One by One (16 page)

‘Symphony Silicon Valley, Society for the Suppression of Vice?’ Garcia frowned as he read the two first entries from the Organizations, Schools and Others category. He flipped the page and looked at the Military and Government entries. ‘Soldier Survivability, Space Shuttle Vehicle? This is totally nuts.’

An observation at the end of the report stated that no meanings had been found for SSV678 or 678SSV. They had tried everything, even entering the numbers as map coordinates. 6,78 had returned a spot southwest of Sri Lanka, in the Laccadive Sea. 67,8 had also hit water, several miles west of Norway in the Norwegian Sea.

Hunter put the report down and rubbed his eyes. So far, nothing was making sense. Just like Michelle Kelly had said, everything came back a dead end. Missing Persons still hadn’t found a match for the woman either.

Hunter’s stare wandered over to the pictures board and settled on the printout of a snapshot taken during the early stages of the broadcast. The woman’s fate hadn’t been decided by then. She was just lying inside that glass coffin, petrified, confused and praying for a miracle. Her face still showed hope. On the printout, BURIED was at 325 and EATEN at 388.

Garcia had finally abandoned the acronyms report and placed it back on his desk when his phone rang.

‘Detective Garcia, Homicide Special,’ he answered.

‘Detective, it’s Emilio Mendoza.’ A short pause. ‘The woman on that picture you gave me . . . I know where I saw her before. I’m looking at her now.’

Thirty-Eight

Michelle Kelly and Harry Mills had gone over every step of their sting operation plan to catch ‘Bobby’, the Internet pedophile, a hundred times. Still, they knew that there were a million chances that something could go wrong. They just prayed that nothing did.

Michelle was also very keen to bring this FBI investigation to an end. The two Internet murders were now beginning to haunt her every moment. The killer’s arrogance more than bothered her. She wanted to move all her efforts onto the LAPD case.

‘Lucy’, the young schoolgirl Michelle had pretended to be over the Internet, was sitting on a bench in Venice Beach facing the skate park when ‘Bobby’ came up behind her.

‘Lucy?’ he asked tentatively, but he already knew the answer. He’d been observing her from a distance for the past twenty minutes.

Lucy turned and looked back at Bobby for a moment. Confusion colored her face.

‘It’s me, Bobby.’

In reality, Lucy was Sophie Brook, a twenty-one-year-old professional actress from east LA, whom the FBI had used on three previous occasions. She was an excellent actress, but her real gift, as far as the FBI was concerned, was that she had the looks, the body, the voice and the skin of a teenager. Dressed in the right clothes, she had no problem passing as a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. And that had been exactly the picture Michelle Kelly had sent Bobby over the Internet. A sweet and naive-looking Sophie dressed up as Lucy, the chat-room schoolgirl, and Bobby bought it.

This morning, though, they didn’t have to concern themselves with making Sophie look thirteen, because any thirteen-year-old girl trying to impress an older ‘boy’ would go for a more mature look. They dressed her up in a blue jeans skirt, flat ballerina-style shoes, a trendy white top and a cropped jeans jacket. Her blond hair was loose, falling past her shoulders, and she had applied a little makeup, in tune with a younger girl trying to look older.

Sophie had been coached for this job for weeks, even going through an intensive self-defense course with an FBI instructor. In her right jacket pocket she was also carrying a mini canister of pepper-spray, just in case.

The FBI had spotted Bobby the second he started walking down East Market Street in the direction of the skate park. He was wearing a dark blue hooded jacket with the hood up, blue jeans, white Nike sneakers and a red backpack. Funny – she dressed older, he dressed younger.

Every movement Bobby made was being filmed by a camera set up at a strategic point at the top of one of the skate ramps. Every word he uttered was being recorded by the wire Lucy was wearing under her top. At the beach an undercover agent and his dog were pretending to play with a ball, while watching Bobby from a safe distance.

The surprise on Lucy’s face was all pretend. Michelle had run her through the scenario dozens of times.

‘Remember, you believe he’s twenty-one. When you see him for the first time, be shocked. Be hurt that he has lied to you. Be angry that he has abused your trust.’

‘Wow,’ Bobby said with a big smile, taking down his hood. ‘You’re even prettier in person. Look at you, you look amazing.’

