Текст книги "I Am Death"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

Sixty-Two

Consciousness returned to Alison like waves breaking over a beach, but the pain was always there whether she was conscious or not. It was an odd kind of pain, a dull ache that started on the left side of her neck and spread with the resolve of soldier ants to the rest of her body, but the worst pain came from her wrists – a burning soreness that felt like her hands were being sawn off with a blunt hacksaw.

Her head was slumped forward with her chin almost touching her chest. During periods of consciousness Alison’s eyes would flicker and every now and then she could see red toenails resting against the floor. It took her some time to realize that they were her own toenails. She had been stripped naked.

Alison had no idea where she was but it was somewhere dark and hot, with thick rubber foam sheets glued to the walls and metal pipes above her head.

Instinctively she tried moving, but that only served to sharpen the pain in her arms. Something dug deeper into her wrists, as if thin metal rods were being forced between her joints and then twisted to one side. The pain quickly moved up her arm before settling on her shoulders. Right then, she truly believed that her arms were being slowly pulled from their sockets.

Trying to better understand what was happening to her, Alison lifted her chin, a movement that sent waves of nausea rippling through her stomach. Her eyes rolled back into her head and her lids flickered again. She had to summon all of her strength not to fall back into the abyss of unconsciousness.

With great effort, Alison managed to focus on her arms, which were stretched high above her head. Only then did she finally understand why they hurt so much. Her wrists were shackled by a metal chain speckled with blood. The chain had been looped over a thick metal pipe that ran across the ceiling. All of her weight was being supported by her thin arms and the chain was biting deeply into her bloody wrists.

Time dragged interminably. She tried to remember what had happened. Why was she in this hellhole? But the incessant throbbing in her head made thinking an impossible task. Her throat had swollen up so much that she had to practically force every breath into her lungs, and that had caused her mouth to go bone dry.

Braving the pain, Alison looked up once again and studied her restraints as best as she could. The chain around her wrists was fastened by a small, brass padlock. A bigger padlock kept the loop around the ceiling pipe in place.

What the hell is going on? Where was she?

Nothing made sense.

Her eyes had gotten a little more used to the poor lighting, enabling her to look around her surroundings. The floor of the room she was in was made of concrete. It was covered in stains of different sizes but Alison couldn’t tell what had created them – oil, water, blood?

Over to her left she saw a short flight of stairs leading up to a closed door. There were no windows in the room, which led her to believe that she was in some sort of sordid basement. To her right, a little more hidden in the shadows, she could see part of a workshop table. Several tools and instruments were lying on its surface. She couldn’t make them all out but the ones she saw froze her heart – a circular handheld sander, a pair of bolt cutters, pruning shears, a bullwhip and a selection of medical scalpels and forceps.

She tried to use her feet to push herself up and lessen the stress on her arms but they could barely touch the ground. All she could do was teeter on her toes. The effort produced the exact opposite effect to the one she was looking for, straining her arms even further. The pain made her scream, but the rubber foam that lined the walls muffled the noise as if she were underwater.

But somebody heard her, because seconds later the door at the top of the stairs opened and a male figure was framed in the light behind it. He stood there, in silence, for a moment. His strong arms hung loosely by his sides.

‘Wh . . . who are you?’ she breathed out, but her voice sounded so weak she was unsure he had heard her. She tried again. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’

No reply. No movement.

That only served to fill Alison with even more terror.

‘Please . . . please.’

The figure finally reached for a light switch on the outside of the door and a fluorescent bulb, encased in a metal box on the ceiling, blinked into life, flooding the basement with light.

Alison immediately looked away, squeezing her eyes tight to protect them from the sudden brightness. Seconds later, she tried to focus on the figure by the door. His shoes clicked against the stairs as he made his way down to the basement floor. Alison’s gaze followed him.

‘Please. What do you want from me? Who are you? Why am I here?’

The man walked over to the workshop table in the shadows and paused, facing her. They locked eyes for a long moment.

‘You don’t recognize me, do you?’ he finally said. His voice was deep, cold and guttural – and overflowing with confidence. His posture was firm and strong, like a warrior’s ready for battle.

Alison concentrated. No, she didn’t recognize him, but she also couldn’t shake the feeling that something about him was very familiar to her, especially his eyes.

She didn’t have to answer him. He knew she didn’t recognize him. His disguises were always flawless.

He turned toward the workshop table and reached for something Alison couldn’t see.

‘Let me ask you something, Alison.’

