Текст книги "The Death Sculptor"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

One Hundred and Fifteen

Hunter twitched on the ground again and Olivia aimed the gun at his head. ‘Don’t, Detective. Trust me, I know how to shoot. And from this distance, I won’t miss. If there was one thing my fath—’ She cleared her throat angrily, ‘Derek taught me, it was how to shoot.’

‘My neck hurts. I was just stretching it.’

‘Well, don’t.’

‘OK. I won’t.’

Olivia moved to the left side of the room. ‘You still haven’t told me how you got to me. I know you figured out what I was telling you with my shadow puppets, but how did you figure out it was me?’

‘After I heard the story Jude told me about what happened to her, things started moving in my head. I suspected I had read the second shadow image wrong. It wasn’t a fight, it was a gang rape. I didn’t know Roxy was your mother, but I guessed that, if they had done what they did to Jude and Roxy, there probably were others. Others who, like Roxy, also had a child. And that that child had found out about everything. From the first shadow image you left us, I was certain that the only way that child could’ve found out was through Derek Nicholson. A confession on his deathbed.’

Olivia chuckled angrily. ‘He was able to live with it, but not die with it. How ironic is that?’

Hunter knew how common it was for human beings to endure unspoken guilt throughout their entire lives, but to die with it was something few were prepared to do.

‘For Derek Nicholson to be able to call that child to his home in order to reveal everything,’ Hunter continued. ‘It meant that he had to have somehow kept tabs on who and where that child was. I was running through possibilities in my head when Jude called me again last night. She had remembered the name of Roxy’s child – Levy.’

Olivia twitched on the spot.

‘At first I thought it was a last name, or maybe a male name. It sounded vaguely familiar, but when I looked at the picture your sister had given me of Nicholson and his wife I remembered where I had heard that name before. It was a nickname. Allison had called you by it that day in your house. Not a common nickname for Olivia, but it was your nickname.’

Olivia gave Hunter a melancholic smile. ‘My mother always called me Levy, never Liv, or Ollie, or anything else. I liked it. It was different. Allison was the only other person who called me that.’

‘First I checked your background. You went to medical school.’

Olivia shrugged. ‘UCLA, but in the end I decided I didn’t want to do it. The knowledge came in handy, though.’

She offered nothing else, so Hunter continued.

‘I called someone I know who could access the California Department of Social Services’ database. I found out that Nicholson had adopted you during his first year of marriage. An odd choice for a young couple that had no known problem bearing children. In fact, Nicholson adopted you the same year his wife became pregnant with her daughter, Allison.’

‘So you know that he adopted me out of guilt for what he’d done.’ The anger was back in Olivia’s voice. ‘Guilt for being part of the group of animals who raped and killed my mother. Guilt for allowing it to happen. Guilt for not telling the police.’

Hunter didn’t reply.

‘How could I live with all that knowledge, Robert, can you tell me? Because I struggled with it. He called me to his deathbed to tell me that my whole life had been a lie. I was adopted not into a family who wanted to share their love and care for me, but into a family who wanted to bury their guilt.’

‘I don’t think Derek’s wife knew about what happened,’ Hunter said.

‘It doesn’t matter!’ Olivia spat the words out. ‘He convinced her to take me. He told her that my mother was a drug addict who had left me. He told her that I was this poor kid, unwanted, unloved. But I was loved, and I was wanted, until they took her from me. He was the one who didn’t want me. All he wanted was to lessen the guilty feeling that was eating him inside. I was his daily feel-good pill. His anti-guilt drug. All he had to do was look at me, and in that sick heart of his he would find some peace. He would tell himself everything was OK because he gave the poor hooker’s child a better life. You know what? I never wanted this better life. I was happy. I loved my mother. But he made me believe that she didn’t want me. That she had run away. And for twenty-eight years I hated her for walking out on me.’

Hunter understood now where Olivia’s incredible violence came from. Displaced rage. Twenty-eight years hating her mother for something that she didn’t do. When she learnt the truth, and that she’d been lied to for most of her life, that rage was woken up, gaining a whole new intensity and purpose. Twenty-eight years is a long time to bottle up rage.

