it, then came and took the seat opposite her. “How on earth did you hear about that?”

“The background the FBI was doing on him.”

“Of course. I forgot. For the confirmation.”

“He left a note. I want to see what was in it.”

“Sydney-”

“Do you know what it said?”

“I only heard there was a note…” His gaze drifted to the window, and he started turning a ring around and around on his finger. It looked like a class ring of some sort, red stone, antiqued gold, and brought to mind the rings all the men in the photo wore. When he noticed her watching him, he stopped, took a deep breath. “I, uh, think it was something about what was found in his background that would’ve precluded him from being appointed to the position.”

“Was it something to do with my father?”

“Why would it have anything to do with him? McKnight wanted one thing only, to hurt those of us he thought got in his way.”

“One of the agents who spoke to McKnight said he apologized about something he did to my father.”

He frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“They were in the army together. You all were. That’s where you met. Isn’t that why you all wore the same rings?”