Gallery of the Dead

by Chris Carter

  ‘A thick plastic bag, maybe?’ Garcia suggested.

  ‘Very possible,’ Dr. Hove agreed. ‘But without being able to examine the victim’s facial skin, there’s no way I can tell you with any plausible certainty what the killer used as a suffocation tool. What I can tell you is that it didn’t take long for her to die. A minute . . . a minute and a half, tops. I’ve been as meticulous as I could’ve been with this particular post-mortem examination, and I found nothing to suggest that she had to endure any sort of physical pain prior to her death. Other than, of course, the sheer panic that comes with asphyxiation.’

  ‘So all that sadism occurred post-death?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘That’s correct.’

  ‘Well this makes absolutely no goddamn sense,’ Captain Blake said.

  ‘My thoughts exactly, Barbara.’

  Eighteen

  The National Center for Analysis of Violent Crimes (NCAVC) was a specialist FBI department conceived in 1981 and finally officially established in June 1984. Its main mission was to provide assistance in the investigation of unusual or repetitive violent crimes to law-enforcement agencies, not only inside US territory, but also across the globe. Though its headquarters was located at the famous FBI training academy near the town of Quantico in Virginia, the head of the NCAVC department, Adrian Kennedy, coordinated most of its investigations from his large and comfortable office in Washington DC. Kennedy was in the middle of a call to the US Attorney General when, without knocking, Special Agent Larry Williams, one of the NCAVC’s most decorated agents, pushed open Kennedy’s office door and stepped inside. Following him, with a frustrated look on her face, was Clare Pascal, Kennedy’s PA/secretary.

  From behind black-framed glasses, the NCAVC director’s concerned eyes moved to both people at his door.

  ‘The Surgeon has resurfaced,’ Williams said in a tone of voice as urgent as the look he carried with him.

  Kennedy held Williams’ stare just long enough for his brain to process the severity of his words. He felt a muscle flex in his jaw.

  ‘Sorry, Loretta,’ Kennedy said into the phone. ‘Let me call you back in an hour or so. Something just came up.’ He disconnected from the call and his attention returned to Special Agent Larry Williams.

  ‘I’m terribly sorry, Director,’ his secretary said, finally positioning herself in front of Agent Williams’ athletic frame. ‘I told him you were on an important call, but he didn’t care to listen and I failed to stop him in time.’

  ‘It’s OK, Clare,’ Kennedy said with a hand wave. ‘I’ll take it from here. Thank you.’

  Clare, still disappointed with her performance, exited Kennedy’s office in silence, closing the door behind her.

  Kennedy took off his glasses and placed them on his antique mahogany pedestal desk. Despite how spacious and luxurious his office was, Adrian Kennedy was no career bureaucrat.

  Freshly out of law school, Kennedy had begun his journey with the FBI at quite a young age and immediately demonstrated that he had tremendous aptitude for leadership, coupled with an exceptionally analytical mind and a natural ability to motivate people. It didn’t take long for those qualities to get noticed and Kennedy was soon assigned to the prestigious US President Protection Detail team. It was then that he was hailed as a hero. During his fourth year with the protection team, Kennedy managed to foil an assassination attempt by throwing himself in front of a bullet that no doubt had the President’s name on it. After receiving a high commendation award for bravery and a personal ‘thank you’ letter from the President himself, Adrian Kennedy was asked by the director of the FBI at the time to head a new department that was still taking its baby steps back in Quantico – the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes. Kennedy deliberated on his decision for less than a day before accepting the position.

  It was also he who, just a few years later, suggested that a new department within the NCAVC be created – the Behavioral Analysis Unit, or BAU for short. Its mission was simple and complex in equal measures – to help with the investigation of certain violent repeat crimes through the use of psychology, psychoanalysis and behavioral sciences. Adrian Kennedy was not only the director of the NCAVC Department; he was also the head of the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

  ‘The Surgeon?’ Kennedy asked in a naturally hoarse voice that had been made worse by years of smoking. ‘Are you sure?’

