by Chris Carter
Nine
It took less than three seconds for Dr. Slater’s email to come through. As soon as it appeared on Hunter’s inbox tray, he double-clicked it to open.
As a subject, the email showed the official number that had now been assigned to the case. Its body contained a five-word message – ‘Have a look at this’ – followed by a rectangular blue box, indicating that there was an image attachment – 00001.jpg.
Hunter clicked the attachment.
‘We’ve got a fingerprint?’ Garcia asked, as soon as the image opened on Hunter’s screen.
‘This didn’t come from one of the pages in the diary,’ Dr. Slater clarified. ‘We’re still analyzing those. This came from one of the Polaroid photographs – one of the “subjects”. It was lifted from the bottom right-hand corner – front and back – thumb at the front, forefinger at the back. And it’s not a full print. It’s a partial one – about seventy-five percent of the thumb print and fifty percent of the forefinger.’
‘Seventy-five percent?’ Captain Blake this time. ‘That should be good enough for a search against IAFIS.’
‘If there is a match in IAFIS.’ The comment came from Garcia. ‘Then yes, a seventy-five percent partial print should be good enough to identify it.’
‘If there is a match,’ Hunter said, being cautious as always.
‘There is,’ Dr. Slater confirmed.
Everyone inside the UVC Unit’s office frowned at the phone on Hunter’s desk.
‘What do you mean, Doc?’ Garcia asked.
‘I’m sorry about that,’ the doctor replied. ‘Once again, curiosity took over and I took the liberty of checking. Since what we’ve got is only a partial fingerprint, it took IAFIS a little longer than usual to find a match, but the real surprise is . . . it’s not a “he” . . . it’s a “she”.’
Ten
There was a time when matching a fingerprint to any already stored into IAFIS – Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System – would take days, sometimes weeks. Matching a partial fingerprint, even if ‘partial’ meant seventy-five percent or more, was almost impossible, but those days are long gone. Today, from their own smartphones, any detective or forensics agent could run a search against the millions of entries stored into IAFIS and a result would come back in seconds. Partial fingerprints would take a little longer.
Hunter didn’t doubt Dr. Slater, but he had to run his own search against the IAFIS database just to be thorough. Once he’d downloaded the partial fingerprint image he had received and fed it into IAFIS, it took the database just a little over four minutes to find a match. As the arrest file filled Hunter’s computer screen, Garcia and Captain Blake repositioned themselves behind his chair to have a better look.
The large mugshot on the top left-hand corner of the screen showed a young white woman, staring straight at the camera and holding the traditional ‘arrest information’ placard. The look in her eyes was intriguing, to say the least – focused and careless in equal measures. Her buttery blonde hair, although a little disheveled, showed signs that it had once been styled into a side-swept, classic bob. The shape of her face sat midway between a heart and a diamond, with thin lips, almond-shaped eyes that were hazel-blue in color, and a small button nose. Her makeup was a little odd – light on the eyes and lips, but quite heavy on the cheekbones and eyebrows. Not a very flattering look.
‘Angela Wood,’ Captain Blake read from the placard the woman was holding. ‘Twenty-one years old.’ Her attention, together with Hunter and Garcia’s, moved to the information on the arrest sheet and they all read it in silence.
Miss Wood was from Pocatello, Idaho. She had moved to Los Angeles when she was only seventeen years old and got arrested a year later – pickpocketing in Santa Monica Beach. She was caught with six different wallets and four different smartphones. Judge Connor sentenced her to 120 days in jail for her crime. According to the arrest sheet, she lived somewhere in Studio City.
Captain Blake paused, straightened her body and looked at her detectives.
‘This doesn’t really read like the rap sheet of a serial killer with over sixteen heinous murders under her belt, does it?’
‘She’s not our killer, Captain,’ Garcia said. ‘But if her fingerprints were on one of the victim’s Polaroid photos, it means that sometime, probably in the four years that she’s been living in LA, she came into contact with the person we’re after.’
‘Doc,’ Hunter called.
Dr. Slater had stayed on the phone while they’d run their own IAFIS search.
