Текст книги "The Executioner"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 13 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

Sixty-Two

The LACDC’s official public opening time is 8:00 a.m. Monday to Friday, but Hunter had no intention of waiting until then. Knowing that he was an early riser, Hunter rang Mike Brindle at around a quarter to seven. The forensics agent was already on his way to the coroner’s, and Hunter met him by the staff entry door at 7:00 a.m. Brindle was surprised by Hunter’s discovery of the two photographs, but he couldn’t hide his disappointment for his team not having found them.

Brindle told Hunter they’d already had a few results from the house in Malibu. The partial print they’d found in one of the rooms upstairs had yielded no matches against the National Fingerprint Database so far. The fibers retrieved from the vacuum cleaner found in the mansion’s utility room were too common to really give them any sort of lead. Dental records confirmed that the skull found in the fireplace belonged to Father Fabian, but the blood used to draw the number four on Amanda Reilly’s back, unlike the blood used on the priest, didn’t come from a pregnant woman.

‘So what have you got?’ Hunter asked.

Brindle handed him the lab report.

Hunter speed-read it and frowned. ‘It’s Father Fabian’s blood?’

Brindle nodded.

Mechanically, Hunter checked the number on the back of the two photographs they found on the fireplace. His thought process went from A to Z in two seconds flat. ‘The woman was number two,’ he said to himself, but Brindle picked up on it.

‘So what’re you thinking?’

Hunter quickly shook his head, as if snapping out of a trance. ‘The killer uses the blood of the previous victim to number his next one.’

Brindle pinched his bottom lip as he thought about it.

Hunter pointed to the woman’s photograph. ‘Number two; this is the pregnant woman whose blood was used to draw the number three on the priest’s chest. I’d bet on it.’

Brindle agreed it made sense. ‘I’ll get the blood used on the back of these photos analyzed straight away,’ he said. ‘You’ll have a result soon.’

Captain Blake was already waiting in Hunter’s office for their nine o’clock meeting when he arrived. Garcia had brought her up to speed on all that’d happened last night, and before he was able to get rid of his jacket there was a knock at the door and they were joined by Hopkins.

‘Do you think this is the real deal or could this killer be messing with us?’ the captain asked calmly, staring at the pictures on the corkboard.

‘Messing with us how?’

‘Giving us two unknown people to run after. I’m sure he’s well aware it will take us time to come up with their identities. Even longer to confirm they’re really dead. By placing these two pictures on the fireplace, he’s tied our hands together. He could be trying to slow us down, throwing us into a completely bogus investigation while he’s free to find his next victim.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘This killer’s actions seem to have more purpose than that. I don’t think he’s interested in diverting us. The reason he gave us the photos of the first two victims is because he wants to make sure we know they were killed by him.’

‘Why?’ Captain Blake sounded irritated. ‘Is he saying we’re not competent enough to find that out on our own?’

‘If for some reason the numbers have washed off the victims, maybe we wouldn’t be able to find out on our own, captain,’ Hunter agreed, to the captain’s surprise. ‘Take the two last victims, for example. The only reason why we know Amanda Reilly was murdered by Father Fabian’s killer is because the killer wanted us to know. Take the numbering away, and her case would’ve been sitting on the desk of two detectives from the Sheriff’s Department in Malibu. At least until the skull found in the fire was processed and we got confirmation it belonged to Father Fabian.’

‘That’s true,’ Garcia agreed, leaning against his desk.

‘We thought Father Fabian was murdered by a ritualistic killer, remember? Everything pointed to it.’ Hunter turned to face the picture board. ‘Amanda Reilly’s murder has a completely different MO. Father Fabian was killed quickly with almost zero pain. One clean strike to the neck and he was dead instantly. Messy, I agree, but nothing indicates he was tortured. Amanda Reilly, on the other hand, was cooked alive. She suffered for hours. Half of her internal organs exploded inside her body, captain.’

Captain Blake grimaced and popped a mint in her mouth.

‘Without the numbering, not even Sherlock Holmes would’ve been able to attribute these two victims to the same killer.’ Hunter cleared his throat before continuing in a calm voice. ‘We’re dealing with a very different type of serial killer.’

‘How so?’ the captain asked.

