by Chris Carter
In the bathroom, despite the warm night, Hunter leaned back against the tiled wall and welcomed the powerful, hot shower jet that almost burned his skin. The discomfort caused by the heat was balanced out by how much it helped his tensed muscles to relax. By the time he shut off the water, his tanned skin had gone a light shade of red and the tips of his fingers looked like old prunes.
Back in the living room, wrapped in a white towel, Hunter switched on a floor lamp and dimmed its intensity to ‘medium’. That done, he approached his drinks cabinet, which was small but held an impressive collection of single malt Scotch whisky, which was probably his biggest passion. Though he had overdone it a few times, Hunter sure knew how to appreciate the flavor and quality of a good single malt, instead of simply getting drunk on it.
His eyes scanned from bottle to bottle. One thing that he knew for certain was that he needed something strong, but at the same time comforting and soothing. He didn’t have to search long. His decision was made as soon as his eyes grazed over the eighteen-year-old bottle of Auchentoshan.
‘This should do nicely,’ Hunter said, reaching for it.
He poured himself a double dose, added about a fifth of water and dumped himself on the black leatherette sofa, which faced a TV set that hadn’t been turned on in over six months. In fact, since the Super Bowl game back in February.
He sipped his drink, letting the robust and spicy taste of the Scotch, which had hints of woody almonds, brown sugar and vanilla, engulf his taste buds for a moment.
Mollifying, no doubt about that.
Despite how hard he tried not to think of the case, the images of what he’d seen in the past two days had nowhere else to go. All they did was tumble over themselves inside his mind. One grotesque scene morphing into another, like a well-edited horror film on a never-ending loop.
Hunter finished his Scotch and decided to have a second one. His palate had gotten used to the single malt’s powerful flavor, so this time he had it neat, no water. Instead of going back to the sofa, Hunter walked over to the window on the north wall and looked outside. Everything looked still. Even the moon, coyly peeking out in its initial state of waxing crescent, seemed scared of the evil that now lurked around the City of Angels.
Hunter’s gaze moved to the lights in the distance. From his window he couldn’t see much, but he could still see the tip of the unmistakable conglomerate of high-rise buildings that formed the central business district of the city, otherwise known as Downtown LA.
Hunter finished his second Scotch and put his glass down on the window ledge.
‘Where are you hiding, you sonofabitch?’ he whispered to himself, his gaze slowly scanning the horizon.
Hunter’s body felt tired, but he could tell that his brain was still wide awake. Going to bed would make no difference. All he would do was toss and turn under the sheets, fighting a battle he knew he would never win, so instead, he decided to have one more drink. As he turned away from the window and faced the inside of his living room, he paused, frowning.
‘What the hell?’
On the floor, about a foot from his front door, he could see a brown paper envelope. He didn’t really have to search his memory. He knew that it hadn’t been there before. Someone had slid it under his door.
Hunter’s eyes sought the clock on the wall – 05:47 a.m.
He could think of no reason why any of his neighbors would need to place a letter under his door, much less at this time at night.
Immediately, every muscle in Hunter’s body went into alert mode. He quickly moved over to the chair where he had left his gun holster, unclipped the lock, pulled out his semi-automatic HK Mark 23 and thumbed the safety off.
His front door was locked. Of that he was absolutely certain. The door chain was also securely locked in place.
The corridor outside his front door was about fifty feet long, servicing eight apartments, with the stairs and the elevator at the east end of it. The hallway lights were activated by means of a very sensitive motion sensor, so if anyone stepped out of their front door, or surfaced from the stairs or elevator, the lights would immediately come on. And they would stay on for sixty seconds.
Hunter could see no light seeping through from under his front door. If someone was outside, he or she had remained totally still for some time.
With careful, noiseless steps, Hunter crossed his living room. As he reached the envelope and looked down, what he saw made every muscle on his body tense up.
The envelope had been slid under his door face up. There was no stamp and no recipient’s address, just a single line written across the front of it in red ink – Detective Robert Hunter, LAPD Robbery Homicide Division.
Hunter didn’t need to look any closer to know that those words were in the killer’s handwriting.
Forty-Four
Adrenalin shot into Hunter’s veins like an angry buffalo stampede. For the moment, he disregarded what the envelope on the floor might contain and quickly positioned himself to the right of the front door, pressing his back flat against the wall. Waiting. Listening.
Thirty seconds.
Nothing.
Sixty.
Not a sound.
Ninety.
Dead quiet.
One hundred and twenty.
The lights outside were still off.
With his left hand, Hunter undid the security chain before turning the key in the lock, keeping it all as quiet as he could. When that was done, he waited another ten seconds before turning the handle and pulling the door open. Immediately, the motion sensor outside picked up the door movement and activated the lights.
Hunter’s apartment was the last one down the corridor, at the opposite end from where the elevator and stairs were. Being the last door on the left meant that there was nothing to the right of his front door except a solid wall. No one could hide there. With that in mind, and still with his back flat against the wall on the inside of his door, Hunter stretched his neck and looked down the corridor, in the direction of the stairs.
There was no one there.
