The Death Sculptor rh-4

by Carter Chris

  Seventy-One

  As the day drew to a close, Nathan Littlewood sat at his desk, listening to the recording of his last patient’s session and jotting down some notes. His psychology practice was located in Silver Lake, just east of Hollywood and northwest of downtown LA.

  Littlewood was fifty-two years old, five eleven in height, with classic good looks and a trim physique, kept that way by a good diet and three gym sessions a week. He was good at his job, very good in fact. His patients ranged from teenagers to over-sixties, singletons to married and live-in couples, and from everyday people to a few B-list celebrities. Every week tens of patients would pour their hearts and minds out to him.

  His last patient of the day had left half an hour ago. Her name was Janet Stark, a 31-year-old actress who was having terrible problems with her live-in boyfriend. They’d been fighting a lot recently about the most mundane of things, and she was sure he was sleeping around behind her back. The problem was, she suspected he was sleeping around with another man.

  Janet herself had slept around with plenty of women, and she still did. She wasn’t afraid to admit it, but in her view, female bisexualism was acceptable, male wasn’t.

  She’d had six sessions with Littlewood so far. Two a week for the past three weeks, and the flirting had started almost immediately. After the first session, Janet had started dressing more provocatively – shorter skirts, low-cut blouses, mega-cleavage bras, sexy shoes, anything to grab his attention. Today she had turned up in a short summer dress, black, open-toed Christian Louboutin ankle boots, ‘I-desperately-want-you-now’ makeup, and no underwear. As she lay down on the couch, her dress hitched up over her thighs, and she positioned her legs in such a way that absolutely nothing was left to the imagination.

  Littlewood loved women, and the sluttier and kinkier they were the better, but he knew better than to have affairs, or even flings, with patients. Things like that never stayed undercover. And in a city like Los Angeles, all that was needed was a flicker of a rumor for the crap to spread like wildfire. In LA, a good rumor had the power to destroy careers. Littlewood was smarter than that. He got his kicks elsewhere, and he paid good money for it.

  Littlewood was divorced. He got married in his mid-twenties, but the whole thing lasted less than five years. The problems started pretty much straight after the ceremony. After four and a half years of arguments, discordances and great sexual frustration, their marriage fell into such deep depression that severe psychological damage was caused to both of them. Divorce was the only way out.

  They’d had only one son, Harry, who was now studying Law in Las Vegas. After his marriage experience, and the lengthy and arduous divorce process, Littlewood promised himself he would never get married again. Since then, the thought of breaking that promise had not once crossed his mind.

  A buzzer screeched on Littlewood’s desk. He paused his Dictaphone and pressed the intercom.

  ‘Go ahead, Sheryl.’

  ‘Just checking if there’s anything else you need from me today.’

  Littlewood consulted his watch. It was way past office hours. He’d forgotten that Janet Stark liked her sessions to start as late as possible.

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Sheryl, you should’ve gone home over an hour ago. I lost track of time.’

  ‘It’s OK, Nathan.’ Littlewood had insisted that Sheryl call him by his first name. ‘I don’t mind. Are you sure you don’t need me to stay behind? I can if you want me to.’

  Sheryl had been Littlewood’s office manager/secretary for just over a year, and the sexual tension between them could probably light up a small town. But he reserved for her the same courtesy he gave his patients, despite the clear attraction that existed between them. Sheryl, on the other hand, would have dropped all professionalism and jumped into bed with Littlewood faster than anyone could say guacamole, given the opportunity.

  ‘No, I’m fine, Sheryl. I’m just catching up on some notes. I’ll be leaving soon. Half an hour max. Go home, and I’ll see you tomorrow.’

  Littlewood returned to his recording and his notes. It took him another thirty-five minutes before he had everything organized the way he wanted. By the time he got to his office building’s underground garage, there were only three cars left. His was parked in the far corner, under a faulty light.

  Despite his psychology practice doing well enough, Littlewood drove a silver, 1998 Chrysler Concorde LXi. He called it a classic, but his friends teased him that just because it was old, it didn’t make it a classic.

