The Executioner (36 page)

Captain Blake’s cell phone rang and they all tensed. She moved to a corner of the room, and her conversation didn’t last longer than a few seconds.

‘You’re in,’ she said to Hunter as she rejoined the group. ‘Clayton pulled a few strings and got you a prisoner’s interview with Peter Elder in CCI first thing tomorrow morning, seven o’clock.’ Her gaze returned to Darnell Douglas’s body. ‘We’ve gotta find the motherfucker who did this, and fast.’

After spending most of the night at the new crime scene with Doctor Winston, Hunter left for the California Correctional Institution State Prison in Tehachapi at 4:30 a.m. Garcia, on the other hand, had headed back to Parker Center at around 10:00 p.m. Hunter had asked him to come up with everything he could on Darnell Douglas, their new victim.

The information Garcia had gathered was patchy, but good enough to supply Hunter with what he was looking for.

Darnell hadn’t gone to Compton or Gardena High, but as a teenager he’d lived just two streets away from Brett Stewart Nichols. That information flooded Hunter with excitement. His street gang theory was starting to come together.

Hunter had watched as Doctor Winston and two other crime-lab agents went through the laborious and painstaking process of extracting the two hundred and fifty blood-filled syringes from Darnell’s body. Even though he wasn’t expecting any results, Hunter knew that each syringe had to be tested for fingerprints. The doctor told him that he’d have the autopsy results by the time Hunter was done with his interview in CCI.

The evening had started slowly and, as it progressed, all hope of it picking up was evaporating fast. Honey had been walking her beat in West Hollywood for the best part of three hours. So far, she’d managed to make only twenty-five measly bucks by blowing a hairy, curry-stinking driver on the backseat of his cab. Customers were getting harder to find. Street prostitution was risky and it paid badly, but for some older girls, or the ones who were too hooked on something to join one of the many escort services, massage parlors or named pimps scattered all over Los Angeles, there was no other alternative.

At twenty-one, Honey couldn’t really be considered too old, but seven years of heavy heroin abuse had destroyed her once-beautiful features. She was too skinny, with sunken eyes, pitted skin, cracked lips and a distant, dozy gaze.

Honey was born Aisha Kemp in South Pasadena. Her beautiful golden-brown skin earned her the nickname ‘Honey’ even before she was able to walk. But if it’s true that children learn by copying what they see, her fate had been sealed very early in her life.

Her father was an alcoholic who’d smoke crack cocaine in their living room while rocking baby Honey to sleep. Her absent mother was a street hooker who’d do anything for her next fix. The rows in their house were violent and constant and no one cared when hungry Honey cried. Honey experienced her first hangover before her tenth birthday, and got high for the first time just after it. At thirteen she lost her virginity to a group of street kids, and by the age of fourteen needles had become her new best friends.

Just like her mother, Honey quickly found out that her habit was an expensive one. When she told him she had no money, her street dealer offered her a hit in exchange for her spreading her legs for him and his friends. She simply smiled and nodded.

Suddenly, at the age of fifteen, Honey was propelled into a whole different world. A world where people were prepared to pay for the pleasures she could give them. She was a fast learner, and one of the first things she learned was that the fewer limits she had, the more customers and money she could get. Honey soon gained a reputation for being game for just about anything – pain, filth, submission, domination, abuse, humiliation, nothing was ever too bizarre. But that lifestyle, together with her excessive drinking and daily hits, took its toll on her body in just six years.

By the age of twenty, her skin had lost its smoothness and glow; her weight had plummeted into an almost anorexic state and her hair was so thin she couldn’t go anywhere without a wig. Even with all the makeup she applied, no one would really consider her an attractive woman. The big payers didn’t search the streets for company. They called agencies and sex dealers from the comfort of their hotel rooms or the back of their limousines. At twenty-one, Honey was left with only the drunk, dirty and stingy street sex seekers.

