I Am Death

Twenty-seven

When Garcia got to the office at 7:31 a.m., Hunter was seated on his chair with his back toward the door. His hands were behind his head with his fingers interlaced together. His legs were extended in front of him, the heels of his boots resting on the edge of his desk. He was staring at the picture board as if it was the first time he was seeing any of what had been pinned to it. There was an empty coffee mug by his computer keyboard, together with two candy bar wrappers. Garcia glanced at the coffee machine in the corner — empty. From the door, he also noticed the transcribed notes on Hunter’s desk. A couple of them had fallen on to the floor.

‘Did you spend the night in here?’ Garcia asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind him. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Hunter had.

‘No, not really,’ Hunter replied, without diverting his attention from the board. ‘I went home and had a shower.’

‘But no sleep.’ Garcia didn’t phrase it as a question.

Hunter shrugged. ‘In the words of the great American poet, Jon Bon Jovi, I guess “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”.’

Garcia chuckled. ‘Carry on this way and it won’t be long, my friend.’ He moved around to his desk, placed his rucksack on the floor and fired up his computer. ‘So what time did you get here this morning?’

Hunter’s gaze moved to the clock on the wall just above the board.

‘About a quarter past five.’

Garcia didn’t have to ask. He knew the reason why Hunter had gotten to the office so early — the threat the killer had added to the note he’d sent Mayor Bailey: And before the sun rises tomorrow, someone else will see it and feel it too. And trust me, what you’ve seen is nothing compared to what is still to come, unless these so-called experts are able to stop me.

‘Have we got anything?’ Garcia asked, the play completely gone from his tone. ‘Any new nine-one-one calls?’

Hunter finally moved his heels from his desk, sat up straight and swiveled his chair to face his partner.

‘No, nothing yet.’

Both detectives knew that didn’t mean anything.

‘I checked with FedEx about the package that was delivered to Mayor Bailey yesterday,’ Garcia said, loading something up on to his computer screen.

‘And?’

‘The package was dropped off two days ago, just before lunchtime, at a FedEx Express drop box just outside Union Station.’ Garcia tilted his head to one side and followed it with a sigh. ‘Get this, neither of the two CCTV cameras on that corner of the station picked up anything. In fact, they were both concentrating on something else.’

Hunter queried with an eyebrow lift.

‘Yep. He created a diversion,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘Small, homemade smoke bomb hidden inside a trashcan. Nothing major, just a single Ping-Pong ball wrapped in aluminum foil with a short fuse. Good to create enough smoke to get the attention of the cameras, but not enough to create panic. So, for at least a minute, everything else got overlooked.’

‘He would’ve needed just a second or two to drop the package into the box,’ Hunter said.

Garcia nodded emphatically with his next words. ‘This guy is careful. No unnecessary risks. Better to be safe than sorry.’ He then jerked his chin at the mug and the wrappers on Hunter’s desk. ‘Was that breakfast?’

Hunter’s left eyebrow lifted again. ‘More like a late night come early morning snack.’

‘Well, I really need a fresh cup,’ Garcia said, now indicating the coffee machine. ‘Would you like some?’

‘Have you managed to get any more of that stuff from Minas?’

Hunter had always liked coffee, but unlike most people he knew he didn’t drink it for the caffeine. He needed no help staying awake or with his energy and alertness levels. He simply and truly enjoyed the taste of it, the stronger the better. But Hunter was no connoisseur, unlike Garcia who had been brought up by a father who admittedly was a coffee fanatic.

Garcia was born in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The son of a Brazilian federal agent and an American history teacher, he and his mother had moved to Los Angeles when he was only ten years old, after his parents’ marriage collapsed. Even though he’d lived in America most of his life, Garcia could still speak Portuguese like a true Brazilian. His father was a very attractive man with smooth dark hair, brown eyes and olive skin. His mother was a natural blonde with light-blue eyes and European-looking fair skin. Garcia had inherited his father’s olive-tone skin and brown hair. His eyes weren’t as light blue as his mother’s but they had definitely come from her side of the family. He had a slim frame, thanks to years of track and field, but his build was deceptive and he was stronger than anyone would’ve guessed.

