Текст книги "The Death Sculptor"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Thirty-Two

A police siren wailing in the distance disrupted the eerie silence that had taken over Hunter’s living room. Alice tried her best to read Hunter’s face, but failed.

‘The killer has got to be telling us about his feelings for Derek,’ Alice said. ‘He has to be telling us that he considered Derek to be a liar, a deceiver, a betrayer.’ She lifted a hand before Hunter could respond. ‘I know what you’re going to say. Derek was a lawyer, and many people consider lawyers to be deceivers and liars by trade.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘But Derek Nicholson wasn’t your regular, everyday liability or personal-injury lawyer. He was a state prosecutor. He had one client, and one client only – the State of California. His job was to prosecute criminals who’d been apprehended by the LAPD or the California State Police. And his fee didn’t depend on a win or a loss, or on how much he could bleed out of the counterpart.’

Hunter still said nothing.

Alice was getting animated. ‘The point is, I don’t think the killer is alluding to himself as a deceiver. He’s got to be referring to Derek, but not simply because he was a lawyer. It’s got to be because of something else. Something that we haven’t found out yet.’

‘Did you get anywhere with the list of criminals Nicholson prosecuted over the years?’ Hunter asked.

‘No breakthroughs yet,’ Alice said, getting up. ‘Nothing about the ones who’ve been released or the relatives of the ones who are still inside suggests that they’d be capable of anything of this magnitude. But if they’re out there, I’ll find them. Do you mind if I grab another beer?’ She pointed to the kitchen.

‘Make yourself at home.’

Alice opened Hunter’s fridge and frowned at how empty it was. ‘Wow, what do you live on? Protein drinks, Scotch and . . .’ she quickly scanned the kitchen, ‘. . . air?’

‘The diet of champions,’ Hunter replied. ‘How about the ones Nicholson didn’t send to prison? The ones who escaped being sentenced because of a technicality or whatever? How about the victims of the accused? The ones who felt the state didn’t perform its duty. Could any of them be capable of retaliating? Has anyone ever directly blamed Nicholson for losing a case?’

Alice poured the new beer into her glass and returned to the living room. ‘I must admit I haven’t had the time to check that yet. But trust me, if there is a link between Derek’s murder and any of his cases, I’ll find it.’

Hunter’s gaze stayed on Alice. Something about the natural, self-assured way she talked told him that her confidence wasn’t just cockiness and bravado, which was surprising, given that she worked for the cockiest, most self-glorifying law-enforcement office he knew in all of California – the district attorney’s office. No, her confidence wasn’t just shallow words. It was exactly that; confidence in herself and what she knew she could do.

‘The second victim . . .’ Alice asked, sipping her beer. ‘Was he also a lawyer, a prosecutor?’

Hunter got up and moved towards the window. ‘Worse. He was an LAPD cop.’

Alice’s eyes widened in surprise as her brain already started measuring the consequences.

‘His name was Andrew Nashorn,’ Hunter said.

‘Was he a detective?’

‘He was until eight years ago.’

She paused midway through a sip of her beer. ‘What happened?’

‘Nashorn was shot in his abdomen while pursuing a suspect in Inglewood. That resulted in a collapsed lung, a month in hospital and six on sick leave. After that, he couldn’t be out in the field anymore. He chose to stay with the South Bureau’s Operations Support Division.’

‘And how long was he a detective for?’

Hunter could see she was catching on quick. ‘Ten years.’

Alice’s face seemed to sparkle with the same thought Hunter had had hours earlier.

‘He and Derek could be case-related,’ she said. ‘Or even more than a single case. Ten years is a long time catching criminals.’

Hunter agreed.

‘Derek was a prosecutor for twenty-six years.’ Alice’s thoughts were now on full flow. ‘Chances are he did prosecute at least one perpetrator that . . . what’s his name again?’

‘Andrew Nashorn.’

‘That Nashorn apprehended.’

Hunter agreed again.

‘That could be our first real link. Maybe even a breakthrough. I’ll cross-reference it and see what I get.’

Hunter checked his watch. ‘Yes, but not now. We both need to get some sleep.’

