One by One (22 page)

‘Without the color and contrast saturation trick,’ Michelle explained, ‘I would’ve never seen it. Look at this.’ She clicked and dragged her mouse over a portion of the image – somewhere just above where Christina’s belly button would’ve been, creating a small, dotted-lined square over it. She typed a command and the dotted-lined square zoomed in to fill the entire screen.

Hunter and Garcia scooted to the edge of their seats.

‘As you know,’ Michelle continued. ‘The killer was using a night-vision camera, so lighting was almost none. The camera was static, positioned above the coffin at an angle. We calculated it to be somewhere between thirty-eight to forty degrees.’

Hunter and Garcia nodded.

‘Remember when I told you that this killer seemed to have everything covered,’ Michelle said, moving on. ‘Well, I think there was one thing he forgot to bring into his equation.’

Hunter and Garcia were still staring at the image on the screen. There was nothing there but a bunch of zoomed-into wasps.

‘Those wasps are alive and moving all the time,’ Michelle clarified. ‘At this particular spot, by pure chance, a small group of them moved at the same time, in exactly the same direction, and over another bunch of wasps. The camera was just panning right toward the woman’s face. The combination of all that movement, for a fraction of a second, produced a different light angle. Are you still with me?’

Both detectives nodded again.

‘Now, the wasps’ bodies are black, and any dark background behind plain glass can create a mirror effect if the light angle is right.’

Michelle typed another command and the image sharpened considerably, before advancing a single second and pausing.

Silence.

Squinting.

Head tilting.

And then Hunter and Garcia finally saw it.

Fifty-Two

Due to the new light angle created by the position the tarantula hawks had moved into, in combination with the camera just starting to pan right, something was suddenly reflected on the coffin’s glass lid.

‘It’s only there for 0.2 seconds,’ Harry said. ‘But when we break it down into frames, we’ve got eight frames of it.’

Hunter and Garcia were still squinting at the screen and tilting their heads from side to side, trying to better understand what they were looking at. Whatever it was, it was only being partially reflected. An object high off the ground, maybe five or six feet, set back from the coffin, and placed against what looked like a nondescript brick wall. They could only see what they guessed was the top quarter of the object, and not very well. It was a thin structure that looked like a T. Probably made out of metal. The ends of the horizontal bar at the top of the T curved around themselves, creating two small loops, one at each end, like two hooks. Something looked to be hanging from the loop on the right-hand side, but the reflection showed only a tiny sliver of it.

‘What the hell is that?’ Garcia spoke first. ‘Some sort of coat hanger?’

Hunter stared at it for a couple more seconds, and then shook his head. ‘No. It’s an IV drip stand.’

Garcia frowned. ‘What?’

‘That’s exactly what we think it is,’ Harry agreed. ‘We’ve been comparing images on the internet for a while now.’

Michelle handed Hunter and Garcia two large color printouts.

Hunter didn’t need to look at them. He knew he was right. He’d lived with one of those inside his house for several months when he was seven, while cancer ate away at his mother. He helped his father change her IV drip every day. When her pain convulsions caused her to violently jerk her arms in the air, tugging at the drip and throwing the whole stand to the ground, Hunter was always the one who picked it up. When he was twenty-three, after his father was shot in the chest, Hunter spent twelve weeks sitting in a hospital room with him while he lay in a coma before dying. For twelve weeks he stared at the IV stands, the drips and all the machinery inside that hospital room. No, he certainly didn’t need to look at the printouts. Some memories and images would never leave his mind, no matter how much time had elapsed.

‘An IV drip stand?’ Garcia asked, his eyes moving back and forth between the printouts and the computer screen.

Hunter nodded.

‘And as you can see—’ Michelle took over again, pointing back at the screen and at the right loop ‘—something is definitely hanging from it.’ She clicked her mouse and the picture magnified thirty times, but even then no one could be one hundred percent sure of what they were looking at. ‘This is the best we could do,’ she continued, shrugging. ‘Our best guess . . . that’s some sort of an IV bag.’

Hunter and Garcia kept their eyes on the image.

‘If it is,’ Harry said, ‘then you’re mainly looking at two possible scenarios. One: that stand and drip are there for the killer.’