A tear ran down Olivia’s cheek and her voice croaked for an instant.

‘I still remember her – my mother. How beautiful she was. I still remember how we used to play shadow puppets every night when I went to bed. She was so smart at creating them. She could come up with anything – animals, people, angels . . . anything. She didn’t have much money, so I never had any real toys. Our shadow puppet theater was my toy. We would sit for hours making up stories of our own. Creating silly plays against the wall. All we needed was candlelight and our hands. We were happy.’

Hunter closed his eyes for an instant. That was why she had created shadow puppets from her victims’ body parts – a macabre tribute to her mother. Another way to expel her anger.

‘He never played with me, did you know that?’ Olivia said, shaking her head. ‘When I was a kid, he never played with me in the park or anywhere. He never read me a story, or put me on his shoulders, or had pretend tea with me like any father would. I played shadow puppets by myself.’

Hunter couldn’t reply.

‘After he told me, I went home and cried for three days. I had no idea how I could go on living. My life had been a lie, a good deed to allow my father to sleep at night. I was never loved the way a child is supposed to be loved, except for when my mother was alive. And now I knew that all four people who had mutilated her body and thrown her into the ocean like unwanted garbage had gone on to raise their own families, to prosper in their careers – to live without an ounce of remorse for what they’d done. And worst of all, they had gone on living without ever being punished.’

Hunter knew that very few minds wouldn’t break after being faced with what Olivia had been faced with. And the few that didn’t break would certainly be damaged forever.

‘You know as well as I do that there was nothing I could do with that information that would bring justice to those people. It happened twenty-eight years ago. I had no proof, except for the words of a dying man. No action would’ve been taken by the police, the DA, the state, or anyone. No one would’ve believed me. I would just have had to carry on living as I had for the past twenty-eight years.’ She shook her head. ‘I couldn’t do that, could you?’

Hunter thought back to when his father was gunned down inside that branch of the Bank of America. He wasn’t a cop then. But he remembered his rage. A rage that was still inside him, dormant somewhere. And cop or not, if he came face to face with the people who had shot his father, he would kill them – no hesitation.

‘I came this close to killing myself.’ Olivia brought Hunter’s thoughts back to the room. ‘And then I realized one thing. If I was able to kill myself, then I was able to kill. Full stop. And I decided that, whatever happened, I would have my version of justice. For my mother. She deserves justice.’

For a moment her stare wandered around the room.

‘Everything just came to me like in a dream. As if my mother was there, telling me what to do, guiding my hand. My fath—’ Anger was back on Olivia’s face. ‘Derek Nicholson loved mythology. He was always reading books, quoting passages. It was only fair to make him into a mythological symbol.’ She pulled back and released the slide mechanism on Hunter’s gun, manually loading a round into the chamber.

It was time for the final act.

One Hundred and Sixteen

Hunter looked up at Olivia again. There was no way he would be able to get anywhere near her without her seeing and shooting him. The room was too big, and she was too far away for him to mount any sort of challenge. Plus, he’d been on the floor, in that star-position for too long now. His muscles wouldn’t respond immediately, at least not with enough dexterity.

‘Would you like to see the last sculpture?’ Olivia said. ‘The last shadow puppet? The conclusion to my justice play?’

Hunter placed his chin on the floor again and looked up at her and then at Scott, who was still unconscious. ‘Olivia, don’t. You don’t have to.’

‘Yes I do! For twenty-eight years Derek Nicholson soothed his heart and guilt by taking pity on the poor prostitute’s daughter. For twenty-eight years those assholes lived a life without punishment. It’s my turn to soothe my heart, while I still have one. Get up,’ she ordered.

Hunter hesitated.

‘I said, get up.’ She pointed the gun at him.

Slowly, with all his muscles and joints aching, Hunter got up from the floor.

‘Walk over there.’ She pointed to the left side of the room, just past the pedestal lights. ‘Place your back flat against the wall.’

Hunter did as he was told.

‘See that flashlight on the floor, to your right?’

