The Night Stalker

Thirty-Seven

Garcia stood motionless by the door to the small square room. The window was now fully open, allowing daylight in. The weak light bulb at the center of the ceiling was also on. A musty smell of old paper and dust lingered in the air, the kind of smell you’d get inside a basement storage room of a bookshop, or a newspaper archive. Hunter was standing next to a large wooden table piled high with magazines, journals, printouts and newspapers. Piles and piles of them were stacked all around the floor, overcrowding the room — Smith was either some sort of collector, or one of those people who was scared of throwing anything away.

Garcia’s eyes crawled around the room, trying to take everything in. Every inch of every wall was taken by some sort of drawing, article, clipping, sketch or photograph. They came from newspapers, magazines, websites, journals, and many of them had been drawn, written or taken by Smith himself. There were literally hundreds of images and articles. Garcia stepped inside and his eyes moved to the ceiling. The bizarre collage continued there as well. Every available space was covered.

‘Jesus. .’ Something tightened low in Garcia’s gut. He recognized the woman in all the pictures and sketches straight away. There was no mistake. Laura Mitchell. A love heart had been drawn around several of the photographs with a thick red marker pen. Like kids do with pictures of their idols.

‘What the fuck is this place?’ Garcia whispered.

Hunter turned and looked around the room again as if he was seeing it for the first time.

‘A sanctuary of some sort? His own private archive? Maybe a research room? Who knows?’ A shrug. ‘This guy seems to have collected everything that was ever published about Laura. Judging by the discoloration of some of the pictures and newspaper articles, some of these are quite old.’ His gaze flickered to the piles of paper everywhere.

Garcia turned his attention to the magazines and newspaper stacks. ‘Is she in every one of these?’

‘I haven’t checked them all. But if I had to have a guess, I’d say yes.’ Hunter pulled a newspaper from the bottom of one of the stacks. It was a copy of the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Garcia’s left eyebrow lifted a fraction. ‘San Diego?’ He noticed the date. ‘That paper is three years old.’

Hunter started flipping through the newspaper. ‘The problem is: none of the newspapers, magazines or journals are folded or opened onto a particular page or article. I’ve checked a few already. I assume he kept them because of something on the entertainment section.’ He folded the paper and showed it to Garcia. ‘But as you can see, there are no marks. Nothing is circled, underlined or highlighted.’

‘Anything about Laura?’

Hunter scanned the page.

Most of the articles were music-related — gig and album reviews. He flipped the paper over and carried on. At the bottom corner of the page he saw a review for an art exhibition and nodded. ‘She was exhibiting in San Diego back then.’

Garcia craned his neck. There were no pictures. He randomly pulled another newspaper from the bottom of another pile. He came up with a copy of the Sacramento Bee. ‘This one is from a year and a half ago.’ He quickly found the entertainment section and scanned through another exhibition review. ‘He’s been stalking her for years,’ he said, looking around the room one more time. ‘He knew everything there was to know about her. Collected everything there was to collect. Talk about being patient. He waited years for the right moment to make his move. Laura never had a chance.’