Anatomy of Fear by Jonathan Santlofer Page A

had his own fund.”
    “He obviously did well.
    She sighed again. “Yes.”

    I got her talking about the art, and she said her husband had recently bought the Warhol at auction, which I knew meant he’d paid well over a million. After a while I asked, “Tell me what happened the night he was killed.”
    “You mean last night?”
    I said I was sorry again, but the sooner we knew, the faster we could do something about it.
    “There’s not much to tell. Roberto was keyed up, so he decided to go out for the paper. I told him it was silly. We get the Times and the Journal delivered every morning, but when Roberto has his mind set, it’s useless to fight him.” She welled up with tears. “If only he’d listened to me.”
    “Don’t blame yourself for something that isn’t your fault, Mrs. Acosta.”
    “Cambell. I use my maiden name.”
    “Sorry, Ms. Cambell. But you need to put the blame where it belongs, on the man who did this.”
    “That’s very kind,” she said, and seemed more eager to talk. We went through the events of the past night: Her husband had gone to a store on Lex for the Wall Street Journal and hadn’t made it back; she hadn’t seen the shooting and couldn’t imagine there was a reason for anyone to kill him. “I’ve been through this with the police. Roberto had no enemies.”
    I opened my pad and explained what I did. That same look of incredulity passed over her features, but I convinced her to sit down and close her eyes. Then I asked her to think back over the past week.
    “Has there been anyone hanging around that looked suspicious? Anyone. A delivery boy who seemed weird?”
    “No, I, I don’t think so, but…” A moment passed. “There was this one man; I saw him twice. He wasn’t doing anything, juststanding on the corner of Park Avenue, which was odd, just standing there and looking over at the building.”
    “Was he black or white?”
    “He was definitely white, but he was across the street, so I didn’t see him close up. He was staring at the lobby entrance when Roberto and I came out. I mentioned him to Roberto, but he didn’t pay attention. I kissed my husband good-bye and…” She stopped and dabbed her eyes with a tissue. “I’m sorry.”
    “What happened after that?”
    “Nothing. Roberto left for work, and when I looked across the street, the man was gone.”
    “And that was it?”
    “Well, no. I wouldn’t have thought about him again except he was there the next day. And it’s Park Avenue. People just don’t hang out on Park Avenue. I wondered if he was a Realtor scouting our building. But he didn’t look like a Realtor.”
    “Why is that?”
    “I don’t know. It was just…a feeling. Maybe it was the baseball cap.”
    “Anything else you noticed about him?”
    “He had on a long coat. But the impression I have of him is from the back. He turned away after I looked over at him, and the coat sort of billowed out at the bottom, from the wind.”
    I started drawing.
     

     
    “Oh, God.” She put a hand to her mouth. “Do you think I actually saw the man who—”

    I didn’t let her go there. “What else did you see?” I asked, and went back to the drawing.
    She looked at my sketch. “Yes. That’s it, the general impression I got.”
    “What about his face?”
    She shook her head. “It’s a blank. He was across the street, and I didn’t really see it.”
    “But you said he was white.”
    “Yes. I’m pretty sure about that. Though…his face was in shadow.”
    “Was he tall or short?”
     

     
    “He might have been tall, it’s hard to say.”
    “Was there anything you can compare him to, something in the street that might tell you more about him physically, why you thought he was tall?”
    She closed her eyes again. “Well…he was leaning against a street lamp and his head was not that far from the plaque that tells you when you can and can’t park. That was it! Why he seemed tall.”
    “That’s great.”
    “If only—”