Текст книги "I Am Death"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 26 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

Six

Captain Blake waited while both detectives checked the file in their hands. It opened with an 11x8-inch colored portrait of a woman.

‘Her name was Nicole Wilson,’ the captain began, leaning back and sitting against the edge of her desk. ‘Twenty years old. She was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana, where her parents still live. About a year ago, after being accepted into law school at CSULA on a full academic scholarship, she moved here to Los Angeles. Her records show that she was an outstanding student. For pocket money, and when her college schedule allowed her, she would sometimes babysit a few nights a week. This was supposed to be her first college summer break, but instead of going back to Indiana to see her folks, she decided to stay around because she managed to land a temp job, running errands for a small law firm in downtown LA. One of her professors helped her get the job.’

Hunter and Garcia studied the opening photograph for a moment. Nicole Wilson had a round face, with expressive olive-shaped eyes complemented by a petite nose and full lips. Her cheeks were dusted with a handful of freckles, and her hair was light brown in color, coming down to the top of her shoulders.

‘Seven days ago,’ Captain Blake continued, as Hunter and Garcia moved past the opening photograph and on to the second page of the file – Nicole Wilson’s fact sheet – ‘Nicole was babysitting for Audrey and James Bennett, a wealthy couple who live in Upper Laurel Canyon, when she was abducted.’

Hunter’s questioning gaze moved from the fact sheet to Captain Blake.

‘Yes,’ the captain confirmed, reading the unspoken question in her detective’s eyes. ‘She was abducted while she was babysitting, not on her way to work, or on her way back. The perpetrator took her from inside the house.’

Hunter’s attention returned to the file. He flipped to the next page and skimmed through it. ‘No struggle?’

‘Forensics found no sign of it,’ Captain Blake replied, then paused for a second, observing both detectives before nodding once. ‘I know what you two are thinking – that the perpetrator was probably known to Nicole, and that she willingly allowed him into the house, hence the lack of evidence of a struggle. The same thought came to me when I first read that file, but no, that doesn’t seem to be the case here.’

‘How come?’ Garcia asked.

Captain Blake shrugged and moved over to the espresso machine on the corner by the bookshelves. ‘Because the perpetrator tricked Nicole with a bogus story.’ She chose a coffee capsule and inserted it into the machine. This was her second cup since she’d arrived at her office less than half an hour ago.

‘A bogus story?’ Hunter frowned.

‘That’s correct. Coffee?’

Both detectives shook their heads.

The captain watched the last drops of coffee trickle into her cup while she clarified: ‘It looks like the perpetrator pretended to be Ms. Bennett’s cousin from Texas, who was supposedly staying over at their garage apartment.’ She took a moment, allowing Hunter and Garcia to absorb the information before moving on. ‘Audrey Bennett doesn’t have a cousin from Texas. They had no one staying over at their garage apartment.’ She dropped a single sweetener tablet into her cup. ‘And get this, the perpetrator was having a sandwich in the kitchen when Nicole walked in on him.’

Curiosity and intrigue flooded Garcia’s face.

‘He was having a sandwich?’

‘According to Ms. Bennett, yes.’

‘Wait a second.’ Hunter lifted a hand. ‘I’m guessing that if Nicole was babysitting for the Bennetts, they were out of the house at the time?’

‘That’s correct,’ Captain Blake confirmed. ‘They were attending a judge’s dinner. James Bennett is a high-flying lawyer.’

‘So if they were out of the house, how does Ms. Bennett know about the perpetrator posing as her cousin?’

‘Well, that’s where it starts to get creepy,’ Captain Blake said, sipping her coffee. ‘The perpetrator allowed Nicole to answer a call from Audrey Bennett and tell her about the man she had met in the kitchen, before taking her.’ She indicated the file in Hunter’s hands. ‘A very detailed transcript of the interview Missing Persons did with Audrey Bennett is in there, next page along. It also includes her entire account of the phone conversation she had with Nicole.’

Hunter and Garcia turned to it.

‘How did the perpetrator gain access to the house?’ Hunter asked.