The man began unbuttoning his shirt.

Alison felt her body begin to convulse with fear.

‘Oh no, no, no.’

He allowed the pause to linger on, stretching the suspense.

‘How much do you know about pain?’

He turned to face her.

Her eyes locked on to the object he was holding in his hand and her voice completely failed her.

‘Because I know . . . everything.’

Sixty-Three

‘OK, this is it,’ Garcia said as he parked his car right in front of an old three-storey construction located halfway down a relatively busy road. The building looked tired and in serious need of some attention. Most of the windows looked like they’d never been cleaned, at least not on the outside, and what should’ve been a front lawn looked more like the remains of an old battlefield.

It didn’t get any better on the inside.

The wooden door at the entry lobby creaked loudly as Hunter pushed it open, revealing a small and poorly lit room that smelled of a thousand ashtrays. Water infiltration stains marked the ceiling like freckles on a face. Some of that water had lazily traveled down one of the walls, pushing itself behind the wallpaper and creating blisters that looked ready to pop at any minute. Cigarette burn marks formed an interesting pattern on the old and dirty rug that centered the room.

‘Nice. Classy,’ Garcia said as he and Hunter stepped inside.

It seemed like the creepy sound generated by the hinges on the old front door was used as a shop bell, because as soon as the noise came to a stop, an overweight Hispanic-looking man promptly appeared behind the counter on the south wall. He smelled of spiced refried beans and Taco sauce, and his greasy hair was stuck to his sweaty forehead as if he’d just finished the toughest exercise session ever known to man.

‘What can I do for you gentle—’ He paused midsentence, before his shoulders slumped down as if all of a sudden he’d become fed up with life. ‘Aww, cbinga tu madre! Cops.’

Hunter had had a suspicion that this wouldn’t be a regular apartment building. From the outside it looked like one of those places that rented their apartments by the hour, day, week, month, or whatever arrangement better suited the customer – no questions asked, just as long as they could make the payments.

‘Are we that obvious?’ Garcia asked Hunter, looking at him from head to toe.

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘What? Are you joking, ese?’ the man said from behind the counter. His Mexican accent wasn’t nearly as heavy as he was. ‘Your badges are practically tattooed on your foreheads. Yes, you are that obvious. Why do you guys like to bust my balls so much, huh? I’m just trying to earn an honest living here.’

‘Yeah, that is a wonder,’ Garcia said, emphasizing the way he was looking around the entry lobby and bringing his right hand to his face to cover his nose. ‘Everything around here looks to be right on the money, and that includes the attitude.’

The man began to murmur something inaudible but Hunter cut him short.

‘We’re not here to bust your balls,’ he said, approaching the counter and displaying his credentials.

‘Or to criticize your fine establishment,’ Garcia said, coming up behind Hunter. ‘And yes, we are cops.’

‘I take it that you are the building’s superintendent, Mr.?’ Hunter said, returning his ID to his pocket.

‘Moreno,’ the man replied with a sullen face. ‘Arturo Moreno and, yes, I am the building’s superintendent.’

The sweat stains on his shirt, directly under his armpits, looked like they were growing larger.

‘OK,’ Hunter said, being careful to place Mathew Hade’s portrait photograph, not his mugshot, on the counter. ‘We have information that this man lives here. Apartment two-eleven?’

Moreno eyeballed the picture for a little while.

‘Um-hum.’ He nodded, looking bored. ‘But I’d say that “lives” is a very strong word to describe his relationship with apartment two-eleven.’

Hunter’s eyebrows lifted inquisitively. ‘All right, so how would you describe it?’

‘He comes and goes,’ Moreno replied. ‘Like most people here. Sometimes he’ll stay for a week. Sometimes more, sometimes less. And sometimes he’ll disappear for the same amount of time. Even longer. He’s got no schedule. No one here does.’

‘Is he in now?’ Garcia asked, his eyes moving to the staircase to the left of the counter. The severely worn-out red and black carpet that lined the stairs was ripped at the edge of every step, some of it so badly Garcia was certain it would constitute a health hazard.

Moreno shook his head. ‘No, he isn’t. I haven’t seen him for . . .’ He paused and looked up at the cobwebs on the ceiling, as if the answer was up there with all the dust. ‘Five, six days, maybe? Maybe less, I’m not sure. Last time I saw him he was only here for a couple of days. If I remember right, he had a friend with him then.’

‘A friend?’

