Chris Carter - The Night Stalker

‘Sonofabitch.’

In complete darkness she sat shivering, curled up into a tight ball. She felt lightheaded, nauseous and every muscle in her body ached with feverish intensity. Her throat scratched as if she’d swallowed a ball of barbed wire.

She had no real idea of how long she’d been locked up in that cell. She guessed a few days. There was no way she could be sure. The room had no windows and the weak light bulb inside the metal mesh box on the ceiling only came on for a few minutes at a time. The intervals were uneven. Sometimes four, sometimes five times a day. But the light always came on just before she was given food. It was like training a lab rat.

She was given four meals a day, slid to her on a plastic tray through a special hatch at the bottom of the cell’s heavy wooden door. The cell was small, ten paces long by eight wide, with bare brick walls, concrete floors, a metal-framed bed and a bucket on the corner, which was emptied once a day.

She moved her head and felt the room spin around again. The dizziness seemed to never go away. She wasn’t even sure if she was awake or asleep. It felt as if she was caught somewhere between the two states. The only thing she was sure of was that she was scared – really scared.

He watched her bring her hands to her face and wipe away the tears that never seemed to stop. He wondered how much more scared she’d be if he made a noise. If he made her realize that she wasn’t really alone. If she knew he was right there, hiding in the darkness, just three paces from her. How would she react if he extended his hand and touched her skin, her hair? How terrified would she be if he whispered something in her ear?

He smiled as he watched her shiver one more time. Maybe it was time she found out.

Between pausing and fast-forwarding, Hunter spent another half an hour studying the CCTV camera footage from Kelly Jensen’s studio parking lot. There were three main sections that interested him. The first was timestamped between 10:26 and 10:31 p.m. The second from 11:07 to 11:09 p.m. And the last one from 11:11 to 11:14 p.m.

The drive from Hunter’s apartment in Huntingdon Park to Parker Center took him twenty-five minutes. He went straight into the IT Division, but at that time in the morning there was no one there except a new eager-to-impress recruit to the team. He was wearing a freshly ironed white shirt and a conservative gray tie. His matching suit jacket was resting on the back of his chair. No one in IT ever wore a shirt and tie, never mind a suit.

The young recruit told Hunter that Brian Doyle would probably come in late. He’d gone out celebrating the night before. The long-standing investigation he’d been personally involved in had finally come to an end. They’d successfully apprehended a serial pedophile after a sting operation that had lasted the whole day.

‘The guy they caught…’ the recruit told Hunter, ‘he’s married with two kids – one is ten, the other is twelve years old. Those are exactly the ages of the kids he used to groom online.’ He shook his head as if the entire world had lost its logic. ‘Is there anything I can help you with, Detective?’ the recruit asked, jerking his head towards the laptop under Hunter’s arm.

‘What’s your name, kid?’

‘Garry, sir.’ He offered his hand. ‘Garry Cameron.’

Hunter shook it. ‘I’m Robert, and if you call me sir one more time, I’ll arrest you for defamation.’

Cameron smiled and nodded.

‘I’m afraid I need to talk to Jack, Garry. I need him to run a few pieces of video footage through one of his super applications.’

Cameron’s smile widened. ‘Well, that’s my field of expertize – video and audio analyses. That’s the main reason I was transferred here.’

Hunter let out a surprised chuckle. ‘I’ll be damned. So I guess you’re just the man I need.’ He placed the laptop on Cameron’s desk and they both waited in silence while it booted up. Hunter brought up the video player application and queued up the pre-selected segments. ‘This is the original footage, taken from a private CCTV camera,’ he explained before pressing play.

Cameron put on his computer glasses and leaned forward. The footage started off with an empty parking lot, except for a candy white Trans-Am T-top with dark tinted rear windows. The picture quality wasn’t good, made worse by the lack of lighting.

‘Nice car,’ Cameron noted.

They watched for only a few seconds before a mysterious male figure approached the lot on foot from the right. He was tall, somewhere between six two and six four with a strong, football player’s physique. He was wearing dark clothing; shoes, trousers, gloves, skullcap and a jacket with its collar pulled up. The problem was: Mr. Wang’s camera was on the east side of the lot, facing west, and so was the stranger. So far he could only be seen from the back. He stopped by the driver’s door to the Trans-Am, reached inside his jacket and retrieved a long, flat piece of metal that resembled a school ruler. Like a professional car thief, the man slid the stick of metal down through the window slot and into the car door. In one quick movement he yanked it up. He tried the handle and the door opened as if he’d used a key.

‘You don’t look like a CATS, Detective,’ Cameron said, referring to the Commercial Auto Theft Section of the LAPD without diverting his attention from the screen.

‘I’m not.’

On the screen, the man bent down, put his hand inside the car and popped the hood.

Cameron frowned.

The man quickly rechecked the lot’s entrance – no one was coming. Without ever facing east he moved to the front of the car and lifted the hood before bending over the engine and reaching for something in the main block. There was no way they could see exactly what he was doing, but whatever it was, it only took him three seconds. He closed the hood and returned to the driver’s side. One more look around before opening the door and disappearing inside and into the back seat.

‘Strange,’ Cameron commented. ‘What’s this about?’

‘You’ll see.’

The video application jumped straight to the next section Hunter had queued up. Cameron checked the timestamp clock at the bottom right-hand corner of the screen and noticed that the footage had jumped forward thirty-six minutes.

‘I take it that our mysterious man is still inside the car?’ Cameron asked.

‘Never moved.’

They carried on watching. This time a slender brunette appeared, coming in from the same direction the man did earlier – Kelly Jensen. Her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She was wearing blue jeans, flat shoes and a faded brown leather jacket.

‘Oh shit,’ Cameron murmured, already guessing what was about to happen.

Kelly approached the car and searched her handbag for her car keys. Oblivious to the fact that someone was already inside waiting for her, she opened the door and got into the driver’s seat. The darkness, the position of the car, and the angle in which Mr. Wang’s camera was set, made it impossible for Hunter and Cameron to see through the windscreen. Zooming in on the picture didn’t help either.

Cameron pulled his glasses from his face and rubbed his eyes.

Nothing happened for the next two minutes. When the timestamp at the bottom of the screen read 11:11 p.m. the passenger’s door opened and the man stepped out of the car. He paused and looked around slowly, checking he was still alone. Satisfied, he made his way to the other side, opened the driver’s door and retrieved the keys from the ignition before opening the trunk. As if lifting nothing heavier than a shopping bag, he picked Kelly up with both arms. She was knocked out cold, but it was easy to tell she was still alive.