Alice nodded but didn’t move. Her eyes were fixed on Hunter. ‘You said there was a second sculpture.’

Hunter stayed silent.

‘Did you have a chance to check it? Did it also cast a shadow puppet onto the wall?’

‘Alice, did you hear what I said? We need to get some sleep. And you need to disconnect for at least a few hours.’

‘It did, didn’t it? We’ve got something else now. A new clue from the killer. A new shadow puppet. What is it?’

‘We don’t know yet,’ Hunter lied.

‘Sure you do,’ Alice challenged. ‘Why don’t you wanna tell me?’

‘Because if I do, you’re going to go back home, you’re going to get on your computer and you’re going to search the net until you come up with something. And we need to get some sleep. That means you too. Drop it. Give your brain a few hours’ rest or else you will burn out.’

Alice paused in front of a sideboard in Hunter’s living room where a few picture frames were neatly arranged. She reached for the one right at the back – a young and smiley Hunter in his college graduation gown. His father was standing next to him. The expression on his face told the whole world that on that day no one was a prouder dad than he was. She smiled at it and placed it back on the sideboard before facing Hunter again. ‘You don’t remember me at all, do you?’

Thirty-Three

Hunter didn’t flinch, didn’t say a word. His stare was chained to Alice. His mind was chasing a memory but he had no idea where to find it.

The first time he saw her yesterday morning, something about her had struck him as familiar, but he couldn’t place her. Things had happened so fast yesterday that he’d never had a chance to check her out. He played it as calm as he could.

‘Should I remember you?’

Alice flicked her hair to one side.

‘I suppose not. I’ve never been very memorable.’

If she was looking for sympathy or pity, Hunter gave her none.

‘You were a prodigy kid,’ she said. ‘You went to Mirman, a special school for gifted children. If I remember correctly, the words that were used were “his IQ is off the charts”. Even for a prodigy kid.’

Hunter leaned against the window and felt the bulk of his pistol press harder against his lower back.

From a very early age it had been easy to see that Hunter was different. He could figure things out faster than most, and while the average student was expected to graduate from middle school at the age of fourteen, Hunter had finished the entire lower– and mid-school curriculum by his eleventh birthday. It hadn’t been long before his school principal had referred him to the Mirman School for the Gifted in Mulholland Drive.

‘But even a special school’s curriculum wasn’t hard enough for you. You finished all four years of high school in what, two?’

His memory of her was returning to him. ‘You went to Mirman as well,’ he said.

Alice nodded. ‘I was in your class when you first started.’ She smiled. ‘But you didn’t stay long. In a matter of months you’d completed the entire year’s program, and they moved you up to the next grade. You made Mirman’s curriculum seem so easy that they found it hard to place you. So for you, four years of high school became two, right?’

Hunter gave her a subtle shrug.

‘I know because my father was a teacher there.’

Hunter watched her. Her eyes became melancholic.

‘He taught Philosophy.’

‘Mr. Gellar?’ Hunter said. ‘Mr. Anton Gellar?’ Suddenly the clear image of this girl – petite, chubby, dark hair, cheeks full of freckles and shiny braces on her teeth came to his mind. He remembered talking to her a couple of times when he was fourteen or fifteen. She was terribly shy, but very bright and sweet.

‘That’s him,’ Alice replied. ‘Mr. Gellar, that was Dad. You remember him then?’

‘He was a fantastic teacher.’

Alice looked down at her feet. ‘I know.’

‘You changed your hair.’

Alice laughed. ‘I’ve been a blonde for over fifteen years now.’

‘Your freckles are gone.’

She looked at Hunter with a pleased expression, as if saying – You do remember me! ‘No, they’re still here. Only hidden under a tan and expert makeup. The braces are gone forever, though, and I lost quite a bit of weight.’ Alice had one more sip of her beer. ‘My father was really proud of you. I think you were his best student – ever.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘I heard you went to Stanford University on a scholarship and flew through their curriculum as well. You got your PhD in Criminal Behavior Analysis and Biopsychology when you were twenty-three.’

Still silence.