Holding his weapon with a firm two-hand grip, Hunter finally stepped out of his apartment and into the corridor, his aim moving left then right, searching for a target.
He found none. The hallway was empty.
From his position, he could see that the elevator was on the ground floor. As far as he could see, the stairs also looked clear. Whoever had slid that envelope under his door was now long gone.
Hunter breathed out and thumbed the safety back on, but the tenseness in his muscles remained. Once he breathed in again, he felt an awkward surge of emotions rush through his body, as if he had breathed in more than just oxygen. He felt exactly as he had done so many times, as he stepped into a brutal crime scene for the first time. He felt like he was standing where evil had once been.
Back inside his apartment, with the door safely locked behind him, Hunter grabbed a pair of latex gloves from the bathroom and finally turned his attention to the envelope on the floor. At the back of it, there was no sender’s address.
Hunter got back into his living room and lifted the envelope against the floor lamp. The only thing he could make out was a folded-in-half sheet of paper. The color was uniform throughout it, which indicated that there was nothing else in there other than the sheet of paper.
Hunter walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a knife from the drawer before carefully tearing the envelope open at the top. A couple of seconds later, he began reading the killer’s new note.
Forty-Five
Tom Hobbs parents’ house was located down a quiet road, just a block away from Pomona’s Holy Cross Catholic Cemetery. The sedatives the medics had given Tom the day before had had their desired effect. He had slept for twelve consecutive hours and, despite the fact that the trauma of what he’d seen would stay forever in his mind, he had finally overcome the initial shock stage.
Tom’s mother, a very elegantly dressed woman in her fifties, showed Garcia into
the white two-storey house, which was surrounded by a well-kept cluster of small evergreens.
While Mrs. Hobbs went upstairs to fetch her son, Garcia began browsing the bookshelves in the lavishly decorated study. They were packed full of classics, from Tolstoy and Victor Hugo to Jane Austen and Charles Dickens.
At the far end of one of the bookcases, Garcia found several picture frames neatly arranged on a shelf. All of them of Tom and his family.
Garcia pulled his attention away from the photographs and turned around as he heard steps coming to the study door. Tom Hobbs was standing next to his mother. He wore faded blue jeans, an old pair of black All Stars and a long-sleeved white shirt that looked to be at least two sizes too big.
‘Hello,’ Garcia said, stepping forward and offering his hand. ‘I’m Detective Carlos Garcia of the LAPD. We met yesterday at your place, but you might not remember.’
Tom looked a mess. His hair was disheveled and flattened at the back. His striking eyes, now framed by dark circles, were puffed up and red from crying, and the skin on his face seemed blotchy and dehydrated.
‘I’m . . . not sure if I remember or not,’ Tom said, shaking Garcia’s hand, his tone beaten. ‘My mind is still a little hazy about yesterday.’ He let go of Garcia’s hand and broke eye contact. ‘I really hoped that I would wake up this morning and find out that it had all been just a horrible nightmare.’ His voice caught on his throat. ‘But it’s all true, isn’t it?’ He looked back at Garcia.
‘Unfortunately.’
Tom’s mother kissed him on the cheek.
‘I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions?’ Garcia said, breaking the silence. ‘Not about yesterday, but about Sharon Barnard. As I understand it, you knew her better than anyone else.’
Tom nodded. ‘She was my best friend.’
‘Do you mind?’ Garcia asked, indicating the sofa set. ‘I’ll be as brief as I can.’
Tom turned to face his mother. ‘Mom, could you give us a moment, please?’
Mrs. Hobbs looked back at Garcia with a look that said: Please, don’t upset my son.
Garcia had seen that look many times. He gave her the subtlest of nods.
Mrs. Hobbs left the study, closing the door behind her.
‘Please have a seat, Detective,’ Tom said, taking one of the armchairs himself. Garcia took the other.
‘I apologize for my mother,’ Tom added. He sat at the edge of his seat with his arms crossed in front of his chest. He kept on squeezing them tight against his body every now and then, as if he was feeling cold.
‘There’s no need to apologize. I was also an only child. My parents were just as overprotective.’
For a moment, Tom frowned.
Garcia read his doubt and explained. ‘The photographs on the family shelf.’ He indicated the picture frames. ‘Other than your parents, you’re the only person in them.’
Tom nodded as he looked at the picture frames.
Garcia began with basic questions, mainly to allow Tom to relax, even if just a little bit. Tom Hobbs had known Sharon Barnard for over six years. They had gone to Claremont High School together and they’d been best friends since ninth grade. According to Tom, Sharon never had any enemies, neither in school nor at work, or at least not in the proper sense of the word.
Within five minutes, Tom was sounding more relaxed. His arms had uncrossed and he had moved back a little from the edge of his seat.
Garcia had no doubt that neither of the two murders had been a crime of passion, but experience told him that it was very probable that at some point prior to the murders this killer had come into direct contact with his victims. He needed to start there.
‘Do you know if Ms. Barnard was seeing anyone?’
