by Chris Carter
Myers looked questioningly.
‘He inserted it into her.’
Myers’ whole body turned into gooseflesh.
‘And the knife is no knife I’ve ever seen. There’s a picture of it in there.’
Myers quickly leafed through all the photos until she found it.
‘Jesus Christ . . . What in the name of God . . . ?’
They were dealing with a monster here. She had to find Katia. And fast.
Eighty-Five
Hunter looked up from his computer screen. Garcia had his stare fixed on his PC monitor, his brow creased in a peculiar way.
‘What have you got?’
A couple more seconds before Garcia finally looked up. ‘A 20-year-old article.’
‘About what?’
‘A family murder/suicide. Husband found out that his wife was sleeping with someone else, lost his head, killed the someone else, his 10-year-old kid, his wife and then blew his head off with a shotgun.’
Hunter frowned. ‘Yes, and . . . ?’
‘Here’s where it gets interesting. It says that the husband stitched parts of his wife’s body shut before killing her.’
Hunter’s eyes widened.
‘But that’s all. It gives no further details as to which body parts.’
‘Did he shoot his wife?’
‘Again, it doesn’t say, and that’s what’s strange about it. It’s a potentially big story, but the article is quite brief.’
‘Where did this happen?’ Hunter got up and approached Garcia’s desk.
‘Northern California, Healdsburg in Sonoma County.’
Hunter took control of Garcia’s computer mouse and scrolled through the article. It was about five hundred words long. Garcia was right, it was too brief, mentioning what happened almost by passage. No specific details were given other than the ones involved. The victims had been Emily and Andrew Harper – mother and son, and Emily’s lover, Nathan Gardner. Emily’s husband, Ray Harper, had carried out all three executions before shooting himself in the couple’s bedroom. There were two pictures. The larger of the two showed a two-story white-fronted house with an impeccable lawn, completely surrounded by yellow crime-scene tape. Three police vehicles were parked on the street. The second picture showed a couple of county sheriff deputies bringing a dark polyethylene body bag out of the front door. The expression on their faces told its own story.
‘Is this the only article?’ he asked. ‘No follow-up?’
Garcia shook his head. ‘Nope, I’ve already checked. Nothing on the Harper case prior or after that date. Which again, I find hard to believe.’
Hunter scrolled up and checked the name of the newspaper – the Healdsburg Tribune. He checked the name of the reporter who covered the story – Stephen Anderson. After a quick search, he had the address and phone number for the newspaper headquarters.
The phone rang for thirty seconds before someone answered it on the other side. The person sounded young. He told Hunter that he’d never heard of a reporter called Stephen Anderson, but then again, he’d only been with the paper for six months. He was with the newspaper’s Sonoma University trainee program. After asking around, the kid returned to the phone and told Hunter that according to one of the most senior reporters, Mr. Anderson had retired nine years ago. He still lived in Healdsburg.
Hunter disconnected and got the operator for Sonoma County. Stephen Anderson’s name wasn’t listed. He clicked off again and called the Office of Operations. Less than five minutes later he had an address and phone number.
Eighty-Six
It was just past eight in the evening when Stephen Anderson answered his phone inside his home office on the outskirts of Healdsburg. Hunter quickly introduced himself.
‘Los Angeles Police Department?’ Anderson said, sounding worried. His voice was husky. Hunter could tell it came from years of smoking rather than natural charm. ‘Are you sure you’ve got the right person, Detective?’
‘I’m certain,’ Hunter replied, motioning Garcia to listen in.
‘And what will this be about?’
‘An article you wrote twenty years ago flagged up on one of our searches. Unfortunately the article is quite brief. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind giving us a few more details on it.’
Even down the phone line, the silence that followed felt uncomfortable.
‘Mr. Anderson, are you still with me?’
‘Call me Stephen, and yes, I’m still here,’ he said. ‘Twenty years ago . . . That must be the Harper family murder tragedy.’
‘That’s right.’
