The Caller

by Chris Carter

  That was the recurring theme on all the photographs on Holden’s board – a selfie taken with either friends or family while the subject was driving.

  In Tanya Kaitlin’s photo, which was the same photo Hunter had come across back in his office, she and Karen Ward had big bright smiles on their faces while Tanya held her cellphone at arm’s length. The motion blur that could be seen through the passenger’s window left no doubt that the car was moving.

  A similar photo had been taken by Mr. J. His wife Cassandra was sitting on the passenger seat, smiling. Their son Patrick was giving them both bunny ears with his fingers from the back seat.

  Erica Barnes and her sister, Dr. Gwen Barnes, were both making silly faces at the camera while Erica, the driver, took the shot.

  ‘Did you know that one in every four traffic accidents in the USA is caused as a consequence of a driver using a cellphone?’ Holden’s voice got angrier. ‘One in every four, Detective.’

  Hunter knew the statistic, but he remained silent. His arms were starting to tire.

  ‘I lost my entire family that night,’ Holden continued. ‘My wife, who was thirty-six, and my two daughters. The oldest was nine years old. The youngest, seven. They all died because some stupid woman decided to snap a selfie while driving down a highway, so she could upload it to her goddamn Facebook page. Now is that fair?’

  Another piece of the puzzle just slotted into place – social-media websites. That was the reason he searched them.

  ‘I too lost my life that night, Detective,’ Holden said. The anger was gone from his voice. ‘One moment I had everything to live for – a beautiful wife and two gorgeous daughters – the next . . . all gone. My life was left without meaning. My heart had nothing to beat for anymore.’

  Another heavy pause.

  ‘After the accident,’ Holden continued, ‘I spent six months in hospital then another year just . . . existing . . . vegetating in this world, really. Everything I did, I did robotically, without any meaning. For me, life became nothing more than a vacuum.’

  Hunter noticed that Holden’s voice had moved again. This time, slightly to the right.

  ‘Despite all the counseling I was given, nothing seemed able to stop the destructive thoughts that tormented me almost daily. Not towards others, but towards myself. Without my family, it didn’t seem like I belonged in this world anymore. But isn’t life ironic, Detective? When I was finally about to succumb to those destructive thoughts, when I had finally decided that I just couldn’t vegetate any longer, I witnessed something that changed my life. As I was sitting at a coffee shop, wondering about the best way to go, I saw a car take out a mother holding a child at a crosswalk. The accident happened because the driver was distracted. Want to have a guess why?’

  Hunter didn’t need to reply.

  ‘That’s right. He was on his fucking cellphone.’

  Holden delivered his last sentence with so much anger, Hunter thought he was about to pull the trigger.

  ‘The mother survived. The child didn’t. The driver never stopped to help.’

  The pause that followed was long.

  ‘What I saw that day, the way it made me feel, ignited something new inside of me.’ Holden’s voice was back to sounding emotionless. ‘That was when it dawned on me that I indeed needed to stop vegetating. Not because I needed to end it all, but because I needed to start living again and I had finally found something to live for.’

  ‘So you started planning,’ Hunter said, filling in the blanks.

  ‘So I started planning,’ Holden confirmed. ‘Getting back to work was easy. My counselor had been pushing me to do it for months. As she had always said – the best thing for me would be to keep busy, to keep my brain occupied. Sitting at home all day would undoubtedly force my mind to wander and, in the state I was in, that wasn’t a good thing. I’d probably be digging through memories of the accident or, even worse, harvesting destructive thoughts, which, without her knowledge, I’d been doing since my family’s funeral. So when I finally agreed, saying that she was right, that keeping busy and returning to work would be good for me, she signed on to the idea with a wide smile. After that, the real work started.’

  ‘Finding your victims,’ Hunter said, his eyes still on the board in front of him.

