Sketch Artist

"Are you okay, ma'am?" the police detective asked her.

"Oh, yes. I'm...I'm fine. It's just that I...I still can't believe this happened."

"From what the bank manager said he didn't get any money, and no one was hurt. I'll just need to take your statement then I'm pretty sure you'll be able to get back to work."

"I...I think I might just go home," she said before telling the detective everything she could remember.

"So you got a look at his face?" he asked as a final question.

"Well, yes. As I said, our security guard walked up behind him and pulled the man's hat and sunglasses off. He was so surprised by it he just stood there staring at me for a couple of seconds. I'll never forget that face as long as I live."

The bank officer, a retired gentleman who worked there as a security guard, had his nose broken when the bank robber finally realized what was happening. He spun around and struck the officer in the face using the heel of his hand before running out of the bank empty handed. He'd be okay, but he was going to need some time to recover.

"I only saw him for that short amount of time, but that face is seared into my mind."

"Okay, great. The security camera images are of no use either because of the cap and glasses or they're too blurry to make out during those moments when you saw him. Could I possibly talk you into coming to the station and sitting with a sketch artist?"

"Could it wait until tomorrow? Please?" she asked. "I promise you I won't forget what he looks like overnight."

The officer knew he couldn't compel her to do anything, so after trying to gently persuade to come with him right then and there to increase the odds of catching the inept bank robber, he relented and told her that would be fine.

"I'll stop in before coming to work. And I really won't forget," she promised.

"All right. You're free to go check in with your manager, and thank you for your time Ms..."

He looked down at his notes then said, "Ms. Young."

"Oh, sure. Of course," she replied quietly before turning around to find her manager to tell him she wanted to go home.

Hannah Young had only been there for six months. After having lost her husband to cancer nearly three years earlier, the life insurance policy money he'd provided for her and their daughter was nearly gone. She'd stayed home as much for her daughter's sake as for her own as they recovered from losing the most important person in their lives, and a job had become a necessity.

She'd applied at several places, and largely due to the bank's hours, she'd taken the job, never seriously thinking something like this would happen. Yes, she knew banks still got robbed, but the thought of it ever actually happening at that bank while she was there seemed all but impossible. That was something that happened on TV crime dramas, not in her home town of Frankfort, Kentucky, population 25,500 and change, where she'd lived her entire life.

She'd grown up around guns, and fired several when she was much younger but had never had one pointed at her until two hours ago, and that was something she never wanted to experience again. Hannah was 40 years old with a 10-year daughter, and no job was worth risking her life for.

The only thing she wanted to do was go get her daughter out of school and hold her tight before going home and crawling into bed. It didn't matter that the odds of this 20-something man actually using his weapon were extremely low. What did matter was that he'd pointed it right in her face, and she was still shaking with fear from the experience.

Her manager told her she needed to close out her drawer, but after that, she was free to leave. Hannah did her best to count out every penny, but she had no idea if it was accurate, and quite frankly, for the first time since she started working there, she didn't care.

Peaks Mill Elementary School was on the north end of town where she and her daughter, Alicia, lived in a modest, three-bedroom home; the only house in which Alicia had ever lived. As she drove, Hannah worried about how to tell her daughter what happened without scaring her. Having lost her father, she knew any thought of losing her mother could be potentially very frightening to a girl her age.

Alicia was finally as fully recovered from the loss as a child could be after being deeply withdrawn for over a year, and the last thing she needed was a setback from hearing about the robbery. Or rather—the attempted robbery. Were she not so overcome with fear, Hannah might have even laughed at the ill-prepared, would-be robber who'd let an elderly security guard take him by surprise. But she wasn't laughing. She was just grateful to be alive and on her way to the one person she loved above all else. She'd eventually call her parents who'd retired and moved to Orlando, Florida, but for now, all she cared about was Alicia.

It only took the school about two minutes to bring her daughter to the office after her mother requested she be let out of class. Alicia smiled when she saw her mom through the glass as she walked to the office, but the smile didn't last long when it occurred to her that something bad might have happened.

"Mom? Is everything okay?" Alicia asked as soon as entered the office.

Hannah didn't want to overreact, but she latched onto to her little girl and held her so close it frightened her daughter.

