Anatomy of Fear (35 page)

“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.

O
utside, 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

H
e 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

W
hen 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.”

Q
ué 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.