by Chris Carter
‘The killer left it on the floor,’ Doctor Snyder offered. ‘By the victim’s chair. No attempt to hide it whatsoever.’
Next to the sanding machine were two smaller evidence bags. They each contained a single 125mm sanding disk. Both had been used and were blood-soaked.
‘The disks were found in the trashcan,’ the doctor said, joining Hunter by the kitchen counter and indicating the plastic trashcan on the opposite corner from where the refrigerator was. Several bloody footprints revealed the killer’s path as he crossed the kitchen floor in the direction of the trashcan, and then came back out to where he had tied up his victim.
Garcia returned to the living room. He was intrigued by the footprint pattern.
Hunter took a minute to study the used disks. His next few words confused everyone.
‘She lasted way over five minutes.’
Thirty-Four
‘I’m sorry?’ Doctor Snyder queried.
‘You said that death could’ve come within five minutes, or after several hours,’ Hunter clarified. ‘I can’t tell you for sure how long she lasted, but it was way over five minutes.’
Hunter’s confidence puzzled the doctor.
‘Could I ask what makes you so sure?’
Hunter moved to the other side of the kitchen counter, being careful to avoid the footprints on the tiled floor.
‘Because the killer paused not only once, but twice, and calmly walked over to that trashcan to discard the used sand disks.’ Hunter gave the doctor a chance to absorb the weight of his words.
‘If the victim was already dead,’ Doctor Snyder said, realizing what he’d missed, ‘what was the point in changing the disks and carrying on with the torture?’
Hunter stayed silent.
‘But that still could’ve happened under, or just over, five minutes?’ Snyder insisted. ‘Five minutes would feel like an eternity of pain when you have a high-power sander pressed against your face, don’t you think?’
Hunter, who had been checking the trashcan, returned to the kitchen counter and grabbed hold of one of the evidence bags containing a discarded sanding disk. ‘Are you familiar with sanding machines at all?’ he asked. ‘Do you do a lot of DIY?’
‘Not particularly, no. Why?’
‘These disks are fiber based, not aluminum oxide, or ceramic,’ Hunter explained. ‘That makes them a little lighter than most. The grit size is CAMI one thousand, which means it’s a microgrit. In this case – ultra fine. The higher the grit size, the less abrasive the sanding action. In the US, CAMI one thousand is the finest sand disk grit you can get. These are only good for the final sanding and polishing of thick finishes, not for stripping wood, metal, plastic, or anything else, really.’
Again, Hunter allowed his words to sink in for a couple of seconds.
‘If the killer had used a lower grit disk,’ Hunter continued, ‘the damage to her skin, muscle and bones would’ve happened to a much higher extent, and a lot faster.’
Doctor Snyder breathed out slowly while looking back at the victim. ‘So, by picking the right type of disk, he would’ve kept her alive for longer and, by doing so, prolonged her suffering.’
Hunter nodded. ‘Theoretically, yes.’
‘Like I said,’ Garcia commented after a silent pause. ‘Welcome to Los Angeles, Doctor, where the “freaks” come out to play.’
‘So are you a DIY kind of guy then?’ the doctor asked Hunter.
‘No, not really.’
‘So how come you know so much about handheld sanders?’
‘He reads a lot,’ Garcia offered, anticipating his partner’s usual answer.
Hunter shrugged. ‘I do, but that’s not the reason.’
Garcia paused and looked at him, intrigued.
‘About a year ago,’ Hunter explained, ‘I helped a friend of mine redecorate her living room. I had to use a machine very similar to that one.’
Garcia went back to studying the footprint pattern on the carpet. A couple of minutes later, something caught his eye. He squatted down to get a better look at it.
‘Robert,’ he called out moments later. ‘Come have a look at this.’
Hunter and the doctor joined him.
Garcia drew their attention to a spot on the carpet about five feet slightly to the left of the victim’s chair, just by a cluster of footprints.
Hunter and Doctor Snyder squatted down next to Garcia, and he indicated a specific blood splatter among the hundreds on that side. Not the smallest, but not the largest one of them either.
