Anatomy of Fear (36 page)

“You don’t believe me?”

“I believe you, Rodriguez, I just don’t know how the fuck you do it and…it’s a little scary, you know?”

I did know.

“You’ve got to come in,” she said.

“Aren’t you the person who told me I couldn’t, that they had
too much that couldn’t be explained away—the tattoo, the drawing, my pencil?”

Terri sighed. “I don’t see an alternative.”

“We go find Wright.”

“No. You come in and I’ll send out an APB on Wright.”

“How? There’s no way they can search his premises. Where’s your probable cause? What are you going to say to the judge—
Rodriguez concocted a forensic sketch out of thin air, your honor?
Come on, Terri. There’s not a judge in New York who will grant you a search warrant, and you know it.”

Terri sat there a minute. I could see the doubt shifting to worry or maybe even the onset of fear, eyebrows raised and knit together.

“This is my job, Rodriguez. I do this and it turns out it’s not Tim Wright, I’m fucked, you understand what I’m saying? My career, over.”

“I know that.” I touched her hand. “But I need you to believe in me for all the reasons you wanted me on the case to begin with.”

“Stop touching me.” She tugged her hand away. “I can’t think if you’re touching me.” She took a deep breath and let it out in a slow sigh.

I didn’t say anything. I just sat back and watched her.

T
erri looked back at Nate and tried to make sense of what she was seeing and thinking. Was she actually going to do this, take a chance on this guy? Her luck with men had always been bad and she didn’t see why it was suddenly going to change. And this was bigger. Much bigger. Screwing up a relationship was one thing, but screwing up her job—
for a guy
? No, she didn’t think so.

“Look, Rodriguez, I just—”

“It’s okay,” said Nate. “I knew it was a crazy thing to ask you to do. I understand.”

“Oh, fuck that,” said Terri. She sighed again and touched his hand. “You know how to fucking drive this boat, or what?”

I
gripped the steering wheel as I headed over the 59th Street Bridge, Terri right beside me. We hadn’t said much after I started driving. I’d told her Wright lived in Queens. She told me again that I was crazy, that
she
was crazy, then she just stared straight ahead. Every few minutes I looked over at her, worry and fear etched on her face, lips tight, lines around her mouth and on her forehead. She didn’t have to tell me how she felt.

Crossing the 59th Street Bridge brought me back to when Julio and I were kids and we’d boost a car and drive over to Long Island City, park in some abandoned lot, get stoned, and gaze back at the city floating over the East River like Xanadu, bridges strung like Christmas lights, majestic skyscrapers lit up winking against a night sky. It was thrilling. Now it was the same bridge, but the thrill was infused with fear. I could have used a little of the dope Julio and I used to smoke.

“So what’s with this?” Terri held the jar of blue water up to the light. “You into watercolors?”

I thought about saying yes, but didn’t want to lie to her. “It’s something…from my grandmother. Well, from her friend, actually. It’s hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

I did. I told her about the
bótanica
and the
limpia,
and the way Maria Guerrero had released something that allowed me to finish the drawing.

When I stopped talking Terri was staring at me, mouth open, so I decided not to tell her the part about the egg and the gladiolas. Sometimes less is more.

“And this blue water, I’m figuring it’s not Tidy Bowl?”

“It’s supposed to keep me safe and pure.”

“Probably a little late for purity, but I’ll settle for the safe part.” She looked down and I followed her glance. The Smith & Wesson was sticking out of my pocket.

“You were planning to do this alone, weren’t you?”

“Me? No. Never.”

“Bullshit,” she said, a wry smile twisting back into worry as the city slid behind us like a memory and Queens came into view.

52

I
t makes perfect sense to him now, what he’s been doing and what he’s been working toward for so long. The plan is set. God has told him what to do and he will not fail.

He takes a moment to admire his craft, but no longer needs any props, everything set sharply in his mind. He crumples the drawing in his hand and drops it into the wastebasket.

He stares up at the ceiling as if he can see into his perfect living room—the matching sofa and armchairs, wide-screen TV, everything he had at one time worked for and thought important. He
knows better now. None of it matters, not the sofa, nor the armchairs, not the TV, not even the home itself; not the wife who has left him, nor the child whom she has taken with her.

How long ago was that? A few days, months, a year?

For a moment he wonders if they ever existed. Perhaps he has invented them. Perhaps they were a fiction. He tries to reconstruct their faces, but there is no room in his brain for anything other than the picture of what he is about to do, so big, so extravagant it blots out everything else.

He checks over his supplies. Everything is ready. This is what he has prepared for. This is his moment.

53

J
esus, is it Twenty-third Street or Twenty-third Avenue?”

“I don’t know. I just wrote what the receptionist told me, 202 Twenty-third. How was I to know the numbered streets crossed the same numbered avenues? Whoever devised this system was a fucking sadist!”

“Well, we’ve been up and down Twenty-third Street and there’s no number 202,” said Terri. “So it must be Avenue.”

I found my way onto Twenty-third Avenue and Terri called out the numbers until we reached number 202, a small one-family brick house on a tiny plot of land. It didn’t look like much. But what was I expecting, flames whipping through the roof like the drawing I’d made of my
abuela
’s vision?

“Keep going,” she said.

I cruised past, then doubled back and cruised by it again, trying to determine if anyone was home. There was no car in the driveway, but that didn’t really tell us anything. I parked across the street and rolled down my window.

“Can you see in?” she asked.

“What, you mean through the walls, like Superman?”

“I meant into any of the windows, but if you can see through the walls, go for it.”

The windows were obscured by blinds or drapes.