A new brief silence. ‘You said my article flagged up in an LAPD investigation search. I’m guessing, a homicide investigation?’
‘That’s correct.’
Hunter heard the sound of a lighter being flicked a couple of times.
‘You have a victim over there that’s been stitched up?’
This time the silence came from Hunter. Anderson was quick on the uptake. Hunter chose his next words carefully.
‘It sounds like there could be similarities between the Harper case and one of our ongoing investigations, yes, but as I said, your article doesn’t describe what happened in great detail.’
‘And those similarities would be the stitching of the victim’s body?’
‘I didn’t say that.’
‘Oh, c’mon, Detective, I spent thirty-five years as a reporter. I know that the similarities you’re referring to couldn’t just be a jealousy-fueled family murder/suicide, or someone blowing his head off with a shotgun. You’re an LA cop – the city where the freaks come out to play. You probably have crimes like those happening on your doorstep every week. From my article, the only unusual aspect about the Harpers incident is the mentioning of stitches.’
There was no doubt about it, Anderson was quick on the uptake. Hunter conceded.
‘Yes, we have a case here where stitches have been applied to the victim’s body.’
The silence returned to the line for a moment.
‘Do you remember any more details?’ Hunter pushed. ‘Or is the reason why your article was so brief with no follow-ups was because that was all the information you ever had on the case?’
‘Do you know anything about Sonoma County, Detective?’
‘The biggest wine production county in California,’ Hunter replied.
‘That’s correct.’ Anderson coughed a couple of times to clear his throat. ‘You see, Detective, Sonoma lives off its wine production county status in every possible aspect – not only by producing great wine. There are special events every month of the year all around the county which pull in the crowds. Agricultural festivals, holiday celebrations, street fairs, music carnivals and more. There’s always something happening somewhere.’
Hunter could already see where Anderson was going with this.
‘We can’t compare to Los Angeles or Vegas, but we have our share of tourists. Publicizing something as horrific as what happened that day would’ve benefited no one. The Tribune wouldn’t have sold any more copies than it did on a day-to-day basis either.’ Anderson coughed again, a lot heavier this time. ‘I didn’t get to see the scene, but yes, I did find out the details. On that same day I was approached by Chief Cooper and Mayor Taylor. We talked for a long time, and it was decided that it would be in the town’s best interests if the paper didn’t sensationalize the story, and by that I mean I agreed to play it down. So between the police, the mayor and the paper, a very heavy lid was placed over the whole incident.’
‘We really need to know those details, Stephen.’
The pause that followed felt laden.
‘You’re not gonna be breaking your promise to the police chief or the mayor,’ Hunter insisted. ‘None of what you tell me will go any further, but I do need to know those details. It could save lives.’
‘It’s been twenty years, I guess,’ Anderson said after taking a long drag of his cigarette. ‘Where would you like me to start?’
&nbs
p; Eighty-Seven
‘I knew the Harpers quite well,’ Anderson began. ‘You have to understand that Healdsburg isn’t a big town, even today. Back then we didn’t have more than maybe nine thousand people living here. Ray Harper was a shoemaker and his wife, Emily, was a teacher in the primary school. They’d been married for over fifteen years, and I guess, like in so many longstanding marriages, things weren’t a bed of roses any more.’
Hunter was busy taking notes.
‘Emily started sleeping with another schoolteacher, Nathan Gardner, which in a city this small, isn’t a very smart idea, unless you think you’re invisible.’
Hunter heard Anderson take another drag of his cigarette.
‘Somehow Ray found out during that year’s winter school break. Now Ray had always been a very calm person. I’d never known him to lose his head. Actually, I’d never known him to even raise his voice. He was just your regular, everyday, church-going, quiet kinda guy. And that’s what was so out of character about what he did.’
Garcia looked like he was about to ask something but Hunter lifted his hand, stopping him. He didn’t want to rush Anderson.
