The Turin Shroud Secret (3 page)

She picks up the deceased’s manicured hands. It’s not the first time she’s touched them. Back on the beach she clipped the
nails for trace evidence and toxicology and then had fingerprints taken. ‘No signs of major defence wounds but there are marks
around the wrists, indicating she may have been tied up.’ Amy uses tape to lift what she’s sure are small fragments of rope
twist from the grey skin. She stands back a little and surveys the whole torso, paying particular attention to the feet, knees,
elbows and hands. ‘No friction or abrasion marks on normal surface contact points. No indications of the body being dragged
across any kind of surface.’

Next she examines the empty, red, raw eye socket. The killer used something to lever out the victim’s eyeball.

What?

There are no gouge marks inside the cavity to indicate where any metal might have been forced in. She realises what has happened.
He used his fingers. The attacker pushed his thumb into her eye socket and forced it out. He then cut through the exposed
muscle and nerve attachments. It takes a special kind of monster to do something like that. She grimaces – something Amy Chang
seldom does. In the corner of the woman’s thin purple lips are abrasion marks, tell-tale signs that a tight gag stifled her
screams.

A phone on the wall rings and flashes – then trips to the message service. Amy moves on. She considers the missing teeth.
These probably had been extracted prior to the eye damage. She looks again into the woman’s mouth. There are marks on her
back teeth and upper pallet. Something was jammed in there to keep her jaws open while the guy went about his work. Amy angles
the deceased’s head back and swings down the overhead light. She uses tweezers to extract small traces of white plastic from
the inside of the upper and lower back molars. Unless she’s mistaken the killer forced a golf ball in there to be able to
get at the front teeth.

Amy’s seen a lot of nasty stuff on her table but her tummy turns every time she sees something like this. Something she recognises
as the unique work of the worst kind of predator in the world – the serial killer.

LATE EVENING
CARSON, LOS ANGELES

The dark-haired man with thick eyebrows and olive-coloured skin makes sure he’s locked the front and back doors and secured
the windows. Burglary is not something he wants to fall victim to – the irony would be unbearable.

He walks through to the Spartan kitchen and opens an old larder fridge that only ever contains three things: UHT milk – the
type that lasts six to nine months – a box of eggs and a tub of low-fat spread. If he’s really hungry, he’ll use everything
and make omelettes. Otherwise, like tonight, he just drinks milk. Fish and soup for lunch, milk and eggs for dinner. That’s
his entire diet.

He feels somewhat strange as he moves through the house drinking straight from the carton. Edgy. Off balance. Nervous. Not
that any of that surprises him. The day after is always like this – contradictory and confusing. It’s a period of anxiety
and elation.

The mood swings used to throw him but not any more. He’s experienced now – understands that with every kill comes an aftershock.
Like the physical recoil of a firearm. The bruising kick of a rifle against a shoulder muscle. Take a life and your psychological
muscles take a pounding. The
purple bruise of guilt surfaces first, then the yellow fear of capture and finally the ruddy red flush of conquest.

He’s spent the day like he normally does, holding down a job that’s beneath him, working for people who don’t appreciate or
understand him. Not that anyone does. Still, routine is important. A change of habit attracts attention if the police go nosing
around. Besides, he’s learned that right after a kill it’s good to be with people, to stay in the stream of mindless fish
flowing to and from homes and jobs. He likes the distraction, the filling of time. And he appreciates the camouflage of commonality,
the necessary disguise that dreary everyday life gives him.

But now it’s the night time. And the night is different. He feels different. Is different. It is a time of energy and power.
A time when kills can be savoured. Darkness brings with it a justification, a validation of what he does and who he is. Throughout
the day he longs for the dipping sun and the rising of the raw energy within him.

The rented house where he lives is plunged in blackness. It always is. The thick curtains are forever drawn. There are no
bulbs in any of the light sockets. No electricity or gas. Instead, he uses an open fire for both warmth and what little cooking
he does.

Pale light flickers from candles in his bedroom, as he strips naked and prepares for sleep. There is no bed. No quilt. No
pillow. In the corner of the room are the few things he treasures. He opens up the folded handkerchief and removes the sacred
wafer of honed steel and crosses his chest with it, then
he criss-crosses the tops of his thighs and arms. Before the blood can really show, he wipes the blade. He kisses it and holds
it aloft, like a priest showing the blessed host to his congregation. As his chest fills with red, he returns it to the handkerchief
and refolds it in precise squares.