Hunter looked down and nodded.

‘Pick it up.’

He did.

‘Hold it about chest height and turn it on.’

Hunter paused, trying to understand what was going on.

‘I had to improvise,’ Olivia said. ‘I had something a lot more gruesome and painful in mind – my grand finale – but given the circumstances, this will have to do. I hope you like it. Turn the flashlight on,’ she repeated.

Hunter brought the flashlight to his chest and switched it on.

Olivia stepped out of the way. Behind her, Scott was still out cold on the chair, his head slumped back, exposing his neck. His mouth was open as if he’d fallen asleep in that position and was about to snore. A few feet past him, while he had his face against the ground, Hunter hadn’t noticed that Olivia had attached a thin but rigid piece of wire to the second pedestal lamp, about four-and-a-half feet from the ground. It was around two feet long, and it shot straight out horizontally. Attached to its end was Scott’s severed index finger.

Hunter was confused for a moment, until he saw the shadow image projected onto the far wall. It showed the silhouette of Scott’s head, tilted back, with his mouth open like he was mid-scream. The finger on the wire, a few feet from him, cast a shadow that looked like some sort of crooked cylindrical tube, positioned at an angle. Because of the absence of perceptible depth, it looked like one shadow was right in front of the other. The cylindrical tube was pointing down at Scott’s head-shadow – directly at his open mouth.

Right at that moment, the sound of distant sirens reached them. Hunter had called for backup before entering the warehouse, but from the sound, he knew they were at least three-to-five minutes away. Too long.

Olivia looked at Hunter. Her face displayed reassuring calmness. ‘I knew they were coming,’ she said, pointing the gun at Hunter again. ‘But you being alive when they get here will depend on how fast you can figure this last piece out.’

Hunter kept his eyes on the gun.

‘Don’t look at me. Look at the shadow.’

Hunter concentrated. His first impression was that the whole image looked like someone waiting with his mouth open under some sort of liquid dispenser, ready to drink from it. Was she going to pour something down his throat? Kill him that way? That would be a complete change from her entire MO so far. Confusion was all that was going on inside Hunter’s head.

The shot that came out of the gun in Olivia’s hand sounded like a nuclear explosion. The bullet hit the wall inches from Hunter’s head and he winced defensively, dropping the flashlight.

‘C’mon, c’mon, Robert,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be the clever one. The experienced cop. Can’t you work under pressure?’

The sirens were getting closer.

‘The shadows,’ she said. ‘Look at the shadows. Read them. ’Cos you’re time is about to run out.’

Hunter picked up the flashlight again. He was looking but he couldn’t see it. What the hell did all that mean?

Bang!

The second shot hit the wall to Hunter’s left. This time even closer to his face. Concrete shrapnel flew in all directions. Some of it grazed Hunter’s cheek, burning and ripping through his skin. He felt warm blood starting to run down his face, but he didn’t let go of the flashlight. His eyes were still on the shadows.

‘I promise you, Detective, the next shot will find your head.’ She took a step closer to him.

Hunter’s brain was trying to cope with the threat of dying in the next few seconds, while throwing possibilities around.

From the corner of his eye he saw Olivia aim the gun again.

He couldn’t think.

And then he saw it.

One Hundred and Seventeen

‘Recording,’ he said, as Olivia’s finger tightened on the trigger. The image was showing a microphone pointing down at Scott’s mouth, not a drinks dispenser. ‘You recorded it. While he was telling the story, you recorded the whole thing. A confession.’

Olivia lowered the gun. A smile almost stretched her lips. She raised her left hand, showing Hunter the mini digital-recording device. ‘I recorded them all. I made them tell me what happened every time. The stories are all identical. Their voices are all here, telling how they all took turns beating and raping my mother, before dismembering her, shoving her mutilated body into a box, and dumping her in the ocean. All except Andrew Nashorn. His jaw was broken. He couldn’t speak. But none of it matters anymore.’

Hunter couldn’t think of what to say.

Scott mumbled something incomprehensible and his eyes slowly flickered open.

