it the right way, it’s impossible to miss. And look at the other two ladies. They’re crying, too. Hell, a lot of people were crying that Saturday. And in the weeks that followed. You’re right. He’s eating it up.”
“And you think he knew it was going to happen? Like a mosquito smelling blood?”
“I don’t know,” Dan says. “I just don’t know.”
“We do know he only started working at KTVT that summer,” Brad says. “I wasn’t able to find out much about him, but that much I did get. From a history of the station on the Internet. And he was gone by the spring of 1964.”
“The next time he turns up—that I know about, anyway—is in Detroit,” Dan says. “1967. During what was known at the time as the Detroit Rebellion, or the 12th Street Riot. It started when the police raided an after-hours bar, a so-called blind pig, and spread city-wide. Forty-three killed, twelve hundred injured. It was the top news story for five days, which was how long the violence went on. This is from another independent station, but it got picked up by NBC and ran on the nightly news. Go ahead, Brad.”
A reporter is standing in front of a burning storefront, interviewing a black man with blood running down his face. The man is almost incoherent with grief. He says that’s his dry-cleaning business burning down across the way, and he doesn’t know where his wife and daughter are. They have disappeared into the city-wide melee. “I have lost everything,” he says. “Everything.”
And the reporter, this time calling himself Jim Avery? He’s a small-city TV guy for sure. Stouter than “Paul Freeman,” verging on fat, and short (his interviewee towers over him), and balding. Different model, same template. It’s Chet Ondowsky buried in that fat face. It’s also Paul Freeman. And Dave Van Pelt.
“How did you tip to this, Mr. Bell? How in heaven’s name—”
“Dan, remember? It’s Dan.”
“How could you see the resemblance wasn’t just a resemblance?”
Dan and his grandson look at each other and exchange a smile. Holly, watching this momentary byplay, thinks again, Different models, same template.
“You noticed the pictures in the hall, right?” Brad asks. “That was Grampa’s other job when he was on the cops. He was a natural for it.”
Once again, the penny drops. Holly turns to Dan. “You were a sketch artist. That was your other police job!”
“Yes, although I did a lot more than sketch. I was no cartoonist. I did portraits.” He thinks, then adds, “You’ve heard people say they never forget a face? Mostly they’re exaggerating or outright lying. I’m not.” The old man speaks matter-of-factly. If it’s a gift, Holly thinks, it’s as old as he is. Maybe once it blew his mind. Now he takes it for granted.
“I’ve seen him work,” Brad says. “If not for the arthritis in his hands, he could turn around, face the wall, and do you in twenty minutes, Holly, and every detail would be right. Those pictures in the hall? All people who were caught based on Grampa’s portraits.”
“Still—” she begins doubtfully.
“To remember faces is only part of it,” Dan says. “It doesn’t help when it comes to getting a likeness of a perpetrator, because I’m not the one who saw him. You understand?”
“Yes,” Holly says. She’s interested in this for reasons other than his ID of Ondowsky in his many different guises. She’s interested in it because in her own work as an investigator, she is still learning.
“The witness comes in. In some cases—like a carjacking or a robbery—several witnesses come in. They describe the doer. Only it’s like the blind men with the elephant. You know that story?”
Holly does. The blind man who grabs the tail says it’s a vine. The one who grabs the trunk thinks it’s a python. The one who grabs the leg is sure it’s the bole of a big old palm tree. Eventually the blind men get into a brawl about who is right.
“Every witness sees the guy in a slightly different way,” Dan says. “And if it’s one witness, he or she sees him in different ways on different days. No, no, they say, I was wrong, the face is too fat. It’s too thin. He had a goatee. No, it was a mustache. His eyes were blue. No, I slept on it and I guess they were actually gray.”
He takes another long pull of O2. Looking more tired than ever. Except for the eyes in their purple pouches. They are