The Death Sculptor

by Chris Carter

  The woman frowned at the words but seemed too excited to give them much thought. ‘Well, I’ll ask him anyway. I wanna know.’

  The mechanic nodded and stepped back into the crowd.

  The woman pushed through and approached the officer.

  Neither she, the officer, nor anyone else in the crowd noticed the tiny bloodstains on the mechanic’s trouser hems.

  Thirty

  It was close to 1 a.m. when Hunter finally got back to his apartment. He desperately wanted a shower. There was so much blood inside that boat cabin that, despite his protective-wear, he felt as if his skin, even his soul, had been stained by it.

  He closed his eyes, leaned head first against the white tiles, and allowed the strong, hot shower jet to massage the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders. He slowly ran a hand through his hair. The tips of his fingers grazed the deep, ugly scar on his nape and he paused, feeling the rough, lumpy skin. A reminder of how determined and deadly an evil mind could be. Not that Hunter needed any reminding. Though it happened a few years ago, his encounter with the monster the press called the Crucifix Killer was as fresh in his mind as any memories of a minute ago. The painful scar on his nape forever telling him how close he and Garcia had come to death.

  The problem was, no matter what he did, no matter how fast or hard the police worked, they just couldn’t catch them quick enough. As soon as they tracked down one manic killer and sent him to prison, two, three, four more were already roaming the streets. The balance was tipped the wrong way. Ironic how the City of Angels seemed to attract more evil than any other city in the USA.

  Hunter had no idea how long he stood there, but by the time he’d pushed the memory aside and turned off the water, his tanned skin had gone a dark shade of pink, and his fingertips looked like prunes.

  He dried his body, wrapped himself in a clean white towel and returned to his living room. His drinks cabinet was small, but held an impressive connoisseur’s collection of single-malt Scotch whisky. He needed something strong but soothing and comforting. He didn’t search for long, making his choice as soon as his eyes rested on the bottle of Balvenie 15-year-old single barrel.

  Hunter poured himself a generous dose, added a tiny drop of water, and dumped himself in the black leatherette sofa. He tried his best not to think about the case, but the images of everything he had seen in the past few days had nowhere else to go. They kept on spinning around and tumbling over themselves inside his head. They’d just found out about the images behind the first sculpture, but before they’d even had a chance to try and figure out the real meaning of those images, the killer had given them a second victim, a second sculpture and a second set of images that, at first look, made even less sense than the original one. He had no idea where to start.

  Hunter had a long sip of his whisky and concentrated on its robust flavor. The higher alcohol content gave the malt a bit of extra muscle, without affecting its rich, fruity taste.

  A few minutes and another dose later and Hunter was beginning to relax, when his cellphone rang.

  Instinctively he checked his watch. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ He snapped the clamshell phone open and brought it to his ear. ‘Detective Hunter.’

  ‘Robert, it’s Alice.’

  Hunter’s brow creased. ‘Alice . . . ? What’s going on?’

  ‘Well, I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to go get a drink.’

  ‘A drink . . . ? It’s almost two in the morning.’

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘So you probably also know that this is Los Angeles, where pretty much every boozer closes at two.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that too.’

  ‘Well, doesn’t that defeat the idea of going for a drink at this time?’

  A short pause.

  ‘Maybe you could invite me over and we could have a drink in your apartment?’

  Hunter frowned at the phone. ‘You want to come to my apartment and have a drink?’

  ‘Well, I’m just around the corner. I could be there in . . . two minutes or less.’

  Reflexively Hunter’s gaze moved to his living-room window. He hadn’t had time to check, but he was sure Alice Beaumont didn’t live around this part of town. Two minutes from his apartment in any direction was pretty much slap-bang in the middle of nowhere, or gangtown.

  He hesitated.

  ‘I think I found something, Robert,’ Alice said.

  ‘Found what?’

  ‘I think I might know what those shadow puppets mean.’

