One by One

by Chris Carter

  ‘The killer left us that,’ Hunter said.

  ‘What?’ Captain Blake stepped closer to have a better look.

  ‘He left that on the glass wall behind the curtains,’ Hunter clarified. ‘We think he hid there while waiting for his victim to come home.’

  ‘How did he do this?’

  ‘The same way kids do. He misted the glass with a warm breath, and then wrote on it.’

  Forensics had used a handheld steamer to properly steam the desired section on the glass. The fluorescent orange powder attached itself to the water particles created by the steam that surrounded whatever the killer had drawn onto the glass, making the whole thing look like a large, fluorescent orange stencil.

  At the center of it the killer had written three words: THE DEVIL INSIDE.

  ‘What the hell does this mean?’ the captain asked, spinning around to face her detectives. ‘Inside what . . . or who . . .? His head . . .? Her . . .? That glass coffin . . .?’

  ‘We don’t know what it means yet, Captain,’ Hunter said.

  ‘That’s why I got here early,’ Garcia joined in. ‘The only reference I could find was to a horror film released in January 2012. It’s called The Devil Inside.’

  ‘A horror film?’ Captain Blake’s left eyebrow arched in a peculiar way.

  Garcia nodded, while reading out of his computer screen. ‘It’s a documentary-style horror film about a woman who becomes involved in a series of exorcisms, while trying to figure out what happened to her mother.’

  A moment of stunned silence.

  Up went the second eyebrow. ‘Did you just say exorcisms?’

  Garcia breathed out, sharing the captain’s frustration. ‘That’s right. According to the movie blurb, her mother had murdered three people while possessed by a demon. The daughter wants to find out if that’s true or not.’

  The captain’s gaze went from Garcia, to Hunter, to the pictures board and then back to Garcia. ‘I can’t believe I’m about to ask this question.’ She shook her head. ‘In the film, how does this girl’s mother murder these three people?’

  ‘I haven’t watched it yet,’ Garcia answered. ‘That’s what I wanted to do before you guys got here.’ He nodded at his computer screen.

  Captain Blake took a step back and scratched her forehead with her manicured pale pink nails. ‘Oh, give me a fucking break. Do either of you two really believe that any of this—’ she indicated the pictures board ‘—has anything to do with a supernatural horror film about exorcisms?’

  ‘I didn’t know a movie with that title existed until Carlos mentioned it just now,’ Hunter said. ‘But now that we know, we might as well check it out.’ He shrugged, while tilting his head to one side. ‘Murderers replicating crimes that have appeared in films or books, true or fictional, is nothing new, Captain. You know that.’

  She did know that. Only two years ago the RHD was involved in a case where a twenty-one-year-old kid murdered four people in as many weeks. When he was finally apprehended, it transpired that he was obsessed with an obscure crime novel published a few years earlier. He identified with the killer’s character so much that he actually believed he and the fictional serial killer were the same person. He followed the crimes in the novel exactly as they’d been described.

  ‘Maybe it’s just a coincidence that there’s a movie with those exact same words for a title, Captain,’ Hunter continued. ‘As you’ve just said, the killer could be speaking figuratively, referring to the devil inside him . . . or her . . . or something else.’

  ‘And that would mean what?’ the captain shot back.

  ‘Depends,’ Hunter said. ‘If those words are a reference to the devil inside himself, then he could be talking about something he can’t control. An overwhelming desire to kill. A monster inside. Maybe dormant most of the time, but when he awakes—’ Hunter indicated the pictures board ‘—that’s the result.’

  Captain Blake’s thoughtful and frustrated look intensified.

  ‘In a different light,’ Hunter moved on. ‘The killer could be talking about the devil inside us all, referring to how pathetic he considers other people’s lives to be.’ Hunter pointed to a picture on the board. ‘Kevin Lee Parker led a normal and unambitious life. He liked his job at the videogames shop, and he was very content with his family life. He didn’t want or need any more than that. The killer might have seen his lack of ambition as a waste of life, and that pissed him off. Christina Stevenson’s life, on the other hand, was completely dedicated to her job. A job that was highly dependent on gossip and rumor. A job that intruded on other people’s lives, with very little regard for anything else. To many, a despicable job. Maybe the killer thinks he’s ridding the world of mundanity, a kill at a time.’

