The Night Stalker (31 page)

As Coleman had said, the majority of the piece concentrated on Martina Greene, the daughter of the old A & E TV regional director. The whole thing played more like an advertisement than anything else. Besides Martina, Laura and Kelly, only two other female painters appeared in the documentary – one of them, just like Martina, was naturally blonde. The other one was much older – in her fifties. Hunter checked with both of them, neither had seen nor spoken to Laura or Kelly since. Neither of them recognized James Smith from the picture Hunter showed them either.

Hunter’s team was checking the background of every single person whose name was on the
Canvas Beauty
documentary credits list. So far, everyone had checked out, but the list was long.

The other three documentaries Hunter and Garcia had obtained from the A & E TV network featured several painters from all over the country – none of them brunette females in their thirties.

Doctor Hove’s lab had confirmed that the dust retrieved from under Kelly Jensen’s nails had come from a mixture of mortar and red clay, consistent with common wall bricks. That meant that she could’ve been kept absolutely anywhere, from a self-built underground bunker to an inside room or an outside garage.

Hunter’s traffic camera gamble didn’t pay off either. The closest road camera to Kelly Jensen’s art studio was a mile away. Her Trans-Am was never spotted on the night she was taken. The South Bureau Traffic Operations’ captain had explained that most of the inner-city cameras were only infraction activated – like going through a red light or breaking the speed limit. They didn’t film twenty-four hours a day. The ones that did were strategically positioned on main roads, avenues and interstates. Their principal function was to alert Traffic Divisions about congestion hotspots and accidents.

Early the morning after Kelly’s disappearance, a camera in Santa Monica picked up her car as it traveled down San Vicente Boulevard going west, in the direction of her apartment building. But the cameras don’t monitor the whole of the boulevard. The vehicle was lost as it approached the final stretch that led to the beachfront.

As Hunter had requested, Forensics had picked up the car from Santa Monica and gone over every inch of its interior and boot. The hairs found matched to Kelly Jensen. The few dark fibers retrieved from the driver’s seat matched the ones found on the wall behind the large canvas in Laura Mitchell’s apartment. They came from the same skullcap. There were no fingerprints.

It was close to midnight, and for the first time since the beginning of spring the sky had clouded over. Menacing rain clouds and strong winds were closing in from the north, bringing with them the unmistakable smell of wet grass and turf. Hunter was sitting in his living room, reading through reports from his research team into Laura, Kelly and Katia’s professional and personal lives. Their backgrounds were totally different from each other. Other than physically having the same overall look and being an artist by profession, the team hadn’t found any other links between the three women.

Laura had come from a success-story family. Her father, Roy Mitchell, started his life slum-poor. Having run away from violent and abusive parents when young, most of the food Roy ate in his early years came from trash cans in the back alleys of hotels and restaurants. He was only fourteen when he started selling discarded secondhand books he bought from hotel staff. By the age of eighteen he’d opened his first bookstore, and from there business prospered. His autobiography –
Back Alley Books
– topped the US non-fiction book chart for twelve weeks, and spent a further thirty-three in the top twenty-five. He married the young lawyer who helped him set up his book business, Denise, at the age of twenty. Laura was the younger of their two children.

Kelly, on the other hand, had had a pretty unadventurous life. Born into a small, church-going family in Montana, she was destined to become just another Treasure State housewife, tending to her husband, kids and garden. Her arts schoolteacher recognized her talent when it came to painting, and for years kept on telling her that she shouldn’t walk away from her gift.

Katia came from the richest of all three families, but she never took anything for granted. She became a violinist of her own accord, and no matter how much money her family had, talent and dedication can’t be bought. Everything she’d achieved, she did it through her own hard work.

Hunter put the report down and stretched his arms high above his head. From his small bar, he poured another double dose of single malt. He needed something comforting and rich on the palate this time. His eyes rested on the bottle of Balblair 1997 and his mind was made. He dropped a single cube of ice in his glass and heard it crack as the dense, honey-colored liquid hit it. He brought the glass to his nose and breathed in the sweet, vanilla oak vapors for a moment. He took a small sip, allowing the alcohol to reach every corner of his mouth before swallowing it. If heaven had a taste, this would be pretty close to it.

Hunter stared out his window at a city that he had never really understood, and that was getting crazier and crazier by the day. How could anyone understand the madness that went around in this town?

A thin sheet of rain had started falling. Hunter’s gaze dropped to the files and photographs scattered on his coffee table. Laura and Kelly stared back at him with terrified pleading eyes, their ragdoll smiles grotesquely outlined by rough stitches and black thread.

Knock, knock.

Hunter frowned as his eyes first shot towards his front room door and then quickly to his watch. Way too late for visitors. Besides, he couldn’t even remember the last time someone knocked on his door.

Knock, knock, knock.
A lot more urgent this time.

Hunter put down his glass, grabbed his gun from his holster, which was hanging from the back of a chair, and approached his front door. There was no peephole. Hunter hated them: they provided any assailant with a very easy kill shot. Just wait until the lens darkens and put a bullet through it. Training and instinct told him to stay to the right of the doorframe, out of reach of the door swing. That would avoid him being slammed in the face if anyone kicked the door in as he unlocked it. It would also put Hunter out of the direct blast path of a powerful weapon, should anyone be waiting to blow a hole through the door.

He undid the main lock and pulled the door back, letting it rest, fractionally open, on the security chain. From the outside, only part of his face was visible through the gap.

‘Expecting the bad guys?’ Whitney Myers asked with an amused grin.

She was wearing a cropped, black leather biker’s jacket with an AC/DC T-shirt underneath. Her blue jeans were faded and torn at her left knee, a look that was perfectly complemented by her silver-tip cowboy boots. Hunter looked her up and down. He was not amused.

