Gallery of the Dead

Eight

Hunter, Garcia and White were all surprised to see that a perfectly shaped, straight-edged patch of skin still remained attached to Linda Parker’s back. In fact, the patch covered the whole of her back, from left to right side and from a couple of centimeters below her shoulders all the way down to the top of her buttocks, but the surprises didn’t end there. Despite all the dried blood that covered most of that skin patch, all three of them could clearly see that something had been hastily carved into it, rupturing the skin and cutting into her flesh.

‘What the actual fuck?’ Garcia whispered as he squinted at the marks.

‘Tommy,’ White called, gesturing for the forensics photographer to join them. ‘You need to come get this.’

Tommy looked back at White as if saying, There’s more to this freakshow?

‘Now,’ White urged him.

Adjusting his glasses, Tommy walked around to the left side of the bed.

‘Oh, man!’ he said, shaking his head one more time. ‘This just ain’t right.’

The carvings to the victim’s back looked like an odd combination of symbols and letters, forming four distinct horizontal lines. Those symbols and letters had been crudely carved using only straight lines, no curves.

It took the photographer a couple of seconds to recompose himself before he began clicking away. Despite the blinding brightness of his camera flash exploding from behind them, Hunter’s attention never faltered.

As his gaze moved from letter to symbol and from straight line to straight line, a new shiver began at the core of Hunter’s soul, gaining momentum like a rocket.

‘Is this some sort of Devil-worship language or some bullshit like that?’ Garcia again.

Hunter slowly shook his head at his partner.

‘Well, it’s definitely not English,’ White replied.

‘Maybe it’s alien,’ the photographer offered. ‘It would be easier to believe that than that another human being was capable of doing all this.’

‘No.’ Hunter finally broke his silence, his voice plain. ‘It’s Latin.’

‘Latin?’

Both Garcia and the photographer frowned at Hunter before their attention returned to the markings on the victim’s back. They re-studied them for another long moment.

White also didn’t look so sure.

‘I don’t see it, Robert,’ he said, tilting his head from one side to the other. ‘And my Latin isn’t bad at all.’

‘If this is Latin,’ Garcia asked, ‘what do these symbols mean?’

‘They aren’t symbols,’ Hunter replied, but he could easily see how his partner, or anyone else, would’ve mistaken some of the carved letters for symbols. ‘It’s just the careless way in which the letters were drawn.’

Neither Garcia nor White seemed to follow.

‘Do you guys have her?’ Hunter asked. ‘Can I free my hands?’

‘Yeah, we’ve got her,’ White replied.

Hunter let go of the body.

Garcia and White kept her in place.

‘These cuts to her skin,’ Hunter began, indicating as he clarified. ‘These lines used to form the letters, were made by what look like quick slashes from some sort of blade.’ He reenacted the movement with his hand, his index finger sticking out.

‘Yeah, OK,’ Garcia agreed.

White also nodded.

‘And as you can see,’ Hunter continued, still indicating as he spoke, ‘whoever did this used only straight lines, no curves, which gives us two options. One — he drew some of the letters this way on purpose, or two — he wasn’t paying that much attention to precision as he drew them. Nevertheless, what we are left with here are several lines that fail to connect where they were supposed to, either by falling short or missing the target altogether. That’s why some of these look more like symbols than letters.’

Garcia, White and Tommy, who had stopped taking pictures to concentrate on Hunter’s explanation, still looked very confused.

Hunter tried to clarify.

‘Like here, for example. This is supposed to be a “P”.’ Hunter used his finger to redraw the letter over the existing carved one without touching the victim, but this time he used a curved line. ‘And this is a “D”.’ He repeated the process. ‘Some are also very skewed and out of line, which makes it a lot harder to see it, like here — this is supposed to be an “H”, this is an “M”, this is an “S”, and this is a “C”.’

As Hunter redrew the letters with his fingers, his argument began to make a lot more sense.

‘I’ll be damned,’ White said, his eyes widening at the markings. The puzzle was beginning to come together for him, but it still wasn’t quite there yet.

‘The next problem we have—’ Hunter wasn’t done yet, ‘—is that as everyone can see, we have four distinct horizontal lines here, which would suggest that we also have four different words, but we don’t.’

Garcia was still staring at the carvings, but the look in his eyes was a very lost one.

‘How many words do we have?’ White asked.

‘Three,’ Hunter replied. ‘But they’ve been split at completely random places to form four lines. If you give me a piece of paper and a pen I’ll show you.’

‘I can get you one,’ Tommy said, walking over to his camera case, which he had left by the bedroom door. A couple of seconds later he handed Hunter a notepad and a pencil.

‘So this is the first line.’

Hunter said each letter out loud as he first indicated it on the victim’s back, before writing it on the notepad.

Finally Hunter showed them what he had written.

‘What the fuck?’ Garcia said, as he and White placed the body back onto a lying position.

He knew that Hunter saw things differently than most people did. His brain worked differently too, especially when it came to putting puzzles together, but sometimes Hunter did more than surprise him, he scared him.

‘How the hell did you manage to see all that from these crazy cuts to her back, and so fast, too?’

‘I was just about to ask you the same thing,’ White said. ‘Have you seen something like this before?’

Hunter shook his head before playing it down. ‘No, never. Maybe it was the angle I was looking at them.’

White’s attention returned to the piece of paper Hunter had shown them. ‘Pulchritudocircumdateius.’ He first read it at an overly slow pace and as a single word before finally splitting the three words correctly. ‘Pulchritudo Circumdat Eius.’ His pronunciation was spot on.

Garcia’s eyebrows arched, as his stare ping-ponged between Hunter and White. ‘Unfortunately the last time I spoke Latin was — never. What the hell does it mean? Does anyone know? Is it supposed to be some sort of Devil incantation or something?’

‘No.’ This time it was White who shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘So what is it?’

‘If I’m not mistaken,’ White replied, ‘it means — Beauty is all around her.’

‘That’s correct,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘Beauty is all around her... beauty surrounds her. The words in English may vary, but the meaning is the same.’

For a moment Garcia paused and looked around the room again in astonished disbelief, his gaze moving from blood smudge to blood smudge. ‘Beauty is all around her? What beauty?’

White’s stare followed Garcia’s. It was then that a thought came to him. ‘You wanted to know what all this was?’ He addressed the detective. ‘All this blood everywhere for no apparent reason? Maybe you’re right. Maybe all these smudges were done on purpose. Maybe this killer believes he’s...’ White cringed at his own suggestion, ‘... an artist or something. Maybe to him...’ He nodded at the skinned and mutilated body. ‘All this — the victim, the room, the blood, the position he left her, all of it — is nothing more than a... morbid art piece.’

Hunter could feel goose bumps kiss the back of his neck. He took a step back and tried to take in the whole scene one more time.

‘The carvings to the victim’s back...’ White said in conclusion, ‘they could be just how the killer chose to sign his work.’

Before anyone could reply, the female forensics agent who had been dusting the surfaces in the living room for latent prints appeared at the door to the bedroom.

‘Jesus Christ!’ she said, her expression one of sheer disgust. ‘Whoever this killer is, he’s one sick sonofabitch.’

Everyone frowned at her.

‘You guys better come and have a look at this.’