  Agent Williams stepped forward and his conviction wavered a fraction. He scratched the underside of his chin.

  ‘Not one hundred percent, sir, but we should be getting confirmation very soon.’

  Kennedy sat back on his Chesterfield winged chair, rested his elbows on its arms, and interlaced his fingers in front of his chin. His eyes were a remarkable shade of blue – dark, yet luminous and absolutely overflowing with knowledge and experience.

  ‘So let me get this straight, Special Agent Williams. You stormed past my secretary, almost kicked my office door down – without knocking, I must add – interrupted a very important call to the US Attorney General, just to give me a “maybe”?’

  Williams shifted his weight from one foot to the other. His dark eyes avoided the director’s stare for just a second.

  ‘Are you out of your goddamn mind?’

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but it’s him, I know it. We just need official confirmation.’

  ‘And how exactly do you “know it”?’

  Agent Williams pulled a piece of paper from his pocket.

  ‘At around two o’clock this morning,’ he began, ‘there was an official search into the VICAP database for homicides where the perp had left any sort of written messages at the scene. More specifically, messages written in Latin.’

  Kennedy still looked unimpressed. ‘And in your mind, that fact alone gave you the right to burst into my office unannounced.’

  ‘There’s more.’

  ‘Well, I sincerely hope so.’ Kennedy nodded sarcastically.

  ‘The search returned zero hits,’ Agent Williams continued. ‘So a new search followed – messages that had been carved somewhere on the victim’s body.’

  Kennedy’s chin moved up a fraction. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Once again, and we know why, the VICAP database returned no hits, so a third, more refined search followed – bodies found with an odd combination of letters and symbols carved into their backs.’

  The muscle on Kennedy’s jaw flexed harder this time.

  ‘It has to be him, sir,’ Agent Williams insisted. ‘There’s no other reason why anyone would search the VICAP database for that sort of information – a message, in Latin, which looks like an odd combination of letters and symbols, left carved into the victim’s back.’ He allowed that thought to hang in the air for an instant. ‘I know you don’t believe in that sort of coincidence, sir. It’s got to be him. It can’t be anyone else.’

  Kennedy accepted it with a single head movement. ‘OK. Where is Special Agent Fisher?’

  Williams consulted his watch. ‘On her way there as we speak. I’m joining her as soon as I leave here, but I had a feeling that you’d maybe want to come.’

  Kennedy breathed out and got to his feet. ‘So where are we going this time?’

  ‘Los Angeles, sir.’

  Kennedy was about to reach for the phone on his desk to tell his secretary to clear his calendar for the next two days, when it dawned on him.

  ‘Wait a second,’ he said, his left hand up in the air in a stop sign. ‘Los Angeles, California?’

  Williams’s eyes squinted at the NCAVC director.

  ‘I’m . . . not aware of a different Los Angeles, sir.’

  Slowly but steadily, Kennedy’s lips stretched into an enigmatic grin.

  Unsure, Special Agent Williams turned and checked behind him before facing Kennedy again.

  ‘Have I missed something, sir?’

  ‘If you’re right . . . if this is indeed The Surgeon, then he might’ve just made his first and worst mistake.’

  ‘I don’
t follow, sir.’

  Kennedy picked up his cellphone. ‘I’ll explain it to you when we get to LA.’

  Nineteen

  Hunter sat back on his chair, his brain trying hard to process what Dr. Hove had just told them.

  How could such a violent-looking crime scene be lacking in exactly that – violence? It really did make no sense, unless . . .

  ‘Was the victim sexually assaulted at all, Doc?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘I found no indications of it, Robert. There’s no bruising to any of the groin muscles, the vagina or the anus. No semen or lubricant residues either, which would be left behind if her attacker had used a rubber.’

  ‘And you’re absolutely sure that the victim was asphyxiated before she was skinned?’ Garcia jumped in again.

  ‘Yes. One hundred percent.’ Dr. Hove sounded a little irritated by the question. ‘She died first. No doubt about that. Why?’

  ‘Carolyn.’ Captain Blake, who had moved the fold-up chair closer to Hunter’s desk, took the floor one more time. ‘Have you seen the crime-scene photos?’

