The Crucifix Killer

by Chris Carter

  ‘Hi there, honey,’ he said in a tired voice.

  She sat up, crossing her legs underneath her. Her husband looked different. Every night when he came back home to her he looked a little older, more tired. He’d only been with the RHD less than a month, but in Anna’s eyes it seemed like years.

  ‘How are you, babe?’ she said softly.

  ‘I’m OK . . . tired though.’

  ‘Are you hungry? Did you eat? There’s food in the fridge. You’ve gotta eat something,’ she insisted.

  Garcia didn’t feel hungry. In fact his appetite had been nonexistent since he walked into that old wooden house a few weeks ago, but he didn’t want to say no to Anna. ‘Yeah, I could eat a little.’

  They both walked into the kitchen. Garcia took a seat at the small breakfast table while Anna retrieved a plate from the fridge and placed it into the microwave.

  ‘Do you wanna beer?’ she asked, going back to the fridge.

  ‘Actually, a single malt would do me better.’

  ‘It won’t go with the food. Have a beer now and if you still want one later . . .’

  She passed him an open bottle of Bud and sat across from him. The silence was broken by the microwave bell announcing his late supper was ready.

  Anna had cooked one of Garcia’s favorite dishes – rice, Brazilian beans, chicken and vegetables, but Garcia had only managed about three spoonfuls before he started rearranging the food around on the plate without ever bringing it to his mouth again.

  ‘Is there something wrong with the chicken?’

  ‘No, babe. You know I love your cooking. I’m just not as hungry as I thought I was.’

  Without any warning Anna buried her head in her hands and started crying.

  Garcia quickly moved towards her and kneeled in front of her chair. ‘Anna, what’s wrong?’ He tried lifting her head from her hands.

  It took her a few more seconds before she finally looked at him with eyes full of tears and sadness. ‘I’m scared.’

  ‘Scared? Scared of what?’ he asked concerned.

  ‘Of what this new job of yours is doing to you . . . what it’s doing to us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Look at you. You haven’t slept properly in weeks. On the rare occasions when you do fall asleep it’s only a matter of minutes before you wake up in a cold sweat almost screaming. You haven’t been eating. You’ve lost so much weight you look ill, and me . . . you don’t even look at me anymore, never mind talk to me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, babe. You know I can’t talk to you about the cases I work on.’ He tried to hug her, but she pulled away.

  ‘I don’t want you to tell me the details of your investigation, but you have become a ghost around here. I never see you anymore. We never do anything together anymore. Even little things like having a meal together have become a luxury. You leave before the sun is out and you only come back at this godforsaken time. Every day I watch you come through that door looking like you’ve left a little bit of your life out there. We’re becoming strangers to each other. What will happen six months or a year down the line?’ she asked, wiping the tears from her cheeks.

  An overwhelming sense of protectiveness rushed through Garcia. He wanted to take her in his arms and reassure her, but the truth was he also felt scared. Not for himself, but for everyone else. There was a killer out there that took pleasure in inflicting as much pain as the victim could possibly take. A killer that made no distinction of race, religion, social class or anything else for that matter. Anyone could be the next victim, anyone including Anna. He felt helpless.

  ‘Please don’t cry babe, everything will be OK,’ he said, softly touching Anna’s hair. ‘We’re making progress on the investigation and with just a bit of luck we’ll be closing the case very soon.’ Garcia wasn’t sure if he believed it himself.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said still tearful. ‘But no other case you’ve worked on has affected you this way.’

  Garcia didn’t know what to say.

  ‘I’m scared of what this job may do to you. I don’t wanna lose you.’ Tears filled her eyes once again.

  ‘You’re not gonna lose me, babe. I love you.’ He kissed her cheek and wiped away the rest of her tears. ‘I promise you everything will be fine.’

  Anna wanted to believe him, but she saw no conviction in his eyes.

  ‘C’mon, let’s go to bed,’ he said helping her up.

  They both stood up slowly. She hugged him and they kissed. ‘Let me get the lights in the living room,’ she said.

