by Chris Carter
Hunter shook his head. ‘No, the victim died.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘Because the killer tells us.’
Ninety-Nine
Hunter drew their attention to the last two shadow-image photographs on the board. The ones cast by the two-part sculpture left in Nathan Littlewood’s office.
‘In the last crime scene, the killer left us two shadow images,’ he said, ‘but I think we read them in reverse order. This should be the first one of the two.’ He indicated the image created by Littlewood’s right arm and hand – the one that looked like someone kneeling down with his arm lifted up above his head, maybe praying. In front of the kneeling-down figure were small pieces of something. Their shadows had been created by the flesh sections carved out of Littlewood’s thigh.
Garcia shivered. Something that felt like an electric shock started at the back of his neck and spread throughout his body at incredible speed. Hunter didn’t have to explain. He saw it himself.
‘Oh my God,’ he said, slightly tilting his head to one side. ‘We never figured out why the killer left us two images in one crime-scene. And we specifically struggled to understand that one. It looked like someone on his knees, praying or something, with several objects scattered around on the floor in front of him. It’s not that at all.’ He drew a deep breath and held it for a long instant before letting it out slowly. ‘That’s someone chopping a body into pieces.’
Garcia’s words bounced off the walls like a crazy rubber ball.
Captain Blake stood absolutely still. For a moment, she almost lost the ability to blink. ‘So you think that this group of friends got into a punch-up, beat somebody to death, and cut the body up into pieces to dispose of it?’
Hunter nodded and indicated the last shadow-image photograph they had – part two of the sculpture found in Nathan Littlewood’s office – the one that looked like someone staring at someone else lying inside a box.
‘They placed the dismembered body inside some sort of container before getting rid of it!’ Alice said, letting out a heartfelt sigh. Both images now made perfect sense together.
Hunter waited, taking in their concerned expressions. Almost a minute went by before Captain Blake spoke again.
‘How long ago do you think that happened?’
‘Somewhere around thirty years ago, give or take one or two. It must’ve happened when Nicholson, Nashorn and Littlewood were young, very young – late teens or early twenties maybe, probably before Littlewood got married twenty-seven years ago.’
‘So the obvious conclusion is that our killer was related to that victim in some degree, and he now wants revenge,’ the captain said.
‘Yes,’ Hunter agreed.
‘But why now?’
‘Because our killer didn’t know anything about what really happened until a few months ago,’ Hunter said.
All of a sudden, all the pieces were slotting into place in Garcia’s mind. ‘Nicholson,’ he said, returning to his desk, picking up his notebook and quickly flipping through it.
Captain Blake and Alice turned to face him.
‘Here it is. Derek Nicholson’s nurse told us that he said something about making his peace with God. About telling someone the truth about something. That no matter how much good you do in your life, there are certain mistakes that would haunt you until your dying day.’ He returned the notebook to his desk. ‘That must’ve been what he was talking about. The mistake that haunted him throughout his life.’ He looked at Hunter. ‘The person who visited him in his house. The man we still haven’t identified.’
Hunter nodded.
‘The nurse also said that Nicholson had only two visitors once he was taken ill,’ Garcia clarified, for the captain’s and Alice’s benefit. ‘DA Bradley was one of them, but we’ve never identified the second visitor. He’s got to be our killer. Nicholson finally told him the truth about what had happened. He didn’t want to carry that secret to the grave with him.’
‘And a few weeks later he was murdered,’ Captain Blake said. ‘The revenge rampage started.’
‘So if you’re right,’ Alice said to Hunter, as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place for her, ‘Derek Nicholson must’ve been friends, or at least acquainted, with our killer from before. If he asked him to come to his house so he could clear his conscience, he must’ve known him. And that’s why the killer considered him a liar.’ She shook her head. ‘Better yet, a deceiver. He felt betrayed. Exactly what the shadow image told us.’
Hunter nodded.
‘And with the next victim and shadow image,’ she continued, ‘the killer depicted Andrew Nashorn as the group or gang leader, the one they all followed.’
