by Chris Carter
Travis stayed silent, considering Hunter’s words.
‘Problem number two is her fingernails and toenails,’ Hunter said.
Both the officer and the Medical Examiner’s gaze moved to the victim’s hands and feet.
‘What about them?’ Travis asked after a couple of seconds.
‘They’ve been recently manicured . . . professionally,’ Hunter said, still looking around the room. ‘Probably no more than three or four days ago. If she was depressed enough to consider suicide, I don’t think she would bother grooming herself for it . . . or buying a new pair of shoes, do you?’ He pointed to the shoebox by the dresser.
The officer and the doctor’s gaze shifted again.
‘There’s a receipt in the box. She bought them three days ago.’
Silence.
‘Now,’ Hunter turned and faced Officer Travis. ‘I need you and your partner to do a door-to-door on this floor. Get statements from everyone. Check if any of the neighbors were friendly with the victim, if anybody saw or heard anything . . . you know how it goes. Also, get the building’s superintendent up here again.’
Travis scratched his chin, nodded, and left the apartment.
‘You will still have to explain how the perp managed to escape through a locked and safety-chained door,’ the Medical Examiner said, looking intrigued now.
‘I know,’ Hunter replied, reaching for his cellphone and requesting a forensics team to come to the scene. Maybe they could help.
Because of the skin discoloration, the blisters, and the initial rotting state of the body, Hunter knew that there was no way the Medical Examiner could tell if the victim had been sexually assaulted without the proper examination and a lab swab test. For now, that would have to wait.
Hunter returned to the living room to re-examine the door and the safety-chain lock. There was no gimmick. The chain and the wall mounting were made of strong metal, and the chain was still securely locked in place. The door’s regular key lock hadn’t been tampered with, neither had the door hinges, which were tarnished with age. Somebody had really locked that door from the inside.
Time to look around.
Chapter 3
Hunter started searching through drawers and cupboards in the living room. The first thing he found were bank statements. They revealed that Helen Webster made a decent living from her Interior Designer business, and paid all her bills on time. She had been renting the apartment she lived in for two and a half years. Nothing indicated that she had ever fallen behind with any payments, but Hunter would check it with her landlord later. The finance on her five-year-old VW Golf had been paid off just a few months ago. Hunter later confirmed that the car was parked downstairs, and that it hadn’t been broken into. Helen only had one credit card. The latest statement showed a balance of $15.48 for a Chinese take-out five days ago. In short, Helen Webster didn’t seem to be burden by financial problems.
In a different drawer Hunter found a Valentine’s card with a simple message – To my beautiful girlfriend. With lots of love. Can’t wait to be in bed with you tonight.
Charming, Hunter thought.
The card was signed by someone called Jake. Valentine’s Day had been three and a half weeks ago.
The answering machine on the TV module had fifteen messages. Nine were from her mother. Her messages escalated from a little concerned to panicking. Three were from possible clients requesting a callback, and perhaps a meeting. One was from a friend named Mary, asking Helen if she was in the mood for a drink that night. One was from a different and clearly unhappy client wondering what had happened, as it sounded like Helen Webster had missed their meeting two days ago and hadn’t bothered calling to cancel or reschedule. The last message came from a holiday telesales team.
Hm . . . Hunter thought. Nothing from the boyfriend.
Hunter found Helen’s handbag on the corner, by her leatherette sofa. Inside it he found her car keys, her wallet, her driving license, a makeup bag, and her cellphone. The battery was on its last legs, but it still had some juice. There were several missed calls, mostly her mother’s, but again, not a single call from the boyfriend. Hunter checked the phone’s address book, where he found an entry for Jake Goubeaux. There was no address.
Next, Hunter opened the phone’s call log. Jake Goubeaux had called forty-nine times in the past two weeks, but funnily enough, he hadn’t called her once in the past three days. This was getting interesting. Hunter called the Operations office back at the RHD, requesting a file on Mr. Goubeaux.