“This is so fucked,” said Terri. “You realize that, don’t you?”

“Yeah. I do. But if Wright is the Sketch Artist, he’s gone to a lot of trouble to set me up.” The irony did not escape me:
Would the real Sketch Artist please stand up?
“He could disappear now and leave me to pay the price. I just need to get some proof…to clear my good name.” I added that last part to get a smile out of Terri, her face a map of worry. “I’m sorry I dragged you into this.”

“Forget it,” she said. “I was the one who dragged you into the case.”

A good point and I appreciated her saying so.

I glanced down at my drawing, noticed what I’d scribbled in a corner, and pointed it out. “I totally forgot—Wright’s telephone number, the receptionist gave it to me.”

Terri punched it into her cell.

“Anything?”

“It hasn’t even rung yet. Relax.” She chewed her lip, cell pressed to her ear. “It’s ringing. One…two…three times.”

“What are you going to say?”

Terri clamped her hand over the mouthpiece. “I don’t know. Five…six…seven. No one is picking up. Eight…nine…ten rings. No machine picking up either.” She shut the cell.

“If he’s in there, would he answer?”

“Not if he’s spotted us sitting here staking out his house.”

We sat for another fifteen minutes, waiting for something to happen. When nothing did, Terri said, “Come on.”

She reached for the door handle, but I stopped her.

“What? You drag me out here and now you’re going to wuss out on me?”

“No. Give me your hand.”

“We don’t have time for a Hallmark moment, Rodriguez.”

“Just give me your hand.”

I opened the jar of colored water and let some trickle onto her hands, then mine. It didn’t feel foolish. It felt right, like part of a ritual, as if I were preparing us for battle.

“Oh, Jesus. Is this like
The Exorcist
or what?”

“It can’t hurt,” I said.

She gave me a look as she dried her hands on my sleeve, then checked the service revolver she had holstered beneath her jacket. “You ready?”

“Yes,” I said. I’d been getting ready since I started the Sketch Artist’s portrait, from the minute I drew the first pencil stroke on paper, but hadn’t known it until that moment.

I got out of the car, heart beating fast, hand gripping the revolver in my pocket. I stared at the house as we got closer, trying to feel if there was a presence inside, but obviously my gift for feeling things did not include houses.

Terri pressed the bell and we heard it chime somewhere inside. “What are you going to say?”

Terri thought a moment. “That I’m from NYPD Personnel and need to discuss a few things about his dismissal, how’s that?”

“If Wright is the unsub he probably knows who you are.”

“Right. Okay. I’ll give him a version of the truth. That I’m investigating a case, that’s all. Maybe he’ll play along, try and act normal.”

“Or try to make a break for it, or—”

“Well, it’s too late to turn around and change our minds. You wanted to do this, Rodriguez, remember?” She tried the bell again. There was no answer.

“I’ll check the back,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “But wait for me.”

T
erri watched Rodriguez round the corner of the house and disappear. She had to stop herself from calling out “Be careful.” Then she sidled over to a window and peered through a gap in the drapes. She could make out a couch and a big flat-screen TV. There were no lights on. Maybe he wasn’t home.

Or maybe he was waiting for them.

She knew he was patient, good at planning, taking his time. He could be watching her right now.

T
he backyard was small, a garage taking up half the space. It offered some privacy from the homes behind it. I took the concrete stairs that led up to the back door. I tried to see in, but couldn’t. I went back down the stairs and glanced up at the house. There was a window open about an inch, but it was eight feet off the ground. I dragged a metal trash can over. It just barely supported my weight, the top starting to cave in. I got a grip on the ledge, but the window wouldn’t budge. I didn’t stop to think, just pulled my shirt down over my hand and smashed the glass. It splintered, shards bouncing off my feet. I shoved the window open, hoisted myself up and in. The trash can fell over with a bang. If anyone was home I was making quite an entrance.

I landed heavy on my feet, rocked a few times to get my balance. I was in the kitchen. If Wright was home, he’d be coming for me. I felt an eerie presence, nothing I could explain, but I was chilled. I stood perfectly still; the only sound my breathing, then something else, a dripping sound.

I looked down and saw blood on the floor.
My blood
. I’d cut my hand pretty badly, though I hadn’t felt it.
Great,
I thought,
leave more DNA.
But it no longer mattered.

I peered through an archway into the living room. It seemed
quiet. Then a shadow slid across my vision. I sucked in a breath and raised my gun.

It was a moment before I realized it was Terri, outside the window, looking in.

I took a step closer to the archway. Was he hiding behind it? I held my breath and made my move, spun left, then right, gun straight out in front of me. There was no one there. But I still felt that eerie presence. My heart and lungs were meeting somewhere in my throat.

I made it across the living room and opened the two locks as quietly as possible.

Terri stepped into the room glaring, leaned into me, and whispered, “I swear to God, Rodriguez, if we get out of here alive I’m going to kill you.”

She sounded like she meant it, but it was too late now, we were in and there was no turning back.

We inched our way around the living room, guns drawn, until we were certain it was clear, then headed up the staircase in slow motion, down a hallway, taking turns pivoting into rooms—master bedroom, a child’s room, bath, all empty. The kid’s room was way too neat, no toys on the floor, shelves that should have held books and games, bare.

“Looks deserted,” Terri whispered, just barely audible.

“Maybe.” I was trying to analyze why I was so sure we’d come to the right place. There was nothing to confirm it, but I could feel him in the air.

Where would I do my work in a house like this?

I pointed to the floor and Terri got it. We retraced our steps down the stairs, through the living and dining areas, looking for a basement door.