by Chris Carter
Emilio looked back at both detectives.
Hunter nodded. ‘He’s right. Unfortunately for us, things aren’t as simple as that. You taking the manager’s job isn’t going to send your name to the top of the suspects’ list, Emilio.’
‘Really?’ It was like a heavy load was suddenly lifted from Emilio’s shoulders.
‘Really,’ Garcia reassured him. ‘The reason we’re here is because we would like you to have a look at something for us.’
They showed him a printout of the woman lying inside the glass coffin. The snapshot had been taken right at the beginning of the broadcast; the word GUILTY hadn’t appeared at the bottom of the image yet, and neither had the voting buttons. But the letters SSV and the number sequence 678 were clearly visible in the top left- and right-hand corners of the image.
Emilio stared at it for a long moment while scratching his chin. ‘I’m . . . not sure,’ he finally said. ‘But there’s something familiar about her face.’
Both detectives kept their excitement in check.
‘You think you’ve seen her before? With Kevin, maybe?’
He stared at the printout for a few more seconds before shaking his head. ‘No, I don’t think it was with Kevin. Kevin really didn’t have that many friends. He was always at home with Anita, here at work or playing online games after we shut the shop. He didn’t hang out in bars or nightclubs or anything like that. He didn’t meet a lot of people.’
‘Maybe she was a customer,’ Garcia pushed. ‘Maybe you saw her in the shop.’
Emilio considered it for a moment. ‘It’s possible. Can I show this to the other guys in the shop? If she’s a customer, maybe one of them might remember her better.’
‘Please do,’ Garcia said. ‘But let me ask you one more thing. These letters and numbers at the top here.’ He indicated on the printout. ‘Do they mean anything to you? SSV and 678?’
Emilio thought about it for a beat. ‘The only SSV I can think of is the SSV Normandy.’
‘The what?’
‘The SSV Normandy. It’s a starship that appears in a game called Mass Effect 2.’
‘A starship?’
‘That’s right. The game is a few years old now. It was first released in . . . 2010, I think. I completed it. It’s quite a good game.’
‘Did Kevin play it? Online with others, I mean?’
Emilio shook his head. ‘Mass Effect 2 doesn’t have a multiplayer option. It’s a solo game. You play against the computer.’
Garcia nodded. ‘How about the numbers? A game score, maybe?’
‘Not for Mass Effect 2,’ Emilio said. ‘There’s no scoring in the game. You simply finish a level and then move onto the next one until they’re all completed.’
Garcia looked at Hunter and they both shook their heads at the same time. Neither of them believed that SSV or 678 had anything to do with a videogame.
They returned to the shop’s main floor, and Emilio showed the printout to the three other employees on duty. Hunter and Garcia saw them one by one stare at the woman’s picture, frown, pouch, scratch their noses and then slowly shake their heads. If she had been a customer in that shop, no one seemed to remember her.
‘I still think there’s something familiar about her face,’ Emilio said, still staring at the printout.
Hunter and Garcia gave him a few more minutes.
Nothing.
Both detectives knew that forcing it was pointless.
‘It’s OK, Emilio,’ Garcia said, handing him one of his cards. ‘Why don’t you keep that picture? Give it a little break and then go back to it a few more times throughout the day. Memory works better that way. If you remember anything, no matter how small, give me a call, anytime. All my numbers are on the card.’
Thirty-Six
Despite being only seven days since their investigation had started, Hunter and Garcia had been on a fifteen-day stretch with no break. Captain Blake ordered both of them to take Sunday off.
They did.
Garcia finished drinking the rest of his coffee, and from across their small breakfast table he feebly smiled at his wife, Anna. They’d been together since their senior year in high school, and Garcia was certain she was some sort of angel, because he knew no human being could understand and put up with him the way she did.
