The Night Stalker

by Chris Carter

  Hunter said nothing.

  ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ There was excitement in Myers’ voice. ‘Katia’s abduction is about love, not hate. Whoever took her is desperately in love with her. So that pretty much discards the possibility of your sadistic killer being the one who kidnapped her.’

  Hunter remained silent. His expression gave nothing away.

  ‘Katia had been seeing the new conductor for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Phillip Stein, for the past four months. He was, and still is, completely obsessed with her. But she broke it all off just a few days before the tour ended. He didn’t take the break well at all.’

  ‘But he couldn’t have done it. He flew straight to Munich after their last concert in Chicago. I read your report.’

  ‘And you double-checked that just to be sure, didn’t you?’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Any other lovers, ex-boyfriends . . . ?’

  ‘Her previous boyfriend lives in France, where she was before coming back to the US. If she had any other lovers, she kept them well hidden. But I don’t think her kidnapper was a lover.’ She paused for a moment. ‘I think we’re dealing with an obsessed fan. Somebody who is so in love with her his whole reality is distorted. That’s why he took what she said in that interview so tremendously out of context. His wants to give her her fairy-tale love story.’

  Myers almost jumped out of her skin when Hunter’s phone vibrated against the tabletop, announcing a new incoming call. The caller ID read Restricted call.

  He didn’t even have to answer it to know that his night was about to get a whole lot darker.

  Seventy-Five

  Rain was still falling by the time Hunter got to Cypress Park, Northeast Los Angeles. He hadn’t said anything after he disconnected from the call. He hadn’t said a word during it either. He’d just listened. But Myers knew from the defeated way he closed his eyes for just a second – they had another victim.

  Cypress Park was one of the first suburbs of Los Angeles. Developed just outside the downtown area at the beginning of the twentieth century, it had been created as a working-class neighborhood, whose main attraction was its proximity to the railroad yards. That’s where the victim’s body had been found, inside one of the abandoned buildings along the tracks.

  The old railroad yards still occupied a vast area, but great parts of it were now just wastelands. One of these wastelands was located directly behind Rio de Los Angeles State Park. Half a mile north from there, still inside this desolated area and sandwiched between the train tracks and the LA River was an old maintenance depot. On a rainy, moonless night, the flashing police lights could be seen from quite a distance.

  Forensics were already there.

  Hunter parked next to Garcia’s car. A young policeman, wearing a standard issue LAPD raincoat and holding what could only be described as a kid’s size umbrella, came up to his door. Hunter pulled his collar up and tighter around his neck, refused the umbrella, and started walking up to the brick building. His hands were tucked deep inside his pockets. His eyes were low, searching the ground, doing his best to avoid stepping into any puddles.

  ‘Detective Hunter?’ a man called from the perimeter.

  Hunter recognized Donald Robbins’ voice – the pain-in-the-ass LA Times reporter. He’d covered every case Hunter had been involved in. They were old friends without ever being friends.

  ‘Is this victim related to the case you’re already investigating? Perhaps a painter as well?’

  Hunter didn’t lose stride or look up, but he wondered how the hell Robbins had found out about the victims being painters.

  ‘C’mon, Robert. It’s me. You’re after another serial killer, aren’t you? Is he an artist stalker?’

  Still not even an acknowledgement from Hunter.

  The outside of the brick building was a mess of graffiti and colors. Garcia, together with two police officers, was standing under an improvised canvas shelter by the entrance to the old depot. The metal door directly behind them had been graffitied with the silhouette of a long-haired pole dancer bending forward. Her spread legs created a perfect upside-down V shape.

  Garcia had just zipped up his forensic Tyvek coveralls when he saw Hunter coming around the corner.

  ‘You have noticed that it’s raining, right?’ Garcia said as Hunter reached the shelter.

  ‘I like rain,’ Hunter replied, using both hands to brush the water off his hair.

  ‘Yeah, I can see that.’ Garcia handed him a sealed plastic bag containing a white hooded coverall.

