Текст книги "I Am Death"

Автор книги: Chris (2) Carter

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Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 47 страниц)

Twenty-Nine

The man woke up as the first rays of the morning sun seeped through the dirty curtains covering the window on the east wall of his small bedroom. Out on the streets, garbage trucks were already noisily moving around and, far off in the distance, a couple of sirens wailed like coyotes barking at the moon.

He’d finished with Sharon Barnard in the early hours of the morning, but he’d felt too tired to drive all the way back to his place, a two-storey house somewhere northeast of Los Angeles. He’d found the property many years ago, hidden away in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by nothing but empty terrain. He had paid cash for it and used false documentation, which meant that the house could never be traced back to him. Because the building had been so run down, he’d got it for an absolute bargain. After years of repairs and heavy modifications, which he did himself, he ended up with just the perfect place. No matter how much noise anyone made from inside his house, no one would ever hear it. No one would ever come for them.

The one-bedroom apartment he was in at the moment was just a crash pad somewhere in East Los Angeles. He had paid a year’s rent in advance, all in cash. He really only used it from time to time, when circumstances demanded. Just like this morning.

As soon as the man opened his eyes, he swung his feet off the single bed, sat up straight and rubbed his face vigorously with both hands. He didn’t have a watch, and there was no clock anywhere in the room, but it didn’t matter. He knew exactly what time it was.

He reached for the medicine bottle that was on the bedside table, poured two capsules into his hand and flung them into his mouth. He didn’t need any water to wash them down. He simply filled his mouth with saliva, threw his head back with a jerk, and down they went. He walked naked to the window, his feet padding across the worn-out and scratched wooden floorboards. Outside, city life was slowly trickling on to the streets.

The man crossed over to the bathroom and paused before the small mirror on the wall just above the washbasin. He could barely recognize the stranger staring back at him now. So much had changed over the years. He would never be the same again. He knew that full well but it didn’t matter. Not to him. Not anymore.

In his reflection he saw the proud glint of accomplishment deep inside his eyes, and that caused him to smile, something he didn’t do too often.

He brushed his teeth and then stood under a warm shower, washing meticulously from his head down, before using a brand new razor blade to shave off every strand of hair from his body, including his head, a ritual he repeated every morning. When he was done, he dried himself and returned to his bedroom.

From the wardrobe he retrieved the only two items that hung there – a dark suit and long-sleeved white shirt. The tie rack on the back of the wardrobe door held a single black and white striped tie. There was a solitary drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe. It contained one pair of white boxers, a pair of black socks and a large plastic laundry bag. He slipped on the boxers and got dressed, then took the bed sheet, the pillowcase and the cover sheet and stuffed them into the laundry bag, together with the clothes he’d been wearing the night before.

He walked into the living room, grabbed a red pen and a loose sheet of paper from the bottom drawer of an old two-drawer cabinet, and took a seat at the wooden table that faced the window.

The man barely had to think about what he wanted to write. He’d gone through it in his head a thousand times, until he had it worded perfectly, just the way it needed to be.

Once he was done, he carefully folded the note in half and slipped it into a brown paper envelope. This time, the note wasn’t addressed to the mayor, or any other politician. He didn’t need to use the same trick again because this time he knew exactly who to address it to – Detective Robert Hunter, LAPD Robbery Homicide Division.

‘OK, Detective,’ he said in an angry voice. ‘Let’s see how good you really are.’

Thirty

Despite leaving San Francisco International Airport fifteen minutes late, US Airways flight 667 landed at Los Angeles International Airport exactly on time, at 08:55 a.m.

Tom Hobbs had been the lead flight attendant on the fully booked, one hour and twenty-five minute flight, and he had struggled through every second of it. By the time the flight touched down, Tom’s brain was turning to mush.

He staggered through the airport, pulling his inflight case behind him. He felt tired, hungover and nauseated, but the worst was now behind him. Or so he thought.

Tom slipped on his sunglasses and stepped out of the building into another scorching hot summer’s day. Outside he paused for an instant, trying to decide what to do. He had driven to the airport yesterday morning. His car was parked at the Central Terminal Area parking lot, building 2A, but he was in no state to drive. He felt shivery, his headache was now so intense it could wake the dead, and he hadn’t eaten anything yet; courtesy of the cocktail of drugs he had consumed overnight. Finally, deciding to listen to reason, Tom chose to leave his car where it was and take a cab home.

