by Chris Carter
‘I pick you.’
Hunter laughed. ‘And I’m flattered. But this would be for the wrong reasons and you know it.’
‘Sometimes the wrong reasons are the best ones.’
‘And most nights I’d agree with that. But tonight I’ll have to take a rain check.’
‘You’re blowing me off?’ She sounded genuinely offended.
‘Not really.’ Hunter paused for a second. ‘Let’s do this. When this investigation is over, I’ll take you out for dinner. Let’s see if you still wanna take me back to your place for drinks then.’
Thirty-Three
Hunter managed to get only three and a half hours of sleep. Though he’d been up since 4:30 a.m., it was just past eight by the time he walked into his office. Garcia was at his desk reading one of Father Fabian’s journals. His eyes were bloodshot framed by dark circles.
‘What time did you get here?’ Hunter asked, closing the door behind him.
Garcia placed the journal on his desk, leaned back on his chair and massaged his stiff neck. ‘Seven-thirty, but I was up half the night, reading.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Yeah, me too.’
Garcia noticed he had two journals under his arm. ‘How far did you get?’ He nodded towards the books.
‘I read through both of them.’ Hunter placed them on his desk.
‘You read four hundred pages in one night?’
‘I read a lot, I read fast and I don’t sleep much.’
‘Did you find anything?’
‘Nothing that could really help the investigation. But Father Fabian was a troubled man.’ Hunter leaned against his desk and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. ‘He thought about suicide – twice.’
Garcia rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. ‘Well, I’m getting cross-eyed. And I still haven’t found anything either. Any joy from the tip lines?’
Every night, before going home, Hunter personally went through the day’s tips collected by the tips team.
‘Nothing. Over two hundred calls so far and all of them bullshit.’
A knock came at the door.
‘Come in,’ Hunter called.
Officer Hopkins stepped into the office carrying a blue plastic file. He also looked tired.
‘I have some preliminary results to the searches you asked me for,’ he told Hunter, who raised a hand, stopping him before he was able to continue.
‘I think we could all use a break from the office and from computer screens. It’s not a bad day out there. What do you say we go grab a coffee in Little Tokyo? A change of scenery would do us good.’
‘I’m in.’ Garcia raised his hand.
‘Sure. I love that place.’ Hopkins nodded.
Little Tokyo is a small district in Downtown Los Angeles, just across the road from Parker Center and the RHD. It’s one of only three official Japantowns in the United States, and if you like Japanese food there’s no better place to be in LA.
Hopkins suggested Poppy Coffee Shop, on the south side of Little Tokyo. He’d eaten there many times and their coffee was the best.
Despite the early hour, the café was packed. They all ordered black coffees, and Hopkins had a chocolate-sprinkled donut to go with it.
‘You guys should try one of these donuts,’ Hopkins said as they took the last available table by the door. ‘They’re so rich they’re practically a food group.’
‘I’m good,’ Garcia said, lifting his right hand.
‘Knock yourself out.’ Hunter smiled and frowned at the four cubes of sugar Hopkins dropped into his coffee. ‘So what have you got?’ he asked.
‘Not much.’ Hopkins sounded disappointed. ‘I researched what you’ve asked. Any acts of violence against any churches in the past five years.’ He retrieved a few sheets from his file and started flipping through them. ‘I’ve got vandalism, graffiti, a few broken windows, stolen objects, a few attempted arsons, but no significant physical violence against any priests. There have, however, been a few cases of rape against nuns.’
‘That doesn’t fall into the category we’re looking for.’ Hunter sipped his coffee too quickly and burned the roof of his mouth.
‘I know, but still, that’s just fucked up.’ Hopkins took a bite of his donut and wiped the sprinkles from his lips onto a green paper napkin. ‘The second search you asked for; homicides with ritual and torture characteristics. The list is long.’
Somehow Hunter was expecting it to be.
‘I filtered the results using the criteria you gave me. One, criminals that haven’t been apprehended yet, and two, the use of any animals.’
