The Night Stalker

Seventy-Eight

The digital clock on Hunter’s microwave read 3:42 a.m. when he stepped back into his apartment and closed the door behind him. He wasted no time walking into every room and turning on all the lights. For now he just didn’t want any more darkness. He was tired, but for the first time he welcomed insomnia. He wasn’t sure he’d have the strength to deal with the nightmares he knew would come as soon as he closed his eyes.

After the body had been removed and taken to the morgue, Hunter and Garcia had spent a long time looking around the old depot, especially the room upstairs. It was a large chamber, which had probably been used as one of the main storage areas. Two of the walls were lined from floor to ceiling with long wooden shelves. A large carpenter’s workbench occupied the center of the floor. As Brindle had said, it had been raised about a foot off the ground by wooden blocks. There was so much garbage and debris around the place, Forensics could take weeks analyzing it, and maybe months to process it all. The exact same words as before — IT’S INSIDE YOU — had been spray-painted onto the ceiling, just like in the butcher’s shop. If there’d been any tire tracks on the soft ground outside, the rain did a good job of washing them away.

The homeless man who’d found the body was in his late sixties, frail and undernourished. He’d walked a long way, hoping to have a roof over his head for the night and escape the rain that he had smelled in the air an hour before it started. He never saw anyone around the old depot. Just the girl lying on the floor, naked, with her mouth stitched up like a ragdoll. He never touched her. He never even got close to her. And by the time Hunter talked to him, he still hadn’t stopped shaking.

It had been exactly seven days since they had found the body of Laura Mitchell. Kelly Jensen’s body was discovered three days after that, and now they had a new unidentified female victim. Counting Doctor Winston and the young Forensics assistant who died in the explosion in the autopsy room, they had five victims in one week. Hunter knew that while their investigation was moving at a snail’s pace, the killer was sailing with the wind.

In the kitchen, Hunter poured himself a glass of water and drank it down in large gulps, as if trying to put out a fire somewhere inside him. He was sweating as if he’d just run five miles. He reached for his cell phone and dialed Whitney Myers’ number before walking over to his living room window. The rain had only stopped ten minutes before. The sky was dark and dull. Not a single star.

‘Hello. .’ Myers answered after a single ring.

‘It’s not her. .’ His voice was heavy. ‘It’s not Katia.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive.’

An uneasy pause.

‘Do you know who she is?’ Myers pushed. ‘Is she on the MP list?’

‘No, she’s not on the list. But she looks familiar.’

‘Familiar? In what way?’

‘I think I’ve seen her before. I just can’t think where.’

‘Police environment. .?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Court of law. .? Witness. .? Victim. .?’

‘No, somewhere else.’

‘A bar. .?’

‘I don’t know.’ Hunter ran his hand through his hair and let his fingertips rest at the back of his neck. Unconsciously they traced the contour of his ugly scar. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever met her or seen her on the streets or in a bar or anywhere like that. I think I’ve seen a picture of her. Maybe in a magazine or an advertisement. .’

‘She’s that famous?’

‘I don’t know. I might be wrong. I’m wracking my brain here trying to remember, but I’ve got nothing, and I’m dead tired.’

Myers said nothing.

Hunter moved away from the window and started pacing his living room.

‘If you get me a photo of her, maybe I can help,’ Myers offered.

‘No one will recognize her from the crime-scene photos. She’s been dead for over twelve hours. The killer could’ve dumped her there yesterday, or even the day before. We were lucky that a homeless drifter wanted to use the place for shelter tonight, or else she could’ve been decomposing by the time we got to her.’ Hunter paused by his bookcase, absentmindedly browsing through the titles. His eyes stopped as he reached the fifth book on the top shelf. ‘Shit!’

‘What? What happened?’

Hunter ran his hand over the spine of the book.

‘I know where I’ve seen her before.’