Hunter moved on to the text messages – again, several from her mother, one from her friend, Mary, and one from a different friend, this one named Claudia.
No text messages from Jake Goubeaux.
On the black console by the window, Hunter found several photoframes neatly arranged. Many of the photographs showed Helen Webster with her mother, prior and post wheelchair. Helen had been a very attractive woman, with almost perfect skin, a petite nose and mouth, high cheekbones, a slim figure, and shiny raven-black hair that fell just past her shapely shoulders. The hazel eyes and the charming smile she had clearly inherited from her mother.
The other photographs showed Helen smiling, dancing, and having a good time with friends, all of them women.
Once again, no boyfriend.
Hunter paused and rubbed his eyes. Though a theory was starting to form in his head, he was also a little worried. Was he reading too much into this? Was it because, deep inside, he wanted his first ever case as a LAPD Robbery Homicide Division detective to be more than just an open-and-shut suicide case? Was Officer Travis right? Did he just want to impress his new captain?
Hunter thought about for a moment.
No, that wasn’t what his gut feeling was telling him – there was more than just an open-and-shut suicide case here – he could sense it. And Hunter had always been able to trust his gut.
But he could be reading this all back to front, and he knew it. What if Helen had been the one madly in love with Jake Goubeaux, and for some reason he had decided to break it off? What if he had told her that he was in love with someone else? That could’ve easily triggered a severe bipolar episode and in a rash moment she could have decided to kill herself. That possibility was still alive.
‘Study the scene,’ Hunter told himself. ‘Go with what it tells you.’
Hunter wasn’t ready to bring Mr. Goubeaux in for questioning just yet. The apartment could still reveal more, and so could the forensics team, once they finally got there. Also, Hunter wanted to check if the door-to-door, or the file he’d requested on Jake Goubeaux would return any valuable information. For now, the best he could do was to continue searching the apartment.
Still in the living room, he paused in front of the TV module again. Something didn’t seem right. The symmetry was wrong.
Frown.
Chin scratch.
Frown again.
The mini stereo system.
That was it.
One of its speakers was missing.
Hunter checked the cables at the back of the stereo. The speaker cable was still connected to the receiver.
‘Strange,’ Hunter said to himself, but left it at that, returning to the bedroom.
Helen had been a very organized woman. All her drawers and cupboards were impeccably stacked. Every item of clothing had been folded and placed in its designated location. Nothing looked to have been disturbed. The same could be said for the en-suite bathroom.
Her wardrobe held an ample variety of blouses, trousers, jeans, jackets, shoes, belts and handbags. Again, all neatly arranged in their specific places, except for a black silk blouse that had slipped off its hanger and fallen on top of some shoes.
Hunter closed the wardrobe door and turned to face the bed again.
Everything about that scene was wrong. Helen Webster was positioned with her legs fully extended and her arms wide open, in a human-crucifix shape. That would mean that she had sliced her wrists, lay perfectly still
on the bed, and simply waited for death. One would need tremendous willpower to do something like that.
Also, suicide by slitting the wrists and bleeding out didn’t bring instant death. Many who attempted it, if they hadn’t numbed themselves with sleeping pills and alcohol first, ended up changing, or trying to change their minds once they saw and felt the blood fleeing their veins. There would usually be a lot of twitching and arm movement, which would create a very messy scene. Hunter had studied the photographs and attended enough wrist-slitting suicide scenes to know that. The scene in that room was messy, no question about it, but in the wrong way. Helen’s body was clear of blood. All the blood had pooled on the floor, or soaked into the bed sheets. That indicated that she hadn’t moved her arms at all once she had cut her wrists open.
