I Am Death

by Chris Carter

  The second note, the one that Hunter had spent the last three hours transcribing, had been sent over to the forensics lab, together with the Polaroid photograph of the victim in captivity, immediately after he and Garcia had left Captain Blake’s office earlier that afternoon.

  Hunter was no graphologist, but he didn’t need a forensics report to tell him that the notes had been written by the same person. Despite the killer using his fingers to inscribe the first note, and a red pen to write the second, his handwriting was impressively steady.

  The killer had written both notes in cursive handwriting, and his calligraphy was firm but gracious. Despite the paper having no guiding lines, all the letters stood in perfect symmetry to one another, and they flowed in beautifully measured strokes and shapes. This told Hunter that the person they were looking for was meticulous, organized, paid particular attention to detail, and prided himself in everything he did, including how he murdered his victims.

  Twenty-Six

  The man finished tying his victim to the chair, got up and calmly walked over to the kitchen. After filling a large glass with water from the fridge, he strolled back to the center of the room and stood directly in front of her.

  Sharon Barnard was still unconscious, her ankles zip-tied to the chair’s legs, her arms firmly secured behind her back. Her head was low, her chin resting against her chest, her mouth semi-open, her lips a little out of line, falling to one side. The man studied her for an instant – the details of her facial structure, the symmetry of her neckline, the intoxicating beauty of her naked body. Sharon was undoubtedly a very attractive woman . . . but not for long.

  The man stood with his legs shoulder-width apart, steadied his body and threw the water on to her face.

  As the ice-cold liquid came into contact with her skin, Sharon jolted awake and immediately sucked in a lumpy breath. Her head jerked back in a fright. Her eyelids flickered like butterfly wings for a long moment, while from her lips came indecipherable, frightened sounds.

  The man waited patiently, his hands now tucked behind his back.

  Sharon finally managed to open her eyes. Her confused and drowsy gaze moved right, then left, ultimately settling on the figure in front of her.

  One . . . two . . . three seconds went by before Sharon looked properly at the man. There was something in his light-blue eyes, something in the way he looked at her that felt terribly familiar. She had met him somewhere before, Sharon was certain of it, but where?

  She forced her memory.

  Nothing.

  It didn’t matter how tightly she closed her eyes, or how much she begged her brain to remember it, her memory just wasn’t able to make the connection.

  Sharon opened her mouth in an effort to speak, or scream – she wasn’t sure herself – but her breathing was still too erratic, catching in her throat. Her diaphragm was unable to overcome her fear.

  Not a sound came out.

  Her lower jaw trembled, then her entire body, as if all of a sudden an arctic front had just climbed in through her window and clothed her.

  The man waited patiently, his hands still tucked behind his back. No movement whatsoever, just a cold stare locked on to her eyes like a predator stalking its prey.

  Sharon kept her petrified gaze on his for God knows how long. It was like she had been hypnotized by those deep, penetrating eyes. She trembled again, this time something that came from deep inside her, shaking her core, and that finally made her break eye contact. Her eyes moved right, then left again, but she was too frightened to understand what was happening to her, or where she was.

  At last she tried moving, first her legs, then her arms, but as she did so unbearable pain shot up from her feet and legs, and through her arms and shoulders. A pain so intense it made her gag. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she almost passed out again.

  Amused, the man waited patiently, his hands still tucked behind his back.

  As Sharon regained consciousness, she realized that the reason why she was unable to move was because she’d been tightly tied down to the chair she was sitting in. Cold water was still dripping from the tips of her wet hair on to her chest, stomach and thighs. She drew in a deep breath and steadied herself. Finally, a distant memory began to materialize inside her head. The phone call, the male voice at the other end, the sick joke about him being ‘death’, the door, the window, the fear. As she remembered, her expression changed.

  Sharon looked back at the man, pleading. That was when she realized something that her eyes had certainly noticed before but her brain had failed to register – over his clothes and shoes the man was wearing a see-through, hooded, plastic coverall. Only his face was exposed, nothing else. Then Sharon noticed his clothes through the coverall – not your regular everyday attire. He wore some sort of black, shiny jumpsuit, made out of something that hugged his body like a second skin. What came to her mind was – latex.

  The man held her stare for another second, then his lips stretched out slowly. Sharon couldn’t tell if that was a smile or not. If it was, it was like none she’d ever seen before. It carried no humor, no sarcasm, no sympathy, no apathy, no feelings of any kind. A completely emotionless facial expression that only served to scare her more.

  Sharon drew in another lumpy breath, and despite her fear, she felt her voice come back to her.

  She moved her lips, and every word came out through tears.

  ‘Plea . . . please. What do you want with me? Wh . . . why are you here? Please . . . just let me go. I’ll do anything you want.’

  The smile, or whatever it was, disappeared from the man’s lips. He was done waiting. It was time to do what he was there to do. He moved his hands from behind his back, revealing what he was holding.

  Sharon’s gaze first focused on his right hand, then on his left.

  Panic turned into terror.

  In an effort to clear her tears, she squeezed her eyes as tightly shut as she could. When she opened them again, the man had moved two steps closer.