‘As yet unknown,’ the captain replied. ‘There were no signs of forced entry but the back door was unlocked. The problem is, Ms. Bennett can’t remember if she had left it that way or not. But even if she hadn’t, Nicole could’ve unlocked it for some reason and forgot to relock it, there’s no way of confirming that. And there’s also the possibility that the perpetrator could’ve simply picked the lock. Forensics said that there was no damage to it, but we all know that with the right knowledge and tools, door locks aren’t that hard to breach.’

Hunter nodded and carried on reading.

‘Ms. Bennett called the police immediately after disconnecting with Nicole,’ Captain Blake added. ‘But by the time they got to the house – twenty-two minutes later – Nicole was gone.’

‘Any CCTV cameras around where the Bennetts live?’ Garcia asked.

Captain Blake shook her head. ‘None. You’d have to go all the way to the bottom of Hollywood Hills to find one.’

‘How about the boy she was babysitting?’ Hunter asked, reading from the file.

‘Joshua, three years old,’ the captain confirmed. ‘He wasn’t touched. They found him asleep upstairs, just the way his parents had left him. The boy heard and saw nothing.’

‘Are Nicole’s parents rich?’ Hunter asked.

‘Not by any stretch of the imagination. Father is a school-teacher. Mother works in a local supermarket.’

‘So the perpetrator broke into a wealthy family’s house to abduct the babysitter?’ Garcia this time. ‘Not the boy?’

‘As unnatural as it sounds, yes,’ Captain Blake answered, having one more sip of her coffee. ‘And that’s our first tricky question – why? Why complicate things for himself? He could’ve made his job a lot easier by taking Nicole either before she got to the Bennett’s house, or after she left. A simple approach and grab job. Why increase his risk by breaking into the house and taking her from inside?’

Both detectives understood their captain’s concern very well. They all knew a street abduction made collecting left-behind clues and evidence like fingerprints, fibers, hairs and so on infinitely harder, not to mention the fact that everything gets exposed to the elements. Clues could easily be blown away by a gust of wind, washed away by rain, or contaminated in many different ways. But if a perpetrator breaks into a confined space like a house, the risk of third-party contamination decreased exponentially, and he allowed the police an elements-free and much more focused area to work with.

‘One of two reasons,’ Garcia replied, first looking at Hunter, then back at Captain Blake. ‘He was either too stupid to figure out that he would increase his risk of being identified, or he was confident enough to know that he wouldn’t leave anything behind.’

Hunter nodded his agreement.

‘And if he was so bold as to be having a sandwich in the kitchen and to allow his victim to answer a phone call before making his move,’ Garcia carried on, ‘I don’t think that we’re looking at reason number one here, are we, Captain?’

Captain Blake finished her coffee, placing her cup on her desk.

‘No,’ she finally replied. ‘Forensics scrutinized the house for two whole days. Everything they found was matched either to the Bennetts or to Nicole Wilson herself. The unsub left absolutely nothing behind.’

‘Did the FBI get involved?’ Garcia asked.

The captain shook her head. ‘No. The Adult Missing Persons Unit didn’t request any help from the Bureau. As I’ve said, Nicole Wilson was twenty years old, not a minor, which means that the Lindbergh Law doesn’t apply to her.’

Hunter got to the end of the dossier. There was nothing else. ‘So when was her body found?’

Captain Blake walked back behind her desk, opened the top drawer on the left and retrieved two new files.

‘In the early hours of this morning. It was left on an empty field by Los Angeles International Airport. And if the house-break-in-sandwich-eating scenario wasn’t creepy enough – have a look at this shit.’

Seven

Squirm waited by the metal sink in the kitchen. He kept his eyes low, tracing the black-and-white squares on the old linoleum floor he had just cleaned to as much of a shine as it would go. His hands were shackled in front of him. A half-foot-long heavy metal bar kept them apart, but each end had been specially fitted with a rotating cuff, allowing Squirm’s hands some restricted movement, enough for him to handle a mop and scrubbing brushes. From the center of the metal bar, a long chain connected it to the loop that had been fixed into the east wall. Every room in the house had one, like power points, including the bathroom. Squirm was always shackled to a wall, no matter where he was. There were metal loops built into the walls in the basement too, but he was never allowed down there.

