The Death Sculptor

by Chris Carter

  Hunter frowned. Something was off.

  He started moving towards the desk and realized that it wasn’t a book at all, but one of those secret boxes that are made to look like a book. From where Hunter was standing, it was very convincing.

  As Hunter approached the desk, he saw that the fingers that had been placed inside the book-box had been carved and were bent out of shape. Two were hanging out the sides. The other one had been placed at the far end with its tip protruding upwards. The inside of the box was flooded with blood.

  At the opposite end of the desk, Littlewood’s right arm, the one with the shorter ‘walking fingers’, had been positioned at a strange angle, facing the bookshelf on the corner. Pieces of his carved-out thigh had been placed a couple of feet away from the hand.

  Doctor Hove and Mike Brindle, her most senior lead-forensic agent, were standing to the right of the desk. They had been discussing something in a hushed voice when both detectives had entered the room.

  Hunter paused as he came closer to the desk. Just like the previous two sculptures, the mess of body parts and blood made no sense. The use of everyday office props made it all the more confusing. He took a step to his right and bent down to have a better look at the book-box.

  ‘It’s the same killer all right,’ Doctor Hove said. ‘And again, he reserved a whole new treatment for this new victim.’

  Hunter kept his eyes on the sculpture.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Garcia asked.

  The doctor stepped away from the desk. ‘With the first victim, the killer pumped him full of drugs to stabilize his heart rate and normalize the blood flow, trying to keep him from bleeding out too fast, but no anesthetizing drug. The killer tried to keep him alive for as long as possible, but due to his precarious condition, death came quite quickly. With the second victim, you will remember, the killer used a new approach.’

  ‘The severed spinal cord,’ Garcia said.

  ‘Precisely. The killer deliberately took away the victim’s sense of feeling, numbing his pain. His anguish was different – psychological. He was made to watch his own body parts being severed from his body. He could see he was dying, but he couldn’t feel it.’

  ‘And with his third victim?’ Hunter asked.

  Doctor Hove looked away, as if scared to even think about it.

  Seventy-Seven

  Mike Brindle circled the desk and approached the two detectives. He was in his late-forties, stick thin and doorframe tall, with a full head of peppery hair and a pointy nose. He’d worked with Hunter and Garcia on more cases than he could remember. ‘We’re very sure that this victim died before he was dismembered, Robert,’ he said, taking over from Doctor Hove.

  Hunter’s stare reverted back to the mutilated torso on the leather chair. ‘Intentionally?’

  Brindle nodded. ‘It looks that way.’

  Garcia looked confused for an instant.

  ‘From on-location analysis, it seems the killer made him suffer as much as he could before amputating any major body parts and causing severe blood loss. There are several smaller cuts to his torso and limbs. Deep enough to hurt, but not enough to kill. His left nipple looks to have been sawed off with a not-so-sharp instrument. His right nipple was severely burnt.’

  That was what was different about the skin around his right nipple, Hunter realized. The leathery texture of the skin – burn marks, but they didn’t look to have been caused by fire.

  ‘Blood spillage suggests that the smaller cuts were all done while the victim was still alive,’ Brindle carried on.

  ‘But there is a lot of blood here,’ Garcia said, looking around the room. ‘This didn’t all come from small cuts.’

  ‘No,’ Doctor Hove confirmed. ‘The autopsy will tell me the correct chain of events, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say the killer had all the fun he wanted to have before severing the first limb, which looks to have been the right leg. His heart was probably still beating. But if you think back to the previous two victims, the killer went out of his way to contain the bleeding – drugs, natural remedies, tying off arteries . . .’ She shook her head as her gaze moved back to the body on the chair. ‘Not here.’

  ‘The amputations on the first two victims were very clean,’ Brindle said. ‘These weren’t. Judging by the pattern on the skin, and the little we can tell from examining the bones in these conditions, the amputation incisions were performed brutally, in a hacking manner. The ones to both arms . . .’ He paused and ran his gloved hand over his nose and mouth. ‘It looks like he cut them almost all the way through, lost patience, and then simply ripped them off the body.’

