The Night Stalker

Seventy-Nine

Hunter had to wait until 7:30 a.m. to find out for certain who the latest victim was. The central branch of the Los Angeles Public Library on West 5th Street could easily be called Hunter’s home away from home, he spent so much time in there. Its opening time was 10:00 a.m., but he knew most of the staff, and he knew that one of them in particular, Maria Torres from Archives, was always there very early.

Hunter was right. He’d seen the victim’s face before. He’d passed her picture many times as he walked through the Arts, Music and Recreation department on the library’s second floor. One of her CDs, Fingerwalking, was featured on the middle shelf of the ‘we recommend’ display in the jazz guitar section. The display faced the main walkway. Its cover was a black-and-white close-up of her face.

From the library, Hunter made it to the LA morgue twenty minutes after Doctor Hove had called him saying she was done with the autopsy. Garcia was already there.

The doctor looked more than exhausted. No amount of make-up could disguise the black circles under her eyes, and they looked as if they’d sunken deeper into her skull. Her skin looked tired, with the pallor of someone who hadn’t seen the sun in months. Her shoulders were hunched forward, as if she was having trouble carrying the invisible weight on them.

‘I guess none of us had much sleep,’ Garcia said, noticing Hunter’s heavy-looking eyelids as he joined them by the entrance to the autopsy room. ‘I tried you at home. .’

Hunter nodded. ‘I was in the library.’

Garcia pulled a face and checked his watch. ‘Ran out of books at home?’

‘I knew I’d seen the victim before,’ Hunter said. ‘Her name is Jessica Black.’ He pulled a CD case from his pocket.

Garcia and Doctor Hove took turns looking at the cover.

‘There’s another picture inside,’ Hunter said.

The doctor pulled the cover booklet out and flipped it open. Inside there was a full body picture of Jessica. She was standing with her back against a brick wall. Her guitar resting against it by her side. She had on a sleeveless black shirt, blue jeans and black cowboy boots. The tattoo on her right shoulder was clearly visible. Doctor Hove didn’t need to check it again. She knew it was exactly the same tattoo the victim on her autopsy table had on her shoulder. She’d looked at it for long enough.

‘I just found out about her fifteen minutes ago,’ Hunter explained. ‘I called Operations from the car and asked them to get me an address and whatever else they can on her. We’ll check it after we leave here.’ He nodded at Garcia who nodded back. ‘Missing Persons don’t have her,’ he continued; ‘she was never reported missing.’

Silence took over as they entered the autopsy room and paused by the examination table. All eyes settled on Jessica’s face. The stitches had been removed from her lips, but the scars where they’d dug so deep into her skin remained. There were scratch marks all around her mouth. Hunter could tell that Jessica herself had made them in blind panic, as she desperately clawed at the stitches with whatever was left of her nails. How much she’d suffered, no one could even begin to imagine.

‘We were right,’ the doctor broke the silence. Her voice was throaty. ‘The killer burned her from the inside.’

Garcia shook off a shiver. ‘How?’

‘Using exactly what we thought he’d used. He inserted a signal flare inside her.’

Garcia closed his eyes and took a step back. Last night, it had been the faint smell of burned human flesh inside the old depot that had made him sick to his stomach. It was one of those smells you never forget. And Garcia had never forgotten it.

‘Well, not exactly a signal flare,’ the doctor corrected herself, ‘but a variation of one.’ She indicated the long counter behind her where a metal tube had been placed inside a metal tray. The tube was five inches long by half an inch in diameter. ‘This is the aluminum tube that was placed inside her.’

Hunter moved closer to take a better look. The tube was sealed at one of its ends. No one said anything, so Doctor Hove moved on.

‘Signal — or warning — flares are the most common type of flares out there. They’re also quite easy to obtain. You’ll find them in any boat at the marina or even in road safety kits, which can be easily purchased from pretty much anywhere. But they aren’t the only type of flares you can get. .’ she paused and allowed her eyes to return to the aluminum tube inside the tray, ‘. . or create yourself.’

‘Heat flares,’ Hunter said.

The doctor nodded. ‘Precisely. Unlike signal flares, their main purpose isn’t to burn bright and produce a warning signal. Their purpose is just to burn hot.’ She picked up the tube. ‘Essentially, a flare is just a container, a tube packed with chemicals that can produce a brilliant light or intense heat without an explosion. And that’s exactly what the killer created and inserted into his victim.’

‘How long did that burn for?’ Hunter asked.

The doctor shrugged. ‘Depends on what chemicals were used and how much of each. This is going up to the lab straight after here. But the killer wouldn’t have needed much at all. Heat flares burn at ridiculously intense heat. Just a few seconds of direct contact would be enough to completely carbonize human flesh.’ She paused and slowly rubbed her face. ‘The damage that that fan-out knife caused to the second victim. .’ she shook her head, ‘that’s cotton candy compared to what we have here.’

Garcia drew a deep breath and shifted his weight from foot to foot.

Doctor Hove turned the tube over and showed them a small click button at its sealed-off base. ‘Same sensitive impact-activated trigger mechanism. When her feet touched the ground, this thing clicked and produced a tiny spark. Enough to ignite the chemicals inside the tube. Similar to an oven lighter, really.’

‘How can a fire ignite and keep on burning inside a human body?’ Garcia asked. ‘Doesn’t it need oxygen?’

‘The same way a flare ignites and burns underwater,’ Hunter said. ‘It uses an oxidizing agent, which directly feeds the fire with oxygen atoms. Underwater flares carry a higher oxidizer mixture, so even in an environment with no oxygen, the fire never dies.’

Garcia looked at Hunter as if he were from outer space.

Doctor Hove nodded again. ‘The higher the oxidizer mixture, the stronger the initial deflagration.’

Hunter hadn’t thought of that.

‘And in English that is. .?’ Garcia asked.

‘When the initializing spark hits the chemicals, it produces an. . impact, so to speak. That impact causes the whole thing to ignite at once, but not to explode. That uniform ignition is a deflagration — a combustion a few steps short of an explosion. Deflagration creates a bubble of super-heated gas. In this case, that bubble would’ve shot out the top of the flare canister like a bullet a millisecond before the fire. That bubble had to expand until it lost strength.’ Doctor Hove closed the fingers of her right hand into a fist and then reopened them slowly, creating a bubble-growing illusion. ‘It wouldn’t have propagated much, probably only millimeters, but while it was expanding, whatever it touched, it completely vaporized it.’

Garcia felt his stomach start to churn again.

‘The pain she must’ve suffered is. . indescribable,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘Most fire victims die from smoke inhalation, not from the injuries sustained. Basically, their lungs collapse because they can’t process the smoke and they suffocate — sometimes even before they feel any pain at all from their scorched flesh. But that’s not the case here. There was no smoke. She felt every last pinprick of pain that came to her.’ She placed the metal tube down and let go of a deep breath. ‘As you know, the second victim was severely mutilated from inside. She suffered a lot, but that mutilation caused intense loss of blood. We all know that when a human being loses a certain amount of blood, the body simply shuts down, like going into hibernation or being anesthetized. The person starts to feel cold and tired, the pain disappears and they fall asleep before dying.’ She ran her hand over her mouth. ‘But not if you’re burned. The blood loss is minimal. There’s no hibernation or anesthetized effect. There’s only grotesque pain.’