The Night Stalker

Twenty-Four

From the car, even before leaving the Mitchells’ driveway, Hunter called the Office of Operations and asked them to gather all the information they could on Patrick Barlett, Laura’s ex-fiancé. He’d just become a priority person of interest in the investigation.

Hunter disconnected and speed-dialed Garcia’s number. He gave him the lowdown on everything he’d found out from the Mitchells and they met half an hour later at the entrance to an old warehouse turned apartment block in Lakewood, minutes away from Long Beach.

Hunter looked subdued but Garcia didn’t have to ask. He knew that breaking the news to parents that their daughter had been the victim of a monstrous killer was already hard enough. But to have to tell them that they couldn’t even give her a proper burial because the body had been blown to pieces was really the stuff of nightmares.

They rode the elevator up to the top floor in silence.

Laura Mitchell’s apartment was an astonishing two thousand square feet loft conversion. The living area was simple but stylish with black leather furniture and sumptuous rugs. The kitchen was to the right of the entrance door and the sleeping area to the left — both modern, spacious and decorated with taste. But the bulk of the apartment was taken by her art studio.

Set at the far end and surrounded by large windows, including two skylights, it was filled with canvases of all sizes. The largest one was at least twelve foot by six.

‘Wow, I always loved loft conversions,’ Garcia said looking around. ‘I could fit four of my apartment in here.’ He paused and checked the door. ‘No forced entry. You said that her parents told you that they last heard from her two and a half weeks ago?’

Hunter nodded. ‘Laura and her mother were close. They called or met each other almost every other day. The last time they talked was on the 2nd of this month. A Wednesday. That was just a couple of days after the last night of Laura’s latest exhibition in a gallery in West Hollywood. Her mother tried to contact her again on the 5th, and that’s when alarm bells started ringing.’

‘In between the 2nd and the 5th?’ Garcia said, his eyes narrowing. ‘That’s around two weeks ago.’

Hunter drew a deep breath and his expression hardened. ‘And if she was taken by the killer. .’ He didn’t complete his thought, allowing the gravity of his suggestion to simply hang in the air.

‘Shit!’ Garcia said in realization. ‘She was killed yesterday. If the same person who killed her also kidnapped her, it means he kept her hostage for two weeks.’

Hunter walked towards the sleeping area.

‘Have Missing Persons been through here?’

‘Yes, Detective Alex Peterson, from the West Bureau was in charge of the investigation,’ Hunter confirmed, opening the drawer on the bedside table — a sleeping eye mask, two cherry-flavored Chapsticks, a small pen flashlight and a packet of Tic Tacs. ‘I’ve already got in touch with him and explained that the case has now escalated to a homicide investigation. He said he didn’t have much, but he’ll send us everything he’s got. He found her laptop on the sofa in the living area. They’ve processed it but got only her fingerprints.’

‘How about the files in the hard drive?’

Hunter tilted his head to one side. ‘It’s password protected. The computer is with the Information Technology Division, but there was no urgent request until I talked to them a few minutes ago, so nothing yet.’

They checked her wardrobe — several dresses, a few of them designer, jeans, T-shirts, blouses, jackets and a substantial collection of shoes and handbags. In the kitchen Hunter checked the fridge, the cupboards, and the trash can. Nothing out of the ordinary. They moved to the living area and Hunter spent a few minutes looking through the photos and the book titles on the shelf unit next to the sofa before making his way into the studio.

Laura Mitchell was a lyrical abstractionist painter, and her work consisted mostly of collections of colors and shapes loosely applied to canvases. The studio floor was littered by a rainbow of paint splashes — almost a work of modern art in itself. Tens of finished paintings were organized against the west wall. Spread around the main working space were three canvas stands, two of them covered by once-white sheets. The third one, occupying a center position, held a thirty-six-by-twenty-four-inch semi-completed painting. Hunter studied it for a few moments before lifting the sheets from the other two stands. Both paintings also appeared unfinished.

Garcia took his time looking through some of the completed canvases resting against the wall.

‘I never understood modern art, you know.’

‘What do you mean?’ Hunter asked.

‘Look at this painting.’ He stepped out of the way so Hunter could take a look. It was another thirty-six-by-twenty-four-inch canvas displaying pastel green and orange colors surrounded by vibrant red and a touch of blue and yellow. To Garcia the colors seemed to have no co-ordination.

‘What about it?’

‘Well, this is named “Lost men in a forest of giant trees”.’

Hunter raised an eyebrow.

‘Exactly. I see no men, there is no forest and nothing on it resembles a tree.’ He shook his head. ‘Go figure.’

Hunter smiled and walked over to the large window on the left of the studio. Locked from the inside. He looked around the studio again before frowning and returning to the bedroom where he rechecked Laura’s wardrobe.

‘Did you find something?’ Garcia asked while he watched Hunter move purposefully into the bathroom.

‘Not yet.’ He searched through the dirty laundry basket.

‘What are you looking for?’

‘Her painting clothes.’

‘What?’

‘In her living room you’ll find three photos of Laura taken while she was working. In all three she’s wearing the same old greenish shirt and track pants, both covered in paint splashes.’ He checked behind the door. ‘And an old pair of tennis shoes. Have you seen them anywhere?’

Instinctively Garcia looked around. ‘No.’ Confusion started to settle in. ‘Why do you need her clothes?’

‘I don’t, I’m just trying to establish that they are missing.’ Hunter returned to the studio and motioned towards the easel holding the uncovered and unfinished painting. ‘It looks like Laura was last working on this canvas. Now check this out.’ He indicated a paint palette thick with crusts of different dried colors. It was casually lying on a wooden unit next to the stand. To its right was a jar containing four different-sized brushes. The water in the jar was muddy with oil paint residue. Resting on the palette, and now sticking to it as if glued, was another brush. Its tip was dry, hard and caked in bright yellow paint. ‘Now look around her studio,’ Hunter continued. ‘She seemed to have been pretty organized. But even if she wasn’t, painters don’t just simply leave the brush they’re working with laying around thick with paint to dry out. It would be just as easy for her to drop it into the cleaning jar.’

Garcia thought for a moment. ‘Something caught her attention while she was working, maybe a sound, a knock on the door. .’ he said, following Hunter’s line of thought. ‘She put the brush down to go check it out.’

‘And the probable reason why we can’t find her working clothes and shoes is because she was wearing them when she was abducted.’

Hunter paused next to several finished canvases arranged against the back wall. Something about the long one on the far right called his attention. It displayed an astonishing gradient variation moving from yellow at one end to red at the other. He took a few steps back and tilted his head sideways. The canvas was leaning tall against the wall at a sixty-five-degree angle, but it was supposed to be looked at horizontally, not vertically. From a distance, the color combination became almost hypnotic. Laura certainly had talent and an astounding understanding of colors, but that wasn’t what had caught Hunter’s eye.

He approached the painting, crouched down next to it, and studied the floor around the canvas for a moment before looking behind it.

‘Now this is interesting.’