The second problem with her body being so clean of blood was – as the doctor had said – the cut to both wrists had been deep enough to slice through both the radial and the ulnar arteries. That meant that, at first, blood would have squirted out of her wrists like a water gun. Since the mess of blood concentrated solely on and around the bed, Hunter knew that if he was really looking at a suicide scene, there were only two possible scenarios. One: Helen had cut her wrists while lying down on the bed. If that had been the case, her arms wouldn’t have been extended out in a human-crucifix shape at first. It was way too awkward a position for her to be able to achieve such precise cuts. She would have them close to her body, probably over her chest, with the wrists turned towards her. She should’ve been covered in blood. Two: Helen had cut her wrists in a standing or sitting position before sprawling herself on the bed. In that case, blood would’ve squirted up, hitting her face, hair, and torso. A blood-free body made no sense.
No, there was no doubt in Hunter’s mind. That suicide scene was all wrong.
‘Where the hell is my forensics team?’ he said to himself.
In the kitchen, Hunter checked the fridge. Nothing had gone bad. The sell-by-date on the milk carton was still valid. The apples and pears in the fruit bowl on the small kitchen table still looked fresh. There were a few dishes on the dish rack, and an open pack of cookies on the kitchen counter.
In a cupboard he also found several bottles of spirits, including an unopened bottle of Dalwhinnie 1973 29 Year Old single malt Scotch whisky. That made Hunter pause. Not because there was anything peculiar about it, but because he’d given his father an identical bottle for Christmas just a few years back – their last ever Christmas together. Hunter’s father had a passion for single malt Scotch whisky. A passion that, frankly, Hunter had never understood. He found whisky, any type of whisky, way too overwhelming for his palate.
Pushing the memories away, he pressed the pedal on the large chromed garbage can by the fridge, looked inside, and frowned.
At least the mystery of the missing stereo speaker was solved.
Hunter reached for it, or what was left of it. The small wood-encased box had been completely pulled apart. The tiny tweeter speaker was intact, but the subwoofer had been smashed to pieces, as if somebody had had a big beef with it.
‘What the hell?’ Hunter murmured, looking at it from all sides.
His cellphone rang in his pocket.
Hunter dropped the speaker pieces back into the garbage can before answering it.
‘Robbery Homicide Detective Robert Hunter,’ he said proudly.
‘What the hell are you doing, rookie?’
Chapter 4
Hunter immediately recognized Captain Bolter’s voice.
‘I send you on an easy, open-and-shut, zippidy-zip suicide case, and in no time you escalate it to first degree homicide and put in a call for a forensics team?’
‘Captain . . .’
‘That thing should’ve been wrapped up and sealed, and your ass should’ve been back here filling forms an hour ago. What the hell is going on?’
Hunter explained everything as quickly and as concisely as he could.
‘Wait a second here,’ the captain said when Hunter was done. ‘Are you telling me that right on your first, easy-as-they-will-ever-come case you’ve had a hunch?’
‘It’s more than a hun . . .’
‘No, it isn’t, rookie,’ the captain cut him short, his voice firm and authoritative. ‘Don’t even think about giving me that crap. If you’ve got absolutely no proof, it’s called a hunch. Do you have anything to substantiate your allegation?’
‘Not yet, but . . .’
‘Then it’s a hunch . . . on your first case. Just thinking about it is making my balls itch.’
‘Proof is coming, Captain,’ Hunter hit back, his voice just as firm. ‘If you give me an hour, maybe two, I’ll find proof.’
Hunter heard the captain breathe out heavily on the other side.
‘I read your whole file again, rookie,’ Captain Bolter said. ‘And I can already tell that you’re going to be trouble, aren’t you?’ He didn’t give Hunter a chance to reply. ‘With your, and I quote from the transcripts on your file, off the scale IQ and outstanding reasoning test results, you are going to want to prove yourself in every single damn case you are assigned to, aren’t you?’
‘I’m just trying to do my job, Captain.’
