I Am Death

Nineteen

For the first time in two weeks dense rain clouds began gathering over Central Los Angeles, announcing that a new summer downpour was imminent, which wasn’t all that surprising given how hot it had been in the past few days. By the time Hunter and Garcia got back to the Police Administration Building, bullet-sized raindrops were coming down in torrents.

While Garcia went back to their office to go over some paperwork, Hunter drove on to Ramirez Street in Downtown Los Angeles where the LAPD Missing Persons Unit’s Special Division was located. He had received a call from Detective Troy Sanders, saying that he’d be more than happy to meet up with Hunter, and that he’d be in his office that afternoon.

Detective Sanders was the head of the MPUSD, but also the detective who’d been in charge of Nicole Wilson’s abduction investigation.

Hunter found Sanders by the vending machine at the far end of the Missing Persons detectives floor, which, in all fairness, was a carbon copy of the Robbery Homicide Division’s — a simple, open-plan space housing a chaotic labyrinth of desks. The noise level resembled a fish market on a Sunday morning.

Sanders was in his early forties and, at exactly six foot, was as tall as Hunter, with a shaved head, a prominent brow, a strong chin and wide shoulders. His eyes, clear and pale blue, contrasted nicely with his tanned skin, and the intense gaze in them suggested both experience and knowledge.

After grabbing a can of soda, a couple of candy bars and a packet of mints from the vending machine, Sanders ushered Hunter into his office, which by comparison was smaller, but a lot tidier, than Hunter and Garcia’s.

‘Mint?’ Sanders offered as he opened the small can of Ice Breakers.

‘No, thank you. I’m OK.’

Sanders popped two into his mouth. ‘Maybe it’s only me, but it’s like this job leaves a bad taste in my mouth on a daily basis. I eat tons of this stuff.’

Hunter could easily sympathize with Sanders.

‘OK. I’ve got the file here, ready for you,’ Sanders said as he walked over to his modest desk and retrieved a green folder that sat on top of a tall and very neatly arranged pile.

Hunter wasn’t too surprised by the number of cases sitting on Sanders’ desk. The LAPD Missing Persons Unit investigated somewhere between two and three hundred adult missing person reports per month, and at least double that number when it came to children under the age of sixteen. Contrary to public belief, and despite the fact that approximately seventy percent of all reported adult missing persons were found, or voluntarily returned within seventy-two hours, a new federal law prohibited the observance of a ‘waiting period’ before accepting a missing persons case. That meant that an investigation had to be launched, and a file had to be created, for every single accepted report.

‘Unfortunately, I’m not sure how much help this will actually be,’ Sanders said, passing the folder to Hunter. A look of disappointment came over him. ‘What we managed to find out isn’t much.’

The Missing Persons report opened with the same portrait photograph of Nicole Wilson that Hunter and Garcia had seen in the file Captain Blake had handed them that morning, followed by her fact sheet. Hunter skipped the basic information and quickly scanned the report, which indeed was very brief. It stated that Nicole Wilson was about to start her second year of law school at CSULA, that she sometimes babysat a few nights a week for extra cash, and that just a few weeks ago, at the end of her first year in college, she had managed to land a summer job, running errands and archiving reports for a law firm in downtown LA. Apparently she was also a very quiet and reserved person, preferring to spend her free nights studying in her room or at the library instead of partying in the City of Angels. From what Sanders’ team had gathered, most of her life revolved around college campus and a very small number of college friends, so initially that had been exactly where they had concentrated the bulk of their investigation. But summer break had made talking to students and teachers around campus a little harder than usual. Most of the interviews had been conducted over the phone.

Sanders and his team had followed certain abduction investigation guidelines to the letter. In the case of someone like Nicole Wilson, they were simple — a young and attractive woman goes missing without a ransom request or any known family feud, and sitting at the top of the ‘people of interest’ list would be: the boyfriend (if any), followed by ex-boyfriends, and anyone who had shown a romantic interest in Nicole (male or female). But according to the few people Sanders had managed to talk to, Nicole Wilson hadn’t been dating anyone. In fact, it seemed like she hadn’t dated anyone since she’d started college just over a year ago.

Sanders and his team had also spoken to everyone who worked at the small law firm Nicole had been running errands for since the beginning of summer — two attorneys and one secretary. They all had watertight alibis for the night in question, and pretty much a perfect score when it came to their past. As far as Sanders could tell, none of them had any motive either.

‘All the interview transcripts are in here,’ Sanders said, handing Hunter a second folder, this one yellow in color.

Hunter took the file before asking, ‘Have you checked her dorm room?’

‘Thoroughly. No diary or anything similar,’ Sanders replied, anticipating that that had been the reason why Hunter had asked his question. He then handed Hunter a list of all the items he and his team had found in Nicole’s dorm room.

‘We did find her laptop,’ Sanders added, pointing to the fifth item on the list. ‘Computer forensics took about a day to breach its security, since then we’ve been sieving through all its files, including her emails. So far, we’ve found nothing relevant. I’ll get someone to drop her laptop to you in the next hour, if that’s OK, together with a list of all the files we’ve already been through.’

Hunter saw sadness and disappointment creep into Sanders’ eyes and he understood exactly why. If Nicole Wilson had been murdered only hours after being abducted, there would’ve been very little anyone could’ve done, but she hadn’t. The killer had tortured her, seemingly for almost six days, before finally ending her life. That meant that Missing Persons had had five days, or around one hundred and twenty hours, to get to Nicole, but they didn’t get anywhere near her or her captor. No matter how experienced or seasoned a Missing Persons detective was, in these sorts of circumstances the feeling of failure wrapped up in guilt can run them over like a speed train.

‘Sure, that’d be great. Thank you,’ Hunter agreed.

Sanders popped another mint into his mouth before extending the round tin container in Hunter’s direction.

Once again, Hunter declined.

‘You’ve read the transcript of the telephone conversation between Miss Wilson and Ms. Bennett, right?’ Sanders asked. ‘Just before her abductor took her.’

Hunter nodded.

‘I’ll tell you this much, I have ten years with the LAPD MPU, half of them with the Special Division. I’ve seen some crazy shit, and I’ve investigated some really arrogant bastards, but I’ve never come across anyone with this level of confidence, or an abduction this clean. Forensics spent two days fine-combing the entire house and its grounds, and they got nothing that didn’t belong. Not a single hair. Not a speck of dust. This guy left absolutely nothing behind, other than a forensic black hole. That’s not an easy thing to achieve.’

Hunter looked at the detective for a couple of seconds. Sanders didn’t have to voice it for Hunter to know that he feared exactly what he and Garcia already knew — Nicole Wilson was only the beginning.