The Death Sculptor (13 page)

Glen Egan and Shawna Ross stopped by the steps.

‘We just want to check a few things in here first,’ the doctor continued. ‘You can start up on the deck if you want.’

‘No problem, doc.’ They turned and went back up to the deck above.

‘Deranged or not,’ Doctor Hove continued. ‘This killer knows what he’s doing.’ Her attention had returned to the mutilated body on the chair. ‘This time he used needle and thread to close both brachial arteries and contain the bleeding, and it looks like he did a good job too.’ She looked under the chair. Both of Nashorn’s legs had been bandaged at the ankles, where his feet had been cut off. ‘And for some reason, the killer dressed the leg wounds.’

Hunter moved closer to have a better look. ‘That’s strange,’ he commented, and all of a sudden caught another noseful of the strange, stinging smell.

‘Yes, that’s very strange,’ the doctor agreed.

Garcia retrieved the CD from the stereo and placed it in a plastic evidence bag. The CD case was on a shelf together with other CDs. Garcia quickly looked through them. They were mostly from rock bands from the eighties and nineties.

Hunter finally moved towards the new sculpture. It was even more sinister and creepy than the first one.

This time the arms had been severed from the body just below the shoulders, and then again at the elbow joints to produce four distinct pieces. Both forearms had been bundled together with wire, inside wrist against inside wrist, and placed in an upright position. The hands were opened outwards awkwardly, palms up, giving the impression that they were ready to catch a flying baseball. The thumbs were twisted out of shape, clearly broken. All the other fingers were missing. They’d been severed at the knuckles and tightly bundled together two by two, using wire and a strong bonding agent to form four separate pieces. But the killer made the pieces look almost identical by carving them into strange figures – chunky and round at the top, curved at the center, and skinny at the bottom. They were then placed on the breakfast bar, about a foot away from the hands. Two of the figures were standing upright. The other two were lying down, one on top of each other.

‘So what you think that is this time?’ Garcia asked, stepping closer. ‘A crocodile?’

Doctor Hove’s eyebrows arched, surprised. ‘This time . . . ? You figured out what the first sculpture means?’

‘We haven’t figured out its meaning yet,’ Hunter said.

‘But we now know what the sculpture is supposed to create,’ Garcia added.

‘Create . . . ?’

Garcia stole a peek at Hunter before pulling a face. ‘The sculpture creates shadow puppets on the wall.’

‘I’m sorry?’

Garcia nodded. ‘Yep, you heard it right, doc,’ he confirmed. ‘Shadow puppets. Quite neatly done, too. The one from the first crime scene cast a dog and a bird shadow onto the wall.’ He paused. ‘Or something to that effect.’

Doctor Hove looked like she was waiting for one of the detectives to burst out laughing.

Neither did.

‘We discovered it by chance,’ Hunter said. ‘Just minutes before we got the call to come to the marina. We haven’t had a chance to properly analyze it yet.’ He quickly ran Doctor Hove through what had happened back in his office.

‘And it looks like a dog and a bird?’

‘That’s right.’

Her green eyes moved to the sculpture on the breakfast bar. ‘And you’re sure that wasn’t just a fluke?’

Both detectives shook their heads.

‘The images are too perfect for it to have been a fluke or a coincidence,’ Hunter said.

‘So now you have to figure out what this dog and this bird mean?’

‘Exactly,’ Garcia said. ‘The killer is playing charades with us, doc. Giving us a riddle within a riddle. Something that could mean absolutely nothing. He could be laughing at us right now. Making us go around in circles trying to figure out if there really is a meaning behind Scooby-Doo and Tweety Bird. Meanwhile, he’s off on his dismembering rampage.’

‘Wait.’ Doctor Hove lifted a hand. ‘The images look like cartoons?’

‘No they don’t,’ Garcia clarified. ‘I apologize for my crap sense of humor.’

The doctor looked at Hunter and pointed at the sculpture. ‘So if you’re right, that thing should give us another shadow puppet.’

‘Probably.’

If there were a device inside that boat cabin that could measure tension, its gauge would have gone through the roof.

‘OK, let’s check it out right now, then,’ the doctor said, her curiosity so intense it was almost visible. She clicked her flashlight back on before walking over to the light switch and flicking it off.