  Thirty-One

  Hunter changed into an old pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, the cotton fabric stretching thin against his broad shoulders and hugging his torso like a second skin. Around his living room, papers, magazines and books were strewn just about everywhere. He thought about tidying it up a little, but before he had a chance to start, there was a knock at the door. He reached for his Heckler & Koch USP .45 Tactical pistol, checked the safety, and secured it tightly between the waistband of his jeans and his lower back before approaching the door.

  Three new knocks.

  ‘Robert? It’s me, Alice,’ she called from outside.

  Hunter undid the lock and the security chain and pulled the door open halfway.

  Alice Beaumont stood at his doorway holding a black leather briefcase. She had lost the ponytail from earlier in the day, and her loose blonde hair shone, even in the dim light of Hunter’s hallway. She certainly didn’t look like a lawyer now. Her conservative suit had been substituted by skintight blue jeans, a black cotton blouse cut low at the front, and square-heeled, black knee-high boots. Her makeup was still subtle, but it now carried a hint of daring. Her perfume was floral and provocative.

  Hunter regarded her in silence.

  ‘Is it OK if I come in, or shall we talk out here in the hallway?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry.’ Hunter stepped to his right and showed her inside. The apartment was in semi-darkness. Only the desk lamp on Hunter’s breakfast table was on.

  Alice looked around the small room. It didn’t take her long to cover the entire area with her eyes.

  ‘Nice . . . cozy,’ she said. There was no sarcasm in her voice. ‘Could do with a little tidy up, though.’

  Hunter closed the door behind him and moved past her. ‘Shouldn’t you be sleeping?’

  Alice chuckled. ‘After everything that happened today? The discovery of the shadow puppets? You guys rushing out of the office on a possible second homicide from the same killer?’ She shook her head. ‘There was no way I could get my mind to disconnect.’

  Hunter couldn’t argue with that. His eyes moved away from her face.

  Alice waited but Hunter said nothing else.

  ‘Your captain was right, wasn’t she? He did it again.’

  Hunter nodded.

  ‘Another sculpture?’

  Hunter nodded.

  Alice let go of a tight breath. ‘I could really use a drink.’ She placed her briefcase on the floor.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t have much of a selection. Scotch or beer. That’s all the choice you get.’

  ‘Beer will do just fine.’

  Hunter grabbed a cold one from the fridge, unscrewed its top and handed it to her.

  Alice stared at the bottle for a beat and then back at Hunter. ‘Could I have a glass?’

  Hunter pointed to the cupboard above the sink. ‘Suit yourself.’

  Alice opened it and found two mugs, one tall Coca-Cola glass, four shooters and half a dozen whisky tumblers. She reached for the tall glass.

  They returned to the living room and Hunter poured himself a new measure of Scotch.

  ‘You said you think you know what the shadow puppets mean. I’m listening.’

  Alice had a sip of her beer. ‘OK, after you and Carlos left the office, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sculpture and the shadow puppets. What you said made sense, that understanding the meaning behind those images had to be directly related to which type of bird and canine they were suppo
sed to represent.’

  Hunter nodded and offered her a seat by indicating the sofa. She took it and reached for her briefcase.

  Hunter pulled one of the pine chairs by the breakfast table, turned it around and sat down with the backrest between his legs.

  ‘OK, so while you guys were out I went to work,’ Alice continued. ‘I searched the net for all different types of canines and medium-sized “chunky” birds. Like you suggested – crow, raven, jackdaw, whatever. I compared their images . . .’ She paused and corrected herself, ‘Actually, their silhouettes, to what we had.’

  ‘And what did you get?’

  ‘A whole bunch of stuff.’ She opened her briefcase and retrieved a few sheets of paper. ‘Well, individually, each one of the animals I checked has several metaphoric meanings. The more I looked, the more complicated it got. When I started looking at different cultures and different time periods, I was simply overrun with symbolisms.’

  Hunter’s eyebrow arched inquisitively.

