CHAPTER TWELVE
Adam Worth wasn’t his only case.
Larkin tossed his ring of keys onto the desk, put one hand on his hip, and rubbed the grit from his eyes with the other.
The creak of Porter’s chair preceded his “Grim?”
Larkin turned.
Porter was reclined as far back as the chair would allow, with his desk phone to one ear. The cord was a stretched and tangled mess. He put a hand over the mouthpiece and murmured, “Are you wearing someone else’s pants?”
“Yes.”
Porter took the answer at face value, shuffled his feet, and turned the chair toward the landing as Doyle reached the top step. Porter fist-bumped him while saying into the phone at the same time, “Cut me some slack, man. Rossi’s been six feet under since ’79.”
Doyle continued across the bullpen. He stopped outside one of the two unused rooms beside Connor’s office—light still on, door closed, deep voice resonating from within—then flipped on the bank of overheads. Larkin followed, passing Baker’s desk before pausing and backtracking two steps.
He picked up a Lisa Frank pencil from amid the clutter.
It’d gone missing from his pen cup a week ago.
He spun it around, the holographic unicorn print highlighting fresh chew marks in the soft cedar.
Larkin sighed and tossed it back onto Baker’s desk.
He entered the interview room and took in Doyle, already seated and digging a sketch pad out from the portfolio bag propped against the leg of the interview table.
Larkin quietly closed the door, leaned back against the wall to the left, and crossed his arms. Doyle had again brought up the necessity of a composite sketch on their drive back to the city, to which Larkin had said nothing, hoping his stoic silence was enough of a deterrent.
It had not been.
Doyle sharpened a few different pencils, testing the tips with the pad of his thumb. “Composite sketching can sometimes drum up strong emotion,” he said. “Whatever you’re feeling, just know that it’s valid.”
“I don’t want to do this, Ira.”
Doyle stopped.
Larkin felt a little like he were high—the exhaustion in his bones creating a sickening out-of-body sensation that was all too similar to one-too-many pills in his gut—and the return to that hazy no man’s land, despite being sober, lowered his defenses, loosened his tongue.
“I had to do this in the hospital, and I couldn’t remember and I couldn’t speak and I don’t—” Larkin stopped.
He pushed off the wall and moved to stand opposite Doyle at the table.
More resolutely, he said, “I don’t want to feel like a victim again. ”
Doyle met Larkin’s eye, his stare unyielding but never unkind. “Composite sketching, for me, isn’t about producing results. I know that sounds counterintuitive, but it’s always ever been about giving an individual the chance to be heard. I want you to feel empowered, not demoralized.”
Larkin let out a ragged breath. He straightened the chair before him, drummed his fingers against the tabletop in a quick succession of irritated movements, honestly considered playing his senior detective card and demanding they call it a night because he didn’t— couldn’t —be on this side of the law again.
He couldn’t bear reliving the questions, the interrogation, the despair, the injustice of still not knowing, eighteen years later, who had brutally murdered the love of his boyhood and who had stolen from him his entire sense of self.
“I think you can do this,” Doyle began.
Man’s will yearned for purpose.
“I would at least like to try.”
And what if that purpose was to love?
“But I’ll understand if you can’t.”
Larkin slowly pulled the chair out and took a seat. “I love you very much,” he whispered.
Doyle whispered back, “I love you too, sunshine.” He resumed sharpening pencils before opening the sketch pad to a blank page.
“First we’ll work on general proportions.
” Doyle’s patient demeanor never gave hint to the hundreds of times he’d given this same exact speech.
“I’m going to provide you with a few six-packs—”
“I remember what he looks like.”
Doyle let a few seconds settle between them before clarifying, “The six-packs are for me to reference.” He dug through his bag a second time. “Race?”
“White.”
“Age range?”
“Between sixty and seventy.”
Doyle sifted through a handful of six-packs, put some away, and laid out the rest on the tabletop.
He motioned to the strangers—all white males—and said, “I don’t want you to pick who might look the most like the shooter, but instead pick similar individual aspects. Chin, mouth, ears, that sort of thing.”
Larkin reluctantly leaned forward, but after studying the mugshots for several seconds, he pushed them away and said, “None of them.”
“Evie—”
“None of them are similar, Ira.”
