The Executioner (12 page)

Silence.

‘C’mon, it’s my round. Look, I promise I won’t ask any more questions about the case.’

Hunter pulled a face. ‘I sincerely doubt that.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Claire said, standing up. ‘I’ve gotta tab going at the bar. Order whatever you like and get me another gin and tonic while I go to the ladies. We’ll have one more drink here, and then maybe we can go someplace else. My flatmate is out of town for the weekend.’ Her lips stretched into a seductive smile.

Wow, she’s prepared to go all the way
. Claire would be amazing in bed, Hunter decided, but her performance would be in direct proportion to the information her lover could provide. It was the information she was making love to, not the man.

‘Look, Claire. You’re a very attractive woman. I’m sure you know you could take your pick out of all the guys in this joint to take home.’

‘I pick you.’

Hunter laughed. ‘And I’m flattered. But this would be for the wrong reasons and you know it.’

‘Sometimes the wrong reasons are the best ones.’

‘And most nights I’d agree with that. But tonight I’ll have to take a rain check.’

‘You’re blowing me off?’ She sounded genuinely offended.

‘Not really.’ Hunter paused for a second. ‘Let’s do this. When this investigation is over, I’ll take you out for dinner. Let’s see if you still wanna take me back to your place for drinks then.’

Hunter managed to get only three and a half hours of sleep. Though he’d been up since 4:30 a.m., it was just past eight by the time he walked into his office. Garcia was at his desk reading one of Father Fabian’s journals. His eyes were bloodshot framed by dark circles.

‘What time did you get here?’ Hunter asked, closing the door behind him.

Garcia placed the journal on his desk, leaned back on his chair and massaged his stiff neck. ‘Seven-thirty, but I was up half the night, reading.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yeah, me too.’

Garcia noticed he had two journals under his arm. ‘How far did you get?’ He nodded towards the books.

‘I read through both of them.’ Hunter placed them on his desk.

‘You read four hundred pages in one night?’

‘I read a lot, I read fast and I don’t sleep much.’

‘Did you find anything?’

‘Nothing that could really help the investigation. But Father Fabian was a troubled man.’ Hunter leaned against his desk and shoved his hands deep into his pockets. ‘He thought about suicide – twice.’

Garcia rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. ‘Well, I’m getting cross-eyed. And I still haven’t found anything either. Any joy from the tip lines?’

Every night, before going home, Hunter personally went through the day’s tips collected by the tips team.

‘Nothing. Over two hundred calls so far and all of them bullshit.’

A knock came at the door.

‘Come in,’ Hunter called.

Officer Hopkins stepped into the office carrying a blue plastic file. He also looked tired.

‘I have some preliminary results to the searches you asked me for,’ he told Hunter, who raised a hand, stopping him before he was able to continue.

‘I think we could all use a break from the office and from computer screens. It’s not a bad day out there. What do you say we go grab a coffee in Little Tokyo? A change of scenery would do us good.’

‘I’m in.’ Garcia raised his hand.

‘Sure. I love that place.’ Hopkins nodded.

Little Tokyo is a small district in Downtown Los Angeles, just across the road from Parker Center and the RHD. It’s one of only three official Japantowns in the United States, and if you like Japanese food there’s no better place to be in LA.

Hopkins suggested Poppy Coffee Shop, on the south side of Little Tokyo. He’d eaten there many times and their coffee was the best.

Despite the early hour, the café was packed. They all ordered black coffees, and Hopkins had a chocolate-sprinkled donut to go with it.

‘You guys should try one of these donuts,’ Hopkins said as they took the last available table by the door. ‘They’re so rich they’re practically a food group.’

‘I’m good,’ Garcia said, lifting his right hand.

‘Knock yourself out.’ Hunter smiled and frowned at the four cubes of sugar Hopkins dropped into his coffee. ‘So what have you got?’ he asked.

‘Not much.’ Hopkins sounded disappointed. ‘I researched what you’ve asked. Any acts of violence against any churches in the past five years.’ He retrieved a few sheets from his file and started flipping through them. ‘I’ve got vandalism, graffiti, a few broken windows, stolen objects, a few attempted arsons, but no significant physical violence against any priests. There have, however, been a few cases of rape against nuns.’

‘That doesn’t fall into the category we’re looking for.’ Hunter sipped his coffee too quickly and burned the roof of his mouth.

‘I know, but still, that’s just fucked up.’ Hopkins took a bite of his donut and wiped the sprinkles from his lips onto a green paper napkin. ‘The second search you asked for; homicides with ritual and torture characteristics. The list is long.’

Somehow Hunter was expecting it to be.

‘I filtered the results using the criteria you gave me. One, criminals that haven’t been apprehended yet, and two, the use of any animals.’

‘What did you get?’

‘Murders with excessive spillage of blood – there’ve been many. Most of them attributed to gangs, turf and drug wars. But other than lots of blood, they carry no other ritualistic characteristics at all.’

‘Anything with animals?’ Garcia asked, blowing into his coffee.

‘Yes, but no dog’s head. Actually, the only case I could find where an animal head was left at the scene of a crime in the last five years involved a horse’s head.’

‘Italian Mafia,’ Hunter said.

‘That’s the theory,’ Hopkins agreed. ‘The case has never been solved.’

‘So what other animals, if any, have been used in crimes?’ Garcia asked just as Hopkins had another bite of his donut. They had to wait while he chewed and swallowed it down.

‘A few. Rats, pigs, pigeons, cats – but apparently the preferred animal is chicken. Especially its blood. Used a lot in black magic – voodoo. And these were mostly attributed to Jamaicans and—’

‘Brazilians.’ Garcia nodded.

‘Brazilians?’ Hunter turned towards his partner.

