Saint and Scholar Read Online Free

one of those hook noses that you see on guys in, like, South American pottery.”
    “Okay.”
    The student closed his eyes again and made that clucking noise. “He had really thin lips and a wide mouth like a puppet. Come to think of it, his chin was wide, too. His head was kind of square and boxy.”
    She drew a tentative shape around the features the student described. “Like that?”
    “Yeah, but he had more prominent cheekbones than that. Like, really high and sharp. Almost made his eyes look sunken like a zombie’s.”
    “Okay.” She added some shadows to his face. If the man materializing on her sketchpad hadn’t had some features very similar to another sketch she’d recently done, she might have wondered if she was drawing a cartoon character the student had fallen asleep watching.
    “Yeah yeah yeah, like that.” He tapped his index finger on the sketch.
    “Anything else?” She doubted anything he told her from there on out would be useful. The picture was very like the one she had sketched based on the female witness’s observations, minus the staple tattoos. The suspects were obviously the same. She wanted the witness to be the lead, though, and acted as if everything he was saying was unique. Perhaps he’d caught small details the other witness hadn’t, some physical tic, perhaps.
    He leaned back in his swivel seat and looked up at the ceiling, clucking some more. “Well, he was wearing a hood, but it was a sunny day so that’s the only reason I saw as much as I did.”
    “Right.” She put down her pencil and laced her fingers together. The most crucial part of her job was patience. With each sketch, she seemed to acquire a bit more. She’d acquired a lot the time she dealt with a witness who tried to withhold useful information until he’d negotiated some type of reward. That had been at her mother’s station, and fortunately Mom had swooped in to mediate.
    Sometimes a witness would tell her to sketch something the complete opposite of what they had told her five minutes prior, only to come back around full circle. Usually it was a case of the witness not knowing what words to use to describe a person’s looks in simple terms. She understood the challenge. Remembering features clearly was something people trained themselves to do, and to do it they had to behave as if everyone around them was a potential suspect for a crime that hadn’t yet been reported.
    “I’m pretty sure it was a black hoodie. Does that help?”
    She shook her head. “Unless it had some sort of gang insignia on it, it’s too common a clothing item.”
    “Good point. Oh! I know.” He sat upright again and jabbed his right index finger at her for emphasis. “He had one of those bull piercings, you know, like a hoop through here?” He pointed to his septum. “It was big.”
    The other witness hadn’t caught that , either. She had been on the phone and distracted. She picked up her pencil and drew a large-gauge circular barbell.
    “Yeah, yeah–that’s him. That’s the guy. Give him a really short, fat neck and put a slim jim in his hand and I’ll swear that dude would walk right off the page.”
    She thanked the student and released him to his torturous class schedule.
    “Looks like the two witnesses definitely saw the same guy,” she said, handing over her sketches and notes to the desk sergeant on her way out.
    “Wait, wait–” Sergeant Monroe called her back as he stood over the drawings and peered down at them. “I know this guy.” He walked to the bullpen door opening and shouted into the back of the station. “Hey, Norwood, Gill! Come here a minute.”
    She sighed and rolled her eyes. Norwood she could stand on most days. Gill? Not so much. She’d hoped to get out of the substation without him knowing she was there.
    Tall, wiry Officer Norwood appeared with a sub sandwich in tow and a paper napkin tucked into his shirt. Next her brother Tony, the self-proclaimed half-Italian stallion, darkened