Hunter and the doctor looked at it, frowned, then bent down further, bringing their faces just inches from the carpet.
‘Wait a second,’ Doctor Snyder said, getting up, walking over to his forensics bag in the corner and retrieving a large magnifying lens. ‘This might help.’ He handed it to Hunter.
With the help of the lens, Hunter considered the bloodstain for a long moment. From a few feet up, looking down, it looked just like all the other splatters, but once he and Doctor Snyder got closer, they noticed its odd shape.
A splatter is a drop of liquid that travels through the air and splashes against a surface or object, creating an irregular shape as it does. And that was the problem. The shape of this specific splatter wasn’t irregular. It looked almost like a perfect half moon.
Hunter’s gaze alternated between the splatter and the victim a couple of times, and he was obviously weighing up something in his mind. Then, just as Garcia had done a couple of minutes earlier, he placed his pinky finger at the center of the splatter and pressed down on the carpet. A few seconds later, his attention moved to the hundreds of other splatters that surrounded the half-moon one.
‘What are you looking for?’ the doctor asked.
‘A second splatter, similar in shape to that one.’
Garcia had already been looking for the same thing. He found it first.
‘Right here,’ he said, now calling their attention to a spot in the carpet that was about a foot and a half from where the first splatter was. It wasn’t quite the same. This one was a lot rounder than the first one. Nearly a full circle, in fact, but it was hollow. There was no center to it. All that could be seen was its round edge. The second splatter also seemed to fall in an almost direct line with the first one.
Hunter checked it, once again pressing his finger against the carpet at the center of it. Across from it, also in a direct line, there were no splatters but a puddle of blood. Hunter calculated something in his head, then used his finger again, this time as though he was searching for something somewhere inside that puddle.
‘So what do you think those are?’ Doctor Snyder asked.
Hunter and Garcia had both seen similar splatters and carpet depressions before.
‘Foot marks,’ Hunter replied, standing up again and indicating one of the forensic lights. ‘From a tripod. Similar to that one, but a little smaller. It was set right here. Its weight left slight indentations on the carpet where each foot would’ve been. The third leg sat on that puddle of blood, that’s what I was prodding for.’
The doctor’s eyes narrowed.
‘The killer filmed it.’
Thirty-Five
Squirm woke up in fright as the heavy door to his dark cell was hastily thrown open by his captor. It slammed against the inside concrete wall with purpose, shaking the entire room and sending a thunderous blast reverberating through the air.
Like a startled rat, the boy’s skinny legs kicked out wildly as he desperately scrambled his way to the corner where his dirty mattress met the damp wall. When he got there, he immediately curled himself into a ball, bringing his thin arms up to protect his already scarred head.
He hadn’t done anything wrong. Or at least he thought he hadn’t. He had cleaned the kitchen, the living room and his captor’s bedroom, just like he had to every day. He had scrubbed the floor, the shower tray, the plughole and the toilet bowl in the bathroom to as clean as it would get, and to prove it, he had licked around the
toilet rim and drunk from its water. He never made any noise. He spoke only when spoken to, stayed as far away from the basement as he could, and he only ate the scraps of what was left from his captor’s breakfast and dinner – never lunch.
Every day, after breakfast and cleaning duties, Squirm was locked back into his cell and left there until the evening, when his captor would come in and either beat him up, sodomize him, or both. After that, Squirm was usually allowed to feed on leftovers. Usually, not always.
But it wasn’t nighttime yet. It couldn’t be. Squirm was sure of it. He had no watch, and no way of telling the time, but something told him that, at a stretch, it was early afternoon. Then again, his captor needed no excuse to storm into Squirm’s cell whenever he felt like it and allow his anger and sexual deviance to rain over the small boy like a meteor shower.
With a mixture of anger and limb-trembling fear, Squirm’s whole body tensed as he ground his teeth and waited for the first blow. Hand, belt, or whip. He never knew. But this time that first blow never came.
‘C’mon, get on your feet, Squirm,’ ‘The Monster’ said from the door.