Neither detective commented back, but they both knew that it was possible.

In truth, they knew nothing concrete about this killer. All they had were assumptions based on the killer’s actions so far. Even Mike Brindle from forensics believed that they were after someone big and strong. Strong enough to carry a 216-pound person over his left shoulder. But that assumption was based on the shoeprints retrieved from the alleyway in Mission Hills, where the first victim’s body had been found. The prints they believed had been left by the killer. Brindle had told them that the left shoeprint seemed to be more prominent than the right one. He said that that could indicate that the killer walked with a slight abnormality, like a limp, depositing more of his weight onto his left leg. They assumed the abnormality was caused because the person was carrying a heavy load over his left shoulder – the victim’s body. But what if they’d assumed wrong? What if this killer had some sort of physical impairment? What if this killer
was
in some sort of constant pain and in need of daily medication?

‘Scenario two,’ Harry said, moving on, ‘and the most probable, is that the IV is meant for the victims. Maybe the killer sedates his victims for some reason.’

Again, no comment from Hunter or Garcia, but neither of them believed that the killer had sedated his victims.

IV sedation, also known as Twilight Sleep, worked on the brain like amnesia, producing either partial or full memory loss. The person went in and out of slumber, totally relaxed, and could still hear what goes on around him or her, but nothing really registered. IV sedation usually didn’t work as an anesthetic, so the person would still feel pain, but that would depend entirely on the type of drip used.

Christina Stevenson was alert and totally terrified while locked inside that glass coffin. Not relaxed. And in no way drifting in and out of slumber. The same could be said for Kevin Lee Parker. No, if the IV drip stand was there for the victims, Hunter was sure its purpose was not sedation, and that thought was what filled him with dread. The killer could’ve used some sort of feeling-enhancing drug. Something not so easily picked up by a blood toxicology test. Something that boosted their nervous system and ultra-sensitized it. To this killer, the violence had a purpose. He wanted his victims as sober as possible. He wanted them to feel every bit of pain, but he also wanted their fear. He wanted them to know that death was coming to them. And there was nothing anyone could do to save them.

Fifty-Three

As Hunter and Garcia left the FBI building, they received a phone call from Doctor Hove. She was done with Christina Stevenson’s autopsy.

In bumper-to-bumper traffic, it took them just over an hour to reach the Department of Coroner in North Mission Road. Doctor Hove was waiting for them in Autopsy Theater One, the same autopsy theater used for Kevin Lee Parker’s postmortem.

The room felt even colder than before. The stale, intrusive, sweet disinfectant smell seemed stronger, chokingly so. Hunter pinched his nose a couple of times before folding his arms over his chest. Goosebumps pricked the skin around his triceps.

Doctor Hove led them deep into the room toward the last of the three autopsy tables that sprang from the east wall.

Since they’d missed it at the parking lot in Santa Monica yesterday morning, this was the first time either of the two detectives had seen Christina Stevenson’s body live and up close. Her disfigurement was even more disturbing than what the pictures had shown. Her skin, which had once been silky smooth, judging by the photographs they’d found in her house, now looked rubbery and porous. The lumps that covered most of her body came in all different sizes, but all of them grotesque, nonetheless. The unimaginable pain she’d been through was still there, etched on her distorted face like a horror mask.

‘A different approach,’ Doctor Hove said, slipping a brand-new pair of latex gloves on. ‘But just as sadistic as the first murder, if you ask me.’ She had already watched the recorded footage.

Hunter and Garcia positioned themselves on the left side of the stainless-steel examination table.

‘Because wasps do not leave their stinger behind,’ Doctor Hove began, ‘allowing them to sting multiple times, it’s impossible to tell how many times she was actually stung. As an educated guess, I’d say close to a thousand times.’

Garcia’s throat knotted as beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead. Only four stings had sent him into hospital when he was a kid. He could still remember the pain, and how sick he felt. His brain couldn’t even begin to contemplate what a thousand stings would’ve been like.