Hunter and Garcia also turned their Maglites back on. They spent the next few minutes going around the sickening sculpture, illuminating it from all sides and checking the shadows it projected against the wall.

They got nothing – no animals, no objects, no words.

That was when Hunter’s gaze went back to Nashorn’s head on the coffee table. Something about the way it had been positioned caught his attention. It was looking directly at the sculpture, but from a low, diagonal angle, looking up at it.

‘Let me try something.’ Hunter turned his Maglite back on and repositioned himself, directing his flashlight beam back at the sculpture but from the exact same angle as Nashorn’s stare.

‘Maybe the killer is showing us how to look at it.’

‘By positioning the victim’s head?’ the doctor asked, looking a little dubious.

‘Who knows? I wouldn’t put anything past this monster.’

They all paused and contemplated the strange shadows that were now cast onto the wall behind the sculpture.

Doctor Hove’s entire body tingled as if it’d been electrified, turning her skin into gooseflesh.

‘I’ll be damned.’

There must’ve been at least a dozen police vehicles parked around the lot behind the New World Cinema building in Marina Harbor. The curious crowd that had gathered was now substantial, and the number of news vans and reporters had doubled in the last hour.

‘Excuse me,’ a young woman in her mid-twenties asked the mechanic, who was standing towards the back of the crowd, leisurely observing the police and media circus unfold. ‘Do you know what happened here?’ She spoke with a Midwestern accent. Maybe Missouri or Wisconsin. ‘Has a boat been stolen?’

The mechanic chuckled at the woman’s naivety and turned to face her.

‘I don’t think you’d get this many cops and TV vans around here just for a stolen boat. Not even in Los Angeles.’

The woman’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Someone was murdered?’ Her voice lifted with excitement.

The mechanic held the suspense for a moment and then nodded. ‘Yeah. Inside that last boat right at the end of the dock.’

The woman went on tiptoe in an effort to catch a glimpse of the boat. She saw nothing other than the backs of the heads of fellow curious onlookers. ‘Have they brought the body out yet?’ she asked, moving from side to side, still trying to see something.

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Have you been here long?’

The mechanic nodded. ‘I guess you could say that.’

‘Gee, I wonder what happened.’

The mechanic had read somewhere once that most people were fascinated with death. The more vicious and gruesome, the more they wanted to know about it and the more they wanted to see. Some scientists attributed it to a violent primal instinct – dormant in some, but very active in many. Some psychologists believed it was related to the obsession humans have with trying to understand death and what happens afterwards.

‘I heard he was decapitated,’ the mechanic said, testing the woman’s morbid curiosity.

‘No way.’ She got more agitated, going up on the tips of her toes and craning her neck like a meerkat as she tried to see beyond the crowd.

‘That’s what I heard,’ the mechanic continued. ‘And that the whole boat was washed with blood. Pretty sick, apparently.’

‘Mother of God,’ the woman said, bringing a hand to her mouth.

‘Yeah, welcome to LA.’

She looked disgusted for a couple of seconds, until her eyes caught a glimpse of a police officer just ahead of them. She then bounced on her toes with enthusiasm like a kid who’d just been told she’d be going to Disneyworld for the first time. ‘Oh, there’s a cop, let’s go ask him.’

‘No, I’m OK. My work here is done. I’ve got to go anyway.’

‘I can’t believe you’re not curious.’

‘I don’t think there’s anything that cop can tell me that I don’t already know.’

The woman frowned at the words but seemed too excited to give them much thought. ‘Well, I’ll ask him anyway. I wanna know.’

The mechanic nodded and stepped back into the crowd.

The woman pushed through and approached the officer.

Neither she, the officer, nor anyone else in the crowd noticed the tiny bloodstains on the mechanic’s trouser hems.

It was close to 1 a.m. when Hunter finally got back to his apartment. He desperately wanted a shower. There was so much blood inside that boat cabin that, despite his protective-wear, he felt as if his skin, even his soul, had been stained by it.