‘Well,’ Moreno shrugged carelessly. ‘They came in together, chatting like they were friends, so I guess that that’s what they were.’

‘Was this friend male or female?’ Hunter queried.

‘Hombre,’ Moreno answered. ‘Male.’

‘Have you ever seen this friend before?’

Moreno thought about it for just a couple of seconds. ‘No. I can’t say I have.’ He began scratching the back of his neck as if his life depended on it.

Garcia frowned at him before taking a step back. He wouldn’t be surprised if the place had a flea or bedbug problem.

‘But in this place, ese,’ Moreno continued. ‘A lot of new people come and go with the guests.’ He stopped with the scratching and checked his nails, before rubbing them against the front of his shirt. ‘You know how it goes, right? What the guests do in their apartments is their own business, comprendes? I just take care of the place.’

And you’re doing a fine job, Garcia thought, but kept his mouth shut.

‘Have you ever seen him bring any women back here?’ Hunter asked.

Moreno coughed a laugh. ‘Are you for real, ese? Yeah, I’ve seen him bring women here and, before you ask, as far as I am concerned they were all of legal age.’

‘Have you seen either of these two women around here?’ Hunter asked, now showing the building super a photo of Nicole Wilson and one of Sharon Barnard.

While studying the photographs, Moreno kept his mouth closed and ran his tongue against his upper front teeth. His top lip bulged with the movement.

‘Umm . . . nope, they don’t look familiar to me.’

‘Are you sure?’ Garcia insisted.

Moreno kept his gaze on the pictures for a while longer. ‘Yep. Positive, ese’

‘Who else works here? Like, who takes your place on your day off, or on your once-a-week shower day.’

Garcia’s joke was completely missed by Moreno.

‘My cousin, ese, but he’s not around till the end of the week. You can come back then and speak to him, if you like?’

‘Maybe we will,’ Garcia said.

‘You do have the keys to apartment two-eleven, right?’ Hunter asked.

Moreno looked at him, then at Garcia, then back at Hunter. ‘Yes, of course I do, but don’t you need some sort of warrant to go up in there? This place might be a dump, but it’s not a free-for-all, ese.’

‘Oh, sure,’ Garcia replied. ‘We can go get a warrant if you like, and maybe we’ll come back here with more than just a warrant for apartment two-eleven, ese. We’ll have a warrant for this whole building, including your office back there.’ He pointed at the closed door just behind Moreno. ‘And while we’re at it, we’ll bring a few health inspectors and immigration officers with us too. Sound good?’

‘Aw, pincbe culero.’ Moreno rubbed his greasy forehead while looking down at the floor.

‘Usted sabe que hablamos español también, ¿no?’ Garcia said, reminding Moreno that he and Hunter both understood Spanish.

Moreno didn’t look back at him. Instead, he simply opened one of the drawers behind the counter and picked up a set of keys.

‘OK, ese, but the only way you’re going up there is if I go with you.’

‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, ese,’ Garcia said, taking a step back and pointing toward the staircase. ‘After you, compadre.’

Sixty-Four

By the time they cleared the four flights of stairs that took them up to the second floor, the building superintendent looked like he was about to go into cardiac arrest. His forehead was dripping with sweat and his breathing was so labored he sounded like an asthmatic Darth Vader.

‘Are you OK?’ Hunter asked as Moreno finally reached the second-floor landing. It had taken him almost two minutes to get through fifty steps.

‘Hijo de perra.’ Those words came out as a gasp. ‘Yeah . . . I’m fine, ese . . .’ he finally replied, in between deep breaths, while holding on to the wall. ‘I just need a moment.’

‘Yeah, you look fine,’ Garcia observed. ‘You sound fine too.’

Once again, Moreno simply ignored the sarcastic comment.

Down the short corridor in front of them, a door opened just enough for someone to peek outside, quickly shutting again a second later.

‘OK,’ Moreno said, standing up straight and wiping his forehead with the palm of his hand. ‘Let’s just get on with this. The two of you walking these corridors is bad for business, comprendes? You guys even smell like cops.’

Garcia frowned at Hunter before quickly bringing his left forearm to his nose, smelling it, then doing the same to his right one.

‘You mean, we’re making the place smell nice?’ he said.

Moreno looked back at him, a reply almost materializing on his lips, but then he thought better of it.

Apartment two-eleven was the first door on the left as they entered the hallway. Moreno was about to slide his master key into the lock when Hunter grabbed his arm, gesturing for him not to. He pulled the building super to one side, moving him away from a direct line with the front door.