‘What a scumbag,’ Harry said from his observation point at the top of East Market Street.

Lucy’s eyes moistened. ‘Is this a joke?’

‘No, it’s me, Bobby.’

Bobby was in his mid-thirties, with short fair hair, a squared jaw, masculine lips, a strong nose and inviting light blue eyes. He wasn’t exactly a bad-looking man. He probably had no problems getting female attention. The problem was that he preferred young girls.

Bobby sat down.

Lucy recoiled a few inches.

‘The bird is in the nest,’ Harry said into his microphone. ‘We can take him down.’

‘Not yet,’ Michelle replied. She was standing just a few yards from Lucy and Bobby, pretending to listen to her iPod while watching the skate kids do their stuff. ‘Let them talk for a minute.’

‘You’re not twenty-one,’ Lucy said in a trembling voice.

‘Oh, please don’t be upset,’ Bobby said, giving her his best sad-puppy face. ‘Give me a chance to explain, Lucy. It’s still me, the Bobby you know. The Bobby you’ve been chatting to for four months. The Bobby you said you were falling in love with. I just . . . didn’t know how to tell you in the chat room.’

A tear rolled down Lucy’s cheek.

‘Damn, she’s good,’ Harry whispered to himself.

‘Forget the age thing,’ Bobby said in a tender voice. ‘That shouldn’t be important. Remember how we connected? How we chatted? How we got to know and understand each other so well? Nothing has changed. I’m the same person inside. C’mon, Lucy, don’t you believe that when two people connect as strongly as the way we did, when they find their soul mate, nothing else matters? I know you’re mature enough to know that.’

No reply.

‘I think you’re an incredible and beautiful person,’ Bobby continued. ‘I’m in love with you, Lucy. I don’t get why age has to change that.’

‘Are you getting this crock of shit?’ Harry said into his microphone.

‘Yep, every word,’ Michelle replied. ‘He’s one sick slimeball.’

Lucy said nothing. She just sat there, looking hurt.

‘Could we go for a walk and talk some more?’ Bobby said. ‘I’ve been looking forward to seeing you so much.’

‘OK, that’s it,’ Michelle said, checking her watch. ‘I’m ending this shit right now.’

Out of the six young girls the FBI knew Bobby had had sex with, only one had agreed to cooperate. She was twelve. But one was all they needed. All she had to do was pick him out from a lineup, and they had him. Michelle also knew that once they had Bobby in custody, and one of the victims had cooperated, the others would also come forth and point their fingers.

Michelle pulled her earbuds out of her ears, strolled up to where Lucy and Bobby were sitting and simply stood in front of Bobby for a moment, sizing him up.

Bobby looked at her and frowned. ‘Can I help you?’

Michelle smiled. ‘Can
you
help
me?
No.’ She asked and answered, gesticulating at the same time. ‘Can
I
help
you?
No. Can
you
help
yourself?
No. Are you a sick scumbag who deserves to rot in prison? Positively yes.’ She pulled out her credentials. ‘FBI, you sack o’ shit. We need to talk to you about some of your online chat-room activity.’

For a second everyone remained still, then, in a flash, Bobby came alive. He jumped up and slammed the top of his head into Michelle’s chin. The brutal impact sent her head flying back as if she had been shot. Her jaw slammed against her skull with such force that her vision instantly blurred. Blood flew up in the air from the fresh cut on her lip. She stumbled backward awkwardly, her body half limp, her legs too jellified to keep her up. She hit the ground like a puppet on severed strings.

Bobby jumped over the bench and made a run for it in the direction of Oceanfront Walk.

Thirty-Nine

‘What?’ Garcia said into his phone. Emilio’s words had caught him completely by surprise. ‘Wait a second, Emilio. Let me put you on speakerphone.’ Garcia clicked a button and returned the receiver to its cradle. ‘Go ahead, say that again.’

Hunter looked at Garcia.

‘The woman in that picture you gave me on Saturday when you came by the shop. I now know where I saw her before. I’m actually looking at her right now.’

It was Hunter’s turn to look baffled. ‘What? Emilio, this is Detective Hunter. What do you mean,
you are looking at her right now?
Where are you?’

‘I’m at home. And what I mean is, I’m looking at another picture of her right now.’

‘Another picture?’ Garcia asked.

