Gallery of the Dead

Thirty-Six

Given what Adrian Kennedy and Special Agents Williams and Fisher had already seen on the picture board, it didn’t take Hunter and Garcia too long to run them through the little they had on Linda Parker’s investigation so far.

‘That’s pretty much it,’ Garcia announced, leaning against the left side of the picture board. ‘Robert and I were regrouping here in the office to discuss our next move when we walked into Special Agent Erica Fisher here snooping around. Officially, our investigation into the murder of one Linda Parker only started a few hours ago.’

Captain Blake checked her detective with a suspicious look. ‘You’re not going to mention the “art” theory?’

‘Art theory?’ Kennedy asked. The surprise in his tone was directed at Hunter. ‘You guys have formed a theory already?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a theory,’ Hunter replied. ‘But after we discovered the carvings to the victim’s back, something was suggested by the lead forensics agent at the scene last night that did seem to link a few loose dots.’

‘Can we hear it?’ Kennedy asked. He was already craving another cigarette.

Hunter let Garcia guide the FBI crew through that specific bumpy ride. When Garcia was done, the entire room went quiet one more time. Captain Blake was the first to break the silence.

‘Nuts? Yes, but whatever that is—’ she referred to the picture board, ‘—that’s not the work of a sane person.’

‘Agreed,’ Agent Fisher said, as she and Agent Williams restudied the photographs taken of the walls and the furniture inside Linda Parker’s bedroom. ‘And I’ll admit that in a standalone situation it makes a kind of crazy sense. If these really aren’t the result of a bleeding victim trying to get away from her attacker — and given the message the killer has carved into the victim’s back — I can clearly see how that theory would’ve surfaced. But...’ she turned and faced Hunter and Garcia, ‘... when put into context — The Surgeon’s first two victims, the state of their crime scenes and the carvings to their backs — this “art” theory kind of loses all of its momentum, don’t you think? No blood on the walls in either of his first two crime scenes. No “bloody brush strokes”, to quote Detective Garcia. One victim was left in a dirty shed, the other inside his own bedroom, which I might add was squeaky-clean. Nothing artistic about that.’

‘And then we have the phrases the killer has carved into the backs of his first two victims,’ Agent Williams added. ‘ “Beauty is in the relationship” and “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. They also don’t fit this art theory.’

‘Sure,’ Garcia accepted, folding his arms in front of his chest. ‘If you’re asking me for an on-the-spot flash assessment, right here, right now, I’d have to agree with you. This art theory was suggested when we had only one victim, one scenario, not three, and we all know that theories can easily change during the course of any investigation, but we’re not prepared to discard any possibilities just yet.

‘The FBI has been running with this for over two months, but we’ve just been invited to the party. We haven’t had a chance to do anything yet — read over the investigation files, listen to any of the interview tapes, talk to any POIs... We haven’t even had a chance to properly scrutinize any of the photographs you’ve shown us, but from the little I’ve seen and heard so far, if this killer really turns out to be mad enough to believe that he’s an artist, if he turns out to be mad enough to see murder as an art form and to treat his crime scenes as a canvas, that wouldn’t really surprise me. Would it surprise you?’

Kennedy paused and looked back at his agents. Neither of them said anything back, but the vacant look in their eyes gave away how deep in thought they were.

‘One thing we all know when it comes to serial offenders leaving behind messages,’ Garcia continued, ‘cryptic or not, is that there’s always a deeper meaning to them than to simply taunt the police.’ He picked up one of the photographs that showed the carvings to Linda Parker’s back. ‘Sure, we have deciphered these, but we haven’t yet figured out the real meaning behind any of these phrases, because I think that this is the killer reaching out. Whatever it is that he thinks he’s accomplishing with these murders, he wants us to understand him, however crazy his reasons might be. He wants us to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing.’

In silence, Kennedy and both of his agents breathed in Garcia’s argument.

‘Look,’ said Hunter, joining the conversation, breaking the tension that was clearly building up inside their office. ‘All we’re saying here is that we can’t be sure of anything at this point and for that reason we can’t discard any possibilities just yet. With someone like The Surgeon, The Artist, The Doctor, or whatever name anyone wants to call him, we need to keep an open mind, we need to think out of the box, because one thing is for certain — whoever this guy is, he’s resourceful, knowledgeable, skilled, and he plays by no rules.’

‘And I know I can’t speak for you folks at the FBI’s NCAVC.’ Garcia finished Hunter’s thought. ‘After all, we’re just PD detectives here, but just by looking at all this, I can tell you one thing — this guy’s like no other killer we’ve ever encountered before.’