‘Serial killers very rarely divert from an MO they’re comfortable with. When they do, it’s just a small deviation, mainly a steady progression into something crueler. This killer’s cool and organized enough to totally change his tactics from one victim to another without panicking.’

‘Aren’t serial killers usually after some sort of satisfaction?’ Hopkins asked.

‘Yes.’

‘What satisfaction is this one after?’

Hunter rubbed his face slowly, taking his time. ‘Their fears.’

Sixty-Three

‘Their fears?’ The captain echoed Hunter’s words.

‘You read Garcia’s report on what he found in Father Fabian’s journal, right?’ Hunter asked.

‘The dream thing?’

‘Yeah, the dream thing. It might seem crazy to all of us, but to the priest it was something that scared him out of his skin for over twenty years. In Amanda Reilly’s case, she was so petrified of fires she wouldn’t have a gas stove in her house.’ Hunter searched his desk for his report on their interview with Tania Riggs and handed it to Captain Blake.

‘Or candles,’ Garcia added.

‘She’s been that scared since she was a teenager.’ Hunter paused, allowing Captain Blake some time to reflect and scan the interview transcript.

‘There’s no way in hell the killer guessed that, right?’

Hunter gave her an almost imperceptible head shake.

‘So how does the killer know about their fears? Does he force them to tell him before killing them?’

‘I don’t know how yet, captain, but he knows about them beforehand,’ Hunter stated.

‘How can you be so sure?’ she challenged.

‘The amount of research and planning he puts into his kills.’ He tapped one of Father Fabian’s photos on the board. ‘To bring Father Fabian’s nightmare to life, the killer needed a sword and a dog’s head.’

‘Which he had with him,’ Garcia cut in.

‘In Malibu,’ Hunter continued, ‘the killer picked the perfect empty house where he wouldn’t be disturbed. A house with an intensity-controlled fireplace so big he could’ve cooked a hippo. This is LA, captain. Our winter sucks. Large fireplaces aren’t exactly a common residential feature in this city.’ He leaned shoulder first against the wall to the right of the photo board. ‘The killer knew them well.’

‘How well?’

‘That’s the money question. Tania Riggs told us that when the killer called to say he’d be late for his appointment with Amanda Reilly, he asked to speak to Mandy.’

The captain narrowed her eyes and searched the interview transcript in her hands. ‘That’s an affectionate nickname.’

‘Precisely,’ Hunter agreed. ‘Not your regular customer/client way of addressing each other. A slip of the tongue, maybe.’

‘Have we run the two new pictures against the Missing Persons and the California Homicide databases?’ She addressed Hopkins.

‘I started this morning. Nothing yet,’ he replied shyly, ‘but it’s still early.’

‘Dan Tyler, the owner of the Malibu house, has no idea who the two on the pictures could be. He never saw them before. I ran the pics by him.’ Hunter paused as his gaze locked onto the four faces pinned side by side on the corkboard.

Garcia recognized that look. ‘What have you got, Robert?’

Hunter lifted his hand in a ‘wait a minute’ gesture. ‘If the killer knew the victims well . . .’ He let his words float in the air for a moment.

‘There’s a chance they knew each other,’ Garcia deducted.

‘I think there’s a good possibility,’ Hunter confirmed.

‘But Amanda wouldn’t have known Father Fabian from the Seven Saints church,’ Garcia continued.

‘Why not?’ Captain Blake questioned.

‘Tania Riggs said Amanda wasn’t religious at all. She didn’t even believe in God. If she knew Father Fabian from somewhere, it wasn’t from his church.’

‘And that knowledge can save us some time,’ Hunter said.

‘How’s that?’

‘From what we found out so far, Father Fabian was some sort of recluse,’ Hunter clarified. ‘He lived for the church and its community, but that was all. His social life outside the Catholic Church was nonexistent.’

‘Yeah, so?’ The captain deposited the report back on Hunter’s desk.

‘So we know Amanda Reilly didn’t go to church. It will be easy to find out if she was a charitable person, linked to any of the charities Father Fabian was involved with.’ He tilted his head in Hopkins’s direction, who made a mental note of finding that out. ‘If not, then when would they have met?’

Nobody answered.