  ‘No. Not yet. I got here very early this morning and I was greeted straight away by Robert’s Level Zero request, which, as you know, takes precedence over everything. The forensics file that accompanied the body was pretty basic – no photographs – and I haven’t had a chance to check my email yet. Why?’

  ‘Well, the crime scene is covered in blood,’ the captain explained. ‘The floor, the walls, the furniture, everything. There’re a couple of theories being thrown around here in the office and one of them is the possibility that the blood smudges at the scene were the result of a desperate victim, drenched in blood, trying to get away from her attacker, but if you’re really sure she died before all this brutality that was done to her body, then that blows that theory straight out of the water.’

  ‘Not exactly, Barbara,’ Dr. Hove came back.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The victim’s hands,’ Hunter said.

  ‘That’s correct,’ Dr. Hove agreed. ‘As I’ve said, I haven’t seen the crime-scene photos yet, so it’s hard for me to voice an opinion without analyzing these blood smudges that you’re referring to, but when we take into account that we don’t have the victim’s hands or feet, which could’ve been bleeding from defensive wounds before they were severed from her body, then yes, the scenario you just described is quite possible.’

  ‘Yes, but that still wouldn’t explain why nothing was tipped over or out of place,’ Garcia said.

  ‘Sorry, what was tipped over or out of place?’ Dr. Hove asked.

  ‘Oh, nothing, Doc,’ Garcia replied. ‘It’s to do with these theories the captain mentioned. By the way, do you have an estimated time of death?’

  ‘Yes, of course. By my calculations, the victim lost her life somewhere between fifty-eight and sixty-five hours ago, which takes us to Monday night, somewhere between nine in the evening and midnight.’

  ‘Could you give us a better idea of what her attacker used for the amputations?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘It was a small, serrated blade,’ the doctor replied, her voice full of certainty. ‘Judging by the type of serration I found on her fibula and tibia – her ankle bones – the blade used was thin, with tiny teeth, very close together. From that alone I’d say it was a saw, not a kitchen knife. I can also tell you that the cuts are too uneven for them to have been made by an electric instrument. He used a handheld saw. Something like a coping saw, or similar. Unfortunately, too common to be able to trace it.’

  ‘Well, nothing new there,’ Captain Blake commented. ‘One more thing, Carolyn, any indications of drug abuse?’

  ‘We’ll have to wait for toxicology to be absolutely sure, but if she did use drugs, it was probably only recreational. This girl was no junkie. I found no track marks on any of her veins. She wasn’t a smoker, either. If she were a regular user of inhalable substances like crack cocaine, crystal meth, or even heroin, I would’ve found indications of it. Her gums and teeth were in perfect condition. Best I’ve ever seen.’ Another short pause. ‘Why the question? Were any drugs found at the crime scene?’

  ‘No. Nothing at all, Doc,’ Hunter answered. ‘We’re just going through all the initial motions of the investigation.’

  ‘Did any of this blood at the crime scene look like arterial spray?’ Dr. Hove asked.

  ‘No. None of it.’ Garcia, who was sitting at the edge of Hunter’s desk, replied. ‘There were a few blood splatters, but no arterial spray.’

  ‘Palm prints?’

  ‘That would be “no” again. All the bloodstains we found on the walls and on the furniture looked a lot more like smears than anything else.’

  That knowledge further intrigued Dr. Hove.

  ‘Smears?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Garcia confirmed. ‘We’re still waiting for the forensics results.’

  It was Dr. Hove’s turn to go silent. To her, this case was getting more and more bizarre by the second. She now couldn’t wait to have a look at the crime-scene photographs.

  ‘The carvings to the victim’s back,’ she finally said. ‘Does anyone have a clue what any of that means? All those letters and symbols together?’

  ‘That’s the catch,’ Garcia replied, making a face at Hunter and Captain Blake. ‘They aren’t symbols.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  It took Garcia a few minutes to run Dr. Hove through the whole explanation.

