The Art of Death (8 page)

In a conference room at the Conrad Hotel, Madeleine Harrod took her place at the podium with more nervousness than usual. Getting an award from the Association of Forensic Artists was not the highlight of her life, for she’d received many other awards, but still it put the cap on a weekend of triumph in all three of her professional interests: unique toys for a global market, oil paintings that were now selling nationally, and three-dimensional forensic art that actually solved cold cases.  

It was not the fact of speaking publicly that made her nervous but the subject of today’s presentation. She would lead the audience step by step through her reconstruction of Nicole Whitehead’s face, focusing on advanced traditional and digital imaging techniques and on stereolithography (three-dimensional printing), concluding with the shocking fact of how the face turned out to be that of the very girl she once tried to save from drowning. The difficult part was explaining that even before she recognized the skull as Nicole’s, somehow she “saw” the details that complete a face and distinguish one from another -- the mole on the cheek, the almost invisible eyebrows, the blue eyes, the shoulder length hair, the cleft chin. Only when they were in place did she know who had died.

In the case of Nicole Whitehead, the convergence of Madeleine’s insight with the victim’s identity seemed to other professionals somehow more than coincidence, though no one could quite explain why that was so. Putting a face on Nicole’s skull had made Madeleine both the subject of great acclaim and the object of much suspicion and envy.

Despite her years of therapy, Madeleine had no idea herself what to call that kind of insight: a hunch, coincidence, sixth sense, second sight, intuition, clairvoyance, or a message from beyond. Or even, God forbid, something as indelicate as gut instinct. Though she recoiled at the occasional snide remark from detractors about how she was preternaturally gifted, she privately acknowledged that her insight looked supernatural. In another era, she might have been burned at the stake instead of recognized for her art.

As she always did when she gave a public speech, Madeleine checked and double-checked her computer to ensure that her PowerPoint presentation was in working order.

She also adjusted her designer suit, a sober gray Michael Kors with a turquoise zipper enlivening the jacket from neck to waist. In 2013, zippers were strangely chic and the color happened to draw attention to her eyes. Though the audience couldn’t see the designer label, she knew it was there. It made her feel rich and professional, a cut above everyone else.

After she checked PowerPoint and adjusted her suit, she gazed out at the audience, reminding herself not to lick her bright red lipstick away or mess with her hair.  Nervousness was no reason to disturb perfection.

As the presenter introduced her, Madeleine briefly closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing, willing herself to stay calm. Hyperventilation had bedeviled her when she first started speaking publicly, but Anthony had taught her breathing exercises to prevent it. The words of the moderator -- “gifted artist,” “trained at Quantico,” “graduate of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago,” “winner of numerous awards” -- passed through one ear and out the other without lodging in her brain. She was so focused on appearing calmer than she felt that she almost missed her cue to walk to the podium.

Once there, everything in place, she swept the room with her eyes to locate Anthony. He was supposed to be in the back row, but he wasn’t. His absence brought a frown to her lovely face. She wanted him where she could see him. If she faltered, if the audience didn’t respond as she anticipated, then she focused on him to regain her confidence. A friendly face in an audience of strangers was priceless. His reminder, “Just remember, you know more than the audience about your subject,” was helpful but not as reassuring as her father’s sentiment that she silently recited like a mantra: “You’re brilliant!”

It was a rule of hers never to speak longer than twenty minutes, no matter how complex the subject or skillful the presentation. Modern audiences, raised on Cirque du Soleil, cartoons and Twitter, had short attention spans, no more than twelve minutes, some experts said. So even at twenty minutes she could lose them if she weren’t careful. When after twenty minutes she turned off the PowerPoint, asked for the lights to be brought back up, and said she was ready to take questions, she spotted Anthony in the chair where he had promised to be. She smiled his way, though he didn’t return her greeting. He seemed to be focused on something else.

The questions came thick and fast. Most were professional, some very technical, none hostile. She had just finished explaining the difference in value between a two-dimensional and a three-dimensional postmortem reconstruction when someone she couldn’t see asked whether the crack in Nicole’s skull had occurred before death as the result of blunt force trauma or after death from the natural damage inflicted on a drowned body.

Madeleine donned her eyeglasses and peered toward the back of the room but could not see who had asked the question. The moderator reminded the audience that they must stand and state their name before asking a question. An older woman got to her feet, apologized for her lapse, said she was Lynda Bergstrom, a medical examiner’s assistant from Ohio, and repeated the question.

But it was not Lynda Bergstrom that Madeleine focused on, for suddenly she noticed the man sitting next to Anthony at the end of the row. It was the ship captain from the art gallery. She gripped the edges of the podium as if anticipating an earthquake. Who in hell was he? How long had he been in the room? Why was he even present? Did Anthony realize he was sitting right next to the elusive man, the sunburned figure with the dead eyes who’d followed her for hours at the art gallery last night?

Madeleine did her best to pull herself together, directing her answer to Lynda Bergstrom. “If I hadn’t known Nicole and the circumstances of her swimming accident, I wouldn’t know the answer. But because I was present when she was swept away by a riptide and know that at that time she wasn’t wounded, I can say affirmatively that the crack was not a perimortem wound -- that is, one that occurred just before death -- but postmortem damage from the body being tossed around in Lake Michigan for years afterward.”

Lynda Bergstrom hadn’t even sat down before the ship captain shot to his feet with an enigmatic smile, a challenging look. Even from twenty feet away, Madeleine could clearly see his stony eyes. Though the moderator didn’t seem to notice the man, Madeleine, breathless, stared at him. Was he going to repeat his claim of the night before that he’d seen her and Nicole in the water on July Fourth? And then what? Would he make the same alarming claim as Kimmie, that there had been a fight?

The man began to speak in that flat monotone that set the hairs on the back of her neck on end. Though Madeleine willed Anthony to turn his head and look at his neighbor, he stayed focused on something else. The ship captain’s words reached her ears like a mad tyrant’s scrambled radio broadcast, incoherent but menacing. She could not make sense of his question.

The room slowly tipped on its side and fractured into a thousand points of light. Madeleine Harrod, winner of the Directors’ Citation of the Association of Forensic Artists for excellence in facial reconstruction in the case of Nicole Whitehead, fainted dead away.