  ‘Oh, God, no. Please don’t do this.’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ he asked. His voice carried no emotion.

  All Sharon could do was shake her head.

  ‘Oh, Sharon, Sharon. You disappoint me. I told you on the phone. Don’t you remember?’

  Tears came back to her eyes.

  ‘I. Am. Death.’ He smiled again. ‘And I have come for you.’

  Twenty-Seven

  When Garcia got to the office at 7:31 a.m., Hunter was seated on his chair with his back toward the door. His hands were behind his head with his fingers interlaced together. His legs were extended in front of him, the heels of his boots resting on the edge of his desk. He was staring at the picture board as if it was the first time he was seeing any of what had been pinned to it. There was an empty coffee mug by his computer keyboard, together with two candy bar wrappers. Garcia glanced at the coffee machine in the corner – empty. From the door, he also noticed the transcribed notes on Hunter’s desk. A couple of them had fallen on to the floor.

  ‘Did you spend the night in here?’ Garcia asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Hunter had.

  ‘No, not really,’ Hunter replied, without diverting his attention from the board. ‘I went home and had a shower.’

  ‘But no sleep.’ Garcia didn’t phrase it as a question.

  Hunter shrugged. ‘In the words of the great American poet, Jon Bon Jovi, I guess “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”.’

  Garcia chuckled. ‘Carry on this way and it won’t be long, my friend.’ He moved around to his desk, placed his rucksack on the floor and fired up his computer. ‘So what time did you get here this morning?’

  Hunter’s gaze moved to the clock on the wall just above the board.

  ‘About a quarter past five.’

  Garcia didn’t have to ask. He knew the reason why Hunter had gotten to the office so early – the threat the killer had added to the note he’d sent May
or Bailey: And before the sun rises tomorrow, someone else will see it and feel it too. And trust me, what you’ve seen is nothing compared to what is still to come, unless these so-called experts are able to stop me.

  ‘Have we got anything?’ Garcia asked, the play completely gone from his tone. ‘Any new nine-one-one calls?’

  Hunter finally moved his heels from his desk, sat up straight and swiveled his chair to face his partner.

  ‘No, nothing yet.’

  Both detectives knew that didn’t mean anything.

  ‘I checked with FedEx about the package that was delivered to Mayor Bailey yesterday,’ Garcia said, loading something up on to his computer screen.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The package was dropped off two days ago, just before lunchtime, at a FedEx Express drop box just outside Union Station.’ Garcia tilted his head to one side and followed it with a sigh. ‘Get this, neither of the two CCTV cameras on that corner of the station picked up anything. In fact, they were both concentrating on something else.’

  Hunter queried with an eyebrow lift.

  ‘Yep. He created a diversion,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘Small, homemade smoke bomb hidden inside a trashcan. Nothing major, just a single Ping-Pong ball wrapped in aluminum foil with a short fuse. Good to create enough smoke to get the attention of the cameras, but not enough to create panic. So, for at least a minute, everything else got overlooked.’

  ‘He would’ve needed just a second or two to drop the package into the box,’ Hunter said.

  Garcia nodded emphatically with his next words. ‘This guy is careful. No unnecessary risks. Better to be safe than sorry.’ He then jerked his chin at the mug and the wrappers on Hunter’s desk. ‘Was that breakfast?’

  Hunter’s left eyebrow lifted again. ‘More like a late night come early morning snack.’

  ‘Well, I really need a fresh cup,’ Garcia said, now indicating the coffee machine. ‘Would you like some?’

  ‘Have you managed to get any more of that stuff from Minas?’

  Hunter had always liked coffee, but unlike most people he knew he didn’t drink it for the caffeine. He needed no help staying awake or with his energy and alertness levels. He simply and truly enjoyed the taste of it, the stronger the better. But Hunter was no connoisseur, unlike Garcia who had been brought up by a father who admittedly was a coffee fanatic.

  Garcia was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The son of a Brazilian federal agent and an American history teacher, he and his mother had moved to Los Angeles when he was only ten years old, after his parents’ marriage collapsed. Even though he’d lived in America most of his life, Garcia could still speak Portuguese like a true Brazilian. His father was a very attractive man with smooth dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin. His mother was a natural blonde with light-blue eyes and European-looking fair skin. Garcia had inherited his father’s olive-tone skin and brown hair. His eyes weren’t as light blue as his mother’s but they had definitely come from her side of the family. He had a slim frame, thanks to years of track and field, but his build was deceptive and he was stronger than anyone would’ve guessed.

  When Garcia had found out that Hunter enjoyed coffee just as much as he did, he had been more than happy to share a few secrets with his partner. One of those secrets was a special blend of Brazilian coffee produced only in the southeastern estate of Minas Gerais, by a small independent farm with a unique recipe. It was grounded finer than most blends and roasted at a lower initial temperature, preventing it from over-roasting and giving it a stronger but smoother taste. It had quickly become Hunter’s favorite blend, but the only shop that sold it in the whole of Los Angeles had closed down.