  Garcia’s eyes widened a touch.

  ‘I have no doubt the victim was already dead by then,’ Doctor Hove added.

  Hunter’s gaze refocused on the floor and the several footprints. They were mainly by the door. ‘Has anything been touched?’

  Doctor Hove gave him a timid shrug. ‘LAPD has tried to track down every curious office worker in this building who decided to have a peek at this. So far, they’ve all said they haven’t touched anything, and neither have the detectives and officers who have been in here; but it’s hard to tell.’ She faced the sculpture again. ‘We don’t really know what this is supposed to be, or look like. We can’t tell if anything has been moved out of place since it was constructed.’ The expectancy in her tone didn’t go unnoticed by Hunter. ‘I haven’t used a flashlight,’ she continued. ‘That’s your show.’

  Garcia looked at Hunter as if to ask, How do you want to play it?

  Hunter knew they couldn’t move the sculpture from that desk without disturbing it. As he had told Alice, the killer had been very meticulous about the first sculpture, but less so about the second one. He had no idea what the killer was aiming for with this third one, and something was telling him they were running out of time – fast. They couldn’t wait for the forensics lab to create another replica. ‘Do we have a flashlight?’ he asked.

  ‘Right here,’ Brindle said, handing him a medium-sized Maglite.

  ‘Let’s have a look,’ Hunter replied, taking the flashlight. He looked back at what remained of Littlewood’s body on the chair. In the second crime scene, the victim’s decapitated head had been placed in the exact location where the killer wanted the beam of light to be shone from, so that his work could be seen as he intended. One of Littlewood’s eyes was missing, but the remaining one was looking straight at the sculpture. That had to be a hint. Hunter checked the floor again.

  ‘Has all this been photographed, Doc?’ There was no way he could assume the same position as Littlewood’s one-eyed gaze without stepping on some blood, and maybe rolling the chair with the body a little out of the way.

  Doctor Hove didn’t have to ask. She had followed Hunter’s stare and knew what was on his mind. ‘Yes, it’s all OK,’ she replied.

  The window shades were already drawn shut. Brindle killed the strong forensic power lights while Hunter positioned himself directly in front of the body, being careful to level the flashlight with Littlewood’s line of sight.

  Everyone seemed to take in a deep breath at the same time.

  Hunter steadied himself and turned the flashlight on.

  Seventy-Eight

  Everyone had moved over to where Hunter was standing. Garcia was to his right, Doctor Hove and Brindle to his left. All eyes were on the images projected onto the wall behind the sculpture. Brindle shifted nervously on his feet.

  ‘This is freaky,’ he whispered weakly. When Doctor Hove had told him about the shadow images cast by the sculptures, he’d imagined something very creepy; but being there and seeing it with his own eyes was a whole new ball game. It had been a long time since he’d felt that uncomfortable at a crime scene.

  Instinctively everyone squinted at the images, but no one had to ask. These were the clearest images so far – no animals, no horned creatures.

  Littlewood’s ‘walking fingers’ of the left hand projected an image that looked just like a p
erson standing up. The thumb that had been pushed a little forward created an arm. The dislocated knuckle at the top created a head shape. The combined image was that of a person either walking or standing still and pointing at something in front of him or her. The opened book-box projected a shadow that looked like some sort of large container with its lid open.

  Depth is imperceptible in shadow images, so the open book-box, three feet away from the hand, seemed to be directly leveled with it. The composition looked like someone standing in front of a large container, pointing at it.

  The twist came with the fingers that had been carved and placed inside the book-box. Their shadows created a new image that, in a strange way, resembled someone else lying inside the container. The shadow of one of the fingers created a head, resting against one end. The other two fingers, sticking out to the side of the box, created what looked like an arm and a leg. The rest of the body couldn’t be seen, as if it were submerged inside the box. The image reminded Hunter of someone leisurely lying inside a bathtub, one arm hanging out to one side, one foot up on the edge, head resting against one end.

