The Night Stalker

Forty

It was now three full days after Laura Mitchell’s body had been found and not much had materialized. James Smith, or whoever he really was, had simply vanished. The Forensics agents were right: all the fingerprints found in the apartment did come from a single person. They’d been running them against the National Automated Fingerprints ID System for several hours. So far no matches. It didn’t look like James Smith had ever been in the system.

The DNA result would still be at least another day or so. Whoever James Smith was, he was smart.

Choosing the most common American male name automatically hid him under layers upon layers of other people. Even if Hunter asked Operations to narrow the LA’s James Smith list down by filtering on age and approximate height, it’d still be too long. Besides, it was obvious that James Smith wasn’t his real name.

The apartment in Norwalk had been rented and paid in cash, a year in advance. Hunter talked to the landlord, a Mr. Richards. He was a retired shop owner and lived in Palmdale. He told Hunter that he’d only seen James Smith twice — first when he initially rented the property two years ago, and then again twelve months later when he renewed his lease agreement and paid the next full year in advance, plus extras — more than enough to cover all utility bills. So that was the reason they found no bills in the apartment.

Mr. Richards told Hunter that in the two years Mr. Smith had been renting his apartment, he’d been a great tenant, the best he’d ever had.

‘He never causes any trouble,’ Mr. Richards told Hunter. ‘He’s also never requested anything else, unlike most of my previous tenants. They were always calling and asking me for a new fridge, or stove, or mattress, or electric shower, or whatever. They were always complaining that there was something wrong with the apartment, but not James. He never complained.’

‘Did you check any documentation when Mr. Smith rented your apartment?’ Hunter asked. ‘You know, background checks, references or anything like that?’

Mr. Richards shook his head. ‘There was no need. He paid cash and the full year in advance, which means he could never default on a payment.’

Hunter was more than aware that Los Angeles was definitely the city for if you’ve got the cash, you get the goods, no questions asked.

‘Did Mr. Smith ever tell you what he did for a living?’

Another shake of the head from Richards.

The snapshot Hunter had of James Smith was quickly released to the press. The picture was by no means perfect. His face was at least 30 per cent obscured, but it was the best they had. With a little luck, someone out there would know who he was. A dedicated phone line was created to receive calls. So far they’d got a mountain of dead ends and people claiming to be James Smith himself, challenging the police to come and get them.

They’d also found the painting Smith had purchased nine months ago along with several DVDs in his apartment. All of them homemade. All of them of Laura Mitchell. Apparently, all of them shot by Smith himself. Hours and hours of footage of Laura at exhibitions, dinner parties, arriving at and leaving her art studio, walking into her gym, browsing in shopping malls, and so on. There were no timestamps on any of the footage, but judging by her different hairstyles and slight differences in weight, they had been shot over a period of years. They could be seen as surveillance in preparation for an abduction, or plain obsessive stalking. Hunter didn’t want to jump to any conclusions until he had more evidence.

‘OK,’ Captain Blake said, putting the ten-page report she was reading down on her desk. ‘What’s confusing me is. . if this James Smith is our killer, and he’s obviously been collecting intel on Laura Mitchell for a few years, how come he only decided to strike now?’

‘That’s not unusual, Captain,’ Hunter said, walking over to the window in the captain’s office. ‘Very few people have the mental strength to become a killer overnight. The vast majority of serial killers, or people who have shown tendency to becoming one, have fantasized about their actions for months, years, sometimes decades. For most, the fantasy alone is enough to satisfy them. Some will go as far as doing all the preparation, the research, the stalking, the surveillance, collecting intel, maybe even capturing the victim, but bottle out right at the last minute. Maybe it took James all these years to gather the courage to finally act out his fantasy.’

‘And we know our killer doesn’t mind waiting,’ Garcia said.

The phone on Captain Blake’s desk rang. She answered it on the third bell.

‘What?’ she barked.

As she listened her eyes darted towards Hunter.

‘Shit! Seal the entire place and keep everyone else away from that building, do you hear me? And I mean everyone. We’re on our way.’