Gallery of the Dead

Sixteen

Risk of contamination wasn’t the only factor that could trigger a request for a Level Zero autopsy. There was another type of risk that most authorities around the world would do anything to avoid — the risk of citizen panic. The Los Angeles press, who tended to sensationalize most stories to high heaven, paid people for information, and they paid well. They had informants inside the police, the fire brigade, hospitals, government security agencies, and of course the Department of Medical Examiner.

The media would have a field day and no shame about instigating widespread frenzy inside the City of Angels if they were to report the news of a new serial killer on the loose. Hunter and the LAPD’s best chance of keeping the story under wraps, at least for the time being, was to keep as many details as they could as secret as they could.

Los Angeles was no stranger to violent crimes. A mutilated and skinned body left inside a room that had been practically redecorated with the victim’s blood would certainly raise eyebrows and trigger an avalanche of questions, but it wouldn’t necessarily sound the ‘serial killer’ alarm, unless the press got word of the carvings on the victim’s back. If there was one thing about serial killers that every crime reporter in LA knew, it was that they were the only ones who tended to taunt the police with messages, riddles, puzzles, drawings, phone calls, or whatever. Back at the crime scene, due to the position in which the victim had been left on the bed, only four people had seen the carvings on Linda Parker’s back — Hunter, Garcia, Kevin White, and the forensics team photographer, Tommy. Dr. Hove and Captain Blake brought that number up to six and none of them would pass that knowledge onto the press.

Hunter’s comment was met by a very concerned look from Captain Blake.

‘I’m sorry, Robert, already has what? Turned serial?’

Hunter nodded before sending one last photo to the printer.

‘OK, you guys just lost me. Is there another body that I don’t know about?’ Instinctively, her eyes searched the board one more time.

‘If there is,’ Hunter replied, ‘none of us know about it.’

Captain Blake’s eyebrows shot up in an arch.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘So if we don’t have any bodies other than this one, where’s this idea coming from, Robert? What makes you think there’s a possibility that this killer has killed before?’

‘It’s not one thing in particular, Captain. It’s the entire crime scene, but again, it’s too early in the investigation to be certain of anything, and to be honest, all I have is a hunch.’

Captain Blake waited, but Hunter didn’t offer much else.

‘All right,’ she pushed. ‘Let’s hear this hunch of yours then.’

Hunter knew his captain well enough to know that he had no other way out of this. He drove her attention back to the picture board.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Let me start with the level of violence and how skilled the killer was. He severed his victim’s hands and feet clean off her body.’ He indicated the photographs as he spoke. ‘And the optimal word here is “clean”.’ He gave Captain Blake an extra millisecond. ‘The autopsy report should give us a better idea of the tool used, but according to the forensics team at the scene, it wasn’t an ax or any sort of sharp blade where the killer could’ve achieved that with a single blow.’

The captain stepped closer and regarded the pictures Hunter had indicated.

‘So what are we talking about here?’ She speculated. ‘Some sort of saw?

‘Almost certainly,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But the detail here is that he probably used a handheld saw. Not an electric one, and that would only add to his skillset.’

‘How do you know it was a handheld saw instead of an electric one?’

‘An electric saw would’ve caused the victim’s blood to spray in all different directions and in a very distinctive pattern — tiny spit-like drops, if you like,’ Hunter explained. ‘Forensics scrutinized every blood smudge they found at the victim’s house. No spray pattern of any sort was found anywhere.’

Captain Blake tucked a strand of loose hair behind her left ear before Hunter redirected her attention to the next group of photographs.

‘Not wanting to state the obvious here, but he also skinned his victim, which — if nothing else — takes knowledge. But in this case, the skinning was done so proficiently it suggests experience. At least some.’

‘Something like this,’ Garcia commented, ‘with this level of competence, isn’t easy to achieve first time out.’

Captain Blake scratched her left cheek uneasily. ‘I understand that, but couldn’t this killer have gained that sort of experience in some way other than having killed before?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Hunter admitted. ‘A trained butcher would easily qualify. Doctors, ex-doctors, medical students with hands-on training...’ He shrugged.

‘Not to mention the real sickos,’ Garcia butted in. ‘The ones with no experience, but who’d take the time to practice on animals first.’

Captain Blake’s jaw dropped half open. ‘You mean, skinning them?’

Garcia nodded. ‘The skin property of certain animals, like pigs, rats, mice and rabbits, are similar enough to that of humans to allow for that kind of practice.’

That thought made Captain Blake grimace.

‘As sick as all that sounds,’ she said, ‘the two of you just argued against your own case — this killer’s proficiency at skinning and mutilating his victim doesn’t necessarily equate to him having killed before. He could be a butcher, an ex-medical student and so on.’

