Chris Carter - The Crucifix Killer

‘And that’s what you were doing?’

‘Yes… I was serving Our Lord.’ The anger was gone. His voice as serene as a baby’s laughter.

‘PSYCHO.’ The comment came from Scott inside the observation room.

Hunter poured himself a glass of cold water from the aluminum jug on the table.

‘Would you like some water?’

‘No thanks, detective.’

‘Can I get you anything… coffee, a cigarette?’

His response was a simple shake of the head.

Hunter still couldn’t read Mike Farloe. There were no variations in his tone of voice, no sudden movements, no change in facial expressions. His eyes remained deadly cold, devoid of any emotion. His hands remained still. There was no increase in perspiration on his forehead or hands. Hunter needed more time.

‘Do you believe in God, detective?’ Mike asked calmly. ‘Do you pray to repent your sins?’

‘I believe in God. What I don’t believe in is murder,’ Hunter replied evenly.

Mike Farloe’s eyes were on Hunter as if the roles had reversed, as if he were the one trying to read Hunter’s reactions. Hunter was about to pop another question when Farloe spoke first. ‘Detective, why don’t we cut the bullshit and go straight to the point? Ask me what you are here to ask me. Ask and you shall be answered.’

‘And what is that? What is it that I’m here to ask you?’

‘You wanna know if I committed those murders. You wanna know if I am who they call the Crucifix Killer.’

‘And are you?’

Farloe shifted his stare from Hunter for the first time. His eyes now rested on the two-way mirror on the north wall. He knew what was happening on the other side. The anticipation inside the observation room now growing to eruption point. Captain Bolter could swear that Farloe was staring straight at him.

‘I didn’t choose that name for myself, the media did.’ His eyes had returned to Hunter. ‘But yes, I freed their souls from their life of sin.’

‘I’ll be damned… we’ve got a confession.’ Captain Bolter could hardly hide his excitement.

‘Hell yeah! And it only took Hunter about ten minutes to get it out of him. That’s my boy,’ Scott replied with a smile.

‘If you are the Crucifix Killer, then you did choose your name,’ Hunter continued. ‘You branded the victims. You chose your mark.’

‘They needed to repent. The symbol of our Lord freed their souls.’

‘But you are no God. You don’t have the power to free anyone. Thou shall not kill, isn’t that one of the commandments? Doesn’t killing these people make you a sinner?’

‘No sin shall be when done in the name of the divine. I was doing God’s work.’

‘Why? Did God call in sick that day? Why would God ask you to kill in his name? Isn’t God supposed to be a merciful being?’

Farloe let a smile grace his lips for the first time showing yellow cigarette-stained teeth. There was an evil air about him. Something different, something almost inhuman.

‘This guy gives me the creeps. Shouldn’t we just stop this interview, he’s already confessed, he’s done it, end of story,’ Scott said clearly irritated.

‘Not yet, give him a few more minutes,’ Doctor Martin replied.

‘Whatever… I’m out of here, I’ve heard enough.’ Scott opened the door and stepped into the narrow corridor on the third floor of the RHD building.

Hunter grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it and slid it towards Farloe over the table. ‘Do you know what this is?’

Farloe’s eyes moved down to the paper. He stared at it for about five seconds. By the movement of his eyes and imperceptible frown Hunter knew Farloe didn’t have a clue what the figure on the paper meant. Hunter got no answer.

‘OK, so let me ask you this…’

‘No, no more questions,’ Farloe cut in. ‘You know what I’ve done, detective. You’ve seen my work. You’ve heard what you wanted to hear. There’s no more need for questions. I’ve said my piece.’ Farloe closed his eyes, placed his hands together and began a whispered prayer.

‘Yes it’s true. I never believed he was our killer,’ Hunter finally answered Garcia’s question, snapping back from his memory flash.

Even though it was just past six in the morning the day was already warm. Hunter pressed the button on the passenger’s door and his window rolled down smoothly. The scenery had changed from the luxurious houses of Santa Clarita into noisy traffic as they drove down San Diego Freeway.

‘Do you want me to turn on the air con?’ Garcia asked fiddling with his dashboard.

Hunter’s car was an old Buick and it didn’t have any of the luxury gadgets of modern cars. No air conditioning, no sunroof, no electric windows or mirrors, but it was a Buick, pure American muscle as Hunter liked to call it.

‘No. I prefer it like this, natural polluted LA air – you just can’t beat it.’

‘So why did you think you had the wrong guy? You had all the evidence found in his car, plus the guy confessed. What else did you need?’ Garcia asked bringing the subject back to the Crucifix Killer.

Hunter tilted his head towards the open window letting the air brush through his hair. ‘Did you know we never found any evidence at any of the seven crime scenes?’

‘Again, I’ve heard rumors, but I thought that was just you guys playing your cards close to your chest.’

‘It’s true, Scott and I fine-combed every inch of those crime scenes and so did the forensic team. We never found a thing – not a fingerprint, not a strand of hair, not a fiber… nothing. The crime scenes were like forensic vacuums.’ Hunter paused, letting the wind hit his face once again. ‘For two years the killer never made a mistake, never left anything behind, no slip-ups… the killer was like a ghost. We had nothing, no leads, no direction and no idea of who the killer could be. Then, all of a sudden he gets caught with all that shit in his car? It didn’t add up. How the hell does anyone go from being probably the most thorough criminal in history to being the sloppiest one?’

‘How did you catch him?’

‘An anonymous phone call just a few weeks after the seventh victim was found. Someone had seen a suspect car with what seemed to be blood smudges on the outside of its trunk. The caller had managed to note down the license-plate number and the car was picked up on the outskirts of LA.’

‘Mike Farloe’s?’

‘Exactly, and inside his trunk it was like Christmas time for our investigation.’

Garcia frowned. He was starting to follow Hunter’s line of thought. ‘Yeah, but several major criminals have been caught out just like that, out of a traffic violation or some minor contravention. Maybe he was thorough at the crime scene, but sloppy at home.’

‘I don’t buy that,’ Hunter replied with a shake of the head. ‘He also kept on calling me “detective” throughout the interrogation.’

‘And what’s the problem with that?’

‘The Crucifix Killer used to call me on my cell phone and let me know about the location of a new victim, that’s how we found them. I was the only one who’d had any contact with him.’

‘Why you?’

‘I never found out, but every time he called me he’d always use my first name, he’d always call me “Robert”, never “detective,”’ Hunter paused. He was about to drop an atomic bomb on Garcia’s lap. ‘But the turning point was when I asked him about the crucifix mark branded on the victims’ hands. In a way he accepted it, he said that the symbol of our Lord could free them or something like that.’

‘Yes, so he was a religious psycho – what’s your point?’

‘I showed him a drawing of the symbol used by the Crucifix Killer and I’m sure he didn’t recognize it.’