  ‘For example,’ Alice placed a sheet of paper down on the coffee table between them, ‘to several Native American Indian tribes, coyotes and wolves could mean anything from a god, to an evil being, or even the devil himself. It’s no coincidence that from cartoons to serious works of art, most drawings of demons – Satan, Beelzebub, Azazel, or any devilish creature you care to name – resemble canine figures.’

  Hunter reached for the sheet and skimmed through the information on it.

  ‘In Egyptian mythology, Anubis is a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘In the Old Kingdom pyramid texts, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. Later substituted by Osiris.’

  It was Alice’s turn to look at him inquisitively.

  Hunter shrugged. ‘I read a lot.’

  Alice carried on. ‘Several cultures around the globe believe the raven to be a creature that comes from darkness, just like the bat. As such, it symbolizes mystery, confusion, anger, hate, aggression or anything that’s usually associated with the dark side.’ She placed a second sheet of paper on the coffee table.

  Hunter reached for it.

  ‘A common meaning associated with the raven or the crow is . . .’ she paused like a schoolteacher to raise her students’ curiosity, ‘. . . death. Some cultures used to send a crow or a raven to an enemy to indicate that they had been marked for death. Sometimes the entire bird, sometimes just their heads.’ She took a deep breath. ‘In South and Central America some still do.’ She indicated the passages on the sheet in Hunter’s hands.

  Hunter acknowledged it and had another sip of his Scotch. He finished reading the rest of the document in silence.

  ‘Before I move on I need to ask you something,’ Alice said.

  ‘Shoot.’

  ‘Why in the world would the killer create that sculpture and the shadow puppets? I mean, if he’s trying to communicate, why not just leave a message written on the wall as he did for that poor nurse? Why go to all that trouble, risk the amount of time it takes to create something like that, just to leave us a clue?’

  Hunter slowly rotated his neck from left to right. Even after the shower and a couple of drinks, his trapezius muscle still felt stiff.

  ‘Usually, when criminals deliberately leave a clue behind, it is for one of two main reasons,’ he said. ‘One: to taunt and challenge the police. They believe they are too smart. They believe they can’t be caught. To them, it’s like a game. The clues up the stakes, make it more challenging.’

  ‘They believe they are God?’ she asked, remembering what her arts expert friend had told them.

  ‘Sometimes, yes.’

  She chewed on those words for a moment. ‘What’s the second main reason?’

  ‘To confuse, to throw the police off the scent, so to speak. The clues will have nothing to do with anything, but we don’t know that, and they know that if they leave something apparently significant behind, the police will have to investigate. It’s protocol. Valuable time will be spent trying to decipher whatever bogus cryptic clue they left behind.’

  ‘And the more cryptic, the more time is lost by the police.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Alice read Hunter’s expression. ‘But you don’t believe that theory applies here, do you?’

  ‘Not the second one, but there’s a chance that this killer is delusional enough to think he’s invincible, to think he can’t be caught. To think he’s God.’

  ‘But you’re not convinced.’

  ‘No,’ Hunter said without hesitation.

  ‘So what’s on your mind?’

  Hunter looked down at his glass, and then back at Alice. ‘I think this killer is leaving clues behind because it’s important to him. Because the sculpture and the shadow puppets have a specific and very important meaning in all this. We don’t know what it is yet, but I just know they do. Something directly related to the killer, the victim, the act itself, or all of it. The sculpture and the shadow puppets weren’t created just for fun, just to challenge the police or to throw us off course. They weren’t created just to show us how clever the killer is. They were created because without them the act wouldn’t be complete. Not to the killer.’

  Alice shifted on her seat. Something about that statement made her really uneasy.

  ‘So what else have you found out?’

  Alice placed a third and final sheet of paper on the coffee table. ‘Something very interesting. And I think it might be the answer we’re looking for.’

  Hunter leaned forward, his eyes scanning the sheet.

  ‘I remembered that Derek was into mythology. He was always reading about it. And he never missed an opportunity to make an analogy, or quote a mythological passage, be it in a regular conversation, or during a statement in a court of law. So I took a shot in the dark.’