The almost ten-mile trip from Los Angeles LAX to the house he shared with Sharon in Venice took the cab driver just under half an hour. Twice Tom almost asked the driver to pull up by the side of the road. The stop and start motion, due to traffic lights and road congestion, brought him to the verge of being sick, but somehow he managed to hold it all in.

‘You OK back there?’ the cab driver asked, checking Tom through the rearview mirror. He was sloshing on the backseat with his head propped against the window, his eyes closed.

Tom’s reply was barely audible.

‘Buddy, you all right? Do you need me to stop? You don’t look so good.’ The driver asked again, this time reducing his speed.

Tom forced his eyes open. ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll be all right.’ His voice sounded hoarse and fatigued. ‘I just need to get home and get some sleep.’

‘Rough night?’ The driver followed the question with a dubious smile.

Tom saw it, and didn’t like it.

‘No, just bad food. I’ll be OK once I get home and get some sleep.’

The driver didn’t make any more small talk, but stepped on it and kept checking on Tom via the rearview mirror every couple of minutes. The faster he got to Tom’s address, the better. The last thing he wanted was to have to clean up puke from his back seat.

Tom stepped out of the cab and squinted at how bright the day seemed, even through his dark glasses. The glaring light made him feel sick again. He took an enormous deep breath, hoping that that would be enough to keep his nausea at bay.

‘I’ve gotta stop partying like this,’ he said to himself as he started toward the house. But that certainly wasn’t the first, and probably wouldn’t be the last time he’d recited those exact same words. The flesh was weak, he had admitted to that many times.

As he paused before his front door, his stomach roared so loudly he thought that maybe his large intestine was now devouring the small one. But despite how hungry he felt, Tom would think about food later. All he wanted right now was to collapse in bed and sleep until tomorrow morning.

He reached for his key and slid it into the door lock. His stomach roared again, this time louder and for longer, making him curl over a little with pain. OK, maybe he would have to eat a candy bar or something before heading for bed, just to try to calm the storm brewing inside his belly.

Tom tried rotating the key, but it didn’t move.

‘Hum!’

He tried a couple more times.

Nothing.

‘What the hell?’ He twisted the doorknob. The door was unlocked. Tom found that very strange. They never forgot to lock the door, not even when they were in the house. Venice wasn’t the most secure neighborhood in LA.

‘Sharon,’ he called, pushing open the door.

The first thing that hit him was the smell, an odd combination of putrid and bittersweet that seemed to rip its way though his nostrils before lodging itself at the back of his throat, choking him and making him gag. He felt a drop of bile come up through his esophagus and spill into his mouth. For some reason, instead of spitting it out, he swallowed it back down.

Tom squeezed his eyes tight behind his shades. The smell had also made his eyes water. He took off his sunglasses and rubbed his eyes.

‘What the fuck? Sharon?’ he called again. Had she left a whole chicken outside the fridge in this heat?

He coughed a couple of times before finally looking up and into his living room. His eyes were still half blurred, so it took them a few seconds to refocus.

For a moment Tom hesitated, his tired and confused brain struggling to make sense of the grotesque images his visual nerves were sending in. Reality had just morphed into the sickest nightmare he’d ever had.

‘What?’

His whispered voice caught in his throat as a rush of adrenalin took over his body. It fired bullets of uncontrollable fear down his spine and into his heart. Bitter bile shot back up from his stomach but this time it wasn’t only a drop, and this time it would’ve been impossible for Tom to swallow it all back down.

Sick exploded out of his mouth before he collapsed on to the floor and into the pool of blood his living room had become.

Thirty-One

‘Something changed him?’ Captain Blake asked with a frown. She was sitting behind her desk, nursing a fresh cup of coffee. ‘How so, Robert?’ Her hair was loose, tucked behind her ears, and she wore a black pencil skirt with a tight-fitting plum cotton blouse. She had asked Hunter and Garcia to come to her office as soon as she arrived at the PAB.