  ‘OK, I’ll get the dishes into the dishwasher.’ Garcia cleared his plate and quickly ran it under the tap.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Anna’s cry came from the living room.

  Garcia left his plate on top of the dishwasher and dashed out of the kitchen. ‘What’s wrong?’ he said, approaching Anna who was standing by the window.

  ‘There was somebody down there staring at me.’

  ‘What? Where?’ Garcia said, staring out the window at an empty street and parking lot.

  ‘Down there, just between those two cars,’ she pointed at two vehicles parked halfway down the street.

  Garcia looked out the window again. ‘I can’t see anything, plus it’s quite dark down there. Are you sure you saw someone?’

  ‘Yes. I saw someone staring straight at me.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. He was looking up at me.’

  ‘He? It was a he?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think so.’

  ‘Maybe it was a cat or something.’

  ‘It was no cat, Carlos. Someone was staring into our apartment.’ Anna’s voice was less steady now.

  ‘Into our apartment? Maybe the person was just looking up at the building.’

  ‘He was looking straight at me, I know it, I felt it, it scared me.’

  ‘Maybe it was just one of the neighborhood kids. You know they’re always out and about until the early hours.’

  ‘The neighborhood kids don’t freak me out like that.’ Her eyes became tearful once again.

  ‘OK, do you want me to go downstairs and have a look around?’

  ‘No . . . please stay with me.’

  Garcia hugged her and felt her body shivering against his. ‘I’m here, babe. You’re just tired and upset, I’m sure it was nothing. C’mon, let’s go to bed.’

  From the parking lot, hidden in the shadows, the stranger watched with an evil smile as they hugged and moved away from the window.

  Fifty

  They had divided their tasks. Garcia was to go over Hunter and Scott’s initial investigation files, going back three months prior to Mike Farloe’s arrest. He was also in charge of checking with the wigmakers and physiotherapy clinics.

  Hunter took over the hospital search. He thought about contacting them and requesting a list of patients who’d had an operation anywhere up to two months after Mike Farloe’s arrest. An operation that would’ve required a long recuperation period, especially physiotherapy. Through experience he knew that putting in a request, no matter how urgent it was, would still take weeks. To speed up the process he decided to check the hospitals in the downtown Los Angeles area himself and place a request for the remaining ones.

  The task was laborious and slow. They first needed to narrow it down to what sort of operation would require such a lengthy recovery period and then go back almost a year and a half to find the records.

  Hunter wasn’t surprised to find that the archiving of records in hospitals was bordering on comical. Part stored in drawers in some stuffy and crammed archive room. Part stored in disorganized spreadsheets and part stored in databases that very few people knew how to access. Not that far away from the archiving of files by the RHD, he thought.

  He’d been at it since eight-thirty that morning. At midday the temperature hit 98 degrees and the badly ventilated rooms made Hunter’s task seem like penitence. By the end of the afternoon his shirt was drenched and he’d only managed to c
over three hospitals.

  ‘Have you been swimming?’ Garcia asked, frowning at Hunter’s wet shirt as he got back to the office.

  ‘Try being locked in stuffy, pathetically small rooms in the basement of hospitals for a few hours and see how you like it,’ Hunter shot back unamused.

  ‘If you got rid of that jacket it would probably help. How did you get along anyway?’

  Hunter waved a brown envelope at Garcia. ‘Patients’ lists for three hospitals. Not much but it’s a start.’

  ‘And what’s that?’ Garcia pointed to the box Hunter had under his left arm.

  ‘Oh, it’s just a pair of shoes,’ he said matter-of-factly.

  ‘Big spender, are we?’

  ‘That’s the thing. I saw these in the window of a shop close to one of the hospitals. They are closing down in a week so everything is at giveaway prices. I got them for a bargain.’

  ‘Really? Can I have a look?’ Garcia asked, being curious.

  ‘Sure.’ Hunter handed him the box.

