Carter Chris - The Death Sculptor

Uneasiness took over the room.

Hunter gave everyone time to consider his theory.

‘Maybe the person isn’t dead,’ Alice said. ‘Maybe you’re right, maybe there was a fight, but instead of dying the victim was physically, or even mentally impaired. Maybe after all these years, that victim is back, and he wants revenge.’

Hunter shook his head. ‘No, the victim died.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because the killer tells us.’

Ninety-Nine

Hunter drew their attention to the last two shadow-image photographs on the board. The ones cast by the two-part sculpture left in Nathan Littlewood’s office.

‘In the last crime scene, the killer left us two shadow images,’ he said, ‘but I think we read them in reverse order. This should be the first one of the two.’ He indicated the image created by Littlewood’s right arm and hand – the one that looked like someone kneeling down with his arm lifted up above his head, maybe praying. In front of the kneeling-down figure were small pieces of something. Their shadows had been created by the flesh sections carved out of Littlewood’s thigh.

Garcia shivered. Something that felt like an electric shock started at the back of his neck and spread throughout his body at incredible speed. Hunter didn’t have to explain. He saw it himself.

‘Oh my God,’ he said, slightly tilting his head to one side. ‘We never figured out why the killer left us two images in one crime-scene. And we specifically struggled to understand that one. It looked like someone on his knees, praying or something, with several objects scattered around on the floor in front of him. It’s not that at all.’ He drew a deep breath and held it for a long instant before letting it out slowly. ‘That’s someone chopping a body into pieces.’

Garcia’s words bounced off the walls like a crazy rubber ball.

Captain Blake stood absolutely still. For a moment, she almost lost the ability to blink. ‘So you think that this group of friends got into a punch-up, beat somebody to death, and cut the body up into pieces to dispose of it?’

Hunter nodded and indicated the last shadow-image photograph they had – part two of the sculpture found in Nathan Littlewood’s office – the one that looked like someone staring at someone else lying inside a box.

‘They placed the dismembered body inside some sort of container before getting rid of it!’ Alice said, letting out a heartfelt sigh. Both images now made perfect sense together.

Hunter waited, taking in their concerned expressions. Almost a minute went by before Captain Blake spoke again.

‘How long ago do you think that happened?’

‘Somewhere around thirty years ago, give or take one or two. It must’ve happened when Nicholson, Nashorn and Littlewood were young, very young – late teens or early twenties maybe, probably before Littlewood got married twenty-seven years ago.’

‘So the obvious conclusion is that our killer was related to that victim in some degree, and he now wants revenge,’ the captain said.

‘Yes,’ Hunter agreed.

‘But why now?’

‘Because our killer didn’t know anything about what really happened until a few months ago,’ Hunter said.

All of a sudden, all the pieces were slotting into place in Garcia’s mind. ‘Nicholson,’ he said, returning to his desk, picking up his notebook and quickly flipping through it.

Captain Blake and Alice turned to face him.

‘Here it is. Derek Nicholson’s nurse told us that he said something about making his peace with God. About telling someone the truth about something. That no matter how much good you do in your life, there are certain mistakes that would haunt you until your dying day.’ He returned the notebook to his desk. ‘That must’ve been what he was talking about. The mistake that haunted him throughout his life.’ He looked at Hunter. ‘The person who visited him in his house. The man we still haven’t identified.’

Hunter nodded.

‘The nurse also said that Nicholson had only two visitors once he was taken ill,’ Garcia clarified, for the captain’s and Alice’s benefit. ‘DA Bradley was one of them, but we’ve never identified the second visitor. He’s got to be our killer. Nicholson finally told him the truth about what had happened. He didn’t want to carry that secret to the grave with him.’

‘And a few weeks later he was murdered,’ Captain Blake said. ‘The revenge rampage started.’

‘So if you’re right,’ Alice said to Hunter, as another piece of the puzzle clicked into place for her, ‘Derek Nicholson must’ve been friends, or at least acquainted, with our killer from before. If he asked him to come to his house so he could clear his conscience, he must’ve known him. And that’s why the killer considered him a liar.’ She shook her head. ‘Better yet, a deceiver. He felt betrayed. Exactly what the shadow image told us.’

Hunter nodded.

‘And with the next victim and shadow image,’ she continued, ‘the killer depicted Andrew Nashorn as the group or gang leader, the one they all followed.’

Another nod.

‘And Nathan Littlewood was the one left with the task of disposing of the body.’

‘I don’t think he disposed of it,’ Hunter disagreed. ‘I think he cut it to pieces, and packed them inside some sort of container. I think the person who disposed of that container is the last name on our killer’s hit list. The fourth member of the group. The next victim.’

Everyone paused and processed that information in their own time.

‘But as I said,’ Hunter massaged the back of his neck, ‘at the moment this is all just a crazy theory in my head. I have no proof of anything yet.’

‘Crazy or not, all the pieces seem to slot into place,’ Captain Blake said, returning her attention to the images on the board. ‘And that would also explain why our killer is dismembering his victims. It’s payback time – an eye for an eye – blood in, blood out.’

She paused for a brief moment while she worked things out in her head. It’d been sixteen days since the first murder, and as things stood, she was inclined to claw at any reasonable possibility. She also hated working with the FBI.

‘OK, it’s plausible, and it makes more sense than anything else we’ve got so far. Let’s go with it. Let’s get a team digging into our three victims’ past. If that group of friends really existed, I want to know who that fourth person was. If you need to get in touch with the FBI to dig deeper, do it. I don’t like them any more than you do, but they have resources that we don’t, and they can get access to things a lot faster than we can. Tell the team already digging into Derek Nicholson’s life to dig harder. We need to find out who visited him by his deathbed. Talk to his nurses again. And let’s get one last team looking into any cases where the victim was found chopped to pieces inside a box, a container, a matchbox, anything. I know there’s a possibility that the body was never found in the first place, but if it was found, and if you are right,’ she addressed Hunter, ‘we identify that victim, we identity our Sculptor killer.’

One Hundred

The next twenty-four hours went by in a blur. Everyone was working as fast and as hard as they could, but so far very little progress had been made.

With her experience in navigating databases, Alice had volunteered to run the searches for bodies found chopped to pieces inside any sort of container, but she hit a wall almost immediately. Her expertise was in the digital world. If any records were stored anywhere online, she would no doubt get to them. But when you’re searching for something that dates back years before the use of digital databases, it all becomes a lottery. If some underpaid clerk had, at some point, been given the mind-numbing task of transposing that information from paper to digital, then Alice knew she would find it. But if that information was still packed away inside a dark archive room somewhere, that was exactly where it would stay. Realistically, due to budgeting and a lack of staff, most government organizations would never manage to completely digitize their backlog of paper files.