‘I’m not really sure how, Captain,’ Hunter replied. ‘But what I’m very certain of is that he chose the words he used on his note very carefully, doing his best to avoid doubt. He ends his third paragraph by writing: “Would they see what I have become, or would they falter?” He could very easily have written “see what I am?” Or “who I am?” Or “the monster in me?” Or something along those lines.’

‘But he didn’t,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.

‘No, he didn’t. I’m sure that he picked the word “become” for a specific reason.’

‘And you think that is because he wants us to understand he wasn’t always a psychopath. That something in the course of his life changed him. And whatever it was that happened to him, it made him decide to start killing people.’

Hunter nodded.

‘Like what, for example?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘He doesn’t allude to anything in his note, so right now that’s impossible to tell. Every individual reacts differently to different situations, Captain, you know that. Everybody’s got a different breaking point. For some people, it takes a lot for that switch to flick inside their heads, if it ever does. For others, not so much. Even a physical disease can potentially turn someone into a murderer.’

‘Wait a second,’ the captain said. ‘Physical disease?’

Garcia also looked at Hunter sceptically.

‘Yes,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘History is littered with different cases. In America, Charles Whitman is probably the most famous example.’

Captain Blake paused for a moment, searching her memory. The name finally came back to her. ‘Charles Whitman? Wasn’t he the Texas Bell Tower sniper?’

‘That’s right,’ Garcia said, now remembering it as well.

Charles Whitman was a former US Marine who became one of the most famous mass murderers in US history. On 1 August 1966, he started his killing spree by murdering his wife and then his mother. Once they were dead, he drove up to the University of Texas in Austin, where he was studying for a degree in engineering, and, armed with numerous firearms and several hundred rounds of ammunition, got up on to the highest point on campus, the main building’s clock tower. From there, he indiscriminately shot random passersby for almost two hours until he was finally shot dead by Austin police officer Houston McCoy. In those two horrible hours, Charles Whitman managed to kill fourteen people and injure thirty-two.

Understandably so, the press quickly branded Whitman a monster – but that was until the police discovered the note Whitman had left behind. A suicide note, or what essentially became a suicide note because Whitman was certain that he would die that day.

The note shocked everyone. In it, Whitman confessed that he himself found his behavior completely inexplicable. He began his note by stating that he adored his wife and mother, and that he had no idea why he was doing what he was doing. He went on to explain that in the past few months he had simply been consumed by excruciating headaches, like nothing he had ever experienced before, and those headaches brought with them overwhelming feelings of rage and destructive impulses which he found harder and harder to resist.

Because he was certain that he would be killed that day, Whitman ended his note by begging the authorities for his brain to be autopsied for signs of physical disease. The authorities complied, and it was discovered that Charles Whitman had a brain tumor that seemed to be just a few months old. The tumor was located in the hypothalamus, and it was pressing on to his amygdala. The coroner confirmed that Whitman’s terrible headaches were certainly caused by the tumor. In the USA, Whitman’s case opened a whole new door to the way psychologists and psychiatrists approached the mental state of a supposedly sociopathic murderer.

‘So you’re saying that our killer could have a brain tumor now?’ Captain Blake asked in a semi-sarcastic tone.

‘He could,’ Hunter admitted. ‘But that’s not what I’m saying, Captain. I’m just trying to reinforce the fact that, with the little we have, it’s impossible to do anything else other than speculate at this time, and that will lead us nowhere. We all know this.’

‘And you don’t think that you’re reading too much into every word this nut case has written?’ the captain shot back. ‘You don’t think that he could’ve sent us that note just to fuck with us? As Carlos has suggested – to throw us down the wrong path? We all know that it has happened plenty of times before. After all, the note promised that we’d have another victim before sunrise today.’ The captain turned toward the large panoramic window and pointed at the sky. ‘Well, the sun has certainly risen, and we’ve got nothing yet. He could be bluffing for all we know, Robert. That note could be nothing but a gimmick.’

‘That’s not what the note says, Captain,’ Hunter came back.

Captain Blake glared at him. ‘Is it not?’

