The Death Sculptor (22 page)

He reached for the forensics-report folder and quickly flipped through the evidence photographs. As he found what he was looking for, his brain went into overdrive, calculating all the possibilities. He reached down, stuck his head into the pit, and fiddled with the underside of the engine, as if feeling for something. When he pulled his hand out, it was covered in a thin sheet of slimy liquid.

Hunter felt his blood warm inside his veins. ‘Smart motherfucker.’

By 9:00 a.m., the heat reflected off the dusty roads already felt like an oven door had been opened. Hunter sat at one of the outside tables at the Grub café, in Seward Street. The large white umbrella that shot out from the center of the table provided a very welcome shade. The trimmed green hedges peppered in purple flowers that covered the crisscrossed wooden fence surrounding the café gave the place a country feel, despite it being just east of West Hollywood.

Detective Seb Stokes, Andrew Nashorn’s old partner, was the one who’d suggested they meet there. He arrived a couple of minutes after Hunter, paused by the door to the outside yard, and surveyed the busy tables. He was a bear of a man. His battered trousers stretched tight around an expanding waistline, and his jacket looked like it could rip if Stokes shrugged or sneezed too hard. His hair was thin, light brown and combed to one side to disguise an undisguisable bald patch. He had the worn look of someone who’d spent too much time in the same job, and had grown to hate it.

Despite never meeting him before, Hunter recognized him straight away and lifted a hand, grabbing his attention. Stokes walked over.

‘I guess I look too much like a cop, don’t I?’ His voice matched his image, full-bodied, but tired.

‘I guess we all do,’ Hunter said, standing up to shake his hand.

Stokes looked Hunter up and down, taking his figure and attire in. The black jeans, the cowboy boots, the shirt with its sleeves rolled up around muscular forearms, the broad shoulders and strong chest, the face with its square jaw.

‘Really?’ Stokes said with a sarcastic grin. ‘You look more like the all-American dream gymnast than any cop I’ve ever seen.’ He shook Hunter’s hand. ‘Seb Stokes. Everyone calls me Seb.’

‘Robert Hunter. Call me Robert.’

They both sat down.

‘OK, let’s order.’ Stokes signaled a waitress over without even looking at the menu and ordered the breakfast special. Hunter asked for a cup of black coffee.

Stokes sat back and undid the buttons on his suit jacket. ‘So you’re the lead on Andy’s murder?’ He shook his head and looked into the distance before fixing Hunter with his tired eyes. ‘Is it true what I’ve heard? He was cut up into pieces? I mean . . . dismembered? Decapitated?’

Hunter nodded. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘And his body parts were left on a table, in some sort of crazy sculpture?’

Hunter nodded again.

‘Do you think it was a gang hit?’

‘Nothing points that way.’

‘What? A single perp?’

‘From what we have, yes.’

Stokes used the palm of his left hand to wipe the sweat from his glistening forehead and Hunter saw his jaw almost lock in anger.

‘That’s fucked up. Fucking coward, piece of shit. That’s no way for an officer to die. I would kill for five minutes in a room alone with the mother-humper who did that to Andy. Let’s see who would dismember who then.’

Hunter kept his gaze locked on Stokes, watching him feed off his emotions.

‘You know you have the entire goddam LAPD behind you on this one, right? Whatever you need, from whatever division, just ask. Fucking cop-killer. He’s gonna get what’s coming to him.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘It wasn’t a random attack, right? It was personal? I mean, did it look like a payback job?’

‘Possibly.’

‘For what? Andy hadn’t been in the field for . . .’ Stokes shook his head and narrowed his eyes.

‘Eight years.’ Hunter filled in the blank.

‘That’s right, eight years. He was with the Operations Support division . . .’ He paused, suddenly realizing the implications. ‘Wait up. You think it was payback for a case that goes back more than eight years, back to when he was on the field?’

‘You used to be his partner, right?’

‘Well, not exactly partner. We worked several cases together, yes, but when we were with the South Bureau, most of the investigations we were assigned to didn’t require more than one senior detective. We did a lot of low-level robberies, muggings, domestic violence, thefts, that kinda shit. Andy and I worked together in a few homicides, mostly gang related. Anything more high profile got sent to you folks down at the RHD.’

The waitress came back with their coffees. Stokes’s had so much whipped cream on top it looked like a snow-covered Christmas tree. Hunter waited as Stokes emptied three sugar sachets into his mug.

