The Death Sculptor

Thirty-One

Hunter changed into an old pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, the cotton fabric stretching thin against his broad shoulders and hugging his torso like a second skin. Around his living room, papers, magazines and books were strewn just about everywhere. He thought about tidying it up a little, but before he had a chance to start, there was a knock at the door. He reached for his Heckler & Koch USP .45 Tactical pistol, checked the safety, and secured it tightly between the waistband of his jeans and his lower back before approaching the door.

Three new knocks.

‘Robert? It’s me, Alice,’ she called from outside.

Hunter undid the lock and the security chain and pulled the door open halfway.

Alice Beaumont stood at his doorway holding a black leather briefcase. She had lost the ponytail from earlier in the day, and her loose blonde hair shone, even in the dim light of Hunter’s hallway. She certainly didn’t look like a lawyer now. Her conservative suit had been substituted by skintight blue jeans, a black cotton blouse cut low at the front, and square-heeled, black knee-high boots. Her makeup was still subtle, but it now carried a hint of daring. Her perfume was floral and provocative.

Hunter regarded her in silence.

‘Is it OK if I come in, or shall we talk out here in the hallway?’

‘Yeah, sorry.’ Hunter stepped to his right and showed her inside. The apartment was in semi-darkness. Only the desk lamp on Hunter’s breakfast table was on.

Alice looked around the small room. It didn’t take her long to cover the entire area with her eyes.

‘Nice . . . cozy,’ she said. There was no sarcasm in her voice. ‘Could do with a little tidy up, though.’

Hunter closed the door behind him and moved past her. ‘Shouldn’t you be sleeping?’

Alice chuckled. ‘After everything that happened today? The discovery of the shadow puppets? You guys rushing out of the office on a possible second homicide from the same killer?’ She shook her head. ‘There was no way I could get my mind to disconnect.’

Hunter couldn’t argue with that. His eyes moved away from her face.

Alice waited but Hunter said nothing else.

‘Your captain was right, wasn’t she? He did it again.’

Hunter nodded.

‘Another sculpture?’

Hunter nodded.

Alice let go of a tight breath. ‘I could really use a drink.’ She placed her briefcase on the floor.

‘I’m afraid I don’t have much of a selection. Scotch or beer. That’s all the choice you get.’

‘Beer will do just fine.’

Hunter grabbed a cold one from the fridge, unscrewed its top and handed it to her.

Alice stared at the bottle for a beat and then back at Hunter. ‘Could I have a glass?’

Hunter pointed to the cupboard above the sink. ‘Suit yourself.’

Alice opened it and found two mugs, one tall Coca-Cola glass, four shooters and half a dozen whisky tumblers. She reached for the tall glass.

They returned to the living room and Hunter poured himself a new measure of Scotch.

‘You said you think you know what the shadow puppets mean. I’m listening.’

Alice had a sip of her beer. ‘OK, after you and Carlos left the office, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sculpture and the shadow puppets. What you said made sense, that understanding the meaning behind those images had to be directly related to which type of bird and canine they were supposed to represent.’

Hunter nodded and offered her a seat by indicating the sofa. She took it and reached for her briefcase.

Hunter pulled one of the pine chairs by the breakfast table, turned it around and sat down with the backrest between his legs.

‘OK, so while you guys were out I went to work,’ Alice continued. ‘I searched the net for all different types of canines and medium-sized “chunky” birds. Like you suggested – crow, raven, jackdaw, whatever. I compared their images . . .’ She paused and corrected herself, ‘Actually, their silhouettes, to what we had.’

‘And what did you get?’

‘A whole bunch of stuff.’ She opened her briefcase and retrieved a few sheets of paper. ‘Well, individually, each one of the animals I checked has several metaphoric meanings. The more I looked, the more complicated it got. When I started looking at different cultures and different time periods, I was simply overrun with symbolisms.’

Hunter’s eyebrow arched inquisitively.

‘For example,’ Alice placed a sheet of paper down on the coffee table between them, ‘to several Native American Indian tribes, coyotes and wolves could mean anything from a god, to an evil being, or even the devil himself. It’s no coincidence that from cartoons to serious works of art, most drawings of demons – Satan, Beelzebub, Azazel, or any devilish creature you care to name – resemble canine figures.’

