The Death Sculptor (15 page)

Hunter didn’t flinch, didn’t say a word. His stare was chained to Alice. His mind was chasing a memory but he had no idea where to find it.

The first time he saw her yesterday morning, something about her had struck him as familiar, but he couldn’t place her. Things had happened so fast yesterday that he’d never had a chance to check her out. He played it as calm as he could.

‘Should I remember you?’

Alice flicked her hair to one side.

‘I suppose not. I’ve never been very memorable.’

If she was looking for sympathy or pity, Hunter gave her none.

‘You were a prodigy kid,’ she said. ‘You went to Mirman, a special school for gifted children. If I remember correctly, the words that were used were “his IQ is off the charts”. Even for a prodigy kid.’

Hunter leaned against the window and felt the bulk of his pistol press harder against his lower back.

From a very early age it had been easy to see that Hunter was different. He could figure things out faster than most, and while the average student was expected to graduate from middle school at the age of fourteen, Hunter had finished the entire lower- and mid-school curriculum by his eleventh birthday. It hadn’t been long before his school principal had referred him to the Mirman School for the Gifted in Mulholland Drive.

‘But even a special school’s curriculum wasn’t hard enough for you. You finished all four years of high school in what, two?’

His memory of her was returning to him. ‘You went to Mirman as well,’ he said.

Alice nodded. ‘I was in your class when you first started.’ She smiled. ‘But you didn’t stay long. In a matter of months you’d completed the entire year’s program, and they moved you up to the next grade. You made Mirman’s curriculum seem so easy that they found it hard to place you. So for you, four years of high school became two, right?’

Hunter gave her a subtle shrug.

‘I know because my father was a teacher there.’

Hunter watched her. Her eyes became melancholic.

‘He taught Philosophy.’

‘Mr. Gellar?’ Hunter said. ‘Mr. Anton Gellar?’ Suddenly the clear image of this girl – petite, chubby, dark hair, cheeks full of freckles and shiny braces on her teeth came to his mind. He remembered talking to her a couple of times when he was fourteen or fifteen. She was terribly shy, but very bright and sweet.

‘That’s him,’ Alice replied. ‘Mr. Gellar, that was Dad. You remember him then?’

‘He was a fantastic teacher.’

Alice looked down at her feet. ‘I know.’

‘You changed your hair.’

Alice laughed. ‘I’ve been a blonde for over fifteen years now.’

‘Your freckles are gone.’

She looked at Hunter with a pleased expression, as if saying –
You do remember me!
‘No, they’re still here. Only hidden under a tan and expert makeup. The braces are gone forever, though, and I lost quite a bit of weight.’ Alice had one more sip of her beer. ‘My father was really proud of you. I think you were his best student – ever.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘I heard you went to Stanford University on a scholarship and flew through their curriculum as well. You got your PhD in Criminal Behavior Analysis and Biopsychology when you were twenty-three.’

Still silence.

‘Now that’s impressive, even for a Mirman student. My father used to say that you’d probably become the President of the United States someday, or a scholar of some kind. Definitely someone famous.’ She shifted her weight from leg to leg. ‘But I guess you preferred the thrill of chasing psychopaths, huh?’

No answer.

‘You also passed on five invitations to join the FBI. But your PhD thesis paper became, and still is, mandatory reading at their NCAVC.’ She paused and looked at Hunter’s graduation photo again. ‘When I left Mirman, I went to MIT.’

Most people would’ve said those words with a massive injection of pride. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the most prestigious and famous research university in the USA, and probably the world. Alice seemed almost embarrassed.

‘I’ve got a PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.’

‘I guess you preferred the thrill of working as a research specialist for the Los Angeles DA, huh?’ Hunter said.

Alice chuckled. ‘Touché. The truth is I got tired of hacking into systems for the government. That’s who I worked for before.’

‘Special branch?’

It was Alice’s turn to be silent. Hunter didn’t push.

‘Don’t kid yourself,’ he said. ‘You still work for the government.’

‘I guess I do,’ she admitted. ‘But the cause is different.’

‘More noble?’

She hesitated for an instant. ‘I guess you can say that.’

‘But you’re still hacking into systems,’ Hunter challenged.