‘They didn’t live in the same part of town; they didn’t shop in the same stores,’ Hunter carried on. ‘I’m certain Father Fabian never rented or bought a house from Reilly’s real estate agency. Their paths had no reason to have crossed other than by extreme coincidence.’

‘So if they knew each other, they must’ve met a long time ago.’ The captain finally picked up on what Hunter was getting at.

He turned to Hopkins. ‘Find everything you can about Amanda Reilly and Brett Stewart Nichols.’

‘Who?’

‘Brett Stewart Nichols was Father Fabian’s real name,’ Garcia explained.

‘Find out where they lived, where they went to school, anything you can. Starting from when they were teenagers.’

‘I’m on it.’

Hunter’s cell phone rang. He returned to his desk and retrieved it from his jacket pocket – unknown caller. ‘Detective Hunter.’ The conversation was hurried and hushed. When he disconnected, Hunter had a surprised look on his face.

‘What’s wrong?’ Garcia asked.

‘I gotta go.’ He reached for his jacket.

‘Go where?’

But Hunter was already halfway down the corridor.

Sixty-Four

Hunter exited Parker Center, the eight-story building that housed the RHD offices in North Los Angeles Street, and turned left towards the large parking lot, Garcia right behind him. Before reaching the cars, though, he turned right in the direction of East First Street.

‘Where’re you going?’ Garcia asked, his car keys at the ready. ‘The car is right over there.’ He pointed to his spotlessly clean metallic-blue Honda Civic parked at the north end of the lot.

Hunter disregarded the question and hurried his step, crossing to the other side of the road. Garcia had to wait for a gap in traffic before dashing across to join his partner.

‘Are we going somewhere in particular or are we just playing follow the leader here?’

‘Starbucks.’

‘You mysteriously rushed out of the office to get a coffee?’ Garcia joked, waiting for the real answer.

‘We’re meeting someone,’ Hunter said as they turned the corner.

There were a few dark clouds hovering over them; though the unmistakable smell of wet soil filled the air, rain hadn’t started yet. A crisp cold wind made sure that the many tables in the European-style square that fronted the coffee shop were empty. All but one. Garcia spotted her first.

‘Is that the Monica or Mollie girl?’

Hunter nodded. ‘She was the one who called me a minute ago,’ he explained.

Garcia slowed his step. ‘Shouldn’t we have told the captain?’ he asked, uncertain. ‘Doesn’t she want this to go by the book?’

Hunter nodded but didn’t break stride.

‘How’s this telling the captain?’ Garcia whispered before rushing after Hunter.

They approached the small table at the far end of the square. The brunette girl didn’t notice them until they were right beside her.

‘Hello,’ Hunter said in a kind voice, offering her his warmest smile.

She looked up and both detectives did a double take. Her brown hair was neatly pulled back into a ponytail. Her delicate makeup expertly highlighted her impressive brown eyes, adding maturity and a charming sparkle to her face that wasn’t there the first time they met. The scar on her fleshy lips was barely noticeable. Her shabby clothes were also gone, substituted by a white T-shirt with a cropped black jacket, faded blue jeans and black cowboy boots. She looked totally different.

‘Thanks for calling. I really appreciate you getting in contact with us again.’

She returned the smile, but hers had a nervous edge to it. Hunter noticed that the cup of coffee on the table was empty. ‘Let me get you another one,’ he offered. ‘What’re you having?’

‘Hot chocolate.’

‘I’ll have an espresso,’ Hunter said, facing Garcia, who hesitated for a moment before shaking his head and making towards the shop.

Hunter took the seat across the table from the girl and zipped up his jacket. ‘Aren’t you a little cold sitting out here?’

She shook her head.

Hunter crossed his arms over his chest in a tight hug. ‘I’m freezing.’

She pulled a face and he cringed.

‘Wow, I just sounded like a big girl then, didn’t I?’ He chuckled. ‘That’s what you get when you live in a hot place all your life. As soon as the temperature drops under fifty-nine, we’re covering ourselves with the thickest coats we can find.’

Garcia returned with the coffees and the hot chocolate. ‘Are you sure you wanna stay out here?’ He shuddered, nodding towards the coffee shop. ‘It’s nice and warm in there.’