‘Yes, I’m still here.’
‘Have all the Polaroids been dusted for prints,’ Hunter asked. ‘Or just the one from which you retrieved this fingerprint?’
‘The photos have all been dusted and analyzed,’ the doctor confirmed. ‘The pages in the diary, not yet.’
‘And is her fingerprint on all the Polaroids?’
‘No,’ Doctor Slater surprised everyone. ‘Only one out of the sixteen.’
‘Which photo is it?’ Hunter asked. ‘Is it the one from the victim we found last night? The first entry in the diary?’
‘No, it’s not. I don’t really know who the person on the photo is. I haven’t checked it against the diary, but the photo is of a boy who looks to be . . .’ She paused as if weighing her conclusion. ‘ . . . seventeen . . . eighteen, maybe.’
‘Can you do us a favor, Doc?’ Hunter asked. ‘Can you expedite all those photos to us?’
‘Of course. The pages from the journal will follow later today.’
‘Thank you.’ Hunter disconnected from the call and immediately put a call to his research team, asking them to compile a file on Angela Wood. He put the phone down and checked his watch – 11:38 a.m. ‘Want to take a drive to Studio City?’ he asked Garcia.
‘I thought you’d never ask,’ Garcia replied, reaching for his jacket.
Eleven
Colfax Avenue, located north of San Fernando Valley, on the other side of Hollywood Hills, was a three-mile-long straight avenue that led from North Hollywood to Studio City, which was the address that Hunter and Garcia had obtained from Angela Wood’s arrest sheet. The building in question was a pale-fronted, three-story-high structure, directly across the road from a medium-sized independent supermarket and liquor store called ‘The Village Market’.
‘I think this is it,’ Garcia said, as he slowed down to check the number on the building.
‘That’s the one, all right,’ Hunter said, reading from his notes. ‘Apartment 309.’
Garcia pulled up onto a street parking space just past the building. As they took the short flight of stairs that led up to the entrance lobby, they got lucky. The postman had just finished delivering the mail to the building’s postboxes. As he was leaving, he saw Hunter and Garcia coming up the stairs and held the entrance door open for them. That would allow them to go straight up to apartment 309, instead of having to ring the intercom.
Being arrested is a very unpleasant experience, so it’s no surprise that people who have spent any sort of time in jail, people with a rap sheet, tend to be very reluctant to talk to cops, even if they have nothing to hide. Knowing that, the less warning Hunter and Garcia gave Angela Wood that they were coming, the better.
‘Hold on a sec,’ Garcia said. ‘Let me go check the back of the building for a fire escape.’ He shrugged at Hunter. ‘You never know how spooked people might get once you flash a detective’s badge at them.’
Hunter waited while Garcia quickly rounded the building. He was back in less than thirty seconds.
‘Nope,’ he said with a headshake. ‘No fire escape.’
They took the stairs up to the third floor, which dropped them at the beginning of a short and brightly lit corridor with five doors on each side. Apartment 309 was the last door on the right. Hunter gave it three hard knocks and they waited.
Twenty seconds went by with no reply.
Hunter knocked again and he and Garcia moved their ears a little c
loser to the door.
This time they heard some noise coming from inside, but they still had to wait another fifteen seconds for a reply.
‘Who is it?’ a tired, probably just-out-of-bed female voice called from behind the door.
Before Hunter could reply, Garcia stopped him with a gesture and pointed to the door, indicating that it had no peephole. He then took over.
‘It’s the postman,’ he said in a firm voice. ‘I have a letter for a Miss Angela Wood that requires a signature.’
‘A letter?’ The female voice took a somewhat skeptical and defensive tone.
‘That’s correct, ma’am,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘It’s from . . .’ He looked at Hunter with a question in his eyes.
‘Pocatello, Idaho,’ Hunter mouthed the words. He remembered her birthplace from her rap sheet.
‘Pocatello, in Idaho,’ Garcia called out.
The next ten seconds went by in complete silence. Clearly, Angela Wood wasn’t expecting any mail from her hometown.