  He used the key to unlock the door and got into the driver’s seat. He was desperately hungry, and he could certainly do with a stiff drink. The day’s effort in dodging sexual innuendos also left him wanting something else, and he knew just where to go to get it.

  He turned the key in the ignition. His engine stuttered and coughed like a dying dog but it didn’t come to life. Sometimes his old Chrysler could be temperamental.

  ‘C’mon baby.’ He patted the dashboard.

  Littlewood pumped the gas pedal three times and tried again.

  More coughing and rattling – no success.

  Maybe it was time to upgrade to a newer model.

  One more time.

  ‘C’mon, c’mon.’

  Nothing.

  ‘Give me a goddamn break.’

  More pedal pumping.

  Chu, chu, chu, chu, chu.

  Littlewood slammed his clenched fists against the steering wheel and cursed under his breath before closing his eyes and leaning back on his seat. By the looks of it, it would have to be a taxi tonight.

  That was when he felt something like he’d never felt before. A sixth-sense warning that came from deep inside him, almost freezing his blood in his veins and making every hair on his body stand on end.

  Instinctively his eyes shot up, searching for the rearview mirror.

  Looking back at him, from the darkness of his backseat, was the most evil-looking pair of eyes he’d ever seen.

  Seventy-Two

  Hunter sat alone in total darkness facing the pictures board in his office. It was late and everyone had gone home. In his hand he held a flashlight, which he kept flicking on and off at uneven intervals, in an attempt to trick his brain.

  As light enters the eye and hits the retina, the eye’s photographic plate, the image that is formed is inverted, but is interpreted the right way up by the brain. If you allow that image to be projected onto the retina for just a split second before cutting off the light source, the brain then has to interpret only what it can remember, drawing from what modern medicine calls the ‘immediate’ or ‘f ash’ memory.

  If the image is a shape well known to the brain, like a chair, the minor details the brain failed to register due to the short light exposure, are automatically compensated by the long-term memory – the brain thinks ‘it looked like a chair’, so the brain pulls a chair image from its memory bank. But if the shape is unknown to the brain, then it has nothing to fall back on. It then compensates by working harder in trying to identify details from the original image. That was what Hunter was trying to do, force his brain to see something it hadn’t seen before.

  So far, it hadn’t worked.

  ‘Is this your idea of disco lights?’

  Hunter turned in the direction of the voice and switched on his flashlight. Alice was standing by the door, holding her briefcase.

  ‘I didn’t know you were still here,’ he said.

  ‘What, you think you’re the only workaholic in this place?’ She smiled.

  Hunter shifted in his seat.

  ‘Do you mind if I switch on the lights?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ He flicked off his flashlight.

  Alice hit the light switch before nodding at the board. ‘Got anything new?’ She knew what he was trying to do.

  Hunter rubbed his eyes with his thumb and forefinger while shaking his head. ‘Nothing.’

  Alice placed her briefcase on the floor and leaned against the doorframe. ‘Are yo
u hungry?’

  Hunter hadn’t thought about it the whole day, and as he did his stomach rumbled. ‘Starving.’

  ‘Do you like Italian?’

  Seventy-Three

  Campanile was a rustically elegant restaurant on South La Brea Avenue, reminiscent of a little Mediterranean village, complete with a bell tower, a fountain-accented courtyard, and a tiny bakery.

  ‘I didn’t know you liked this place,’ Hunter said as he and Alice took a table in the courtyard.

  ‘There’s a lot you don’t know about me.’ She looked at him with a faint smile on her lips, but not wanting Hunter to dwell on her words, she quickly followed them up. ‘I used to come here a lot. I love Italian food, and the chef here is fantastic. Probably the best around this part of town.’

  Hunter couldn’t disagree. ‘So you don’t come here a lot anymore?’

  ‘Not as much. I still love Italian food, but I’m not getting any younger, and I really have to watch what I eat. Shifting any excess weight isn’t as easy as it used to be.’