‘Now that’s impressive, even for a Mirman student. My father used to say that you’d probably become the President of the United States someday, or a scholar of some kind. Definitely someone famous.’ She shifted her weight from leg to leg. ‘But I guess you preferred the thrill of chasing psychopaths, huh?’

No answer.

‘You also passed on five invitations to join the FBI. But your PhD thesis paper became, and still is, mandatory reading at their NCAVC.’ She paused and looked at Hunter’s graduation photo again. ‘When I left Mirman, I went to MIT.’

Most people would’ve said those words with a massive injection of pride. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the most prestigious and famous research university in the USA, and probably the world. Alice seemed almost embarrassed.

‘I’ve got a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.’

‘I guess you preferred the thrill of working as a research specialist for the Los Angeles DA, huh?’ Hunter said.

Alice chuckled. ‘Touché. The truth is I got tired of hacking into systems for the government. That’s who I worked for before.’

‘Special branch?’

It was Alice’s turn to be silent. Hunter didn’t push.

‘Don’t kid yourself,’ he said. ‘You still work for the government.’

‘I guess I do,’ she admitted. ‘But the cause is different.’

‘More noble?’

She hesitated for an instant. ‘I guess you can say that.’

‘But you’re still hacking into systems,’ Hunter challenged.

Alice tilted her head to one side in a subtle but charming way. ‘Sometimes. And I’m sorry. That’s how I know so much about you. And about what you did after you left Mirman. When DA Bradley told me I’d be working with a homicide detective named Robert Hunter, all these memories from Mirman came rushing back into my head. I just had to find out what you’d been up to since then.’

‘You hacked into the FBI database?’ Hunter asked. He knew the fact that he’d passed on precisely five invitations to join the FBI wasn’t exactly free information.

‘Not all their files are kept under the most secure encryption algorithms,’ Alice said. ‘In fact, very few are. Getting into any system isn’t that hard if you know what you’re doing. Once inside, it’s just a question of knowing how to navigate.’

‘And my guess is that you are a pretty good navigator.’

Alice shrugged. ‘We’re all good at something.’

Hunter finished his Scotch. ‘How’s your father?’

Her eyes went sad. ‘He’s not with us anymore.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It was ten years ago, but thank you.’ Her gaze moved to a new picture frame – Hunter as a young kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, she thought. Shorts, skinny legs, white T-shirt, ultra-skinny arms, and straight hair that was way too long. Just like she remembered him. ‘You used to be geeky, and as thin as a stickman. Your nickname was . . .’

‘Toothpick,’ Hunter helped her.

‘That’s right. Gosh you bulked up like the Hulk.’ Her eyes settled on his pecs. ‘What do you bench press, the whole gym?’

Hunter said nothing.

‘You know,’ Alice said, with a slight head movement, ‘I’m not surprised by your decision to become a police officer.’

‘And why is that?’

Alice had a slow sip of her beer. ‘Because you always liked defending and helping people.’

Hunter looked uncertain.

‘My best male friend in school was a kid called Steve MacKay. Do you remember him? Thick glasses, blonde curly hair, even thinner and shyer than you were. In school they called him Loose Noodle.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, I remember him.’

‘Do you remember defending him after school one day?’

No answer.

‘He was walking back to his house just a couple of blocks away from Mirman. These three bigger street kids turned up and started pushing him around. They wanted to take his new tennis shoes and whatever money he had on him. You came out of nowhere, punched one of them in the face, and told Steve to run.’

‘Yeah, I remember,’ Hunter said after a brief silence.

Alice smiled awkwardly. ‘They beat the living hell out of you. What were you thinking, that you could take on three bigger and stronger kids just like that?’

‘It worked. The plan was to get their attention away from the small kid so he could get away.’

‘And then what?’

Hunter looked away. ‘OK, I agree. The plan wasn’t well thought through, but it still worked. I knew I could take the beating. I didn’t think the other kid could.’

Alice’s new smile was full of tenderness. ‘Steve hid behind a car and watched everything. He said you just wouldn’t stay down. They’d beat you to the floor, you’d get up. They’d beat you down again, you’d get up again, bleeding and all. Steve said that after the fourth or fifth time, the bigger kids just gave up and walked away.’