"Mom! You're hurting me," she complained as she tried to push away.

"Sorry. I'm so sorry, honey. I...I'm just so glad to see you."

"Are Gramma and Grampa okay?" she asked as fear welled up inside her.

"Oh, sure. Yes, they're both fine, sweetie. Everyone is just fine."

"Then why are you here?" Alicia wisely asked.

Hannah hated lying to her daughter, but she still hadn't thought up a cover story, so she said, "I...I just wanted to...for us to go do something together."

"But school's not out yet, and aren't you supposed to be at work?"

There was a television in the office behind Alicia and facing Hannah. It was turned on, but the volume was too low to hear. Then when a local reporter interrupted the program with news of an attempted robbery at a bank in town, the school secretary turned it up.

"Oh, my Lord!" the matronly woman said in a heavy southern accent, something neither Hannah nor her daughter had ever picked up in spite of having lived in Kentucky all of their lives.

The look on the woman's face caught Alicia's attention more than the news itself, and the way she was looking at the television caused her to turn around and look, too.

"Mom! That's your bank!" Alicia said as she pointed to the image on screen.

"Oh, right. Listen, sweetie, we...we need to go, okay?"

She tried to gently turn her daughter back around to get her to follow her out of the office, but Alicia didn't budge as she continued watching the report.

"You were there, weren't you?" the 10-year old said more than asked. "That's why you're here. You were there and now you're here because..."

Once Alicia, a very bright young girl, put two and two together, she understood. And once she understood, she turned around threw her arms around her mom and held her as tightly as she could.

"It's okay, honey. Mommy's fine," Hannah said, using a word for herself she'd stopped using two years ago.

Alicia was crying, and Hannah knew this wasn't going to be easy.

"Come on. Let's go...let's go get some ice cream and we'll feel better, okay?"

Hannah Young almost never ate junk food of any kind, and that meant daughter didn't, either. Even ice cream was a once or maybe twice-a-year kind of treat. Alicia knew that and would normally be excited, but right then, all she cared about was being with her mother.

Hannah knelt down in the very professional-looking, dark-colored suit she was wearing and asked how that sounded.

Alicia was too distraught to talk, but she nodded her head as her mom stood back up and took her hand. This time, her daughter clutched it as hard as she could, afraid that if she let go of it, she might somehow never see her mother again.

As they ate their ice cream—in a waffle cone no less—Hannah let her daughter ask questions about the botched robbery.

"Well, he walked up to me wearing these really big sunglasses," her mom said, and to try and ease the tension, she used her hands exaggerate how big they were. "They were like...clown glasses!"

Alicia finally laughed, so her mom also let her know about the note he'd written in his own awful, nearly-illegible handwriting in which he'd written in capital letters:

GIMME ALL UR MUNNY OR ILL SHOT U!

When Hannah spelled out the words as he'd written them, Alicia laughed even louder, so she then shared how the bank's guard, Mr. Emory, knocked the man's hat and sunglasses off, omitting the part about him being hurt.

"The woman on TV said he had a gun," her daughter said quietly after her mom took a lick of the scoop of butter pecan that was slowly melting.

"Yes. Yes, he did. But no one got..."

She almost said 'hurt' then remembered Mr. Emory, so she changed it to 'shot' instead.

"In fact, he was such a terrible bank robber he ran out without the note, his hat, or his sunglasses. And worst of all for him—no money!"

"Do you think they'll catch him?" Alicia asked as she did the same to her Rocky Road.

"I hope so. And Mommy has to...sorry. I have to go to the police station in the morning so their sketch artist can draw a picture of him to help the police catch him."

"That is SO cool, Mom! Can I come?" her daughter said, surprising her mother.

Hannah almost reflexively said, "No. You have school tomorrow."

Instead, she realized she didn't want to go back to work yet, and the thought of being alone all day seemed too much to bear.

"Sure. I think you could miss a few hours of school."

Her daughter loved school, so when she then asked if she could skip the whole day, that also surprised her. Alicia was not only smart, she was becoming a very pretty girl, and as such, she was also becoming quite popular with the other girls and even with a few of the boys. In another year or two, once the boys 'discovered' girls, Alicia would be pursued relentlessly. For now, however, she was still her little girl enjoying a special treat with her mother.

