by Chris Carter
Her eyes rested on the window behind Hunter. An edgy and disturbed look on her face. She had underestimated him and she knew it.
‘You’re bluffing,’ she said in a nervy voice.
‘Check the window,’ he replied sturdily.
She didn’t move. Her hand was shaking from all the adrenaline. ‘Nothing is over,’ she finally shouted back in rage, moving around Hunter’s chair.
Unexpectedly and with a loud crash Hunter’s living-room door swung open. Wood splinters flying through the air from the broken hinges. In a fraction of a second three STU agents had come through the door. Their laser sights placing three red dots over Brenda’s heart.
‘Drop the knife! Drop it now,’ the first officer commanded in an authoritative voice, but Brenda had already positioned herself behind Hunter. She had kneeled down sheltering most of her body behind his. The knife she had in her right hand was now being held with both hands, its entire blade pressed horizontally against Hunter’s neck, as if she was about to garrote him with it.
‘Drop the knife,’ the officer ordered again.
‘Wait . . .’ Hunter called. He knew what she’d done. She’d positioned herself in such a way that her entire weight was pulling her backwards, away from Hunter’s chair. With the blade against his neck in a strangle position, Hunter knew if she fell back, she’d almost decapitate him. If she died, he’d die. ‘Lower your weapons,’ Hunter said.
‘No can do, sir,’ came the immediate reply.
Hunter knew the officers wouldn’t back off; they lived for moments like this one.
‘Isabella, listen to me . . .’ he whispered. He didn’t want to call her by her real name. He hoped there was something of Isabella left in her. ‘These guys have itchy trigger fingers. They won’t hesitate to shoot you. They won’t hesitate to shoot me to get to you.’ Hunter kept his voice as calm as possible. He understood stressful situations. He knew people had a tendency to match the anxiety of those around them. ‘Please don’t let it end like this. There are people who can help you, people that wanna help you. I understand the pain you’ve been through, but the pain doesn’t have to go on.’
‘You’ll never understand the pain,’ she whispered back.
‘I do understand it. You saw it, you said so yourself. After I lost my partner and my only cousin the pain almost ate me alive. I did hit rock bottom, but I didn’t stay there. Give us a chance to help you.’
‘You wanna help me?’ her voice just a little tender now.
‘Yes, let me help you. Please.’
‘Like you helped your partner today, Robert?’ Her Italian accent was back. Hunter sensed that the woman behind him wasn’t Brenda anymore.
‘Yes . . . like I helped Carlos.’ No hesitation in Hunter’s voice.
He felt the blade being pressed just a little harder against his neck and the skin starting to rupture.
‘Would you do the same for me, Robert?’ she whispered into his right ear. ‘Would you risk your life for mine?’
‘You have three seconds to drop the knife before we shoot you where you stand,’ the officer instructed again, this time with overwhelming irritation.
Hunter knew he didn’t have much time.
‘You’re not gonna answer me?’ she asked again.
A split second of silence followed.
‘Yes . . .’ he whispered back. ‘I’d risk my life for you.’
Hunter sensed a timid smile on her lips before she pulled the blade away from his neck. In a lightning movement she stood up and before the STU team had a chance to discharge their weapons she had plunged the knife deep into her own abdomen. The laser-sharp blade sliced through skin and muscle with incredible ease and surgical precision. Hunter felt a gush of warm liquid strike him in the back of the neck.
‘No!’ he croaked.
‘Jesus Christ!’ the STU leader shouted, lowering his weapon. ‘Get the paramedics up here . . . now,’ he ordered. They all rushed towards Hunter and Brenda who was now on the floor. The pool of blood that surrounded her body was increasing with incredible speed.
As fast as he could, the STU leader used his own knife to cut Hunter free who immediately fell to his knees, his body shivering.
‘Are you OK, sir?’ the officer asked.
Hunter didn’t respond. His eyes were fixed on Brenda’s limp body. An STU agent was now holding her head in his hands. Hunter could sense the life draining out of her. The look on the agent’s face told him what he already knew.