‘What did you get?’
‘Murders with excessive spillage of blood – there’ve been many. Most of them attributed to gangs, turf and drug wars. But other than lots of blood, they carry no other ritualistic characteristics at all.’
‘Anything with animals?’ Garcia asked, blowing into his coffee.
‘Yes, but no dog’s head. Actually, the only case I could find where an animal head was left at the scene of a crime in the last five years involved a horse’s head.’
‘Italian Mafia,’ Hunter said.
‘That’s the theory,’ Hopkins agreed. ‘The case has never been solved.’
‘So what other animals, if any, have been used in crimes?’ Garcia asked just as Hopkins had another bite of his donut. They had to wait while he chewed and swallowed it down.
‘A few. Rats, pigs, pigeons, cats – but apparently the preferred animal is chicken. Especially its blood. Used a lot in black magic – voodoo. And these were mostly attributed to Jamaicans and—’
‘Brazilians.’ Garcia nodded.
‘Brazilians?’ Hunter turned towards his partner.
‘Yes. In Brazil it’s called macumba. Something Brazil inherited from the many slaves who came from Africa.’ Garcia shook his head, indicating he wasn’t about to go into much historical detail. ‘They have lots of rituals, and many of them involve sacrificing chickens and using their blood.’
‘I’ve searched the net for hours,’ Hopkins said, shaking his head, ‘trying to find anything that justified replacing someone’s head for a dog’s – I got nothing. As you’ve asked—’ he tilted his head towards Hunter ‘—I’ve checked with every animal welfare agency in Los Angeles. No street mutt’s body missing a head has been found. I’ll keep checking, but at the moment that’s turning out to be another dead end.’
Hunter rubbed his face with both hands. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and his day-long stubble prickled his palms.
‘I’ve also checked with detectives in every bureau, as you asked me to do,’ Hopkins continued. ‘Nothing on a decapitation, a dog’s head or a numbered body. If this killer has claimed two previous victims, no one’s found them yet.’
Thirty-Four
As soon as they entered their office, Garcia reached for another of Father Fabian’s journals.
‘Have you come across any passages in these journals about a bad dream that pestered Father Fabian for years?’ Hunter asked, flipping open one of the leather-bound volumes on his desk.
‘I have, actually.’ Garcia searched for a specific journal. ‘And I meant to ask you the same question. Some reoccurring dream that scared him senseless.’
‘That’s right.’
‘I made a note of it. Here it is.’ He found the journal and opened it to a marked page. ‘Listen to this.
‘3:00 a.m. I just woke up again. For minutes I could barely breathe. My hands are still shaking and my clothes are soaked in cold sweat. I am too scared to go back to sleep. Too scared to close my eyes. It’s the dream again. All these years and it has never left me. Why, Lord? Why am I tormented by these visions? Is it a warning of what’s to come?’
‘I’ve been through several passages that sounded just like that,’ Hunter observed.
‘It seems this dream came back to haunt him frequently.’ Garcia placed the open diary on his desk. ‘Maybe it’s nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘We all have bad dreams ev
ery now and again.’
Hunter leaned back on his chair. ‘Do you know many people who wake up from dreams short of breath, shaking, sweating and too scared to go back to sleep on a constant basis?’
Garcia thought about it for a moment before conceding with a slight head tilt.
‘Dreams that have that kind of effect on a person are usually based on reality. Farfetched, maybe, but a reality nonetheless.’
‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’
‘If you have a dream based on fantasy,’ Hunter explained, ‘a fire-breathing dragon, for example. No matter how shocking or violent the dream is, your subconscious knows it’s an impossible fantasy. It might scare you, but it shouldn’t trigger a severe panic reaction.’
‘But if you have a dream based on reality, like being stabbed—’ Garcia caught up with Hunter’s line of thought ‘—your subconscious knows that the chances of it actually happening are very real.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Most nightmares are spin-offs of lived traumatic experiences. We have no control over them.’ He gestured towards the open diary. ‘I know about such dreams. I have them.’