  ‘Who called it in?’ Hunter asked, ripping the bag open.

  ‘Old homeless guy,’ the officer closest to the door confirmed. He was short and stout with a bulldog-like face. ‘He said that he sometimes sleeps here. Tonight, he wanted to get out of the rain.’

  ‘Where’s he now?’

  The officer pointed to a police car twenty-five yards from where they were.

  ‘Who talked to him?’ Hunter looked at Garcia, who shook his head.

  ‘I just got here.’

  ‘Sergeant Travis,’ the officer replied. ‘He’s with him now.’

  Hunter nodded. ‘Have any of you been inside?’

  ‘Nope, we got here after Forensics. Our orders are to stay out here soaking our asses in this shitty rain and act like nightclub doormen to all of you big Homicide boys.’

  Garcia frowned and looked at Hunter.

  ‘I guess you were right at the end of your shift when you got this call, right?’ Hunter said.

  ‘Yeah, whatever.’ The officer ran two fingers over his peach-fuzz moustache.

  Hunter zipped up his coveralls. ‘OK, Officer . . . ?’

  ‘Donikowski.’

  ‘OK, Officer Donikowski, I guess you can do your nightclub doorman job now.’ He nodded at the door.

  Garcia smirked.

  The first room was about fifteen feet wide by twenty deep. The walls were also covered in graffiti. Rain spat onto the floor through a windowless frame to the left of the door. Discarded food cans and wrappers were piled up in one corner, together with an old straw mattress. The floor was littered with all different sorts of debris. Hunter could see no blood anywhere.

  The familiar, strong crime-scene forensic light was coming from the next room along, where hushed voices could be heard.

  As they approached the door, Hunter picked up on a mixture of smells – mostly stale urine, mold and accumulated garbage. All of them the kind of odors you’d expect to find inside an old, derelict building, sometimes used by drifters. But there was a fourth, fainter smell. Not the kind of putrid stench you get when a body starts to rot, but something else. Something Hunter knew he’d smelled before. He paused and sniffed the air a couple of times. From the corner of his eye he noticed Garcia doing the same thing. He was the one who recognized it first. The last time Garcia smelled that same smell he’d thrown up within seconds. This time was no different.

  Seventy-Six

  The second room was smaller than the one Hunter and Garcia were in, but identical in shape and state of deterioration – graffitied walls, windowless frames, piles of garbage on the corners and all sorts of debris scattered around the floor. Doctor Hove and Mike Brindle were standing by a door on the far wall that led into a third chamber. The same portable tactical X-ray unit they’d used in the basement of the preschool in Glassell Park had been set up on the floor next to them. Three paces to the left of the unit, lying on her back, was the naked body of a Caucasian brunette female. Hunter could see the thick black thread used to stitch her mouth and lower body from across the room. There was very little blood surrounding the body.

  ‘Where’s Carlos?’ Doctor Hove asked. ‘I thought he was waiting for you outside.’

  Hunter didn’t reply, didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He just stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the brunette’s face. Her skin had turned a light shade of purple, indicating blood pooling. Like the two previous victims, the lower part of her face had swollen, due to
the stitches to her mouth. But even so, there was something familiar about her. Hunter felt his skin burn as adrenalin ran through him.

  ‘Robert,’ the doctor called again.

  Hunter’s eyes finally refocused on her.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Where’s Carlos? I thought he’d be with you.’

  ‘I’m here,’ Garcia said as he walked through the door behind Hunter. He looked a little paler than a moment ago. The strange, faint smell they’d picked up outside was more prominent in the room. Garcia brought his hand to his mouth and cringed as he fought to keep his stomach from erupting again.

  Hunter approached the body in silence and crouched down next to it. Her face was starting to puff up. He didn’t need to touch her to know that her body was now in full rigor mortis. She’d been dead for at least twelve hours. Her eyes were closed, but everything about her features looked familiar. The nose, the cheekbone structure, the shape of the chin. Hunter moved closer still and had a look at her hands and fingers. Most of her fingernails were broken or chipped. Despite the purpling of the skin, at first glance Hunter could see no severe hematomas. There were no cuts or abrasions either. The swelling to her body wasn’t due to physical abuse.