Seventy
Four days later.
Hunter slowly opened the door to Garcia’s room and peeked inside. Anna was standing next to his bed, her hand gently stroking his arm.
‘Is he awake?’ he whispered.
‘Yes, I’m up,’ Garcia replied with a frail voice, turning his head to face the door.
Hunter gave him a wide smile and stepped into the room. A box of chocolates under his right arm.
‘You’re bringing me presents?’ Garcia asked with a worried look.
‘Hell no . . . this is for Anna,’ he replied, handing the chocolates to her.
‘Oh! Thank you very much,’ she said accepting the gift and giving Hunter a peck on the cheek.
‘What’s going on here?’ Garcia asked. ‘Chocolates . . . kisses . . . next thing you know you’ll be coming over to my house for dinner.’
‘He will be,’ Anna confirmed. ‘I’ve already invited him. As soon as you’re back home.’ She smiled a sweet smile that seemed to light up the room.
‘How’re you feeling, partner?’ Hunter asked.
Garcia lowered his eyes to his bandaged hands. ‘Well, apart from the unwanted holes through the palms of my hands, the deep scratches on my head and feeling like I’ve been dropped from the top of the Golden Gate Bridge I feel peachy, how’re you doing?’
‘Probably as good as you,’ he replied without much conviction.
Garcia shifted his stare towards Anna who understood the signal.
‘I’ll leave you two alone for a moment. I wanna go down to the cafeteria anyway,’ she said, bending down and giving Garcia a soft kiss on the lips. ‘I’ve got some chocolates to attend to,’ she teased him.
‘Save me some,’ Garcia said, giving her a quick wink.
After she left, Garcia was the first to speak.
‘I’ve heard you caught her.’
‘I’ve heard you don’t remember much,’ Hunter replied.
Garcia slowly shook his head. ‘I have no recollection of anything concrete. Little flashes of memory, but I wouldn’t be able to identify the killer if it came to that.’
Hunter nodded and Garcia noticed a hint of sadness in his eyes. ‘I figured it out, but I didn’t catch her,’ he said, taking a step closer to the bed.
‘How did you do it?’
‘Joe Bowman . . .’
Garcia frowned, trying to remember the name. ‘The gym manager? Steroid man?’
Hunter nodded. ‘I knew I’d seen him before, but he’d convinced me that it’d been in some fitness magazine. It didn’t really click until D-King mentioned something about being the jury, the judge and the executioner.’
‘D-King?’ Garcia said with surprise. ‘The drug dealer?’
‘Long story, I’ll tell you later, but that’s what revived my memory about John Spencer’s case. Joe was one of the jurors. He looked pretty different then. No steroids, a lot smaller, but I knew it was him.’
Garcia’s facial expression urged Hunter to carry on.
‘From that, I found out all the victims were linked to the jurors, some of them family, some of them lovers or affairs, just like Victoria Baker was. She was Joe Bowman’s lover remember, he’s married.’
Garcia agreed in silence. ‘And George Slater?’
‘He had a gay lover. Rafael, one of the jurors. We talked to him yesterday.’
‘Does his wife know?’
‘I don’t think so. I don’t think she needs to know. It would only sadden her further.’
‘I
agree. And we were right about him having a lover.’
Hunter nodded. ‘My problem was figuring out the killer. It was obvious that this had all been about John Spencer’s case, about revenge, but who?’
‘Family,’ Garcia said.
‘There’s no love stronger than family love,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But a further check revealed that the only family he had left was his sister . . . his adopted sister.’
‘Adopted?’
Another nod. ‘Brenda was adopted at the late age of nine. Not because she was an orphan, but because she’d been taken away from her overly abusive biological family by the Department of Health and Human Services. John’s family took her in and gave her the love she never had. She felt protected, she felt secure with them. They became the family she’d never really had. Their deaths triggered something in her subconscious memory. Maybe a scared feeling of being without a family again. Maybe the memories of all the abuse she’d received when she was young. Maybe the fear of being taken away and returned to her original family.’