Another nod.
‘And Nathan Littlewood was the one left with the task of disposing of the body.’
‘I don’t think he disposed of it,’ Hunter disagreed. ‘I think he cut it to pieces, and packed them inside some sort of container. I think the person who disposed of that container is the last name on our killer’s hit list. The fourth member of the group. The next victim.’
Everyone paused and processed that information in their own time.
‘But as I said,’ Hunter massaged the back of his neck, ‘at the moment this is all just a crazy theory in my head. I have no proof of anything yet.’
‘Crazy or not, all the pieces seem to slot into place,’ Captain Blake said, returning her attention to the images on the board. ‘And that would also explain why our killer is dismembering his victims. It’s payback time – an eye for an eye – blood in, blood out.’
She paused for a brief moment while she worked things out in her head. It’d been sixteen days since the first murder, and as things stood, she was inclined to claw at any reasonable possibility. She also hated working with the FBI.
‘OK, it’s plausible, and it makes more sense than anything else we’ve got so far. Let’s go with it. Let’s get a team digging into our three victims’ past. If that group of friends really existed, I want to know who that fourth person was. If you need to get in touch with the FBI to dig deeper, do it. I don’t like them any more than you do, but they have resources that we don’t, and they can get access to things a lot faster than we can. Tell the team already digging into Derek Nicholson’s life to dig harder. We need to find out who visited him by his deathbed. Talk to his nurses again. And let’s get one last team looking into any cases where the victim was found chopped to pieces inside a box, a container, a matchbox, anything. I know there’s a possibility that the body was never found in the first place, but if it was found, and if you are right,’ she addressed Hunter, ‘we identify that victim, we identity our Sculptor killer.’
One Hundred
The next twenty-four hours went by in a blur. Everyone was working as fast and as hard as they could, but so far very little progress had been made.
With her experience in navigating databases, Alice had volunteered to run the searches for bodies found chopped to pieces inside any sort of container, but she hit a wall almost immediately. Her expertise was in the digital world. If any records were stored anywhere online, she would no doubt get to them. But when you’re searching for something that dates back years before the use of digital databases, it all becomes a lottery. If some underpaid clerk had, at some point, been given the mind-numbing task of transposing that information from paper to digital, then Alice knew she would find it. But if that information was still packed away inside a dark archive room somewhere, that was exactly where it would stay. Realistically, due to budgeting and a lack of staff, most government organizations would never manage to completely digitize their backlog of paper files.
Hunter and Garcia went back to Amy Dawson’s house – Derek Nicholson’s weekday nurse. She had seen the newspapers front pages and the photographs of all three victims. She couldn’t understand why a serial killer would go after Mr. Nicholson.
Hunter revisited the subject of Derek Nicholson wanting to make peace with God and tell someone the truth abo
ut something, but Amy told him that that had been all he’d said. He’d never mentioned anything else or any names. She had no idea what truth he had referred to, and she remembered nothing new about the second person who’d visited Mr. Nicholson that day.
Speaking to Melinda Wallis, Nicholson’s weekend nurse and the person who had found his body that morning, was a much more delicate affair. Since the murder, she had moved back into her parents’ house in La Habra Heights, a rural canyon community located on the border of Orange and Los Angeles Counties. Even with Hunter’s experience, interviewing her proved almost impossible. The trauma caused by what she had seen in that room, and the knowledge that she’d been a breath away from a ruthless killer, and the bloody message he had left on the wall specifically for her, had spread its roots deep into her conscious and subconscious mind. Even with years of psychotherapy, which her family couldn’t afford, she would never be the same person again. Sadly, Melinda had become another victim of the Sculptor.
One Hundred and One
Before returning to the PAB, Hunter and Garcia had one more stop – Allison Nicholson’s apartment in Pico-Robertson, just south of Beverly Hills.