  ‘That’s right. I began browsing through social-media sites, looking for anyone who had, at any time, posted a selfie taken inside a moving vehicle.’ Holden laughed. ‘You’d be surprised by what people post on their pages, Detective, by the pictures they upload. You can find out all sorts of personal information on them, on their friends, on their families, you name it. You can find out about their likes, dislikes, their preferences, where they’re going to be on a certain day and at what time, what they know, what they don’t know, what they should know, but don’t.’ Another animated laugh. ‘Social media sites are like a free market of information on people. Information that they, themselves, freely put out there for others to find.’

  ‘So your real target was the person taking the selfie,’ Hunter said. ‘The people you called, not the people you killed.’

  ‘Of course,’ Holden admitted. ‘Killing them would’ve been too easy. That wasn’t the point of the exercise.’

  An exercise, Hunter thought. Was that how Holden saw his murders?

  ‘You know, Detective, I really wish I had died in that car crash, but instead, I got trapped. Did you know that?’

  Hunter didn’t. It wasn’t mentioned in any of the reports he’d read.

  ‘I couldn’t free myself from my seat.’ Holden paused again, long and heavy. When he spoke, his voice was full of grief. ‘My wife and my older daughter didn’t die instantly. It took them almost five minutes to go. I had to watch them die right in front of my eyes without being able to do a thing. I was right there, so close, but I couldn’t move. I couldn’t reach them.’

  Hunter breathed in another piece of the puzzle. That had been the reason for the video-calls. Holden wanted his targets to watch the ones they cared for suffer. He wanted them to watch them die, just like he had to watch his family die. He wanted them to feel powerless, just like he had felt that night.

  ‘I hear my daughter’s voice every night, Detective: “Please help me, Daddy . . . Please help Mommy.” ’ Holden’s voice croaked. ‘I see their faces every time I close my eyes. Do you understand what sort of destructive feeling comes from being so helpless, Detective?’

  Silence.

  ‘DO YOU?’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Guilt.’

  One more piece of the puzzle – the reason for the question game. Holden didn’t only want to make his targets watch their loved ones suffer in pain before dying, like he’d had to watch his wife and daughter. He also wanted to give them the false sense of power, the belief that they could save their lives, just so they could experience helplessness in the same way he had. That was where the real pain, the real soul destruction, came from – guilt. It came from the knowledge that they could’ve made all the difference, if only they’d known the answer to a simple question – an answer that they should’ve known. Holden wanted guilt to be a constant part of his targets’ lives, just like it was in his.

  Hunter wasn’t sure how much longer he would be able to keep his arms up. The pain in his shoulders was starting to blind him. He needed a plan. He needed to think of something and he needed to do it fast.

  ‘Would you like to know how they died, Detective?’ Holden asked. ‘My family?’

  Keep him talking, Hunter thought. Keep him talking.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Julie,’ Holden said, ‘my older daughter, was sitting behind my wife. With the impact, she was catapulted forward like a bullet and, despite being strapped in, her head smashed against the passenger’s seat in front of her.’ There was a short pause. ‘Do you know what a splinter fracture is, Detective?’

  Hunter closed his eyes as the last piece of the puzzle slotted into place. Holden’s killing methods.

  ‘Yes . .
. I do.’

  ‘Her little tiny skull was riddled with them. Her brain got punctured thirteen times.’ Holden coughed as if he had something lodged in his throat.

  Hunter’s attention sharpened.

  ‘Megan,’ Holden continued, ‘my youngest, who was sitting directly behind me, had her face and skull crushed by my seat – like a vise. The crash impact was so violent, my seat broke off its rails and flew back into her. She never had a chance.’

  Hunter’s shoulder muscles were now in complete agony, too fatigued to keep his arms up for much longer, but logic told him that if his arms were tired, so were Holden’s.

  They’d been talking for around eight minutes now. A three fifty-seven Magnum semi-automatic pistol weighed around two and a half pounds, which, after eight minutes, would add considerably to the effort his arm muscles had to go through to keep Hunter under aim.