Actually, the basement scared Squirm speechless. Screams came from down there – desperate, full-of-fear-and-over-flowing-with-pain screams. The kind that would haunt one’s dreams for ever. He’d heard them for the past few days. A woman’s voice, pleading, begging for the man to let her go. She even yelled out her name once. Or at least Squirm thought it was her name – Nicole.

The screams stopped sometime yesterday. He hadn’t heard her since.

The man was also in the kitchen, sitting at the small, square breakfast table a few feet in front of Squirm. He was having his usual breakfast which consisted of a bowl of cereal, a cup of coffee, a few slices of cheese, a raw egg, and some toast. His full attention was on the newspaper on the table, by his coffee cup. He didn’t even seem to acknowledge the boy’s presence.

Squirm’s stomach growled like a confused dog and that made every muscle in his body go rigid. He was not supposed to make a sound. The man had told him that.

Terrified, the boy’s eyes flicked to the man for just a split second before quickly focusing on his manacled hands. The cuffs, even though they allowed him some movement, were fitted tight around his tiny wrists and his morning cleaning chores had dug them further into his flesh. A thin circle of fresh blood decorated each wrist like a crimson bracelet.

The man didn’t look up.

Squirm’s stomach growled again, this time for a while longer. He hadn’t eaten anything for a whole day. There had been no scraps left over for breakfast, lunch or dinner the day before. He was so hungry he could feel his legs weakening under him.

The man finally finished eating and stood up. He paused by the kitchen door and looked back at the boy.

‘Lucky morning for you today, Squirm.’ He nodded at the table. ‘I’m not that hungry. You can finish that up.’

Squirm looked at what was left but didn’t move. He was too scared to. The man had left him a bite of dried toast, about a sip of coffee, and three, maybe four spoonfuls of cornflakes with milk.

‘Go on, Squirm, eat,’ the man ordered.

Squirm rushed to the table, his shaking hands first reaching for the piece of dried toast. He grabbed it and immediately shoved it into his mouth, as though if he didn’t eat it fast enough it would all be taken away from him again. It tasted like the most delicious piece of toast he’d ever eaten.

The man watched him.

Squirm grabbed the coffee cup and drank whatever was left in it in one single gulp. It tasted so bitter his entire face scrunched up. He had never liked coffee, not without milk and sugar, but right now he would take whatever he got.

Squirm then reached for the bowl of cereal and the plastic spoon.

‘Nah-ah,’ the man said with a headshake. ‘You know the rules, Squirm. No spoon. No cutlery. Use your hands, like the dirty animal you are.’

Squirm dropped the spoon, grabbed the bowl with his right hand and brought it to his lips, but the metal bar between his wrists made it all too awkward, and though he managed to tip some of it into his mouth, a whole spoonful spilled down his chin and on to the table and floor.

‘Are you throwing food away, you useless piece of shit?’ the man asked angrily, taking a threatening step toward the boy.

‘No, sir, no, sir, no, sir. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’

As carefully as he could, the boy placed the bowl back on the table and looked down at the tiny mess he had created.

‘Lick it all up,’ the man said. ‘Lick it up now.’

Squirm bent down, bringing his mouth to the table. He first sucked all the milk off the table surface, before using his tongue and lips to collect each cornflake that had spilt out of the bowl.

‘The floor too,’ the man demanded, indicating it with his index finger. ‘You better eat that up right now, or else . . .’ He began undoing his belt.

In a flash, Squirm got down on his hands and knees and began sucking the milk from the floor. When he was done, he once again used his tongue and lips to collect the cornflakes.

‘I want that floor looking just the way it did before you dirtied it. I want it shining, do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir. I’ll mop it again, sir.’

‘No. I don’t want you to mop it again. The privilege of using a mop is gone. I want you to lick it clean.’

Squirm paused for just a moment.

Slam.

