by Chris Carter
Hunter went silent again.
Myers leaned forward. ‘Trust me, Robert, the last thing I wanna do is work with the LAPD. But the only way we’ll be able to get a better idea if your psycho has really kidnapped Katia without wasting precious time is if we share what we know.’ She tapped the folder she’d just placed on the table. ‘And the optimum word here is share. So if I tell you what I know, you tell me what you know. And don’t even think about giving me the classified information excuse bullshit. I’m not a reporter. I have as much to lose as you do if any of the information about this case leaks. We want the same thing here – to catch this fucker. Your victims are already dead. Katia may still be alive. Do you really wanna waste time?’
After reading the file on Whitney Myers that Jenkins had sent him, Hunter wasn’t surprised that she wasn’t prepared to give him any information on her investigation for free.
For a long while they simply stared at each other in silence. Myers was trying hard to read Hunter’s expression. But she certainly wasn’t expecting his next question.
‘Did you kill them?’
Sixty-Six
The uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Neither Hunter nor Myers moved. Neither of them broke eye contact. But Myers’ stare lost all its warmth.
Hunter had read all the information Jenkins had sent him on Myers’ last ever case with the LAPD.
Myers had been called to try and resolve a situation that had developed in a tower block in Culver City a few years ago. A 10-year-old boy had managed to gain access to the roof of an apartment block and was sitting on the ledge, eighteen floors off the ground. The boy, who everyone knew by the name of Billy, wasn’t responding to anyone, and understandably, no one wanted to approach him. His parents had died in a car crash when he was only five, and since then he’d been living with his aunt and uncle, who’d become his legal guardians. They’d gone out for the afternoon and left Billy alone in the apartment.
Billy had no history of mental illness, but the few neighbors who knew him said that he was always very sad, never smiled, and never played with any of the other kids.
Myers saw no other way other than to break protocol and go up to the roof without waiting for the proper backup team.
The report Hunter had read had said that Myers had spent only ten minutes trying to talk Billy down when he simply got up and jumped.
Myers was so distraught that she’d had to take time off work, but she’d refused to see the police shrink. Two days after the incident, Billy’s uncle and aunt jumped from the same spot Billy did. Their wrists were tied together by a zip-tie handcuff. A suicide pact from two grief-stricken guardians would’ve been the conclusion, if not for the fact that three neighbors had seen a woman who fitted Myers’ description leaving the building minutes after Angela and Peter hit the ground.
‘Peter and Angela Fairfax,’ Hunter clarified.
‘Yes, I know who you’re referring to.’ Her tone was firm.
‘Did you push them off that roof?’
‘What the fuck does that have to do with this?’
Hunter finally had a sip of his whiskey. ‘You just asked me to share information from an ongoing investigation with someone I only just met. You used to be a cop, so you know that’s against protocol. But I don’t mind breaking it, if it means I’ll get a step closer to catching this guy. The problem is: the file I read on you says there’s a big chance that you handcuffed two innocent people together and then threw them off the top of an eighteen-story-high building. If you’re a real loose cannon, then this conversation ends here.’ He retrieved Myers’ private investigator’s ID from his pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. She didn’t reach for it. Her gaze could’ve burned a hole in Hunter’s face.
‘What do you think?’
Hunter’s left eyebrow lifted slightly.
‘The file I read says that you’re a good judge of character. So, I wanna know: do you think I could’ve pushed two innocent people off a rooftop?’
‘I’m not here to judge you. But I wanna hear the truth – from you, not from a file written by an Internal Affairs investigator and some police shrink.’
‘And I wanna hear your opinion.’ Her voice was defiant. ‘Do you think I pushed two innocent people off a building?’
Myers’ credentials before the rooftop incident were impeccable. She’d worked very hard to make detective and she took pride in being one. She was good at it, one of the best. Her track record proved it. Even after leaving the force and becoming a private investigator, her success rate was impressive. Hunter knew that people like her didn’t just flip, didn’t just lose their mind out of the blue. He considered her a moment longer and then leaned forward.