‘We knock first,’ Hunter whispered.

‘Why, ese? I told you, he’s not here.’

‘That may well be, but we still knock first.’

Hunter pulled Moreno away so that the two of them were standing against the wall to the left of the door. Garcia did the same, but on the right side.

Hunter knocked three times.

No answer.

Another three knocks.

Still no answer.

‘See? I told you, ese.’

‘OK.’ Hunter nodded. ‘You can use your key now.’

As Moreno unlocked the door and pushed it open, it creaked just as loudly as the one down at the entrance lobby.

From the outside, they could only see as far as the light that seeped in from the hallway allowed them to, which wasn’t far. Most of the room lay in shadow as all the curtains were drawn shut.

‘Lights?’ Hunter asked, once again pulling Moreno back a few steps.

‘On the wall.’ Moreno indicated from outside. ‘To the right of the door.’

Garcia reached in and flipped the switch.

At the center of the ceiling, a bulb flickered twice before coming on, bathing the small room in crisp, bright light.

‘Mathew Hade?’ Hunter called from the door.

No reply.

‘Mathew Hade?’ Hunter called again. ‘This is the LAPD. We would like to ask you a few questions.’

There was no one there.

As both detectives finally stepped inside, they paused, their eyes searching the room. It smelled slightly of bleach and disinfectant, with a hint of orange, as if somebody had spring-cleaned it not that long ago.

Intrigued, Garcia turned and checked the number on the door again – 211. They were indeed in the right apartment.

The room was completely bare, save for a simple wooden desk by the window on the north wall, a single chair and a two-drawer cabinet to the left of it. There was no sofa, no rug, no table and chairs, no TV, nothing hanging from the walls, none of the items one would expect to see in a living room.

‘Like I said, ese,’ Moreno said again. ‘He’s not here. I haven’t seen him for several days.’

‘It looks like he’s never been here,’ Garcia said, still looking around.

The living room offered two other doors, one that led to a small kitchen and the other to the bedroom and the bathroom.

While Garcia walked over to the window to pull open the curtains, Hunter moved into the bedroom. It was just as bare as the living room, with a single bed pushed up against the east wall, a bedside table with no drawers and a twodoor wooden wardrobe.

There was no bedding on the bed, as if no one had ever slept there. Resting against the wardrobe were an empty plastic bucket and a string mop.

Hunter grabbed a pair of latex gloves from his pocket before pulling open the wardrobe doors.

Empty.

One drawer at the bottom of it.

Also empty.

Hunter got down on his knees and took a look under the bed and the wardrobe.

There was nothing there. There was nothing anywhere.

He lifted the mattress and checked under it.

Clear.

He ran his hand across the top of the wardrobe.

Nothing but what was expected – dust.

He pulled the wardrobe away from the wall and checked behind it.

Nothing on the wall.

Nothing on the back of the wardrobe.

Hunter reached for the plastic bucket and checked inside it. Completely dry. Not even a drop of water. He brought the bucket to his nose. It carried the same faint smell of bleach and disinfectant with a hint of orange as the living room.

Hunter put the bucket down and checked the string mop. There was still a little bit of moisture on its strings. It smelled identical to the bucket, only not as faint. Hunter guessed that it had been used no more than four, maybe five days ago.

He returned the mop to its place, turned and stepped into the small, white-tiled bathroom. There was a washing basin on the left with a fixed mirror on the wall above it. The toilet was against the wall opposite the basin, with the shower enclosure to its right. On the basin, Hunter found a shaving razor and a half-used tube of toothpaste – no toothbrush. The piece of soap inside the shower enclosure looked like it had only been used a couple of times. There were no towels of any sort inside the bathroom, paper or otherwise. No toilet paper either.

Hunter paused in front of the mirror and stared at his tired reflection for a moment, as though if he stared at it long and hard enough, the mirror would either tell him a story or reveal the reflection of who had last been standing before it.

Neither happened.

Hunter returned to the bedroom.

There was no doubt that apartment two-eleven was nothing more than a crash pad, a place Mathew Hade used from time to time and for only a day or so at a time. This was not where he lived – and if he really was who they were looking for, it certainly wasn’t the place where he kept his victims.

Sixty-Five

While Hunter searched the bedroom and the bathroom inside Mathew Hade’s apartment, Garcia checked the rest of the flat.

At least, this won’t take long, he thought, approaching the only three furniture items in the barren living room.