‘No. The note says that before the sun rises tomorrow, which is today, someone else will see it and feel it too. He’s talking about the monster that he has become. He’s telling us that before the sun came up today, someone else would have suffered and died by his hands. The note says nothing about the victim being delivered to us. If he decides to do the same thing he did with Nicole Wilson and call it in via the switchboard, that call could come in this afternoon, tomorrow, next week, or any time after that. We’re dancing to his tune here, Captain, and he can change the beat any time he likes.’

Mulling those words, Captain Blake reached for her cup of coffee and had a sip.

‘And no,’ Hunter added, ‘I don’t believe that he sent the mayor that note with the intention of fucking with us. The Polaroid and the victim’s mutilated body are proof that he’s more than serious.’

Captain Blake was about to say something else when the phone on her desk rang.

‘Give me a sec,’ she said as she took the call.

No words were needed. The look in her eyes as she stared back at her detectives told them all they needed to know.

The killer wasn’t bluffing.

Thirty-Two

The house was in a pleasant-looking cul de sac down a small private road in Venice, just a couple of blocks away from Venice Beach. It was painted white, with blue-framed windows, a hipped roof, and a small front yard that seemed to be in urgent need of some attention. A knee-high, white wooden fence surrounded the property, which was set back from the road, isolating it even more from its neighbors. But the fence was there simply for decoration, not security. It wouldn’t stop anyone from getting to the house, or moving around toward its backyard. Access to every door and window was kid’s play.

There was a single garage to the right of the house, but the only cars on the driveway were a police vehicle and a forensics van. Despite the house being tucked away at the end of a private and very quiet road, the crowd of curious onlookers that had gathered outside the police perimeter was already substantial and seemed to be growing fast.

Garcia pulled up by one of the three black and white units that were parked on the street, just outside the house. The press was also there, crowding up the area even more.

A couple of reporters recognized the UV Unit detectives as they stepped out of Garcia’s car and immediately started shouting questions from across the road.

They fell on deaf ears. Without even turning to acknowledge them, Hunter and Garcia simply flashed their credentials at the two policemen guarding the perimeter’s edge and stooped under the yellow crime-scene tape.

A third police officer who was standing to the left of the house’s front porch saw the two new arrivals and began making his way toward them.

‘You guys from the UV Unit?’ he asked as he got closer.

The officer was in his early forties, with natural suntanned skin, a cleft chin and a thick, black horseshoe mustache, which he clearly dedicated a lot of upkeep time to. His eyes were as dark as night, but the look in them was hesitant, scared even.

‘Yes, that’s us,’ Garcia replied, indicating the badge clipped to his belt. Hunter did the same.

‘I’m Sergeant Perez, with West Bureau,’ he said, extending his hand.

Both detectives shook it and introduced themselves.

‘West Bureau took the nine-one-one call earlier today,’ the sergeant informed them. ‘I was first response. First through the door.’

They began moving toward the house.

‘OK, so what do we have in there?’ Garcia asked.

Sergeant Perez stopped walking and allowed his worried expression to shift from Garcia to Hunter.

‘I’m not actually sure I know how or what to call it.’ His tone of voice was cautious. His gaze settled on the house before him and he gave both detectives a subtle, disbelieving headshake. ‘I’ve been an officer for over twenty years, all of them with the LAPD. God knows I’ve attended crime scenes words wouldn’t be able to describe, and nothing can erase them from my memory. But in there –’ he nodded his head again in the direction of the house – ‘nothing I’ve ever seen comes close. Inhumane is the only word I can think of. Way beyond sadistic.’

That explains the heavy press presence, Hunter thought. Word of the sort of violence used by the perpetrator had obviously been leaked to the media, which wasn’t surprising. Not only did they scan police radio frequencies 24/7, but they also paid informers inside the force for that sort of intelligence, and they paid well.

They reached the front porch, where a couple of forensic agents were hard at work. The first was checking the wooden floorboards for footprints or any sort of residues that could’ve been left behind. The second one was dusting the door handle and frame. A couple of bloody handprints were clearly noticeable against the door’s light-blue color.

‘Anonymous nine-one-one call?’ Hunter asked.

To their surprise, Sergeant Perez shook his head.

