The Death Sculptor

One Hundred and Thirteen

‘Drop the gun, Detective,’ the Sculptor said, staring deep into Hunter’s eyes and pressing the electric knife against Scott Bradley’s throat.

Hunter didn’t move. His aim didn’t flinch.

‘Are you sure you want to play this game, Robert? ’Cos I sure as hell am ready.’ The powerful electric knife was turned on, its whirr reverberating inside the room like a thousand dentists’ drills.

Scott was so terrified that only a feeble whimper left his lips. He wet himself.

Hunter still didn’t move.

‘Suit yourself.’ In a super-fast move, the Sculptor grabbed Scott’s right hand and swung the knife against his index finger. The blades sliced through skin and bone with tremendous ease. The finger dropped to the floor like a dead maggot. Blood spurted everywhere.

Scott let out a guttural cry and tried to jerk his hand away, but it was all too late. It was already a bloody mess, the finger gone. He looked like he was about to pass out.

‘OK,’ Hunter yelled, raising his left hand in surrender. ‘OK, you win.’ He thumbed the safety on, and placed the gun on the floor.

The Sculptor switched the knife off. ‘Kick it this way. And make it far away.’

Hunter did as he was told, kicking his gun towards the Sculptor. It slid against the concrete floor until it hit the wall.

‘The back-up too.’

‘I don’t have one.’

‘Really?’ The knife came back on.

‘Noooo!’ Scott screamed.

‘I don’t,’ Hunter yelled over the noise. ‘I’m not carrying a back-up weapon.’

‘OK, then. Strip . . . slowly. Take off your clothes and throw them to the side. You can keep your underwear.’

Hunter did as he was told.

‘Now lay on the floor, face-down, legs and arms spread, star position.’

Hunter knew he had to comply. Time was running out for him and Scott.

‘Do you know something?’ the Sculptor said, wrapping a piece of medical gauze around Scott’s hand. ‘I had no doubt you would figure it all out. I knew you would manage to piece everything together, to see the real meaning behind the sculptures, to see their shadows, and understand what I was telling you. I just didn’t think you would do it this quick. Not before I was done. Not with this last piece still missing. How did you do it? How did you figure it out?’

Hunter placed his chin on the concrete floor and looked straight into her eyes.

Olivia, Derek Nicholson’s oldest daughter, had finally moved from behind the metal chair. She was dressed all in black, wearing a jumpsuit made of some impermeable material zipped up to her neck. She pulled the jumpsuit’s hood back from her head, and Hunter saw she was wearing a black, silicone swimmer’s cap. Her shoes looked a couple of sizes too big for her feet. Hunter remembered what the lead forensics agent had said about the shoeprints found at the second crime-scene, Nashorn’s boat – that the distribution of weight from each step seemed to be unequal. That suggested that the killer either walked with a limp, or had deliberately worn the wrong-sized shoes. She was still holding the electric knife in her hand.

‘You really had me convinced,’ Hunter said, remembering the first day he saw her in her father’s house. ‘The way you acted . . . the tears . . . the uncontrollable shivering . . . the despair in your voice . . . I bought it all.’

Olivia didn’t even flinch. ‘So, how did you do it?’ she asked again.

Hunter swallowed. He would gain every second he could. ‘A friend of your mother’s,’ he said, and saw those words hit Olivia like a whip.

She paused, anger and sadness slushing around inside her eyes. She took a moment to compose herself. ‘Which friend?’

‘Someone she knew. I don’t have a real name. She called herself Jude.’

‘What did she tell you?’

Hunter coughed. ‘Nothing much.’

Olivia waited but Hunter said nothing else. ‘You better carry on talking or I will start cutting.’

‘She came to talk to us about the victims. Your victims.’

‘What about them?’

‘She was beat up by them, as a group. Just like your mother.’

Hunter saw rage recolor Olivia’s face. Her burning eyes focused on Scott, who was listening attentively, but still looked frightened and in tremendous pain.

‘We did figure out the shadow images,’ Hunter quickly added, trying to force her attention back to him. ‘But we read them wrong . . . partially wrong.’

