Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

Hill made a face at Miller. ‘No, but we both know it’s coming, so why do you want to waste time interrogating him, when we know that there will be nothing else we’ll be able to do after this? The case will be taken from us before the sun comes up. From what I’ve heard, the Feds are already on their way here.’

‘So we’d better get in there fast,’ Miller said, consulting his watch.

‘Are you dying for a kick in the balls?’ Hill asked, scratching his designer goatee. ‘Captain Suarez will have our asses for this. You know that, right?’

‘No he won’t. Actually, if we manage to piss off the FBI enough, he will probably take us out for a drink.’

Hill looked back at Miller dubiously.

‘The captain hates the Feds, Rookie. It’s something that goes back a long way. Someday you can ask him to tell you the story.’

Hill could believe that. He knew too many cops who didn’t see eye to eye with the FBI. For the next full minute, he observed the man on the other side of the two-way mirror.

‘Is he asleep?’ Hill asked with a frown.

‘That’s only one of this guy’s intriguing factors,’ Miller replied. ‘I’ve been standing here for almost ten minutes now and, apart from blinking, that guy hasn’t moved a muscle.’

‘What, really?’

‘Not a fucking inch, Rookie. No hand movement... No twitchy leg... No bouncing of the knee... No nervous scratch of the chin... No rotation of the neck... No tongue across the lips... Nothing. Not even the eyes moving from side to side. All he’s done since I got here is sit in that exact same position and stare at his hands. It’s like he’s in a trance or something. I have never seen anyone with that much focus, that much control, let alone a dude facing murder in the first.’

Hill bit his bottom lip and crossed his arms in front of his body.

‘Do we have a name yet?’ Miller asked.

Hill shook his head. ‘No. Nothing. He had no identification on him. No driver’s license. No credit cards. No wallet. Nothing.’

‘Fingerprints? Face recognition?’

‘Gave us zilch. He’s not in the system.’

‘And he isn’t talking.’

‘No,’ Hill confirmed. ‘Hasn’t said a word yet. We can’t even book him because we don’t have a name to book him under.’

‘That’s why this is a one-chance-in-a-lifetime kind o’ thing, Rookie,’ Miller said. ‘This is the kind of serial killer you only find in Hollywood movies; do you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Serial killer?’ Hill’s mesmerized eyes shot toward Miller. ‘That escalated fast. Why do you think he’s a serial killer?’

‘Rookie, don’t be so naive. Why do you think the Feds are on their way over here at this time of night, just hours after Mr. Solid Statue here has been arrested?’ Miller paused for a second. ‘Let me give you a tip — it’s not because he’s a wanted shoplifter.’

Hill’s attention returned to the man sitting in the interrogation room.

‘Let’s not lie to ourselves here, Rookie,’ Miller added, as he took off his blazer jacket and began rolling up his sleeves. ‘People like him are one of the main reasons why we joined the police force... why we fought so hard to become homicide detectives. I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, I couldn’t get enough of movies about serial killers. I watched everything there was to watch because it fascinated me. It still does.’

Hill got a little closer to the glass.

‘This is Tucson, Rookie,’ Miller continued. ‘Sure, we’ve got crime here. We even have homicides, but we just don’t get this kind of stuff.’ He pointed at the man. ‘This is the kind of stuff books are written about and movies are made from.’ He unholstered his weapon and placed it on the table inside the observation room. ‘And here he is, sitting inside our interrogation room. Call me curious, but I for one would love to get inside his mind, even if for just a few minutes. Plus, I’m a great interrogator, you know that.’ He reached for the door.

‘Are you really going to go in there?’ Hill asked.

‘You bet.’

‘And you don’t think that the first thing he’s going to do is lawyer up? Actually, I’m surprised he hasn’t done that yet, but then again, he hasn’t said a word to anyone since he was arrested, James.’

‘I guess we’ll see, won’t we? By the way, there’s no need to hit the record button.’

The twenty-four-feet-long passenger cabin inside the Dassault Falcon 2000EX jet was divided into three very luxurious areas — Forward, with four seats, Middle, with three seats, and Aft, also with three seats. All ten 360-degree swivel seats were finished in soft beige leather, each with its own media center, individual climate controls, and power outlets. There was a fully stocked bar up front, near the cockpit, together with a locked weapons cabinet. At the back, past the Aft cabin was a spacious bathroom, with impressive shower facilities. Low-heat, fully controllable LED overhead lights allowed the passengers to set the mood either individually, per cabin, or for the entire airplane.

‘Wow,’ Garcia commented as he and Hunter finally boarded the aircraft. ‘The Feds do have it much better than we do.’

‘Oh, you can certainly bet on that,’ Agent Fisher said, as she squeezed past them to take one of the seats at the front of the plane.

Agent Williams took the one facing her.

‘You can stop drooling now, Detective.’ Agent Fisher couldn’t help the dig. ‘It’s only a plane.’

Staying in the forward cabin, Hunter and Garcia took the two seats across the aisle from the agents.

‘Did you make it in time for dinner with the in-laws?’ Hunter asked, after fastening his seatbelt.

‘Nah,’ Garcia replied. ‘I missed dinner completely, but I made it in time for dessert and drinks, which, thanks to my charming personality, made everything OK again.’

Hunter smiled. ‘I’m sure.’

Within minutes of everybody boarding the private jet, the Dassault Falcon taxied its way up the runway. Two minutes later the control tower gave the go-ahead for takeoff, which it did very smoothly before climbing up to a cruising altitude of 28,000 feet. Through the speakers, the pilot quickly announced that flying conditions were good, the sky was cloudless and that their flight time would be around one hour and twenty-five minutes.

‘How about you?’ Garcia asked. ‘What time did you leave the office?’

Hunter’s head tilted to one side. ‘A lot later than I wanted to.’

‘Yeah, somehow I sort of knew that that would happen.’

Agent Fisher waited until the pilot had finally turned off the “fasten seatbelt” sign before swerving her seat around to face everyone.

‘There’s something that I would like to show everybody,’ she said, retrieving several photographs from her briefcase and placing them on the large retractable table that sat between her and Agent Williams.

Hunter’s and Garcia’s attention gravitated toward the images.

Just like she had done back in their temporary office, Agent Fisher separated the photos into three groups — victims, carvings, and crime scene.

‘Yesterday in your office,’ she began, ‘you guys mentioned the possibility of this killer being crazy enough to see murder as an art form, remember?’ She nodded at Garcia. ‘The possibility that maybe he treats his crime scenes as some sort of canvas, some sort of window for his work.’

Garcia looked almost shocked. He found it hard to believe that Agent Fisher had actually taken notice of something he had said, never mind considered it.

‘Well,’ she continued, ‘once we got settled into our office, we began revising a few files, including all the photographs belonging to The Surgeon’s first two crime scenes.’ Her gaze moved to the photos on the table, dragging everyone else’s with it. ‘And I think that we might have something.’