  ‘And then there’s also the obvious more religious connotation,’ Garcia said, taking over.

  The captain faced him.

  ‘The killer might believe that his victims are possessed by demons or something, and he’s saving their souls by killing them. The torture targets the evil being inside, not the person.’

  Captain Blake might’ve wanted to laugh, but she knew from first-hand experience that people’s insanity was no joke, and it had no limits. As absurd as they might sound, any of those theories could be true. No one, maybe not even the killer, knew what was going on inside his head.

  ‘Or it could be none of the above,’ Garcia continued. ‘As Robert said before, this killer might be so detached from everything that those words—’ he guided the captain’s attention back to the fluorescent orange powder photograph ‘—could be just him killing time, while he waited for his victim to come home.’

  ‘Is there any connection between the two victims?’ Captain Blake asked.

  ‘We’re checking,’ Garcia replied.

  The silence that followed was ruptured by the ringing of Hunter’s phone.

  ‘Detective Hunter, Homicide Special,’ Hunter answered it.

  ‘Detective, it’s Michelle Kelly at the FBI Cybercrime Division. I reanalyzed the footage we had from the broadcast on Friday. And I think there’s something you need to see.’

  Fifty-One

  This time Garcia drove, but during the short trip to the FBI building in Wilshire Boulevard, neither detective said a word. It had been ten days since they’d been catapulted into this investigation, and in those ten days this case had had so many twists it was starting to look like a bowl of spaghetti. And both detectives could sense there was more to come.

  At the FBI building’s reception desk, they went through the same security checks as the first time, before being escorted down to the Cybercrime Division by the same black-suited FBI agent.

  ‘Dude, we’re inside an elevator going underground,’ Garcia said to the agent. ‘You can take those shades off.’

  The agent didn’t move. Didn’t reply.

  Garcia smiled. ‘I’m only messing with you. I know you have to keep those on at all times so no one knows what your eyes are focusing on, right?’

  Still nothing from the agent.

  ‘Ah, screw it,’ Garcia said, reaching into his pocket for his sunglasses and putting them on. ‘It’s a good look. I think we should all wear them, regardless.’

  Hunter stifled a smile.

  The elevator doors opened again. Harry Mills was waiting for them by the glass double doors at the end of the hallway.

  ‘Nice talking to you,’ Garcia said to the agent, who kept an expressionless face as he turned and walked away.

  Harry guided both detectives into the uncomfortably chilled Cybercrime Division quarters.

  Michelle was sitting at her desk with a phone wedged between her right shoulder and ear, while her fingers danced frantically over her keyboard. She looked at Hunter and Garcia and bobbed her eyebrows up and down once in a silent ‘hello’. Five seconds later she was done with the call.

  ‘Wow,’ Garcia said, staring at her still-swollen bottom lip. ‘You either picked a fight with the wrong guy or that Botox thing is
n’t working well for you.’

  Harry smiled.

  ‘Funny man,’ Michelle said.

  Garcia shrugged. ‘I do OK.’

  ‘I actually picked a fight with the right guy, who will now be in prison for a very long time. Have a seat.’ Michelle indicated the two empty chairs by her desk.

  Hunter and Garcia took them.

  Michelle was wearing a skintight black top with synchronized small rips down both sides. At the front of the top, in pink letters, were the words ‘Rock Bitch’. The low-cut top also revealed a wall of colored tattoos on her chest.

  ‘Last night I finally got some time to go over the footage of both murders,’ she explained. ‘I had no idea what I was looking for or what I was hoping to find. I was trying things out. One of the things I tried was a color and contrast saturation trick, together with slowing the images down.’ She paused and typed something on her keyboard. The familiar images of Christina Stevenson lying inside the glass coffin loaded onto the left monitor on her desk. ‘And I came across something I didn’t expect to be there. I don’t think anyone did. Not even the killer.’

