Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

The man didn’t look up.

Miller sat back, crossed one leg over the other and casually rested his hands on his lap. That movement was also planned. It placed Miller in a relaxed, carefree position, while the man sat at the edge of his chair with his shoulders slightly hunched. Clearly a much tenser position.

Miller waited.

Ten seconds.

The man didn’t look up.

Fifteen seconds.

The man didn’t look up.

Twenty seconds.

The man’s eyes, and only his eyes, crawled across the table and finally paused on the detective sitting before him.

Gotcha.

Miller felt like jumping up and punching the air, but he kept his cool. All he did was lock eyes with the man. Only then did he notice that the man’s eyes were deep set and as dark as coal.

‘Good evening,’ Miller finally said in a calm and collected tone. The greeting was complemented by a delicate head bow.

The man said nothing.

‘My name is Detective James Miller of the Tucson Police Department, Homicide Division.’

The man said nothing.

‘We could start with you giving us your name. It would make things a lot easier, you know.’

The man said nothing.

‘Well, I know that you can speak because according to the arrest report, when the two officers found you standing over the body of Timothy Davis and told you that they needed to see your hands, you replied, and I quote: “Wait a second, I can explain.” So we know you’re not a mute.’

That had been another trick from Miller. He knew very well that according to the arresting officers’ report, the man had replied, ‘Easy there, partner’ — but Miller had deliberately told him something different to try to trigger a reaction, maybe even a response. ‘That’s not what I said’ would do fine. It would be the beginning of a conversation, something Miller could work with. But once again, the man said nothing in return.

Miller maintained his relaxed position.

‘You can play the silent game all you want, buddy, but we both know that in the end you will sing like a bird. You’re not the first to play that game and you won’t be the last, and the common denominator between all of you is that in the end you all talk. You might not talk to me, but you will talk. I promise you that. I’m just the first in line here and I can guarantee you that I am the easiest one to talk to, but you’ve got some heavy hitters coming for you. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you?’

The man finally moved his head, lifting his chin just enough so he could properly look Miller in the eye. They held each other’s stare for several long seconds and Miller saw no indication that the man was about to forfeit his silence. He tried one more time.

‘How many have you killed so far?’

No reply.

‘Three? Four? Five?’

No reply.

‘How many?’

Silence.

This clearly wasn’t working, not for Miller. He was about to change tactics once again when the interrogation-room door behind him swung open.

‘What the hell are you doing?’

While Detective Miller turned on his chair, the cuffed man barely moved. All he did was tilt his head slightly to one side so he could see past the detective.

‘Have you lost your goddamn mind?’

The booming, authoritative voice belonged to Captain Suarez, a short and full-figured man whose temper seemed to always be at the end of a very short fuse. As he spoke, his thick Mexican-style mustache bounced up and down over his lips in a somewhat comic fashion.

‘Who authorized you to transfer the prisoner from his cell to the interrogation room? Did I fucking stutter when I told you that the suspect was not to be interrogated? This is not our case, Detective Miller. It belongs to the fucking Feds. I thought I had made myself very clear.’

Miller uncrossed his legs and looked at the man. ‘Did you hear that?’ His voice was a gentle murmur. ‘The FBI is coming for you.’

‘Detective Miller.’ Captain Suarez’ voice got even louder.

‘I was just being friendly, Captain. You know, having a little chat with our guest here.’

‘I’ll tell you what I know,’ the captain replied. ‘I know that you’d better get your ass off that goddamn chair and out of this room right now, unless you have a dying urge to shovel horse shit with your bare hands for the next month. Gloves not allowed. And I will make that happen, Detective.’

‘Yeah, yeah,’ Miller said, calmly getting to his feet and looking back at the man. ‘It was a boring conversation anyway.’ But as the detective got to the door, the man sitting at the metal table surprised him, because he spoke for the first time.

He uttered four simple words.

For five silent and unblinking seconds, Hunter and Garcia stared at the photo Agent Fisher had in her hand. From a distance, despite her facial mutilations, the colorful picture where Kristine Rivers’ body could be seen against a backdrop of graffitied walls and a floor full of debris looked more like an art-gallery painting than a crime-scene photograph. In fact, the missing eyes and the scalped head added a macabre layer to the image.

‘Holy shit!’ Garcia felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

Hunter stayed quiet, but he did feel a rush of adrenaline run through him.

‘Now you might be thinking that there’s no way we’ll get a similar effect with the second crime scene — Albert Greene’s bedroom,’ Agent Williams said, taking over from Agent Fisher. ‘If you remember, there was nothing on the walls, nothing on the floor. No blood absolutely anywhere.’

Agent Fisher returned to the three groups of photographs she had arranged over the retractable table and selected two new images from the ‘crime-scene’ pile — both wide-angle shots taken from two separate perspectives, showing Albert Greene’s body on the bed inside his bedroom. Once again she put some distance between the photos and the group, but the effect was nothing like the one they got with the previous image she’d showed them. Even from a distance, neither picture looked anything like a painting. They looked exactly like what they actually were — crime-scene photographs.

‘Definitely not the same effect, right?’ Agent Williams pushed.

‘Definitely not,’ Garcia agreed.

‘But what if the killer wasn’t looking for the same effect?’ Hunter suggested.

‘Our thoughts exactly,’ Agent Fisher said, her voice lifting with excitement.

‘I don’t follow,’ Garcia said. ‘Wouldn’t that contradict the idea that the killer wants his crime scenes to look like paintings, like works of art?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Agent Fisher replied, the smirk on her lips revealing how much she was about to enjoy schooling the detective. ‘If you think about it, it’s impossible to create the same piece twice, but what you really have to remember here is that art is subjective.’ She winked at Garcia, knowing full well that he had been the one who had brought that knowledge to the table in the first place. ‘Now keep that in mind and tell me what you think of this.’

Agent Fisher once again took a few steps back, stopping halfway through the Middle cabin. This time she showed everyone two pictures side by side. On the left, the same photo she had showed them a minute earlier — Kristine Rivers’ crime scene — and on the right, one of the two wide-angle shots from Albert Greene’s bedroom.

Garcia’s stare moved from one picture to the other a couple of times.

‘You’ve got to be joking,’ he said as he finally saw it. ‘They’re practically opposites of each other.’

‘Indeed they are,’ Agent Fisher confirmed. ‘There’s hope for you yet, Detective.’