Carter Chris - The Death Sculptor

The captain’s attention moved to Hunter. ‘Why?’

‘We don’t know.’

‘But the killer hasn’t done that to any of the two previous victims. The amputations were the torture. Why treat this one differently?’

‘We don’t know, Captain,’ Hunter reaffirmed. ‘His anger could be escalating, but most probably he’s individualizing.’

‘And that means what?’

‘That each one of his victims will inevitably spark a whole new group of feelings inside him. Those feelings can, and will, be altered by the victim’s reaction. Some victims will be too scared to talk back. Some might think that, if they cooperate, or try to reason with the killer, it could play to their advantage. Some will try to fight back, scream, do something . . . anything, except give up. But as individuals, we all react differently to fear and danger.’

‘And the way this victim reacted might’ve really pissed the killer off,’ Captain Blake concluded.

Hunter nodded. ‘If he had a chance, and if he kept his nerve, I’m sure that Littlewood tried to talk to the killer as a psychologist, tried to dissuade him from what he was about to do. If the killer caught a hint of a patronizing tone in Littlewood’s voice, it could’ve set off an anger bomb inside him. We don’t know what went on in that room prior to the murder, captain. What we do know is that this crime scene carried a lot more anger than the previous two.’

‘More anger?’ Captain Blake looked at the two previous sets of crime-scene photographs. ‘How’s that possible?’

‘The cuts and bruises to the victim’s body suggests that the killer wanted to extend the victim’s suffering. He wanted a very slow death. One that he wouldn’t be able to achieve or control if he’d gone for the amputations too early. Littlewood’s secretary left the office at around seven-thirty in the evening. We can’t confirm it yet, but I’d say the killer got to him not much later than that. He had at least ten uninterrupted hours with the victim.’ Hunter pointed to the photograph of Littlewood’s body on the chair. ‘And he tortured him for most of them.’

‘And no one heard a peep?

‘It’s a small building full of small offices,’ Garcia replied. ‘Almost everyone had already gone home. The last one to leave was a graphic designer, whose office was on the first floor. He left at eight fifteen. The building has no CCTV security in place.’

‘And if Doctor Hove’s suspicions are correct,’ Hunter carried on, ‘the killer changed his MO for the amputations as well.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘In the first two victims, the amputation incisions were very professional,’ Garcia explained. ‘But not with the third victim. Doctor Hove said that there were indications of hacking and tearing. A butcher’s job, not a doctor’s one.’

Captain Blake let go of a worried breath. ‘OK, so what the hell does this new sculpture give us? I’m assuming there’s a new shadow image behind it.’

‘No,’ Garcia said.

‘What?’

‘There are two.’

Eighty-One

Captain Blake looked at both detectives but there was no surprise in her eyes. After what they’ve already got from this killer, hardly anything would surprise her now.

‘We’re not sure if the killer left us two different sculptures, or one sculpture in two parts,’ Garcia said. ‘He also did something else differently this time. He used office objects to complete his work.’ Garcia proceeded to explain what they’d found on Nathan Littlewood’s desk. While he did so, Captain Blake and Alice studied the new sculpture photographs in silence. When Garcia told them that the killer had extracted one of Littlewood’s eyes, seemingly for the sole reason of indicating how one part of the sculpture should be looked at, Alice felt something dislodge in her stomach.

‘We looked at this part of the sculpture first,’ Garcia said, indicating the sculpture photograph on the board. ‘And this is what we got.’ He pinned the first shadow-image photograph onto the board, directly underneath the one belonging to its corresponding sculpture.

Captain Blake and Alice stepped closer to study the picture.

‘So what the hell is this now?’ the captain said, irritation peppering her words. ‘Someone watching someone else having a bath? Has the killer gone perv now?’

‘Or someone inside a box,’ Hunter said.

‘That’s what I was about to say,’ Alice suggested, addressing Hunter. ‘I understand what you said about the level of detail of the second sculpture being lower than the first, but it was still high.’ She pointed to the photograph of the new shadow image. ‘This isn’t a bathtub. There’s a lid.’ She compared it to the photograph of the actual sculpture. ‘If the killer wanted us to think it was a bathtub, he could’ve easily ripped the lid from the original box off.’

Those had been Hunter’s exact thoughts. If it was part of the image, there was a reason for it.

‘So it looks like someone staring at someone else lying inside a box,’ the captain corrected herself. ‘Any clues as to what this might really mean?’

‘Not yet,’ Hunter replied.

‘So it’s just another meaningless clue. Another piece of this endless puzzlebox?’

Hunter said nothing.

The captain stepped back, fidgeting. ‘So what’s the second image we got?’

With the use of the crime-scene photographs, Garcia explained that the sculptures had been placed at opposite ends of the desk. By positioning the victim’s head and his extracted eye at the appropriate spots, the killer had guided the light beam that would reveal the shadow images, like a movie director.

‘This is what we got from the second one.’ Garcia pinned the second shadow image photograph to the board.

Since the second hand sculpture was very similar to the first one, it was no surprise that the shadows cast by them were almost identical. No one had any doubts that it also depicted a person, but this time, because the killer had severed the ‘walking fingers’ at the first phalange, it looked like that person was either very short, or kneeling down. The way the thumb had been positioned – forward, with its broken tip pointing up – it looked like the person had his or her arm raised, pointing at the sky. On the floor, directly in front of the figure, there were large pieces of something unrecognizable. Their shadows were created by the carved out pieces from the victim’s thigh.

‘What the hell? He’s fucking with us, that’s what he’s doing,’ Captain Blake said, after an uneasy silence. ‘What the hell is all this now? A midget? A child? Someone kneeling down? Praying? Pointing at the sky?’ Her attention went back to the previous shadow-image photograph. ‘So we have someone staring at someone else inside a box . . .’ She stabbed her finger against the newest picture on the board, ‘. . . and a midget, a child, or someone kneeling down as if worshiping something. What does any of that have to do with this new victim?’

Everyone knew it was a rhetorical question.

‘I’ll tell you what . . .’ the captain carried on, giving no one a chance to reply anyway, ‘nothing. He’s playing us, giving us animals, horned monsters, wall messages, rock songs, and now this crap. He’s wasting our time, because he knows we’ll spend hours and hours trying to figure out what all of this junk means.’ She waved her hand in a circular motion to indicate the entire pictures board. ‘Meanwhile, he’s walking the streets, planning his next murder, staking out his next victim, and laughing at us all. Shadow puppets? We are the puppets here, and he’s manipulating us in whatever way he likes.’

Eighty-Two

During the afternoon, together with Garcia and Captain Blake, Hunter had faced a press conference that seemed more like a firing squad than anything else. Reporters had talked to everyone in Nathan Littlewood’s office building, and the stories they’d got ranged from dismemberment and decapitation, to ritualistic, real-voodoo-doll creation and cannibalism. One woman had even mentioned the word vampire .