‘I think you allowed yourself to get personally involved with that case,’ Hunter said in a steady voice. ‘But you were an experienced detective, so it must’ve been something that rocked you pretty badly. My guess is that you suspected something really bad was happening in that family. To Billy in particular. But you didn’t have enough evidence to substantiate it. I think that maybe you went back to try and get an explanation from Billy’s guardians, but things went badly wrong.’
No reaction from Myers.
‘If I’m right . . . then I would’ve probably done the same thing.’
Myers sipped her drink slowly, her eyes still on Hunter’s face. She placed the glass back down on the table. Hunter held her stare without flinching.
‘She jumped,’ Myers said calmly. ‘Angela Fairfax jumped.’
Hunter waited.
‘That day I was the first to reply to a potential jumper,’ she began. ‘I made it there in two minutes flat, and started breaking protocol straight away. I had no choice. I just didn’t have the time to wait for backup. My intelligence on the boy was almost none. When I got to the rooftop, I found this kid sitting with his legs dangling from the edge of the building. He was just sitting there with his teddy bear, drawing onto a pad of paper. Billy was tiny. He looked so fragile . . . so scared. And that’s why I couldn’t wait for backup. A strong gust of wind and he would’ve taken off like a kite.’
She tucked a strand of loose hair behind her left ear.
‘He was crying,’ she continued. ‘I asked him what he was doing sitting on the edge of that building. He said he was drawing.’ She had another sip of her drink, a long one. ‘I told him that wasn’t a very safe place to sit and draw. Do you know what he said?’
Hunter said nothing.
‘He said that it was safer than being in his apartment when his uncle was home. He said that he missed his mom and dad so much. That it was unfair that they had to die in a car crash and not him. That they didn’t hurt him like his uncle Peter did.’
Hunter felt something catch in his throat.
‘I could see the boy was hurting,’ Myers proceeded, ‘but my priority was to get him away from that ledge. I kept on talking to him, all the while taking small steps forward, getting closer and closer in case I needed to reach for him. I asked him what he was drawing. He ripped the sheet of paper from the pad and showed it to me.’ For the first time her eyes moved away from Hunter’s face to a blank spot on the tabletop. ‘The drawing was of his bedroom. Very simple, sketched using lines and stickman figures with skewed faces. There was a bed with a little stickboy in it.’ Myers paused and swallowed dry. ‘A bigger stickman was lying on top of him.’
Hunter listened.
‘And here comes the sucker punch from hell: standing right next to the bed was a stickwoman.’
‘His aunt knew.’ It wasn’t a question.
Myers nodded and her eyes became glassy. ‘They were his guardians. They were supposed to protect him. Instead, they were raping his soul.’ She finished her whiskey in one gulp. ‘Right there and then I promised him that if he came with me, if he got off that ledge, his uncle would never hurt him again. He didn’t believe me. He asked me to cross my heart and hope to die. So I did.’ A heartfelt pause. ‘That was all that was need
ed. He said he believed me then because I was a police officer, and police officers weren’t supposed to lie, they were supposed to help people. Billy got up and turned towards me. I offered him my hand and he extended his tiny little arm to take it. That’s when he slipped.’
‘So he never jumped as the report said?’
Myers shook her head.
Neither of them spoke for a few moments.
The waitress returned to the table and frowned as she saw Hunter’s uneaten platter. ‘Something wrong with the food?’
‘What?’ Hunter shook his head. ‘Oh no, no. It’s fantastic. I haven’t finished it yet. Just give me a few more minutes.’
‘I’ll have one more of these.’ Myers pointed to her empty glass. ‘Balvenie, 12-year-old.’
The waitress nodded and went on her way.
‘I lunged towards him,’ Myers continued. ‘My fingers brushed his tiny hand. But I just couldn’t grip it. He was so fragile that his body almost disintegrated when he hit the ground.’