Garcia looked at the scars on his hands for a long moment. ‘Since the Crucifix Killer’s case, so do I.’
They read the journals in silence for a while before Garcia cursed under his breath. ‘Shit!’
Hunter’s head snapped up. ‘What have you got?’
‘Father Fabian’s disturbing nightmare. And you won’t believe this . . .’
Thirty-Five
Hunter waited for Garcia to continue, but his partner’s catatonic eyes were glued to the open journal in his hands.
‘Carlos. What have you got?’
Garcia leaned back on his chair and drew a deep breath. ‘Listen to this.’ He flipped back a page.
‘It’s very late and I can’t sleep. I woke up from the dream maybe an hour ago, and this time it felt more real than ever. I threw up all over myself.
‘I’m scared.
‘Once I read somewhere that one way to extradite fear is to write it down. It’s supposed to symbolize the act of pushing it out of your mind.’
Garcia looked at Hunter.
‘It’s a well-known technique,’ he confirmed.
Garcia flipped to the next page and continued reading.
‘This is the first time I’m writing about this.
‘I didn’t always have my faith. When I was young, I thought I was invincible. Me and my gang of friends.
‘We terrorized everyone, from school students to teachers and families in our neighborhood. We thought we were cool – real badasses.’ Garcia’s lips stretched into a thin, nervous smile. He found it hard to think of Father Fabian as a ‘badass’.
‘One evening, we were hanging out by the park as we always did. We were bored. We’d been drinking since the afternoon and some of us were high. Someone saw a stray dog rummaging through a trashcan. It was a skinny old mutt with thinning gray fur. Its body was covered in dried blood scabs as if it’d been fighting. Suddenly, one of the guys in the gang jumped to his feet and started chasing the dog. That got us all going. It was like we were possessed. We were waving our clenched fists in the air and yelling “get him . . . get him”. There was something wrong with one of its legs. It couldn’t run properly, so it hopped away, trying to escape.’
Hunter placed both elbows on his desk, leaning forward.
‘It didn’t take us long to catch up with the frightened dog.’ Garcia carried on reading. ‘We cornered it against a wall of hedges. The poor thing was shivering all over. Too weak and scared to put up a fight, it just lowered its head and its sad eyes, as if begging us to leave it be.
‘I tried telling everyone to leave the poor thing alone. It was only looking for some food, but no one listened.’ He paused for a deep breath before continuing.
‘One of the guys in the group bent down and offered the dog his hand. The trembling mutt lifted its head and gingerly took a few steps forward. When it got close enough, my friend grabbed it by the fur on its head and violently lifted it off the ground. Its tiny body kicked and writhed in the air. Everyone could see the dog was in pain. It was so weak that it couldn’t even bark. It tried, but the sound that came out was more like a petrified shriek.’ Garcia stretched his neck awkwardly, as if trying to fight off an incoming migraine.
‘I told my friend again to put the dog down and let it go. The rest of the gang was cheering him on – “Fuck him up, gut the old bag of fleas.”
‘I didn’t even see where the knife came from. All I know was that all of a sudden my friend had a meat cleaver in his hand.’
Garcia’s eyes left the page and wandered over to Hunter for a second.
‘Under shouts of “do it . . . do it,” he raised the crying dog high in the air. Its eyes were filled with dread. It knew what was about to happen. My friend swung the meat cleaver hard at its neck. Blood gushed everywhere. I was sprayed across the face and chest, and my stomach knotted. The dog’s small body slumped to the ground. For another thirty seconds or so it twitched and kicked, draining the last breaths of life out of it. They all cheered and laughed until their eyes rested on me. Without realizing, I’d started crying.’ Garcia leaned forward and placed the book on his desk before running the tip of his finger slowly over his eyes.
‘Soon after that, I started distancing myself from the group. I haven’t seen any of them since then. I couldn’t say for sure how long after the park incident the nightmares started. Maybe a couple of months, but they’ve never left me.’