When Garcia had found out that Hunter enjoyed coffee just as much as he did, he had been more than happy to share a few secrets with his partner. One of those secrets was a special blend of Brazilian coffee produced only in the southeastern estate of Minas Gerais, by a small independent farm with a unique recipe. It was grounded finer than most blends and roasted at a lower initial temperature, preventing it from over-roasting and giving it a stronger but smoother taste. It had quickly become Hunter’s favorite blend, but the only shop that sold it in the whole of Los Angeles had closed down.

Garcia smiled and from his rucksack retrieved two one-kilo bags of the special blend, placing them on Hunter’s desk.

‘Someone I know just got back from Brazil last night.’

Hunter’s face told a happy story.

‘Yes,’ he said, looking like a kid who’d just received the Christmas present he was hoping for. ‘I’d love a fresh cup of coffee.’

As he walked over to the coffee machine, Garcia picked up one of the transcribed notes from the floor. The handwriting was an almost perfect match to the original. He craned his neck and looked over his partner’s shoulder at the pile of copies on his desk.

‘You transcribed the note?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘A few times, yeah. I was trying to look at it from different angles.’

‘You mean, think like the killer.’

This wasn’t the first time that Hunter and Garcia had had to deal with a killer who liked to taunt the police with written notes or images.

‘I didn’t go as far as transcribing it,’ Garcia said, placing the note back on Hunter’s desk before filling the machine with ground coffee and adding water. ‘But I also barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes,’ he nodded at the notes, ‘that’s what I saw.’

‘And?’ Hunter’s interest grew.

Garcia shook his head. ‘I’m not sure what to think, Robert. To me, most of it comes across as if this killer is your “straight out of a textbook sociopath”. You know — delusions of grandeur and all. He probably believes he’s above everyone else in every aspect, especially intellectually, being way too smart to ever make a mistake or get caught. That’s the reason for the note, isn’t it? Defiance. Come catch me if you think you can.’

Hunter agreed with a silent nod.

‘What he did to the first victim,’ Garcia continued, the expression on his face morphing into one of disgust, ‘the abduction, the torture, the violation, everything — shows that he has achieved such a high level of emotional detachment from other human beings that he’s now clearly unable to feel anything other than anger, or rage, or perhaps repugnance. There’s no remorse, guilt, compassion, pity, love, nothing — no sort of affectionate sentiment of any kind. I’m not even sure if he ever did feel those things.’

The coffee finished brewing. Garcia filled two cups and took one over to Hunter.

‘Thanks,’ Hunter said. The strong aroma of the special brew made him smile.

‘And then there’s the really scary part,’ Garcia said.

‘Which is?’ Hunter asked.

‘This.’ Garcia pointed at the killer’s sign-off on his note — I AM DEATH. ‘Giving yourself your own pseudonym?’ He chuckled. ‘That’s the pinnacle of arrogance, isn’t it? Son of Sam, The Happy Face Killer, The BTK Killer, The Zodiac Killer, Jack the Ripper, whoever... they all did it because they all believed that they were special.’

‘Back to delusions of grandeur,’ Hunter said.

‘And then some,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But what we do know about serial killers who like to name themselves is that they’ve been planning their murders for a long time, and they intend to carry on murdering for even longer. That’s the scary bit. That’s why they like to torment the authorities with notes, or images or what have you. Because a letter to the authorities constitutes a very bold challenge — the note is like a formal invitation to turn the investigation into a cat-and-mouse chase — a game where they create the rules, and they can change them whenever they see fit. And since they decided to turn it into a game, they might as well make it fun. And we have just been dragged into that game.’

Hunter couldn’t disagree with anything Garcia had said.

What Garcia also knew was that killers who liked taunting authorities with messages tended to hide clues deep within those messages, sometimes in cryptic format. And Garcia knew no one better at reading between the lines than Hunter.

‘OK,’ Garcia said, once again indicating the transcribed notes on Hunter’s desk. ‘Now it’s your turn. Have you come up with anything?’

Hunter gave his partner a shabby shake of the head. ‘The note clearly isn’t written in riddle format, and if there is any double meaning to anything I haven’t been able to find it. In fact, the more I read it, the more I copied it, the more of the opposite feeling I got.’

‘Opposite feeling?’ Garcia looked a little confused. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Whoever wrote this note put a lot of effort into it, Carlos, carefully choosing every word. And here’s the twisted bit. He didn’t do it to confuse us, on the contrary. He did it to leave the least amount of doubt possible.’