‘See what I mean?’ Hunter smiled.

‘Did I say something funny?’ he asked, handing the girl her drink.

‘Carlos here was born in Brazil. He moved to LA when he was just a kid. This is arctic temperature for him.’ Hunter tried to break the tension.

Garcia frowned as he took his seat. ‘What, you don’t think it’s cold?’ The question was directed at Monica.

‘Good God, don’t ever go to Pennsylvania if you think this is cold.’ As soon as those words left her lips, her face tightened and she looked away nervously.

‘It’s OK,’ Garcia said in a comforting tone. ‘If it’s any consolation, Robert already knew where you were from, from your accent.’

She threw Hunter a questioning look. ‘Really?’

‘Pennsylvania Dutch, right?’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘He’s full of those little tricks,’ Garcia noted. ‘That’s why he’s not invited to many parties.’

She smiled. The double icebreaker was working. Hunter saw her shoulders relax and she let go of the breath she’d been holding since they arrived.

‘You’re right. I’m from Pennsylvania.’ She looked from Hunter to Garcia and paused for a moment. Without being asked to, she decided to start at the beginning.

Sixty-Five

Mollie Woods was born on Christmas Day in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Though she was born a healthy baby, her lengthy and complicated labor had put too much strain on her mother’s womb, and Mollie was to be her first and only child.

Mollie’s birth brought changes to her deeply religious family. Her father, John, found it hard to come to terms with the fact that he would never have the son he always wanted. In his eyes, God had punished him and his wife with a daughter. And that punishment had to be passed on.

As soon as she was able to speak, Mollie was taught to pray. And pray she did. Three times a day, naked in the corner, kneeling on dried corn kernels.

As time went by, John Woods’s bitterness grew. He used his faith as a hiding place for his anger and little Mollie was always at the receiving end of it all. During her childhood, her skin was mostly black and blue.

When it came to looks, Mollie took after her mother, with a delicate heart-shaped face, plush pink lips, big hypnotic brown eyes and long, wavy brown hair. At thirteen, she was taller than most girls her age and her womanly body was developing fast.

John Woods saw Mollie’s beauty as a new test from God. She was already attracting the attention of older boys, and John knew it was only a matter of time before she gave in to temptation and sin. He had to teach her right from wrong.

The teachings started just after her thirteenth birthday. Twice a week her mother worked the night shift at a twenty-four-hour supermarket in the city center. Mollie dreaded those nights. In the darkness of her room, she’d curl up in bed and pray, but no God would listen. Time and time again she had to endure her father hammering his body against hers, showing her what boys wanted to do to her.

The nightmares began around the same time her father started invading her room. And with them came the nosebleeds. At first Mollie could make no sense of the violent images she saw, but they felt real. Falling asleep was so frightening she’d do anything to stay awake. But soon her troubling visions expanded. They weren’t confined to her nightmares anymore. She started having them in broad daylight – kids being beaten and abused by their parents, wives by their husbands – the images just kept on coming, until the day one petrified her soul.

She had a vision of her mother being run over by a drunk driver. That night, in vain, she begged her mother not to go to work. Her father had slapped her across the face and sent her to her room. He’d had enough of her crazy dreams. He smiled the secret smile and told her that once her mother had gone to work, he would go to her room and pray with her.

The knock on the door from the police came an hour after Mollie’s mother had left. She’d been involved in a hit-and-run accident and died instantly.

That was the night Mollie ran away. The night something snapped inside her father’s head.

Sixty-Six

Both detectives listened to Mollie’s story in silence, but she didn’t tell them everything. She was careful not to mention her real name, anything about the beatings she received or any of the abuse and humiliation she was subjected to at the hands of her father. She was ashamed.

Hunter had been right. Having run away at the age of fourteen, Mollie had to mature faster than most.

She told them how the nightmares and visions had stopped once she’d left Pennsylvania, and how she thought she’d finally got rid of them. But a few days ago, inside Los Angeles Union Station, the visions came back.

‘What exactly did you see?’ Hunter kept his voice low and even.

She tensed and cupped her hands around her hot chocolate mug. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t control anything about these visions. The images are hazy and not always clear. Most of the time I see them as if I was watching a movie on a screen.’