  ‘My wife, Dora, she suffered the worst.’ Holden paused again, as if he had to breathe in the strength to explain it. ‘The impact caused the windshield to explode into the car and on to the two of us, but because my seat broke off its rails and flew back, she took the bulk of the impact. Her face was completely lacerated by glass. It took her around five minutes to bleed to death. All I could do was look at her . . . and scream . . . and cry . . . but I couldn’t get to her. I just couldn’t get to her. I couldn’t get to my babies.’

  Holden’s last few words were delivered with a lot of pain and in an almost strangled voice. Hunter couldn’t see it, but he had no doubt that tears had come to his eyes.

  Teary eyes, tired arms. It was now or never.

  Ninety-One

  Without being able to turn around to face Holden, Hunter knew that his only chance was to play the odds . . . and he had to play them blind.

  For the past five minutes he’d been listening attentively to Holden’s voice, searching for any sort of oscillation in it, waiting and hoping that the odds would tip his way, even if only for a split second.

  Teary eyes, tired arms.

  Once again, keeping his head completely still, Hunter’s eyes moved left. Seven feet to the nearest shelving unit – way too far for him to make it . . . or was it?

  From that distance, with his full attention on his target and his gun aimed and ready, Holden just couldn’t miss. Hunter was well aware of that, but teary eyes and tired arms would never add up to full attention and aimed and ready. If Hunter was playing the odds, he had to do it now.

  Holden hadn’t noticed it, but Hunter had already repositioned his feet. Both of them were now slightly facing left, with his right heel about an inch off the ground, ready for the explosive movement. In the blink of an eye, his right leg pushed forward with all its strength and Hunter’s body shot left; but instead of running, he threw himself on to the floor and rolled away as fast as he could.

  BOOM.

  BOOM.

  Inside a confined space like Holden’s basement, a three fifty-seven Magnum sounded like an amplified cannon, the defining sound reverberating off the walls in all directions, but Hunter had read the odds like a pro. Revisiting the accident in the way Holden had just done had overwhelmed him with emotions. Tears had indeed come to his eyes, blurring his vision. To compensate for the weight of his gun and to release some of the muscle tension, his weapon arm and his trigger finger had also relaxed a couple of notches. The result had been an attention-lacking, poorly aimed first shot. By the time Holden’s mind got back to business and he squeezed the second round, Hunter had almost disappeared behind the shelving unit.

  The second bullet missed Hunter by just a fraction, exploding against the concrete floor and sending dust and cement pieces flying up in the air.

  As Hunter made it to the temporary safety of the shelving unit, he immediately got to his feet; but, as he looked up, desolation hit him. All he seemed to have done was delay the inevitable. Without being able to turn his head to have a proper look, Hunter’s assessment of his escape route had been limited by what he could see from rotating his eyeballs as far left as they would go. Now that he could see clearly, there was no escape route.

  Hunter had thrown himself into a makeshift corridor. To one side he had a brick wall, to the other, solid shelving units with no break in between them. The only way Hunter could get out of that corridor was if he ran all the way to the end of it and ducked behind the last unit again, but that was way too far. There was no way he could make it there before Holden rounded the first unit and fired another shot at him, and this time, Hunter wasn’t so sure Holden would miss.

  Think, damnit, think.

  Hunter did the only thing he could do. He played the odds again.

  Holden had done exactly what Hunter had expected him to do – he had run forward, towards the shelving unit that Hunter had ducked behind, gun poised, ready to blast another shot at him. Hunter, on the other hand, didn’t do the expected. He didn’t run down the makeshift corridor towards the last unit. He did the exact opposite. He ran back to where he had just come from.

  Hunter’s timing couldn’t have been more perfect. As Holden began rounding the shelving unit, expecting Hunter to be running scared towards the other end of the room, Hunter collided with Holden’s six-foot-one frame with maximum force. The difference was, Holden wasn’t expecting it – Hunter was.

