The next one was the first I’d seen. His hair was white, and the large eyes were altered somehow, as if someone had scraped off a layer of emotion the way you’d scrape the thinnest film of egg-white from the shell.
“After he murdered Norman Sussex,” Lief said.
In the fourth, he’d lost a lot of weight and his feminine features seemed grotesque, the face of a haggard witch on a young man’s body. The large eyes were bright and loud, somehow, and the full lips sneered.
“The day he was convicted.”
The final photo was taken the day of his release. He’d streaked his hair with what looked like charcoal and gained weight, and he puckered his lips at the photographer.
“How did this guy get out?” Bolton said. “He looks completely deranged.”
I stared up at the second photo, the young Evandro, dark-haired, face clear of bruises, eyes wide and afraid.
“He was convicted of involuntary manslaughter,” Lief said. “Not murder. Not even man two. I know he cleaved open Sussex without provocation, but I couldn’t prove it. And wounds on both Sussex and Arujo at the time were consistent with those of men who’d been in a shank fight.”
He pointed at Arujo’s forehead in the most recent photo. There was a thin white line creasing the forehead. “See that? Shank mark. Sussex couldn’t tell us what happened, so Arujo claimed self-defense, said the shank belonged to Sussex, and he draws eight years, because the judge didn’t believe him, but he couldn’t prove otherwise either. We got a serious overcrowding problem in our prisons, in case no one told you, and Inmate Arujo was in every other respect a model prisoner who served his time, earned his parole.”
I stared up at the various incarnations of Evandro Arujo. Injured. Young and scared. Blighted and ruined. Gaunt and barren. Petulant and dangerous. And I knew, beyond any doubt, that I’d seen him before. But I couldn’t place where.
I rifled through possibilities:
On the street. In a bar. On a bus. In the subway. Driving a cab. At the gym. In a crowd. At a ballgame. In a movie theater. At a concert. In—
“Who’s got a pen?”
“What?”
“A pen,” I said. “Black. Or a marker.”
Fields held up a felt tip and I snatched it, pulled a photo of Evandro out of the laser printer and started scribbling on it.
Lief came up and looked over my shoulder, “Why you drawing a goatee on the man, Kenzie?”
I stared down at the face I’d seen in the movie theater, the face in a dozen photos Angie had taken.
“So he can’t hide anymore,” I said.
24
Devin faxed us a copy of Evandro Arujo’s photo from the set Angie’d given him and Erdham fed it into his computer.
We crawled north on 95, the RV stuck in a midday traffic snarl as Bolton said, “I want an all-points issued on him immediately,” to Devin, then turned and barked at Erdham, “Punch up his probie’s name.”
Erdham glanced at Fields and Fields hit a. button and said, “Sheila Lawn. Office in the Saltonstall Building.”
Bolton was still talking to Devin. “…five eleven, one hundred sixty-three pounds, thirty years old, only distinguishing mark is a thin scar, one inch long, on his upper forehead, just below the hairline, shank wound…” He cupped his hand over the phone. “Kenzie, call her.”
Fields gave me the phone number and I picked up a handset and dialed as Evandro’s photo materialized on Erdham’s screen. He immediately began to punch buttons and enhance the texture and color.
“Sheila Lawn’s office.”
“Ms. Lawn, please.”
“This is she.”
“Ms. Lawn, my name’s Patrick Kenzie. I’m a private detective and I need information on one of your parolees.”
“Just like that?”
“Excuse me?”
The RV lumbered into a lane that was moving an inch or two faster per minute and several horns blared.
“You don’t think I’m going to reveal anything about a
client to a man claiming to be a private investigator on the phone, do you?”
“Well…”
Bolton was watching me as he listened to something Devin said, and he reached out and grabbed the phone from me, spoke into it out of the corner of his mouth while still listening to Devin through his other ear.
“Officer Lawn, this is Special Agent Barton Bolton of the FBI. I’m assigned to the Boston office and my identification number is six-oh-four-one-nine-two. Call and verify who I am and keep Mr. Kenzie on the line. This is a federal matter and we expect your cooperation.”
He tossed the phone back to me and said to Devin, “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“Hi,” I said.
“Hi,” she said. “I feel chastised. By a man with a name like Barton no less. Hold on.”
While I was on hold, I looked out the window as the RV switched lanes again and saw what the tie-up had been. A Volvo had rear-ended a Datsun and the owner of one of them was being escorted down the breakdown lane to an ambulance. His face was covered in blood and pricked with small shards of glass and he held his hands in front of him awkwardly, as if he wasn’t sure they were attached anymore.
The accident wasn’t blocking traffic anymore, if it had ever been, but everyone had slowed to a standstill to get a proper look. Three cars ahead of us, the backseat passenger was recording it all on video camera. Home movies for the wife and kids. Look, son, severe facial lacerations.
“Mr. Kenzie?”
“I’m here.”
“I’ve been chastised twice now. The second time by Agent Bolton’s boss for wasting the FBI’s precious time on something as trivial as protecting my client’s rights. So, which of my choirboys do you need information on?”
“Evandro Arujo.”
“Why?”
“We just need it, that’s all I can say.”
“Okay. Shoot.”
“When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Two weeks ago Monday. Evandro’s punctual. Hell, compared to most, he’s dream.”
“How’s that?”
“Never misses an appointment, is never late, got a job within two weeks of his release—”
“Where?”
“Hartow Kennel in Swampscott.”
“What’s the address and phone number at Hartow Kennel?”
She gave it to me and I wrote it down, ripped off the sheet and handed it to Bolton as he hung up the phone.