‘That’s right. A picture in yesterday’s newspaper.’

Garcia frowned. ‘The press caught up with the video?’ he asked Hunter.

‘Not that I’m aware of. Captain Blake would’ve been going apeshit if the press was onto this.’

‘You saw her in yesterday’s paper?’ Garcia returned his attention to the phone. ‘Which one?’

‘The
LA Times
,’ Emilio answered.

Instinctively Hunter and Garcia’s gaze shot to the only window in their office. The
LA Times
headquarters was literally across the road from the Police Administration Building. It was the first edifice they saw when they looked out of their window.

‘But she isn’t part of the news,’ Emilio said. ‘The story isn’t about her.’

A moment of confused looks.

‘She’s the reporter.’

‘What?’

‘That’s why she looked so familiar to me. My girlfriend loves to read the entertainment supplement of the
LA Times
on Sundays, mainly the celebrity gossip part. She’s into that kind of stuff, you know? Sometimes I flip through it myself. Anyway, that woman writes a column in the entertainment supplement. There’s always a small picture of her at the top of whatever article she wrote that week. And that’s why she looked so familiar. I’d seen her picture before several times.’

Garcia was writing something down on a notepad.

‘I didn’t look at the paper yesterday. I was working,’ Emilio explained. ‘I’m off today. I was just having a quick look through yesterday’s paper before I threw it away, and there she was.’

‘What’s her name?’ Hunter asked.

‘Christina, Christina Stevenson.’

Hunter typed her name into an Internet search engine. Within a few seconds he had her picture on his screen. Emilio was right. There was no doubt Christina Stevenson was their second victim, unless she had an identical twin or a clone working for the
LA Times.

‘Great job, Emilio,’ Garcia said. ‘We’ll be in touch.’ He disconnected.

Hunter was scanning through the information on one of the pages he had on his screen.

‘What have you got?’ Garcia asked.

‘Not much. Christina Stevenson, twenty-nine years old. She’d been with the
LA Times
for six years. The last two of those she spent with the entertainment desk, which is called by many
the gossip pit
. That’s all the personal information I have here.’

‘She was a gossip reporter?’ Garcia asked.

‘It looks that way.’

‘Damn, no one makes more enemies than they do, not even us.’

Garcia was right. In a city like LA, where to so many being in the public eye was as important as breathing air, gossip reporters could make or break anyone’s career. They could destroy a person’s relationship, break their family homes, expose dirty secrets, do almost anything they liked. And the worst of all was that it didn’t even have to be true. In LA the smallest of rumors could completely change someone’s life, for better or worse. Gossip reporters were known for having false friends, and real enemies.

Hunter hesitated for a second, pondering a few things over.

Garcia knew exactly what Hunter was debating in his head. If they started asking questions inside the headquarters of the
LA Times
, there was no hiding this story anymore. A story that, so far, no newspaper or TV news channel had picked up on. It was like taking raw meat to a pack of hungry wolves, even if the raw meat was one of their own. No information would be forthcoming, because reporters love to obtain it, but they hate giving it away.

‘So what do you want to do?’ Garcia asked. ‘Start asking questions at the
Times
?’

‘We’ll have to. If the victim was a reporter there, there’s no escaping it, but not just yet.’ Hunter reached for the phone on his desk and called the research team. He asked them to find out everything they could on Christina Stevenson, but more important he needed her home address ASAP. They could start there.

A minute later his phone rang.

‘Do we have an address already?’ Hunter said into the phone.

‘Um . . . Detective Robert Hunter?’ a male voice asked.

Hunter paused. ‘Yes. This is Detective Robert Hunter. Who is this?’

‘This is Detective Martin Sanchez with the Santa Monica Police Department.’

‘How can I help you, Detective Sanchez?’

‘Well, earlier this morning one of our patrol cars, answering a 911 call, found a female body at a private parking lot near Marine Park in Santa Monica.’ Sanchez paused to clear his throat. ‘Somebody left a note with the body. Your name is on it.’

Forty

It took several seconds for the blurriness to dissipate from Michelle’s vision, and even then bright spots of light seemed to be exploding everywhere. Her entire head hurt as if it was being gradually squeezed in a vise. She could feel her bottom lip pulsating from the blood pressure so ferociously she thought it would blow up like an air balloon.