Gallery of the Dead

Thirty-Nine

Anyone driving down Wilshire Boulevard would be forgiven for mistaking the Los Angeles FBI Headquarters for some sort of special federal prison, where the window bars couldn’t be seen from the outside. Despite its prime real-estate location, one thing was absolutely clear to everyone: the seventeen-story-high concrete box structure hadn’t been built with aesthetics in mind, a feature that repeated itself across every FBI building in the country.

Inside a corner office, on the eighth floor of that nondescript and enigmatic building, Special Agents Fisher and Williams had taken no time settling in. The room they were given was about four times the size of Hunter and Garcia’s office back at the PAB and equipped to the walls with hightech monitors, lightning-fast computers and gigantic curved 4K screens.

Both FBI agents had spent the last three hours looking over all the photos belonging to Linda Parker’s crime scene, as well as revising a series of files concerning their investigation into the murders of Kristine Rivers and Albert Greene — two victims whose life stories couldn’t have been any more different from each other.

‘Shit!’ Agent Fisher said, as she pushed her chair away from her desk. She stared at her computer screen for another second before hurling the pen she had in her hand at it.

‘Are you all right, Erica?’ Agent Williams asked, angling his body to look past his own screen at his partner. He was used to Agent Fisher’s sudden outbursts.

‘I don’t have a clue what I’m doing anymore, Larry.’ The tips of her fingers came up to her temples. ‘I keep on rereading all these files, but I have no idea what I’m looking for.’

But that wasn’t true at all — Special Agent Erica Fisher knew very well what she was looking for as she reread file after file and studied photograph after photograph. She was trying to identify anything that could shed some sort of light, no matter how faint, on why the killer had picked those three people as his victims.

At first they had thought that the reason The Surgeon had taken Kristine Rivers’ life had been because she was Director Kennedy’s niece, but that theory had now been blown completely out of the water. Nevertheless, Kristine Rivers had been chosen, together with Albert Greene and now Linda Parker, and there had to have been a reason for that.

Chance? Being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Just like Hunter and Garcia had said earlier, they just couldn’t afford to discard any possibilities, but Agent Fisher had never worked a serial-murder case, or even heard of one, where the killer had picked his/her victims absolutely at random. Even in a case like this one, where all the victims seemed to be complete strangers to each other, living in different parts of the country, there was always something that would somehow drive the killer to them — a physical or personal characteristic, something in their past, a location, a preference, a desire, an object, a possession... It didn’t matter if it made sense to anyone or not. It could be something easily identifiable, or something completely obscure, but there was always something.

Even if Detectives Hunter and Garcia had stumbled upon something with the art theory and this killer was indeed mad enough to think that what he was doing was transforming his crime scenes, his victims, into sick works of art, something made him go knock on Kristine Rivers’, Albert Greene’s, and Linda Parker’s door. Agent Fisher was sure of that, but what was it?

The more Agent Fisher thought about it, the more something Detective Garcia had said earlier kept on coming back to her — that they hadn’t yet figured out the real meaning behind any of the carved phrases, and that the killer was reaching out, wanting them to understand why he was doing it.

‘Here,’ Agent Williams said, coming up to Agent Fisher’s desk and placing a new steaming cup of coffee on it. ‘This should help a little.’

‘Thanks, Larry.’ Agent Fisher leaned back on her chair as she looked up at her partner. ‘Though I’d much rather have a bottle of wine right now.’ A soft tilt of the head. ‘Vodka would do just as fine, too.’

‘That could be easily arranged.’ Agent Williams checked his watch.

‘Yeah, I wish. You’ve seen me drunk, right?’

‘Uh huh.’ Agent Williams smiled at her and their eyes locked.

There was no denying that Special Agent Larry Williams was an extremely attractive man, but that was only the tip of the iceberg. Looks aside, he was intelligent, dedicated, accomplished, a total gentleman, and the best agent she had ever worked with.

He was also completely in love with Agent Fisher.

Despite all his efforts to keep it secret, Agent Fisher saw it in his eyes every time he looked at her. She heard it in his voice. She felt it in his touch.

Truth be told, in different circumstances, Special Agent Erica Fisher would’ve probably fallen for him as well, but her heart belonged to someone else. Someone very, very different.

After a quick bathroom break, Agent Fisher returned to her files. As her brain played with different thoughts, she began separating all the photographs they had into three distinct groups — victims, carvings, and crime scene. That done, she got up from her seat, took a couple of steps back from her desk and let her eyes slowly walk those columns once... twice... ten times.

We have deciphered these, but we haven’t yet figured out the real meaning behind any of these phrases.

‘This is so pointless.’

Her brain felt numb, her eyes felt tired, her body felt drained.

This killer is reaching out.

‘There’s nothing here. Detective Garcia was wrong.’

He wants us to understand him. He wants us to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing.

‘Maybe I’ll try again tomor—’

As Agent Fisher began turning away from her computer screen, something in one of the photos caught her eye and she paused.

One second...

Her body revitalized.

Two seconds...

The brain numbness was gone.

Three seconds...

There it was.