‘Catch,’ Olivia said and threw the recording device to Hunter.

He caught it in mid-air. He stared at it for a moment, doubtful, before looking back at her.

‘You can keep it,’ she said.

‘This might help, but I won’t lie to you,’ Hunter said. ‘In our less-than-perfect justice system, it won’t make much difference, Olivia.’

‘I know. I already made the difference I wanted to make. I’ve had my justice.’ She gestured towards the recording device in Hunter’s hand. ‘I thought I would send that to the press, expose the whole thing. Not for me – I know what’s going to happen to me – but for my mother.’ Olivia wiped a tear from her eye before it could run down her cheek. ‘She deserved justice. Do whatever you think you should do with it.’ She placed Hunter’s gun on the floor and kicked it towards him.

‘Arrest that fucking bitch,’ Scott yelled from his seat. ‘And get me the fuck out of here, you moron.’ He started jerking his body in his chair. ‘That slut cut my fucking finger off, did you see that? I’m gonna make sure you fry in the chair, you hear me, you motherless bitch. My brother will rip you into little whore pieces in court.’

This time Hunter was faster than Olivia. The powerful punch he threw hit Scott square in the temple. He slumped to one side, knocked out cold for the second time.

‘He talks too much,’ Hunter said, facing Olivia and shrugging. ‘I have to arrest you. It’s my duty as a detective. But I won’t cuff you.’

This time the confusion was stamped on Olivia’s face.

‘We’re going to walk out of here, and you can hold your head up high.’ Hunter looked at Scott Bradley. ‘But I will cuff this slimeball.’

The rage was gone from Olivia’s eyes. ‘You are a good man, Robert, and a good cop. But I had this all planned out in my head from the start. There would only be one ending to my story. The director’s cut. And it doesn’t include an arrest.’

Hunter saw her throw something the size of a nickel inside her mouth, saw her jaw tense, and heard the crunching sound as she crushed it between her teeth before swallowing it down. He dashed towards her, but Olivia was already collapsing. She had taken fifty times the lethal dosage of cyanide.

By the time the LAPD took the warehouse, her heart had long stopped beating.

One Hundred and Eighteen

Hunter spent ninety minutes taking Garcia, Captain Blake, and Alice through everything that had happened since last night.

‘I must admit,’ Alice said to Hunter. ‘When you called me and asked me to get into the California Department of Social Services’ database and search for adoption files for Olivia, I thought it was quite a strange request, but her being a suspect never, ever crossed my mind. The only odd thing I found was how fast the whole process took. California adoption laws are very lenient,’ Alice explained. ‘The only true prerequisite is that the adoptee has to be at least ten years younger than the adopter. Derek Nicholson had just graduated from law school. He’d made many friends in the judicial system and he knew a great many people.’

‘Judges,’ Garcia said.

‘Them too. With his contacts and knowledge of the law, he was able to fast-track everything. A typical adoption process in California can last anywhere from six months to a year. Derek Nicholson got all the documentation and everything approved in less than ninety days, no questions asked, everything seemingly above board.’

‘To circumvent the law, one needs to know the law,’ Hunter said.

‘That’s true,’ Alice agreed. ‘And with powerful friends, anything is possible.’

‘OK, but how did you know Olivia would go after the next victim tonight?’ Garcia asked.

‘I didn’t. All I had were suspicions, so I gambled.’ Hunter ran the tip of his fingers over the two cuts on his left cheek. He’d refused any bandaging.

‘Gambled?’ Captain Blake asked.

‘I dropped by Olivia’s house this morning unannounced, with the excuse that I had some new information, and I wanted to ask her a few more questions. When Garcia and I talked to Olivia and her sister last night, I asked them for a photograph of their father when he was younger. Allison had an old wedding picture, which was on a sideboard in her living room. Olivia handed it to me. As she held the frame and looked at the picture, I saw something in her eyes. Some strong emotion, which I’d thought was grief. This morning when I dropped by her house, I handed the picture back to her, and her eyes burned with it again. It wasn’t grief. It was something much deeper, much more pained.’ Hunter rubbed his eyes for an instant. ‘That was when I asked her if her father ever played shadow puppets with her or her sister when they were kids.’