‘Well, that day Ray completely lost control, as if he was possessed. He went over to Nathan’s apartment and killed him first, before going back to his house and killing his kid, his wife, and then splattering his brains all over the walls with a double-barreled shotgun.’
Anderson coughed and Hunter waited as he heard the cigarette lighter being flicked on again.
‘How did he kill them?’
‘That was the reason why Chief Cooper and Mayor Taylor asked to talk to me that day. Because of the way Ray went about his killing business. Ted Bundy is a boy scout compared to what he did.’ Anderson paused. ‘In Nathan’s apartment, Ray tied him down and used a meat cleaver to cut his . . . penis off.’ A longer pause this time. ‘That was it. Nothing else. Ray simply left him there to bleed to death. Now, you might ask – how come Nathan didn’t scream his head off and alert the whole neighborhood. Well, the reason would be because Ray used a shoe needle and thread to stitch Nathan’s mouth shut.’
Garcia’s eyes flickered towards Hunter.
‘Ray went from Nathan’s apartment back to his house . . .’ Anderson continued, ‘. . . killed his kid inside his truck, and then did the same thing he did to Nathan to his wife, Emily. He stitched her mouth shut too.’
Hunter had stopped writing.
‘But it didn’t end there.’
Hunter and Garcia waited.
‘Ray took what he’d cut off Nathan with him, shoved it inside his wife, and stitched her shut as well.’
Garcia flinched but Hunter’s face remained neutral. His blue eyes locked onto a blank page in his notebook.
‘I still can’t believe that Ray did what he did. Not the Ray Harper we knew. It just couldn’t have been the same person. As I said, it was like he was possessed.’
A short pause, a new cigarette drag.
‘After stitching his wife shut, Ray sat on the floor in front of her and blew his brains all over the room with his shotgun.’
‘And you’re sure those facts are correct?’ Hunter asked. ‘You said you never saw the crime scene for yourself.’
A nervous chuckle.
‘Yes, I’m sure. I didn’t see the crime scene, but I saw the pictures with my own eyes. Those images will be imprinted in my brain forever. Sometimes I still have nightmares about them. And the words . . .’
‘Words?’ Hunter cocked his head forward.
There was no response.
‘Stephen?’ Hunter called. ‘Are you still there? What words?’
‘Ray left his wife tied to their bed all stitched up. But before blowing his head off, he used blood to write something on the wall.’
‘And what did he write?’ Garcia asked.
‘He wrote the words – He’s inside you.’
Eighty-Eight
Hunter came off the phone with the Healdsburg Police Department after speaking to Anderson and went straight down to Captain Blake’s office. He caught her as she was getting ready to go home for the day.
‘I need to go up to Healdsburg first thing tomorrow morning,’ he said, letting the door close behind him. ‘I’ll be away for one, maybe two days.’
‘What?’ She looked up from her computer screen. ‘Healdsburg? Why the hell?’
Hunter ran her through everything he’d found out. Captain Blake listened to the whole story in absolute silence, her face immutable. When he was finished, she breathed out as if she’d been holding her breath for minutes.
‘When did all that happen, again?’
‘Twenty years ago.’
Her eyebrows lifted. ‘Let me guess, because that case is older than fifteen years, the files aren’t in the Unified California Police Database, nothing’s been digitized, right?’
Hunter nodded. ‘I’ve searched by date, town and victim names. There’s nothing. The records will be in paper form in the Healdsburg PD storage archives.’
‘Great. So other than the newspaper article and the reporter’s story, what do we have?’
‘I just got off the phone with Chief Suarez in Healdsburg. He wasn’t the chief back then. He was transferred and relocated from Fair Oaks nine years ago, a year after the entire Healdsburg Police Department was moved to its new location. He hadn’t even heard of the Harper case.’
Captain Blake paused and looked at Hunter sideways. ‘Wait a second. Why are you going to Healdsburg? Homicide case files would’ve been filed with the Sonoma District Attorney’s office, and that’s in . . .’
