Sight Unseen Page 8

  “Not fair. I’m not saying that.”

  “That’s exactly what you’re saying. Sixty years of experience tell me that the ones who claim to be infallible are the ones I need to worry most about. Next thing I know, I’m sketching someone my witness actually saw on the Carson show the night before.”

  Her lips twitched as she suppressed a smile. “I hate to tell you this, Bill, but I was in elementary school the last time Johnny Carson was on the air.”

  “Aah, your ageist barbs don’t work on me. Those late-night hosts are all the same anyway. Take all the cheap shots you want. I’ve heard ’em already.”

  “That was a comment, not a cheap shot. You’re the only sketch artist I wanted for this job, Bill. Of any age. This could be an unusual challenge for you.”

  “That sounds ominous.”

  “It’s not. But I need someone with imagination and creativity.”

  “Hmm.” He studied her face. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. Not enough to make it worth crawling out of my nice warm bed, of course, but at least now I’m curious why I’ve been forced to do it.”

  Kendra smiled even as she felt a pang as she noticed how frail Bill had become. Damn, it seemed as if he’d aged a decade in the two years since she had last seen him. Time could be so cruel.

  “But I’m not staying out in this wet air.” He steadied himself by placing a hand on the mobile command center. “Do they have room for us to work in this monstrosity?”

  “It’s a little noisy.” She gestured toward her car, which was parked a few yards away. “Is there enough light to do this in there?”

  He raised a flexible-neck book light clipped to his pad. “I brought my own. Let’s get to it, young lady.”

  They climbed into her car, with Kendra taking her place behind the wheel and Bill sitting in the passenger seat.

  He rested his pad on his knees. “Okay, let’s start with the shape of his face. Square? Oval? Triangular? Some of each? Think. Give me a canvas, and we’ll work from there.”

  “Sort of square … with high cheekbones.”

  “Good.” He started to work, his pencil flying over the pad. “Like this?”

  “No, chin more pointed.”

  His graphite pencil moved lightning fast, correcting. “Like this?”

  “That’s it.”

  “Now we go to the eyes. How far apart?”

  The next fifteen minutes flew by as Bill used his eraser as artfully as he did his pencil. Kendra had no sooner voiced a correction than it was incorporated into the sketch. He quickly generated a reasonable likeness of the man she had seen earlier. But after still another fifteen minutes of working together to refine the sketch, it became so real, so on the mark, that it actually chilled her to look at it.

  “Amazing,” she finally said. “That’s him, that’s the man we’re looking for. You’re incredible, Bill.”

  “Yes. But this is just another day at the office. So what’s with all the talk of imagination and creativity?”

  She was silent. “I’ve been thinking. It’s hard for me to believe that he would actually let me see what he really looked like. There were moments tonight when I was vulnerable. He could have killed me, but he didn’t. That meant the game isn’t over for him. He has something else in store for me. I believe he’d try to keep me from knowing anything that might give me an advantage.” She looked down at the sketch. “I wonder … If he might have been wearing a disguise.”

  “Like a fake nose?”

  “No, I think I would have spotted that. But we need to look at this sketch and think about what he might be doing to throw us off. The minute this hits the airwaves tomorrow, he knows a family member or coworker may recognize his face and call the police down on him.”

  Bill shrugged. “Maybe he doesn’t care and is prepared to leave his old life behind.”

  “It’s possible. But I think he does care. I think perhaps he’s somehow taken steps to change his appearance. But he’s done it in such a way that I wouldn’t be able to immediately spot it as a disguise.”

  “I see what you’re getting at.” His pencil touched the hairline he’d drawn. “Maybe a good hairpiece, or hair coloring, possibly some false front teeth?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You wouldn’t have observed those things?”

  “Not necessarily. He gives me a lot of credit, so he would have been especially careful. I can usually detect dentures from the effect it has on speech, but I didn’t get that from him. With some practice or expert help, he could have fooled me.”

  Bill’s eyes were narrowed on the sketch. “These cheekbones could have been extended and rounded off with some silicone packs placed between the upper lips and gum. It’s amazing how much something like that can change the shape of the face.”

  “That’s why I need you to show me. Can you draw different versions of this sketch, based on how you think he might look in everyday life without a disguise?” She urged, “And try to think of every single trick he might have used?”

  “Hmm. But only tricks that Kendra Michaels wouldn’t have detected.”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled faintly. “You’re right. That’s a challenge. I’ll see what I can do. In the meantime, what should I do with this sketch?”

  “Let the police department distribute it. I can’t hold that up because I have a theory that he managed to stage a switch. That’s the face I saw tonight, right down to the little mole above his left nostril. I have to stand by it. It’s as if you sucked this right out of my brain and splattered it across that page.”

  “Not the most eloquent compliment I’ve ever received, but I’ll take it. I’ll drop this off with—”

  RAP-RAP-RAP.

  They were startled by the loud knock on the driver’s side window.

  It was Griffin.

  Kendra opened the window. “Any news?”

  “Yeah.” He opened the driver’s door. “Come on. We’re going to Shell Beach.”