  Both Hunter and Garcia kept their attention on Michelle for a while longer before simultaneously allowing their eyes to shift toward the monitor.

  Hunter had also watched both footages several times. He too had slowed them down, but he hadn’t picked up anything new.

  ‘Let me show you,’ Michelle said, pulling her chair closer to her desk.

  She first forwarded the footage to a late stage – 16.15 minutes out of the total 17:03 – and paused it. Christina Stevenson’s torso was completely covered by tarantula hawks. She’d already been stung hundreds of times.

  ‘Without the color and contrast saturation trick,’ Michelle explained, ‘I would’ve never seen it. Look at this.’ She clicked and dragged her mouse over a portion of the image – somewhere just above where Christina’s belly button would’ve been, creating a small, dotted-lined square over it. She typed a command and the dotted-lined square zoomed in to fill the entire screen.

  Hunter and Garcia scooted to the edge of their seats.

  ‘As you know,’ Michelle continued. ‘The killer was using a night-vision camera, so lighting was almost none. The camera was static, positioned above the coffin at an angle. We calculated it to be somewhere between thirty-eight to forty degrees.’

  Hunter and Garcia nodded.

  ‘Remember when I told you that this killer seemed to have everything covered,’ Michelle said, moving on. ‘Well, I think there was one thing he forgot to bring into his equation.’

  Hunter and Garcia were still staring at the image on the screen. There was nothing there but a bunch of zoomed-into wasps.

  ‘Those wasps are alive and moving all the time,’ Michelle clarified. ‘At this particular spot, by pure chance, a small group of them moved at the same time, in exactly the same direction, and over another bunch of wasps. The camera was just panning right toward the woman’s face. The combination of all that movement, for a fraction of a second, produced a different light angle. Are you still with me?’

  Both detectives nodded again.

  ‘Now, the wasps’ bodies are black, and any dark background behind plain glass can create a mirror effect if the light angle is right.’

  Michelle typed another command and the image sharpened considerably, before advancing a single second and pausing.

  Silence.

  Squinting.

  Head tilting.

  And then Hunter and Garcia finally saw it.

  Fifty-Two

  Due to the new light angle created by the position the tarantula hawks had moved into, in combination with the camera just starting to pan right, something was suddenly reflected on the coffin’s glass lid.

  ‘It’s only there for 0.2 seconds,’ Harry said. ‘But when we break it down into frames, we’ve got eight frames of it.’

  Hunter and Garcia were still squinting at the screen and tilting their heads from side to side, trying to better understand what they were looking at. Whatever it was, it was only being partially reflected. An object high off the ground, maybe five or six feet, set back from the coffin, and placed against what looked like a nondescript brick wall. They could only see what they guessed was the top quarter of the object, and not very well. It was a thin structure that looked like a T. Probably made out of metal. The ends of the horizontal bar at the top of the T curved around themselves, creating two small loops, one at each end, like two hooks. Something looked to be hanging from the loop on the right-hand side, but the reflection showed only a tiny sliver of it.

  ‘What the hell is that?’ Garcia spoke first. ‘Some sort of coat hanger?’

  Hunter stared at it for a couple more seconds, and then shook his head. ‘No. It’s an IV drip stand.’

  Garcia frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘That’s exactly what we think it is,’ Harry agreed. ‘We’ve been comparing images on the internet for a while now.’

  Michelle handed Hunter and Garcia two large color printouts.

  Hunter didn’t need to look at them. He knew he was right. He’d lived with one of those inside his house for several months when he was seven, while cancer ate away at his mother. He helped his father change her IV drip every day. When her pain convulsions caused her to violently jerk her arms in the air, tugging at the drip and throwing the whole stand to the ground, Hunter was always the one who picked it up. When he was twenty-three, after his father was shot in the chest, Hunter spent twelve weeks sitting in a hospital room with him while he lay in a coma before dying. For twelve weeks he stared at the IV stands, the drips and all the machinery inside that hospital room. No, he certainly didn’t need to look at the printouts. Some memories and images would never leave his mind, no matter how much time had elapsed.