‘I’m glad they did. I don’t know how much more I could’ve taken.’ Hunter turned his head, showing Alice his left ear, and folding its top half down. ‘This scar is from that beating. They almost tore my ear off.’

Alice looked at the lumpy scar that contoured Hunter’s ear. ‘You were in your senior year and you took a hell of a beating for someone you barely knew. A kid two grades below you. I really don’t know anyone else who would’ve done that.’

Hunter went silent, and Alice couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or not.

‘You know,’ she finally said. ‘Despite the fact that you were geeky, skinny as hell, and dressed like a rock-and-roll reject on a bad day, a lot of girls in Mirman had a crush on you.’

‘Did you?’ Hunter pinned her down with an interrogating stare.

Alice bit her bottom lip and looked away. ‘I guess you’re right. We both need to get some sleep.’ She finished the rest of her beer in one long gulp, grabbed her briefcase and crossed to the door.

‘I’ll see you in the office,’ Hunter said.

Alice’s reply was a simple smile.

Thirty-Four

Captain Blake was standing next to Garcia, her mouth half-open, her unflinching gaze welded to the shadow images on the wall. This was the first time she had seen them.

‘This can’t be serious,’ she said after a long silence.

Garcia said nothing.

‘You’re telling me that some maniac killer out there broke into a Los Angeles prosecutor’s home, butchered him into pieces, bundled his severed body parts together to create some godforsaken artifact, just so he could cast a shadow puppet of a dog and a bird onto the wall?’

‘It’s a coyote and a raven,’ Hunter said as he entered the room. He’d managed just a little over four hours of sleep, which for him was as good as it got.

‘What?’ Captain Blake turned and faced him. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Robert? And does it matter what species they are?’

‘Good morning to you too, Captain.’

She indicated the replica sculpture, and then the shadow puppets on the wall. ‘Does that look like a good morning to anyone?’

‘A coyote and a raven?’ Garcia asked, his eyes narrowing at the shadow puppets.

Hunter took off his jacket and fired up his computer.

‘How did you find that out?’ Garcia insisted.

‘I didn’t. Alice did.’

As if on cue, Alice Beaumont pushed the door open and stepped into the office. Her hair was back in the same slick ponytail she had the day before, but this time the look was complemented by an expensive-looking pair of designer sunglasses. She was wearing an impeccably fitted light gray suit with a white charmeuse blouse and a dainty white gold necklace.

All eyes shot towards her.

She looked up and paused, feeling the heat of everyone’s stare. ‘Good . . . morning . . . everyone. Did I do something wrong?’

‘I just told them you found out about the shadow puppets being a coyote and a raven,’ Hunter said. ‘Maybe you should explain the meaning behind them.’

Alice placed her briefcase next to her improvised desk and ran Captain Blake and Garcia through everything she had found out the night before. When she was done, a thoughtful silence enveloped the room for an instant.

‘It makes sense,’ Garcia eventually agreed.

Captain Blake folded her arms over her chest, still measuring everything.

‘The way I see it,’ Alice continued, ‘if the killer considered Derek to be a liar, then to generate this kind of payback, it must be connected to something that happened during one of his cases. It must’ve been an alleged lie that caused somebody to lose his or her freedom, or that sent someone to death row. Someone the killer considered innocent. Or even, as Robert suggested, an alleged lie that meant someone didn’t get the justice he or she felt they deserved. Someone who felt betrayed by the system and by Derek in particular.’

Captain Blake was still pondering everything. ‘And do we have any names yet? Anyone Derek Nicholson put away that would fit this theory?’ Her stare went back to Alice.

‘Not yet,’ Alice said, not shying away from the captain’s hard gaze, ‘but we will before the end of the day.’

‘You better make that before the end of the morning,’ Captain Blake came straight back at her. ‘DA Bradley said you were the best he had, so be the best.’ She threw a copy of this morning’s LA Times on Hunter’s desk. The headline read ‘SCULPTURE OF TERROR. LAPD OFFICER MURDERED AND CHOPPED TO PIECES’.