  ‘Wow, they are nice,’ Garcia said, after taking both black-leather shoes from the box and looking at them from every angle. ‘And God knows you need new ones,’ he said, pointing to Hunter’s old shoes.

  ‘I’ve gotta wear them in though. The leather is quite stiff.’

  ‘With the amount of walking we’ve been doing lately you’ll have no problem.’ Garcia placed both shoes back inside the box and handed it to Hunter.

  ‘Anyway, how did you get on?’ Hunter brought the subject back to the investigation.

  ‘I’ve managed to contact Catherine Slater. She doesn’t wear wigs.’

  ‘Great. Any luck with the wigmakers then?’

  Garcia twisted his mouth and frowned, shaking his head. ‘If we wanna get a list of clients that have ordered European hair wigs from any of the wigmakers in LA we’re gonna need a warrant.’

  ‘A warrant?’

  ‘They won’t disclose their list of clients. The excuse is always the same . . . clients’ privacy. Their clients wouldn’t appreciate the fact that they wear wigs being advertised to the world.’

  ‘Advertised to the world? We are conducting a murder investigation here, we’re not the press. It’s not like we’re gonna sell the information to the tabloid papers.’ Hunter snapped.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. If we don’t get a warrant we’ll get no clients’ list.’

  Hunter dropped the envelope on his desk, placed his jacket on the back of his chair and walked over to one of the fans.

  ‘I can’t believe these people. We’re trying to help them, we’re trying to catch a sadistic killer whose next victim could be someone in their family or themselves, but instead of cooperation what do we get? Fucking hostility and reluctance. It’s like we’re the bad guys. As soon as we say we’re cops it’s like we just punched them in the stomach. All the doors slam shut and on come the security locks,’ Hunter said, walking back to his desk. ‘I’ll talk to Captain Bolter. We’ll get this fucking warrant and the list as soon as . . .’ Hunter detected an air of doubt about Garcia. ‘Something’s bothering you.’

  ‘The hair found inside George Slater’s car bothers me.’

  ‘Go on,’ Hunter urged him.

  ‘Nothing else was found inside the car, right? No fingerprints, no fibers, only a hair strand from a wig?’

  ‘And you’re thinking this doesn’t sound like our guy, right?’ Hunter concluded. ‘The killer cleans the entire car as he’s done with every crime scene, but leaves a hair behind?’

  ‘He’s never screwed up before, why would he screw up now?’

  ‘Maybe it isn’t a screw-up.’

  Garcia stared at Hunter with uncertainty. ‘What are you saying? He wants to be caught now?’

  ‘Not at all. He might just be playing games like he’s always done.’

  Garcia still looked unsure.

  ‘He knows we can’t afford to overlook this. He knows we’ll be following this up, checking with every wigmaker in LA, spending time and resources.’

  ‘So you think he might’ve left the hair behind on purpose?’

  Hunter nodded. ‘To slow us down. To buy him time to plan his next kill. He’s getting closer to his final act,’ he said in a quiet voice.

  ‘What do you mean, final act?’

  ‘These killings have some sort of meaning to the killer,’ Hunter explained. ‘As I’ve said before, I’m sure this killer has an agenda, and something tells me he’s about to complete it.’

  ‘And you believe if we don’t catch him before he completes his psycho agenda, we’ll never catch him. He’ll simply disappear.’

  Hunter nodded slowly.

  ‘So let’s catch him,’ Garcia said, pointing to the brown envelope Hunter had obtained from the hospitals.

  Hunter smiled. ‘The first thing we gotta do is eliminate anyone under twenty or over fifty years of age from the list. After that let’s try and get a picture of everyone that’s left. We might just come up with something.’

  ‘Sure, pass me one of the lists.’

  ‘Have you been through the old investigation files?’

  ‘I’m still on them.’

  Hunter looked pensive for a moment.

  ‘What’s up?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘Something’s been bothering me. Maybe the Crucifix Killer did frame Mike Farloe to throw us off course. Maybe he made a mistake and he had to cover it.’

  ‘A mistake?’

