Gallery of the Dead

Twenty-Two

Hunter waited until Garcia had stepped into Linda Parker’s living room before closing the door behind them. For a moment neither of them moved, neither of them said a word; they simply stood there, as if for some reason they needed to acclimatize themselves to the inside of the house.

Most people would be surprised at how different an indoor crime scene could look once the circus show created by the police and the forensics team had moved on.

The first very noticeable difference was always the lighting. Gone were all the overly powerful forensics lights, used mostly to help CSI agents identify fibers, residues and sometimes even dust that didn’t seem to belong there. In its place they had the scene’s original lighting, be it natural, as it came in through the windows, or artificial, from all the light fixtures in the house. The significance of that difference was that the crime had occurred under a combination of those two types of lighting, not the blinding brightness of the forensics ones.

The second major factor that would alter the perspective of an indoor crime scene was how much the space seemed to change once everyone was gone. Without the human dynamics of agents and officers moving around the place, every room inevitably appeared a lot more spacious, not to mention how much quieter the entire house became. For a profiler trying to put together a mental picture of what might’ve happened on the night of the crime, those factors alone could sometimes make all the difference.

‘I know I probably say this every time.’ Garcia broke the silence. ‘But this room really does seem a lot bigger than what I remember.’

‘Yes,’ Hunter replied, walking over to the window on the east wall and drawing the curtains shut. ‘You do say that every time.’

‘What are you doing?’ Garcia asked.

‘Dr. Hove told us that the victim lost her life sometime between nine in the evening and midnight on Monday, right? There would’ve been no natural light in here. I just want to try to get a better feel for the—’

‘Yeah, sorry, I forgot about the whole sensory thing you do,’ Garcia said, nodding in acceptance before closing the curtains on the other living-room window. He had never met anyone who could visualize a scene in the same way Hunter could.

Both detectives took their time re-examining the living room and the kitchen before moving on to the corridor and finally reaching the main crime scene at the end of the hallway.

Just like the impression they got as they entered the living room a little earlier, without all the agents moving around and their CSI equipment crowding up the place, Linda Parker’s bedroom appeared to be twice as big as they remembered it — and darker, a lot darker. But the lighting and the space weren’t the only difference. The air inside the house felt heavy and stale, almost unbreathable, laden with an odd, indescribable odor that went beyond the metallic smell of blood and the stomach-churning stench of decomposing flesh. Hunter and Garcia made an effort to breathe mostly through their mouths and from the bedroom door they once again allowed their eyes to circle the room.

‘Now that the autopsy report has told us that the victim wasn’t tortured prior to her death,’ Garcia said, ‘that there was no suffering involved, the chaos in this room is starting to look a little less chaotic, don’t you think?’

Still being careful to avoid the pools of dried blood on the floor, Hunter moved deeper into the room. ‘You’re talking about the art-piece theory, right?’

Garcia nodded. ‘As crazy as it sounds, it makes sense, doesn’t it? Everyone’s first impression as they stepped inside this blood-drenched room was that this crime scene was nothing but overly sadistic. Some sick freak who took pleasure in torturing and mutilating his victim for hours before she was finally allowed to die, and from experience alone, you and I would’ve gone with that theory any day of the week and twice on Sundays. But according to what Dr. Hove told us, our killer didn’t get his kicks that way. No torture, Robert. None. No suffering, either. On the contrary, she was dead in less than two minutes. Now look at this crime scene and think about it. If the killer wasn’t a sadistic freak who got a hard-on from torturing his victim and watching her suffer, then why do all this? Why turn the room into a blood fest? Why mutilate her body way beyond recognition? It makes no sense. Even if this guy is a complete nut-job, crazy enough to try to wear her skin like some ill-fitting suit, it still wouldn’t explain these blood smears everywhere.’

Hunter began studying the blood-covered walls one more time.

‘Now,’ Garcia continued. ‘If we consider the possibility that the killer saw this whole scene as an art piece, that this entire room was nothing but a canvas to him, then the apparent brutality in here starts to make sense, because it loses its sadistic connotation. In the killer’s eyes, what happened in here wasn’t evil or vicious; it was art. There probably was no anger toward the victim. This killer didn’t thrive in the power or the dominance of the murder act. He didn’t feed off her fear or suffering. That’s why he killed her quickly. And what did he do immediately after suffocating her? He took off her hands and feet. Why? Because he wanted to keep them? I don’t think so. To make skinning her body a little easier, like Dr. Hove suggested? Maybe. But I think there was another reason, too. I think he took them because they were the extremities to her body’s major arteries and veins.’