Anna had been by his side from the beginning. From way before he decided to become a cop. She’d seen how hard he’d worked for it and how dedicated he was. But most important of all, she understood the commitment and the sacrifices that came with his job, and she’d accepted them, no complaints and no angry recriminations. She also understood that Garcia would never offer anything about his job or any of the investigations he was working on. She would never ask about them either. She knew that he just didn’t want to bring any of the madness of his professional life back home with him, and she admired him for that. But despite all her strength, Anna feared that the things Garcia saw on a day-to-day basis were changing him inside. She could feel they were.
‘So what would you like to do on your day off?’ she asked him, returning his smile. Anna had an unusual but enthralling kind of beauty. A delicate, heart-shaped face perfectly complemented by striking hazel eyes, short black hair and a smile that could melt a man. Her skin was creamy smooth, and she had the firm figure of a professional dancer.
‘Whatever you want to do,’ Garcia replied. ‘Do you have anything planned?’
‘I was thinking about going for a run after breakfast.’
‘Down at the park?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘That sounds great. Mind if I come along?’
Anna pulled a face at Garcia. He knew exactly what it meant.
In school, Garcia had been a great track and field athlete, especially at long-distance events. Since leaving school and becoming a cop, his fitness had actually improved. He’d run the Boston and the New York marathons three times each, always completing them in less than two hours and forty minutes.
‘I’ll run at your pace, I promise,’ he said. ‘If I get in front of you even once, you have my permission to trip me from behind and then kick me while I’m down.’
Montebello City Park was just a couple of blocks away from their apartment. A subtle breeze blew from the west, and not a single cloud spoiled the bright blue sky. The park was full of people jogging, cycling, rollerblading, walking their dogs or simply lying around lazily, enjoying the sun.
Despite never being an athlete, Anna was no pushover. Her running pace was strong and steady. Garcia kept to his word, always alongside or just a step behind his wife. They had just completed two out of their three intended laps of the park when Garcia heard a clattering noise just behind them. He quickly turned around and saw a man, who looked to be in his mid fifties, collapsed on the ground. His bicycle was carelessly dumped onto the jogging path a few feet in front of him. He wasn’t moving.
‘Anna, hold on,’ Garcia called.
Anna stopped and turned. Her eyes went straight to the man on the ground. ‘Oh my God. What happened?’
‘Not sure.’ Garcia was already rushing toward the man.
Another cyclist, younger, had slowed to a halt about six feet from where the man had fallen.
‘What happened?’ Garcia asked, kneeling down by the man’s side.
‘I don’t know,’ the cyclist replied. ‘He was just riding in front of me, when all of a sudden he started wavering all over the place and then, boom, dropped off his bike and hit the ground face first.’
More people were starting to gather around.
‘Do you know him?’ Garcia asked.
The cyclist shook his head. ‘I have no idea who he is, but he must be local. I’ve seen him cycling around the park a few times before.’
Garcia quickly turned the man over so he was lying on his back. His chest wasn’t moving. He had stopped breathing, a given sign that he had gone into cardiac arrest.
‘He’s having a heart attack,’ he said, looking at Anna.
‘Oh my God.’ Anna brought a shaking hand to her mouth. ‘What can I do to help?’
‘Call for an ambulance, now.’
‘My phone is at home.’
Garcia quickly reached into his pocket for his cellphone and handed it to Anna.
A crowd of curious people had formed around the scene. Everyone was just standing there, looking on, wide-eyed. No one else offered to help.
In the past seven days Garcia had watched two people die before his eyes without being able to lift a finger to help them. Today there was no way on earth he would stand still like all those people. There was no way on earth he wouldn’t do all he could to help that man.
Garcia immediately began pumping the man’s chest with both hands, trying to artificially pump blood out of his heart and around his body.
‘What happened?’ a man dressed in running clothes with sweat dripping down his face called as he approached the group of onlookers.
‘Heart attack, I think,’ a woman replied.
‘Let me through,’ the man cried out. ‘I’m a doctor.’
A path cleared straightaway.