Hunter ran his hand through his hair.
‘It took me two days to build up the courage to go back to Billy’s building.’ She paused to find her words. ‘Actually, I think what built up inside me wasn’t courage – it was pure hate. I didn’t want a confession. I wanted to teach them a lesson. I wanted them to feel at least a fraction of the fear Billy felt.’ Her voice was suddenly coated with anger. ‘He was a 10-year-old boy, so hurt and so scared that he’d rather jump off the top of a building than go back to the family that was supposed to love him. You’re a psychologist. You know that 10-year-old boys aren’t supposed to commit suicide. They shouldn’t even understand the concept.’
The waitress returned with Myers’ drink and placed it on the table.
‘I got to their apartment and confronted them. Angela started crying, but Peter was as cold as ice. He couldn’t have cared less. Something took over me right there and then. So I forced them to cuff themselves to each other, and took them to the rooftop. To the same spot Billy had fallen from. And that’s when it happened.’
Hunter leaned forward but said nothing, allowing Myers to continue at her own pace.
‘Angela started crying uncontrollably, but not because she was scared. The guilt inside her just exploded and she let everything out. She said that she was so ashamed of herself, but she had been terrified of what Peter would do to her and Billy if she told anyone. Peter also used to rape and beat her up too. She said that she thought about taking Billy and running away, but she had nowhere to go. She had no money, no friends and her family didn’t care for her. That’s when Peter lost it up there. He told her to shut the fuck up and slapped her across the face. I almost shot him for that.’
Myers paused for another sip.
‘But Angela beat me to it. The slap didn’t faze her. She said she was tired of being afraid. She was tired of being helpless against him, but not any more. She looked at me and her eyes burned with determination. She said, “Thank you for finally giving me the chance to do something. I’m so sorry about Billy.” Then, without any warning, she threw herself off the rooftop. Still cuffed to Peter.’
Hunter was studying Myers, searching for signs of dissembling – rapid facial movements, fluttering of the eyes. She displayed only a sorrowful calm.
‘Angela was a heavy-built woman. Peter was tall and skinny. He wasn’t expecting it. Her weight pulled at him like a crane, but he managed to hold her for a few seconds. Long enough for his frightened eyes to look at me. Long enough for him to ask for my help.’ A pause. ‘I just turned and walked away.’
They sat in silence for a while as Hunter digested the story.
‘So what do you have to say? Do you think I’m lying?’ Myers finally asked.
That was why Myers had never recounted those events to anyone investigating her case years ago. Hunter knew no Internal Affairs investigator would have believed her. On the contrary, they’d crucify her for seeking revenge.
‘As I said,’ Hunter said, ‘I would’ve done the same thing.’
Sixty-Seven
Hunter and Myers talked for over an hour more. They shared information. She told him how the evidence she’d collected suggested that Katia Kudrov had been taken from inside her apartment in West Hollywood. She told him about the sixty messages on Katia’s answer machine, and how they were all exactly twelve seconds long. She told him about the sound analyses on the last message, the deciphering of the hoarse whispering voice – ‘YOU TAKE MY BREATH AWAY . . . WELCOME HOME, KATIA. I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU. I GUESS IT’S FINALLY TIME WE MET.’ – and why they believed the kidnapper had made the last call from inside her bedroom, probably while watching her shower.
Myers handed Hunter a copy of all the recordings, including the deciphered last one, together with several files. Her research was as good as she had said it was.
Hunter kept his side of the bargain, but he told Myers only what she really needed to know. He told her about the stitches to the victims’ mouths, but not to their lower bodies. He never mentioned that the killer left any devices inside his victims. He also didn’t say anything about the bomb, the spray-painted messages. He said the killer had used a knife and simply left it at that.
Hunter finally finished his shrimp platter before leaving Uncle Kelome’s. His headache wasn’t gone, but it was now bearable. Hunter contacted Operations and asked them to get started straight away on a file on Katia Kudrov.