‘As she was lying on her back during the attack,’ Doctor Hove continued, ‘the wasps concentrated their efforts on the front and sides of her body. The least-stung areas are these small sections of her breasts.’ She indicated with her index finger. ‘And this area around her groin and hips. As you know, the reason for that is because she was wearing a bra and panties. The lab is already analyzing them. Any findings, you’ll be the first to know.’ She paused to clear her throat. ‘Safe of those areas, as you can see, she was stung pretty much everywhere else, including the inside of her mouth, the back of her throat, her tongue, her eyes and the inside of her nostrils.’ Doctor Hove glanced at the chart on the west wall that itemized the weights of the deceased’s internal organs. ‘I retrieved dead wasps from deep inside her aural cavity, her esophagus and her stomach.’

Garcia closed his eyes and swallowed dry. He was starting to feel unwell.

‘Stomach analysis showed that it was practically empty,’ Doctor Hove said.

Hunter knew that that wasn’t unusual in a kidnap/murder case where the murder was committed only a day or two after the kidnapping. Even if the perpetrator had tried to feed his victim, the sheer fear, anxiety and uncertainty that come with being held in captivity would’ve undoubtedly acted as a very powerful appetite suppressant, even for the most steady of individuals.

‘She died from cardiac arrest,
probably
caused by anaphylactic shock.’

From what Hunter and Garcia had witnessed with the broadcast, they were sure the victim hadn’t been allergic to wasps’ venom. If she had, her body would’ve started shutting itself down immediately after the first sting. Without help, death would’ve come too fast. A lot faster than the almost eighteen minutes it took her to die.

The doctor looked up and noticed that Garcia had taken a step back. He didn’t look too good. ‘You OK, Carlos?’

He nodded, avoiding eye contact. ‘Yep. Fine. Just carry on, please.’

‘You probably already know this,’ she continued. ‘But for an anaphylactic reaction to occur, one must have been exposed, in the past, to the substance that causes the reaction, called the antigen. In this case, the wasps’ venom. This process is called
sensitization.
The problem is, even if she wasn’t already allergic to the antigen, in the case of a prolonged attack, like the one she suffered, the sheer volume of venom injected directly into her bloodstream could’ve easily caused one of two extreme reactions – either force an exceptionally quick sensitization or skip the process all together, forcing the body straight into anaphylaxis – extreme allergic reaction.’

Garcia used the sleeve of his white coverall to wipe the sweat from his forehead.

‘But I did say that the cardiac arrest was
probably
caused by anaphylactic shock.’ Doctor Hove opened a red folder that was resting on the stainless-steel counter to her right. ‘But there’s another possibility. The main characteristic of the tarantula hawk’s venom is that it paralyzes its prey. Now you have to remember that its main prey is the tarantula spider, which can be twice, maybe three times larger than the wasp itself.’

‘Very strong venom,’ Hunter said.

‘For its natural prey, fatal,’ Doctor Hove agreed. ‘But its paralyzing ability shouldn’t affect humans, unless a very high quantity of it is injected into the bloodstream. In that case, there’s a very high possibility that the venom could induce a human heart into paralysis.’

Everyone’s gaze came back to the body on the table for a long, silent moment.

‘I read Mike Brindle’s report,’ Doctor Hove said, grabbing their attention again. ‘And I also looked through his inventory list from the abduction scene . . . her own home, right?’

Hunter nodded.

‘The broken nails he found . . . they match.’ She indicated the body’s hands.

Hunter and Garcia moved a little closer to examine them. The nails of the index and middle fingers on the right hand had been torn. The same had happened to the nail of the index finger on the left hand.

‘Anything under the remaining nails?’ Hunter asked.

Doctor Hove pulled a face. ‘Well, there should have been, right? Brindle’s report describes a typical struggle scene.’

‘That’s right,’ Hunter confirmed.

‘So if she fought her aggressor, chances are that something would’ve lodged itself under a nail – fabric fiber, skin, hair, dust . . . something.’

‘There was nothing?’ Garcia this time.

‘She was cleaned up,’ the doctor said. ‘Her nails have been scrubbed with bleach. They’re as clean as a newborn baby’s. This killer is taking no chances.’

Doctor Hove allowed them to study the body’s hands for a few more seconds before she spoke again.