“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 istooprecise, its intended audience will be looking for that one individual instead of manypossibleindividuals,” 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.”
