Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

Hunter realized how silly his query had been. ‘Because that’s what you and the NCAVC do.’ He answered his own question, nodding at himself.

‘That’s correct,’ Kennedy agreed. ‘It’s our job to figure out clues, riddles, puzzles, taunts... anything perpetrators leave behind, purposely or not. He wanted to make sure I knew, but he wasn’t about to do my job for me. Everything fitted perfectly for Kristine’s murder to have been a “payback” job.’

‘Were you two close?’ Hunter asked. ‘You and Kristine?’

‘With my job?’ Kennedy shook his head. ‘It’s hard to be a family man of any sort. Why do you think I have two ex-wives? I barely have time to take a piss. But I did make an effort. Kristine was my only niece. I saw her once, maybe twice a year. She was a law student and criminal law was definitely her thing, so sometimes she would come visit me in Quantico. She loved the whole academy thing — the archives, the stories, the photos, the forensics lab... everything.’

Hunter stayed quiet and Kennedy had another puff of his cigarette before continuing.

‘Trust me, Robert, I had a platoon of agents and cadets going through old cases, name lists... everything we could think of. Then out of the blue we got a call from the Wichita Police Department. I’m sure you can already imagine the sort of havoc a second victim brought into our investigation. Not once, while investigating Kristine’s murder, did the word “serial” get mentioned. We were all positive that her murder had been a direct attack on me.’ For a second Kennedy looked almost angry with himself. ‘When Albert Greene got added to the equation, we were forced to reassess our theory, but even then I was so blinded by anger, so sure that Kristine’s murder had been a retaliation act that we just carried on making mistakes and losing time. We expanded our payback theory and we never stopped knocking at the wrong doors.’

‘Expanded the payback theory?’ Hunter asked. ‘How?’

Kennedy shrugged. ‘Before I leave today I’ll make sure that you and Detective Garcia have full copies of our entire investigation so far into both murders, including every single photograph we have, crime scene and otherwise. You guys can have a look for yourselves.’

‘All right.’

‘But my stubbornness stops now,’ Kennedy reassured Hunter. ‘With Linda Parker being taken here in LA...’ He shook his head. ‘This isn’t about me. It can’t be because Albert Greene and Linda Parker simply don’t belong. Despite how angry I am, I have to accept that unfortunately Kristine was simply in the wrong place, at the wrong time.’

Given what Adrian Kennedy and Special Agents Williams and Fisher had already seen on the picture board, it didn’t take Hunter and Garcia too long to run them through the little they had on Linda Parker’s investigation so far.

‘That’s pretty much it,’ Garcia announced, leaning against the left side of the picture board. ‘Robert and I were regrouping here in the office to discuss our next move when we walked into Special Agent Erica Fisher here snooping around. Officially, our investigation into the murder of one Linda Parker only started a few hours ago.’

Captain Blake checked her detective with a suspicious look. ‘You’re not going to mention the “art” theory?’

‘Art theory?’ Kennedy asked. The surprise in his tone was directed at Hunter. ‘You guys have formed a theory already?’

‘I wouldn’t go as far as calling it a theory,’ Hunter replied. ‘But after we discovered the carvings to the victim’s back, something was suggested by the lead forensics agent at the scene last night that did seem to link a few loose dots.’

‘Can we hear it?’ Kennedy asked. He was already craving another cigarette.

Hunter let Garcia guide the FBI crew through that specific bumpy ride. When Garcia was done, the entire room went quiet one more time. Captain Blake was the first to break the silence.

‘Nuts? Yes, but whatever that is—’ she referred to the picture board, ‘—that’s not the work of a sane person.’

‘Agreed,’ Agent Fisher said, as she and Agent Williams restudied the photographs taken of the walls and the furniture inside Linda Parker’s bedroom. ‘And I’ll admit that in a standalone situation it makes a kind of crazy sense. If these really aren’t the result of a bleeding victim trying to get away from her attacker — and given the message the killer has carved into the victim’s back — I can clearly see how that theory would’ve surfaced. But...’ she turned and faced Hunter and Garcia, ‘... when put into context — The Surgeon’s first two victims, the state of their crime scenes and the carvings to their backs — this “art” theory kind of loses all of its momentum, don’t you think? No blood on the walls in either of his first two crime scenes. No “bloody brush strokes”, to quote Detective Garcia. One victim was left in a dirty shed, the other inside his own bedroom, which I might add was squeaky-clean. Nothing artistic about that.’

‘And then we have the phrases the killer has carved into the backs of his first two victims,’ Agent Williams added. ‘ “Beauty is in the relationship” and “beauty is in the eye of the beholder”. They also don’t fit this art theory.’

‘Sure,’ Garcia accepted, folding his arms in front of his chest. ‘If you’re asking me for an on-the-spot flash assessment, right here, right now, I’d have to agree with you. This art theory was suggested when we had only one victim, one scenario, not three, and we all know that theories can easily change during the course of any investigation, but we’re not prepared to discard any possibilities just yet.

‘The FBI has been running with this for over two months, but we’ve just been invited to the party. We haven’t had a chance to do anything yet — read over the investigation files, listen to any of the interview tapes, talk to any POIs... We haven’t even had a chance to properly scrutinize any of the photographs you’ve shown us, but from the little I’ve seen and heard so far, if this killer really turns out to be mad enough to believe that he’s an artist, if he turns out to be mad enough to see murder as an art form and to treat his crime scenes as a canvas, that wouldn’t really surprise me. Would it surprise you?’

Kennedy paused and looked back at his agents. Neither of them said anything back, but the vacant look in their eyes gave away how deep in thought they were.

‘One thing we all know when it comes to serial offenders leaving behind messages,’ Garcia continued, ‘cryptic or not, is that there’s always a deeper meaning to them than to simply taunt the police.’ He picked up one of the photographs that showed the carvings to Linda Parker’s back. ‘Sure, we have deciphered these, but we haven’t yet figured out the real meaning behind any of these phrases, because I think that this is the killer reaching out. Whatever it is that he thinks he’s accomplishing with these murders, he wants us to understand him, however crazy his reasons might be. He wants us to understand why he’s doing what he’s doing.’

In silence, Kennedy and both of his agents breathed in Garcia’s argument.

‘Look,’ said Hunter, joining the conversation, breaking the tension that was clearly building up inside their office. ‘All we’re saying here is that we can’t be sure of anything at this point and for that reason we can’t discard any possibilities just yet. With someone like The Surgeon, The Artist, The Doctor, or whatever name anyone wants to call him, we need to keep an open mind, we need to think out of the box, because one thing is for certain — whoever this guy is, he’s resourceful, knowledgeable, skilled, and he plays by no rules.’