  * * *

  IT WAS ONLY A SHORT RIDE in Griffin’s car before Kendra had to abandon the vehicle to walk with Yates and the other police officers.

  Grim faces. Tense faces.

  Not a good sign, she thought as she strode after them down the concrete stairs that bridged the roadway with the small La Jolla cove known as Shell Beach.

  As the name suggested, the area was well suited for collecting shells but was even better known for the sea lions that played and sunned on the rocks just offshore. Even now, Kendra could hear them braying in the darkness, voicing their displeasure at the helicopters overhead and the interlopers charging into their territory with flashlights.

  Kendra and the dozen or so officers reached the beach and continued their single-file march in a wide arc that curved toward the shoreline. The area had obviously been roped off in the interest of preserving the scene, but she knew that the high tide was only hours away from erasing whatever evidence was left. You could never stop nature from taking back whatever it chose.

  There was little question where they were headed since a half dozen flashlights were already trained on the spot up ahead.

  The spot where Officer Gil Jillette lay dead.

  He had been found facedown in one of the beach’s famous tide pools, wedged into an intricate rock formation. He was now on the beach, and as Kendra stepped closer she could see that he was dressed in his uniform and that the JILLETTE name tag was in its rightful place above his right breast pocket.

  And a stocking had been pulled taut over his face, flattening his features and giving him the appearance of a department-store mannequin.

  Just like all the others, two years before.

  She forced herself to look at the dead officer’s face. Even through the stocking, she could see that his eyes were open, staring up toward the stars.

  Damn. He’d done nothing to deserve this. He should be home with his wife, little girl, and that funny-looking Chihuahua/Jack Russell Terrier mix.

  The memory of tha
t family photo she had seen on the dash of his squad car was streaming back to her. She felt a wrenching sadness at what lay before that family.

  One of the officers waved his hand over the corpse’s grotesquely swollen neck. “What’s this? He wasn’t in the water that long.”

  Kendra leaned closer. “He had a reaction to the Vecuronium Bromide.”

  The cop looked at her. “What?”

  “It’s an anesthetic. The killer’s a copycat, and Vecuronium Bromide was the drug of choice. I’m sure this man has it in his system.”

  Most of the officers were glancing at each other and obviously had no knowledge of the killer and his emerging pattern. Their expressions all conveyed some variant of “what is this crazy bitch talking about?”

  Never mind them. She carefully scanned the corpse. Could Gil Jillette tell her anything else?

  Come on, don’t let that bastard get away with doing this to you. Help me. Show me.

  But she couldn’t tell much that was different. Just a confirmation of what she already knew. The name badge had been put on by the killer, not Jillette. The pin had missed the stitch-reinforced hole and pierced the shirt just outside the ring. The shirt was still wet, but even so, Kendra could see this was a mistake Jillette never made himself.

  Anything else?

  Maybe one thing. A rawness around his lips, with some hairs pulled out of his moustache …

  Her head swiftly lifted. She said urgently to the circle of police officers, “Hurry. Go search the beach. Try to find a large adhesive bandage or maybe a strip of duct tape. If you do, bag it as evidence. It was probably placed over his mouth, then torn off. It may have the killer’s DNA. Understand?”

  “Go,” Gates said sharply to his men. “Move it!”

  The policemen scattered like leaves in the wind.

  Kendra watched them for a moment but then shook her head to clear it. She was suddenly feeling weak and foggy. She’d been energized by the search for Jillette, but every ounce of her energy had now drained away. It was as if the evening’s events had come rushing back to her, pummeling her emotionally and physically.

  “You look like you’re ready to collapse.” Griffin was behind her. “Now will you go to the hospital?”

  “No.”

  “Kendra, dammit, you’re—”

  “I’m going home. I need to get my head around everything that’s happened tonight.” She glanced at him. “And don’t you ever phone Lynch and tell him that he’s to interfere. That was completely ineffectual, and I won’t tolerate it.”

  He shrugged. “I thought it was worth a shot. We still need a full statement about what happened back at the house.”

  “I gave a detective my statement, and Bill Dillingham has done the sketch. That’s enough for now. Who has Corrine Harvey’s clothes that I took from the scene?”

  “Our forensics guys took it. It’s already in the lab.”

  “Good. Listen, I’ll come to your office tomorrow. Anyone else who wants to hash this out with me can join us.”

  “Okay. But just know I’m putting a guard outside your condo effective immediately.” He raised his hand as if anticipating her objection. “You don’t get a choice in the matter. There’s a serial killer on the loose, and you’re the only one who has seen him. That makes you extremely valuable to this case. I can’t afford to lose you.”

  “How sentimental. I’m getting all teary-eyed here.”

  “I figured it’s the only reason you’d go along with it,” he said gruffly.

  Kendra smiled wearily as she turned away from Griffin. For once, he was displaying all the signs of being a decent human being. It was as if the rough edges had, at least momentarily, been sanded away. “Actually … you’re right. That makes perfect sense. So who’s going to give me a ride back to my car?”

  * * *

  “IT WAS A PLEASURE TO MEET YOU, Kendra. Don’t forget about the mole…”

  She opened her eyes with a start, her heart pounding.