The drizzling rain only made matters worse, and Honey was already accepting that twenty-five dollars was all she’d be taking home today. Not enough for her daily fix, but she was hoping maybe Cliff would be willing to work something out. She knew exactly what he liked.

She had just re-applied her red lipstick and kissed the excess onto a paper tissue when she noticed a man in his forties checking her out from across the street. She smiled but got no reply. The man looked away timidly. Money bells started ringing in Honey’s ears as she recognized the man for what he was – an out-of-town tourist. She waited for him to make eye contact with her again, which he did in five seconds flat. Honey was an expert at the flirting game, and within a minute she’d gotten the inviting smile she was looking for. She took off her coat, perked up her perfectly round breasts and checked her cleavage before crossing the road.

‘Hello,’ she said in her lilting twang as she approached the tourist. ‘I’m Honey.’ She offered her hand.

‘Hello, Honey.’

‘Wow, you have fantastically strong hands,’ she said in an overly seductive voice. ‘I bet you’re all muscular under those clothes, aren’t you?’

He tilted his head sideways gently, too shy to agree.

‘I’d love it if you showed it to me.’ A sexy wink. ‘Maybe I can show you what I have under my clothes too.’ She gave him a little twirl. ‘Would you like that?’

‘I think so.’ He smiled, crinkles appearing in the corners of his eyes. ‘I’ve only got a hundred dollars.’ He looked embarrassed.

Ye s
. She reached for his hand. ‘A hundred dollars can buy you a lotta pleasure with Honey, babe.’

The room was illuminated only by a tacky, pink-neon
Playboy
bunny lamp, and everything about it was cheap. The flowery wallpaper, the dark chocolate carpet, the tasteless prints on the walls, the dirty drapes that hung from the windows and the bed that looked like it’d cave in if one more couple had sex on it.

‘I’m just gonna go into the bathroom and get cleaned up, babe,’ Honey said, running a hand softly over the tourist’s cheek. ‘When I come out, I hope you won’t be wearing these many clothes. I know I won’t be.’

Honey counted her money again. She knew better than to get paid at the end of it all. She made that mistake once, and all she got for her troubles was a black eye and a bloody lip.

She fixed her wig, checked her makeup and got rid of her clothes. Her underwear wasn’t new. She couldn’t even remember the last time she bought new underwear, but it was clean and she knew she wouldn’t have it on for much longer. ‘Let’s go to work, girl,’ she said to her reflection, pouting her lips.

The tourist was sitting at the edge of the bed still fully dressed. His hands between his knees, his chin against his chest.

‘What’s the matter, babe?’ Honey knelt down in front of him.

He kept his eyes on the floor, too embarrassed to look at her. ‘I . . . I’ve never done this before.’

Honey smiled and placed a hand on his leg, caressing it gently. ‘Don’t worry, babe. I have all the experience you need.’

‘Do you mind if I go get cleaned up a little?’

‘Of course not, hun. Take your time. I’ll wait for you out here.’ She shot him a sensual wink. ‘With nothing on.’

Honey was in bed, naked, with her back against the uncomfortable metal headboard when the man came out of the bathroom. She had already rubbed and pinched her nipples so they were hard and pointing up. She always thought they were one of her best features. But her expression changed as the tourist stepped back into the room. He was wearing what to her seemed like a long, clear-plastic raincoat, and nothing else. She also noticed his massive erection.

‘Wow, babe. That’s quite kinky.’ She sat up. ‘I like kinky.’

‘I’m here for you, Honey.’ The man’s shy voice and demeanor had vanished. His new tone covered Honey’s whole body in goose bumps. She got out of bed and he took a step towards her. As he moved, the pink-neon light reflected on something in his right hand, and she froze. She’d seen that kind of glint before. She tried to scream, but he was too fast for her, bridging the space between them in a flash and covering her mouth with a powerful hand. He pressed his body hard against hers, and she felt his excitement brushing her thigh. Her terrified eyes found his, and the evil she saw in them made her wet herself.

