by Carter Chris
After leaving Angela a note, Hunter left the safe house at 5:15 a.m. Regardless of his insomnia, Hunter had always been an early riser, preferring to get to his office as early as possible, but before making his way to the Police Administration Building, he wanted to drive by his place to grab a shower, a shave, a change of clothes and a decent breakfast, which was Hunter’s best trick when it came to getting his brain and body to cope with so few hours of sleep. And he knew exactly what he would cook himself.
For someone who had lived alone for most of his life, Hunter’s cooking skills left a lot to be desired, but his protein-filled omelet would give any Michelin-starred chef a run for his money. Garcia had joked a few times that if Hunter ever decided to quit the police force, he could open an omelet-only restaurant. His menu would be simple – one item – ‘Robert’s amazing protein-filled omelet’.
‘You’d get people lining up outside and around the block just to eat this,’ Garcia had said, after he’d had Hunter’s omelet for the first time. ‘I’m serious, Robert. This is some gourmet stuff right here. You could be making a killing out there. At least a lot more than you make as an LAPD detective.’
That had made Hunter smile.
On his way back to his apartment, Hunter remembered that his coffee machine had broken. In Hunter’s mind, a healthy breakfast without good coffee was practically a wasted meal.
As he veered off the Santa Monica Freeway and joined South Santa Fe Avenue, Hunter remembered a small organic coffee shop he’d been to a few months back. It was tucked away in a corner of the Arts District, just a stone’s throw from where he was, and their coffee was one of the best he’d had in quite some time. He also remembered that, according to the sign on their door, they opened every day at 5:30 a.m., except weekends. His mouth watered. That was all the incentive he needed. Less than a minute later, Hunter parked right outside Urth Caffe on South Hewitt Street.
Inside the shop, two baristas were busy arranging cakes and sandwiches into a large, glass display unit.
Hunter would usually just have a black coffee with his breakfast, but since he had a choice, and a large one at that, he thought that he might as well go for something different. His eyes scanned the menu and as they did, his lips stretched into a smile a couple of times. Some of the choices sounded more like a milkshake than a coffee.
‘Unless you like your coffee sickly sweet, I’d stay clear of the Double Cream Vanilla Deluxe.’
The advice came from the person standing directly behind Hunter, and as he heard those words, he froze in place. He not only knew whom that voice belonged to, but those had also been the exact same words that she had said to him the very first time they met, inside a library room at UCLA, almost a year and a half ago.
Still facing the coffee board, Hunter took a silent, deep breath, but it didn’t stop his heart from picking up speed inside his chest. A millisecond later, he turned to face the woman standing behind him.
‘Hello, Robert,’ Tracy Adams said with a subdued smile.
‘Tracy?’ Hunter said, still a little doubtful that they were actually standing face to face again.
After that initial meeting at UCLA, where the attraction on both sides had been immediate and undeniable, Hunter and Tracy had begun dating, but despite having a lot more feelings for her than he would ever admit, Hunter never allowed romance to properly take off – which, on reflection, had been a good move.
Around six months ago, after a disastrous and terribly tragic turn of events, Hunter and Tracy’s relationship had come to a very abrupt end. They hadn’t seen or talked to each other since.
Hunter smiled back. There were close to one million things that he wanted to say to Tracy, but right then, all he could come up with was: ‘What are you doing here?’
Despite his surprised tone being more than genuine, he felt the need to explain. ‘I mean . . . what are you doing in this part of town so early? Have you moved?’
The last time Hunter saw Tracy, she lived in Hollywood, which was about eleven miles west of where they were.
‘No,’ Tracy replied. ‘I still live in West Hollywood. Same old apartment.’
Hunter didn’t ask anything else.
‘I spent the night at Amber’s,’ Tracy clarified. ‘I’m not sure if you remember her or not.’
Hunter did. Amber was Tracy’s best friend.
‘She lives just around the corner,’ Tracy continued. ‘As you know, I’m not usually up at this godforsaken hour, but I have an early class at UCLA that I still have to prepare for. I just stopped by to grab a quick breakfast on my way in.’
