Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

“You there, Syd?”

She didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Her gaze was fixed on the photograph of Johnnie Wheeler, the man convicted of killing her father, and what stood out to her was the damned scar on his cheek.

“Syd?”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?”

“I’ll call you back.”

She hit the off button, then tossed the phone on the couch, trying not to look at the photo, feeling as shaky as she had when she’d finished that sketch in the hospital. She tried to take a calming breath, told herself it was just a photograph. It couldn’t hurt her. Finally she forced herself to look. It was the same picture she’d seen of him several years ago, when she’d worked up the courage to read the investigation report. Wheeler’s photo had been included in that report, and though she did not want to see the eyes of the man who’d killed her father, she’d found her gaze drawn to the photo anyway, was surprised by the scar she’d seen on his cheek. Even now, staring at the news photo, it was the same.

As then, she had no memories of this man, had thought surely, of all things, she’d remember a man’s face, his scar, but she’d been told that she’d blocked a number of things from her mind that fateful night. There was much she didn’t remember.

The sound of the gunshot.

The blood.

The killer’s face.

The human brain is an amazing thing, and hers had neatly compartmentalized just about everything. Or so her childhood psychiatrist had told not only her, but also the officers who had investigated the case at the time.

The sight of his face in the paper shook her more than she’d expected, and finally she grabbed a magazine, dropped it on top so she wouldn’t have to see it.

Nor did she want to read the article, and yet she told herself she should read it, see what it said about the man who had killed her father, find out why.

There were no answers, though. Not for her. Perhaps because only part of the article detailed Johnnie Wheeler, just ten days shy of being executed. Apparently he was professing his innocence, no surprise there, and there were plenty of people supporting him, assisting him in locating new attorneys.

And as much as that bothered her, that there might be a chance he could get out, what she found even more upsetting was the main thrust of the article, which wasn’t really about Wheeler at all. Senator Donovan Gnoble was personally involving himself in the case. Elections were a little more than a month away, and here he was using her father’s murder and Wheeler’s impending execution for his get-tough-on-crime stance. The timing of his involvement galled her, and she didn’t care how close of a family friend he was, or that he’d been her father’s friend from way back, or that he lived in the same damned town as her mother.

He didn’t need to use this case for his platform, use her father’s death for his political gain. Not with his pedigree. Though Donovan Gnoble was affectionately known as “The Colonel,” partly due to his kindly face, his white hair, mustache, and trademark goatee, making him look like a true Southern gentleman, he also had the real-life military background to go with the name. A retired lieutenant colonel, he was the frontrunner, the favorite. A Yale graduate who later became a decorated war hero with the scars to prove it, he was one of the few conservative Republicans who held sway with the Democrats when it came to his politics, and there were many who thought he stood a good chance of becoming president if he ever decided to throw his hat in the ring. He was the quintessential politician, who happened to be married to the quintessential politician’s wife, because a vote for Gnoble was a vote for Marla Gnoble, a woman who came from a long line of prominent politicians, and yet one who stayed out of the spotlight, all while running her philanthropic charities with the liberal eye for the poor and the gift for getting big corporations to open their checkbooks.

The phone rang. Scotty apparently couldn’t wait for her to call him back.

“You okay?” he asked again, as if her state could have changed in the last five minutes.

“How can he do this? Use my father’s murder for his campaign? If I’d had an inkling that this was what he’d been planning, I would never have agreed to go to that damned rally of his.”

“Maybe you should bow out, Syd. Or, if nothing else, you could take me, and I can be your buffer. I’ve always wanted to meet him.”

“I wonder if my mom saw this?” she said, ignoring his self-invitation.

“If she did, she’d be cheering, especially after that bombshell you dropped two days ago about going through with this harebrained idea to visit that idiot in prison today.”

“And you would know, because…?”

“Because I talked to Jake. He asked me if you were seriously considering going to San Quentin, and I told him that you had talked about it before, but in truth, I didn’t know.”

She glanced at the newspaper, pushed aside the magazine so that she could see Wheeler’s face. “Just looking at his picture gives me the creeps,” she said, not really directing it to anyone.

“Then don’t go.”

“What did Jake say about this article with Senator Gnoble?” she asked, closing the paper, shoving it aside.

“He actually called the senator, who told him he was genuinely upset at the article, the way it made him look. You know my feeling. He’s a politician. End of story.”

She didn’t know what to believe. She was tired, couldn’t think straight, and she got up, walked into the kitchen, staring at her blank canvas, not really wanting to face any of this right now. “Look, my paints are drying and it’s late.”

“You’re really painting something at this hour?”

“Something blue.”

“Maybe I should come over now,” he said, as if he knew this whole painting thing was some sort of subterfuge. “Besides, I really do need to talk to you.”

“I’m fine. The moment I’m not, I’ll call you.”

“I love-”

“Good-bye.” Sydney disconnected, figuring she’d averted a visit by the narrowest of margins, though how long she could avoid him when he was in town, she wasn’t sure. What she needed right then was a good stiff drink, but alcohol wasn’t the answer, and she glanced at her blank canvas, thought, what the hell, might as well make the lie real. She squeezed out a generous portion of blue acrylic onto her palette, eyed it, then realized it wasn’t dark enough. She changed it to black, added water to it, and brushed the wash on the canvas, covering it completely, eliminating every last bit of white. She had no idea what form the painting might take. That wasn’t the point. She painted for relaxation and rejuvenation. She painted because she loved the smell of acrylics and oils, the feel of a brush in her hand, lavishing the paint onto a canvas. The whole process enticed her in a way that no bottle of alcohol ever could, and she stood back to view her work-not that it was much to look at-nothing more than a black wash. So much for inspiration and interpretation. Perhaps it was a reflection of her mood, trying to decide who was worse? Gnoble for using someone else’s tragedy for his gain, or Wheeler for refusing to admit the truth, accept his punishment and give them all peace?

She could almost hear her mother telling her to accept the past. Move on. But that was not a possibility tonight, and she put away her paints and went to bed. Finally, in the dim glow of the night light, she stared at the framed photograph of her father on her bedside table. Of all the photos and pictures, this was her favorite, perhaps because it was the last taken of them together. She was sitting next to him on the back of a fishing boat, its name, Cisco’s Kid, visible beneath her dangling feet. Her father was holding a large bright orange fish, caught off the shore of Baja, and she was grinning, leaning as far away from the fish as she could get.