Hunter returned to the podium.
‘The problem is that the tragedy of a suicide never ends there,’ he explained. ‘Family and loved ones are left to deal not only with the loss of someone dear, but with the inevitable depression and psychological guilt that take over.
How come they didn’t see it coming? Could they have done more?
But what really eats them inside is knowing that all that would’ve taken to save them was a listening ear, maybe a few comforting words and the reassurance that they weren’t alone, that they mattered, that they were loved.’
No one said a word.
‘But with today’s technology and the Internet, that internal guilt and pain can be increased exponentially,’ Hunter added. ‘For some reason that I can’t explain, Ethan Walsh wasn’t content with just selling his video to Christina Stevenson at the
LA Times
and the cable TV channel. Using the Internet handle, DarkXX1000, he uploaded the footage to a specialized, shock-video website called
thiscrazyworld.com
. From then on it became a free-for-all, and the worst pain a family could endure became public domain, a joke, just a video snippet for millions of people to watch and laugh at, gossip about, comment on and criticize. And people did.’
Hunter quickly clicked through a few slides of screen prints showing pages and pages of comments that had been placed on the website. A few showed support, but most of them were terribly offensive.
‘So who exactly are we after, then?’ the SWAT captain asked.
‘I was just getting to that,’ Hunter said.
Click.
Ninety-Nine
The new photograph that took over the screen was of a woman who was probably in her forties but looked at least ten years older. She had straight auburn hair and a milky-white complexion. Not actually bad looking, except for a pair of deeply recessed eyes that gave her a slightly cadaverous appearance.
‘Brandon Fisher didn’t come from a large family,’ Hunter explained. ‘In fact, he was the only child of Graham and Margaret Fisher. His mother—’ he indicated the photograph on the screen ‘—was a frail woman, who had developed multiple sclerosis just a few months after giving birth to Brandon. His death hit her hard. The shock-video website where Brandon’s suicide footage appeared, coupled with the devastating comments made online, hit her even harder. Her son, together with all his pain and struggle, were now exposed to the entire world, ready to be judged by anyone with an Internet connection. She was unable to sleep and started rejecting food. Soon she developed anorexia nervosa, and quickly became addicted to sedatives, among other drugs. She wouldn’t leave the house and was subsequently also diagnosed with major depression and severe anxiety disorder, all brought on by her son’s suicide and how abusive some people remained, even after his death.’
Hunter moved around to the front of the podium before continuing.
‘Her already delicate health deteriorated faster than was predicted based on her long-term illness. About ten months after Brandon’s suicide, due to how little she ate, she had to start being fed via an IV drip. She passed away twelve months ago.’
The room remained quiet.
‘And that brings us to Brandon’s father, Graham Fisher,’ Hunter said, moving on. ‘At the time of his son’s suicide, Mr. Fisher was a professor at UCLA. He taught advanced programming as part of the university’s computer science degree. He holds a PhD in Engineering and Computer Science from Harvard University. One of his many areas of expertise is in Internet security. In the past he has even worked as a consultant for the US government.
‘Not surprisingly, Mr. Fisher also took his son’s suicide very badly, and with his wife’s health and sanity fading so quickly he saw no alternative but to quit his job. He then dedicated all his time and effort to taking care of her. She was all the family he had left. Her death, together with Brandon’s suicide, was much more than his psyche could withstand. My guess is that after Margaret Fisher’s death, Graham found himself alone, hurt and very, very angry. Someone in that state of mind armed with his sort of intelligence and enough time on his hands would contemplate anything.’
More hushed murmurs.
‘He methodically made a list of all the people he considered
guilty
,’ Hunter continued, ‘not for his son’s death but for making a mockery of it. For exposing Brandon’s most intimate psychological and emotional pain to everyone. For transforming his and his wife’s personal loss into a sideshow attraction . . . a public entertainment. And certainly for contributing to the rapid decline in Margaret’s health.’ Hunter paused for breath. ‘After identifying the parties, which I’m sure took some finding, he busied himself engineering and developing his torture and murder devices, before seeking out every name on his kill list, one by one. The problem we have is that there’s no way we can know how many names are on that list. As we all know, three are already dead.’