Flat out on his back, he presses his feet against one skirting board, his left shoulder and arm square to the other. Carefully,
he tucks a single bed sheet under his heels and wraps it tight around himself until he’s completely covered from the head
to toe.

Snug. Tight. Secure.

Like he’s wrapped in a shroud.

FRIDAY MORNING
77TH STREET STATION, LOS ANGELES

The squad room stinks of late-night burritos and looks like a summer-long frat party’s just finshished. Mitzi Fallon’s government-issue
metal desk is an OCD island in the endless sea of male debris.

‘More
coffee.’ Nic puts down the lieutenant’s ‘World’s Best Mom’ mug, bought for her two Mother’s Days ago by her twins. ‘What’s
with the hand?’ He nods to the strapping around two fingers.

‘Fat oaf of a husband fell on me when we were fooling around.’ She tries to wriggle it. ‘Celibacy might be a good idea after
all.’

‘Too much detail.’

She manoeuvres the mug to her lips. ‘This has to be my last caffeine of the morning, don’t let me have any more.’ Her eyes
swing back to the surveillance footage running on a flatscreen monitor at thirty-two times normal speed.

‘You seen anything yet?’ he asks.

‘Yeah, my will to live – it went psycho and threw itself off that pier about three hours ago.’

Nic settles into a chair next to her. ‘I just checked with the uniforms. They came up with diddly squat.’

‘And that’s news?’

‘Guess not. I swear some of those guys down there are too young to cross the street on their own.’

She laughs. ‘Listen to you – already the great veteran. You need to mind your manners, you’re still too wet behind the ears
to be calling the rookies.’ She glances at the big clock on the wall near the captain’s office. ‘One more tape then I’m going
for food. You comin’?’

‘Sure, but no pizza. I need to start getting into serious shape for the big trip.’

‘You
are
in serious shape – take a swim when you’re out at sea and those momma whales are gonna come courtin’.’

‘Funny ha ha.’ He slaps the small dome where his six-pack used to be. ‘Cut the carbs, hold the beer, skip pizza and I’ll be
okay. Famished and bored but
o-kay.’

‘O-kay’s
not a good place to be.
O-kay’s
no man’s land. You’re caught in the crossfire between pigged out and happy and starved but gym-body hot. Only settle on
o-kay
when you’re married.’

‘You forgot – I’ve
been
married.’

‘It was good for you once – it’ll be good a second time.’ She looks up at him, eager his old pain doesn’t surface. ‘I’m just
jerking your string. You’re still a catch. And not just for the whales. Don’t worry about it.’

The phone on Nic’s desk rings. He glides his chair back and reaches over an exploded volcano of paperwork to grab the receiver.
‘Karakandez.’

Mitzi sips her coffee and watches him. Shame he won’t start dating again. He’d make someone a good catch. Kind, modest and
as honest as the day comes. Good looking but not so much of a pretty boy that he’s gonna get hung up when things really slide
south. She smiles. Yeah, when Nic Karakandez finally drags himself out of his shell some gal’s gonna win the lottery.

He hangs up, takes the notepad he’s been scribbling on and rolls back to her desk.

She nods to the pad. ‘What you got?’

He holds it up. ‘Look who our vic is.’

Mitzi stares at his spidery scrawl. ‘Tamara Jacobs.’ She shrugs. ‘I’m supposed to know her?’

‘Clerk in fingerprints said you might. She’s a film writer. Some kind of a hotshot. Does big historic costume dramas – romantic
stuff too, about ancient
Romans and British monarchs. Is that your kind of thing?’

‘You kidding me? Harry Potter is as close to British costume drama as I get.’ She pulls over her keypad and Googles ‘Tamara
Jacobs’.

A page from the
Hollywood Reporter
comes up with a head-and-shoulders shot of the deceased and a big block of bold text beneath it.

Nic leans back as he reads her screen. ‘Her new picture’s called the what?’

‘The Shroud,’
says Mitzi. ‘She was working a flick called
The Shroud.
Maybe I’m gonna like her kind of movies after all.’

FRIDAY AFTERNOON
BEVERLY HILLS, LOS ANGELES

Stepford wives and Mad Men husbands watch from the safety of grand doorways as LAPD cruisers crash the calm of the quiet cul-de-sac
where Tamara Jacobs lived.