Garcia looked confused.
‘In traumatic situations like the one she’d been through,’ Hunter explained. ‘Losing her entire family in such quick succession, it’s not uncommon for the brain to make no distinction of age. It simply retrieves the memories from the subconscious. All the fear and anger she felt as a child would’ve come back with the same intensity if not stronger, making her feel like a little lonely girl once again. That might’ve awakened some sort of rage, some sort of hidden evil inside her. She blamed everyone involved in her brother’s case for taking her family from her. Especially the jury, Scott and I. She couldn’t allow it to go unpunished.’
‘When did you know it was Isabella?’
‘When I found out about John Spencer. With his sister being the only living relative, all that was left for me to do was to find out who she was. A new search revealed that she’d been committed shortly after her father’s death.’
‘Committed?’
‘In San Francisco, that’s where she lived. After her father died, rage took over her and she apparently lost her mind . . . went crazy, destroyed her apartment and almost killed her boyfriend. They lived together at the time.’
‘So she was arrested,’ Garcia stated more than asked.
‘At first, yes, and then taken to the Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital where she stayed for a couple of years. I called the San Francisco Police Department and they sent me a fax of the arresting report. She looked very different in the picture. Different color and length of hair, in fact she looked older, as though what she’d been through had knocked the life out of her. But there was no doubt. I knew who she was then.’
Hunter walked over to the window and had a look outside. The day looked perfect, not a cloud in the sky. ‘And then I remembered her CD collection and whatever doubt I still had just disappeared.’
‘CD collection?’
‘The first night I had dinner with Isabella at her place, for some reason I checked her CD collection.’
Garcia made a face that silently asked ‘How did that help?’
‘Her entire collection was comprised of Jazz CDs, with the exception of a handful of rock albums, all of them autographed, not by the band, not by the musicians, but by the producer – John Spencer. What I didn’t know at the time was that John never signed his name as John Spencer, that’s not how he was known in the music industry. He signed his autographs Specter J. His rock pseudonym or something, I found that out on the internet. That’s why when I read the autograph inscriptions that night it never occurred to me. The inscriptions said something like, “From Big B with eternal love.” I just assumed that was one of these weird names artists give themselves nowadays, you know like Puffy, or LL Cool J. Specter J and Big B didn’t ring any bells then.’
‘Big Brother?’ Garcia half asked, half concluded.
Hunter nodded. ‘John Spencer was a year older than Brenda.’
‘So her time in psychiatric care gave her all the time in the world to hatch her plan.’
‘A couple of years,’ Hunter confirmed.
‘And that explains the time difference between John Spencer’s case and the first Crucifix killing.’
Another nod from Hunter. ‘And yesterday I found out about her military past.’
‘Military?’
‘Well, sort of. She was a surgeon, a very talented one according to what I found. At the beginning of her career she spent two years in Bosnia and Herzegovina with US forces and the medical team helping landmine victims.’
‘You’re kidding?’ Garcia’s eyebrows rose in surprise and then in realization. ‘The explosives?’
‘That’s where she would’ve gained knowledge of them. It’s part of their training, understanding about mines, explosives, detonating mechanisms, velocity and power of explosion . . . things like that. She would’ve had every manual available to her then.’
‘So it would’ve been just a case of knowing where to look, who to talk to and she would’ve easily obtained the raw materials she needed.’
‘Precisely.’
A short silence followed. ‘The sketch she gave us?’ Garcia asked, already guessing the answer.
‘To throw us off course. That night, without realizing, I’d drawn a doodle of the double-crucifix. An unconscious reflex as my mind had been totally absorbed by the case. Isabe . . .’ Hunter paused and thought better of what he was about to say. ‘Brenda,’ he corrected himself, ‘was a very clever woman and with some very quick thinking she saw the perfect opportunity to send us on a wild-goose chase, so she came up with that fictitious story about meeting someone in a bar. Someone with the double-crucifix tattooed on his wrists. She then only needed to give us a bogus description and the investigation would take a wrong turn.’