‘Do we have his picture?’ the SWAT captain asked.
Hunter nodded and pressed the clicker button.
The photograph now showing on the screen was of an attractive man in his early fifties. His robust face suggested both trustworthiness and self-confidence. He had high cheekbones, a prominent brow and a strong chin with a subtle cleft. His light brown hair was worn just off the shoulders, pleasantly tousled. He looked to be broadly built, with sturdy muscles and wide shoulders.
‘No fucking way.’ Everyone in the room heard Garcia cough the words.
‘Something wrong, Carlos?’
‘Yeah,’ Garcia nodded slowly. ‘I know him.’
One Hundred
The man was putting the final touches to his latest torture and murder device. He had spent considerably more time developing this particular apparatus than the previous three, but his work had paid off. He considered this one to be a work of art – ingenious and evil in equal measures. Once the mechanics of it had started working, no one could stop it, not even himself. Yes, this device was something special. Something that would undoubtedly teach ‘that bitch’ an unforgettable lesson.
‘That bitch’ was sitting at the far end of the large open-plan room he was in, still tied up to the same heavy chair. He had to sedate her again, though. Her crying was driving him insane. But her time was coming.
The man had to admit that there was a tiny part somewhere inside of him that wished that she had taken his offer and used the garden scissors to butcher her own hand. He would really have let her go if she had done it. But the truth was he knew that there were very few people on this earth who were mentally and emotionally strong enough. Very few people on this earth who were capable of that sort of self-mutilation, even if it was to save their own life. And ‘that bitch’ wasn’t one of them.
No matter, he thought. What he had in store for her was infinitely better than chopping her fingers off, and it would produce another fantastic Internet spectacle, of that he was sure. That thought brought a grin to his face.
He tightened up the last screw, connecting his device to the electricity supply. It was time to test it.
The man got up from the chair he’d been sitting on for the past two hours, removed his working glasses and gently rubbed his gritty eyes with his thumb and forefinger for a long while. The sensation was soothing. He drank a glass of iced water before reaching inside the groceries bag he had with him, retrieving a large watermelon he had bought that morning.
He’d smiled when the short and round lady at the grocery store told him that the two particular watermelons he was looking at weren’t ripe enough yet.
‘It’ll be at least three days before those are good enough to eat,’ the groceries lady had said. ‘I have better ones right here, look. Nice and juicy, perfectly ripe, good for today.’
The man simply shook his head. ‘These ones will do fine. It’s the size I’m more interested in.’
Approaching his newly finished gadget, the man placed the large fruit on the correct spot before grabbing the remote control from the worktable. He stood back several paces, took a deep breath, readied his stopwatch and finally clicked the red button on the control.
A muffled mechanical grinding noise came from the device, as the many sprockets started turning, bringing his new monstrous creation to life.
The man watched transfixed, as every part worked just as he had designed, but there was one tiny problem. It all happened way too fast. The watermelon lasted exactly 39.8 seconds. True, the human body was much more resistant than any watermelon, but, still, he wanted this to drag on for as long as possible. He wanted his Internet audience to enjoy it, be disgusted and terrified by it, feel pity or anger, laugh at it, comment on it, joke and gossip about it, whatever, but most of all he wanted ‘that bitch’ to suffer.
He cleaned the device from the mess the watermelon had made and spent the next forty-five minutes tightening and loosening screws, adjusting the tension on different joints and springs, and calibrating pressured parts until he was satisfied. When he figured he had done enough, he reached for the second watermelon from his groceries bag and ran his device test again.
When, at the end of it, he clicked his stopwatch and checked the time, he smiled.
‘Perfect.’
One Hundred and One
For a quick instant it felt as if Garcia’s words were too surreal to make any sense.
‘What?’ Hunter and Captain Blake asked him at the exact same time.
‘What do you mean –
you know him
?’ Michelle tagged.
