Chris Carter - The Night Stalker

Leonid shook his head. ‘I’ve been in the house all day and have left specific instructions at my office to divert any unidentified caller to my home line. No calls.’

Myers nodded.

‘Something is wrong. I can feel it.’ Leonid pinned Myers down with a desperate stare. ‘I don’t want this splattered all over the news unless it’s really necessary. Andy told me you are the best at what you do. Better than the LAPD Missing Persons. Can you find her?’ He made it sound less of a question and more like a plea.

Myers gave McKee a look that said, I’m flattered.

He returned a shy smile.

‘I will do my best.’ Myers nodded, her voice confident.

‘So do it.’

‘Do you have a recent picture of your daughter?’

Kudrov was already prepared and handed Myers a colored eight-by-twelve-inch photograph of Katia.

Myers’ eyes grazed the picture. ‘I’ll also need the keys to her apartment, the names and phone numbers of everyone you can think of who she could’ve contacted. And I need it all by yesterday.’

Hunter called both contacts on the two Missing Persons personal fact sheets he had with him. Mr. Giles Carlsen, a hair salon manager from Brentwood, had contacted the police ten days ago to report Cathy Greene, his roommate, as missing. On the phone, Carlsen told Hunter that Miss Greene had finally turned up the morning before. She’d been away with a new male friend she’d met in her dance class.

The second contact, Mr. Roy Mitchell, had contacted the police twelve days ago. His 29-year-old daughter, Laura, had simply disappeared. Mr. Mitchell asked Hunter to meet him at his home in Fremont Place in an hour.

Hancock Park is one of the most affluent and desirable areas in all of Southern California. In sharp contrast to most Los Angeles neighborhoods, houses in Hancock Park are set well back from the street, most power and telephone lines are buried, and fences are strongly discouraged. As Hunter turned into Fremont Place, it became obvious that invasion of privacy wasn’t one of the area’s main concerns.

The house’s half-moon-shaped driveway was paved in cobble block and merged into a parking area large enough for two buses. At the center of it stood a massive stone fountain. The sun was just reaching the horizon, and the sky behind the terracotta brick two-story house was being painted in ‘photo moment’ fiery red streaks. Hunter parked his car and climbed out.

The front door was answered by a woman in her mid-fifties. She was a picture of elegance, with longish hair neatly tied in a ponytail, a magnetic smile, and skin most women half her age would kill for. She introduced herself as Denise Mitchell and showed Hunter into a study rich with art, antiques, and leather-bound books. Standing before a tall mahogany sideboard crowded with photographs was a stocky man, a donut shy of being fat. He was at least half a foot shorter than Hunter with a full head of disheveled gray hair and a matching moustache.

‘You must be the detective I spoke to on the phone,’ he said offering his hand. ‘I’m Roy Mitchell.’

His handshake was as practiced as his smile, strong enough to show strength of character but soft enough not to intimidate. Hunter showed him his credentials and Roy Mitchell tensed.

‘Oh God.’

His whisper wasn’t quiet enough to escape his wife’s ears. ‘What’s wrong?’ she asked, moving closer, her eyes pleading for information.

‘Can you give us a moment, honey,’ Roy replied, trying in vain to conceal his concern.

‘No, I’m not giving you a moment,’ Denise said, her stare now fixed on Hunter. ‘I want to know what happened. What information do you have on my daughter?’

‘Denise, please.’

‘I’m not going anywhere, Roy.’ Her eyes never left Hunter. ‘Did you find my daughter? Is she OK?’

Roy Mitchell looked away.

‘What’s going on, Roy? What got you so spooked?’

No reply.

‘Somebody talk to me.’ Her voice faltered.

‘I’m not with the Missing Persons Unit, Mrs. Mitchell,’ Hunter finally offered, showing her his credentials once again. This time she looked at them a lot more attentively than she had at the door.

‘Oh my God, you’re from Homicide?’ She cupped her hands over her nose and mouth as tears filled her eyes.

‘There’s a chance that I’m in the wrong house,’ Hunter said in a steady but comforting voice.

‘What?’ Denise’s hands started shaking.

‘Maybe we should all have a seat.’ Hunter indicated the leather Chesterfield sofa by a six-foot-tall Victorian lampshade.

The Mitchells took the sofa and Hunter one of the two armchairs facing it.

‘At the moment we’re trying to identify someone who shares several physical characteristics with your daughter,’ Hunter explained. ‘Laura’s name is one of four which have come up as a possible match.’

‘As a possible match to a homicide victim?’ Roy asked, placing a hand on his wife’s knee.

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

Denise started crying.

Roy took a deep breath. ‘I gave the other detective a very recent picture of Laura, do you have it?’

Hunter nodded.

‘And still you can’t be sure if this victim of yours is Laura?’ Denise asked, her mascara starting to run down her face. ‘How come?’

Roy clamped his eyes shut for an instant and a single tear rolled to the tip of his nose. Hunter could see he’d already picked up on the possibility of the victim being unrecognizable. ‘So you’re here to ask us for a blood sample for a DNA test?’ he said.

It was obvious that Roy Mitchell was a lot more clued up on police procedures than most people. Since the introduction of DNA testing, in a situation such as the one Hunter was facing, it was a lot more practical for the police to collect samples and match them to the victim first. That way they could later approach only the identified family, instead of putting several innocent ones through the panic and the traumatic experience of looking at a photograph of a gruesomely disfigured victim.

Hunter shook his head. ‘Sadly, a DNA test won’t help us.’

For a moment it was as if there wasn’t enough air in the room for all three of them. ‘Do you have a picture of the victim?’ Roy finally asked.

Hunter nodded and flipped through several sheets of paper inside the folder he’d brought with him. ‘Mrs. Mitchell,’ he said, catching Denise’s eyes, ‘this woman might not be your daughter. There’s no reason for you to look at this picture right now.’

Denise stared at Hunter with glassy eyes. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’

‘Honey, please.’ Roy tried again.

She didn’t even look at him.

Hunter waited, but the determination in her eyes was almost palpable. He placed the close-up of the victim on the coffee table in front of them.

It took Denise Mitchell just a fraction of a second to recognize her. ‘Oh my God!’ Her shivering hands shot to her mouth. ‘What have they done to my baby?’

All of a sudden the room they were in looked different – darker, smaller, the air denser. Hunter sat in silence for several minutes while Roy Mitchell tried to console his wife. Her tears weren’t hysterical; they were simply full of pain – and rage. In different circumstances Hunter would have left, giving the Mitchells some time to grieve before coming back the next morning with a list of questions, but this wasn’t like any other case, this killer wasn’t like any other killer. Right now Hunter didn’t have a choice. Laura’s parents were his best, and at the moment, only source of information on Laura. And he needed information like he needed air.

Denise Mitchell grabbed a tissue from the box on the side table and wiped her tears away before finally standing up. She approached a small desk next to the window where several photo frames were arranged, most of them containing pictures of Laura at different stages of her life.