‘That’s true.’ Hunter accepted it. ‘The killer could’ve gained that sort of experience in several different ways without having murdered anyone before, but so far we’ve only discussed the level of violence and skill used by the killer.’ He indicated the photographs that showed the carvings to Linda Parker’s back one more time. ‘But we also have this.’

Captain Blake drew in a deep breath. ‘Yes, I know, and that’s the main reason why I asked you about this turning serial. We all know that not all serial killers like to taunt the police, but only serial criminals do so.’

She stabbed one of the photos on the board with her index finger.

‘A message, a signature, alien code, whatever the hell this is — this is without question a taunt and therefore has “serial” written all over it, but the series has to start somewhere, doesn’t it?’ Captain Blake opened her arms wide, as if she was about to hug the board. ‘So let me ask you again, Robert. Why do you think that this isn’t his first victim?’

‘Like I said, Captain, it’s just a hunch, but once I started adding everything together — the level of violence, the killer’s proficiency, the message he left behind, the crime scene as a whole, it just doesn’t feel like this is his starting point.’

‘Great,’ Captain Blake said with a quick shake of the head. ‘Every time you have one of your hunches, Robert, we need to brace ourselves for a shit storm, and this is already starting to look like a hurricane.’

‘There’s one more thing as well,’ Garcia said.

She turned to face him. ‘Will this nightmare ever end? What is it now?’

Garcia made a face at Hunter, who finally collected the last photo printout from the printer tray and pinned it to the board. It showed Linda Parker’s cat frozen solid inside her fridge.

Captain Blake had to do a double take and even then she doubted her eyes. ‘What... the hell... is that?’

‘That’s the victim’s cat,’ Garcia replied. ‘We found it inside the freezer.’

A pit began forming somewhere inside the captain’s stomach. She had always loved cats. She had had Pee-a-lot, her green-eyed, ginger Ragamuffin, for eight years. His original name had been Furmuffin, but within the first couple of months and after several very wet ‘accidents’ around the house, Captain Blake decided to change his name to a more becoming one.

‘The killer...’ Her voice caught in her throat. ‘... Killed her cat?’

‘He froze it to death,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘There were scratches to the inside of the freezer door, together with fur and bits of the cat’s nails.’

‘Why?’ the captain asked, her stare wandering between Hunter and Garcia. ‘What’s the point in torturing and killing a defenseless animal like that? It’s not like it was a guard dog and the killer had to take it out before getting to the victim, is it?’

She waited, but neither detective offered a reply.

‘It’s not a rhetorical question, guys,’ she pushed. Anger had cracked into her voice. ‘Does anyone have any kind of theory as to why this bastard had to kill the goddamn cat?’ Despite it being an open question, she pinned Hunter down with a laser stare.

He shrugged. ‘He could’ve done it just to prove his resolve.’

‘What?’ The captain’s eyes widened. ‘So breaking into the victim’s house, chopping off her hands and feet, skinning the body and transforming the entire room into a blood party wasn’t enough evidence of his resolve? He had to freeze the poor cat to make it clear? Who the hell is this guy — Satan?’

Hunter stepped back from the board and leaned against the edge of his desk. When he spoke, his voice seemed to carry all the calm in the world.

‘Just look at your reaction, Captain. Until a moment ago you sounded concerned, but there was no real anger in it. As soon as you found out about the cat...’ Hunter didn’t need to finish his sentence.

‘And you’re not alone in your reaction either,’ Garcia added. ‘It happened to all of us at the crime scene. As soon as we discovered the cat in the freezer, everyone’s mood took a turn, even Robert’s, and you know how calm and collected he always is.’

Captain Blake kept her eyes on the picture for just another second before turning away in disgust. ‘It takes a different kind of “sick” to mutilate and skin a body in the way that it was done here, but to do something like this to a tiny animal, who would’ve posed absolutely no threat whatsoever—’

‘It’s shocking, but not surprising,’ Hunter interrupted.

She glared at him.

‘Many psychopaths start to show signs of psychopathy at a very young age,’ Hunter reminded her. ‘Cruelty to animals and predisposition for arson are the two top items on that “early signs of psychopathy” list. Many modern serial killers have graduated from hurting and killing animals to hurting and killing people. It’s a fact. So yes, this is shocking, but not surprising.’

‘So what you’re telling me here is that we are probably dealing with a completely emotionless freak. Someone whose level of emotional detachment toward life in general is off the scale — human... animal... it doesn’t matter because he couldn’t care less.’

‘I have no doubt of that, Captain,’ Garcia replied.

‘There’s another possibility,’ Hunter said, but before he was able to explain, the phone on his desk rang.