"Safecracker" Novel Chapter Excerpt

10 Min Read

Chapter 1

Features of a Criminal

Sidney Webb weaved between the sea of precinct personnel in the colorless halls, with the skill of an adept swimmer. If this had been her first visit she might have cringed at the beige décor and olive green chairs with their deteriorating stuffing attesting to a bygone era. The less than stylish interior would appall many, and others still might shrink back in terror. But the one had not frequented the place as much as Sidney, and the other was usually being led against their will by an officer performing his duty.

Her legs worked on autopilot, following the route she had taken countless times, as she mentally ran through the possibilities of what might await at her destination. She halted before the door of the conference room long enough to survey her gray flats and matching dress pants. With extra care, she smoothed the wrinkles in her forest green button-up. The earthy tone brought out the richness of her auburn waves and complemented her light green eyes.

Sidney only hoped she did not make for an overly impressive image. Stunning her clients and hindering any openness was the last thing she wanted to do. If they considered her unapproachable, it would make her job that much more difficult.

Her hand flitted to her neck to ensure the locket was secure, and with a thick folder and clipboard in tow, Sidney opened the door. She was unsure what type of person would be inside. It was a woman, and her name was Sheila Albright, she had been told. According to the report she had been robbed at gunpoint. But would she be anxious or despondent, devastated or undisturbed? The woman could be any one of these or in a category all her own. In any case, Sidney would have to brace herself and seek the best approach to get her talking.

An officer greeted her at the head of a long table and motioned to a brunette sitting with her back to the door.

“Our forensic artist has arrived, Miss Albright.”

She arose at the officer’s words, and Sidney went directly to her.

“Hello Miss Albright, how are you? I am Sidney.” She injected her speech with a healthy dose of positivity and smiled as she offered a hand. The woman was middle-aged with a sharp, upturned nose and a mouth that was drawn into a single line. Her grip was firm and icy.

“If you take a seat, I will try not to take up much of your time.” Sidney took the chair beside her and began spreading her things on the table. “For starters, name anything you noticed about the person–what was their gender, ethnicity, age, et cetera, and we’ll go from there.”

Poised with the pencil over the blank sheet on her clipboard, she waited for her to speak.

“He was… Caucasian.” The voice that finally spoke was dry and crackled as old firewood. “In his mid-thirties–no, late twenties.”

Sidney scribbled the notes on a separate piece of paper and then slid an open binder to the woman. “I want you to look over these face shapes and select the closest to the one you recall the man having, okay?”

Page after page completed the catalog of various facial shapes, from oval and square to diamond. Sidney could expect the process to take a few minutes as Sheila studied each one.

“This one, I think,” she pointed with a hesitant finger.

“Triangular face shape,” Sidney confirmed and began forming an outline in light pencil strokes. “Great, okay. Now, if you turn to the section with eyes, we can fill in the face.”

Wide-set eyes, blue. Nose, short. Mouth, thin. The features came together to make an entire face, complete with a cleft chin and blond crew cut. It was apparent by the incessant wringing of her hands that the woman was growing more anxious with every question. Her work at suppressing the bad memories was crumbling brick by brick.

“It–it almost looks like… him, but the chin was more tapered,” she said once Sidney showed her see the sketch. With a few more adjustments, Sidney applied the finishing touches to the graphite shadows using a tortillon and turned the clipboard around.

Miss Albright turned ashen and wrenched at her hands. “Yes – yes! That’s him! It’s him!” The effect was dramatic, if not satisfying to Sidney in a sense. The more she was able to produce a facsimile of the suspect, the faster the officers could bring him to justice.

“Great! If you will write your signature on the underside, it will be included as evidence in court,” Sidney rattled off the standard statement, “testifying that this is the person you described, and I have not redrawn anything to more closely resemble the suspect.”

With a shaking hand the woman scratched a signature, and Sidney smiled. “Thank you for your cooperation, Miss Albright.” Handing the sketch to the officer, she gathered her equipment in a flourish and was out of the room. The precinct had another victim interview planned for her, but the appointment was not for another hour, leaving ample time to kick around in. She traced a path to a wide room networked by a maze of cubicles, where, in her opinion, Homicide’s best worked.

“Hi, Thompson. How are you doing, Clancy?” she greeted the detectives at their work desks.

“Sidney baby! How about dinner tonight?”