The uniforms are locking down what could well be a crucial crime scene – one where the victim met her killer, was abducted
or even murdered.

After an eternity of bell-ringing at the writer’s six-million-dollar mansion Mitzi gets a couple of cops to bust
open the back door. She and Nic step cautiously into a vast kitchen full of mahogany carpentry and marble worktops. Both have
their guns drawn, even though they’re 99.9 per cent certain the place is empty. Plenty of cops have been killed by that 0.1
per cent.

‘Clear,’ shouts Mitzi from around a corner.

‘Clear,’ echoes Nic as he moves through the living room.

The perp’s been here. Nic knows it. Feels it tingle his blood.

They sweep the downstairs rooms first. There’s no sign of a struggle. Next they check all five upstairs bedrooms, accompanying
en-suites and a separate dressing room full of clothes, shoes and handbags. Nothing seems obviously out of place.

Mitzi slides open a wardrobe as big as a wall and stands back in shock. ‘Jeez, Bloomingdales has less stock than this. I mean,
how many clothes can one woman wear?’

Nic turns his back on the expanse of dresses, tops, skirts and blouses. ‘I’m going down to the study. Writers are strange
creatures. Let’s see what’s in her natural habitat.’

Mitzi takes one last envious glance at the glamorous gowns then follows him. A forensic team and photographer are in the kitchen.
There’s nothing to suggest a break-in before the cops forced their own entry. No jimmied frames, no drilled-out locks or broken
glass. Maybe the killer wasn’t ever here.

The study is even more of an indulgence than the upstairs dressing room. Ceiling to floor oak, a purpose-built desk, plush
brown leather chair – antique by the look of it –
shelves packed with every kind of reference book. Nic guesses Tamara was old school, the kind who only relied on published
books rather than internet sources, the type who wanted substantial proof behind her work.

It takes him a second to work out what’s missing. There’s a printer, scanner and a whole host of tidied cables and chargers.

But no computer.

That instinctive tingle that he felt grows a whole lot more as he pulls open a cupboard. No tower unit for a desktop PC either.
Okay. Not so surprising, writers often favour laptops – they’re slimmer and better suited to jotting down weird and wonderful
thoughts as they travel. But there are no spare cables or docking station. He searches more cupboards and finds installation
disks and guarantees for an eleven-inch MacBook Air. Nice. Much cooler than the old Dell buckling the legs of a table in
his
apartment. But something’s still irking him.

Writers back things up. Professional ones back everything up. All the time. On multiple sources.

Nic searches but can’t even find a single USB stick, let alone anything heavyweight or professional like an Iomega or Tandberg.

He’s been here. He’s cleaned her out.

‘Nic – come see this.’ Mitzi sounds more sad than excited.

Whatever she’s found he knows he’s not going to like it. He leaves the acres of oak and makes his way into a pasture of thick,
white living room carpet.

‘The cat’s dead.’ Her face just about betrays the fact she
had one as a childhood pet. ‘Been killed by the looks of it.’

Tom Hix, a forty-year-old bearded CSI in a Tyvek suit holds the white Persian out at arm’s length. ‘Its neck’s been broken.
There are ligature marks beneath the fur and its eyeballs are dilated. I’d say it’s been strangled with some kind of noose
– maybe even swung around some.’

Mitzi shakes her head. ‘Sick bastard.’

‘But an
interesting
sick bastard.’ Nic looks closer as Tom lowers it into a large paper bag. ‘There aren’t many people who carry rope with them
and know how to kill with it.’

The CSI labels the bag. ‘We’ll pass it to our forensic vet, he’s top notch. If there’s any trace evidence or offender DNA,
he’ll find it and he’ll figure out exactly how it died.’

Nic moves on and searches through a pile of mail, then checks a small cordless phone on a base by the window ledge. The display
says there are fourteen missed messages. He lifts the silver phone from its cradle, examines the icons on the main body and
finds the contacts book function. There are 306 entries, all listed surname first. He punches in Jacobs and it comes up with
only one – Dylan. His eyes flash back to the mail stack and an envelope addressed to Mr D. and Mrs T. Jacobs. He picks it
up and sees it’s been opened. Inside is a hard white card filled with flowery gold writing inviting them to a charity ball.
Nic holds the phone and card aloft for Mitzi to see. ‘Looks like we’ve found Rock Lady’s hubby.’