I Am Death

Forty-three

Without switching on any lights, and more out of habit than hunger, Hunter walked into the kitchen, pulled open the fridge door and glanced inside. As always, there wasn’t much choice — a couple of pieces of fruit, a carton of milk, a can of some cheap energy drink that he was sure one day would punch a hole in his stomach and a half-full pack of chili-flavored beef jerky. He loved those things, and even though it made them tougher and chewier, he preferred to have them cold.

He stared at the items inside his fridge for a long minute, but reached for none. Despite having had almost no food since that morning, unsurprisingly, Hunter’s appetite was non-existent.

The images of Nicole Wilson’s beaten body, together with the ones of Sharon Barnard’s totally disfigured face, seemed to have etched themselves on to the inside of his eyelids. Every time he closed his eyes, there they were — one, raped and tortured to death, the other, just an incomprehensible mess of ripped skin, torn flesh and blood. Both made to suffer the unimaginable, at the hands of a true monster.

Hunter closed the fridge door, bringing the kitchen and the apartment back to darkness, but didn’t move. Instead, he used his right hand to massage the stiff muscles at the back of his neck and shoulders. The tips of his fingers came into contact with the jagged, ugly scar on his nape and he paused, feeling the leathery, lumpy skin. A simple reminder of how close to death his job had taken him, and of how resolute and lethal the mind of an evil murderer can be. As memories began to poke at his brain, he let go of his neck and shook his head, banishing them back to the darkest corners of his mind. A place he did his best never to visit.

In the bathroom, despite the warm night, Hunter leaned back against the tiled wall and welcomed the powerful, hot shower jet that almost burned his skin. The discomfort caused by the heat was balanced out by how much it helped his tensed muscles to relax. By the time he shut off the water, his tanned skin had gone a light shade of red and the tips of his fingers looked like old prunes.

Back in the living room, wrapped in a white towel, Hunter switched on a floor lamp and dimmed its intensity to ‘medium’. That done, he approached his drinks cabinet, which was small but held an impressive collection of single malt Scotch whisky, which was probably his biggest passion. Though he had overdone it a few times, Hunter sure knew how to appreciate the flavor and quality of a good single malt, instead of simply getting drunk on it.

His eyes scanned from bottle to bottle. One thing that he knew for certain was that he needed something strong, but at the same time comforting and soothing. He didn’t have to search long. His decision was made as soon as his eyes grazed over the eighteen-year-old bottle of Auchentoshan.

‘This should do nicely,’ Hunter said, reaching for it.

He poured himself a double dose, added about a fifth of water and dumped himself on the black leatherette sofa, which faced a TV set that hadn’t been turned on in over six months. In fact, since the Super Bowl game back in February.

He sipped his drink, letting the robust and spicy taste of the Scotch, which had hints of woody almonds, brown sugar and vanilla, engulf his taste buds for a moment.

Mollifying, no doubt about that.

Despite how hard he tried not to think of the case, the images of what he’d seen in the past two days had nowhere else to go. All they did was tumble over themselves inside his mind. One grotesque scene morphing into another, like a well-edited horror film on a never-ending loop.

Hunter finished his Scotch and decided to have a second one. His palate had gotten used to the single malt’s powerful flavor, so this time he had it neat, no water. Instead of going back to the sofa, Hunter walked over to the window on the north wall and looked outside. Everything looked still. Even the moon, coyly peeking out in its initial state of waxing crescent, seemed scared of the evil that now lurked around the City of Angels.

Hunter’s gaze moved to the lights in the distance. From his window he couldn’t see much, but he could still see the tip of the unmistakable conglomerate of high-rise buildings that formed the central business district of the city, otherwise known as Downtown LA.

Hunter finished his second Scotch and put his glass down on the window ledge.

‘Where are you hiding, you sonofabitch?’ he whispered to himself, his gaze slowly scanning the horizon.

Hunter’s body felt tired, but he could tell that his brain was still wide awake. Going to bed would make no difference. All he would do was toss and turn under the sheets, fighting a battle he knew he would never win, so instead, he decided to have one more drink. As he turned away from the window and faced the inside of his living room, he paused, frowning.

‘What the hell?’

On the floor, about a foot from his front door, he could see a brown paper envelope. He didn’t really have to search his memory. He knew that it hadn’t been there before. Someone had slid it under his door.

Hunter’s eyes sought the clock on the wall — 05:47 a.m.

He could think of no reason why any of his neighbors would need to place a letter under his door, much less at this time at night.

Immediately, every muscle in Hunter’s body went into alert mode. He quickly moved over to the chair where he had left his gun holster, unclipped the lock, pulled out his semi-automatic HK Mark 23 and thumbed the safety off.

His front door was locked. Of that he was absolutely certain. The door chain was also securely locked in place.

The corridor outside his front door was about fifty feet long, servicing eight apartments, with the stairs and the elevator at the east end of it. The hallway lights were activated by means of a very sensitive motion sensor, so if anyone stepped out of their front door, or surfaced from the stairs or elevator, the lights would immediately come on. And they would stay on for sixty seconds.

Hunter could see no light seeping through from under his front door. If someone was outside, he or she had remained totally still for some time.

With careful, noiseless steps, Hunter crossed his living room. As he reached the envelope and looked down, what he saw made every muscle on his body tense up.

The envelope had been slid under his door face up. There was no stamp and no recipient’s address, just a single line written across the front of it in red ink — Detective Robert Hunter, LAPD Robbery Homicide Division.

Hunter didn’t need to look any closer to know that those words were in the killer’s handwriting.