It worked. Olivia turned and faced Hunter again.

‘It took us a little while, but we figured out the meaning behind the coyote and the raven. You were telling us that your father was a liar.’

‘He wasn’t my father,’ she spat out in disgust.

‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘I’m sorry. You were telling us that Derek Nicholson was a betrayer, a liar,’ he corrected himself.

‘He was.’ Her voice quivered with anger. ‘I was three years old when my mother died. I was lied to for twenty-eight years. Tricked like a little dog to believe a lie.’

‘I’m so sorry for that,’ Hunter said and paused for a moment. His strained neck was starting to hurt. ‘But it took us forever to figure out that what you were doing was telling us a story, scene by scene, like in a puppet theater.’

Scott looked confused.

Olivia said nothing.

‘But we read your second sculpture and its shadow image wrong,’ Hunter continued. ‘We went through tens of interpretations, and in the end I was convinced that you were showing us a fight scene. A group of guys who used to hang out together, get drunk and high together. One day they got into a fight, things got out of hand and someone died. We also concluded that you were telling us that Andrew Nashorn was the group leader.’

‘He was a scumbag,’ Olivia said.

‘But it wasn’t a fight scene you were showing us, was it?’ Hunter said. ‘You weren’t showing us two people fighting on the floor, with the rest of the group watching. You were showing us a rape scene, with the rest of the group watching.’

‘They didn’t watch. They took turns.’ There was a glow burning in her eyes, like a storm building.

‘She was a street hooker.’ Scott had finally found enough strength to say something. ‘Andy picked her up on a dark corner on Sunset Strip. She was looking for it. That was what she did. She fucked people for a living. How was that rape?’

Olivia turned so fast she almost became a blur, and slammed her closed fist into Scott’s jaw, rupturing his lower lip and sending a spray of blood across the room.

‘You don’t get to speak until I tell you to, you sack of shit.’

Hunter twitched on the floor.

‘And you better not move until I tell you to.’

‘I’m not going anywhere.’

The moment was tensing up.

‘I’m listening,’ Olivia said. ‘How did you figure out it was a rape scene?’

‘Jude used to work the streets as well. When she got in contact with us, she told us how she got into the car with Nashorn one night, and he took her somewhere where the rest of the group was waiting for them. They ganged up on her, beat her up, and had their way with her.’ Hunter cleared his throat again. ‘Then she told us about this woman she met, Roxy.’ He looked up at Olivia to assess her reaction. Recognition was written all over her face, but she didn’t say anything. Hunter continued. ‘Roxy told Jude that she wasn’t a street worker. She’d never done it before, but she was desperate. She had a child, who was ill, and she couldn’t afford her kid’s medicine. Her idea was to work the streets for only one night so she’d have enough money. She was sacrificing herself for her kid.’ Hunter looked at Scott. ‘So no, she wasn’t a hooker, she wasn’t looking for it, and she didn’t fuck people for a living. She was desperate, out of options, and scared for her kid’s health.’

Tears welled up in Olivia’s eyes. ‘I used to suffer from asthma. I remember having terrible fits when I was a small kid. As I grew older, it all just cleared away.’

‘Jude told us that she saw Roxy get in the car with Nashorn one night. She tried to stop her, but she was too late. She never saw Roxy again.’

‘Her name was Sandra,’ Olivia said. ‘Sandra Ellwood. And my name is Olivia Ellwood.’ She moved behind Scott’s chair again.

Hunter couldn’t see what she was doing.

‘Tell him,’ she said to Scott through gritted teeth, parading the knife before his eyes. ‘Tell him how it happened.’ Anger was making her tremble.

Scott was looking at her wide-eyed, uncertain.

In a lightning-fast move, before Scott could react, Olivia grabbed his pinky finger and pulled it backwards until it snapped. The bone-cracking sound was loud enough for Hunter to hear it from across the room. Scott screamed in pain and Olivia slapped him across the face. ‘Tell him, or I’m going to carry on breaking every bone in your body before I start cutting you.’