Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [28]
Tursky held the drawing up in front of him and stared at it for a long moment.
“The lips are a little too thin, maybe. I think his bottom lip was fuller. And of course, he wasn’t wearing these glasses, so his eyes . . .”
“You saw his eyes?” Kendra’s head snapped up.
“Well, yeah,” Joe Tursky shrugged, “he was lookin’ right at me.”
“What color, did you notice?” Kendra forced back the rash of questions she was dying to ask, knowing that bombarding the witness with too much all at once could cause him, in the end, to overlook something.
“Dark. Dark brown. Thick lashes. Thick brows.”
“Were they close together?”
“Not really.” Tursky’s own eyebrows knit together as he tried to recall. “Seems they were wide-spaced.”
“Shape?”
“Round.” The witness nodded. “Round, wide dark eyes.”
“Lines around the corners?” Kendra had picked up her sketch pad, the pencil moving across the paper rapidly.
“No, I don’t think so. But there were some around the mouth, like a crease here.” Tursky drew an imaginary line down the side of his own face, from just to the side of his nose to just past the corner of his mouth.
“Anything else? Anything else you can remember?” The pencil paused. “Scars, a mole . . . anything that would distinguish his face?”
“No. No, I don’t remember anything else.” Tursky shook his head. “Oh. One thing I did notice that I thought was odd.”
“What’s that?”
“His clothes were wet. Like he’d been swimming in them.”
“Is there a pool or a pond in the area?”
“Just a stream down there at the foot of the path.”
“Mr. Tursky, can you approximate his age?” Kendra asked as Adam added to his notes.
“Early to mid-twenties.”
“Are you sure there was nothing distinguished about his face?”
“No. I’m not one hundred percent certain. I’ll tell ya the truth, the first time I saw him, I was more concerned about getting Casper under control, and the second, I was just surprised to see him. I didn’t look for scars or anything like that, if that’s what you mean.”
“Is this the face?” Kendra showed him the sketch.
“That’s amazing.” Tursky whistled in admiration. “That’s just what he looked like. How can you do that?”
“You’re the one who did it, Mr. Tursky, by describing the man so accurately.”
“Mr. Tursky,” Adam spoke up, “you said you were surprised to see him the second time. Why was that? Because you’d thought he’d left the park?”
“No, because of where he was coming from.”
“Where was he coming from?”
“There’s an area that’s off limits, it’s marked off with a chain-link fence. ‘Course, the kids do get down there from time to time to party, so I hear, but it’s a tough way down and a tough way back up again.”
“What’s down there?”
“Couple of caves. They flood every time it rains, and since the township doesn’t have the manpower to patrol the area, they keep it secured.”
“Mr. Tursky, can you take us through the park and show us both places where you saw this man?” Adam asked.
“Sure.” Tursky nodded. “Be glad to.”
“I’ll be right back.” Adam rose to leave the room to gather the necessary investigators to search the woods for any trace evidence their suspect may have inadvertently left behind.
“Agent Stark, this is him, isn’t it?” Tursky asked as Adam reached the door. “The man who’s been killing those girls?”
“We believe it is.”
“If I’d known that,” Tursky said quietly, “I’d’ve let Casper have at him.”
“That’s him?” Lieutenant Barker looked over Kendra’s shoulder. “That the son of a bitch we’re looking for?”
“That’s him.” Kendra handed the state trooper the sketch. “All ready to make his debut on the local six o’clock news. Compliments of our new best friend, Joseph Tursky.”
“Looks like a cocky bastard, doesn’t he?” Barker studied the drawing. “Cocky and full of himself.”
“He’d have to be.” Adam walked through the open door. “To do what he does, in the manner in which he does it. He’d have to be damned confident. And bold as brass, as my grandmother would say.”
“I’ll pass this on to the press. A few of the local stations