The Night Stalker

Eighty-Three

Hunter splashed some cold water over his face and stared at his tired reflection in the mirror. James Smith had requested an attorney. No matter what happened, without actual proof of any involvement between Smith and Laura Mitchell, the LAPD could only hold him without charge for a maximum of forty-eight hours. Captain Blake was already talking to the DA’s office about charging Smith with fraud and impersonation. That way, they could keep him off the streets for longer, at least until they had more information on him, his story and his whereabouts on the nights of all three murders.

After leaving the interrogation room, Hunter had finally managed to get in touch with Mark Stratton, Jessica Black’s boyfriend. Experience counted for nothing in these situations. There was no easy way to tell someone that their life had just been wrecked. That the person they loved the most had been taken away from them by a brutal killer. People dealt with loss and pain in their own way, but it was never easy.

Hunter didn’t disclose every detail over the phone. He kept the information down to the bare minimum. Not surprisingly, Stratton thought the call was a prank at first, a very bad joke from one of his buddies. Many of them were notorious for their dark and distasteful sense of humor. Hunter knew denial is the most common initial shock reaction to sad news. When realization finally set in, Stratton broke down the way most people did. The same way Hunter had broken down years ago when a RHD detective knocked on his door to tell him his father had been shot in the chest by a bank robber.

Hunter splashed some more water on his face and wet his hair. The darkness inside him was lurking around again, murky and deep.

Stratton told Hunter that he’d be making his way back to LA as soon as possible — sometime today, and that he’d call Hunter as soon as he got back. Jessica Black’s body still had to be positively identified.

Garcia was reading something on his computer screen when Hunter got back to his desk. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked. He understood exactly how difficult making those calls was.

Hunter nodded. ‘I’m fine. Just needed to cool down, that’s all.’

‘Are you sure? You don’t look fine.’

Hunter approached the pictures board and studied the photographs of all three victims again.

‘Robert,’ Garcia called, his voice just a few decibels louder.

Hunter turned and faced him. ‘His interval between kidnapping and murdering his victims is shortening.’

‘Yeah, I noticed that,’ Garcia agreed. ‘Kelly Jensen was the first to be kidnapped. She was killed almost three weeks later. Laura Mitchell was taken about a week after Kelly, but she was the first to die. We still don’t know for sure, but it looks like Jessica Black went missing no longer than five days ago, and she turned up dead yesterday. It went from weeks to days. So either Jessica Black lost no time in breaking his spell, or he’s simply losing patience.’

Hunter said nothing.

Garcia sat back in his chair and pinched his chin. ‘I was just checking the results from your national search on brunette victims with any sort of stitching to their mouths, sexual organs or both.’

‘And. .?’

‘Not a goddamn thing. It seems like most of the files only date back fourteen to fifteen years. Beyond that, we’ve got almost nothing.’

Hunter thought about it for a moment. ‘Damn.’

‘What. .?’

‘Police records only started to be properly digitized. . what? Maybe ten, twelve years ago at a stretch?’

‘Something like that.’

‘The problem is that the amount of everyday cases is so huge, most police departments around the country don’t have the budget or the personnel to deal with the backlog. Most cases older than maybe fifteen years are probably just sitting inside boxes, getting dusty, down in basement storage rooms. Database searches will never get to them.’

‘Great. So even if we’re right, but it happened over fifteen years ago, we’ll never know?’

Hunter was already typing away on his computer. ‘Police files and databases might not be properly backlogged yet, but. .’

Garcia waited but nothing else was forthcoming. ‘But what?’

‘But newspaper ones certainly are. I was stupid, I should’ve thought of that at first and searched the national news archives as well as the police ones.’

Hunter and Garcia searched the net and specific newspaper databases for hours, scanning through any piece that flagged up according to their search criteria. Three and a half hours later Garcia started reading a 20-year-old local newspaper article and felt a shiver run down his spine.

‘Robert,’ he called, placing both elbows on his desk, clasping his hands together and squinting at his screen. ‘I think I might have something here.’