The man kneeled down next to Garcia. ‘How long has he been in cardiac arrest?’
‘Less than a minute.’ Garcia looked up, searching for the younger cyclist for confirmation. He was gone.
‘Ambulance should be here in five minutes or less,’ Anna announced, her voice a little shaky.
‘OK, I’m going to need your help,’ the doctor said, addressing Garcia. ‘We need to continue with CPR until the ambulance gets here.’
Garcia nodded.
‘You carry on with the chest compressions, while I’ll give him artificial respiration. Aim for a rate of around a hundred compressions a minute. I’ll count you on. Give me ten now before I start.’
Garcia started pressing down firmly and rhythmically, and with each press his memory spat out a new random image from the Internet victims as they died before his eyes.
‘. . . and ten,’ the doctor said, snapping Garcia out of his horror trance. He pinched the man’s nostrils shut with two fingers to prevent air leakage, took a deep breath and sealed his mouth over the man’s mouth, before breathing into it for about two seconds. His eyes were fixed on the man’s chest, which rose slightly, indicating enough air was being blown in. He repeated the procedure twice.
The man still wasn’t breathing on his own.
‘I need thirty compressions this time,’ the doctor said.
Sirens were heard in the distance.
‘They’re about two and a half minutes away,’ Garcia said, pumping the man’s chest again.
The doctor looked at him curiously.
‘I’m a cop, I can tell.’
When Garcia reached thirty chest compressions, the doctor performed two more artificial respirations.
Still no self-sufficient breathing from the man.
They repeated the process two more times before they heard a loud commotion as the ambulance drove onto the grass and around some trees to reach them.
‘We’ll take it from here,’ a paramedic said, kneeling down by the man’s head.
Garcia let go of the man’s chest. His hands were shaking, and despite being a naturally calm person he was visibly distressed.
‘You did well,’ the doctor said. ‘We did all we could, and everything possible given the circumstances. No one could’ve done any better.’
Garcia kept his gaze on the man as the paramedics took over, strapping a resuscitator mask onto his face.
‘We need to shock him,’ one of the paramedics said. ‘We’re losing him.’
Tears welled up in Anna’s eyes. ‘Oh God.’
Garcia hugged her, while the paramedics brought out a portable defibrillator.
‘Clear,’ a paramedic called out, before delivering a controlled, two-hundred-joule electric shock to the man’s chest.
Nothing.
The paramedic increased the energy to three hundred joules and delivered a new shock.
Still nothing.
Three hundred and sixty joules.
No movement from the man.
Both paramedics looked at each other. There was nothing else they could do. Everyone’s efforts had been in vain.
Anna buried her face into Garcia’s chest and began crying, while Garcia struggled with the enormous guilt that took over him.
Thirty-Seven
‘Everything OK?’ Hunter asked Garcia as soon as he got to his office the next morning, immediately picking up that something was bothering his partner.
Garcia told him about what had happened in the park the day before.
‘I’m sorry Anna had to see that,’ Hunter said.
‘It’s like death has been following me around lately,’ Garcia replied. ‘And there’s nothing I can do to help any of these people.’
‘From what you told me, you did all you could yesterday, Carlos. And you know that we are doing all we can in this investigation.’ Hunter leaned against the edge of his desk. ‘That’s exactly what this killer wants. If we allow frustration to get the better of us, that’s when we start making mistakes and not seeing things.’
Garcia took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I’m just still a little rattled about the whole thing yesterday. I thought I could save him, I really did. And I wished Anna hadn’t seen him die.’ He stood up and looked around himself as if searching for something.
‘I’m going to go to the machine downstairs,’ he said, checking how much change he had in his pocket. ‘I need some sort of energy drink. Would you like one?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘I’m OK.’
Garcia nodded back, returned his change to his pocket and exited the office.