Hunter skimmed through the article. It mentioned how Nashorn’s boat cabin had been bathed in blood, his decapitated and dismembered body left on a chair facing the door, and his severed body parts used to create some sort of grotesque and sickening sculpture-like arrangement. It also mentioned that loud heavy-metal music was left playing on the stereo. No real details were given.

‘The TV edition of that story made the news bulletin late last night and again early this morning,’ Captain Blake blurted as she started pacing the room. ‘I woke up this morning to find a newspaper reporter together with a photographer pretty much camping out in front of my house. Goddamn it, as soon as I find out which officer at the scene leaked that kind of information to the press, he’s on a no return trip to shit-licking duty.’

‘I don’t think a cop leaked the story, Captain,’ Hunter said.

‘Who, then? The woman from the neighboring boat who found the body?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘She was too distressed to talk to anyone last night. It took me half an hour just to get a few pieces of information out of her. Her subconscious was already starting to block her memory. Pretty much the only thing she remembered was the blood. And there was an officer with her until she was sedated and fell asleep. Reporters didn’t talk to her.’

‘Well, they talked to someone.’

‘Probably the marina security guard on duty last night.’ Hunter reached for his notebook. ‘A Mr. Curtis Lodeiro, fifty-five years old. Lives in Maywood. In her panic, Leanne Ashman ran back to the marina’s security hut after leaving Nashorn’s boat. While she called 911, Mr. Lodeiro went over to check it. He had a better look at the crime scene than she did.’

‘Great. I had the DA on the phone to me this morning even before I got out of bed. And his call was quickly followed by Nashorn’s captain, and then by the Chief of Police. With the press now sniffing around this story like starving dogs, the heat for results in this investigation has just hit DEFCON-1 status. And everybody wants some goddamn answers pronto. If it was attention this killer was looking for, one thing is for sure: he’s got every cop in this city thirsty for his blood.’

Thirty-Five

Alice reached for the newspaper on Hunter’s desk and read through the article.

‘This is all speculation,’ she said, breaking the rough silence that had descended onto the room. ‘Pure and simple. There are two pictures; one is a shot from the outside of the boat and the other a colored portrait of Andrew Nashorn. There are no witnesses or detectives’ statements. No interviews. All the details, if we can call them that, are flimsy at best.’

‘Well, thank you for stating the obvious,’ Captain Blake shot back, glaring at her. ‘Speculation or not, it won’t change the fact that a story has hit the papers and the airwaves. It’s out there now. Which is all that’s needed for people to start panicking. They don’t need any proof. All they need is to read it in the newspaper or see it on TV. Now everybody is looking at us for answers, and as always, they want them by yesterday.’

Alice had no reply. She knew how right the captain was. She’d seen it many times in courts of law. Attorneys throwing statements at the jurors that they knew would be objected to by the opposing side, sustained by the judge, and consequently struck from the record. But it made no difference. The statement was out there. Struck from the records or not, the jurors had heard it. And that was all that was needed to get their thoughts moving in the direction that suited the attorney in question.

Captain Blake faced Hunter. ‘OK, talk to me, Robert. If you’re right about those shadow puppets, then it means Nashorn’s boat has given us something new.’

Hunter looked at Garcia, who was now standing by the pictures board, organizing the new crime-scene photographs into distinct groups.

‘It has,’ Garcia replied.

Captain Blake and Alice moved closer, scrutinizing every photo as Garcia pinned them up to the large white board. The prints showed the cabin, the blood on its walls and floors, the body left on the chair, Nashorn’s head on the coffee table, and the new sculpture on the tall breakfast bar.

‘Jesus Christ!’ Alice said, touching her lips with the tips of her fingers. In spite of her horror, she was too transfixed to look away.

Captain Blake’s expert gaze moved from picture to picture, drinking in every detail. In her long career, she was sure she’d seen every ugly face crime and murder had to offer, but what she’d seen in the past three days had fragmented that notion to little pieces and pushed the boundaries to a new level. Evil seemed to be able to reinvent itself very easily.

Her attention finally settled on the group of photographs that showed the new sculpture – arms, hands, fingers and feet covered in blood; dissected, and then put back together in a totally incoherent and horrific way.