The belt hit Squirm across the middle of his back so hard that his already weak arms gave in and his head went crashing against the floor, making his eyes flutter.

‘Did I stutter, Squirm? I said lick . . . the . . . floor.’

Anger thickened the air.

It took Squirm a moment to regain his balance and get rid of the dizziness. Without another ounce of hesitation, he began licking the floor where he had spilt his cornflakes.

‘That’s right, Squirm, nice, long strokes.’ The man walked over to the table, grabbed the cereal bowl and emptied the rest of its contents on to the floor. ‘Now finish your breakfast,’ he said, laughing.

Squirm never stopped. He carried on licking every drop of milk and every tiny piece of cornflake from the floor. When he was done with the cornflakes, the man made him lick the entire kitchen floor. By the time he was done, Squirm’s tongue was bleeding.

Eight

Hunter and Garcia flipped open the murder file that Captain Blake had given them. This one also began with a photograph, but this time it wasn’t a portrait. It showed Nicole Wilson’s body as it had been found in the early hours of the morning. She was dressed in blue jeans, a black T-shirt under a half-unzipped light-gray California State University sweatshirt and black sneakers – no socks. She had no makeup on, and her hair looked wet, with the fringe plastered against her forehead. There was no blood on her, on her clothes, or on the ground surrounding the body. No cuts or wounds were visible either. No apparent cause of death, but Hunter and Garcia immediately understood why Captain Blake was so concerned. The body had been left lying on its back on an empty green patch of grass. The arms were stretched out to her sides in a horizontal line, palms facing up. The legs had also been stretched out and pulled apart as far as they would go, creating a V shape. The overall image was of a human star and that was what sent alarm bells ringing. From experience, they all knew that specific body positioning hinted strongly at one thing – ritual. And ritual killers rarely struck only once.

The next photograph was a close-up of Nicole’s face. Her skin had turned a light shade of purple and acquired a waxy, semi-shiny texture. Her lips had gone white from the lack of blood circulation, and even though her eyes were closed Hunter could tell that they had already begun to sink a little deeper into her skull. But what most caught the LAPD detective’s attention were the abrasions at the edges of her mouth, together with the small patch of skin that began at the corner of her lips, ran across her cheeks and disappeared behind her neck. It showed a very slight change of color, a little darker than the rest of the skin on her face, and that indicated that she’d been gagged with an overly tight restraint.

Hunter slowly flipped through the next few pictures and paused when he came to the ones showing a close-up of Nicole’s hands and feet. The skin around her wrists and ankles showed abrasions and a change of color that were similar to the ones on her face, but the marks were a lot more prominent around her ankles, which was a little strange. She had obviously been gagged, tied up and kept that way for a considerable amount of time, but for some reason the restraints around her ankles seemed to have been a lot tighter than the ones around her wrists or mouth.

The last photograph was a wide-angle shot of the location. Only then could Hunter and Garcia see that Nicole’s body had been left in the shade of a tall and bushy tree, with large, bright-green, heart-shaped leaves.

Hunter checked his watch – 7:48 a.m.

‘When is the autopsy being performed?’ he asked. ‘Has anyone expedited it?’

He knew that if the body had been found in the early hours of the morning there was no way it would still be on location. The heat of summer would speed up the decomposition process and vital clues, if any had been left on the body, ran a severe risk of being lost.

‘Yes,’ Captain Blake replied. ‘As you know, heinous crimes, or anything that belongs to the UV Unit, take priority with the coroner. As far as I know, it will be top of the list this morning with Doctor Hove.’

Nine

Los Angeles County’s Chief Medical Examiner, Doctor Carolyn Hove, had once again woken up too early, this time two hours before her alarm was due to go off.

It hadn’t always been like this. Doctor Hove had never had problems sleeping until her husband of twenty years passed away a year and a half ago, and now the nights seemed longer and lonelier than ever.

She opened her eyes, but didn’t move. Lying on her back, she simply stared at the white ceiling, pondering if she should try and get back to sleep or not.

What is the point? she thought. Her brain was now wide-awake. Sleep had most certainly left the building, and any attempt to get it back would be futile. She knew that well enough. She’d tried it plenty of times before.