‘Ummm . . .’ she finally called from behind the door. ‘Give me just a minute, I need to put on some clothes. I was in the shower.’ Her tone was still skeptical.
Hunter and Garcia once again moved closer to the door to try to hear what was going on inside. They heard what sounded like someone urgently hurrying around.
They moved their ears closer still – that was when they heard an odd squeaking noise, as if something was being dragged on unoiled wheels.
Hunter looked at his partner.
‘Window,’ he said.
‘Window?’ Garcia questioned. ‘We’re on the third floor and there’s no fire escape. Is she nuts?’
Without waiting for a reply, Garcia took off down the corridor in the direction of the stairs.
Hunter turned toward the door and knocked again. The postman trick obviously hadn’t worked. ‘Miss Wood, this is the LAPD, please open the door.’
Three seconds – no reply.
He knocked again. ‘Miss Wood, please open the door. This is the LAPD. We need to talk to you.’
Nothing.
‘Miss Wood, this is your last warning. If you don’t open the door, I’ll be forced to kick it in.’
Another three seconds. Still nothing.
Hunter took a step back from the door and sent the heel of his right boot flying against the door handle. The loud noise of his kick echoed down the corridor, the door shook, but it remained locked. Hunter hit it again, putting more power into his kick.
Almost, but not quite.
Once again, with everything he had.
This time the doorframe cracked and split, sending the door flying back and wood splinters flying in the air. Hunter immediately stepped inside to find Angela Wood with a back-pack strapped to her, sitting at the window ledge, her legs hanging outside.
‘Wait!’ he shouted, standing at the door to her apartment, his hands coming up in a surrender gesture. ‘What are you doing? We just want to talk to you. Nothing else.’
‘Yeah, right.’ She grabbed the ledge with both hands, ready to push herself off.
‘Please don’t,’ Hunter pleaded, keeping his distance so he wouldn’t come across as a threat. ‘Miss Wood, please listen to me. That’s a very bad idea,’ he said in the calmest voice he could muster. ‘The drop from that window to the ground below is around forty-five feet, maybe a little more. If you’re lucky, and that’s saying something, you’ll end up with a broken leg. Probably two. Probably exposed fractures. We’re talking wheelchairs and crutches for at least the next six to nine months. I’m sure you don’t want that.’ Hunter sensed Angela’s hesitation. ‘Listen, we’re not here to take you in. I give you my word. We really just want to talk to you. We need your help. Please, come back inside.’
Angela peeked over her right shoulder back at Hunter. To her, the man standing at her door sounded sincere, but she had been fooled before and she wasn’t about to take any chances.
‘What the hell is going on here?’ A half-surprised, half-concerned voice called from just a few feet behind Hunter.
Hunter turned to find a 250-pound bald-headed man standing in the corridor just outside the door to Angela Wood’s apartment. He was menacingly holding a baseball bat. Clearly a neighbor who had heard the commotion and was trying to help.
‘It’s all right, sir,’ Hunter said, flashing the man his badge. ‘I’m a detective with the LAPD. Everything is under control here. Please put down the bat and go back to your apartment.’
The man relaxed his grip on the bat and angled his head to have a better look at Hunter’s badge. All of a sudden, the man’s eyes widened in surprise and shock at something he saw just past Hunter’s shoulder.
‘Jesus!’ he gasped.
Hunter immediately spun around.
There was nobody at the window anymore. Angela Wood was gone.
Hunter looked back at the man, who shrugged at him.
‘She jumped.’
Twelve
Garcia got to the end of the corridor and, instead of running down the stairs, he leaped over the entire first flight. As his feet touched the landing, he heard a loud thumping noise echo through the hallway he had just come from. He figured that was Hunter trying to break into Angela Wood’s apartment.
Garcia turned the corner and once again leaped down the next flight of stairs . . . and the next . . . and the next . . . all the way down to the ground floor.
An old and clearly fragile lady was closing the entry door behind her just as Garcia hit the lobby landing. She hadn’t seen the detective until he jumped right in front of her.