“Don’t raise your voice to me,” Doyle warned.
Larkin sat back. He scrubbed his face with both hands and then ran them through his always so precisely parted conservative cut, causing his ash-blond hair to stick up like it did when he first rolled out of bed.
Larkin reached into his pocket, retrieved the second lemon candy Doyle had given him in Brooklyn, and popped it into his mouth.
Doyle watched, waited, and eventually said, “I only need generalities.”
“But I remember what he looked like,” Larkin said again, the candy clicking against his teeth.
“If a composite sketch is too precise, its intended audience will be looking for that one individual instead of many possible individuals,” Doyle explained.
“And because I’m interpreting what you saw, it’s not going to be a perfect match in the way a photograph would be.
So what’s better, an exact mismatch or an inexact possibility? ”
“Neither.”
Doyle made a sound under his breath, but he smiled nonetheless. “I know you’re tired. I know you’re stressed.”
“No, I’m overcompensating to make up for past feelings of helplessness.” Larkin took a breath. “He wore sunglasses and a ball cap.”
“I can draw those,” Doyle insisted.
“They were cheap aviators,” Larkin continued. “Light brown lenses with a gradient.”
“You were able to see his face behind them?”
Larkin nodded.
“Okay, good. What about the hat?”
“Yankees cap.” Larkin leaned forward, unenthusiastically spread the six-packs out to study a second time, then tapped one of the mugshots. “I suppose this is a similar head shape. Rectangular, softened around the jawline but not jowls.”
“I understand.”
Larkin motioned to a second photograph. “And this nose. It was large. Very distinct.”
“Anything else?” But Doyle corrected himself and asked, “Any other details that’ll affect his face shape?”
“He had what I thought to be a rather prominent dimple on his right cheek, but—” Larkin closed his eyes. “—it’s a vertical scar. About an inch in length.”
“That’s great.” Doyle rolled his sleeves back, got as comfortable as he could in the unforgiving chair, then picked up a pencil.
He began sketching the generic outline of a face, entirely unremarkable shapes meant to represent nose and hair and eyes, and Larkin would’ve never believed those rough strokes would amount to anything special if he hadn’t experienced the magic unfold in real time on March 31, when Doyle had been able to tug free a twenty-two-year-old memory from Jessica Lopez’s mind and then age-progress the drawing so exactly that they’d been able to interview Roger Hunt after he’d recognized himself in a post on Local4Locals.
Larkin checked his phone notifications while Doyle worked. Six new emails. Two voicemails. A flurry of texts sent from Hackett. It was all too much. He set his cell face down on the tabletop, leaned back in the chair, and stared at the ceiling.
Doyle asked, “Can I tell you something?”
“Of course.”
“The Adele Claremont Art Residency.”
“What about it.”
“I resided there for four weeks—the summer before grad school.”
Larkin leveled his gaze on Doyle. “Why did you lie.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “People like Stephanie—people with a superiority complex—they thrive on validation that they’re better than you.
If you give them proof, they tend to be more agreeable and less combative.
Claremont doesn’t really mean much outside of the art world, so when her first comment was to challenge me…
I kinda knew the type of person she was. ”
“Is it really a three percent acceptance rate.”
“Yeah.”
“And portfolio-based.”
Doyle agreed a second time.
“As a student, your body of work would have been significantly smaller than Stephanie’s is as an established full-time artist,” Larkin said. “Whoever oversaw the selection process, they saw something special in you.”
“It was a long time ago,” Doyle concluded, but he had the sliver of a smile on his face. He looked at Larkin and asked, “Why don’t you bring your chair around here?”
Larkin did as requested. He stifled a yawn with one hand as Doyle began to make nonleading inquiries regarding the blocked-out proportions on the paper: How is the shape and size of the sunglasses compared to the head mass?
How is the width of the nose? Was it wider at the nostril flare, at the bridge, or overall?
Doyle continued along that vein for a while, making changes where Larkin insisted it necessary, until the mess of rough lines began to look more and more like a distinct subject.
“Are the proportions on the paper within the realm of possibility?” Doyle asked.
“That really is such an oddly worded question,” Larkin said, studying the sketch.
“We say that because most people can’t recall like you can.”
“It’s acceptable at this current stage.”