‘Santa Rosa,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘I’ve called them as well.’ He pointed to his watch. ‘After office hours. There was nobody there who I could talk to. But if the case files aren’t in the California Police DB, it means that either the Sonoma DA’s office don’t have them, or they’re piled up in some dusty room still waiting to be digitized. I’d like to have a look at the crime-scene pictures and the autopsy reports if I can get them, but the police and the DA case files won’t help us much. They’ll just describe what happened back then in a little more detail than Stephen did. It was a family murder/ suicide, Captain. Open and shut case. No witness accounts, no investigation records, if there even was one. They had nothing to investigate. Wife sleeps with another man, husband gets jealous, loses control . . . the lover and the whole family pays the ultimate price. Case closed. We have replica cases up and down the country.’
Captain Blake sat back on her chair and rested her chin on her knuckles. ‘And you wanna talk to someone who was involved in the case?’
Hunter nodded. ‘The old chief of police retired seven years ago, but he still lives in Healdsburg. Somewhere near Lake Sonoma. I don’t really wanna talk to him over the phone.’
The captain saw something shine in Hunter’s eyes. ‘OK, talk to me, Robert. What are you really after? Do you think our killer came from Healdsburg?’
Hunter finally had a seat on one of the wingback chairs in front of the captain’s desk. ‘I think our killer was there, Captain. I think he saw that crime scene.’
Captain Blake studied Hunter for a beat. ‘A trauma?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean . . . a shock trauma, induced by what he saw?’
‘Yes.’ Hunter ran a hand over his left arm and felt the bullet scar on his triceps. ‘The similarities between what happened in Healdsburg twenty years ago and what we have happening here today are too strong to be coincidental.’
Captain Blake said nothing.
‘The way Ray Harper killed his family . . . the way he killed his wife’s lover . . . even big city, seasoned Homicide detectives would find such a crime scene hard to deal with, never mind a small town’s police department whose idea of a tough crime is probably jaywalking.’
The captain started fidgeting with one of her earrings. ‘But hold on. If the Healdsburg Police Department did their job properly, then not many people would’ve had access to that crime scene. P
resumably officers and the sheriff’s coroner, that’s all.’
Hunter nodded. ‘That’s why I need to talk to the old chief of police, and hopefully find the crime-scene logbook. We need to establish the whereabouts of everyone who had access to it that day.’
The captain’s eyes stayed on Hunter while her brain searched for answers. ‘Could a similar kind of trauma occur just by looking at the crime-scene pictures?’
Hunter considered. ‘It would depend on how mentally vulnerable the person was at the time. But yes, deeply disturbing photographs can easily initiate something inside a person’s mind.’
Captain Blake paused while she thought about it. ‘But the kills aren’t exactly the same as the one in Healdsburg. Our victims aren’t tied down. The words he uses aren’t exactly the same either.’
‘That’s not uncommon, Captain. A trauma can be like a large picture that’s flashed in front of your eyes. Not everyone will remember every single detail perfectly. Adaptation is also a major consequence of crimes derived from early traumas. That’s what he’s doing.’
Captain Blake closed her eyes and shook her head slowly.
‘There’s one more thing, Captain,’ Hunter said, standing up. ‘Emily Harper, the woman that was stitched shut and killed in Healdsburg twenty years ago was a schoolteacher.’
‘Yeah, I know, you told me that. And . . . ?’
Hunter paused by the door. ‘She taught arts and music.’
Eighty-Nine
Hunter thought about driving to Healdsburg, but even with zero traffic it would’ve taken him at least seven hours to cover the four hundred and fifty miles. Spending over fifteen hours on the road was simply out of the question.
So Hunter caught the 6:30 a.m. nonstop flight from LA’s LAX to Healdsburg municipal airport. The flight was on time, and by 8:10 a.m. Hunter was driving his rental Chrysler Sebring out of the relatively empty Hertz forecourt.
Even without a map or an in-car navigation system, it took Hunter no longer than fifteen minutes to get from the airport to the Healdsburg Police Department in Center Street.