The Night Stalker

Seventy-Five

Rain was still falling by the time Hunter got to Cypress Park, Northeast Los Angeles. He hadn’t said anything after he disconnected from the call. He hadn’t said a word during it either. He’d just listened. But Myers knew from the defeated way he closed his eyes for just a second — they had another victim.

Cypress Park was one of the first suburbs of Los Angeles. Developed just outside the downtown area at the beginning of the twentieth century, it had been created as a working-class neighborhood, whose main attraction was its proximity to the railroad yards. That’s where the victim’s body had been found, inside one of the abandoned buildings along the tracks.

The old railroad yards still occupied a vast area, but great parts of it were now just wastelands. One of these wastelands was located directly behind Rio de Los Angeles State Park. Half a mile north from there, still inside this desolated area and sandwiched between the train tracks and the LA River was an old maintenance depot. On a rainy, moonless night, the flashing police lights could be seen from quite a distance.

Forensics were already there.

Hunter parked next to Garcia’s car. A young policeman, wearing a standard issue LAPD raincoat and holding what could only be described as a kid’s size umbrella, came up to his door. Hunter pulled his collar up and tighter around his neck, refused the umbrella, and started walking up to the brick building. His hands were tucked deep inside his pockets. His eyes were low, searching the ground, doing his best to avoid stepping into any puddles.

‘Detective Hunter?’ a man called from the perimeter.

Hunter recognized Donald Robbins’ voice — the pain-in-the-ass LA Times reporter. He’d covered every case Hunter had been involved in. They were old friends without ever being friends.

‘Is this victim related to the case you’re already investigating? Perhaps a painter as well?’

Hunter didn’t lose stride or look up, but he wondered how the hell Robbins had found out about the victims being painters.

‘C’mon, Robert. It’s me. You’re after another serial killer, aren’t you? Is he an artist stalker?’

Still not even an acknowledgement from Hunter.

The outside of the brick building was a mess of graffiti and colors. Garcia, together with two police officers, was standing under an improvised canvas shelter by the entrance to the old depot. The metal door directly behind them had been graffitied with the silhouette of a long-haired pole dancer bending forward. Her spread legs created a perfect upside-down V shape.

Garcia had just zipped up his forensic Tyvek coveralls when he saw Hunter coming around the corner.

‘You have noticed that it’s raining, right?’ Garcia said as Hunter reached the shelter.

‘I like rain,’ Hunter replied, using both hands to brush the water off his hair.

‘Yeah, I can see that.’ Garcia handed him a sealed plastic bag containing a white hooded coverall.

‘Who called it in?’ Hunter asked, ripping the bag open.

‘Old homeless guy,’ the officer closest to the door confirmed. He was short and stout with a bulldog-like face. ‘He said that he sometimes sleeps here. Tonight, he wanted to get out of the rain.’

‘Where’s he now?’

The officer pointed to a police car twenty-five yards from where they were.

‘Who talked to him?’ Hunter looked at Garcia, who shook his head.

‘I just got here.’

‘Sergeant Travis,’ the officer replied. ‘He’s with him now.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Have any of you been inside?’

‘Nope, we got here after Forensics. Our orders are to stay out here soaking our asses in this shitty rain and act like nightclub doormen to all of you big Homicide boys.’

Garcia frowned and looked at Hunter.

‘I guess you were right at the end of your shift when you got this call, right?’ Hunter said.

‘Yeah, whatever.’ The officer ran two fingers over his peach-fuzz moustache.

Hunter zipped up his coveralls. ‘OK, Officer. .?’

‘Donikowski.’

‘OK, Officer Donikowski, I guess you can do your nightclub doorman job now.’ He nodded at the door.

Garcia smirked.

The first room was about fifteen feet wide by twenty deep. The walls were also covered in graffiti. Rain spat onto the floor through a windowless frame to the left of the door. Discarded food cans and wrappers were piled up in one corner, together with an old straw mattress. The floor was littered with all different sorts of debris. Hunter could see no blood anywhere.

The familiar, strong crime-scene forensic light was coming from the next room along, where hushed voices could be heard.

As they approached the door, Hunter picked up on a mixture of smells — mostly stale urine, mold and accumulated garbage. All of them the kind of odors you’d expect to find inside an old, derelict building, sometimes used by drifters. But there was a fourth, fainter smell. Not the kind of putrid stench you get when a body starts to rot, but something else. Something Hunter knew he’d smelled before. He paused and sniffed the air a couple of times. From the corner of his eye he noticed Garcia doing the same thing. He was the one who recognized it first. The last time Garcia smelled that same smell he’d thrown up within seconds. This time was no different.