  Hunter unfolded the cloth napkin and placed it on his lap. ‘I don’t think there’s any shifting to be done.’

  Alice paused and looked back at him in a peculiar way. ‘Was that you paying me a compliment?’

  ‘Yes, and at the same time telling you the truth.’ Alice pushed her hair back behind her ears and swept it around over her left shoulder. A self-conscious and slightly flirtatious move.

  It went totally unnoticed.

  ‘Shall we order?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Why not.’ The reply came in a less than enthusiastic tone.

  They both ordered spaghetti. Hunter had his with primavera sauce, and Alice had hers with the chef’s special spicy meatballs and sundried tomatoes. They shared a bottle of red wine and tried as best as they could to keep the conversation away from the investigation.

  ‘How come you’ve never married, Robert?’ The question came at the end of the meal, as the waiter poured them both the rest of the wine. ‘As I said, in school most of the girls I knew had a thing for you. I’m sure you had plenty of opportunities.’

  Hunter studied Alice while he had a sip of his wine. She had real interest burning in her eyes, almost like a reporter digging for a new scoop. ‘There are certain things that just don’t go together. What I do and married life are two of them.’

  Alice pursed her lips together and twisted them to one side. ‘That’s a lame excuse, if I’ve ever heard one. Many cops are married.’

  ‘True, but a large number of them eventually get divorced due to the pressures that come with being a cop.’

  ‘But at least they tried, without hiding behind a pretty bad excuse. What happened to the old saying better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

  Hunter shrugged. ‘I never heard that expression.’

  ‘Bullshit.’

  A ghost of a smile betrayed him.

  ‘How about Carlos?’ Alice said. ‘He is married. Are you saying that his wife will eventually leave him because of his job?’

  ‘Some people are very lucky, or at least lucky enough to find that one person in life they’re meant to be with. Carlos and Anna are one such example. I don’t think you’ll ever find a better-suited couple. No matter how hard you look.’

  ‘And you never met that person? The one you’re supposed to be with for the rest of your life?’

  In a flash Hunter’s memory was inundated by images of one face . . . the sound of one name. He felt his heart warm in his chest, but as the memories progressed at hyper speed, it grew ice cold.

  ‘No.’ Hunter didn’t shy away from her stare. But he was sure that something in his eyes gave him away.

  Alice did see it. First something tender, then something hard and arctic, something very painful, and in spite of her curiosity, she knew she had no right to ask any more questions.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She broke eye contact and changed the subject before the silence became too awkward. ‘So you got nothing new from the second shadow image?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Tell me something, do you think we got the first one right? I mean, the interpretation of it – that the killer was telling us that, to him, Derek Nicholson was a betrayer, a liar.’ She lifted a hand to stop Hunter from answering too quickly. ‘I know that we’ll never know for sure until we catch the killer. But does it ring right to you?’

  Hunter could already see where she was leading. ‘Yes.’

  ‘But still, you have doubts about our interpretation of the second shadow image.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Alice sipped her wine slowly. ‘You, Carlos and I have spent countless hours studying that human sculpture and the shadow image it casts, trying to make some sense of its meaning. I don’t think there’s anything else there, other than what we’ve been seeing from the start. Even the captain agrees. Why do you think we’re wrong this time? Why can’t the killer be using the image to tell us that he’s going after two more victims?’

  The waiter came over to clear their table. Hunter waited until he moved away, balancing all the dishes up his arms.

  ‘In my view, that interpretation is too much of a leap from the first one. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.’

  Alice’s eyes widened. ‘Sense? What in this case makes sense, Robert? We have a maniac out on an ego trip, chopping people up and creating human-flesh sculptures so he can give us crazy clues to a jigsaw puzzle. Where the hell is the sense in all that?’

  Hunter quickly scanned the surrounding tables to see if anyone else had heard Alice’s comment. Her voice had risen a few decibels with excitement. Everyone seemed much more interested in their own food and wine than in their conversation. His attention returned to Alice.

