The Death Sculptor

Twenty-Four

Alice’s eyes were squinting at the replica sculpture. The expression on her face was a mixture of confusion and surprise. She had no idea what Hunter had seen.

Garcia still hadn’t moved. His questioning eyes had shifted from the replica to Hunter, and then to the digital display window at the back of his camera. He flicked back and forth through the last three pictures he’d taken, looking at each one carefully. He saw nothing different.

‘OK, I’m officially confused,’ he said. ‘What did you see, Robert?’ He looked at Alice and saw the surprise stamped all over her face as well. ‘What did you see that the rest of us didn’t?’

‘You’ll have to see it for yourself. I’ll show you.’ Hunter walked over to his desk and retrieved an LAPD standard-issue Maglite before crossing to exactly where Garcia was still standing. He clicked the flashlight on, held it at waist height and pointed it at the sculpture.

Garcia and Alice turned to look at it. Their confusion thickened.

‘OK, and . . . ?’ Alice asked.

‘Don’t look at the sculpture,’ Hunter said. ‘Look at the wall behind it. At its shadow.’

Simultaneously Garcia and Alice looked at the wall.

Confusion was replaced by surprise.

Alice’s jaw dropped open.

‘You’ve gotta be kidding me,’ Garcia said.

The shadow that the sculpture cast when a light was shone on it from that particular angle formed two distinct shapes. Two distinct shadow puppets.

‘A dog and a bird?’ Alice said, stepping closer. She turned and looked at the replica again. ‘What the hell?’ From where she was standing, the bundled-together body parts looked nothing like a dog or a bird. No wonder no one had seen it before.

Hunter placed the flashlight on the bookshelf just behind him, keeping its beam at the same height and angle. The shadows shifted a little but were still there. He stepped closer to the wall to have a better look.

‘So the killer dismembered the victim to create shadow puppets?’ Garcia asked. ‘It makes even less sense now.’

‘He’s communicating, Carlos,’ Hunter replied. ‘There’s got to be a hidden meaning behind those images.’

‘You mean . . . like a riddle within a riddle? First the sculpture, now the shadow puppets; who knows what will come next. He’s given us a jigsaw puzzle?’

Hunter nodded. ‘And he wants us to piece it together.’ His eyes studied the shadows for a moment longer. He then turned and looked at the cast replica before walking over to the pictures board and retrieving two crime-scene photos of the original sculpture. After analyzing them for a long while, he faced the wall once again. ‘What kind of bird do you think that is?’ he asked.

‘What . . . ? I don’t know. A dove probably,’ Alice said.

Hunter shook his head. ‘A dove doesn’t have that kind of beak. That one is longer and rounder. That’s a bigger bird.’

‘And you think that was intentional?’

Hunter looked back at the sculpture. ‘The killer went through a lot of trouble to put this thing together. See the way he severed this finger just at the joint?’ He indicated it on the cast replica and then on a photo. ‘He then bent it in a specific way just to create that beak? That wasn’t by chance.’

‘A dove is probably the easiest shadow puppet anyone can create,’ Garcia added. ‘Probably the first one anyone learns. Even I know how to make one.’ He laced his thumbs together, spread his fingers outward while keeping them tightly together, and flapped them like wings. ‘See? Robert is right. That’s not a dove.’

Alice paused and studied the shadow puppet for a few seconds. ‘OK, so if you’re right about the beak, then it can’t be an eagle or a hawk either. Both of their beaks bend sharply down at the tip, like a hook.’

‘That’s right,’ Hunter agreed.

‘It could be a crow,’ Garcia said.

‘That’s what I was thinking,’ Hunter said. ‘A crow, a raven or even a jackdaw.’

‘And you think the type of bird will make a difference?’ Alice asked.

‘It will.’

‘So then, maybe that dog isn’t a dog either,’ Alice pushed. ‘It looks like it’s howling at something. The moon, maybe?’

The dog-looking shadow puppet had its head tilted up, with its mouth semi-open.

‘That’s right. It could be a dog, a wolf, a jackal, a coyote . . . we don’t know yet. But those two figures are there for a reason, and we need to find out exactly what they are to understand their meaning. To understand what the killer is trying to tell us.’

Everyone returned their attention to the wall and the shadow images.

‘You checked Derek Nicholson’s backyard, right?’ Hunter asked Garcia.

‘Yeah, you know I did.’

‘Do you remember seeing a dog house?’

Garcia looked away for a moment while pinching his bottom lip. ‘No I don’t.’

‘Me neither,’ Hunter said and checked his watch. He walked back to his desk and started rummaging through the various notes and scraps of paper on it. It took him a minute to find what he was looking for. He reached for his cellphone and dialed the number on the piece of paper in his hand.

‘Hello,’ a tired female voice answered.

‘Ms. Nicholson, this is Detective Hunter. I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you, I’ll be as brief as I can. I just need to ask you a quick question concerning your father.’

‘Yeah, sure,’ Olivia replied, sounding a little more alert.

‘Did your father own a dog?’

‘Sorry . . . ?’

‘Did your father have a pet dog?’

There was a quick two-second pause while the question registered with Olivia.

‘Um, no . . . he didn’t.’

‘Did he ever have one? Maybe when you were younger or after your mother passed away?’

‘No. We never had a dog. Mom liked cats more than dogs.’

‘How about a bird?’ Hunter could almost hear Olivia frown.

‘A bird . . . ?’

‘Yes, any sort of bird.’

‘No we never had a bird either. In fact, we never really had a pet in our house. Why?’

Hunter rubbed the point between his eyebrows with the tip of his finger. ‘Just checking up on a few things, Ms. Nicholson.’

‘If it helps, my dad used to have an aquarium with a few fish in his office downtown.’

‘Fish?’

‘Uh-huh. He used to say that watching them swim around was psychologically soothing. It calmed him down before, during and after a big trial.’

Hunter had to agree with that statement. ‘OK, thank you very much for your help, Ms. Nicholson. I might be in touch again soon, if that’s OK.’

‘Of course.’

He disconnected.

‘Nothing?’ Garcia asked.

‘No dogs, no birds, no house pets, just a few fish in an aquarium in his law office. The connection is somewhere else.’

Right at that moment, Captain Blake pushed the door to their office open. She didn’t knock. She never did. She was in such a rush she didn’t notice the shadow puppets on the wall.

‘You’re not going to believe this, but he did it again.’

Everyone frowned.

The captain nodded at the cast replica. ‘We’ve got another one of those.’