Hunter allowed his eyes to do all the smiling. With her black-framed, cat-eye glasses that perfectly suited her heart-shaped face, her green eyes, her heavily tattooed arms and her nose and lip piercings, Tracy Adams had always reminded Hunter of some sort of paradoxical modern 1950s pin-up model, but her bright red hair was a little shorter than Hunter remembered, and its color looked to be a shade lighter, which somehow made her look even more attractive than she did before.
‘Are you still in Huntington Park?’ Tracy asked.
‘I am.’
Tracy chuckled. ‘I’m not even going to ask how come you’re in this part of town this early.’
This time Hunter tried a real smile, but he felt as if the corners of his lips were refusing to comply.
‘You look well,’ he said. ‘I like the new hair. It really suits you.’
Tracy looked surprised by the fact that Hunter had noticed.
‘Thank you.’ She looked flattered. ‘You too. You look . . .’ She tried, but she had always been a terrible liar and she knew that there was no way she could get one past Hunter. ‘ . . . You look tired, Robert.’
Hunter gave her a nod. ‘It’s been a bit crazy of late.’
‘Oh c’mon, it can’t be that bad.’ Tracy checked her watch. ‘We’ve been talking for all of two minutes and your phone hasn’t rung yet.’
Hunter smiled again. ‘That’s true.’
They both went quiet for a very short moment, which was more than enough time to allow awkwardness to come between them.
Not once during their brief relationship had Hunter and Tracy ever found themselves in an awkward silence. On the contrary, from the very first day they met, they felt as comfortable with each other as a couple that had been together all their lives, in silence or otherwise.
‘Would you like a suggestion?’ Tracy asked, nodding at the coffee board and piercing a much-needed hole through the deafening silence. ‘Go for the Caffe Quadra, or the Rude Awakening. Both use extra espresso shots to top up the coffee. They might come in handy.’
Hunter turned and checked the description of the two coffees that Tracy had suggested.
‘Both sound nice,’ he agreed. ‘Rude Awakening sounds stronger, though.’
‘It is,’ Tracy confirmed.
Hunter ordered a large one. While he waited, Tracy ordered a medium Spanish Latté and a Berry Bowl to go.
‘By the way,’ she said to Hunter, as the barista got busy with her order. ‘I’m moving to the East Coast. A week from today, actually.’
The news caught him completely by surprise.
‘Oh, where to?’ he asked, doing his best to keep his emotions in check, but as soon as he uttered those words, he realized how personal his question had been. ‘I’m so sorry.’ He lifted an apologetic hand. ‘I didn’t mean to pry. You don’t need to answer that.’
‘It’s all right,’ Tracy said, handing Hunter another disarming smile. ‘If I didn’t want you to know, I wouldn’t have mentioned it.’ She paused for just a second. ‘I was approached by Yale. The position I was offered was simply impossible to refuse.’
Initially, Hunter felt a choking sadness grab hold of his heart, but it didn’t hold on for long.
‘That’s fantastic, Tracy.’ He was truly happy for her. ‘Congratulations. You thoroughly deserve it.’
The barista came back to the counter with Hunter’s order. He took it
before his gaze met Tracy’s one last time. Looking into each other’s eyes, they both went silent for another second or two. This time, there was no awkwardness.
‘It was very nice seeing you again, Tracy,’ Hunter said, hoping that his tone didn’t sound half as emotional to her as it did to him.
‘You too, Robert,’ she said back without any hesitation. ‘It really was. I mean that.’
An odd tingle began gaining momentum somewhere deep inside Hunter, but he managed to stop it before it was too late.
‘Thanks for the tip,’ he said, lifting the large cup of coffee. ‘And . . . take care of yourself, OK?’
‘I will.’
Tracy wanted to say ‘you too’ back to Hunter, but she, more than most, understood how pointless those words would sound. She halted him with a stare and said the only thing left to say.
‘Goodbye, Robert.’
Hunter couldn’t bring himself to say ‘goodbye’ to Tracy. Not again. Instead, he gave her one last wave from the coffee shop door before walking back to his car, his heart dragging along a few paces behind him.