Hunter paused and thoughtfully looked back at his partner.

‘To create his brush strokes,’ Garcia explained, indicating the walls around the room, ‘he needed her blood, Robert. It was his paint, so to speak.’

Hunter was still staring at the walls. He took two steps back, one to his right, tilted his head sideways and began studying them from a different angle.

Garcia carried on with his analysis.

‘The skinned body on the bed was simply the centerpiece in his live canvas. To the killer, her suffering, if there was any, her death, all of it, was secondary — collateral damage so he could create his masterpiece.’

Hunter looked back at the bed pushed up against the south wall. Though Linda Parker’s body wasn’t there anymore, he could easily see the whole scene in his head as if it were.

‘Just like the Chessboard Killer example you gave me a moment ago,’ Garcia concluded. ‘This killer’s pleasure didn’t come from the murder or the violence in it, it came from accomplishing something he had set out to accomplish. In the Chessboard Killer’s case — beating a record. In this case — creating a sick and grotesque art piece.’

‘How about the victim?’ Hunter asked.

‘What do you mean?’

‘How was she chosen? You said that to the killer, her suffering, her death, all of it was secondary, right? How about the victim herself? Do you think that she was also secondary? I mean — any person would do as long as the killer could create his art? Or did he pick Linda Parker for a specific reason?’

Garcia paused by the bed. The blood-soaked sheets were still on it. ‘I’m not sure. He could’ve picked her because it was convenient for him.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Hunter disagreed. ‘If he really thinks of himself as an artist, and this is the kind of art he creates, his centerpiece wouldn’t have been chosen for convenience, Carlos. Artists are usually very specific in their vision of what they want to create. Something must’ve brought him here. Something must’ve made him choose her.’

‘OK, so what do you think it could be? It couldn’t have been anything to do with her looks because it doesn’t feature in the final composition. She was skinned, remember? If she had been black, Asian, blonde, brunette, drop-dead-gorgeous, diarrhea-ugly, whatever, it wouldn’t have mattered. The final effect would still have been the same because all we could see was muscle tissue.’

‘That’s true,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But I wouldn’t discard her looks just yet. Maybe it doesn’t matter to us — spectators — because we only really got to see the finished work. Or maybe that was exactly the killer’s intention — for us to think that the victim didn’t really matter; but it mattered to him.’ Hunter paused, as with Garcia’s suggestion a new thought entered his mind. ‘She was a model, right? Clothes catalogs, catwalks, that sort of thing.’

‘Yes, that’s right.’

‘How about art modeling? Posing for paintings, sculptures, art photos... whatever. Anything to do with art, not fashion.’

Garcia’s eyes lit up as he reached for his cellphone. ‘I don’t know, but I’ll get someone on it right now.’

While Garcia spoke to Operations, Hunter changed position again. This time he walked back toward the bedroom door and placed his left cheek against the wall.

‘Robert, what the hell are you doing?’ Garcia asked as he disconnected from the call.

‘Clutching at straws, I guess.’

‘By doing what?’

‘I’m not really sure. Maybe I’m just trying to see something where there isn’t anything to be seen.’

‘See something? It looked like you were trying to listen to the wall.’

‘I was looking at the blood smears, actually.’

Garcia walked over to where Hunter was. ‘You picked a really weird angle to look at them.’

‘Exactly. I was thinking about the letters carved into the victim’s back and how some of the lines didn’t connect properly. If this whole scene really is a canvas, then maybe just like the carvings, all these smears aren’t what they initially appear to be. Maybe they all add up to something else — an image, another letter, another message — something other than just blood marks on the walls.’

Garcia hadn’t thought of that, but it made a lot of sense.

‘Maybe the reason why we can’t see it,’ Hunter continued, ‘is because we’re not looking at it the right way, using the correct perspective, the correct angle... I’m not sure. Some works of art are like that — the image changes as you change your point of view, but hey, like I’ve said, I’m clutching at straws here because nothing really makes sense.’

‘Maybe you are clutching at straws,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But I say that that’s definitely worth a try.’

He walked over to the north wall and placed his right cheek on it.