  ‘An IV drip stand?’ Garcia asked, his eyes moving back and forth between the printouts and the computer screen.

  Hunter nodded.

  ‘And as you can see—’ Michelle took over again, pointing back at the screen and at the right loop ‘—something is definitely hanging from it.’ She clicked her mouse and the picture magnified thirty times, but even then no one could be one hundred percent sure of what they were looking at. ‘This is the best we could do,’ she continued, shrugging. ‘Our best guess . . . that’s some sort of an IV bag.’

  Hunter and Garcia kept their eyes on the image.

  ‘If it is,’ Harry said, ‘then you’re mainly looking at two possible scenarios. One: that stand and drip are there for the killer.’

  Neither detective commented back, but they both knew that it was possible.

  In truth, they knew nothing concrete about this killer. All they had were assumptions based on the killer’s actions so far. Even Mike Brindle from forensics believed that they were after someone big and strong. Strong enough to carry a 216-pound person over his left shoulder. But that assumption was based on the shoeprints retrieved from the alleyway in Mission Hills, where the first victim’s body had been found. The prints they believed had been left by the killer. Brindle had told them that the left shoeprint seemed to be more prominent than the right one. He said that that could indicate that the killer walked with a slight abnormality, like a limp, depositing more of his weight onto his left leg. They assumed the abnormality was caused because the person was carrying a heavy load over his left shoulder – the victim’s body. But what if they’d assumed wrong? What if this killer had some sort of physical impairment? What if this killer was in some sort of constant pain and in need of daily medication?

  ‘Scenario two,’ Harry said, moving on, ‘and the most probable, is that the IV is meant for the victims. Maybe the killer sedates his victims for some reason.’

  Again, no comment from Hunter or Garcia, but neither of them believed that the killer had sedated his victims.

  IV sedation, also known as Twilight Sleep, worked on the brain like amnesia, producing either partial or full memory loss. The person went in and out of slumber,
totally relaxed, and could still hear what goes on around him or her, but nothing really registered. IV sedation usually didn’t work as an anesthetic, so the person would still feel pain, but that would depend entirely on the type of drip used.

  Christina Stevenson was alert and totally terrified while locked inside that glass coffin. Not relaxed. And in no way drifting in and out of slumber. The same could be said for Kevin Lee Parker. No, if the IV drip stand was there for the victims, Hunter was sure its purpose was not sedation, and that thought was what filled him with dread. The killer could’ve used some sort of feeling-enhancing drug. Something not so easily picked up by a blood toxicology test. Something that boosted their nervous system and ultra-sensitized it. To this killer, the violence had a purpose. He wanted his victims as sober as possible. He wanted them to feel every bit of pain, but he also wanted their fear. He wanted them to know that death was coming to them. And there was nothing anyone could do to save them.

  Fifty-Three

  As Hunter and Garcia left the FBI building, they received a phone call from Doctor Hove. She was done with Christina Stevenson’s autopsy.

  In bumper-to-bumper traffic, it took them just over an hour to reach the Department of Coroner in North Mission Road. Doctor Hove was waiting for them in Autopsy Theater One, the same autopsy theater used for Kevin Lee Parker’s postmortem.

  The room felt even colder than before. The stale, intrusive, sweet disinfectant smell seemed stronger, chokingly so. Hunter pinched his nose a couple of times before folding his arms over his chest. Goosebumps pricked the skin around his triceps.

  Doctor Hove led them deep into the room toward the last of the three autopsy tables that sprang from the east wall.

  Since they’d missed it at the parking lot in Santa Monica yesterday morning, this was the first time either of the two detectives had seen Christina Stevenson’s body live and up close. Her disfigurement was even more disturbing than what the pictures had shown. Her skin, which had once been silky smooth, judging by the photographs they’d found in her house, now looked rubbery and porous. The lumps that covered most of her body came in all different sizes, but all of them grotesque, nonetheless. The unimaginable pain she’d been through was still there, etched on her distorted face like a horror mask.