In his head, Squirm called him ‘The Monster’ because, whoever he was, that man was no human being.
Squirm thought he’d heard wrong. Not the man’s words, but his tone of voice. It seemed to carry no rage whatsoever. Thinking back, it reminded him of the first time they’d met, just near his school. A day Squirm knew he would curse for the rest of his life.
‘C’mon, Squirm, get up on your feet and come with me. I wanna show you something.’
Yes, Squirm had heard right. The man’s tone was calm and inviting, almost playful.
Squirm slowly moved his arms out of the way and looked back at his captor. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the light that seeped through from the corridor outside. ‘The Monster’ was standing just inside the cell, staring straight at him. No anger in his expression either.
‘C’mon, c’mon,’ he said again, clapping his hands twice. ‘We don’t have all day. Let’s go.’ He tagged his last words with a subtle head-jerk. He then turned, stepped back out through the door and waited.
Squirm couldn’t quite grasp what was going on, but he sure as hell didn’t want to make ‘The Monster’ wait. In a flash, the boy jumped to his feet, took in a deep breath of damp, mold-smelling air, and followed his captor outside.
The man took Squirm up the squeaky wooden stairs to the second floor and into a padlocked room that he’d never been allowed in before. The room was relatively small, about sixty square feet, with a dark-gray linoleum floor and a single window at the center of the west wall, which had been boarded up with steel plates. No one could see out or in. The walls and the ceiling were all painted black and completely bare. A corner lamp cast the room in a glow of cold orange light. The space was also bare of furniture, save for a two-seater black leather sofa that sat to the right of the entry door, and faced a projection screen mounted on to the opposite wall. The sickly sweet and musky aroma that came from the room was like nothing Squirm had ever smelled before. It made his stomach crumple inside of him, and without even registering, the boy held his breath and squeezed his lips together as tightly as he could.
As he glanced inside the sinister-looking room, Squirm noticed that the sofa had been covered by some sort of thick, impermeable plastic sheet.
‘I like to call this my cinema room,’ ‘The Monster’ said, stepping inside and proudly widening his arms, as if about to hug an invisible friend.
Squirm paused at the door, his frightened gaze darting about the room.
‘It’s perfect, isn’t it?’ ‘The Monster’ smiled. ‘So, would you like to watch a film with me, Squirm?’ He sounded animated, like a caring father talking to his son.
Squirm finally breathed in again, and immediately he felt like throwing up. His gaze traveled to ‘The Monster’ but he didn’t know how to reply. The man saw the boy’s doubt and helped him out.
‘But of course you would, isn’t that right, Squirm?’ ‘The Monster’ nodded twice to emphasize the decision he had made on the boy’s behalf.
Wide-eyed, Squirm hesitated. For some reason, that room scared him more than his dungeon cell.
‘Isn’t that right, Squirm?’ ‘The Monster’ repeated, his voice now firm and menacing.
Squirm felt his whole body quiver as he finally acknowledged the question with a single nod.
‘Great, so come over here and have a seat.’ ‘The Monster’ gave the sofa a couple of taps with his right hand.
With guarded steps, Squirm closed the door behind him before moving into the room and sitting where the man had indicated. As he took his seat, the plastic cover squeaked under his weight.
‘The Monster’ picked up the remote control that was balanced on one of the sofa’s arms and sat down next to the boy.
Unsure, and now covered in goosebumps, Squirm kept his gaze fixed straight ahead, too scared to look at his captor.
‘Oh, I think you’ll like this one, Squirm. It’s a new release.’ ‘The Monster’ clicked the ‘play’ button and sat back.
Squirm, his body as rigid as a plank of wood, sat at the edge of his seat, his arms extended, his hands clasped together and tucked between his bare thighs.
As the first images filled the screen, Squirm frowned. There was no title, no opening credits, no mood-setting soundtrack. Instead, the film cut straight to a close-up of a woman’s face, who looked to be in her early twenties. Her blue eyes were full of tears, bloodshot, and puffed up from crying. Her long blonde hair was loose, falling over her shoulders.