  Garcia was the first to utter a comment. ‘It looks like someone pointing at someone else sleeping inside a box, or . . . having a bath or something.’

  Brindle nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, I can go with that. But why is he pointing at it?’

  ‘That’s part of the jigsaw,’ Garcia said. ‘We not only have to find the right angle to see the image, but we have to interpret it as well.’

  ‘Does it mean anything to you?’ Doctor Hove asked Hunter. ‘Does it tie in, in any way, with what you already have?’

  Hunter kept his eyes on the shadow image. ‘I’m not sure, and I wouldn’t like to speculate until I’ve studied this image further.’

  ‘It’s quite hypnotic,’ Brindle added, tilting his head to one side and then the other, as if trying to look at the image from different angles.

  ‘And I’m sure that was exactly the killer’s intention,’ Garcia said. ‘OK, we’ve got to do the same thing we did inside Nashorn’s boat and photograph the shadow. We’ll need to reposition the forensics lights to where the flashlight is, that way we won’t need to use the camera flash.’

  ‘It’s not a problem,’ Brindle replied and started moving towards the forensics pedestal light in the corner.

  ‘Wait,’ Hunter said, frowning. Something wasn’t right. He turned off the flashlight and turned around, his eyes roaming the room from floor to ceiling.

  ‘What’s up?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘It doesn’t seem right.’

  ‘What doesn’t?’

  ‘The image, it’s incomplete.’

  Garcia, Doctor Hove and Brindle exchanged intrigued looks. No one seemed to know what Hunter was referring to.

  ‘Incomplete, how?’ Doctor Hove asked.

  Hunter switched the Maglite on again. The shadow image resurfaced on the wall behind the sculpture. ‘What do you see?’

  ‘The same as I saw just a moment ago,’ she replied. ‘Just what Carlos suggested. It looks like someone standing in front of a container that seems to be occupied by someone else. Maybe a bathtub. Why, what do you see?’

  ‘The same.’

  Surprised looks all round.

  ‘So why did you say there’s something missing?’ Garcia asked. He was used to Hunter seeing things that no one else did – questioning things that no one else questioned. It was like his mind was never satisfied. He just had to keep on digging, even when the images were clear in front of his eyes.

  ‘The image of the container is obviously created by the fake book on the desk, and the image of the person inside it, by the torn fingers.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Garcia agreed. ‘And the image of the person standing in front of it is being created by the hand.’

  ‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘But from this angle, we’ve got nothing from the second hand.’

  Everyone looked at the victim’s right arm at the opposite end of the large desk. The one with the shorter ‘walking fingers’. In front of it the killer had laid several carved out pieces of Littlewood’s thigh.

  ‘The two arms are too far apart,’ Hunter continued. ‘The light beam isn’t wide enough.’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t part of the sculpture,’ Brindle said.

  Hunter shook his head. ‘I’d agree that the legs and the severed feet aren’t part of the sculpture. They’ve been discarded by the side of the desk, but not the arm. It’s on the stage for a reason.’ Hunter’s gaze was again slowly searching the room. His eyes rested on the bookshelf lined with thick volumes to the left of the large executive desk and he paused. Three shelves from the bottom, about level with the desktop, the killer had carefully placed Littlewood’s extracted eyeball on top of a book that was lying flat. The eye was looking straight at the second sculpture from a peculiar angle.

  ‘Two separate images,’ Hunter said.

  Everyone’s gaze followed Hunter’s.

  ‘Sonofabitch,’ Garcia murmured.

  Hunter crossed to the bookshelf, held the flashlight level with the bloody eyeball and turned it on.

  Seventy-Nine

  It took them less than five minutes to reposition the forensics lights and capture two separate snapshots of the two sculptures – or the two parts of the one sculpture, depending on how one looked at it. The body and severed body parts were already being prepared for removal.