The desk and chair seemed relatively new, but the old-looking two-drawer cabinet looked as though it had been salvaged from the city dump. It was covered in nicks and scratch marks. The good news was that the drawers had no locking mechanism, which made things a lot easier.

From his pocket, Garcia retrieved a pair of latex gloves and slipped them on before pulling open the cabinet’s top drawer. Inside it, he found several sheets of regular, white printer paper, nothing else. He removed the sheets from the drawer and quickly fanned through them.

They were all blank.

Just to be sure, he swapped hands and fanned through them again from the other side.

Yes, all blank.

He returned them to the drawer before closing it and moving on to the bottom one. It slid open a lot less smoothly than the first drawer, as if one of its runners had been severely damaged.

From the look of the cabinet, Garcia didn’t find that at all surprising.

The drawer came open only about halfway before jamming.

Garcia tried again.

Same result. It was certainly jammed.

He tried once more, giving it a firm pull this time, but it made no difference, the drawer got stuck at the exact same point. But the firm pull made something that was lying at the back of the drawer roll forward – a red, BIC Cristal, ballpoint pen.

A millisecond later, Garcia’s memory spat out images of the note the killer had sent Mayor Bailey, and the one that had been slid under Hunter’s door. Both had been written on crisp white sheets of printer paper, and forensics had identified the pen used as a red, BIC Cristal, large ballpoint pen.

Garcia reached for the pen inside the drawer and for a quick instant he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. On the body of the pen, in tiny white letters, he saw the BIC logo, followed by the words ‘Cristal 1.6 mm’.

In his hand, he was holding a red, BIC Cristal, large ballpoint pen.

Garcia curbed his excitement and retrieved a plastic evidence bag from his pocket. He dropped the pen inside it, sealing the bag.

Squatting down, Garcia looked inside the jammed drawer. It seemed empty. He stuck his hand inside it and felt around. Nothing. He closed the drawer and reopened the top one. From the paper pile inside it he retrieved the topmost sheet, before lifting it up to the window to study it against the light.

He was looking for impressions that could’ve been left behind. Depending on the pressure a person applies to a pen when writing, if a second sheet of paper is used as a base for the one that is being written on, partial and sometimes even full indentations might be left behind.

The sheet of paper was completely clear. No impressions of any kind.

Garcia reached for the sheet at the bottom of the pile and repeated the process, just in case he had returned the pile to the drawer the wrong way around after fanning through them.

Nothing.

Still, together with the red BIC Cristal, they would all be taken back to the forensics lab for further analysis.

Garcia left the living room and entered the kitchen. It was even more barren than the living room. There was a fridge-freezer at one end of the short kitchen worktop, a sink at the center of it and a small stove at the other end. Just under the worktop, Garcia saw two drawers together with three cupboards. Three other cupboards were mounted on to the wall above the sink. The only item on the chrome-plated dish rack to the left of the sink was a sponge. An electric kettle was to the left of the stove. There was no dishwasher, no washing machine and no microwave oven. Just like the rest of the apartment, a faint smell of bleach and disinfectant with a hint of orange lingered in the kitchen.

Garcia started by checking the fridge. There was nothing inside it except two small and unopened bottles of water. The inside of the fridge was sparkling clean. The freezer was completely empty.

Next he checked the three cupboards on the wall.

First one on the left.

Empty.

Middle one.

Empty.

Last cupboard.

Garcia found a can of tomato soup, a jar of coffee and a small pack of sugar, nothing else.

He moved on to the cupboards under the sink.

First one on the left.

He found a bottle of bleach, one of washing-up liquid, one trigger spray bottle of Orange Plus, two large sponges and a pack of cleaning cloths.

Middle one.

There were two plates, two tumblers and one coffee mug, all of them plastic.

Last cupboard.

Empty.

Garcia closed them all and reached for the sponge and the dish rack. Both were completely dry. No one had used either in a while.

He placed the sponge back on the rack and opened the drawer by the fridge.

Empty.

He walked to the other end of the kitchen worktop and opened the final drawer. All he found was one fork, one knife and a teaspoon – again, all of them plastic – together with a plain black book of matches with no logo on the front or back cover. He picked it up and flipped it open. The matches were also black with a bright red head. Five of them were missing. The inside of the book of matches differed from the outside because it was white instead of black.

Garcia stared at it for a couple of seconds before he finally realized what he was looking at.

Goosebumps rose on the back of his neck again. ‘Fuck!’