Forty-One
Hunter’s pit stop had taken him a little longer than he had expected, so by the time he finally parked his car at the PAB parking lot, the late-rising winter sun had already breached the horizon line and, like a spider, was slowly climbing up the sides of buildings in central LA.
Up in his office, Hunter wasn’t surprised to see Garcia already at his desk. Garcia was also a very early riser and, more often than not, he would get to the UVC Unit office before Hunter.
‘I’m just brewing a pot of coffee,’ Garcia said, as Hunter got to his desk and fired up his computer. ‘It should be ready in a couple of minutes.’ He gave Hunter an approving nod. ‘Brazilian Supremo Bean – Dark Roast. It doesn’t get much nicer than that.’
Having inherited his love of coffee from his Brazilian father, who was a total aficionado, Garcia took his coffee very seriously. The coffee maker in their office was his own, an elegant and shiny piece of equipment that had set him back a little more than what he could afford at the time – but to him, that machine was worth every penny, an opinion clearly shared by Hunter. But a machine alone doesn’t count for much. That was why once a week, either Hunter or Garcia would drop by one of the many specialized coffee stores around Downtown LA and pick up a bag of something distinctive.
The smell already filling their office was indeed mouthwatering, but Hunter disregarded it completely, something that didn’t happen very often.
‘He called me,’ he said, which wasn’t the reply Garcia was expecting.
‘What?’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Who called you? Brazilian Supremo Bean – Dark Roast?’
Garcia’s joke hit a wall. ‘The killer,’ Hunter clarified. ‘The diary owner. He called me last night. Right after I dropped Angela at the safe house.’
Garcia’s eyebrows arched in shock. He heard Hunter loud and clear, but his brain was having a hard time processing his words.
‘Wait . . . how?’ A puzzled shake of the head. ‘I mean . . . how did he know to call you? And how the hell did he get your cell number?’
‘He obviously found the card I gave Angela when he searched her apartment,’ Hunter replied.
‘I forgot about that,’ Garcia said. ‘Anyway, what did he say?’
Hunter reached for his cellphone. ‘Here, you can listen to it for yourself.’ He connected the phone to his computer speakers for better sound.
As the recording played, Garcia’s face morphed from surprise, to doubt, to disbelief.
‘Did I hear this right?’ Garcia asked once the recording had ended, his tone lacking conviction. ‘This sack of shit gave you an ultimatum?’
Hunter sat back in his chair. ‘Pretty much.’
‘And the deadline is five o’clock today.’
‘Deadline for what, coffee?’ The question came from Captain Blake, who had reached their office door just in time to hear Garcia’s last sentence.
As both detectives looked back at her, it was hard not to notice the worry in their eyes.
‘What’s going on?’ The playful tone in her voice completely vanished.
‘You better come in and listen to this, Captain,’ Garcia said, motioning her in with a hand gesture.
The captain closed the door behind her and approached Hunter’s desk, placing her empty mug on it.
‘What am I listening to?’
‘The killer’s phone call to Robert,’ Garcia explained.
‘The what?’ The lines on her forehead deepened as her eyes widened.
Hunter replayed the recording, by the end of which, Captain Blake was just as stunned as Garcia had been moments earlier. Not only by how fearless the caller seemed to be, but also by how calm and unconcerned he sounded. Calm when considering his demands and the threats that he was so freely dishing out; unconcerned when bearing in mind that he was talking directly to an LAPD Robbery Homicide Detective.
‘He’s one cocky sonofabitch, I’ll give him that,’ the captain said, once Hunter had halted the playback.
‘He’s also a lot more knowledgeable than we’re giving him credit for,’ Hunter countered.
Captain Blake walked over to the coffee machine and filled up her mug. ‘Knowledgeable about what exactly, Robert?’
‘The criminal investigative procedure,’ Hunter replied. ‘I think he understands it, and he understands it well.’
From the pocket of her perfect-fitting black blazer, Captain Blake retrieved a small sweetener dispenser and dropped a single tiny tablet into her coffee. ‘And what makes you say that?’