‘Oh dear Lord!’ the lady cried in a weak voice, dropping her cane before taking a step back and placing a hand over her heart. Her mouth opened in a gasp that was half fright, half panic. A split second later, she looked like she was having difficulty breathing. Her legs weakened under her, forcing the old lady to lean against the glass door behind her for support.
Garcia saw her already pale face lose even more color and immediately moved to her.
‘I’m so terribly sorry,’ he said, gently placing his hands on both of her shoulders to comfort her. The old lady seemed to be more bone than flesh. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you.’
She looked back at him with unfocused eyes, still struggling to breathe.
Garcia was unsure of what to do. He needed to run. He needed to get to the back of that building before something unthinkable happened, and this situation wasn’t helping. He tried to calm the old lady down.
‘Just breathe,’ he said in a steady voice. ‘Nice and slowly. Don’t try to rush it.’ He began breathing in a sturdy rhythm to demonstrate, while at the same time softly placing two fingers over her wrist to assess her pulse – faster than it should’ve been, but not life-threateningly so. ‘I am so sorry,’ Garcia tried again, before explaining. ‘I’m a police officer with the LAPD . . . and I need to get going.’ The urgency in his voice brought some focus back into the old lady’s eyes. ‘Just keep on breathing, nice and slowly like you’re doing now, and you’ll be all right.’ He picked up her cane and placed it in her right hand before moving her away from the door and shooting past her like a bullet.
Five seconds later he’d made it to the back of the building, just in time to see Angela Wood leap from a third-floor window.
Thirteen
Angela Wood wasn’t exactly what psychiatrists would call ‘textbook suicidal’, at least not anymore, but there was a time when the idea of ending her life was all she could think of. And she had tried – more than once – taking herself as close to death as anyone could possibly come without finally crossing over. That time had started around five years ago, when she was only sixteen years old.
At that young age, and for a whole year, Angela had struggled desperately with depression, every day isolating herself more and more from everyone and anyone around her, while allowing sadness, emptiness, guilt and a never-ending feeling of worthlessness to suffocate her from the inside. Self-harming became
a common, albeit well-hidden occurrence and drugs, prescription or otherwise, became the gospel that she lived by . . . but Angela hadn’t always been that way.
Throughout her entire childhood and part of her teenage years, Angela had been a smiling, positive girl, full of life. The problems and arguments she’d had with her parents while young weren’t that dissimilar from the problems and arguments most kids faced while growing up. In school, she got along well enough with her teachers, had excellent grades, and her friends considered her to be a fun, easy-going person. The change came just a week after her sixteenth birthday, the consequence of a terrible tragedy – the death of her younger brother, Shawn.
Shawn’s passing sent Angela into a dark and soul-crushing downward spiral, which very quickly swirled out of her control. Truth be told, if Angela hadn’t left her family and the city of Pocatello when she had, chances were that her parents would’ve lost a second child by now.
As crazy and as improbable as it may sound, it had been the move into the City of Angels that had somehow rescued Angela from what could easily be considered ‘the mouth of the abyss’. But the war hadn’t been won yet.
The sadness, emptiness and the feeling of worthlessness hadn’t completely dissipated. Not a day would go by that she didn’t desperately miss her younger brother, and she wouldn’t argue that some days were undoubtedly a lot harder than others. But somehow, a little light had finally found its way into the darkness that had lived inside her for so many years, and little by little Angela had begun to climb back out. She didn’t self-harm as much, drugs had practically become a thing of the past and she hadn’t thought about joining her brother in over three years.
The leap from her window to the ground below hadn’t been a throwback to those dark days. It had been a planned escape. She had practiced the move countless times, but this had been the first time that she’d had to do it for real.
Actually, the leap wasn’t really from her window to the ground below, but from her window to the reinforced rainwater drainpipe that ran almost all the way from the building’s roof down to the ground. By pure chance, the drainpipe was affixed to the building’s exterior wall, just about a foot and a half from Angela’s window. It being reinforced meant that it could easily hold Angela’s weight, which had never gone beyond 135lb, together with the light contents of a small backpack.