"I don't suppose that would be so terrible," her mom said, secretly thrilled to know her daughter would be with her the entire day. "But no more ice cream, okay?"

"Okay," her daughter replied with the kind of happy smile that told her mom she'd be fine.

And Hannah knew she would be okay, too. She just wasn't sure it would be tomorrow so she planned to call in sick. With any luck, the bank might be closed the next day since the manager had shut it down after she left.

The average high temperature in February for Frankfort was 46 degrees. So the following morning, since Hannah wasn't going to work, she wasn't about to wear anything that looked like a business suit. She'd always tried to look her best, but she wasn't a vain woman obsessed with clothing or jewelry, let alone meeting someone new. She just liked presenting herself in the best possible light.

So instead of a stuffy suit, Hannah choose a white turtleneck sweater to wear with a pair of jeans and a black leather jacket she loved but rarely wore.

The black looked great with her long, blonde hair, and when Alicia saw her, she told her mom she looked pretty. And the truth was, her mother was pretty. She'd always been a beautiful woman, and in spite of the buckets of tears she'd cried the first year after her husband passed away, she still looked amazingly young and attractive, especially for a woman who'd recently turned 40.

"Well, thank you, honey. You look very pretty yourself," her mom said about the outfit her daughter had chosen.

Alicia got very serious then struck a dramatic pose and replied, "Of course, dahling! I get my amazing sense of fashion from my muthuh!"

It wasn't a bad rendition of the way one might perceive a self-centered snob to talk, and Hannah couldn't help laughing which made her daughter laugh, too.

"Mom? I'm really glad you're okay," Alicia told her, the smile gone and replaced by genuine care and relief.

"Me, too, honey," she told her daughter as she gave her a hug. "So. You ready to go watch someone draw a face based on what I tell him—or maybe her—and nothing else?"

"Oh, yeah!" Alicia said. "I can't even imagine doing that. When I try to draw a face—any face—it looks all lopsided and wonky. Drawing one that actually looks like a person I've never met seems impossible."

"Well, I don't know much about it, but I do know the police have used sketches for decades to catch criminals, and we do want this guy to be caught, right?"

"Definitely!" her daughter said.

"Okay. Then grab your coat and let's go downtown to the police department."

Neither of them had ever been inside the building, so Hannah wasn't quite sure where to go when she walked in. But within seconds, a man about her age, who was in uniform, smiled at her then asked if he could help her find someone.

Hannah gave him the name of the detective who'd asked her to stop by and why she was there.

"Oh, okay. Yeah, I'm sorry that happened to you, Ms. Young. It's of no help to you, but fortunately, we don't have that kind of thing happen around here too often. Just have a seat right over there and I'll go grab the detective."

"He was nice," Alicia said, as the police officer walked away.

Her mother didn't need to hear another word to know that meant, "Is he someone you might go out with?" as that had been a pretty much constant theme over the last six months or so.

Hannah gave her daughter 'the eye', and she smiled.

"Okay. Fine. Excuse ME for caring about my mother," the 10-year old said as she tried not to laugh.

"My happiness is not your problem, okay?" her mom gently reminded her.

"How about him?" Alicia asked, as the detective from the day before walked toward them.

"Alicia?" she replied in her sternest voice which wasn't stern at all.

"Okay, okay," Alicia said, her hands up in surrender.

The detective reintroduced himself then asked who the pretty young lady was who looked just like her mother.

"That's my matchmaking daughter, Alicia, who's this close to being in trouble!"

Alicia was still trying not to laugh when a younger man walked in and nodded to the detective. She elbowed her mother and nodded toward him as he walked by.

This time, Hannah didn't say anything in response. He was clearly very young, but he was attractive enough to totally distract her.

"Ms. Young?" the detective said again.

"Sorry. Yes?"

The man smiled then said, "I see you noticed our sketch artist."

"Oh," was all Hannah said as this very nice looking, younger man shook hands and said good morning to everyone in the office. She couldn't help but notice how every woman there turned and smiled when they saw him, and all of them were saying 'hello' or 'good morning' in that flirty kind of way women did with an attractive man.