  Hunter and Garcia left Doctor Hove and Mike Brindle to carry on with their work and walked over to the next office along the corridor. It belonged to an accountant, but it was now being used by the police. Sheryl Sellers, Littlewood’s office manager, who had found his body early that morning, had been sitting in there for over an hour, accompanied by a female police officer. Sheryl still hadn’t stopped shaking or crying. The female officer practically had to force-feed her a glass of sugary water.

  Sheryl had answered a few questions from Detective Jack Winstanley and his partner when they first arrived at the scene, but since then she’d been speechless, sitting in the accountant’s office, blankly staring at a wall. She’d refused the offer to speak with a police psychologist. She said that all she wanted to do was leave that place and go home.

  As Hunter and Garcia stepped into the office, Hunter gave the female officer a subtle nod. The officer returned his nod and stepped outside.

  Sheryl was sitting on a brown, beat-up, two-seater sofa. Her knees were locked together, her hands clasped around a half-drunk glass of water resting on her lap, her whole body looked tense and stiff. She was perched right at the edge of her seat. Tears had made her eye makeup run down her cheeks, and she hadn’t bothered wiping it off. The white of her eyes had completely disappeared, they were so bloodshot from crying.

  ‘Miss Sellers,’ Hunter said, crouching down to catch her eye. He was careful to settle just below her line of vision, putting him in a less challenging position.

  It took her several seconds to bring her attention to the man in front of her. Hunter waited until their eyes locked.

  ‘How are you doing?’ he asked.

  She sucked in a long breath through her nose and Hunter noticed her hands starting to shake again.

  ‘Would you like a new glass of water?’

  It took her a moment to grasp the question. She blinked. ‘Do you have anything stronger?’ Her voice was a wavering whisper.

  Hunter gave her a quick smile. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Anything stronger?’

  ‘Double coffee?’

  Her expression softened a touch. In different circumstances, she would’ve smiled. She shrugged instead, and nodded once.

  Hunter stood up and whispered something in Garcia’s ear, who then left the room. Hunter went back to his crouch position.

  ‘My name is Robert Hunter. I’m another police officer with the LAPD. I know you’ve had to talk to a few today. I’m really sorry for what has happened, and for what you had to witness this morning.’

  Sheryl felt the sincerity in hi
s voice. Her gaze moved back to the glass in her hands.

  ‘I know you’ve done this already. And I apologize for asking you to do it again, but could you run me through the chain of events since yesterday. From Dr. Littlewood’s last session to when you got here this morning.’

  Slowly and in a quivering voice, Sheryl Sellers recounted all the events she’d already told the first two detectives at the scene. Hunter listened without interrupting. The story was consistent with what he’d already heard.

  ‘I really need your help, Ms. Sellers,’ Hunter said when she was done. Her silence prompted him to go on. ‘Could I ask you how long you’ve been Dr. Littlewood’s office manager?’

  She looked at him again. ‘I started last spring. It’s been just over a year now.’

  ‘Can you remember if Dr. Littlewood seemed agitated or nervous at all after any of his sessions with any of his patients lately?’

  She thought about it for an instant. ‘Not that I can remember. He was always the same at the end of a session and at the end of the day – calm, relaxed, funny, most of the time . . .’

  ‘Have any of his patients ever gotten violent or angry during a session?’

  ‘No, never. At least not since I’ve been working here.’

  ‘Do you know if any of his clients has ever threatened him in any way?’

  Sheryl shook her head. ‘Not that I know of. If anyone has, Nathan never mentioned anything to me.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Inside Dr. Littlewood’s office we found a secret book-box. Do you know what I’m talking about?’

  She nodded but no fear returned to her eyes, which told Hunter what he already expected. When Sheryl opened the door to Littlewood’s office earlier that morning, the first thing she saw was his dismembered body on the chair and all the blood. That was enough to send her into a panic. Everything else around her would’ve become a blur. Hunter doubted she had even noticed the desk and the sculpture. Instead of entering the office, she ran for help.