The Executioner

Five

Hunter stood perfectly still. His eyes absorbing the scene as the adrenalin flooded his senses. On the stone floor just outside the confessional, surrounded by a pool of blood, the decapitated body of a slim and average-height man dressed in a priest’s cassock lay on its back. It’d been purposely positioned. Its legs were stretched out. Its arms crossed over its chest. But Hunter’s main focus was on the head.

A dog’s head.

It’d been attached to a wooden spike and then rammed down the neck’s stump, making the body on the floor look like a grotesque, human/dog mutation.

The dog’s lips were dark purple. Its thin, long tongue had stained black with blood and was hanging to the left of its deformed mouth. The eyes were wide open and a dull milky white. Its short fur was caked a dark red. Hunter took a step forward and crouched down next to the body. He wasn’t an expert in dog breeding, but he could tell that the head used was that of a street mutt.

‘A shocking sight, isn’t it?’ Mike Brindle, the lead forensic agent at the scene asked as he approached both detectives.

Hunter stood up to face him. Garcia kept his eyes on the body.

‘Hi, Mike,’ Hunter replied.

Brindle was in his late forties, stick thin and doorframe tall. Certainly one of the best forensic agents Los Angeles had to offer.

‘How’s the insomnia going?’ Brindle asked.

‘Same as always,’ Hunter answered with a shrug.

Hunter’s chronic insomnia was no secret. It’d started mildly after his mother’s death when he was seven. As the years went by it intensified. Hunter knew it was nothing more than his brain’s defense mechanism so he didn’t have to deal with the ghastly nightmares. Instead of fighting it, he simply learned to live with it. He could survive on three, if needed two, hours of sleep a night.

‘What do we have?’ Hunter asked in a calm voice.

‘We just started. We got here fifteen minutes ago, so at the moment I know just about as much as you do, with one exception.’ Brindle pointed to the body. ‘It looks like that used to be Father Fabian.’

‘Looks like?’ Hunter instinctively allowed his eyes to search the area. ‘You haven’t found the head yet?’

‘Not yet,’ Brindle answered, casting a questioning look towards the two other crime-lab agents, who shook their heads.

‘Who found the body?’

‘The altar boy, Hermano something. When he came into the church this morning he was greeted with what you see here.’

‘Where’s he?’

‘In the back,’ Brindle answered with a head tilt. ‘There’s an officer with him, but not surprisingly he’s in a bit of a shock.’

‘Approximate time of death?’

‘Rigor mortis is well on its way. I’d say somewhere around eight to twelve hours ago. Definitely sometime last night. Not this morning.’

Hunter kneeled down and studied the body for a while longer. ‘No defensive wounds?’

‘Nope.’ Brindle shook his head. ‘It looks like the victim has no other wounds of any nature. He was killed quickly.’

Hunter switched his attention to the trail of blood that started at the body and moved up the steps leading to the altar.

‘It doesn’t get any better once you get up there,’ Brindle commented as he followed Hunter’s stare. ‘In fact, I’d say it gets more complicated for you guys.’