‘You think this scumbag is someone Andy and I put away?’

‘At the moment we’re looking at every possibility.’

‘Wow, that’s a bullshit, by-the-book, detective’s answer, if I’ve ever heard one.’ Stokes used a small wooden stick to stir his coffee. ‘Wait a second. You think this asshole’s gonna strike again? Please tell me you’re not here to tell me to be careful.’

‘No, I’m not here to tell you that, but it wouldn’t hurt if you stayed alert.’

Stokes laughed out loud. A gritty, throaty laugh. ‘What do you suggest I do, detective? Take some police protection? Buy a bigger gun?’ He leaned forward as much as his stomach would allow, and opened his suit jacket just enough for Hunter to see his shoulder-holstered gun. ‘Let him come. I’m ready for him.’ He sat back and regarded Hunter for a heartbeat. ‘I hadn’t kept in contact with Andy as much as I should have. I’m not with the South Bureau anymore. Got transferred to the West Bureau, Hollywood Division, after my divorce.’

‘When was that?’

‘Seven years ago. A year after Andy got shot. But tell me something. Andy was an active guy. He wasn’t on the field anymore, and he wasn’t as fit as he used to be, the bullet through his lung made sure of that, but he was no pushover. He was also one of those guys who was always on the lookout, you know what I mean? Wary of everyone. And I know he always packed. How did a single perp get to him like that? Ambush him inside his boat?’

Hunter sat back and crossed his legs. ‘No. He posed as a mechanic.’

Garcia was an early riser. He always got to the RHD before most, but this morning he’d gotten to his desk a lot earlier than usual. He wasn’t an insomniac like Hunter, but no one can really control their thoughts, or what their subconscious will throw at them once they close their eyes. Last night, the images that lay hidden behind Garcia’s eyelids were enough to scare sleep away for most of the night.

He did his best not to wake his wife up, but despite his lying soundless and motionless, Anna could sense her husband’s uneasiness as if it were crawling up her skin. She always could.

Garcia had met Anna Preston as a freshman in high school. Her unusual beauty captivated many boys, but it mesmerized Garcia, and he fell in love with her almost immediately. As a kid, Garcia was quiet and very shy. It took him ten months to gather the courage to walk up to Anna in a school dance and stammer the words – ‘Would you . . . umm . . . li . . . like to dance . . . ?’

‘Yes,’ she replied with a smile that made his legs wobble.

‘I mean . . . with me . . . would you like to dance with me . . . ?’

Her smile widened. ‘Yes, I’d love that.’

While on the dance floor, swinging awkwardly to a slow song, Anna whispered into Garcia’s ear.

‘What took you so long?’

Garcia pulled his chin from her shoulder and looked into Anna’s hazel-honey eyes. ‘What?’

‘Five school dances. This is the fifth school dance this year. What took you so long to ask me?’

Garcia tilted his head to one side and said tentatively. ‘I . . . like to keep the ladies waiting?’

They both laughed.

They started dating that night.

Garcia proposed three years later, straight after their graduation.

When Garcia became a detective for the LAPD, he made a promise to himself never to bring home any of the grotesque world his profession took him to. To never, ever discuss his day with Anna. Not because it was against protocol, but because he loved her too much, and he would never stain her thoughts with the images and the reality of his every day. He had never broken that promise.

Late last night, while in bed, Anna pulled herself closer to Garcia and whispered in his ear.

‘If you ever wanna talk. You know I’ll always be here. No matter what.’

He faced her and gently swept a lock of hair from her face. ‘I know.’ He smiled. ‘Everything is fine.’ He kissed her lips.

Anna placed her head on his chest and closed her eyes. ‘I love you,’ she said.

Garcia started stroking her hair. ‘I love you too.’ Sleep never came.

Garcia sat facing the pictures board. His attention mostly on the photograph of the shadow image cast by the second sculpture. ‘What the hell is he trying to tell us?’

‘I asked myself that same question all night long,’ Alice said, standing behind him.

Garcia jumped in his chair. He hadn’t noticed her entering the room. ‘Wow,’ he said, consulting his watch. ‘You’re up early.’

‘Or late, depends on how you look at it.’ She placed a few folders on her desk.

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘I didn’t want to sleep. Every time I closed my eyes my brain cooked up a new nightmare.’