‘Yes. In Brazil it’s called macumba. Something Brazil inherited from the many slaves who came from Africa.’ Garcia shook his head, indicating he wasn’t about to go into much historical detail. ‘They have lots of rituals, and many of them involve sacrificing chickens and using their blood.’

‘I’ve searched the net for hours,’ Hopkins said, shaking his head, ‘trying to find anything that justified replacing someone’s head for a dog’s – I got nothing. As you’ve asked—’ he tilted his head towards Hunter ‘—I’ve checked with every animal welfare agency in Los Angeles. No street mutt’s body missing a head has been found. I’ll keep checking, but at the moment that’s turning out to be another dead end.’

Hunter rubbed his face with both hands. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and his day-long stubble prickled his palms.

‘I’ve also checked with detectives in every bureau, as you asked me to do,’ Hopkins continued. ‘Nothing on a decapitation, a dog’s head or a numbered body. If this killer has claimed two previous victims, no one’s found them yet.’

As soon as they entered their office, Garcia reached for another of Father Fabian’s journals.

‘Have you come across any passages in these journals about a bad dream that pestered Father Fabian for years?’ Hunter asked, flipping open one of the leather-bound volumes on his desk.

‘I have, actually.’ Garcia searched for a specific journal. ‘And I meant to ask you the same question. Some reoccurring dream that scared him senseless.’

‘That’s right.’

‘I made a note of it. Here it is.’ He found the journal and opened it to a marked page. ‘Listen to this.

‘
3:00 a.m. I just woke up again. For minutes I could barely breathe. My hands are still shaking and my clothes are soaked in cold sweat. I am too scared to go back to sleep. Too scared to close my eyes. It’s the dream again. All these years and it has never left me. Why, Lord? Why am I tormented by these visions? Is it a warning of what’s to come?
’

‘I’ve been through several passages that sounded just like that,’ Hunter observed.

‘It seems this dream came back to haunt him frequently.’ Garcia placed the open diary on his desk. ‘Maybe it’s nothing.’ He shrugged. ‘We all have bad dreams every now and again.’

Hunter leaned back on his chair. ‘Do you know many people who wake up from dreams short of breath, shaking, sweating and too scared to go back to sleep on a constant basis?’

Garcia thought about it for a moment before conceding with a slight head tilt.

‘Dreams that have that kind of effect on a person are usually based on reality. Farfetched, maybe, but a reality nonetheless.’

‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’

‘If you have a dream based on fantasy,’ Hunter explained, ‘a fire-breathing dragon, for example. No matter how shocking or violent the dream is, your subconscious knows it’s an impossible fantasy. It might scare you, but it shouldn’t trigger a severe panic reaction.’

‘But if you have a dream based on reality, like being stabbed—’ Garcia caught up with Hunter’s line of thought ‘—your subconscious knows that the chances of it actually happening are very real.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Most nightmares are spin-offs of lived traumatic experiences. We have no control over them.’ He gestured towards the open diary. ‘I know about such dreams. I have them.’

Garcia looked at the scars on his hands for a long moment. ‘Since the Crucifix Killer’s case, so do I.’

They read the journals in silence for a while before Garcia cursed under his breath. ‘Shit!’

Hunter’s head snapped up. ‘What have you got?’

‘Father Fabian’s disturbing nightmare. And you won’t believe this . . .’

Hunter waited for Garcia to continue, but his partner’s catatonic eyes were glued to the open journal in his hands.

‘Carlos. What have you got?’

Garcia leaned back on his chair and drew a deep breath. ‘Listen to this.’ He flipped back a page.

‘
It’s very late and I can’t sleep. I woke up from the dream maybe an hour ago, and this time it felt more real than ever. I threw up all over myself
.

‘
I’m scared
.

‘
Once I read somewhere that one way to extradite fear is to write it down. It’s supposed to symbolize the act of pushing it out of your mind
.’

Garcia looked at Hunter.

‘It’s a well-known technique,’ he confirmed.

Garcia flipped to the next page and continued reading.

‘
This is the first time I’m writing about this
.

‘
I didn’t always have my faith. When I was young, I thought I was invincible. Me and my gang of friends
.

‘
We terrorized everyone, from school students to teachers and families in our neighborhood. We thought we were cool – real badasses
.’ Garcia’s lips stretched into a thin, nervous smile. He found it hard to think of Father Fabian as a ‘badass’.

‘
One evening, we were hanging out by the park as we always did. We were bored. We’d been drinking since the afternoon and some of us were high. Someone saw a stray dog rummaging through a trashcan. It was a skinny old mutt with thinning gray fur. Its body was covered in dried blood scabs as if it’d been fighting. Suddenly, one of the guys in the gang jumped to his feet and started chasing the dog. That got us all going. It was like we were possessed. We were waving our clenched fists in the air and yelling “get him
. . .
get him”. There was something wrong with one of its legs. It couldn’t run properly, so it hopped away, trying to escape
.’

Hunter placed both elbows on his desk, leaning forward.

‘
It didn’t take us long to catch up with the frightened dog.’
Garcia carried on reading
. ‘We cornered it against a wall of hedges. The poor thing was shivering all over. Too weak and scared to put up a fight, it just lowered its head and its sad eyes, as if begging us to leave it be
.

‘
I tried telling everyone to leave the poor thing alone. It was only looking for some food, but no one listened
.’ He paused for a deep breath before continuing.

‘
One of the guys in the group bent down and offered the dog his hand. The trembling mutt lifted its head and gingerly took a few steps forward. When it got close enough, my friend grabbed it by the fur on its head and violently lifted it off the ground. Its tiny body kicked and writhed in the air. Everyone could see the dog was in pain. It was so weak that it couldn’t even bark. It tried, but the sound that came out was more like a petrified shriek
.’ Garcia stretched his neck awkwardly, as if trying to fight off an incoming migraine.