Tom chuckled uneasily. ‘Sharon just isn’t the relationship type, if you know what I mean, Detec—’ He stopped himself and his eyes saddened again. It would take him some time to be able to automatically refer to his best friend in the past tense. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’
‘Sharon wasn’t the relationship type,’ Tom tried again. ‘Even through high school, she only dated a couple of guys, and neither lasted any longer than just a few months. But with the job we do? Always away, never really around.’ He shook his head at the thought. ‘It’s quite hard to find a partner who is willing to put up with that sort of schedule. Not that she was actually looking for one.’
Garcia understood those restrictions perfectly. His job, although very different, carried a very similar downfall.
‘Any casual affairs?’ he asked.
For the first time, a hint of a smile grazed Tom’s lips. ‘You want to know if she had “sex buddies”?’
Garcia nodded. ‘Unfortunately, I do have to ask a few questions of a more personal nature.’
Tom lifted a hand. ‘There’s no need to apologize, Detective. I totally understand that it’s your job. And yes, of course she did. Sharon is—’ Another heartfelt pause. ‘Was a very attractive woman. She got a lot of male attention, sometimes even female. Yeah, she used to get approached all the time, especially by married men. But she never went anywhere near them. “Man with a wedding band is a problem times ten.” She used to say that all the time.’
Garcia gave Tom a sympathetic smile.
‘Do you know if any of Ms. Barnard’s affairs were based here in Los Angeles?’ Garcia asked.
‘No. None. That was one of her “little rules”.’ Tom used his finger to draw quotation marks in the air. ‘She had a few of those. She wouldn’t “play” close to home.’
‘And why was that?’
Tom shrugged. ‘To avoid unwanted complications – now and in the future.’
Garcia nodded his understanding. ‘Had Ms. Barnard ever mentioned any one of her casual affairs becoming too forceful with her? Too insistent, wanting to move things to the next level when she didn’t?’
Tom didn’t take long to answer. ‘No. Never. Of course some of the guys she saw wanted to be more to her than just a casual fling. As I’ve said, Sharon was a very attractive woman, and most guys would love to properly date someone like her, but as far as I know, every time anyone mentioned maybe moving things to the next level, she ran a mile.’
Garcia kept an eye on Tom’s body language and facial expressions. Since he had begun to relax, he had stayed that way, which was a very good sign. His answers also flowed spontaneously, with no hesitation, and weren’t preceded or followed by any sort of nervous telltale signs, which indicated that he wasn’t trying to hide anything.
If this killer really had directly approached Sharon Barnard prior to the murder night, it didn’t sound as though he had done it as a lover. Garcia decided to move away from this line of questioning.
‘And had she mentioned anything about anyone else she’d met recently?’ he asked. ‘Not a lover, or anyone trying to pick her up, but maybe someone who had approached her at the supermarket, or a coffee shop, or on the streets . . . anywhere, really. Someone new whom she had chatted to for a little while but had made no sexual advances on her.’
This time Tom took a little longer to reply.
‘No, I can’t recall her saying anything.’
‘Are you sure?’
Tom took another moment.
‘Yes, I’m pretty sure.’
This killer was also very comfortable in assuming different identities. He’d proved that when playing out the ‘cousin’ scenario with Nicole Wilson. From that, Garcia had to assume that he was also very good at disguising himself. If he really had come face to face with Sharon Barnard prior to the murder night, chances were he didn’t do it as himself.
‘How about mentioning anything about someone that she might’ve seen before, but was unsure? Maybe a face that she thought looked familiar, but she couldn’t quite place? Did she ever comment on anything like that?’
Tom scratched his left elbow and his eyes squinted one more time as he thought about it.
‘In our line of work, that
happens quite often, Detective. It’s not uncommon for some of us to get scheduled anywhere up to fifteen flights a week. As you can imagine, that’s a lot of faces to greet, smile at, serve, smile at some more and then say goodbye to as they disembark. Some of them we might remember well for one reason or another, but most just get logged into our subconscious and we tend to forget about them. If I had a penny for every time I heard one of my colleagues say “That person looks familiar”, I’d be a billionaire.’
Garcia understood that very well, but he still had to try.
‘Yes, I imagine it happens a lot,’ he said. ‘Probably more often than in any other profession, but still, do you recall Ms. Barnard recently mentioning anything about someone whom she thought looked familiar?’
‘Hmm . . .’ Tom frowned. ‘Actually, come to think of it, I do.’
Forty-Six
Garcia’s eyebrows arched slightly at Tom’s response because, in all honesty, he was about to give up on the interview.
‘A passenger caught her eye not so long ago. Attractive man, tall, well built, well dressed, very polite, very quiet too.’
‘You saw him?’
‘Yeah, we were working the same flight. Sharon really had the hots for him.’ Tom proceeded to tell Garcia about Sharon asking him what he thought of the passenger, and their little guessing game.
Garcia kept his voice steady and void of any excitement because he knew that this could mean absolutely nothing at all. As Tom had said, as a flight attendant, Sharon Barnard would’ve seen a staggering number of faces over the past year and throughout her whole life. Garcia was well aware of the fact that a person’s subconscious doesn’t only spit recent memories and images back at them. It can go back months, years, decades even. But there was also a chance that the passenger could be the man they were looking for. Garcia needed more details.
‘You didn’t happen to catch his name, do you?’
‘No, sorry, Detective.’