  Hunter moved around to the other side. She had a single-color tribal tattoo on her right shoulder.

  Garcia was studying the body in silence from a standing position, his hand still covering his nose and mouth.

  ‘Do you know who she is?’ the doctor asked, noticing the way Hunter kept looking back at her face. ‘Is she another painter from your list of missing persons?’

  Garcia shook his head. ‘I can’t place her. I know the face is a little swollen, but I don’t think she was on the lists.’

  ‘She’s not a painter,’ Hunter said, standing back up again. ‘She’s a musician.’

  Seventy-Seven

  Garcia’s eyes returned to her face and he frowned. He’d had a very good look at Katia Kudrov’s photographs since Hunter told him about her. The woman on the floor didn’t look like Katia.

  ‘It’s not Katia Kudrov,’ Hunter said, reading what his partner was thinking.

  Garcia frowned harder.

  ‘You know her?’ he asked.

  ‘She looks familiar. I’ve seen her before, I’m just not sure where.’

  ‘So how do you know she’s a musician?’ Brindle this time.

  ‘She’s got calluses on all the fingertips of her left hand, except her thumb, where the callus is on the first joint.’

  Brindle looked hesitant.

  ‘String instrument musicians get those,’ Hunter explained. ‘The fingertip ones from pressing down on the strings, and the thumb joint one from sliding their hands up and down the instrument’s arm, like a violin, cello, guitar, bass, whatever.’

  Doctor Hove nodded. ‘One of my Forensics technicians is learning to play the guitar. He’s always complaining his fingertips hurt like hell and keeps on picking off the loose skin.’

  Hunter turned around and looked in the direction of the room he came in from. ‘She was found in this room?’

  Brindle nodded. ‘At the exact location she is right now. Unlike the victim from Glassell Park, we didn’t need to turn her over to use the X-ray machine. She was found on her back. There’s no indication that anyone has touched the body either.’

  Hunter looked around at the ceiling and walls for an instant. ‘What’s in that room?’ He nodded towards the next chamber.

  ‘Same as in here and the previous room,’ Doctor Hove replied. ‘More graffiti and garbage.’

  Hunter moved closer and pulled the creaking door open. The forensic light was strong enough to illuminate most of the next chamber.

  ‘There’s no bed, or table, or counter, or anything? She was just left in here on the floor?’

  ‘No,’ Brindle clarified. His head tilted back a fraction and his eyes moved towards the ceiling. ‘Upstairs.’

  Hunter peeked inside the third room again. The staircase was to the left of the door, hugging the wall.

  ‘I’ve got two agents up there working the scene,’ Brindle continued. ‘It looks like she was left on a wooden table.’ He knew what Hunter would ask next and nodded before the question came. ‘The table was lifted about a foot off the ground by wooden blocks, just like in Glassell Park.’

  ‘The words . . . ?’

  Brindle nodded again. ‘It’s inside you. Painted onto the ceiling this time.’

  Garcia had a quick look inside the next room. ‘So she managed to get off the table, come all the way down those stairs, and out here before finally dying?’

  ‘Before collapsing,’ Doctor Hove said, grabbing both detectives’ attention again. ‘Death took a while to come, but not before tremendous suffering.’

  ‘And she probably crawled her way down here,’ Brindle took over. ‘She must’ve been a very strong woman, physically and mentally. Her will to stay alive was nothing short of exceptional. The kind of pain she went through, most people wouldn’t have been able to move at all, never mind make it all the way down here.’

  Hunter’s stare moved to the X-ray unit on the floor and the laptop screen. It seemed to be turned off.

  Brindle and Doctor Hove followed his gaze. ‘Given what we know and the fact that the MO and signatures are the same,’ the doctor said, ‘I’m sure the killer used the same trigger mechanism he used before, but this time it didn’t trigger a fan-out knife or a bomb. Let me show you.’

