Chris Carter - The Night Stalker

‘Detective Hunter?’ a man called from the perimeter.

Hunter recognized Donald Robbins’ voice – the pain-in-the-ass LA Times reporter. He’d covered every case Hunter had been involved in. They were old friends without ever being friends.

‘Is this victim related to the case you’re already investigating? Perhaps a painter as well?’

Hunter didn’t lose stride or look up, but he wondered how the hell Robbins had found out about the victims being painters.

‘C’mon, Robert. It’s me. You’re after another serial killer, aren’t you? Is he an artist stalker?’

Still not even an acknowledgement from Hunter.

The outside of the brick building was a mess of graffiti and colors. Garcia, together with two police officers, was standing under an improvised canvas shelter by the entrance to the old depot. The metal door directly behind them had been graffitied with the silhouette of a long-haired pole dancer bending forward. Her spread legs created a perfect upside-down V shape.

Garcia had just zipped up his forensic Tyvek coveralls when he saw Hunter coming around the corner.

‘You have noticed that it’s raining, right?’ Garcia said as Hunter reached the shelter.

‘I like rain,’ Hunter replied, using both hands to brush the water off his hair.

‘Yeah, I can see that.’ Garcia handed him a sealed plastic bag containing a white hooded coverall.

‘Who called it in?’ Hunter asked, ripping the bag open.

‘Old homeless guy,’ the officer closest to the door confirmed. He was short and stout with a bulldog-like face. ‘He said that he sometimes sleeps here. Tonight, he wanted to get out of the rain.’

‘Where’s he now?’

The officer pointed to a police car twenty-five yards from where they were.

‘Who talked to him?’ Hunter looked at Garcia, who shook his head.

‘I just got here.’

‘Sergeant Travis,’ the officer replied. ‘He’s with him now.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Have any of you been inside?’

‘Nope, we got here after Forensics. Our orders are to stay out here soaking our asses in this shitty rain and act like nightclub doormen to all of you big Homicide boys.’

Garcia frowned and looked at Hunter.

‘I guess you were right at the end of your shift when you got this call, right?’ Hunter said.

‘Yeah, whatever.’ The officer ran two fingers over his peach-fuzz moustache.

Hunter zipped up his coveralls. ‘OK, Officer…?’

‘Donikowski.’

‘OK, Officer Donikowski, I guess you can do your nightclub doorman job now.’ He nodded at the door.

Garcia smirked.

The first room was about fifteen feet wide by twenty deep. The walls were also covered in graffiti. Rain spat onto the floor through a windowless frame to the left of the door. Discarded food cans and wrappers were piled up in one corner, together with an old straw mattress. The floor was littered with all different sorts of debris. Hunter could see no blood anywhere.

The familiar, strong crime-scene forensic light was coming from the next room along, where hushed voices could be heard.

As they approached the door, Hunter picked up on a mixture of smells – mostly stale urine, mold and accumulated garbage. All of them the kind of odors you’d expect to find inside an old, derelict building, sometimes used by drifters. But there was a fourth, fainter smell. Not the kind of putrid stench you get when a body starts to rot, but something else. Something Hunter knew he’d smelled before. He paused and sniffed the air a couple of times. From the corner of his eye he noticed Garcia doing the same thing. He was the one who recognized it first. The last time Garcia smelled that same smell he’d thrown up within seconds. This time was no different.

The second room was smaller than the one Hunter and Garcia were in, but identical in shape and state of deterioration – graffitied walls, windowless frames, piles of garbage on the corners and all sorts of debris scattered around the floor. Doctor Hove and Mike Brindle were standing by a door on the far wall that led into a third chamber. The same portable tactical X-ray unit they’d used in the basement of the preschool in Glassell Park had been set up on the floor next to them. Three paces to the left of the unit, lying on her back, was the naked body of a Caucasian brunette female. Hunter could see the thick black thread used to stitch her mouth and lower body from across the room. There was very little blood surrounding the body.

‘Where’s Carlos?’ Doctor Hove asked. ‘I thought he was waiting for you outside.’

Hunter didn’t reply, didn’t move, didn’t breathe. He just stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the brunette’s face. Her skin had turned a light shade of purple, indicating blood pooling. Like the two previous victims, the lower part of her face had swollen, due to the stitches to her mouth. But even so, there was something familiar about her. Hunter felt his skin burn as adrenalin ran through him.

‘Robert,’ the doctor called again.

Hunter’s eyes finally refocused on her.

‘Are you OK?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘Where’s Carlos? I thought he’d be with you.’

‘I’m here,’ Garcia said as he walked through the door behind Hunter. He looked a little paler than a moment ago. The strange, faint smell they’d picked up outside was more prominent in the room. Garcia brought his hand to his mouth and cringed as he fought to keep his stomach from erupting again.

Hunter approached the body in silence and crouched down next to it. Her face was starting to puff up. He didn’t need to touch her to know that her body was now in full rigor mortis. She’d been dead for at least twelve hours. Her eyes were closed, but everything about her features looked familiar. The nose, the cheekbone structure, the shape of the chin. Hunter moved closer still and had a look at her hands and fingers. Most of her fingernails were broken or chipped. Despite the purpling of the skin, at first glance Hunter could see no severe hematomas. There were no cuts or abrasions either. The swelling to her body wasn’t due to physical abuse.

Hunter moved around to the other side. She had a single-color tribal tattoo on her right shoulder.

Garcia was studying the body in silence from a standing position, his hand still covering his nose and mouth.

‘Do you know who she is?’ the doctor asked, noticing the way Hunter kept looking back at her face. ‘Is she another painter from your list of missing persons?’

Garcia shook his head. ‘I can’t place her. I know the face is a little swollen, but I don’t think she was on the lists.’

‘She’s not a painter,’ Hunter said, standing back up again. ‘She’s a musician.’

Garcia’s eyes returned to her face and he frowned. He’d had a very good look at Katia Kudrov’s photographs since Hunter told him about her. The woman on the floor didn’t look like Katia.

‘It’s not Katia Kudrov,’ Hunter said, reading what his partner was thinking.

Garcia frowned harder.

‘You know her?’ he asked.

‘She looks familiar. I’ve seen her before, I’m just not sure where.’

‘So how do you know she’s a musician?’ Brindle this time.

‘She’s got calluses on all the fingertips of her left hand, except her thumb, where the callus is on the first joint.’

Brindle looked hesitant.

‘String instrument musicians get those,’ Hunter explained. ‘The fingertip ones from pressing down on the strings, and the thumb joint one from sliding their hands up and down the instrument’s arm, like a violin, cello, guitar, bass, whatever.’

Doctor Hove nodded. ‘One of my Forensics technicians is learning to play the guitar. He’s always complaining his fingertips hurt like hell and keeps on picking off the loose skin.’