Robin Burcell - Face of a Killer

She simply stared at him. Couldn’t believe what she was hearing. She got up, slapped her hand on the door to be let out. “Do you know how many people suffered because you lied?”

“I didn’t lie. I just didn’t tell ’em everything. I told ’em what they needed to know. Ain’t my fault they ain’t listening. And I didn’t kill him.”

The guard opened the door. “You done?”

“Yeah,” she said, then turned back to Wheeler, trying so hard not to say something smart-assed. “I’m done.”

“You gotta understand!” He rose, placed both shackled hands on the table. “If I told you right off, you wouldn’t help me! You know that’s true!”

She ignored him, walked out, her footsteps echoing down the long concrete corridor, trying not to think about how much time and energy-and emotion-she’d wasted on this case, how she’d so wanted to believe him, because that meant her father’s life was worth something

… And she couldn’t help but wonder if she hadn’t been distracted by Wheeler’s lies, would Prescott have ever gotten close enough to her to set her apartment on fire? Endanger her sister? Maybe she would’ve foreseen some of the events, been smart enough not to think that everything about her father and his death was a big government conspiracy to cover up the truth, that they weren’t out there manufacturing evidence, that her father wasn’t trying to blackmail someone to pay off a boat. That the photo meant nothing-

She stopped in her tracks. Realized what she’d failed to see there the whole time. Of course it wasn’t about the photo. Not in the sense they’d been looking at. It was the timing. Cisco’s Kid… “Oh my God,” she whispered.

She pivoted, strode back to the interview room where the guard was leading Wheeler back to his cell. “Give me just a couple more minutes,” she said.

The guard nodded, and Wheeler sat back down and Sydney thought of him climbing through that window. “If my father gave you money to get to this job, why would you come back and rip him off?”

“Gotta understand. That was a long time ago. Me being young. Stupid. I got mad at my girlfriend ’cause she was taking off, leaving me with a new baby. My aunt’s all over my ass, gotta grow up, kick the drugs, ’cause I gotta be a father.

We got in a fight over it. What kinda man’s gotta beg for a double-saw from his aunt? That’s why I called your father.

I ain’t never heard of this church, and I’m starting to think maybe they’re like some kind of cult, I mean, what they doin’ pickin’ some loser like me from the streets, gonna make me their project? Aunt Jazz tells me to be careful, but maybe this is my chance, and I think, yeah, this is my chance. I think if I had enough green, I wouldn’t have to borrow nothing to get no job in San Mateo. I could maybe buy a couple bricks, turn it over real quick.”

She was fascinated by the novelty of what Wheeler was saying, the fact it seemed more the unvarnished truth of a young kid who sees opportunity knocking, and is too mixed up to make the right decisions. “So what really happened?” “I show up just like he says, get this gas money to drive down to San Mateo, and he’s busy washin’ glasses. He tells me to look in that little can but there’s only some change, then tells me there’s a twenty under the till. And then I leave.” “And?” Sydney asked, leaning against the door. He hesitated. “So I park around the corner, and I climb in through the back window. A storeroom. Lots of cans of stuff.

That’s when I hear your old man, ’cause he asked, ‘How’d you get in?’ Thought he was talkin’ to me. Like he knew.

I froze. Then I realize he ain’t talkin’ to me. He talkin’ to someone else.”

“Who?”

“Don’t know. Like I told the cops. Mighta been this guy

I saw sittin’ in the parking lot when I first got there. He’s the one watchin’ me, but I figure, you know, he’s waitin’ for someone. But whoever this guy was inside, your father didn’t like him none. Least not him bein’ there right then. In his face about it.”

“Arguing?”

“Yeah. Words. What’d the guy think he was doin’ back there.”

“Back where?”

“Just back, like he came back for somethin’. That’s why I’m thinkin’ he’s that guy I saw outside. You know. Already been there.”

“Then what?”

“They got in each other’s face.”

“About what?”

“The other guy’s saying, you do what you plannin’, you gonna lead ’em all right back to him, and he worked too hard to get where he was. Your old man, he says, get over it, he ain’t changin’ his mind.’ And the guy says he ain’t gonna lose it all just ’cause of him. No way.”

“Lose what?”

“Don’t know. So I’m thinking, time to go. I turn around, gonna climb back out, and boom.”

She closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine her father being shot

… It took her a moment to shake it off, force herself to look at him. “You saw him pull the trigger?”

“No, but who coulda done it? Next thing I know, I hear this clinking from behind the bar, like someone pulling bottles out, then I hear splashing, and someone lights a fire.”

“And what did you do?”

“What else? Guy’s gotta gun. I’m thinkin’ he’s shootin’ me next, so I ain’t moving until I’m sure he’s gone. And then I got the hell out, same way I got in.”

She glanced at the twisted scars on his hands. “How did you get burned, then?”

“What was I s’posed to do? I went to see if your old man was dead, but the flames shot up and I knew I had to get out of there.”

She wasn’t sure if she believed him. But she knew one way to find out. She pulled out her cell phone, called Carillo, and told him to bring her briefcase from his car. He brought it to her a few minutes later, and the guard let him in. “You want me to wait here?” he asked.

“No.”

Carillo left without further comment.

She took out her sketch pad, wondering if she even had a chance of success, because there were two things against her. One, she wasn’t even sure he was telling the truth. Two, she’d never elicited a sketch from someone for a crime that had occurred that long ago. Usually it was a matter of hours from when the crime occurred, though she’d done some sketches months, even a couple of years after. But not twenty years… Cognitive recall worked under normal circumstances. Would it work for a case that happened two decades before?

“Do you think you could identify the man you saw?” Sydney asked him.

“Back then, yeah. Now? How am I s’posed to know?”

“Pretend twenty years hasn’t gone by. We have pictures of all these people, how they looked. Could you identify him?”

“I been in this cage every night seein’ his face, knowin’ his ass should be here, not mine. Yeah. I can do it. You got pictures for me to see?”

“No. We’re going to make one.”

He looked dubious. “I already described him.”

“But not to me.” She took out her sketchbook, a pencil, and set them on the table. Then, with a prayer for the truth at last, Sydney said, “What I want you to do is go back about an hour before you broke in. What were you doing?”

“Leaving JJ with Aunt Jazz and driving up to Santa Arleta.”

“What was the weather like?”

“Why you askin’?”

“Humor me.”

“Cold. Windy. And there’s stars out, when I drove over the bridge. I remember the stars, ’cause Aunt Jazz always told me to make a wish. Like they ever come true, you know? So, yeah. I remember the stars.”

She simply nodded. More important to let him talk, remember the little details, even if they were innocuous thoughts, anything to retrieve the tiniest slivers of memories that would help him remember what she needed for the drawing…