‘Get ready for this,’ Garcia said, making a face as if what he was about to read was hard to believe.
‘In my dream, instead of the dog, it’s me who’s held by the hair. I’m as petrified as the poor animal was. I try, but I can’t escape. I can’t see my attacker’s face, but I know it’s not my friend, the one who beheaded the dog. He has a sword in his hand. As the blade comes towards me, I freeze, unable to move. I open my mouth and try to scream, but no sound comes out. I’m terrified. In slow motion the cold blade strikes me at the base of my neck.’ A new pause. A new awkward neck movement. ‘I feel it gradually slicing through my flesh, tearing my head from my torso. The pain is unbearable. I feel my blood soaking my clothes. My body starts to get cold. The strike is clean, but for some reason I’m still not dead. My head tumbles to the ground, rolling several times, just like the dog’s that night in the park. But my body isn’t headless.’ Garcia placed both elbows on his desk and rested his forehead on his closed fists.
‘Above my shoulders there’s a mutt’s head – its eyes wide, its tongue black and sticking out of its crooked mouth. The person with the blade spills my blood all around me, like a ritual. My head is taken away to be burned. That’s when I wake up.’
Garcia rubbed his exhausted eyes. ‘No fucking way this was a coincidence,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘The decapitation, the mutt’s head, the splattering of blood . . . Father Fabian’s been dreaming his own grotesque murder for years. How can that be?’
Hunter thought about it for a moment before looking up slowly. ‘You’re looking at it from the wrong angle, Carlos. Father Fabian hadn’t been dreaming his own death. The killer knew about the nightmare and decided to make it come true.’
‘Well, listen to the next line.’ Garcia leaned forward over the book. ‘I’ve never told anyone about that day in the park or about the dreams that torment me.’
Thirty-Six
Hunter went silent for a few seconds while his mind kept going over the facts, digesting what Garcia had just told him. A secret nightmare that had tormented and scared Father Fabian for over twenty years. A nightmare that someone had gone to great lengths to make a reality.
Garcia spoke first.
‘The killer could’ve read the journal just like we did, but the altar boy told us that there’d never been a break-in and no one had access to the priest’s room, except the priest himself.’ He stood up, approached one of the windows and pushed it wid
e open. Their office wasn’t particularly stuffy, but he suddenly felt the need for some fresh air.
Hunter let out a constricted breath. ‘I don’t believe the killer found out about the nightmare through the diaries.’
‘Why not? We did.’
‘Exactly. There are two of us.’ Hunter leaned back on his chair. ‘We read solidly for almost three days. How many journals did we get through before you came across the pages that told us about the dream?’
‘Several,’ Garcia admitted, slowly running his right hand over his face.
‘The killer would’ve needed either a lot of luck, or a lot of undisturbed time with the journals to have found out about the dream the same way we did. And if that’s the case, why didn’t he just take the book with him? Why leave it behind? The journals aren’t numbered or dated. We would’ve never known one was missing.’
‘So how?’ Garcia stopped in front of Hunter’s desk, his hands resting on his hips.
‘The journal entries aren’t dated.’ Hunter gestured towards the books on his desk. ‘The priest could’ve written that specific entry you read last week or five years ago.’
It took Garcia only a few seconds to catch up with Hunter’s line of thought. ‘So you’re thinking the priest could’ve told someone after he wrote the entry.’
Hunter nodded. ‘The dream had obviously gotten too much for the priest. He tried the writing down therapy. That didn’t work.’
‘So the next logical stage would’ve been to step it up a notch and tell someone,’ Garcia concluded, and Hunter agreed.
The phone on Hunter’s desk rang and he picked it up before the second ring. He looked concerned as he listened.
‘We’ll be right down.’
‘What’s up?’ Garcia asked.
‘There’s someone downstairs, a member of the public, who wants to talk to us.’
‘About what?’
‘Father Fabian’s killer.’