Sidney breezed past, not skipping a beat. “I don’t plan on missing any meal. How about you?” A rowdy cackle turned the others’ heads with annoyance, followed by the usual reprimand from Thompson.

Slowing near a cubicle in the back she took in a man in his late twenties, wearing a white dress shirt and dark blue slacks, hunched over a computer. “Look at that bad, bad posture. You’re gonna seriously regret that when you’re eighty and can’t stand up straight. Well, maybe even sooner.”

Christian Webb pivoted in the office chair, revealing sandy blond hair waved to the back of his head, a Greek nose, and close-trimmed beard, or as Sidney described, longer-than average stubble. How a man could look natural wielding an ax in one hand and a book in the other bewildered her. But he effectively retained both ruggedness and intellect, that the title bookish-lumberjack seemed only fitting.

He adjusted his glasses, a hint of amusement playing in his steel-blue eyes. “Well, well, well, if it isn’t the pest of the year.”

Sidney stuck her lip out in a pout and reached to adjust his blue-striped tie. He caught her hand and waved a finger at her. “Ah-ah! Leave the tie alone. I was nearly walking into a witness interview when I realized what you’d done.”

She jerked her hands free. “That’s a nice way to treat your own sister.”

“Can’t think of a better way.” He cocked a brow, traces of a smile tugging at his lips.

“Why I spent all those years looking up to you like you were something special, I’ll never know. Now you’re just cruel and mean.”

“And you’re too spoiled for your own good. What you deserve is for me to take you across my knee…”

She jumped back with a smirk. “You may be six years older, but that doesn’t give you disciplinary rights! But I’ll tell you what, you can prove you’re not a monster by taking me for a burger.”

“It is only,” He raised his wristwatch, “ten-thirty. I, as well as you, have a couple more hours of work before lunch.”

“That’s the good thing about being freelance, I work when I want.”

“Not when you have appointments already set up.”

“But I am starving!”

“Go to the break room.”

“The break room doesn’t have burgers.” Pulling a chair from an empty cubicle, Sidney plumped down beside him.

Christian turned back to the computer. “I could have used you last night, but I had to call in the staff artist instead.”

“Ugh, not that again,” she groaned as she selected a pencil from her collection and began drawing thin lines on the clipboard. “You know I specialize in composites. I don’t do crime scenes, and I definitely don’t do blood.” Her admiration for Christian’s work had almost persuaded her to join the homicide division had her weak stomach not convinced otherwise. Sure, forensic art could be graphic, but taking the freelance route enabled her to specialize in criminal portraits while avoiding the gory sights.

Sidney added a few broad strokes with a darker pencil.

He turned to face her. “The point is I know what you are capable of, and you can overcome your fear. And if that’s not enough,” he added, “you would be getting Captain Griffith off my back. You know how he works round-the-clock to garner enlistments.”

She laughed and applied the kneaded eraser to the rough areas of her sketch. The drawing was a cartooned version of him, hunkered over his desk, hammering at a keyboard; a sign overhead read, ‘detective at work.’

“I already duck out of here when I see him coming. I know one day he’ll catch up to me, and before I know it I’ll be walking a beat.”

“That’s very possible.” He grinned, and Sidney got to her feet, placing the drawing on his keyboard. “See ya for lunch. I won’t take no for an answer unless you want Mom to hear how malnourished I am! And then, oh boy, won’t you be in for it.”

He set his jaw in a challenge but she knew she had won.

The next interview on her schedule was with Bruce Patterson, a middle-aged, bald man with enough brawn to lift the conference table with one hand. It was a mystery how he folded his arms considering the enormous biceps and rocky abs almost bursting from the t-shirt. But she felt they were off to a good start when he spouted the description of the man who had held up his liquor store.

“And I wouldn’t have let him get away if he hadn’t had that gun, stupid, little cuss!” His neck muscles bulged the longer he continued to rant, “But hey, I ain’t stupid enough to argue with a bullet, no sir! So that puny squirt, who I could have strangled with my pinkie, skedaddles with all the money in the register!”

As terrible as his misfortune was, Sidney ducked her head over the sketch to smother a smile. She only hoped he did not come in contact with the man again–for the criminal’s own sake. She cleared her throat. “And his face shape looked like this?” she said, singling out a thumbnail in the binder.

“Yeah, well, a little more like that one.” Bruce pointed at the square face shape. “A real dumb-looking creep.”