‘Oh, is that a fact? Well, let me let you in on a little secret that I want you to remember for the rest of your life, rookie. Are you listening?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Not every case is a goddamn, seven-headed monster mystery, you understand what I’m saying? The majority of criminals out there are thick as shit. Nine out of ten murders in this city are committed by someone who was too angry, too jealous, too drunk, too high, too desperate, too crazy, or a combination of the above. They aren’t criminal masterminds.’
Hunter was waiting for a pause so he could say something. It didn’t come. The captain simply steam-rolled on.
‘You already got the job, rookie. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone anymore. I’ve checked, you are the youngest ever person to make RHD Detective in the history of the LAPD. Congratu-fucking-lations. That fact alone will already earn you the “pretentious little dick” look from every detective in this department. If you start trying to rub it in with that IQ crap and the Criminal Behavior Psychology bullshit in every case, including the simple suicide ones, I can assure you, you are not going to be a very popular guy around here, do you understand what I’m saying to you?’
‘I’m not trying to impress anyone, captain.’ Hunter was finally able to get a word in. ‘I’m not trying to prove myself to anybody either, but the scene here is all wrong. Nothing fits with a suicide motive. Trust me on this.’
‘Except for the fact that the only door that leads in or out of the apartment was locked from the inside, with a security chain firmly in place.’
Hunter said nothing.
‘We’re not the X-Files detectives’ division, rookie. Perps don’t walk through walls.’
‘I understand that, captain.’
‘Why did you join the LAPD, rookie?’
The question caught Hunter by surprise.
‘What?’
‘Why did you join the LAPD?’ Captain Bolter repeated it.
Hunter knew it was a rhetorical question, so he gave the captain the biggest bullshit answer he could think of. ‘To protect and to serve, captain.’
‘Of course it was,’ the captain shot back. ‘Nothing to do with your father’s death right?’
Hunter stayed quiet.
‘It’s not in your file, but I’ve checked. Exactly one week after your father died you joined the academy.’
Hunter still said nothing.
Two weeks after receiving his PhD in Criminal Behavior Analysis and Biopsychology, Hunter’s world was turned upside down. For the past three and a half years his father had been working as a security guard for the Bank of America branch in Avalon Boulevard. A robbery gone wrong turned into a Wild West gunfight and Hunter’s father took a bullet to the chest. He fought for twelve weeks in a coma, bef
ore his heart finally gave in. The person who shot him was never caught.
‘Anger and revenge is as good a reason as any, rookie,’ Captain Bolter said. ‘But you need to tread very carefully when that’s the main thing driving you. Do you understand what I’m saying?’
No reply.
‘Are you listening to me, rookie?’
‘Yes, captain,’ there was a harder edge to Hunter’s voice this time. ‘But you don’t have to worry. If I’m wrong about this case, I’ll put in a transfer request first thing tomorrow morning. You have my word. How does that sound?’
Captain Bolter was silent for a few moments. A rookie willing to put his whole career on the line straight off the blocks, based on something that he believed in – a hunch. The captain had to admit that he admired his conviction.
“Above all, trust your gut.” Captain Bolter had lived by that motto his whole life. And it had always served him well.
Hunter couldn’t see it, but a smile came to the captain’s lips.
‘Fair enough, rookie, I’ll give you some rope on this one. Let’s see if you hang yourself with it or not.’
He disconnected.
Chapter 5
‘Are you the lead detective here?’ a forensics agent asked as he stepped into the living room, looking at Hunter a little askance. He was tall and slim, with a thick moustache and bushy sideburns. A second agent followed him in. This one was short and round, with a shaved head.
Hunter nodded and quickly introduced himself.
Both agents scrutinized Hunter’s credentials for a long while.
‘Something wrong?’ Hunter asked.
‘No, not at all.’ The tall agent shook his head. ‘You just look a lot younger than any other RHD Detective we’ve ever met.’
This was getting old in a hurry, Hunter thought.
‘I’m Keith.’ The tall agent extended his hand. ‘And this is Matt.’ He nodded at his colleague. ‘Is this your first case?’
