The bone of her nose had also been broken, as had one of her cheekbones. Parts of her skull contained other fractures, too, but these wounds were not scars or healed breaks. These were death blows.
The face I had restored bore none of that terror. What I restored was a face made by the hand of God-a face that denied the abusive intervention of man. I blocked the horror of what I saw whenever I worked and remembered the sacred words: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” As long as I could focus on what I was restoring, I didn’t have to think about what had happened to the victim to put them in need of my skills.
With clay hair and eyes in place, the image was complete, and I placed it in the kiln for firing. When the bust was done, I removed it and set it out on one of my worktables. When it was cool, I made photos from all sides and then called Lieutenant Drew Smith at Ranger headquarters. He was in and wanted me to bring the bust over that day. It was a beautiful day for a drive through Austin. I put on my dark brown slacks, a short-sleeve beige sweater and my brown snakeskin boots. I placed the bust in a case for transport and loaded it into the Mustang.
It was cool and clear and a breeze blew through the trees and filled the air with the fresh green scent of spring. I rolled the windows down on the ’Stang and decided to take my scenic detour through town to get to Drew’s office.
I lived in the older Hyde Park section of Austin and the trip to Ranger HQ should have been about fifteen minutes, but fifteen minutes didn’t seem like enough time to enjoy all the sights and smells of the day, so I found my way to a road through the hills-to a road called Balcones.
The wind blew through my hair and I rode the curves all the way up Balcones as it wound its way above Lake Austin to a breathtaking view that I caught in my rearview mirror. I downshifted into second to make the rest of the grade, and looking forward, I made a left at the next intersection. Then I drove to the top of the mount, where I absorbed one of the best views in town.
Soon, I found my way back down, and made a right to head back into town toward Drew’s shop. By the time I got there, it would be a thirty-minute trip, instead of the fifteen minutes of the more direct route, but these scenic detours were one of my favorite ways to avoid the gloom and doom that was inherent to the forensic work I did.
As I flew down and around the curves of the road, my thoughts turned to the face that would appear on the Red Bud Isle skull we had unearthed from the riverbank the previous morning. Once I was through with my meeting with Drew, I would have to call Chris and make arrangements to go down to the morgue for the casting of a mold of the skull. Once a mold had been made, I would take it back to my studio and begin the meticulous work of pouring a plaster version of the skull and fleshing it out with clay. What face would it reveal? The face of someone slain over ten years before, who had lain in a grave not only unidentified, but unmourned-a person whose fate had been utterly unknown for all that time. Whose face would it be? Who and where was the murderer now?
The road curved to the left and now I was on a straight path to Ranger headquarters. Within five minutes I approached the intersection at Lamar Boulevard, downshifted into second and wheeled the Black Beauty to the left, getting just a tad of tire squeal out of the rubber as I took the corner. A quick right turn into the parking lot and I was there, scoping for a place to land. I found a spot not too far from the front doors and made my way inside with case in hand.
It was always good to see Drew Smith. Drew and I had been friends a long time. We had met on a case years ago, and we had bonded as friends because our mothers were both from Terrebonne Parish in Louisiana. My mama’s people were from Boudreaux and Drew’s lived in Houma. My mom wasn’t with us anymore, but Drew’s Mama Beatrice, as everyone called her, was alive and kicking. She was some great lady. That woman could really cook, too. I had first met her on a trip back to Terrebonne Parish to visit some of my kin. She laid out a spread before me that would have fed five truck drivers. Then she insisted that I take leftovers home with me so I would have “something for the road.” You could tell that Mama Beatrice was used to feeding three big boys, now three large men. Drew had a sister, too, but she was a petite thing like her mother, and I joked with her that she had remained small and slim because her brothers devastated the dinner table before she got anything to eat. She had laughed and said that there was too much truth in my joke.
Drew was a handsome African-American man who stood six feet, four inches tall, with square shoulders and a rock-solid body underneath them. He had a dazzling smile with an endearing overbite and the softest brown eyes I had ever seen in the face of a cop. He was between the ages of thirty-eight and forty, but he had old-fashioned manners and ethics, and that was a good thing in my book.
Make no mistake, however, Drew Smith was a law enforcement officer’s law enforcement officer. True to the legend of the Texas Rangers, Drew got his man-or woman-and put them away. If he couldn’t get them right away, he would dog a case until he finally dug up what he needed to make it stick. His work was meticulous and airtight every time-he made sure of it. He didn’t tolerate sloppy work in others and he tolerated it even less in himself. You don’t become a Texas Ranger by being average, and you don’t become one of the best of the Texas Rangers by being anything other than excellent in law enforcement. For this reason, I always found it a true professional reward to work on a case with Drew.
Such was the case with the cottonwood victim. Drew would not let go of this seemingly hopeless case. He was an inspiration. He had insisted that I be brought in to do a reconstruct of the victim’s face. Now I walked toward his office carrying the results of my work with me. A Jane Doe now had a face. Soon, she might also have a name. I knew that Drew Smith would not rest until he saw that she had both.
When I reached Drew’s office, we shook hands and then hugged. I hadn’t seen him in a month of Sundays. I set the case on his desk and slowly lifted the top off of it. When he saw the face he breathed in and out deliberately.
“Well, there she is then,” he said. “Somehow I already knew her. This one has haunted me, Toni.”
I nodded.
“I totally understand that. You should feel your hands in the clay, my friend.”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am, I don’t think I could do what you do. It’s tough enough to do what I do.”
He patted me on the back and smiled thoughtfully.
“Can I buy you a beverage?” he asked.
“No. I’m going to have to travel on to my next case.”
“Another one already?”
“Unfortunately so. Bones by the river.”
“Oh yes, yes. I read about it in the paper this morning. Sounds intriguing, Toni-very intriguing.”
“I think I could stand a little less intrigue for a while.”
Drew chuckled and then got out a Polaroid camera and made his own photos of the bust. He took the photos outside his office and handed them to a clerk, giving her instructions as to what to do with them. The photos would go out to all jurisdictions in Texas and various outlying jurisdictions in Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico. All federal agencies would receive copies as well, and her face would make the six o’clock local news on all networks. Maybe someone would recognize her. Only then could anything be done about locating her killer.
I said goodbye to Drew, we hugged again and I left the building. As I walked back to my car, I turned and looked up at the window to Drew’s office. I felt strange letting her go and leaving her there. I became attached to these anonymous persons. I wanted to care for her somehow, but I had done my best in that department by completing the bust. She was in good hands now. Drew would take care of her for me.