Back in his apartment, he sat in his living room, nursing a new glass of single malt. He didn’t even bother with the lights. Darkness suited him just fine. His brain kept going over everything Myers had told him. There was no concrete evidence that the same person who’d taken Laura Mitchell and Kelly Jensen had also abducted Katia Kudrov, but Hunter’s mind had already started finding links in the method of their disappearance.
Katia had been abducted from inside her own apartment. That was consistent with the way in which Laura Mitchell, the first victim, had been kidnapped. Despite his suspicions, Hunter had yet to find out from where Kelly Jensen had been taken.
The phone messages left on Katia Kudrov’s answering machine also bothered him. The fact that they were all twelve seconds long was evidence enough that they’d been left by the same person. One message a day, over sixty days. That again implied that they were dealing with someone patient and self-disciplined. A person who didn’t mind waiting. It was almost like a game he played with his victims. But why twelve seconds? It wouldn’t have been a random choice, he was sure.
Hunter played through the copy of the recordings Myers had given him. He heard the kidnapper’s hoarse whisper, first as a mass of static sound, then as the deciphered voice. He rewound it and played it again. Over and over.
Hunter sat back in his beaten-up black leather sofa and rested his head against the backrest. He needed to watch the CCTV footage from Kelly’s studio parking lot, but he was exhausted. His eyelids were starting to feel heavy. And when sleep came Hunter’s way, he always grabbed it with both hands.
He fell asleep right there in his living room. Five consecutive and dreamless hours, something that very rarely happened. When he woke up, he had a stiff neck, and the taste in his mouth was as if he had eaten from a garbage can, but he felt rested and his headache was mercifully gone. He had a long shower, allowing the warmth and strong jet of water to massage his neck muscles. He shaved with an old razorblade that seemed to rip the hairs from his face instead of cutting them. He cursed. He had to go the grocery store sometime soon.
After making himself a strong cup of black coffee, Hunter returned to his living room and to the laptop he’d brought home with him.
Mr. Wang’s hidden parking lot camera was set to record twenty-four hours a day, but Hunter had a feeling he’d only need to watch the night footage. This killer didn’t strike him as someone who’d risk hanging around an abduction scene in the middle of the day, in plain view of everyone. If Kelly Jensen had really been taken from her studio location, chances were, it
would’ve been done at night.
Because the parking lot was secluded and mainly used by shop owners, the movement of cars and people was minimal. Anything out of the ordinary would stand out. There was no need for Hunter to watch every minute of the fifty-six hours of night footage he had. After a quick test, he found out that he could speed up playback to six times its original playing speed and still be able to spot anything suspicious. That meant it would take him just over an hour to go through a whole eight hours. Hunter checked his watch – 6:22 a.m. He had enough time to skim through the first recorded night before making his way to Parker Center.
He didn’t need to watch it for long.
The timestamp at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen read 8:36 p.m. when an old Ford Fiesta entered the parking lot and stopped directly behind Kelly’s Trans-Am. Hunter sat up and slowed the footage down to normal playing speed. A few seconds later someone stepped out of the car – male, tall, well built. He leaned against the driver’s door and nervously looked around the lot as if checking if anyone else was around. He looked uncomfortable as he lit up a cigarette. Hunter paused the picture and enhanced it by zooming in, but the quality he got from the laptop’s imaging application wasn’t great – too pixilated and grainy – so he couldn’t properly make the man’s face. He was sure the LAPD computer guys would be able to clean it up. Hunter pressed play again. Thirty seconds later, the passenger’s door opened and a leggy blonde stepped out. She moved around to where the nervous male was standing, kneeled down in front of him, undid his belt, pulled down his trousers and took him in her mouth.
Hunter smiled and rubbed his chin. Just a couple of thrill seekers. He sped up the footage again. The couple moved from oral to full-blown sex – over the hood and against the driver’s door. They were there for thirty-eight minutes.