Hunter reached for the sheet and skimmed through the information on it.

‘In Egyptian mythology, Anubis is a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife.’

Hunter nodded. ‘In the Old Kingdom pyramid texts, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. Later substituted by Osiris.’

It was Alice’s turn to look at him inquisitively.

Hunter shrugged. ‘I read a lot.’

Alice carried on. ‘Several cultures around the globe believe the raven to be a creature that comes from darkness, just like the bat. As such, it symbolizes mystery, confusion, anger, hate, aggression or anything that’s usually associated with the dark side.’ She placed a second sheet of paper on the coffee table.

Hunter reached for it.

‘A common meaning associated with the raven or the crow is . . .’ she paused like a schoolteacher to raise her students’ curiosity, ‘. . . death. Some cultures used to send a crow or a raven to an enemy to indicate that they had been marked for death. Sometimes the entire bird, sometimes just their heads.’ She took a deep breath. ‘In South and Central America some still do.’ She indicated the passages on the sheet in Hunter’s hands.

Hunter acknowledged it and had another sip of his Scotch. He finished reading the rest of the document in silence.

‘Before I move on I need to ask you something,’ Alice said.

‘Shoot.’

‘Why in the world would the killer create that sculpture and the shadow puppets? I mean, if he’s trying to communicate, why not just leave a message written on the wall as he did for that poor nurse? Why go to all that trouble, risk the amount of time it takes to create something like that, just to leave us a clue?’

Hunter slowly rotated his neck from left to right. Even after the shower and a couple of drinks, his trapezius muscle still felt stiff.

‘Usually, when criminals deliberately leave a clue behind, it is for one of two main reasons,’ he said. ‘One: to taunt and challenge the police. They believe they are too smart. They believe they can’t be caught. To them, it’s like a game. The clues up the stakes, make it more challenging.’

‘They believe they are God?’ she asked, remembering what her arts expert friend had told them.

‘Sometimes, yes.’

She chewed on those words for a moment. ‘What’s the second main reason?’

‘To confuse, to throw the police off the scent, so to speak. The clues will have nothing to do with anything, but we don’t know that, and they know that if they leave something apparently significant behind, the police will have to investigate. It’s protocol. Valuable time will be spent trying to decipher whatever bogus cryptic clue they left behind.’

‘And the more cryptic, the more time is lost by the police.’

‘Yes.’

Alice read Hunter’s expression. ‘But you don’t believe that theory applies here, do you?’

‘Not the second one, but there’s a chance that this killer is delusional enough to think he’s invincible, to think he can’t be caught. To think he’s God.’

‘But you’re not convinced.’

‘No,’ Hunter said without hesitation.

‘So what’s on your mind?’

Hunter looked down at his glass, and then back at Alice. ‘I think this killer is leaving clues behind because it’s important to him. Because the sculpture and the shadow puppets have a specific and very important meaning in all this. We don’t know what it is yet, but I just know they do. Something directly related to the killer, the victim, the act itself, or all of it. The sculpture and the shadow puppets weren’t created just for fun, just to challenge the police or to throw us off course. They weren’t created just to show us how clever the killer is. They were created because without them the act wouldn’t be complete. Not to the killer.’

Alice shifted on her seat. Something about that statement made her really uneasy.

‘So what else have you found out?’

Alice placed a third and final sheet of paper on the coffee table. ‘Something very interesting. And I think it might be the answer we’re looking for.’

Hunter leaned forward, his eyes scanning the sheet.

‘I remembered that Derek was into mythology. He was always reading about it. And he never missed an opportunity to make an analogy, or quote a mythological passage, be it in a regular conversation, or during a statement in a court of law. So I took a shot in the dark.’

‘And . . . ?’

‘I found out that the coyote shares many traits with the mythological figure of the raven,’ Alice said, ‘speed, cleverness, stealth . . . but when both figures are combined, that most commonly means . . .’ She indicated on the sheet.

Hunter read the line.

‘The figure of the coyote, when paired with that of the raven, mainly symbolizes a trickster, a liar, a deceiver . . . a creature or person who betrays.’