He also noticed Hannah staring at him and smiled at her causing her to quickly look away just as the detective commented on the scene.

"He's uh, very popular with the ladies. We don't keep a sketch artist on staff full-time, but Jude, that's his name, works for us on commission as needed. Let me take you over and introduce you and we'll get started, okay?"

Hannah was more than a little surprised when she realized she was thinking how glad she was that she'd taken the time to do her hair and makeup that morning, as the detective said, "Jude? This is Ms. Young and her daughter, Alicia. Ladies, the man with the name that sounds like a mystery writer, Jude Kensington."

The detective left, and Jude stuck out his hand and smiled, making him even more attractive than before.

"It's a pleasure to meet you both," he told them.

When he shook hands with Alicia, Hannah saw her daughter's cheeks glow a light shade of red as she shyly shook it and quietly said, "Hello."

When he told her she was as pretty as her mother, they went from rosy to red, and Hannah, who'd been caught off guard by his compliments herself, quickly bounced back.

"All right. Let's go find us a little privacy and we'll get started," Jude told them.

As they walked, Alicia said, "Do you have a gun?"

"Honey!" her mother said immediately.

"It's okay. And no. I'm not a police officer. So no, I don't have a gun. Well, I do have a gun, I just don't carry it with me. It's more for home defense."

When she then asked him if he was married, it was Hannah's cheeks that began to glow.

"Oh, my goodness! What is wrong with you, child of mine?" her distressed mother said with alarm.

Jude chuckled then told her, "No. I'm not married, either."

He opened the door to the room they were going into then said to Alicia, I don't even have a woman at home for defensive purposes."

Alicia missed the connection to the gun and the awkward play on words, but she didn't miss the handsome man's face or his smile. Hannah, of course, got it, and let out a groan that made Jude laugh.

"Okay, ladies. Have a seat while I grab by sketch pad and charcoal pencils, and I'll be right back."

Both of them smiled big smiles at him, but the moment he left, Hannah said, "Have you lost your mind?"

"No," her daughter replied defensively as she studied her mother's face to make sure she wasn't really mad at her. "But don't you think he's really handsome?"

"Alicia Anne Young! Enough already!"

Jude walked back in a few seconds later and smiled again.

"Sorry. I don't do this too often, and someone moved my materials. If you're ready now, we can get started," he said as he took a seat next between Hannah and Alicia.

"Sure, but where do I even begin?" Hannah asked.

"No worries. Tell me what you remember, okay? Maybe start with his face. Was it heavyset or thin? Any scars or unusual marks? How did he wear his hair? What color was it and about how long? Just whatever comes to mind."

Hannah did her best to force her mind to see his face, and each time she did, some new detail came to light. She felt like she was causing Jude to start over several times, but when she told him that was all she could recall, he finished a few more strokes with the pencil then turned the drawing toward her.

"How's this?"

"Oh...my...heavens. That's...amazing," she said, barely able to believe what she was looking at. "How can you do that?"

Jude didn't laugh but he did smile.

"I've been drawing since I was a lot younger than Alicia. In fact, I can't remember a time when I wasn't drawing. I even majored in art in college."

"So...you're an artist?" Hannah asked.

"Kind of," Jude told her as he continued to sketch. "I'm a graphic artist and although that's my first love, the money's in graphic design, so I've reluctantly been doing that for the last couple of years now so I can afford to do what I love."

"I feel a little silly asking, but what do either of those jobs entail?" Hannah asked, feeling more than a little bit foolish.

Jude gave her a quick overview of both and, in a nutshell, explained that a graphic artist is often commissioned to create a piece of art for some purpose or project. The graphic designer is the person who puts it all together using various pieces or art, imagery, typography, or motion graphics to come up with an overall design.

"It's a little easier to explain if you see the end result. Maybe one of these times—if you're totally bored—I could show some finished products I've done locally and explain what went into them."

"Mom. Can we?" Alicia asked before her mom could respond to Jude.

Hannah had no idea she was even paying attention let alone keeping up with the conversation. Then again, all she needed to catch was anything that even sounded like an invitation from the handsome sketch artist, and that would cue her to goad her mother into accepting.