Doyle started on the characteristics next. He was quiet for, by Larkin’s count, thirteen minutes, reworking previously established features to be anatomically correct. The slight adjustments took the composite from “drawing of man” to “interpretation of suspect” almost instantaneously.
Larkin leaned back in his chair again, far enough this time that his lower back no longer had support. He crossed his arms over his chest, crossed his legs at the ankle, and watched Doyle work from under a half-lidded gaze. “It’s recognizable.”
“Is it?” Doyle turned to him, his look of concentration momentarily broken as he gave Larkin an indulgent, sweet, heart-melting once-over. “Which aspects are similar to the shooter?”
“I got a better look at the lower portion of his face,” Larkin said, his monotone notedly sleepy. “The chin and jawline. But the cheeks aren’t right.”
“Are you able to tell me why?”
“There’s not enough age in them.”
“I’ll add lines and wrinkles—”
“And the scar.”
“—And the scar, yes, I’ll add those in the rendering stage. Is there anything else?”
Larkin shifted a little. “Anatomically, the eyes are correct.”
“But?”
“Are you familiar with Stanley Kubrick.”
“Sure.”
“He’s known for what some critics refer to as the Kubrick Stare. The shooter had that kind of soullessness in his eyes, despite smiling at me.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Larkin listened to the scratch of pencil on paper—fought against the weight of his eyelids—listened to Doyle hum a distinct but unfamiliar melody under his breath—just a brief rest—listened to the HVAC system kick on—
“You said you’d been in love since we met. I think I was too.”
—and then nothing.
—waves churning, twisting, crashing upward, throwing Larkin up and out of the lake onto the dock.
His palms covered in splinters, like quills from a porcupine, blood drip, drip, dripping onto Joe Sinclair’s forehead, drilling a hole through his skull, into his brain, his lips moving, repeating, “Everyone wants you, Mr. Larkin.”—
Larkin jerked awake, instinctually grabbing either side of the chair to catch himself amid the sensation of the falling dream.
“Larkin?”
“You okay there, Grim?”
Larkin looked up. Doyle was still seated on his left and Lieutenant Connor stood opposite them, his hands planted on the tabletop, leaning over the composite sketch in front of him. “Sorry,” Larkin whispered. He cleared his throat and straightened his posture. “Just a dream.”
Connor grunted. He spun the sketch pad around and pushed it toward Larkin.
Larkin checked his watch—10:46 p.m.—then leaned forward. “Is this the finished composite.”
Doyle asked, “What do you think?”
There were plenty on the force who thought the forensic artists having detective status was a joke, but what they failed to understand was just how good of an investigator Doyle had to be in order to pluck a monster from the mind of another person and prove, armed with nothing but a pencil, that the things bumping around in the night were real .
Doyle had drawn a man in his midsixties, once-strong features softened by the natural lessening of skin elasticity, a large nose, a notable dimple in his cheek caused by an old scar, wearing a Yankees ball cap and ugly aviators.
Most impressive—or disconcerting, Larkin considered—was how Doyle had absolutely nailed those deep-set eyes with the thousand-yard stare.
Larkin said, “That’s the shooter.”
“How’s the scar placement?” Doyle inquired.
“Yes. I mean—it’s correct.”
“Ever seen this SOB, Grim?” Connor asked.
Larkin gave his mental Rolodex a hard spin, studied the blur of faces—of coworkers, of criminals, neighbors, strangers. “I don’t think so.”
“You don’t think ?” Connor repeated. He straightened his posture. “You must be dead on your feet to not be a hundred and ten percent certain.”
Doyle said as he stood, “I’m going to scan and upload this sketch before packing it in.”
Larkin watched Doyle exit, walk through a now-empty bullpen, and turn the corner to the copier room opposite the breakroom.
“I spoke with Detective Hackett out in Brooklyn.”
Larkin returned his attention to Connor.
“What an excitable tyke he is.”
“That’s one way to describe him.”
“Hackett’s agreed to liaison with you in regard to whatever you need from the Sinclair and Gardner investigations. He’ll be handling the warrants, so give him a ring when you’re ready.”
“I understand.”
Connor looked like he had more he wanted to discuss—about Phyllis, about Esther, about the shooter, about this entire shitshow Larkin was caught up in—but he only tapped the tabletop and said, “Go home, Grim. Go to bed.”