‘Nope. The victim’s housemate found the body,’ he said, tilting his head toward the black and white unit parked in the driveway. The unit’s passenger door was open. Sitting on the passenger seat with his feet on the ground, his elbows resting on his knees and his face buried in the palms of his hands was a tall, thin man who looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties. His short, dark-brown hair was completely disheveled, and he was wearing what was undoubtedly an air steward’s uniform. Part of his white shirt and the front of his dark-blue jacket seemed to be covered in blood.

‘His name is Thomas Hobbs,’ Sergeant Perez continued, reading from the notepad he’d retrieved from his police belt. ‘Twenty-three years of age. Born and raised here in Los Angeles, Pomona Valley. He shares this house with one other person, Sharon Barnard, who, according to Mr. Hobbs, and he had to base this conclusion purely on the jewelry she wore, appears to be the victim. They both work for US Airways.’

‘Wait a second,’ Garcia interrupted. ‘Appears to be the victim?’

Garcia was six-foot two. Perez was five-foot six. The sergeant had to look up to meet the detective’s stare.

‘I guess you’ll understand when you walk in there.’

Garcia shot a worried glance at Hunter.

‘Mr. Hobbs had been away for a day and a half,’ Sergeant Perez explained. ‘This morning he was head steward on a flight from San Francisco back to LA. He wasn’t feeling too well, so after he landed he decided to leave his car at LAX and take a cab home. He found the victim as soon as he opened his front door.’

The sergeant shifted his weight from foot to foot.

‘Unsurprisingly, the sight was way too much for him and he collapsed. That was before he made the nine-one-one call.’ Perez flipped a page on the notepad. ‘As he passed out, he fell forward and into his living room. That explains the blood on his clothes. He’s still in shock so getting any coherent information out of him at the moment is a monstrous task, but you’re welcome to try it if you like. It took me half an hour to get these few details.’ He wiggled the notepad he was holding.

‘Any information on the “possible” victim?’ Hunter asked.

‘Very little,’ Perez replied, consulting his notepad again. ‘Name is Sharon Barnard. Twenty-two years old. Also born and raised here in LA. We did a quick check with US Airways. She finished her last shift – a return flight to Kansas City – yesterday afternoon. She landed at LAX at seventeen twenty-five. We have no indication that she went anywhere else once she left the airport, so we’re assuming that she came straight home. With rush-hour traffic and without stopping anywhere for groceries or anything, she would probably have got home some time between eighteen thirty hours and nineteen hundred hours.’

Hunter and Garcia nodded their understanding.

‘Any signs of a break-in?’ Hunter’s question was directed more at the forensic agent checking the front door.

The agent stopped dusting the doorframe, looked back at the detective and shook his head.

‘Nothing here. The frame isn’t broken or cracked. The lock hasn’t been picked or tampered with. We’ve got a couple of fingerprints from the door handle. Judging by size alone, one of them is definitely female. The bloody hand-prints –’ he indicated the one just above the doorknob, and the one on the outside frame – ‘belong to the guy who found the body.’ He nodded toward the police unit on the drive-way. ‘He used the door and the frame to steady himself as he got up from the floor after fainting.’

‘Have you found a breaching point?’ Hunter asked. ‘Any idea of how the perpetrator got in?’

‘No, nothing yet. Apparently the front door was unlocked when the housemate got home,’ the agent revealed. ‘All the windows are unbroken, and they were all closed and shut from the inside. The back door was also locked.’

‘Here,’ Sergeant Perez said, handing Hunter and Garcia two brand new Tyvek coveralls inside sealed plastic bags.

Both detectives took the bags, ripped them open and started suiting up. When they were done, they pulled the hoods over their heads and each slipped on a pair of latex gloves.

‘I would sincerely suggest that you go for the nose masks too,’ Sergeant Perez commented.

Nose masks in place, they stepped up to the front door. The forensic agent who had been dusting the door handle and frame took a step to his right and pulled the door open.

‘Mind the blood,’ Sergeant Perez said as he turned and walked away.

At last Hunter and Garcia stepped into the living room and immediately paused. Their eyes tried to take everything in, but their brains struggled to comprehend the scene in front of them.

Garcia breathed out, and his words came out as a whisper.

‘What the fuck?’