‘Plea . . . please,’ she said, looking straight at the camera. ‘I’ll do anything you want. Please don’t hurt me.’ Her voice wavered with every word.
The shot panned out gradually to reveal the woman’s full body, and the sight made Squirm swallow dry. She had been stripped naked and tied to a chair that had been placed at the center of what looked like somebody’s living room.
‘Isn’t she pretty, Squirm?’ ‘The Monster’ asked with a smile.
The boy, transfixed by the playing images, was unable to say anything back.
‘Her name is Sharon,’ ‘The Monster’ continued. ‘I like that name, don’t you?’
No reply.
‘Say her name, Squirm,’ ‘The Monster’ demanded.
The boy’s attention finally moved from the screen to the man at his side. ‘What?’
‘What’s her name? Say her name back to me. I just told you what it was. Weren’t you paying attention?’
‘Yes, sir, I was.’ Squirm’s words sounded almost as frightened as the woman’s.
‘So say her name. And you’d better not get it wrong.’
‘Sh . . . Sharon. Her name is Sharon.’
‘The Monster’ held the boy’s gaze for a long while, his face a blank mask.
‘Isn’t that right, sir?’ Squirm asked in a pleading voice.
At last, the man’s lips parted into a smile and he sounded happy again. ‘Yes, that’s exactly right. But don’t look at me, Squirm. Look at the screen. It gets much better.’
Squirm did as he was told.
‘Whizzzzzzz.’ From the speaker, a loud, mechanical sound filled the room, startling Squirm and making him jump in his seat. On the screen, Sharon screamed in petrified terror and turned her face away as she began sobbing uncontrollably.
‘Please . . . no, no, no.’
Using whatever strength she had left, she ferociously wiggled her body on the chair, trying desperately to break free, but to no use.
Suddenly, from Sharon’s left someone else entered the shot. It took Squirm a few seconds to realize that the person now on-screen was the man sitting by his side – ‘The Monster’. He was dressed in some strange outfit, covered from head to toe in what looked to be a handmade, seethrough plastic jumpsuit. In his hands he carried a small machine, which was the source of the loud whizzing noise.
‘Do you know what that is, Squirm?’ ‘The Monst
er’ asked, indicating the machine.
Squirm shook his head.
‘It’s an electric sander. Fantastic little machine. Very powerful.’
Squirm looked back at ‘The Monster’ with shocked eyes, as he felt a new shudder run up and down his spine.
‘The Monster’ smiled at him. ‘That’s right, Squirm, you’ve got it. I’m going to sand off her face. Just look.’ He pointed at the screen.
The boy didn’t move. Couldn’t move.
‘Look,’ ‘The Monster’ ordered, grabbing the boy’s chin, and forcing his face in the direction of the screen again.
Panic had completely consumed Sharon, who was now frantically screaming and jerking her body in the chair, but her efforts didn’t seem to bother ‘The Monster’. On the contrary, they seemed to excite him more. He stepped closer and brought the sander to within just a couple of inches of her face. Feeling the wind and the heat produced by the 420-watt rotating disk, her panic went through the roof and she wet herself.
The boy just couldn’t look anymore. Instinctively, he closed his eyes and turned his head away.
SLAP.
‘The Monster’ hit him across the face so hard it sent Squirm flying off the sofa and on to the floor. The boy’s vision was immediately flooded by sparkles of light.
‘The Monster’ pressed the ‘pause’ button.
The boy brought a hand to his tender cheek. Tears began rolling down his face. Blood began dripping from the corner of his mouth.
‘Open your eyes, and sit back here, Squirm. If you even think about closing them again, or looking away, then you’ll really understand how painful an electric sander can be because I will sand all the skin off your back. Do you understand?’
Squirm sucked in a ragged breath. ‘Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.’ On weak legs, the boy got back to his feet and returned to the sofa.
‘Good boy.’
His captor pressed ‘play’ again. On the screen, Sharon had stopped moving. Her fear was so intense it had paralyzed her. It seemed like all she could do was hope for a miracle, but that miracle didn’t come.