  ‘It doesn’t make sense to us because we haven’t figured it out yet. But to the killer, it makes perfect sense. That’s why he’s doing it.’

  Alice measured those words in silence. ‘That’s what you’ve been trying to do, isn’t it? To think like the killer. To see the sense that only he can see.’

  ‘Well, it’s been exactly a week, and so far I’ve failed miserably.’

  ‘No you haven’t.’ She placed one hand on the table, and the tips of her fingers brushed against the back of Hunter’s hand. ‘So far you’ve done a better job than anyone would’ve expected. If it weren’t for you, we’d all still be looking at those sculptures, trying to figure out what they meant.’

  Hunter paused and looked at Alice. ‘Was that you paying me a compliment?’

  ‘No, just stating the truth. But what did you mean when you said it was too much of a leap from our interpretation of the first one.’

  ‘Would you like to see the dessert menu?’ The waiter had come back to the table.

  Alice didn’t even look at him, simply shaking her head. Hunter gave him a sympathetic smile.

  ‘I think we overdid it on the main course. We’ve got no space left for anything else, thank you.’

  ‘Prego,’ the waiter replied and went on his way.

  ‘What leap?’ Alice insisted.

  ‘If we’re right in our interpretation of the first shadow image, then the killer gave us his opinion of Derek Nicholson, right? He considered him a liar.’

  Alice sat back on her chair, things starting to connect in her head.

  ‘But if we’re also right in our interpretation of the second image, then the killer didn’t give us his opinion of Andrew Nashorn.’

  Alice saw his point. ‘If we’re right, he gave us his opinion of himself – an angry devil looking down at his victims.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, and I can’t see a reason why he would do that. It seems wrong. This killer wants us to see something through his point of view. He wants us to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing. Why he’s killing these people. Telling us that he thought Nicholson was a liar, that he was maybe betrayed by him, makes sense.’

  ‘But telling us that he’s an angry devil out for revenge, doesn’t?’
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  ‘Does it to you?’

  Her eyebrows arched for a second. ‘No,’ she admitted. ‘So you think he’s trying to tell us something about Nashorn with the second image?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Yeah, but what? That he considered Nashorn the devil? A man with horns? And how about the other four images, two figures standing and two down? What the hell do they mean?’

  Hunter had no reply.

  Seventy-Four

  His eyelids fluttered like butterfly wings – very damaged butterfly wings. They felt as if they weighed a ton, and it took Nathan Littlewood several seconds and tremendous effort to half open them and keep them that way. Shards of light seemed to rip through his eyeballs. He took a deep breath and his lungs burned as if the air were sulfuric acid. Whatever drug was injected into his neck, it was now wearing off.

  His chin slumped down to his chest, his head feeling too heavy for him to lift it back up. He stayed like that for several seconds. Only then he realized that he was naked, except for his sweat-soaked striped boxers clinging to his skin. It took him another moment to understand his position. He was sitting down on a comfortable leather office chair. His arms were pulled back behind him, around the chair’s backrest. His wrists were bound together by something hard and thin that was cutting into his flesh. His feet were also pulled back and tied together under the chair’s seat, about an inch or so from the floor. His whole body hurt as if he’d been at the receiving end of a massive beating, and the pain inside his head was eating away at his sanity.

  Something was pulling against the corners of his mouth, and all of a sudden he was overwhelmed by a desperate gagging sensation. Coughing erupted from his chest with incredible force, but the air was half-blocked by the tight cloth gag in his mouth, and that served only to intensify his desire to retch. Littlewood tasted bile mixed with blood, and the coughs quickly escalated into a struggle not to choke to death.

  Breathe through your nose, was the only thought that came into his head. He tried to concentrate on that, but he was too scared and drunk on pain for his brain to muster any discipline at that moment. Littlewood needed more air, he was desperate for it, and instinctively he drew another deep breath through his mouth. The mixture of bile and blood that was sitting just under his tongue was sucked back into his throat, blocking the oxygen passage even more.