Garcia’s eyes were still fixed on Graham Fisher’s photograph that was being projected onto the screen at the front of the room.
‘I mean.’ He barely mumbled the words, clearly running something over inside his head. ‘I know I’ve seen him before, but I just can’t remember where.’
Hunter looked back at the screen. ‘You’ve seen this face before?’
Garcia nodded slowly. ‘I’m positive I have.’
‘Recently?’
Another slow nod.
A brief tense moment of hesitation went by.
‘Maybe it was at one of the crime scenes?’ a SWAT agent suggested. ‘As we all know, there are always curious people hanging around at the edge of the perimeter. Some killers love to hang back, mingle with the crowd and watch the police work. Some of them get off on that kind of shit.’
Garcia closed his eyes, urging the images to come back to him. What he got was a roller coaster of mental pictures shuffled out of order. The first memory that flashed at him was of his wife, Anna, and her friend, Patricia, in Tujunga Village, just after the killer had privately broadcast the two of them. Garcia tried to remember all the faces he’d seen that day – maybe in the coffee shop where Anna had been waiting for them, or across the road, or maybe even looking out through a shop window.
Nothing.
Tujunga Village wasn’t where he had seen Graham Fisher before.
Garcia then mentally revisited the alleyway in Mission Hills where the body of Kevin Lee Parker, the killer’s first victim, had been found. It had been before dawn, in a hidden-away back street. There were no curious onlookers hanging around that morning. No one except the homeless man who had found the body. Garcia quickly discarded those images as well and moved on.
Next came City Hall Park and the discovery of the camcorder. He and Hunter knew the killer was close by that day. He would’ve wanted to watch the police’s reaction to his little joke. Garcia tried his best to remember everyone he saw around the park.
Rush hour – way too many people.
He pushed himself, concentrating harder. Graham Fisher’s face wasn’t among the ones he could remember.
The second dump scene came next – Dewey Street in Santa Monica. Christina Stevenson’s body had been left by a dumpster in the small parking lot at the back of a two-story office building. Garcia could clearly recall a crowd hanging around the perimeter. Then he remembered the man who had caught his eye that day – tall, lean and spare, dressed in a black hooded sweatshirt and dark blue jeans. Garcia tried to picture his face, and that was when all the memories, except one, vanished from his mind and he finally remembered.
‘Oh my God!’ he whispered, his eyes reopening and instantly widening. ‘The doctor.’
‘What?’ Hunter queried. ‘What doctor?’
‘The one in the park,’ Garcia replied, almost numbed by the memory. ‘I told you about it.’ He addressed Hunter, before turning and looking at Captain Blake and Michelle. ‘Anna and I went for a run in the park close to our apartment a couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday morning,’ he explained. ‘It was my day off. We were on our last lap of the park when some guy, who was riding a bike, had a heart attack right there and then. He was just behind us. Despite a bunch of people gathering around to have a look at what was happening, I was the only one who rushed to help. At least at first. I was just about to start CPR when this other guy turned up, weaving his way through the crowd. He’d also been jogging in the park that morning. I know because I saw him. Well, he
said
he was a doctor and took complete control of the situation until the paramedics got there. I helped him administer CPR. He wasn’t kidding, or faking it. He
really
tried to save that man’s life.’
‘And that guy was Graham Fisher?’ the captain asked.
Garcia nodded again, looking back at the photograph on the screen. ‘It was him. No doubt about it.’
A new uncomfortable silence descended onto the room.
‘Shit,’ Garcia said. ‘He was stalking Anna and me because he was already planning on going after her. That incident happened only a couple of days before he pulled that sick stunt of broadcasting Anna and her friend as they were out shopping.’ Anger coated Garcia’s words now. ‘Fuck! I talked to him. I stood next to him. He shook my hand . . . He shook Anna’s hand . . .’
‘Wow, the motherfucker’s got balls, I’ll give him that,’ a tall and muscular SWAT agent said.
‘What are you, a fucking fan now, Luke? The guy is a psycho,’ another SWAT agent shot back. This one was a little shorter but just as muscular.