Alice tilted her head to one side in a subtle but charming way. ‘Sometimes. And I’m sorry. That’s how I know so much about you. And about what you did after you left Mirman. When DA Bradley told me I’d be working with a homicide detective named Robert Hunter, all these memories from Mirman came rushing back into my head. I just had to find out what you’d been up to since then.’

‘You hacked into the FBI database?’ Hunter asked. He knew the fact that he’d passed on precisely
five
invitations to join the FBI wasn’t exactly free information.

‘Not all their files are kept under the most secure encryption algorithms,’ Alice said. ‘In fact, very few are. Getting into any system isn’t that hard if you know what you’re doing. Once inside, it’s just a question of knowing how to navigate.’

‘And my guess is that you are a pretty good navigator.’

Alice shrugged. ‘We’re all good at something.’

Hunter finished his Scotch. ‘How’s your father?’

Her eyes went sad. ‘He’s not with us anymore.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

‘It was ten years ago, but thank you.’ Her gaze moved to a new picture frame – Hunter as a young kid, maybe ten or eleven years old, she thought. Shorts, skinny legs, white T-shirt, ultra-skinny arms, and straight hair that was way too long. Just like she remembered him. ‘You used to be geeky, and as thin as a stickman. Your nickname was . . .’

‘Toothpick,’ Hunter helped her.

‘That’s right. Gosh you bulked up like the Hulk.’ Her eyes settled on his pecs. ‘What do you bench press, the whole gym?’

Hunter said nothing.

‘You know,’ Alice said, with a slight head movement, ‘I’m not surprised by your decision to become a police officer.’

‘And why is that?’

Alice had a slow sip of her beer. ‘Because you always liked defending and helping people.’

Hunter looked uncertain.

‘My best male friend in school was a kid called Steve MacKay. Do you remember him? Thick glasses, blonde curly hair, even thinner and shyer than you were. In school they called him Loose Noodle.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yes, I remember him.’

‘Do you remember defending him after school one day?’

No answer.

‘He was walking back to his house just a couple of blocks away from Mirman. These three bigger street kids turned up and started pushing him around. They wanted to take his new tennis shoes and whatever money he had on him. You came out of nowhere, punched one of them in the face, and told Steve to run.’

‘Yeah, I remember,’ Hunter said after a brief silence.

Alice smiled awkwardly. ‘They beat the living hell out of you. What were you thinking, that you could take on three bigger and stronger kids just like that?’

‘It worked. The plan was to get their attention away from the small kid so he could get away.’

‘And then what?’

Hunter looked away. ‘OK, I agree. The plan wasn’t well thought through, but it still worked. I knew I could take the beating. I didn’t think the other kid could.’

Alice’s new smile was full of tenderness. ‘Steve hid behind a car and watched everything. He said you just wouldn’t stay down. They’d beat you to the floor, you’d get up. They’d beat you down again, you’d get up again, bleeding and all. Steve said that after the fourth or fifth time, the bigger kids just gave up and walked away.’

‘I’m glad they did. I don’t know how much more I could’ve taken.’ Hunter turned his head, showing Alice his left ear, and folding its top half down. ‘This scar is from that beating. They almost tore my ear off.’

Alice looked at the lumpy scar that contoured Hunter’s ear. ‘You were in your senior year and you took a hell of a beating for someone you barely knew. A kid two grades below you. I really don’t know anyone else who would’ve done that.’

Hunter went silent, and Alice couldn’t tell if he was embarrassed or not.

‘You know,’ she finally said. ‘Despite the fact that you were geeky, skinny as hell, and dressed like a rock-and-roll reject on a bad day, a lot of girls in Mirman had a crush on you.’

‘Did you?’ Hunter pinned her down with an interrogating stare.

Alice bit her bottom lip and looked away. ‘I guess you’re right. We both need to get some sleep.’ She finished the rest of her beer in one long gulp, grabbed her briefcase and crossed to the door.

‘I’ll see you in the office,’ Hunter said.

Alice’s reply was a simple smile.

Captain Blake was standing next to Garcia, her mouth half-open, her unflinching gaze welded to the shadow images on the wall. This was the first time she had seen them.

‘This can’t be serious,’ she said after a long silence.

Garcia said nothing.