‘We wasted a couple of weeks running after that bogus description.’
‘And we would’ve wasted more,’ Hunter agreed. ‘We had no reason to doubt her. We assumed we were on to a good thing.’
‘And how did you know she would come after you that night?’
‘Three things. One, there were no more jurors left to take revenge upon.’
‘But she’d only taken nine victims; there are twelve jurors in total.’
‘The other three were already dead from natural causes. She couldn’t hurt them anymore. Scott, my partner, the other arresting detective, was also dead.’ Hunter stopped for a moment remembering what Brenda had told him four days ago. After a deep breath he continued. ‘I was the only one left.’
‘Not a great position to be in,’ Garcia joked.
Hunter agreed. ‘Two, it was John’s birthday. For her, the ultimate revenge day. The ultimate present to her brother and her family.’
A long pause followed.
‘And three? You said there were three things,’ Garcia questioned.
‘Me carrying your cross.’
‘Huh? I don’t follow,’ Garcia said, shifting himself on the bed, trying to get into a better position.
‘The biggest analogy of someone’s last day on earth.’
Garcia thought about it for a few seconds. ‘To carry a cross on your back. Jesus’s last day on earth,’ Garcia said, realizing Hunter’s point.
Hunter nodded again. ‘I knew I only had a few hours to think of something. I knew she’d be coming after me.’
Hunter turned to face the window again and his stare seemed distant and alienated. He gently touched the back of his neck and felt the scar which hadn’t fully healed yet.
‘If you had a strong suspicion it was Isabella, why did you go through all that? Why did you risk your life allowing her to get to you? Why not just arrest her?’ Garcia asked, shifting his body once again.
‘I had no proof, only suspicions. Just a crazy theory about revenge. As you know we had nothing on the killer, no DNA or fingerprints, nothing that could link her to any of the victims or crime scenes. If we took her in, she would’ve walked, and I’m sure we would’ve lost her fo
rever. My only hope was to allow her to come to me.’
‘So you set a trap. A dangerous trap.’
Another nod. ‘I could think of nothing else, I was running out of time.’
‘How could she be capable of all those killings, all that evil?’ Garcia asked.
‘We’ll never be able to say for sure, but when alone with any of the victims, she became a different person. She burned with rage and evil. She was capable of anything. I know it. I saw it in her eyes. I could literally sense the rage that surrounded her.’
Garcia observed his partner for a few silent seconds. ‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘I’m fine,’ Hunter replied confidently. ‘I’m glad it’s over.’
‘You can say that again,’ Garcia said, lifting both of his bandaged hands.
They both laughed.
‘As long as Captain Bolter doesn’t assign me a paper-pushing job.’
‘Not a chance,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘You’re my partner. If I’m going after the bad guys, you’re coming with.’
Garcia smiled. ‘Thanks, Robert,’ he said in a more serious tone.
‘That’s OK. I wouldn’t let the captain give you a desk job anyway.’
‘Not for that . . . for risking your life . . . for saving mine.’
Hunter gently rested his hand on his partner’s left shoulder. No words were said. No words needed to be said.
Doctor Winston opened the door to his autopsy room in the basement of the Department of Coroner and ushered Captain Bolter inside.
‘So what have we got?’ the captain said without wasting any time. Like most people the basement autopsy room gave him the creeps and the quicker he got out of there, the better.
‘Cause of death was severe laceration of the stomach, intestines and aortic aneurysm together with massive hemorrhage. As she plunged the knife into herself she managed to drive it across from left to right. A little like the Japanese ritual,’ the doctor said directing the captain to the body on the steel table.
‘Disembowelment?’
‘Not exactly, but achieving the same final effect. She knew she’d be dead within a minute. No chance of survival.’
