Chris Carter - Gallery of the Dead

Hunter knew that that was very true. Catching murderers didn’t necessarily mean that they would understand the way they thought, their motives, their reasoning...

‘How about the traveling?’ Garcia asked. ‘Even if the killer had a specific type of person in mind, let’s say, one who best matched whatever crazy art piece he wanted to create, like you suggested, why pick them from four different cities... four different states?’

Agent Fisher went quiet.

‘The killer’s first murder was committed in Detroit,’ Garcia added. ‘A city with a population of almost 700,000 people. I’m sure he would’ve had no problems finding an eighty-four-year-old ex-janitor who also lived in Detroit for his second outing, or a young and attractive model for his third, or an African American male for his fourth. Why go from Michigan to Kansas, to California and now Arizona? What was so special about these four people that made him cross state lines just to get to them?’

‘Maybe it’s not about them being special,’ Agent Fisher suggested. ‘Maybe traveling is just part of what he does as a job. He could be a sports scout, or a pharmaceutical salesman, or something along those lines. Something that forces him to hop from city to city. He would then use the convenience of his job to choose his victims, picking them from different locations, knowing full well that that fact alone would make finding him a hell of a lot harder.’

Garcia thought about it for a moment, but his brain was too tired and everything was still too fresh for him to be able to think logically. In the space of less than twenty-four hours they had gone from a single victim back in LA, to four, spread over four different states. Absolutely nothing made sense at the moment and the craziest of all theories was the one that best matched the facts they had.

Hunter stayed quiet, but he couldn’t help thinking that the murders seemed too elaborate for the killer to be picking his victims due to the convenience of a traveling job.

All of a sudden Agent Fisher’s eyes widened, as a new thought exploded inside her head.

‘Passenger manifests,’ she said, addressing Agent Williams. ‘If the killer really is traveling because of the job he does, then there’s a chance he flies to wherever he’s got to go, including the murder cities. If that’s the case, his name will be on passenger manifests. We need to get in touch with every airport in Detroit, Wichita, LA and Tucson, maybe even Phoenix. Let’s get a team checking every airline’s passenger manifests and cross-checking them all with each other. We’ve got to search at least three weeks each side of the murder date, inclusively. If we’re lucky, we might get a name repeating itself flying in and out of all these four cities.’

‘It’s a hell of a long shot,’ Agent Williams agreed. ‘But it’s definitely worth a try. I’ll get a team on it first thing in the morning.’

Agent Brandon had gotten everyone a room at the Lodge on the Desert, a hacienda-style boutique hotel situated on five acres of land, right in mid-town Tucson. The place was as stunning as it was grand, featuring as its backdrop nothing less than the imposing Santa Catalina Mountains.

‘Damn,’ Garcia whispered as he and Hunter stepped out of the car and collected their bags. ‘The FBI does have it a lot better than we do. Just look at this place. If the LAPD were banking this trip, we’d probably be sleeping in the car.’

‘May I carry your bag for you, sir?’ a young porter asked in a tone that sounded way too cheerful for that time of the morning.

Garcia smiled back at him. ‘You certainly may.’

‘And you, sir?’ the porter addressed Hunter.

‘I’m OK,’ Hunter replied, slinging his bag over his right shoulder. ‘It’s not a heavy bag.’

Check-in was done quickly and smoothly, thanks to the three large capital letters that graced the top of the reservation page on the receptionist’s computer screen. Maybe those letters were also the reason why the five best rooms available were allocated to them.

‘It’s 4:22 a.m.’ Agent Williams said as he collected his key. ‘I’d say that we all need to get at least four hours’ sleep. So how about we all meet down at the breakfast room at eight thirty?’

Everyone agreed.

Hunter’s accommodation was number 221, a spacious Old El Paso decorated room, just past a cactus garden in the hotel’s west wing.

As he closed the door behind him and allowed his bag to slip from his shoulder to the floor, Hunter felt exhaustion take hold of every corner of his body like an untreatable illness. Right then he knew that nothing, not even his insomnia, would be able to keep him from falling asleep. Not this time. But despite how tired he felt, he decided to have a quick shower before bed. He was sure that he could still smell the stomach-churning scent from the morgue on his skin.

Hunter undressed by the plush and very comfortable-looking king-sized bed, before making his way into the bathroom.

‘Wow,’ he whispered under his breath as he paused by the door. He was unsure of what had impressed him more — the Mexican Talavera tiles that no doubt brought a lot of color into the bathroom, or its sheer size — about equal to his entire living room. The soft and relaxing scent of primrose and lily of the valley that loitered in the air was also a very nice touch.

Inside the shower enclosure, Hunter closed his eyes, leaned forward, rested his forehead against the colorful-tiled wall and allowed the strong, lukewarm water jet to massage the tense muscles on his neck, shoulders and upper back. If there was such a thing as heaven, this had to be its wet version.

The warm water relaxed him, but still his brain wouldn’t fully disconnect. How could it, really, after the events of the past twenty-four hours? There was so much he needed to process that for the first time in his career, Hunter didn’t really have a clue where to start. What should he analyze first? The murders themselves? The victims? The killer’s MO? The killer’s signatures? The messages? The crime scenes? The locations? The bizarre theory they had come up with? All of it at once?

Hunter could feel his head starting to spin inside his skull, so he decided to use the little strength he still had left to push all those thoughts to one side. He concentrated on scrubbing his whole body until he couldn’t smell death on him anymore. By the time he turned off the water, his naturally tanned skin had acquired a light pink tint and his fingertips had wrinkled.

Back in the bedroom, without concerning himself with drying his hair, Hunter collapsed onto the bed. The sensation he got as his skin came into contact with the luxury white linen was that he had slumped onto a fluffy cloud. His eyelids didn’t even flutter. They simply came down like heavy shutters at the end of a very long day. Less than a minute later he was asleep.

At exactly 8:25 a.m., Hunter stepped outside his room. As he did, Garcia rounded the corridor corner.

‘Wow,’ Garcia said. ‘How is this for perfect timing, huh?’

Hunter closed the door behind him.

‘I thought you’d be in the breakfast room already,’ he said.

‘In different circumstances, I would be,’ Garcia agreed. ‘But I really don’t feel like facing those two by myself this early in the morning. I’m not a masochist, you know?’

Hunter chuckled. ‘Yes, I guess I see your point. I don’t think Special Agent Fisher likes you very much, Carlos.’

‘Me?’ Garcia’s surprised face was almost sincere. ‘Rubbish. Everyone likes me. I’m charming, good-looking, smart, and loads of fun to be around. What’s there not to like?’ He lifted his arms up to about chest height, spread them wide and used both hands to point at himself. ‘Plus, I’m Brazilian. Everyone likes Brazilian people because we can samba.’