  ‘And . . . ?’

  ‘I found out that the coyote shares many traits with the mythological figure of the raven,’ Alice said, ‘speed, cleverness, stealth . . . but when both figures are combined, that most commonly means . . .’ She indicated on the sheet.

  Hunter read the line.

  ‘The figure of the coyote, when paired with that of the raven, mainly symbolizes a trickster, a liar, a deceiver . . . a creature or person who betrays.’

  Thirty-Two

  A police siren wailing in the distance disrupted the eerie silence that had taken over Hunter’s living room. Alice tried her best to read Hunter’s face, but failed.

  ‘The killer has got to be telling us about his feelings for Derek,’ Alice said. ‘He has to be telling us that he considered Derek to be a liar, a deceiver, a betrayer.’ She lifted a hand before Hunter could respond. ‘I know what you’re going to say. Derek was a lawyer, and many people consider lawyers to be deceivers and liars by trade.’

  Hunter said nothing.

  ‘But Derek Nicholson wasn’t your regular, everyday liability or personal-injury lawyer. He was a state prosecutor. He had one client, and one client only – the State of California. His job was to prosecute criminals who’d been apprehended by the LAPD or the California State Police. And his fee didn’t depend on a win or a loss, or on how much he could bleed out of the counterpart.’

  Hunter still said nothing.

  Alice was getting animated. ‘The point is, I don’t think the killer is alluding to himself as a deceiver. He’s got to be referring to Derek, but not simply because he was a lawyer. It’s got to be because of something else. Something that we haven’t found out yet.’

  ‘Did you get anywhere with the list of criminals Nicholson prosecuted over the years?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘No breakthroughs yet,’ Alice said, getting up. ‘Nothing about the ones who’ve been released or the relatives of the ones who are still inside suggests that they’d be capable of anything of this magnitude. But if they’re out there, I’ll find them. Do you mind if I grab another beer?’ She pointed to the kitchen.

  ‘Make yourself at home.’


  Alice opened Hunter’s fridge and frowned at how empty it was. ‘Wow, what do you live on? Protein drinks, Scotch and . . .’ she quickly scanned the kitchen, ‘. . . air?’

  ‘The diet of champions,’ Hunter replied. ‘How about the ones Nicholson didn’t send to prison? The ones who escaped being sentenced because of a technicality or whatever? How about the victims of the accused? The ones who felt the state didn’t perform its duty. Could any of them be capable of retaliating? Has anyone ever directly blamed Nicholson for losing a case?’

  Alice poured the new beer into her glass and returned to the living room. ‘I must admit I haven’t had the time to check that yet. But trust me, if there is a link between Derek’s murder and any of his cases, I’ll find it.’

  Hunter’s gaze stayed on Alice. Something about the natural, self-assured way she talked told him that her confidence wasn’t just cockiness and bravado, which was surprising, given that she worked for the cockiest, most self-glorifying law-enforcement office he knew in all of California – the district attorney’s office. No, her confidence wasn’t just shallow words. It was exactly that; confidence in herself and what she knew she could do.

  ‘The second victim . . .’ Alice asked, sipping her beer. ‘Was he also a lawyer, a prosecutor?’

  Hunter got up and moved towards the window. ‘Worse. He was an LAPD cop.’

  Alice’s eyes widened in surprise as her brain already started measuring the consequences.

  ‘His name was Andrew Nashorn,’ Hunter said.

  ‘Was he a detective?’

  ‘He was until eight years ago.’

  She paused midway through a sip of her beer. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Nashorn was shot in his abdomen while pursuing a suspect in Inglewood. That resulted in a collapsed lung, a month in hospital and six on sick leave. After that, he couldn’t be out in the field anymore. He chose to stay with the South Bureau’s Operations Support Division.’

  ‘And how long was he a detective for?’

  Hunter could see she was catching on quick. ‘Ten years.’