‘Are you gonna invite me in or shoot me with that gun you’re holding behind your back?’

Hunter closed the door, undid the security chain and pulled it back open again. He was also wearing faded jeans – though his weren’t torn – but not much else.

It was Myers’ turn to look him up and down. ‘Well, somebody is a gym bunny.’ Her eyes paused at the tight muscles of his abdomen before slowly moving up to his chest, making sure she grabbed a good look of his biceps, and then finally back to his face.

‘Did you get lost on your way to a rock gig or something?’ He stood on the doorway, his gun still in his right hand. ‘What in the world are you doing here . . . and at this time of night?’

As her gaze moved past Hunter and into his apartment, Myers’ expression changed. ‘I’m sorry . . . are you . . . with someone?’

Hunter allowed the embarrassing moment to stretch for a couple of seconds before shaking his head.

‘No.’

He stepped back and fully opened the door, giving her a silent invitation.

Hunter’s front room was oddly shaped, with furniture that looked to have belonged to the Salvation Army. There were four mismatched chairs around a square, wooden table that he used as his computer desk. A laptop, together with a printer and a small table lamp were crammed onto it. A few feet away from the far wall was a beaten-up black sofa. The coffee table in front it was overflowing with pictures and police reports. Across the room Myers saw a glass bar with an impressive collection of single malt Scotch.

‘I can see you’re not a man who cares for extravagant decoration.’

Hunter gathered the pictures and papers from the coffee table into a pile and moved them out of the way. He reached for a white T-shirt that was on the back of one of the chairs and put it on.

Myers looked away, hiding her disappointment. She approached the dark wood sideboard to the right of the glass bar where a few lonely picture frames were arranged. Two of the photographs were black and white and looked to be old. Both were of the same smiling couple. Hunter looked like his father, but he had his mother’s understanding eyes, Myers noted. Most of the other photographs showed Hunter and another man, heavier and about two inches taller. From Myers’ research she knew he was Hunter’s old RHD partner, Scott Wilson, who’d died in a boat accident a few years ago. Two other photographs showed Hunter receiving commendations from the Mayor of Los Angeles and the Governor of California. The last picture, the one hiding right at the back was of a younger-looking Hunter dressed in a graduation gown and holding a university diploma. He looked like he’d just conquered the world. His father was proudly standing by his side. His smile could’ve brightened a dark day.

With his arms folded, Hunter stood by the window, waiting.

Myers’ eyes moved from the pictures to the glass bar and the neatly arranged bottles. ‘Do you mind if I have a drink?’

‘If you promise to tell me why you’re here, sure, go right ahead.’

She poured herself a double dose of Balblair 1997 and dropped a single cube of ice in it.

Hunter’s face remained impartial but he was impressed. ‘Good choice.’

Myers had a sip of her drink. ‘Do you have a CD player?’

Hunter’s eyes narrowed. ‘Why? Are you suddenly in the mood for some
Back in Black
?’

She smiled and her gaze moved momentarily down to her shirt. ‘That
is
my favorite AC/DC album, but we can listen to it later if you like. Right now, you’ve gotta listen to this.’ Myers pulled a CD case from her handbag. ‘’Cause you won’t believe me if I’d told you.’

The rain was coming down a little harder now, drumming against the window just behind Hunter. The wind had also picked up.

‘Give me a sec,’ he said before disappearing down a small corridor. Moments later he returned with a portable stereo system.

‘I found this on the Internet, almost by chance,’ Myers said as Hunter cleared the table, placed the stereo on it and plugged it in.

‘What is it?’

‘An interview.’

Hunter paused and looked up. ‘With Katia?’

Myers nodded and handed him the CD. ‘It was first aired by KUSC Radio. It’s a dedicated classical music FM station.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Yeah, I know it. It’s run by the University of Southern California.’

Myers pulled a face. ‘I didn’t know you were into classical music.’

‘I’m not, but I read a lot.’

Myers moved on.

‘The entire interview is about an hour long with a few classical pieces thrown in so the whole thing isn’t just talk. In the first half, Katia is talking to the radio DJ, answering questions he puts to her. In the second half, she’s answering questions that were phoned or emailed in by listeners.’ She tilted her head to one side. ‘I’m not that cruel, so I’m not gonna make you listen to the whole thing. I’ve copied only the important bits.’

Hunter slotted the CD in, pressed play, and adjusted the volume.

‘Welcome back. This is KUSC Radio, the best in classical music in Los Angeles and California.’ The DJ’s voice sounded exactly like what most people would expect the voice of a classical music station DJ to sound like – velvety and soothing. ‘We’re back with our special guest this afternoon, someone most of you will need no introduction to. The Los Angeles Philharmonic concertmistress, Katia Kudrov.’

A small section of a violin solo faded in for several seconds and then out again.

‘OK, just before the break we talked about your early beginnings and how much you struggled to dominate your instrument, but now we’re moving onto something a little more personal – love and romance. Is that OK?’

There was a small pause, as if Katia was considering something.

‘Yeah, sure, as long as you don’t make me blush.’ Her voice was delicate but not fragile. There was confidence in her tone.

‘I promise I won’t. OK, you describe yourself as a hopeless romantic. Why?’

A timid chuckle. ‘’Cause I am, really. And here comes the first blush. My favorite movie is
Pretty Woman.
’ Giggles.

‘Yeah, I’d say that’s reason enough to blush,’ the DJ laughed.

‘I’m like a little girl when it comes to love. I know this might sound naïve, but I’d love for that kind of fairy tale to exist.’