Bonnie (8 page)

“I didn’t even notice the alligator farm,” Catherine said.

“But you were looking for the house and nothing else. The fog was heavy and drifting in and out.” Joe looked at Eve. “Eve and I didn’t pay any attention to it when we came here either. We were … distracted. The man who killed Jacobs wasn’t distracted. He had a purpose and was looking for a way to accomplish it.”

“Formidable,” Catherine said slowly.

“Yes,” Joe said, gazing at Catherine. “And with all the signs of a professional.”

“I agree,” Catherine said. “But that doesn’t mean he was hired by Gallo.”

“It doesn’t mean he wasn’t.” Joe glanced at the notebook on the table. “Any luck?”

“Not yet.”

“Really?”

“I’m trying, Joe,” Catherine said between her teeth. “I’ll get there.”

“I’m sure you will. But I don’t want to wait for it.” He turned back to Eve. “Julian is going to take me into New Orleans. I’m going to see if I can push them to get the results from forensics. Do you want to go with me?”

“No, I want to finish the sketch first. I’ll follow you when I’m done.” She nodded at Catherine. “And Venable is supposed to be here anytime with a crew to take care of Jacobs. Catherine is going to have to see Venable. She said he’s been very insistent.”

“Whatever you say.” Joe brushed a kiss across Eve’s forehead. “Call me when you’re on your way. I’ll let you know if I can accelerate the processing of that forensic report.” He headed for the door. “And, if you hear from Gallo, I want to know about it.”

Eve waited until the door closed behind him before she turned back to Catherine. “Let’s get back to it.” She picked up the notebook and dropped down in a chair beside the window. “What about the lips?”

“Wide.” Catherine thought about it. “No, a full bottom lip, but his upper lip was thinner. And the left side was a little crooked.”

“Crooked?”

“Not really crooked. Just not the same shape as the right. Is that strange?”

“No, few people are born with perfectly balanced features. Some differences are more noticeable than others.” She sketched in a mouth and turned the notebook around. “Like this?”

Catherine shook her head. “Fuller lower lip.” She sat back and watched Eve make the change. “This is a painstaking business, isn’t it? It’s a lot different than those computer age progressions you did for me when I was searching for Luke.” Memories flooded back to Catherine of sitting beside Eve in front of the computer at her lake house and seeing the photo of her two-year-old son slowly become transformed into the picture of the eleven-year-old he was today. It had been a painful yet poignantly rewarding journey they’d taken together. And the journey to rescue him from his kidnapper had been equally rewarding. She had gotten back her son, and she had found a friendship with Eve that was beyond price. “How accurate is this sketching business?”

“You tell me. You have as much say in it as I do. More.”

“Have you done much of this?”

She shook her head. “When I was in college, I did sketching for a photographer, and after I became a forensic sculptor, I occasionally did sketches for the police department. I’m okay at it, but I’m not as good as the usual police artists. You have to know just what questions to ask and take it from A to Z.” She smiled at Catherine. “So stop blaming yourself. It’s my fault, too, that this isn’t going as quickly as it might.”

“Joe thought I was stalling.”

“Joe doesn’t know what to think,” Eve said. “It’s not that he doesn’t trust you.”

“Yeah? He doesn’t trust Gallo, and he’s tossing me into the same camp.”

Eve couldn’t deny it. “You have to admit that the strength of your support of Gallo is a little strange. He thinks Gallo has managed to exert an influence on you that isn’t logical … or professional.”

Catherine made a face. “He thinks Gallo is some kind of Rasputin?” She stared Eve in the eye. “And what do you think, Eve?”

“I’m the wrong person to ask.” She looked back down at the sketch. “I know that some people have a magnetism that is a virtual knockout punch. I believe Gallo is one of them. Why else would I have jumped into bed with him when I was only sixteen? I wasn’t stupid or careless, and yet I was both with him. For God’s sake, I was in such a fever that I risked getting pregnant.”

“And that’s one of the reasons Joe has problems with Gallo,” Catherine said. “He still sees him as a threat.”

“He shouldn’t. Gallo was in my past. He doesn’t exist in my future.” She looked up at Catherine. “Joe is everything to me. You know that.”

“But Gallo was the father of your child. There has to be some kind of bond.”