Garcia made a face as if he knew exactly how she felt.

She picked up one of the folders she’d brought in with her and handed it to Garcia.

‘What’s this?’

‘Prison files and visitation records for Alfredo Ortega and Ken Sands.’

Garcia’s eyes widened. ‘Really? I didn’t even know the request had been sanctioned already.’

‘That’s one of the perks of having the DA, the Mayor of Los Angeles, and the Chief of Police so keen to see an investigation resolved. Things move a lot faster. They were faxed to my office at the crack of dawn today.’

‘Have you been through them already?’

Alice used both hands to tuck her loose hair behind her ears. ‘I have, yes.’

Garcia’s eyes dropped to the folders on his lap.

‘I read fast.’ She smiled. ‘I’ve highlighted a few points.’ She thought better of her words. ‘Actually, quite a few. Start with the blue folder, Alfredo Ortega’s file. As you’ll remember, he went to prison eleven years before Ken Sands.’

Garcia noticed a new quirk in Alice’s voice. ‘And I can tell you’ve found something.’

‘Wait until you read both files.’ She sat at the edge of her desk with a satisfied look on her face. ‘You’ll have to read it to believe it.’

Detective Seb Stokes paused midway through a long sip of his coffee and returned the mug to the table. A teardrop blob of cream now sat on the tip of his round nose. An almost perfect fluffy white mustache contoured his top lip.

‘A mechanic?’ he said, using a paper napkin to wipe the cream off his face. ‘You got the fucker on CCTV?’

‘No, CCTV wasn’t working,’ Hunter replied in an even voice.

‘It fucking never is when you need it. So how do you figure the killer posed as a mechanic?’

‘Last night I found out that there was some sort of oil leak with Nashorn’s boat’s inboard engine. He was supposed to leave on his usual two-week sailing trip the day he was murdered. My guess is that he probably noticed the problem while doing his final check-through, and knew he couldn’t sail off with a faulty engine. Too risky.’

‘Yeah, that would be the Andy I know. He was always very thorough. And the one thing he wasn’t was careless. Have you checked with the marina? Do they have a register of mechanics?’

‘I’ve checked.’ Hunter sipped his coffee. ‘They don’t have a mechanic station. What they do have is a list of mechanics they recommend. Nashorn never contacted the marina’s admin office asking for a mechanic’s name. But most boat owners already have a mechanic they trust anyway.’

‘Did Andy?’

Hunter nodded. ‘A guy called Warren Donnelly. I spoke with him last night. He said he was never contacted by Nashorn about any engine-oil leak.’

‘So you’re thinking that the killer tampered with the engine before Andy got to his boat,’ Stokes said, reading Hunter’s expression. ‘Maybe even a day or two before.’

‘Possibly.’

‘Then all he had to do was hang around somewhere close, observing, waiting for the right moment to offer his services.’

‘That’s the theory we’re looking at,’ Hunter agreed.

‘But why not just hide inside the boat cabin and wait for Andy to come in? Why complicate things by going through all the mechanic-scenario crap?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Hunter admitted. ‘Maybe because it was a small boat. The cabin was even smaller. There was no place for anyone to hide. Nashorn would’ve noticed a stranger’s presence even before boarding the boat. The killer would’ve lost the upper hand – no surprise factor.’

‘And Andy was still a cop,’ Stokes said, leaning back on his chair and running a hand over his rumbling belly. ‘And a good one. At the slightest sign of a problem, he would’ve reached for his gun and been on high alert.’

Hunter nodded again. ‘Nashorn was a big and strong guy, obviously able to handle himself. Maybe the killer knew that getting into any sort of fight with him wasn’t a good idea. Things could’ve gone really wrong. And this killer doesn’t take unnecessary risks.’

Stokes started chewing on his bottom lip. ‘So the killer needed to be invited onto the boat. That way Andy wouldn’t have been suspicious. Once onboard, an opportunity to subdue Andy would’ve certainly presented itself.’

‘Judging by the blood splatter, and the location where his teeth were found, it looks like Nashorn was crouching down in front of the engine pit. Maybe the killer asked him to have a look at something, or hold something in place while he grabbed a tool from his bag.’

‘Teeth?’

‘Nashorn received a blow to the face. Shattered his jaw and caused him to lose three of his teeth.’