Derek Nicholson’s youngest daughter lived in a luxurious two-bedroom apartment in the much sought-after Hillcrest development, adjacent to the famous Hillcrest Country Club. Hunter had contacted both of Nicholson’s daughters by phone earlier in the day. They’d arranged to meet at 7:15 p.m. at Allison’s apartment.
The Hillcrest development looked and felt more like a holiday resort than a residential complex. Its residents enjoyed a very large fitness center with a cardio island, dry sauna, two resort-style pools, two beauty spas, towering palm trees, waterfalls, and an outdoor fireplace with lounge area and barbeque grills. After signing in with the security guard at the complex’s electronic gates, both detectives were given instructions for finding the visitors’ parking lot.
The concierge at Allison’s apartment block’s entry lobby showed Hunter and Garcia to the elevator, and told them that Miss Nicholson’s apartment was located on the top floor.
The luxury that had started right at the electronic gates reached its peak inside Allison’s flat. The living room was almost the size of a basketball court, with Karndean flooring, impressive chandeliers, Persian rugs, and even a granite fireplace. The furniture was nearly entirely antique, and expensive paintings hung on the walls. But the décor was charming, giving the place a very relaxing atmosphere.
Allison invited both detectives in with a polite but sad smile. Her deep brown eyes were sorrowful. Her sadness had undoubtedly taken a bite at her beauty. Olivia looked just as worn out. Allison was still in her work clothes – a perfectly fitting dark suit, complemented by a gray, frilled, V-neck blouse. She’d taken her high heels off, and without them she stood at around five foot five.
‘Please have a seat,’ she said, indicating a pair of light brown leather Chesterfields.
Olivia was standing by the window, her long hair pulled back and clipped at the edge of her neck.
‘We’re sorry to disturb you,’ Hunter said, taking his seat. ‘We’ll take very little of your time.’ Hunter showed both sisters the photographs of Nashorn and Littlewood that had appeared on the front page of the LA Times. Neither Allison nor Olivia could confirm if their father were friends with either of the other two victims. Neither their faces nor their names rang any bells.
‘Who are these people?’ Olivia asked.
‘Friends of your father,’ Hunter said. ‘From a long time ago. We’re not sure if they were still friends.’
Allison looked perplexed.
‘A long time ago?’ Olivia questioned again. ‘How long?’
‘Around thirty years,’ Garcia answered.
‘What?’ Allison’s gaze moved from both detectives to her sister and then back to Garcia. ‘I wasn’t even born then. What do my father and some friends from thirty years ago have to do with any of this?’
‘We believe these killings aren’t random, and that the killer is targeting that specific group of friends,’ Hunter said.
‘A specific group of friends?’ Olivia joined in. ‘How many?’
‘We believe that there were at least four of them.’
Hunter’s words hung in the air for a moment.
‘Why?’ Olivia moved closer. ‘Why is this killer after these people?’
‘We’re not sure.’ Hunter saw no point in telling Olivia and Allison about his theory at the moment.
‘And you believe this killer is going to kill again.’
Hunter saw the glint in Olivia’s eyes.
Neither detective answered her question.
‘So you think this killer is after a specific group of people,’ Olivia carried on. ‘But you’re not sure how many. People who were friends thirty years ago, but you’re not sure if they are still friends. And you’re not even sure why the killer is targeting them. You guys don’t know much, do you?’
Hunter could see that Allison was getting tearful again. He had noticed a wooden sideboard behind the Chesterfields, which held a collection of picture frames of all different sizes. All the photos were of her family.
‘I was wondering if you have a photograph of your father when he was young that we could borrow,’ Hunter said to Allison. ‘It could really help us. You’ll get it back.’
Allison nodded. ‘I have an old wedding picture.’ She gestured towards the sideboard Olivia was standing next to.
Olivia turned, looked at all the portraits and hesitated for a moment, emotion running through her again. She reached for a frame and stared at it for a second before handing it to Hunter. The six-by-four-inch portrait showed a close-up of Derek Nicholson and his wife, their smiles reflecting how happy they were. Allison looked just like her mother, especially her eyes. Hunter remembered a picture he had obtained of Nicholson a year before he was diagnosed with terminal cancer; other than a receding hairline and the addition of the mandatory age wrinkles, he hadn’t changed much.