She broadened the jaws and moved to narrow the temples when he spoke again, “Nah, that one seems to fit his face better. Yeah, it was that one or perhaps this one.”

Sidney let her pencil drop. Mr. Patterson was not sure of anything. Twice he changed the layout of the eyes, four times the mouth, and a similar nose he insisted did not exist in the exhaustive references. What seemed like an easy job was turning out to be every forensic artist’s nightmare.

She held her breath and showed him the finished sketch, desperately wishing that he would be satisfied and they could call it a day.

“Yeah…” His eyes scrutinized her handiwork. “That’s him… I think. Yeah, just like the creep!”

Sidney let out a breath, and flung the page over. “If you are pleased with the results, Mr. Patterson, please sign this, and we’ll be done.”

Once out of the room, she released a long breath and massaged her hand. “I’m glad that’s over. I was beginning to think he dreamed the whole thing up!” Her stomach grumbled a response, reminding her of the lunch appointment with Christian, and she started in the direction of the homicide division. The sight of the vacant cubicle, however, did nothing to reassure her growing appetite.

“Ryan, where did Christian go?”

“He is canvassing for witnesses in the Lawrence homicide.” The chair in the adjacent cubicle swiveled, and Ryan Jefferson faced her. His brown hair was always the first thing she noticed, trimmed short with no other option than to stand straight up from his scalp.

She dropped her shoulders. “Any idea when he will return?”

His blue eyes studied her, reinforcing her notion that his square features alone saved him from being mistaken for a baby-faced teenager. “Could be any time or may not be for a few hours.” He shrugged. “You know how the procedure goes.”

“All too well, unfortunately.” Another hunger pain hit forcing her to change tack. “I suppose you'll have to take his place. How do burgers sound?”

“Actually, we were just getting ready to leave.” The hostility lacing the words was unmistakable. Kara Adams was not the easiest person to get along with, and her ability to turn every conversation into a challenge pressed the bounds of even Sidney’s outgoing traits. Her black hair was pulled into a neat, tight bun in keeping with her immaculate style, though overall lacking a certain feminine allure.

It would be an amazing improvement if she smiled instead of looking like a bear ready to fight the world, Sidney thought. Christian had hinted her home life had been rough, though Kara never discussed it. For this fact alone Sidney spared the extra patience when she might have otherwise given her up as a lost cause.

“But she can join us, right, Kara?” He was trying to smooth things over between the two, but Sidney had presumed to tread upon forbidden territory which was a sure way to incur Kara’s wrath. Her gaze darted to her, and Sidney could almost feel the daggers lodging into her flesh.

“Nah,” Sidney spared her a response. “I’ll wait a little longer for Christian. But thanks!”

Once the detectives left Sidney dropped into Christian’s chair. She drummed her fingers on the desk, her eyes darting between the wall clock and the drawer beneath. I shouldn’t… but has that ever stopped me?

Taking a couple of paperclips and straightening them, she had the cheap lock free in under a minute. A smug grin betrayed her self-satisfaction until her eyes latched onto a new addition to the drawer’s contents. A sheet of paper lay on top with bold letters, ‘stay out of my desk!’

Sidney smirked and set it aside. Other than odds and ends and chewing gum, from which she lifted a piece, nothing else held any interest. It was a game they played, and if Christian did not put on an act of annoyance there would be no fun doing it again.

Closing the drawer, she took in the glowing computer screen where he had abandoned his ongoing research for the task at hand. Tsk-tsk, looks like someone’s computer failed to lock once he left.

The open document held details of a vehicle exploding upon ignition and killing the driver and his wife at their home in the suburbs. This was not news because Christian had mentioned it to her last week, adding that so far they had been unable to trace the explosive material used in the car-bomb nor link the crime to a suspect. The investigation had little to go on, and unless a lead showed itself he predicted filing another cold case in the system.

“And apparently it isn’t the first time this method’s been used to detonate cars,” Sidney mumbled, noting the many unsolved cases opened for cross-reference. “But the answer has to be in one of these–” Her eyes froze on the name of a victim’s file. Don’t be ridiculous. Naturally, there are more people by that name. Curiosity drew her with magnetic fingers, and she brought the window to the front. It took reading two more names before her heart ceased to beat.

------------------------------

Go ahead and leave a comment! I would love to hear your thoughts! And don't forget to come back for more updates and snippets from my novel Safecracker!

~Alissa Yarbrough