  Garcia smiled and from his rucksack retrieved two one-kilo bags of the special blend, placing them on Hunter’s desk.

  ‘Someone I know just got back from Brazil last night.’

  Hunter’s face told a happy story.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, looking like a kid who’d just received the Christmas present he was hoping for. ‘I’d love a fresh cup of coffee.’

  As he walked over to the coffee machine, Garcia picked up one of the transcribed notes from the floor. The handwriting was an almost perfect match to the original. He craned his neck and looked over his partner’s shoulder at the pile of copies on his desk.

  ‘You transcribed the note?’

  Hunter shrugged. ‘A few times, yeah. I was trying to look at it from different angles.’

  ‘You mean, think like the killer.’

  This wasn’t the first time that Hunter and Garcia had had to deal with a killer who liked to taunt the police with written notes or images.

  ‘I didn’t go as far as transcribing it,’ Garcia said, placing the note back on Hunter’s desk before filling the machine with ground coffee and adding water. ‘But I also barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes,’ he nodded at the notes, ‘that’s what I saw.’

  ‘And?’ Hunter’s interest grew.

  Garcia shook his head. ‘I’m not sure what to think, Robert. To me, most of it comes across as if this killer is your “straight out of a textbook sociopath”. You know – delusions of grandeur and all. He probably believes he’s above everyone else in every aspect, especially intellectually, being way too smart to ever make a mistake or get caught. That’s the reason for the note, isn’t it? Defiance. Come catch me if you think you can.’

  Hunter agreed with a silent nod.

  ‘What he did to the first victim,’ Garcia continued, the expression on his face morphing into one of disgust, ‘the abduction, the torture, the violation, everything – shows that he has achieved such a high level of emotional detachment from other human beings that he’s now clearly unable to feel anything other than anger, or rage, or perhaps repugnance. There’s no remorse, guilt, compassion, pity, love, nothing – no sort of affectionate sentiment of any kind. I’m not even sure if he ever did feel those things.’

  The coffee finished brewing. Garcia filled two cups and took one over to Hunter.

  ‘Thanks,’ Hunter said. The strong aroma of the special brew made him smile.

  ‘And then there’s the really scary part,’ Garcia said.

  ‘Which is?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘This.’ Garcia pointed at the killer’s sign-off on his note – I AM DEATH. ‘Giving yourself your own pseudonym?’ He chuckled. ‘That’s the pinnacle of arrogance, isn’t it? Son of Sam, The Happy Face Killer, The BTK Killer, The Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, whoever . . . they all did it because they all believed that they were special.’

  ‘Back to delusions of grandeur,’ Hunter said.

  ‘And then some,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But what we do know about serial killers who like to name themselves is that they’ve been planning their murders for a long time, and they intend to carry on murdering for even longer. That’s the scary bit. That’s why they like to torment the authorities with notes, or images or what have you. Because a letter to the authorities constitutes a very bold challenge – the note is like a formal invitation to turn the investigation into a cat-and-mouse chase – a game where they create the rules, and they can change them whenever they see fit. And since they decided to turn it into a game, they might as well make it fun. And we have just been dragged into that game.’

  Hunter couldn’t disagree with anything Garcia had said.

  What Garcia also knew was that killers who liked taunting authorities with messages tended to hide clues deep within those messages, sometimes in cryptic format. And Garcia knew no one better at reading between the lines than Hunter.

  ‘OK,’ Garcia said, once again indicating the transcribed notes on Hunter’s desk. ‘Now it’s your turn. Have you come up with anything?’

  Hunter gave his partner a shabby shake of the head. ‘The note clearly isn’t written in riddle format, and if there is any double meaning to anything I haven’t been able to find it. In fact, the more I read it, the more I copied it, the more of the opposite feeling I got.’

  ‘Opposite feeling?’ Garcia lo
oked a little confused. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Whoever wrote this note put a lot of effort into it, Carlos, carefully choosing every word. And here’s the twisted bit. He didn’t do it to confuse us, on the contrary. He did it to leave the least amount of doubt possible.’

  Twenty-Eight

  Garcia paused what he was doing, turned toward his partner and allowed his gaze to settle on the note on Hunter’s desk.

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘Let’s try to break this down into parts.’

  He slid a copy of the note to the edge of his desk. His coffee had finally cooled down enough for him to have his first sip. It tasted like paradise.

  ‘Have a look just at the first and second paragraphs and tell me what you think they mean. Don’t try to read between the lines or find any double meanings to anything. Just read them and tell me what you think.’

  Garcia didn’t bring his chair around. Instead, he just leaned over Hunter’s desk, placing both hands on the desktop.

  People in this city put their trust in law enforcement agencies like the LAPD, and sometimes even the FBI, to keep them safe, to help those who can’t help themselves, to right them when they’re wronged, to protect them, and to seek justice no matter what.

  Those agencies are supposed to be the best of the best. The experts when it comes to reading people and discerning good from evil. But the truth is that they only see what they want to see. And the problem with that is that when they play at being blind men, people suffer . . . people get tortured . . . and people die.

  Garcia read the paragraph three times before scratching his chin and looking back at Hunter.