  Dammit.

  It had been another restless night. This was the third time she’d had that dream, always ending with that psycho in the police uniform turning toward her and smiling. But instead of texting her his message, he was saying it aloud, taunting her in the cruel whisper she’d heard on the phone.

  She rolled over in bed and glanced at the clock—7:45 A.M.

  Enough.

  She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and had just started to get up when her phone rang. No ID. She picked it up from her bedside table. “Hello?”

  “Ms. Michaels, this is Agent Nelson. I’m standing watch outside your unit right now, and there’s a woman here who says she’s your—”

  “Mother, dammit.”

  Kendra could hear her mother’s voice shouting and haranguing the poor man, both through the phone and through the two closed doors that separated her from the building hallway.

  “I hear her, Agent Nelson. Sorry about that. She can come in.”

  Kendra got up and paused to glance at herself in the mirror as she threw on a robe.

  Damn, she looked like hell. The bruises had swollen, and the cuts made it look like she’d been in a knife fight. Maybe if she threw on a long-sleeved shirt to help hide the damage …

  Too late. Her mother had let herself into the condo with her key, and she would be charging into her bedroom in a matter of seconds.

  Oh, well. Face the music.

  Kendra swung open her bedroom door.

  Diane Michaels stopped dead in her tracks. She was speechless for once, gaping at Kendra’s cuts and bruises.

  “Morning, Mom. Pancakes or waffles?”

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  “I had a little problem.” Kendra moved past her and walked toward the kitchen. “I’m sure you know, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

  “No, I came here because I heard about that police officer who was murdered. The news said that the killer is copying your old cases.”

  Kendra froze in the act of reaching for the coffee cups. “I should have known. No way this could stay a secret.”

  “And no way this should have ever stayed a secret from me.”

  Kendra turned back around. She didn’t like that tension in her mother’s voice. She was accustomed to her mother’s exasperation, but this was something else. The woman was truly frightened for her.

  “Mom, I’m fine.”

  “Don’t tell me that. I rushed over here, and the first thing I see is that … thug standing in front of your door. I didn’t know what to think. Then I come in here and see you looking like this.”

  “It looks worse than it is.”

  “It looks pretty damned bad.”

  “I won’t argue with that.”

  “So tell me what happened. Now.”

  “I will. Calm down.” She put on the coffee. “But I might as well make you breakfast while I do it. If you ran over here this early, I doubt if you had it. How about omelets?”

  “I don’t want a damn—” She gazed at Kendra’s expression, and said, “Fine. Anything.” She dropped down in a kitchen chair. “Now stop trying to soothe me and tell me who beat you up.”

  “No one. I did it myself.” She opened the refrigerator door and started searching for the eggs. In the next few minutes, she told her mother everything, from her experience on the bridge all the way to Shell Beach early that morning. Her weak attempts to minimize the danger sounded as ludicrous to her as it probably did to her mother. There was no way to hide it. No two ways about it, she thought. It was one hell of a scary night.

  When she was finished, her mother got to her feet and stabbed her finger toward a chair. “You sit down. I’ll make breakfast.”

  “You’re forgetting something. You can’t cook.”

  “Do you have frozen waffles in the freezer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I can make breakfast. Sit down.”

  Kendra took the seat she’d indicated at the table while her mother rummaged ar
ound in the freezer. “I wanted to save that cop, Mom,” Kendra said quietly. “But he was probably facedown in the tide pool before we even knew what was happening.”

  “You were lucky to save yourself.” She pulled out a box of Eggo frozen waffles, tore into the packaging, and loaded them into the four-slice toaster. “By the way, Dean told me all about your adventure on the bridge the other night.”

  “I guess he’s running for the hills about now.”

  “Just the opposite. You turned him on. I never thought your gifts of observation were good for anything but getting you into trouble. Apparently, they can also be an aphrodisiac.”

  “Trust me, they’re not.”

  “Tell that to Dean. He can’t wait to see you again. He said he’d called you but had gotten your voice mail and you hadn’t returned the call. He was quizzing me about ideas for your second date. It was sweet, really.”

  “He’s a good guy. But I really can’t think about him right now. Not until this case is over.”

  Her mother slowly turned back toward her. “You’re not seriously thinking of continuing?”

  Here it comes. “I have to.”

  “No. The FBI has to, you don’t.”

  “No one knows those cases better than I do. For all the PowerPoint presentations and bulletin boards the FBI studies, no one else has actually lived and breathed each and every one of those cases.”

  “One person has, Kendra.”

  She stared at her mother while she grasped her meaning. “Yes, you’re right. The killer has. All the more reason why I need to be a part of this.”

  “And what do you think he’s going to do when he gets tired of playing?”

  “He’s not anywhere close to getting tired of it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because I’ve dealt with killers like this before.”

  “Not like this.”

  “Close enough. He’s just getting started. I’ve only just begun to give him the attention he’s obviously craving from me. He has compulsions, sick needs, to be satisfied. I can use those against him.”

  “But he knows you, too, Kendra. A hell of a lot better than you know him. He knows where you live and work, and he can get to you whenever he wants to do it.”