‘This phone call, for one,’ Hunter said, leaning forward in his chair and placing both elbows on his desk. ‘He told me that once I had his diary back in my possession, he would call me to give me instructions on how to deliver it back to him. When I asked him what made him think that I didn’t have the diary with me right then, his reply was—’
‘Because he wasn’t stupid,’ Captain Blake cut in. ‘Yes, we just heard that, Robert. What’s your point?’
‘My point is that though that specific reply could be interpreted in various different ways, I get a strong feeling that what he truly meant by it was that he knew that his actual diary – not photocopies of it, not digital scans, not photos, but his actual physical diary – wouldn’t have been with me no matter where I was. Not in my car . . . not in my apartment . . . not even here in the Police Administration Building.’
The captain sipped her coffee before allowing her eyes to rest on Garcia for an instant. He seemed just as intrigued as she was. They both looked back at Hunter expectantly. He gladly obliged.
‘This killer knows that if the LAPD came into possession of his diary, one of our very first moves would be to hand it to forensics. With page upon page of solid text, Polaroid photographs, blood smears and what-have-you, he also knows that it could be weeks, if not months, before forensics is done analyzing that book. That’s why he gave me until five o’clock today to get it back. He knew that it would take me some time to do so.’
Captain Blake reflected over Hunter’s theory for an instant.
‘When the killer called Angela and asked her about the whereabouts of his diary,’ Hunter continued, anticipating his captain’s next question, ‘she told him that she had sent it to the LAPD. The L-A-P-D. She never mentioned anything about the FTD, the FSD, or about dropping it into Dr. Slater’s mailbox. I confirmed it with Angela last night.’
Captain Blake had another sip of her coffee. ‘If, like you’re suggesting, he knew that the LAPD’s Forensics and Technical Division had his diary, then why did he call you? Why not skip the middleman and call them directly?’
‘Because he wouldn’t have gotten past the switchboard,’ Hunter replied. ‘If he tried calling the FTD without a specific case number, his call would’ve died there. Clever or not, there’s nothing he could’ve said that would’ve resulted in him being given a specific name. Even if they wanted to, they wouldn’t
be able to do so. A complex piece of evidence like his diary would have to be put through an enormous battery of different tests – fingerprints, DNA, graphology, paper analysis. I gave Dr. Slater specific orders that that diary is not to be disassembled, which means that that entire book has to be passed around the different labs. Any number of scientists and technicians will be dealing with it, not a single person. Calling the FTD would’ve been a waste of time and I’m sure he knew that.’
There was a moment of silence while the captain finished her coffee.
‘So we really don’t have the diary?’ she asked.
‘No.’ Garcia confirmed it. ‘FTD has it. All we have here are scanned photographs of its pages.’
The captain nodded her understanding. ‘So what are we going to do in relation to his demand?’ She lifted a hand to indicate that she wasn’t done yet. ‘I know that the textbook thing to do would be to set up some sort of sting operation and wait for his call later this afternoon, but from what you’ve just told me,’ she addressed Hunter, ‘I don’t suppose that catching him would be as simple as setting up a trap, would it?’
Hunter’s palms faced the ceiling and his shoulders came up in a shrug.
‘We can try, but I sincerely doubt it’ll work.’ He indicated his cellphone on his desk. ‘You’ve noticed how calm and confident he sounded throughout the duration of the call, right?’
A nod from Captain Blake.
‘Which is probably because he’s already thought of the perfect way for Robert to deliver the diary back to him, without him risking being caught,’ Garcia suggested.
‘I don’t doubt he has,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But his confidence goes a lot deeper than that. It goes way beyond this call.’
‘In what way?’ Garcia took the question from Captain Blake’s lips.
‘I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve listened to this recording,’ Hunter clarified. ‘And the feeling I got from his words . . . from his tone of voice . . . was that he wasn’t trying to sound confident just for the sake of this particular phone call . . . just because he was talking directly to the LAPD. The feeling I got was that he sounded confident because we don’t scare him. I don’t mean only the LAPD, I mean any law enforcement agency. He could’ve been talking to the FBI, the NSA, the ATF, whoever, and he still would’ve sounded the same. He still wouldn’t have been scared. He still would have given them an ultimatum.’