  ‘Maybe. It could be something to do with the last victim. The one just before we caught up with Mike Farloe. A young lawyer, I remember that. Do you have her file?’

  ‘It should be here.’ Garcia started searching through the files on his desk.

  Their conversation was interrupted by Garcia’s fax machine’s ringtone. He pulled himself closer to his desk and waited for the printout to come through.

  ‘Você tá de sacanagem!’ Garcia suddenly said after staring at the received fax for half a minute.

  Hunter didn’t understand Portuguese but he knew that whatever it meant, it wasn’t good.

  Fifty-One

  Hunter stared at his partner and waited, but Garcia kept his eyes on the fax, still mumbling something in Portuguese. ‘What the hell is it?’ Hunter shouted impatiently.

  Garcia extended his hand displaying a black and white picture of a woman. It took Hunter a few seconds to realize what he was looking at. ‘Is that Jenny Farnborough?’

  Garcia shook his head. ‘No this is Vicki Baker.’

  ‘Who?

  ‘Victoria Baker, age twenty-four, works as a manageress for a gym called 24 Hour Fitness in Santa Monica Boulevard,’ Garcia read from the foot of the picture.

  ‘I know that gym,’ Hunter cut in.

  ‘Apparently she was supposed to have gone to Canada on the second of July.’

  ‘And did she?’

  ‘It doesn’t say.’

  ‘Who sent us this?’

  ‘Logan from the Missing Persons’ Department. We still have a flag up on anyone that looks like the computer-generated image we got from Doctor Winston remember?’

  Hunter nodded.

  Because the first victim hadn’t been positively identified yet all protocol measures were still in place and that included constant checks against new entries to the MUPU database.

  ‘When was she reported missing?’

  Garcia checked the fax’s second page. ‘Two days ago.’

  ‘By who?’

  Another check. ‘Joe Bowman, the head manager of the gym.’

  Hunter grabbed the fax from Garcia’s hand and studied it for a minute. The resemblance was there, but then again attractive, tall blonds seemed to grow on trees in Los Angeles. Hunter could clearly see how easily Vicki Baker and Jenny Farnborough could both be matched to the original computer-generated image. On their rush to identify the first victim they’d simply assumed Jenny Farnborough was their girl.

  ‘When did Jenny go missing from the Vanguard Club?’ Hunter asked.

&n
bsp; Garcia flipped through a few pieces of paper he’d taken from his top drawer. ‘On the first of July. Vicki went missing one day later.’

  ‘This girl might not have gone missing on the sixth. She might’ve taken the plane to Canada and gone missing there, or when she got back, we don’t know yet. Let’s call the gym and check if this Joe Bowman is on duty today. If he is we’ll be on our way. The head of Customs at LAX is an old buddy of mine. I’ll get him to check if she boarded the plane on the sixth.’

  Garcia quickly went back to his computer and with just a few clicks he had the gym’s information in front of him. He dialed the number and sat back on his chair waiting impatiently for someone to pick it up at the other end. It took only three rings for Garcia to get an answer. The conversation was restricted to about five sentences.

  ‘He’s on now until eleven-thirty tonight,’ Garcia said as he replaced the receiver.

  ‘Let’s go, you drive. Let me just call Trevor first.’

  Trevor Grizbeck was the head of Customs and Immigration for the Los Angeles International Airport – LAX. Hunter knew there was no way he’d get an airline to disclose passengers’ information without a warrant, and he didn’t have time for one. It was time to call in some favors.

  The sun had already set, but the heat seemed almost as intense as in the afternoon. Hunter sat in silence and read Victoria Baker’s fax sheets over and over again, but it still looked too surreal. Just as they were arriving at the gym in Santa Monica his thoughts were disrupted by his cell phone.

  ‘Trevor. What have you got for me?’

  ‘Well, as you know I have no access to airline records, but I do have access to Immigration records. Just to be on the safe side I checked from the 1st to the 12th of July. Victoria Baker never cleared passport control.’

  ‘She never boarded the plane.’