‘You’ll have to kneel and pray,’ he murmured, and she shivered in his arms. Only this morning she’d read about him in the paper. They called him ‘The Slasher’.

He licked his lips slowly as he raised the blade to her neck and whispered in her ear. ‘I’m your salvation, Honey.’

Hunter sat patiently at the metal table inside the small, all-white, private visiting room in the California Correctional Institution State Prison in Tehachapi. He heard the shuffle of chains being dragged across the corridor floor outside before the door to the room opened. The first person to walk in was a Hulk of a guard. His muscles about to rip through the fabric of his tightly stretched XXL uniform. His size dwarfing the person behind him, a pale-skinned, average-height man dressed all in white.

The same piece of chain that bound the man’s hands together in front of his body ran a loop around his waist and continued down to his ankles, giving him just enough length to perform a geisha step. His hair was cut short, but Hunter noticed it was graying at the temples. His lips weren’t as full as they were on the yearbook picture. A badly healed scar graced his left cheek. His eyes were still cat-like, but they’d lost all the menace in them. He stopped at the door and frowned as he saw Hunter.

‘Who the fuck is this cherry, Dubal?’ he asked Hulk guard, who shrugged indifferently before ushering the prisoner inside and sitting him across the table from his visitor.

‘If you need anything, I’ll be right outside,’ Dubal said before allowing the thick door to slam shut behind him.

Peter Elder sat with his hands on his lap, his chin low and his shoulders slumped forward, but his eyes studied Hunter like a predator studied its prey.

‘You must be a very important cop,’ he said in a low voice.

Hunter was leaning back on his chair. His posture relaxed. ‘Why’s that?’

Elder smiled, revealing badly cared-for teeth. ‘This ain’t normal visitation hours; this ain’t the normal visitation room. That’s why I’m all chained up. Usually they just cuff my hands behind my back, but it’s a long walk from the Security Housing Unit and they don’t take any chances in here. You’ve gotta be somebody with weight and want something from me real bad to pull this room.’

‘My name’s Robert Hunter. I’m a detective with the Los Angeles Homicide Special Section.’ Hunter showed him his badge.

‘I don’t give a shit about who you are or where you come from, cop. What I wanna know is what the fuck you want with me?’

Hunter studied the man in front of him for several silent seconds. ‘Your help,’ he said calmly.

Peter laughed loudly and placed his hands on the table. His chain rattling loudly against the metal. ‘Why the fuck would I wanna help you, cop?’

Hunter understood that among inmates there was an unwritten rule that they should never help a cop. To them it was like betraying a brotherhood, snitching, jumping sides, and if other inmates found out, the consequences would be lethal. If Hunter wanted Peter Elder’s help, he had to play his cards just right.

‘Not help me. Help your friends.’

Elder’s eyebrows arched. ‘Friends?’ He chuckled. ‘Have you been smoking, cop? I’ve been in here for fourteen years, all of them spent in SHU.’ He talked with no modulation. Every word was delivered in the same monotone as the last. ‘I don’t socialize. I’m isolated from everything and everyone. Even my mail is restricted. All the friends I have live inside my head, cop.’

‘The friends I’m talking about go way back. Way before you got in here.’

Elder looked up, interested.

‘Do you remember a kid from Compton High called Brett Stewart Nichols?’

Elder leaned back in his chair with a hint of a smile. For an instant his gaze became distant, as if the past was playing before his eyes. When he spoke, there was a certain lift in his tone. ‘This is about Brett?’

‘Partially.’

‘And that means what, exactly?’

Hunter took his time as he told Elder a slightly modified version of what had happened. ‘We believe this killer is after your old group of friends.’

‘From Compton High?’

‘Not necessarily.’

‘Would you fucking stop talking in riddles, cop. It’s messing with my head. What does “not necessarily” mean?’

From a plastic folder Hunter produced the Gardena High photo with the four girls. ‘These girls weren’t students at Compton High.’ He pushed the picture across the table. ‘Do you recognize any of them?’