Decision made, she wasted no more time, getting up and making her way into the kitchen where she prepared herself a strong cup of black coffee. After a quick shower, another cup of coffee and a small but very healthy breakfast, she was ready to leave.

At that time in the morning, and with less traffic than usual, it took her just twenty-two minutes to cover the almost ten miles between her home in West Hollywood and the coroner’s office on North Mission Road.

As the doctor swiped her security card at the door of the main building and stepped into the lobby, the young, tall and wiry attendant sitting behind the reception counter looked at her without much surprise.

‘Couldn’t sleep again, Doctor Hove?’

‘Something like that,’ she replied with a feeble smile.

‘I really don’t know how you do it, Doc. I just can’t function if I don’t get a good night’s sleep. Have you tried cherry juice, or chamomile and lavender tea? They work wonders for me.’

‘I don’t really have a problem falling asleep,’ she explained, approaching the counter. ‘What’s tricky is staying in that state for long enough.’

The attendant nodded once. ‘Oh, I see. Yep, I hate it when that happens too.’

‘So what did we get overnight?’ the doctor asked while she checked something on her cellphone.

‘Let me have a look.’ The attendant turned his attention to the computer on the counter in front of him and quickly typed something in. ‘Not that busy a night, Doc, you’ll be glad to know,’ he said after a few seconds. ‘Only ten new bodies. Five male, four female, and a kid. Five of them seem to be drug related, one from sexual play, and four, including the kid, are homicides.’

Doctor Hove nodded, unsurprised. She had been the Los Angeles County Chief Medical Examiner for three years, and a senior medical examiner for the city of Los Angeles for twenty years prior to that. When it came to violent deaths, very little ever shocked her.

‘Oh, wait,’ the attendant said, as the doctor began to turn away. ‘One of the bodies is flagged as urgent.’

Doctor Hove chuckled. ‘Yeah, well, they usually are. Everyone always needs their results ASAP.’

‘I know,’ the attendant replied, raising his eyebrows. ‘But this one says LAPD’s UV Unit.’

That made Doctor Hove pause, turn around and return to the counter. ‘Who is it?’

The assistant brought up the file on his screen.

‘Female, twenty years of age, already identified as Nicole Wilson. No apparent cause of death. She was brought in just a couple of hours ago, Doc.’

The doctor chewed on those facts for a moment. She knew that UV Unit detectives would be calling or dropping by first thing in the morning, and then every hour after that until they had their results. She quickly made her decision.

‘OK. Can you please get someone to take her body to theater one?’

The attendant checked the clock on the wall to his left. ‘You’re going to autopsy her now?’

Usually when Doctor Hove came in early she dealt mainly with paperwork.

‘That’s the idea.’

‘But as I’ve said, she just came in about two hours ago, Doc,’ the attendant retorted, looking slightly surprised. ‘She hasn’t been prepped or anything.’

Before any autopsy examination, the body needs to be prepared for the post mortem – undressed, then sprayed with fungicide and thoroughly washed with disinfectant soap. That job usually fell to the morgue orderlies, but their shift wouldn’t start for at least another hour and a half.

‘It’s OK,’ Doctor Hove replied. ‘I’ll prep the body myself, it’s not a problem.’

‘You’re the boss,’ the attendant said, noting something down on a notepad. ‘Would you like me to find you an assistant for the autopsy? I can probably find you one while you’re prepping the body.’

‘No need. I’ll be fine on my own.’

After scrubbing up and disinfecting her hands, Doctor Hove made her way to Autopsy Theater One. The body of Nicole Wilson had already been wheeled in and transferred to one of the two stainless-steel tables that occupied the middle of the spotlessly clean, white linoleum floor.

Nicole Wilson was lying on her back, arms loosely resting by her side. Livor mortis, the discoloration of the body by the settling of blood, showed that the body had most probably been moved after death. She had not been killed in the location where she was found. Rigor mortis had also come and gone, which told the doctor that she’d been dead for over twenty-four hours. Her facial features were now essentially unrecognizable.