  Hunter had thrown himself forward headfirst, which hit Holden square in the chest. Reflexively, Holden’s finger squeezed the trigger on his weapon, but the impact had been so brutal that he was hurled back several feet. His gun hand moved up and the shot went astray, hitting the ceiling. As he fell backwards, he lost his grip on his gun, which hit the floor and disappeared under a shelving unit. Gasping for air and with pain already burning through his ribs, Holden landed on his back awkwardly, crashing hard against the concrete floor. At that exact moment, Hunter and Holden’s eyes met and for a heartbeat everything switched to slow motion. Hunter saw the ugly scar on Holden’s chin contort out of shape and he paused. He hadn’t seen it before. How could he never have seen it before? The thick scar traversed Holden’s entire chin, from the left edge of his lip, across his jaw and cheek, disappearing just under his right ear.

  It was then that Hunter realized why the image of Holden’s eyes had come back to him so vividly back in his office – Hunter had never seen Nicholas Holden’s face in full. They had only met a few times, all of them at crime scenes. With a nose mask always covering the bottom half of his face and the hood of his Tyvek coverall always pulled tight over his head, all Hunter had ever seen of Holden’s face were his eyes.

  By the time Holden realized what had happened, it was too late . . . for him at least.

  With one giant step, Hunter was already over him. All it took was one well-placed hit to Holden’s left temple.

  Lights out.

  Ninety-Two

  Twelve hours later

  Police Administration Building

  Hunter and Garcia were both at their desks, filling in paperwork, when Captain Blake stepped into their office.

  ‘OK,’ she said in a half surprised, half confused tone. ‘How did this happen? Somebody please explain it to me.’

  Both detectives paused and looked back at her.

  ‘Yesterday when I left my office,’ the captain began. ‘We had two victims and nothing else. No clues, no links between victims, no suspects, nothing. Our press office was getting ready to release a short, but expertly bullshit-filled statement.’

  Garcia curbed a smile.

  ‘Don’t you start,’ the captain said, pointing a finger at him.

  ‘I didn’t say anything.’ Garcia surrendered with his hands up.

  ‘That was yesterday,’ Captain Blake continued. ‘I get in here today and I find out that not only did we have a brand new victim overnight, but the whole case has been wrapped up. Done and dusted. The “video-call killer” is sitting in a goddamn cell downstairs. And, as I understand it, he was one of the forensic agents who had been working the scenes?’ Her eyebrows lifted as the palms
of her hands flipped upwards. ‘How did we move from “nothing” to “done” in just a few hours? What the hell happened overnight?’

  Garcia pointed at Hunter. ‘Robert happened, Captain. What else? I was still wrapping things up at the crime scene.’ The look he gave Hunter could silence a small crowd. ‘He didn’t even give me a courtesy call to let me know what was going on. And I’m his partner.’

  ‘I didn’t really know what was going on.’ Hunter’s gaze moved first to Garcia then to Captain Blake. He then proceeded to tell her how the events of last night had unfolded. He showed her the screenshot Erica Barnes had captured on her cellphone and the upside-down heart-shaped blood clot in the killer’s left eye. He told her how he was certain he had seen that same blood clot before, but he just couldn’t remember where, or in whose eyes, until he knocked a file from his desk on to the floor. As he picked up the scattered pieces of paper, his eyes settled on a fingerprint sheet.

  Fingerprints . . . fingerprints . . . fingerprints.

  That was when his brain finally engaged. Nicholas Holden was a forensic fingerprint expert.

  Hunter told Captain Blake about pulling Holden’s file, finding out about the accident, then pulling the report from the LAPD Collision Investigation Unit.

  ‘So the blood clot in his left eye had been a consequence of the accident,’ Captain Blake said. ‘That’s why you didn’t see it in his file picture.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘Scar tissue left from the trauma and hemorrhage in his eye. The photo in his file was taken a few years before that.’

  ‘So how long had he been a forensic agent for?’

  ‘Seven years. The accident happened three and a half years into his career. He spent about five months in hospital and almost a year in counseling therapy, before he asked to be allowed back into work.’

  ‘Seven years? And you’ve never met him before?’ The captain’s stare bounced between both detectives.