Back in Garcia’s car, just as he turned the key in the ignition, Hunter’s cellphone rang – Restricted Call.
‘Detective Hunter,’ he answered.
‘Detective, this is Tammy from Operations Crimeline. I have someone on hold who’d like to speak with the detective in charge of the Sculptor investigation.’
Hunter knew that the Crimeline team was trained to filter all bogus calls. Every time a high-profile investigation made the news, they received tens of those a day – people looking for rewards, drunks, druggies, cranks, pranks, tricksters, attention seekers, or simply people who liked to waste police time. If the investigation was related to a possible serial killer, the call-volume would multiply tenfold, easily going into the hundreds, sometimes even thousands, every day. Since this investigation had started, this was the first call Operations Crimeline had put through to either Hunter or Garcia. ‘She says she has some information,’ Tammy said.
‘What kind of information?’ Hunter asked, signaling Garcia to wait a moment.
Tammy cleared her throat. ‘She says she knew all three victims.’
One Hundred and Two
The greasy café sat at the corner of Ratliffe Street and Gridley Road in Norwalk, southeast Los Angeles. All tables but one were taken. Sitting alone, facing the shop’s front window, was a black woman in her early fifties. On the table in front of her, a half-drunk cup of coffee had been pushed to one side. Twice now, in the fifteen minutes she’d been sitting there, she’d thought about getting up and leaving. She still wasn’t sure if she was making something of nothing, but it seemed like way too much of a coincidence to be just a coincidence.
She had clocked them way before they entered the café, as they parked their car outside. She could still tell cops from a mile away. She looked up as both detectives stepped through the door, and Hunter immediately saw a face that, long ago, must have been pretty, but now looked hollowed out and emptied of life. There was a long, thin scar on her left cheek that she made n
o effort to conceal. They locked eyes for just a second.
‘Jude?’ Hunter asked, coming up to her table. He knew that wasn’t her real name, but it was the name she’d given him over the phone.
The woman nodded as she studied both faces in front of her.
‘I’m Detective Hunter and this is Detective Garcia. Do you mind if we have a seat?’
She recognized Hunter’s voice from their brief phone conversation less than half an hour ago. Jude’s reply was a tiny shrug.
‘Can I get you another cup of coffee?’ Hunter offered.
She shook her head. ‘I need to get up early in the morning, and I already blew my caffeine quota for today.’ Her voice was slightly husky, sexy even, but firm. She was wearing a collarless, long-sleeve white shirt with a red rose embroidered over her left breast. There was a delicacy to her perfume, with a base-note of spice, something dry and exotic like clove or star anise.
‘What can I get you gentlemen?’ an overweight waitress asked, approaching the table.
‘Are you sure?’ Hunter tried again, sending a smile Jude’s way.
She nodded.
‘Two black coffees, no sugar, please,’ Hunter replied, looking back at the waitress.
The waitress nodded and started collecting the plates from the next table along.
They sat in silence for a few seconds. As the waitress moved back into the kitchen, Jude looked across the table at Hunter and Garcia. ‘OK, as I told you over the phone, I don’t know if this has any relevance, but it has been bothering me for two days now. I’m not a great believer in coincidences, you know?’
Hunter laced his fingers and rested his hands on the table. He knew that the best thing was just to let her speak, no questions.
‘I was taking the subway to work two days ago, as I do every morning,’ she carried on. ‘I tend to avoid reading the papers, specially the LA Times. It’s just too much crap, you know? And I already deal with a lot of that every day. Anyway, the woman sitting opposite me had the morning paper with her. As she flipped through it, I caught the frontpage headline.’ She pursed her lips and quickly shook her head. ‘I didn’t think anything of it at first. So there was another killer running loose in LA, what’s new, right? But then, one of the pictures made me look again.’