‘You were letting her know that we knew about the real meaning behind the sculptures,’ Alice said.

Hunter nodded. ‘But Olivia played it really cool. She pretended to be surprised by the odd question, but she gave me nothing else. Then I asked her if her mother ever had, and her coolness wavered for just an instant. Her eyes focused on nothing at all, and for a split second her expression softened to something tender, before hardening in a way I hadn’t seen before. And that was when I decided to gamble. I told Olivia that during the night we had come across a new development. We were now sure that the killer had only one more name on his list. I told her that we would have that last victim’s name in twenty-four hours. And when we did, we would put him under constant surveillance.’

Garcia smiled. ‘In other words, if you were right and she was the Sculptor killer, you’d just told her that she had to act in the next twenty-four hours if she wanted to get to the next victim before we did. You forced her to move things forward.’

Hunter nodded again. ‘But I had no time to come back to the PAB and file a request for a surveillance team. I had no grounds to justify that request, either. All I had were suspicions and a nickname.’

‘So you decided to break protocol again and become the surveillance team yourself,’ Captain Blake said; but there was no harshness in her tone.

‘For twenty-four hours,’ Hunter agreed.

‘So what did she do?’ Alice asked.

‘Olivia didn’t leave her house for most of the day.’

‘She was probably re-planning,’ Captain Blake said.

‘When she left, she drove straight to Woodland Hills, where she met up with Scott Bradley in a parking lot. He left his car and jumped in with her.’

Everyone frowned.

‘My guess,’ Hunter said, ‘is that Olivia had already made contact with Scott in the last few days. He is married, but he has a weakness for pretty women, especially if they tell him they are submissive. Olivia knew how to entice him. I’m sure she’d been grooming him for days.’

‘And that explains her change in MO,’ Garcia said. ‘All the previous murder scenes had been a place where the victim felt comfortable and secure – Nicholson’s house, Nashorn’s boat, and Littlewood’s office. Scott Bradley had a wife and two daughters, which made using his house that much harder. He didn’t have a private office either. He was a market broker, working from a large open-plan floor with tens of other people.’

Hunter agreed.

‘So all she had to do was call him and tell him she wanted to meet him tonight,’ Alice said. ‘I’m sure he would’ve dropped whatever he had planned for the evening.’

‘She never intended to walk out of this alive, did she? Even if she hadn’t been caught,’ Captain Blake said. ‘She knew she wasn’t going to prison. She knew she wasn’t going to carry on living either.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘When Derek Nicholson told her the truth,’ Alice said. ‘He condemned her psychologically, giving her much more than she could cope with. If you were suddenly told you’d been lied to your entire life, that your mother was brutally murdered, dismembered, and disposed of like unwanted trash – if you were told the names of everyone responsible, but knew that they’d never been punished, and that they never would be, what would you do? How could you ever have a normal life again with that knowledge swinging back and forth in your head? For her, to carry on living would’ve been a torture, in prison or not.’

‘Olivia gave up her life so her mother could have justice,’ Hunter said. ‘A justice that our system would never have given either of them. In the end, those men killed mother and daughter.’

Thorned silence spiked the air.

‘I know we did what was expected of us,’ Captain Blake said, shaking her head. ‘But maybe we should’ve moved a little slower. If Olivia Nicholson had succeeded in taking out all four victims, I wouldn’t have minded it. Not in the least. That scumbag Scott Bradley got away easy, minus a finger. He deserves worse. And he’s saying that you knocked him out cold.’

Hunter stayed silent.

‘Well, the way I see it,’ the captain proceeded. ‘He was under immense stress. Things can easily get distorted under those circumstances. What happened was that he simply imagined you punching him.’ She paused and her eyes moved around the room. ‘Yep, that answer sounds great to me.’

Garcia then told Hunter what had happened in Pomona. Ken Sands had been arrested, and Garcia would now contact Detective Ricky Corbí, the detective running the investigation into Tito’s murder. Sands was the prime suspect.