‘Like a spectator?’ Hunter suggested.

‘Yes.’ A quick nod. ‘But that day inside Union Station was different.’

‘Different how?’

She breathed deeply and her gaze lowered. ‘I was part of it. I was the one attacking him.’ Her voice weakened.

‘You saw it in the first person?’ Garcia asked.

A subtle nod. ‘I was the killer.’

Garcia looked uneasy for a second.

‘Wait,’ Hunter interrupted. ‘Attacking him – who?’

Another deep breath. ‘A priest.’

Hunter kept a steady face, knowing that sudden emotional reactions, even facial expressions, could make this even harder for her.

‘We were inside some dark church, I don’t know where. The priest was just kneeling in front of me, crying.’ She had a sip of her hot drink and Hunter noticed her shaky hands. ‘I showed him something . . . a piece of paper, I think.’

‘A piece of paper?’ Garcia queried.

She nodded.

‘Could it have been a picture or maybe a drawing?’ Hunter asked.

‘It could have. I can’t be sure.’

Traffic was heating up. A car stalled on East First Street and a barrage of horns came alive. She waited for them to die down.

‘I never got to see it. I just showed it to the priest.’

Hunter noted something down in his black notebook. ‘What did you see next?’

She hesitated for a second, as if what she was about to say made no sense. ‘A dog’s head. I showed the priest a dog’s head, and it terrified him.’

‘Where did the head come from?’ Garcia this time.

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I just had it with me.’ Another quick hesitation. ‘Together with the sword I used to . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

Hunter allowed a few silent moments to go by before asking her if she remembered which hand held the sword.

‘The right one,’ she said with conviction.

‘Can you remember anything specific about the hand? Skin color? Were there any rings on the fingers? A watch?’

She thought about it for a second. ‘Black gloves.’

The wind had picked up as more dark clouds gathered in the sky. It was getting colder, but the girl didn’t seem to notice it.

‘Anything else you remember from your vision?’

She nodded as she stared straight into Hunter’s eyes. ‘The number three. I drew it onto the priest’s chest after I killed him.’

This time it wasn’t the cold wind that made Garcia shiver.

Hunter held her gaze. Up to now, all the information Mollie had given them could’ve been obtained from the papers. The story that the killer had showed his victim a piece of paper could’ve been made up. They had no way of confirming it. But not the numbering. There was no way she could’ve known about the numbering.

‘When you came to see us.’ Hunter broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘Just before I left the room, you said something to me, do you remember?’

He got no response.

‘You said, “He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her.” Do you remember saying that?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you mean by that?’ Hunter pushed his empty coffee cup to one side and leaned forward.

‘At first I didn’t know. It was like I had no control. Those words simply shot out of my lips. But just a minute after you left I saw it. And this time it was even stronger than the previous one.’ Her voice wavered for a second.

‘What did you see?’

‘A woman tied to an armchair. She was as scared as the priest was, but she couldn’t scream.’

Garcia ran his hand over his mouth and chin as if stroking a goatee. ‘Was she gagged?’

‘No. Her lips had been—’ the girl shook her head, hardly believing her own words ‘—glued shut.’

‘Glued?’ Hunter asked surprised. ‘Like with crazy glue?’

She nodded. ‘Her face was also covered in something sticky, like some weird type of gel.’

She couldn’t have known that either. Hunter pulled the collar of his leather jacket tighter against his neck.

‘Did you see this as a first person again?’ Garcia pressed.

‘Yes.’ She looked away as if it were her fault.

Hunter wanted to explore the picture story further. ‘Did you show the woman a picture, like you did with the priest?’

‘Yes, but again I didn’t see what it was.’

‘You said this vision was stronger than the previous one, stronger how?’ Garcia asked.

Mollie took a moment and Hunter understood her hesitation. She hadn’t had a vision in almost four years. Now they’d come back. And in the form of the most hideous murders Hunter had ever seen.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘The visions I have are usually silent – images only, but not this one.’ She paused. ‘I said something to the woman.’

Hunter kept silent, allowing her to continue in her own time.

‘I said, Welcome to your fear, Mandy . . .’

Hunter’s heart raced.

‘. . . I know what scares you to death.’