Carter Chris - The Death Sculptor

As Hunter approached the desk, he saw that the fingers that had been placed inside the book-box had been carved and were bent out of shape. Two were hanging out the sides. The other one had been placed at the far end with its tip protruding upwards. The inside of the box was flooded with blood.

At the opposite end of the desk, Littlewood’s right arm, the one with the shorter ‘walking fingers’, had been positioned at a strange angle, facing the bookshelf on the corner. Pieces of his carved-out thigh had been placed a couple of feet away from the hand.

Doctor Hove and Mike Brindle, her most senior lead-forensic agent, were standing to the right of the desk. They had been discussing something in a hushed voice when both detectives had entered the room.

Hunter paused as he came closer to the desk. Just like the previous two sculptures, the mess of body parts and blood made no sense. The use of everyday office props made it all the more confusing. He took a step to his right and bent down to have a better look at the book-box.

‘It’s the same killer all right,’ Doctor Hove said. ‘And again, he reserved a whole new treatment for this new victim.’

Hunter kept his eyes on the sculpture.

‘What do you mean?’ Garcia asked.

The doctor stepped away from the desk. ‘With the first victim, the killer pumped him full of drugs to stabilize his heart rate and normalize the blood flow, trying to keep him from bleeding out too fast, but no anesthetizing drug. The killer tried to keep him alive for as long as possible, but due to his precarious condition, death came quite quickly. With the second victim, you will remember, the killer used a new approach.’

‘The severed spinal cord,’ Garcia said.

‘Precisely. The killer deliberately took away the victim’s sense of feeling, numbing his pain. His anguish was different – psychological. He was made to watch his own body parts being severed from his body. He could see he was dying, but he couldn’t feel it.’

‘And with his third victim?’ Hunter asked.

Doctor Hove looked away, as if scared to even think about it.

Seventy-Seven

Mike Brindle circled the desk and approached the two detectives. He was in his late-forties, stick thin and doorframe tall, with a full head of peppery hair and a pointy nose. He’d worked with Hunter and Garcia on more cases than he could remember. ‘We’re very sure that this victim died before he was dismembered, Robert,’ he said, taking over from Doctor Hove.

Hunter’s stare reverted back to the mutilated torso on the leather chair. ‘Intentionally?’

Brindle nodded. ‘It looks that way.’

Garcia looked confused for an instant.

‘From on-location analysis, it seems the killer made him suffer as much as he could before amputating any major body parts and causing severe blood loss. There are several smaller cuts to his torso and limbs. Deep enough to hurt, but not enough to kill. His left nipple looks to have been sawed off with a not-so-sharp instrument. His right nipple was severely burnt.’

That was what was different about the skin around his right nipple, Hunter realized. The leathery texture of the skin – burn marks, but they didn’t look to have been caused by fire.

‘Blood spillage suggests that the smaller cuts were all done while the victim was still alive,’ Brindle carried on.

‘But there is a lot of blood here,’ Garcia said, looking around the room. ‘This didn’t all come from small cuts.’

‘No,’ Doctor Hove confirmed. ‘The autopsy will tell me the correct chain of events, but if I had to venture a guess, I’d say the killer had all the fun he wanted to have before severing the first limb, which looks to have been the right leg. His heart was probably still beating. But if you think back to the previous two victims, the killer went out of his way to contain the bleeding – drugs, natural remedies, tying off arteries . . .’ She shook her head as her gaze moved back to the body on the chair. ‘Not here.’

‘The amputations on the first two victims were very clean,’ Brindle said. ‘These weren’t. Judging by the pattern on the skin, and the little we can tell from examining the bones in these conditions, the amputation incisions were performed brutally, in a hacking manner. The ones to both arms . . .’ He paused and ran his gloved hand over his nose and mouth. ‘It looks like he cut them almost all the way through, lost patience, and then simply ripped them off the body.’

Garcia’s eyes widened a touch.

‘I have no doubt the victim was already dead by then,’ Doctor Hove added.

Hunter’s gaze refocused on the floor and the several footprints. They were mainly by the door. ‘Has anything been touched?’

Doctor Hove gave him a timid shrug. ‘LAPD has tried to track down every curious office worker in this building who decided to have a peek at this. So far, they’ve all said they haven’t touched anything, and neither have the detectives and officers who have been in here; but it’s hard to tell.’ She faced the sculpture again. ‘We don’t really know what this is supposed to be, or look like. We can’t tell if anything has been moved out of place since it was constructed.’ The expectancy in her tone didn’t go unnoticed by Hunter. ‘I haven’t used a flashlight,’ she continued. ‘That’s your show.’

Garcia looked at Hunter as if to ask, How do you want to play it?

Hunter knew they couldn’t move the sculpture from that desk without disturbing it. As he had told Alice, the killer had been very meticulous about the first sculpture, but less so about the second one. He had no idea what the killer was aiming for with this third one, and something was telling him they were running out of time – fast. They couldn’t wait for the forensics lab to create another replica. ‘Do we have a flashlight?’ he asked.

‘Right here,’ Brindle said, handing him a medium-sized Maglite.

‘Let’s have a look,’ Hunter replied, taking the flashlight. He looked back at what remained of Littlewood’s body on the chair. In the second crime scene, the victim’s decapitated head had been placed in the exact location where the killer wanted the beam of light to be shone from, so that his work could be seen as he intended. One of Littlewood’s eyes was missing, but the remaining one was looking straight at the sculpture. That had to be a hint. Hunter checked the floor again.

‘Has all this been photographed, Doc?’ There was no way he could assume the same position as Littlewood’s one-eyed gaze without stepping on some blood, and maybe rolling the chair with the body a little out of the way.

Doctor Hove didn’t have to ask. She had followed Hunter’s stare and knew what was on his mind. ‘Yes, it’s all OK,’ she replied.

The window shades were already drawn shut. Brindle killed the strong forensic power lights while Hunter positioned himself directly in front of the body, being careful to level the flashlight with Littlewood’s line of sight.

Everyone seemed to take in a deep breath at the same time.

Hunter steadied himself and turned the flashlight on.

Seventy-Eight

Everyone had moved over to where Hunter was standing. Garcia was to his right, Doctor Hove and Brindle to his left. All eyes were on the images projected onto the wall behind the sculpture. Brindle shifted nervously on his feet.

‘This is freaky,’ he whispered weakly. When Doctor Hove had told him about the shadow images cast by the sculptures, he’d imagined something very creepy; but being there and seeing it with his own eyes was a whole new ball game. It had been a long time since he’d felt that uncomfortable at a crime scene.

Instinctively everyone squinted at the images, but no one had to ask. These were the clearest images so far – no animals, no horned creatures.