Twenty minutes later Hunter and Garcia received two reports. The first was a trace on all calls made to and from Kevin Lee Parker’s cellphone in the past two weeks. There was nothing out of the ordinary there. All the calls made or received had either been to or from his wife, or to or from Emilio. As Emilio had said, it didn’t look like Kevin had much of a social life.
The second report was on possible meanings for SSV, the three letters that had appeared in the top left-hand corner of the screen during the second broadcast. It was divided into five categories: Information Technology (twenty-six entries), Military and Government (twenty-two entries), Science and Medicine (thirty-two entries), Organizations, Schools and Others (twenty-four entries), Business and Finance (eighteen entries).
They spent a long while going over everything.
‘Any of this mean anything to you?’ Garcia finally asked.
Hunter slowly shook his head while reading the entire list of abbreviations for the zillionth time. Not a single one seemed to have any relevance to their case.
‘Symphony Silicon Valley, Society for the Suppression of Vice?’ Garcia frowned as he read the two first entries from the Organizations, Schools and Others category. He flipped the page and looked at the Military and Government entries. ‘Soldier Survivability, Space Shuttle Vehicle? This is totally nuts.’
An observation at the end of the report stated that no meanings had been found for SSV678 or 678SSV. They had tried everything, even entering the numbers as map coordinates. 6,78 had returned a spot southwest of Sri Lanka, in the Laccadive Sea. 67,8 had also hit water, several miles west of Norway in the Norwegian Sea.
Hunter put the report down and rubbed his eyes. So far, nothing was making sense. Just like Michelle Kelly had said, everything came back a dead end. Missing Persons still hadn’t found a match for the woman either.
Hunter’s stare wandered over to the pictures board and settled on the printout of a snapshot taken during the early stages of the broadcast. The woman’s fate hadn’t been decided by then. She was just lying inside that glass coffin, petrified, confused and praying for a miracle. Her face still showed hope. On the printout, BURIED was at 325 and EATEN at 388.
Garcia had finally abandoned the acronyms report and placed it back on his desk
when his phone rang.
‘Detective Garcia, Homicide Special,’ he answered.
‘Detective, it’s Emilio Mendoza.’ A short pause. ‘The woman on that picture you gave me . . . I know where I saw her before. I’m looking at her now.’
Thirty-Eight
Michelle Kelly and Harry Mills had gone over every step of their sting operation plan to catch ‘Bobby’, the Internet pedophile, a hundred times. Still, they knew that there were a million chances that something could go wrong. They just prayed that nothing did.
Michelle was also very keen to bring this FBI investigation to an end. The two Internet murders were now beginning to haunt her every moment. The killer’s arrogance more than bothered her. She wanted to move all her efforts onto the LAPD case.
‘Lucy’, the young schoolgirl Michelle had pretended to be over the Internet, was sitting on a bench in Venice Beach facing the skate park when ‘Bobby’ came up behind her.
‘Lucy?’ he asked tentatively, but he already knew the answer. He’d been observing her from a distance for the past twenty minutes.
Lucy turned and looked back at Bobby for a moment. Confusion colored her face.
‘It’s me, Bobby.’
In reality, Lucy was Sophie Brook, a twenty-one-year-old professional actress from east LA, whom the FBI had used on three previous occasions. She was an excellent actress, but her real gift, as far as the FBI was concerned, was that she had the looks, the body, the voice and the skin of a teenager. Dressed in the right clothes, she had no problem passing as a thirteen-year-old schoolgirl. And that had been exactly the picture Michelle Kelly had sent Bobby over the Internet. A sweet and naive-looking Sophie dressed up as Lucy, the chat-room schoolgirl, and Bobby bought it.
This morning, though, they didn’t have to concern themselves with making Sophie look thirteen, because any thirteen-year-old girl trying to impress an older ‘boy’ would go for a more mature look. They dressed her up in a blue jeans skirt, flat ballerina-style shoes, a trendy white top and a cropped jeans jacket. Her blond hair was loose, falling past her shoulders, and she had applied a little makeup, in tune with a younger girl trying to look older.