Eve nodded. “I can’t deny that there is. That’s why I wanted desperately for him not to have been Bonnie’s killer.” How could she explain it? She moistened her lips. “It’s as if Bonnie … She’s part of both of us. I think she loves both of us. Even though Gallo and I will never be together, I don’t believe she’d want us to— She’d want that bond to be there.” She smiled crookedly. “It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

“Particularly since you’re still not sure that Gallo isn’t involved with Bonnie’s killing.”

“I’m trying to think positive. Gallo isn’t making it easy,” she said. “Is he a victim or the Rasputin Joe thinks him? I’ve been going back and forth like a weather vane for the past weeks.”

“So have I.”

“But now you’re defending him. You’re in his camp. You’ve been willing to fight Joe and me and the whole damn world for him. Why?”

“He didn’t do it, Eve.”

“Proof?”

“Dammit, he didn’t do it.”

“I want proof. I need proof, Catherine.”

“I’ll get it for you.”

“You almost died because Gallo didn’t throw his knife when he should have. Are you going to risk being put in that position again?”

“He didn’t want me to be hurt.”

“How can you be sure?” She gazed at Catherine’s expression, then slowly nodded. “Poor Catherine. He’s got you, hasn’t he? Have you slept with him yet?”

Catherine’s face flushed. “No, I have
not.
I wouldn’t do that.”

Eve smiled faintly. “That’s what I said when I was sixteen. I had everything to lose and nothing to gain, but it didn’t matter. I did it anyway.”

“I’m not sixteen. You’re my friend, and I got into this to help you. I’m a professional, and I’ll do my job.”

“I know you will. Look, I’m not angry or resentful because you’re feeling the same attraction I felt for Gallo. I don’t have the right to be. I’ve moved on, and so has Gallo.”

“I know that,” Catherine said. “But you could resent my not doing my job in trying to find your daughter’s killer.” She paused and then burst out, “Okay, Gallo does— He makes me feel—” She tried again. “He does have an unusual effect on me.” She finally said bluntly, “He turns me on. Maybe you’re right, and he does have that kind of knockout effect on most women. But I’d never let that interfere. In spite of what Joe said, I wouldn’t be emotional about it.”

Eve suddenly smiled. “You’re being emotional right now. If it wasn’t about Gallo, I’d think it was healthy for you. You’re usually too tough and cool. A little disturbance isn’t that bad. Now let’s get this sketch finished. Then I can tell Joe what an unemotional and crystal-clear professional you’ve been.” She turned the notebook around. “Is this his mouth?”

Catherine nodded. “Very close. But his mouth appeared more taut. It was drawn back from his teeth.”

“Like an attacking animal?”

“Yes.”

“Good. That would change the contour of the face. It would make the cheekbones more prominent. We’ll have to take that into account.” She was sketching quickly. “Nose, mouth, eyebrows. We’re getting there…”

*   *   *

“CHIN.”

“I told you, slightly pointed.”

“But when I showed you pointed, you said it wasn’t right. Think.”

“It looked pointed.”

“Then we must have the contour of the face wrong. Since his lips were drawn away from his teeth, maybe it caused the jaw to shift. Why don’t we try a modified square?”

“Whatever. We’ve been at this over an hour, Eve. It’s all blurring.”

“It won’t when we get it right.” She showed her the sketch. “Modified square. Yes? No?”

Catherine straightened in the chair. “Yes.”

“Chin, mouth, nose, eyebrows.” Eve could feel the excitement growing. “Now we go for the eyes. Shape. Round? Oval? Slanted?”

“Not round. Oval, I think.”

Eve’s pencil was flying over the paper. “Big? Small? Medium?”

“Medium.”

“Wide set?”

“No, ordinary.”

“Color.”

“Light. Gray, I think.”

“Skin? Tan? Pale?”

“Sort of tan and weathered-looking.”

“Any lines?”

“On either sides of his mouth. The rest of his face was smooth.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, no. Wait. He was wearing that wet suit, and the rubber headpiece appeared very tight. It was pulling his face taut. I think I remember faint indentations around the corner of his eyes.”

Eve quickly added the lines in a sunburst effect. “That looks more natural.” She held the sketch up and gazed at it appraisingly. She said absently, “But he’s older than—” She stopped, her eyes widening in stunned surprise.

Crazy. It couldn’t be. Impossible.