‘You’re telling me that some maniac killer out there broke into a Los Angeles prosecutor’s home, butchered him into pieces, bundled his severed body parts together to create some godforsaken artifact, just so he could cast a shadow puppet of a dog and a bird onto the wall?’

‘It’s a coyote and a raven,’ Hunter said as he entered the room. He’d managed just a little over four hours of sleep, which for him was as good as it got.

‘What?’ Captain Blake turned and faced him. ‘What the hell are you talking about, Robert? And does it matter what species they are?’

‘Good morning to you too, Captain.’

She indicated the replica sculpture, and then the shadow puppets on the wall. ‘Does that look like a good morning to anyone?’

‘A coyote and a raven?’ Garcia asked, his eyes narrowing at the shadow puppets.

Hunter took off his jacket and fired up his computer.

‘How did you find that out?’ Garcia insisted.

‘I didn’t. Alice did.’

As if on cue, Alice Beaumont pushed the door open and stepped into the office. Her hair was back in the same slick ponytail she had the day before, but this time the look was complemented by an expensive-looking pair of designer sunglasses. She was wearing an impeccably fitted light gray suit with a white charmeuse blouse and a dainty white gold necklace.

All eyes shot towards her.

She looked up and paused, feeling the heat of everyone’s stare. ‘Good . . . morning . . . everyone. Did I do something wrong?’

‘I just told them you found out about the shadow puppets being a coyote and a raven,’ Hunter said. ‘Maybe you should explain the meaning behind them.’

Alice placed her briefcase next to her improvised desk and ran Captain Blake and Garcia through everything she had found out the night before. When she was done, a thoughtful silence enveloped the room for an instant.

‘It makes sense,’ Garcia eventually agreed.

Captain Blake folded her arms over her chest, still measuring everything.

‘The way I see it,’ Alice continued, ‘if the killer considered Derek to be a liar, then to generate this kind of payback, it must be connected to something that happened during one of his cases. It must’ve been an alleged lie that caused somebody to lose his or her freedom, or that sent someone to death row. Someone the killer considered innocent. Or even, as Robert suggested, an alleged lie that meant someone
didn’t
get the justice he or she felt they deserved. Someone who felt betrayed by the system and by Derek in particular.’

Captain Blake was still pondering everything. ‘And do we have any names yet? Anyone Derek Nicholson put away that would fit this theory?’ Her stare went back to Alice.

‘Not yet,’ Alice said, not shying away from the captain’s hard gaze, ‘but we will before the end of the day.’

‘You better make that before the end of the morning,’ Captain Blake came straight back at her. ‘DA Bradley said you were the best he had, so be the best.’ She threw a copy of this morning’s
LA Times
on Hunter’s desk. The headline read ‘SCULPTURE OF TERROR. LAPD OFFICER MURDERED AND CHOPPED TO PIECES’.

Hunter skimmed through the article. It mentioned how Nashorn’s boat cabin had been bathed in blood, his decapitated and dismembered body left on a chair facing the door, and his severed body parts used to create some sort of grotesque and sickening sculpture-like arrangement. It also mentioned that loud heavy-metal music was left playing on the stereo. No real details were given.

‘The TV edition of that story made the news bulletin late last night and again early this morning,’ Captain Blake blurted as she started pacing the room. ‘I woke up this morning to find a newspaper reporter together with a photographer pretty much camping out in front of my house. Goddamn it, as soon as I find out which officer at the scene leaked that kind of information to the press, he’s on a no return trip to shit-licking duty.’

‘I don’t think a cop leaked the story, Captain,’ Hunter said.

‘Who, then? The woman from the neighboring boat who found the body?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘She was too distressed to talk to anyone last night. It took me half an hour just to get a few pieces of information out of her. Her subconscious was already starting to block her memory. Pretty much the only thing she remembered was the blood. And there was an officer with her until she was sedated and fell asleep. Reporters didn’t talk to her.’

‘Well, they talked to someone.’

‘Probably the marina security guard on duty last night.’ Hunter reached for his notebook. ‘A Mr. Curtis Lodeiro, fifty-five years old. Lives in Maywood. In her panic, Leanne Ashman ran back to the marina’s security hut after leaving Nashorn’s boat. While she called 911, Mr. Lodeiro went over to check it. He had a better look at the crime scene than she did.’