‘Did the killer use wire and superglue again?’ Alice asked, squinting at the photo on the far right of the board.

‘That’s right,’ Garcia confirmed.

‘But no message on the wall this time.’

‘There was no reason for it,’ Hunter said. ‘The message left on Derek Nicholson’s wall wasn’t directly related to the crime committed. It was a spur-of-the-moment thing.’

‘OK, I can understand that, but why do it?’ Alice insisted. ‘Why leave such a message? Just to psychologically destroy that poor girl?’

‘That message wasn’t only intended for the nurse.’

Hunter’s words caused Alice to do a double take. ‘Excuse me?’

‘It was also intended for us.’

‘What?’ Captain Blake finally turned away from the board. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Robert?’

‘Determination, resolve, commitment,’ Hunter said, but offered nothing else.

‘Keep on talking, Big Brain,’ the captain urged him, ‘I’ll tell you when we’ve caught up.’

Hunter was used to the spikes in the captain’s intonation.

‘It was the killer’s way of telling us that nothing would’ve stopped him, Captain,’ he clarified. ‘And if a completely innocent person had walked in on him, and in any shape or form endangered his objective, he would’ve killed her as well. No remorse. No guilt. No second thoughts.’

‘It confirms that there was nothing random about Nicholson’s murder,’ Garcia took over. ‘Robert used the operative word – objective. And our killer sure as hell had one: to kill Derek Nicholson and use his body parts to create his morbid piece. The nurse was never part of the plan, and she didn’t endanger his goal. She would have, if she’d turned on the lights.’

‘And that also tells us a very important thing,’ Hunter stepped in again. ‘That this killer isn’t prone to panicking.’

‘How’s that?’ Alice asked.

‘Exactly because he didn’t kill her.’ He wandered over to the window, stretching his stiff arms and back as he went. ‘When the killer heard the nurse walking back into the house that night, he was composed enough to stop what he was doing, turn off the lights in Nicholson’s room and wait. Her fate was in her hands, not his.’

‘Whereas most perps surprised by a third party would either have panicked and gone for her,’ the captain caught on, ‘or fled the scene without finishing what they started.’

‘Correct. The message on the wall wasn’t planned. It was an afterthought. But the killer saw it as a chance to . . . warn us of his resolve, his commitment, despite its psychologically destructive nature.’ Hunter undid the latch and pushed the window open. ‘We didn’t realize that at first, because we had no way of knowing he would kill again.’

‘This guy is very confident, and he has no problem boasting about it,’ Garcia said, pinning the last photograph onto the board. ‘Last night, instead of a written message, he decided to show us that he also has a sense of humor.’

‘The heavy metal song he left playing,’ Captain Blake commented.

Alice flinched. ‘I read that in the article. What’s that about?’

‘The killer left the stereo in Nashorn’s boat on – full blast,’ Garcia explained. ‘Same song playing on an endless loop.’

‘And where’s the sense of humor in that?’ she asked with a slight shake of the head.

‘The song the killer chose is an old song called “Falling to Pieces”,’ Hunter told her.

‘And the lyrics in the chorus say something about someone falling to pieces, and asking to be put back together again,’ Garcia added.

Alice paused a beat.

‘So he’s laughing at us,’ Captain Blake said, leaning against Garcia’s desk, anger in her voice and a steely glint in her eyes. ‘Not only is this perp crazy enough to kill a state prosecutor and an LAPD cop, but he’s also bold enough to taunt us with messages written on walls, songs with double meanings, sculptures made from the flesh of his victims and shadow puppets. He’s making this his own private goddamn circus.’ Her eyes flashed fire. ‘And we are the clowns.’

No one replied.

Alice had redirected her attention back to the pictures board. ‘What did you get when you shone a light on this?’ She indicated one of the photographs of the new sculpture. ‘I know you’re not waiting for the lab to produce another replica to find out. You checked it last night, didn’t you?’

‘Yes.’

‘So what did you get?’ Captain Blake this time. ‘Shadow puppets of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse?’

Garcia walked back to his desk, reached for an A4 brown-paper envelope and retrieved a single photograph from inside. He turned it over and showed it to the room.

‘We got this.’