Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [45]
It had seemed like a good idea at the time, Kendra thought wryly as she patted the sobbing woman on the back.
From her seat on the sofa in Grace Tobin’s living room, Kendra could see straight across the street to Annie McGlynn’s town house, where media and law enforcement vehicles all but blocked off the street entirely. As Adam returned to the room with water for Grace, she nodded in the direction of the window. Her message received, Adam closed the blinds.
“I guess Chris will take the kids now,” Grace hiccuped. “God knows what will happen to them.”
“Chris?”
“Annie’s ex-husband.”
“I take it you don’t care for him?” Adam commented as he sat on a chair facing the two women.
“He ran around on her the entire time they were married. He never had time for the kids when she was alive.” She shook her head. “Annie did everything for those kids. She was the perfect mother.”
“You mean, involved in their activities? Sports, school, that sort of thing?” Adam asked.
“There was no part of their lives she didn’t care about. Annie had grown up in foster homes. She was determined that her kids would have every advantage she hadn’t had. Including a mother who was always there for them, a mother who always listened . . .” Grace accepted another tissue from Kendra. “She had never had anyone to pay attention to her, you know? So when I saw this guy sitting there, listening to her, being so respectful of her, I thought, ‘Wow, isn’t this great? Maybe Annie’s luck is finally changing.’ . . .”
She hiccuped again.
“Well, it changed all right.” Grace’s jaw tightened. “Shit, you just can never tell, can you? I mean, he was a guy anyone would be interested in. Good-looking, tall . . .”
“How tall?” Kendra interrupted, trying to get to the business at hand. “As tall as Agent Stark?”
“No, not quite. But I’m not a good judge of height, and besides, mostly he was sitting down, except for when he first approached us and later when they were dancing. Shit. He looked nothing like the picture on television.”
“Then we’ll make a new picture, one that looks the way he does now.”
“Then you think it’s the same man who killed those other women?” The question was directed to Adam.
“It’s a possibility.”
“The police report says that he was bald.” Kendra jumped in before Grace could ask questions of her own.
Grace nodded. “But bald like he’d shaved, not like he’d lost his hair, you know what I mean? You know the difference? Like perfectly smooth.”
“The shape of his head”—Kendra’s hands reached into her bag for her sketch pad and pencil—“more round than oval?”
“Just . . . nice. Not too anything. Just . . . oh, maybe rounded, not pointy, if that’s what you mean.”
“Like this?” Kendra’s fingers had floated over the paper. She turned the sketch pad to Grace.
“A little less round maybe on the sides there . . . yes, like that.”
“And his ears, what were they like? Did they protrude . . . ?”
“Oh, no, they were pretty close to the side of his head, flat like . . . yes.” Grace nodded as Kendra moved closer to her so she could see the sketch as it was being made.
“His jaw . . . the shape of his face . . .”
Grace traced her finger on the paper. “Lean. I remember thinking he was lean . . . not just his face, but everything about him.”
Adam’s cell phone rang, and he walked into the kitchen to avoid breaking the concentration of the victim or the artist. When he returned several minutes later, Kendra glanced his way.
“That was Chief Rosello, Newkirk PD. He’s across the street.” Adam folded the phone and returned it to his pocket. “He was wondering when you’d have a sketch for him. They’re anxious to display the suspect’s new look to the media.”
“I’m done, I think, unless Grace has something else to add?” Kendra handed Grace the sketch.
“His eyes were a little darker, maybe. Maybe there were more lashes . . .”
Kendra made the appropriate changes.
“That’s better, yes.” Grace nodded confidently. “That’s him.