He closed his eyes, leaned head first against the white tiles, and allowed the strong, hot shower jet to massage the tense muscles of his neck and shoulders. He slowly ran a hand through his hair. The tips of his fingers grazed the deep, ugly scar on his nape and he paused, feeling the rough, lumpy skin. A reminder of how determined and deadly an evil mind could be. Not that Hunter needed any reminding. Though it happened a few years ago, his encounter with the monster the press called the Crucifix Killer was as fresh in his mind as any memories of a minute ago. The painful scar on his nape forever telling him how close he and Garcia had come to death.

The problem was, no matter what he did, no matter how fast or hard the police worked, they just couldn’t catch them quick enough. As soon as they tracked down one manic killer and sent him to prison, two, three, four more were already roaming the streets. The balance was tipped the wrong way. Ironic how the City of Angels seemed to attract more evil than any other city in the USA.

Hunter had no idea how long he stood there, but by the time he’d pushed the memory aside and turned off the water, his tanned skin had gone a dark shade of pink, and his fingertips looked like prunes.

He dried his body, wrapped himself in a clean white towel and returned to his living room. His drinks cabinet was small, but held an impressive connoisseur’s collection of single-malt Scotch whisky. He needed something strong but soothing and comforting. He didn’t search for long, making his choice as soon as his eyes rested on the bottle of Balvenie 15-year-old single barrel.

Hunter poured himself a generous dose, added a tiny drop of water, and dumped himself in the black leatherette sofa. He tried his best not to think about the case, but the images of everything he had seen in the past few days had nowhere else to go. They kept on spinning around and tumbling over themselves inside his head. They’d just found out about the images behind the first sculpture, but before they’d even had a chance to try and figure out the real meaning of those images, the killer had given them a second victim, a second sculpture and a second set of images that, at first look, made even less sense than the original one. He had no idea where to start.

Hunter had a long sip of his whisky and concentrated on its robust flavor. The higher alcohol content gave the malt a bit of extra muscle, without affecting its rich, fruity taste.

A few minutes and another dose later and Hunter was beginning to relax, when his cellphone rang.

Instinctively he checked his watch. ‘You’ve got to be joking.’ He snapped the clamshell phone open and brought it to his ear. ‘Detective Hunter.’

‘Robert, it’s Alice.’

Hunter’s brow creased. ‘Alice . . . ? What’s going on?’

‘Well, I was just wondering if maybe you’d like to go get a drink.’

‘A drink . . . ? It’s almost two in the morning.’

‘I know that.’

‘So you probably also know that this is Los Angeles, where pretty much every boozer closes at two.’

‘Yeah, I know that too.’

‘Well, doesn’t that defeat the idea of going for a drink at this time?’

A short pause.

‘Maybe you could invite me over and we could have a drink in your apartment?’

Hunter frowned at the phone. ‘You want to come to my apartment and have a drink?’

‘Well, I’m just around the corner. I could be there in . . . two minutes or less.’

Reflexively Hunter’s gaze moved to his living-room window. He hadn’t had time to check, but he was sure Alice Beaumont didn’t live around this part of town. Two minutes from his apartment in any direction was pretty much slap-bang in the middle of nowhere, or gangtown.

He hesitated.

‘I think I found something, Robert,’ Alice said.

‘Found what?’

‘I think I might know what those shadow puppets mean.’

Hunter changed into an old pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, the cotton fabric stretching thin against his broad shoulders and hugging his torso like a second skin. Around his living room, papers, magazines and books were strewn just about everywhere. He thought about tidying it up a little, but before he had a chance to start, there was a knock at the door. He reached for his Heckler & Koch USP .45 Tactical pistol, checked the safety, and secured it tightly between the waistband of his jeans and his lower back before approaching the door.

Three new knocks.

‘Robert? It’s me, Alice,’ she called from outside.

Hunter undid the lock and the security chain and pulled the door open halfway.

Alice Beaumont stood at his doorway holding a black leather briefcase. She had lost the ponytail from earlier in the day, and her loose blonde hair shone, even in the dim light of Hunter’s hallway. She certainly didn’t look like a lawyer now. Her conservative suit had been substituted by skintight blue jeans, a black cotton blouse cut low at the front, and square-heeled, black knee-high boots. Her makeup was still subtle, but it now carried a hint of daring. Her perfume was floral and provocative.