  ‘I . . . completely missed that,’ she said, her voice a little less steady than moments ago. ‘I could tell that some of it was or looked to be Latin, but I never really put it together. Pulchritudo. Circumdat. Eius.’ She whispered the words to herself. ‘Beauty . . . surrounds . . . her.’

  ‘Well,’ Garcia said. ‘The translation that we’ve all agreed on here is “Beauty is all around her”.’

  ‘Yes,’ the doctor agreed. ‘Surrounds her, it’s all around her; the meaning is the same, isn’t it?’

  ‘I guess.’ Garcia accepted it.

  ‘Let me ask you something else, Doc.’ Hunter took over again. ‘Taking into consideration the amputations and the skinning of the body, how skilled would you say her attacker was?’

  ‘Very good question, Robert, and I’d say that he is way above average. The amputations could’ve been done a little better, but they were certainly good enough. The cuts were done at the correct position – in other words, if the victim really had needed her hands and feet amputated, that’s pretty much where a doctor would have made the incisions, though with an electric saw instead of a handheld one. And despite them being post-mortem, like I’ve said, the interesting thing is that the incisions were still made with all due care.’

  Hunter, Garcia and Captain Blake all considered the implications of what Dr. Hove had just told them.

  ‘How about the skinning?’ the captain asked.

  ‘Again, Barbara, done proficiently enough.’

  ‘Proficiently as in “not bad for a first-timer”, or “he’s probably done this before”?’

  The doctor went quiet. It was clear that she hadn’t thought about it in those terms.

  ‘Carolyn?’ Captain Blake pushed.

  ‘Yes, sorry, Barbara, I’m here. Do you think this killer has killed before? I mean, in this way?’

  ‘I don’t know. You tell me. Do you think he has?’

  ‘It’s hard to tell with any degree of certainty if he’s killed before or not. He could very well have. Like I said, the amputations were skillful enough and so was the skinning of the body. Though both of those actions could’ve been practiced on animals, this guy knew very well what he was doing.’

  ‘And what makes you say that?’

  ‘Skinning a human body isn’t as difficult as it might sound,’ Dr. Hove told everyone. ‘Human skin is very strong and quite tough. I’ll skip all the bio-medical details, so as not to bore everyone, but in short all one would need to do would be to make an incision, grab the skin and simply pull it off. If any
of you have ever bitten into a mango and then pulled its skin from the fruit, the experience would be pretty similar.’

  ‘Thanks for the visual image, Doc,’ Garcia said, making a disgruntled face at the phone. ‘When I lived in Brazil we had a mango tree in our backyard. Probably one of the fruit I ate the most as a kid. That new piece of information will go very well with my childhood memories.’

  ‘Sorry, Carlos, but with that said, let me add that being able to remove all of someone’s skin in one go, ending up with a kind of skin bodysuit, is something you would only really see in movies. That is practically impossible to do. The easiest way to skin a human being is to do it in patches. You would cut delimiting lines into the skin – and that is exactly what this killer did.’

  ‘Delimiting lines?’ Captain Blake asked.

  ‘Yes, and here’s why I said that this killer knew very well what he was doing. In this case he has divided her body into top and bottom, by making a thin but long incision that surrounded her entire waist. The skinning of her legs and arms would also be made a lot easier by removing their extremities – hands and feet.’ The doctor paused for a moment. ‘Now imagine deshelling a hard-boiled egg. For you to pull away tiny bits of shell is easy – everyone can do it – but for you to pull the entire shell away in one go, or even in two large pieces, is a lot harder. One might even say that it takes experience.’

  ‘So you’re telling us that this killer ended up with two large patches of the victim’s skin,’ Garcia asked. ‘One from her waist down – something that would look like a pair of human-skin trousers – and the other from her waist all the way up to her head, like a human-skin hooded and masked sweatshirt.’

  ‘If he took the time and had the patience that such a procedure requires,’ Dr. Hove replied. ‘Yes, he probably would’ve ended up with something very similar, with the exception that the “hooded and masked sweatshirt”, as you put it, would have a very large patch missing from its back.’