“Eve?”

She shook her head to clear it. Impossible.

But anything was possible in this crazy world that had become her own.

Her hands were shaking as she turned the notebook and showed Catherine the sketch.

“Is this … him?”

Catherine’s eyes widened. “My God.”

CHAPTER

5

“ANSWER ME.” EVE TRIED TO STEADY
her voice. “Is this the man who tried to kill you?”

“Yes.” Catherine took the notebook and gazed down at the sketch. “Congratulations. I had no idea you could come this close. It’s
him.
”

“You’re absolutely sure?”

“I told you, it’s him. That chin is the—” She broke off as she raised her eyes and saw Eve’s expression. “What’s wrong? You’re pale as this notebook paper.”

“I just have to make sure you’re positive this is the man. I have to know that I didn’t make him up out of some subconscious memory.”

Catherine stiffened. “Memory?”

Eve took the sketch back and looked at it again. The eyes, the facial features, the brows were all the same. Only the deep wrinkles at the corners of the eyes and the ferocity that was imprinted in every line of that face was different.

“What memory, Eve?” Catherine asked. “You’ve seen this man before?”

“I think I have. But it doesn’t make any sense.”

“Who is it? Give me a name.”

Eve shook her head. “But he’s a dead man. Gallo told me that he was dead.”

“Dammit, who is it?”

“His name is Ted Danner.”

“And you’ve seen him before?”

Eve moistened her lips. “A long time ago. And only a couple times. He’s John Gallo’s uncle.”

“What?”

“Ted Danner is Gallo’s uncle. He was the reason John Gallo came to Atlanta. I would never have met Gallo, never had Bonnie, if it hadn’t been for Ted Danner.” She looked down at the sketch. “He was an ex-Ranger who had been injured in the Army. He had been sent down to the Veterans’ Hospital in Atlanta from Milwaukee so that he could go to a specialist there. I remember that he could hardly walk.”

“Then they must have performed a miracle,” Catherine said dryly. “He moved like an Olympic athlete at that bayou this morning. Providing the athlete had all the instincts of a serial killer.”

Eve shook her head in bewilderment. “I don’t understand it. I liked Ted Danner. I felt sorry for him. Gallo told me that he was the only good thing in his life. Gallo grew up in the slums, as I did, and his parents abused him terribly. His uncle was the only bright spot in a pretty lousy life. He took him away on trips, interceded between him and his parents, taught him everything he knew about being a Ranger. That’s why Gallo wanted to go into the service.”

“And ended up in that prison in North Korea.” She shook her head. “Look, this doesn’t seem like it could be the same man. Could you be mistaken? You said you only saw him a couple times.”

“That’s right, the first time I saw him was when he came to see me months after John Gallo had left me and joined the Army. The other time was after Bonnie was born.” Could she be mistaken? She had been only sixteen, and when you were young, you saw everything and everyone differently. A pregnant sixteen-year-old who was just trying to survive those months and get on with her life.

“There’s a man downstairs who wants to talk to you,” her neighbor, Rosa, said, when Eve opened the door. “I left him on my bench in the yard. Nice man. He said he’d come upstairs, but he has a bad back.”

“Who is he? Salesman?”

“I don’t think so.” Rosa frowned. “He doesn’t have that slick look. I didn’t get his name. He sort of reminds me of someone.”

“That’s a help.” She came out on the landing and started down the steps. “Look, Rosa, you were supposed to be studying with me this morning and not sitting with your baby on that bench.”

“But he needs the sunshine.”

“And you need your GED. And you’re going to get it. I want you here tomorrow morning.”

“Okay.” She made a face as she leaned over the railing and called, “You didn’t use to be so bossy. Your baby is going to come out of you cracking a whip.”

Eve grinned as she opened the front door. “I’ll take the chance. That will be two of us to nag you.”

She was still smiling as she turned to the man sitting on the bench. “Hello, I’m Eve Duncan. What can—” She inhaled sharply.

He sort of reminds me of someone.

He was a thin man in his late forties or early fifties, with thinning gray-brown hair and olive skin and dark eyes.

John Gallo’s eyes.

“How do you do? I’m Ted Danner.” The man got to his feet with an effort. “I’m sorry to make you come down. I just couldn’t face those flights of stairs. John may have told you that I have back problems.”