  Garcia cleared his throat uncomfortably while the doctor brought the laptop back to life.

  ‘We’d just finished capturing this when you arrived,’ Brindle explained.

  As the image of the object left inside her body materialized on the screen, both detectives moved closer.

  No one said a word.

  Hunter and Garcia squinted at the same time, trying to make sense of what they were looking at.

  ‘No way,’ Hunter said. ‘Is that what I think it is?’

  Brindle and Doctor Hove nodded in unison. ‘We think so.’

  A couple more seconds and Garcia finally saw it, his eyes widening in disbelief.

  Seventy-Eight

  The digital clock on Hunter’s microwave read 3:42 a.m. when he stepped back into his apartment and closed the door behind him. He wasted no time walking into every room and turning on all the lights. For now he just didn’t want any more darkness. He was tired, but for the first time he welcomed insomnia. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to deal with the nightmares he knew would come as soon as he closed his eyes.

  After the body had been removed and taken to the morgue, Hunter and Garcia had spent a long time looking around the old depot, especially the room upstairs. It was a large chamber, which had probably been used as one of the main storage areas. Two of the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with long wooden shelves. A large carpenter’s workbench occupied the center of the floor. As Brindle had said, it had been raised about a foot off the ground by wooden blocks. There was so much garbage and debris around the place, Forensics could take weeks analyzing it, and maybe months to process it all. The exact same words as before – IT’S INSIDE YOU – had been spray-painted onto the ceiling, just like in the butcher’s shop. If there’d been any tire tracks on the soft ground outside, the rain did a good job of washing them away.

  The homeless man who’d found the body was in his late sixties, frail and undernourished. He’d walked a long way, hoping to have a roof over his head for the night and escape the rain that he had smelled in the air an hour before it started. He never saw anyone around the old depot. Just the girl lying on the floor, naked, with her mouth stitched up like a ragdoll. He never touched her. He never even got close to her. And by the time Hunter talked to him, he still hadn’t stopped shaking.

  It had been exactly seven days since they had found the body of Laura Mitchell. Kelly Jensen’s body was discovered three days after that, and now they had a new unidentified female victim
. Counting Doctor Winston and the young Forensics assistant who died in the explosion in the autopsy room, they had five victims in one week. Hunter knew that while their investigation was moving at a snail’s pace, the killer was sailing with the wind.

  In the kitchen, Hunter poured himself a glass of water and drank it down in large gulps, as if trying to put out a fire somewhere inside him. He was sweating as if he’d just run five miles. He reached for his cell phone and dialed Whitney Myers’ number before walking over to his living room window. The rain had only stopped ten minutes before. The sky was dark and dull. Not a single star.

  ‘Hello . . .’ Myers answered after a single ring.

  ‘It’s not her . . .’ His voice was heavy. ‘It’s not Katia.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Positive.’

  An uneasy pause.

  ‘Do you know who she is?’ Myers pushed. ‘Is she on the MP list?’

  ‘No, she’s not on the list. But she looks familiar.’

  ‘Familiar? In what way?’

  ‘I think I’ve seen her before. I just can’t think where.’

  ‘Police environment . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Court of law . . . ? Witness . . . ? Victim . . . ?’

  ‘No, somewhere else.’

  ‘A bar . . . ?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Hunter ran his hand through his hair and let his fingertips rest at the back of his neck. Unconsciously they traced the contour of his ugly scar. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met her or seen her on the streets or in a bar or anywhere like that. I think I’ve seen a picture of her. Maybe in a magazine or an advertisement . . .’

  ‘She’s that famous?’

  ‘I don’t know. I might be wrong. I’m wracking my brain here trying to remember, but I’ve got nothing, and I’m dead tired.’

  Myers said nothing.

  Hunter moved away from the window and started pacing his living room.

  ‘If you get me a photo of her, maybe I can help,’ Myers offered.