Doctor Hove first freed the body from its shoes. There were no cuts to Nicole Wilson’s feet or toes, but the doctor immediately noticed the tiny abrasions and color change to her ankles – ligature marks. Next, she removed the CSULA sweatshirt, which had bits of grass and dirt stuck to it. As each item of clothing was taken from the body, it was carefully placed into a clear-plastic evidence bag, which would later be handed over to forensics for further examination. Blood, urine and hair samples would also be collected, and oral and anal swabs taken.

As the doctor removed the victim’s sweatshirt, the first thing she noticed were the ligature marks on the woman’s wrists. Not surprising, since she had already found restraint marks on her ankles.

Using a pair of safety scissors, Doctor Hove proceeded to slice open Nicole Wilson’s T-shirt. As it came undone, she paused, her eyes slowly running up and down the woman’s torso.

‘Jesus Christ!’

After reaching for her digital camera and documenting everything, Doctor Hove finished undressing the body, sprayed it with fungicide and used a hose with a powerful water jet to methodically wash and disinfect every inch of it. With that over, she turned on her digital voice recorder and started the official examination.

She began by stating the date and time, followed by the case number. After that, she described the general state of the body. Now it was time to move into all the grisly details.

Using a magnifying headset with a directional light, Doctor Hove began by checking the skin around the neck. There were no suspicious bruises. A quick touch-examination also revealed that neither Nicole Wilson’s larynx nor her trachea had collapsed. The hyoid bone in her neck also didn’t seem to be fractured. There was absolutely nothing to suggest that she had been strangled by hand, or any other method.

Using her thumb and index finger, Doctor Hove pulled open Nicole’s eyelids and, with the help of the magnifying headset, carefully studied her eyes. As expected, her corneas were cloudy and opaque, but what the doctor was looking for were minute red specks that could be dotting her eyes or their lids, called petechiae. These tiny hemorrhages in blood vessels can occur anywhere in the body, and for a number of reasons, but when they occur in the eyes and on the eyelids it’s usually due to blockage of the respiratory system – suffocation or asphyxiation.

Doctor Hove saw none. It also didn’t seem like Nicole Wilson had died from lack of oxygen.

Her next step was to check all of Nicole’s cavities for any signs of aggression, sexual or otherwise. She began with her mouth, pulling it open and first checking for any trauma or skin and teeth color alteration. Certain poisons will leave a clear indication of having being used by either burning the fragile skin inside the victim’s mouth, or leaving a residue that will discolor the teeth and tongue, or both. Doctor Hove found no primary indications of poisoning, but she’d have to wait for the results from the toxicology tests to be completely sure.

She was about to move on when something caught her attention.

‘Wait a second,’ she whispered to herself, turning the light on her magnifying headset back on and squinting at the inside of Nicole Wilson’s mouth. ‘What do we have here?’

She examined the victim’s throat for a moment.

‘I’ll be damned.’

Carefully, the doctor moved the head left, then right, then down a fraction. She had no doubt about it, there was definitely something lodged in the victim’s throat.

From the instrument table to her right she grabbed a digital camera and proceeded to photograph the object undisturbed, snapping three shots from different angles. Once that was done, she retrieved a pair of surgical fishing forceps and inserted them into Nicole’s mouth. It took her just a couple of seconds to pinch the edge of the object she could see. It looked like a thick piece of paper. Cautiously, she began extracting it from the throat.

‘What the hell?’

What at first looked like a paper fragment just kept on coming – three, four, five inches long before it finally came loose. The piece of paper had been tightly rolled up into a tube, then inserted into Nicole Wilson’s throat.

Doctor Hove deposited the rolled-up piece of paper on to an aluminum tray on the table, grabbed her camera once again, and snapped a couple more shots.

She put the camera down and very slowly started to unroll the paper tube.

Despite everything she’d seen in all her years as a pathologist and medical examiner, and she’d seen things that defied belief, as she held the unrolled tube of paper in her hands, Doctor Hove had to pause for breath.

‘Oh fuck!’