‘And they have,’ Brindle admitted. ‘As I’ve said before, this thing at full tilt would feel like a forest fire.’ He pointed to the fireplace. ‘She was just about a foot away from it. I’m sure the killer was controlling the heat, torturing her, but because of her armchair sitting position, her lower legs and hands are about a foot closer to the fireplace than the rest of her body. That extra proximity could mean a rise of two, maybe three degrees Celsius. Given the probable amount of time she was exposed to such intense heat, the body parts closer to the fire would’ve sustained considerably more damage, as you can clearly see. Now, when it comes to her face—’ he shook his head with uncertainty ‘—I’ve seen enough burn victims, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. The skin on her face has crumpled into melted-looking lumps, like a dinner candle.’
‘Could the killer have used an accelerant?’ Hunter asked.
‘In my view, that’s the only explanation,’ Brindle admitted.
‘Something like cooking oil?’
‘Cooking oil?’ Garcia repeated in a disbelieving tone. ‘You think the killer smothered her face with cooking oil, placed her in front of a fire and watched it sizzle?’
Brindle tilted his head and shrugged in a ‘who knows?’ gesture. ‘You’ll have to wait for the autopsy and the lab results to be certain, but something had to have helped the skin on her face burn the way it did, causing it to look like it’s melted away. Fire and heat alone wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Why not?’ Garcia asked.
‘Skin can’t melt,’ Hunter said, bending down and having a closer look at her face.
‘That’s right,’ Brindle confirmed. ‘I’m not gonna get scientific on you, but it’s a biological and physical impossibility. It’ll burn and carbonize, but it won’t melt.’ He paused for a second and rubbed his left eye with the heel of his hand. ‘We checked the whole house, Robert. That’s all the blood we found.’ He pointed to the small pool under the armchair. ‘If this is the same killer who got to the priest a few days ago, there was no ritual this time. If there was, it certainly didn’t involve blood. It’s like this is an entirely different killer. His MO has changed completely.’
Hunter nodded, but saw no point in revealing to Brindle what they’d found out earlier in Father Fabian’s journal.
‘Anything from dusting?’
‘No prints yet, just a few fibers, but they could’ve come from anywhere in this house.’ Brindle shrugged. ‘There’re rugs, carpets, curtains and fabrics just about everywhere in this place.’
Hunter walked around the room, checking the furniture for anything out of the ordinary. He found nothing. ‘Who else has seen the number on her back?’
‘Only the people in this room,’ Brindle replied confidently. ‘The two Malibu detectives decided to wait outside while we cut her loose. They didn’t look too well.’
‘And you haven’t told them that’s the reason why we’re here.’
‘Nope. I told them the skull found in the fire was the reason I wanted you two to have a look at this case.’
‘Let’s keep it this way,’ Hunter said, approaching the door. ‘Have you found her clothes and bag?’
‘Not yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the killer took them with him.’
Hunter closed the door to his apartment behind him, leaned back and shut his eyes. The headache that had started at the house in Malibu had intensified on the way home. It now felt as if a rat had woken up inside his skull, panicked and tried to scratch its way out through his eyes.
The obnoxious smell of burned flesh had managed to bypass his coverall and it’d impregnated his clothes. A bitter tang so strong that it unsettled his stomach, stung at his eyes and constantly made him gag. He needed a shower – urgently.
Hunter undressed quickly. He grabbed a black trash can liner from the kitchen and dumped his clothes into it, knowing that washing them, no matter how much detergent he used, would never fully get rid of the smell.
In the bathroom, he ran the shower as hot as he could tolerate and leaned against the white tiles, letting the water sluice over his head, shoulders and back. Now, away from everyone’s eyes, his chest heaved and he finally threw up. By the time he turned off the water, his skin had gone a dark shade of pink and his fingertips were soft and wrinkled. He’d been through almost an entire bar of soap, but still the smell lingered. It wasn’t on his skin, he knew that. The unsettling odor had clung to the hairs inside his nose and no amount of blowing was getting rid of it. For the time being, the only solution he could come up with was to numb his brain.
The first two shots went down neat and in one single gulp. The third, a double, was poured over a single cube of ice and sipped slowly.
It was late, but Hunter knew sleep would be bordering on impossible. It was already hard enough on a regular, non-eventful day.
He paced the room for a while before stopping by his living room window. He stood there for a moment, staring at the empty street. His mind full of thoughts. Nothing made sense.
The single malt seemed to be doing the trick where the smell of burned flesh was concerned, but his head still felt like a ticking bomb. Headache tablets had never really worked for him, so he discarded the thought as it entered his mind. But pills reminded him of something else, and it made his pulse race – Monica, the girl who’d dropped by the station earlier.
Over the years, he’d seen his fair share of crazy people and charlatans, all of them positive they could lead the police to an unfound body or to an elusive killer, but something told Hunter that wasn’t the case this time.
There was something different about Monica. Hunter saw a conviction in her eyes he’d never seen before in any of the so-called psychics. She wasn’t after a free publicity ride or attention. In fact, she looked scared, as if talking to the police would expose her to something or someone she’d been running away from.
Hunter took a deep breath and ran his hand through his wet hair. Her words still echoed in his ears.
Helen
. . .
it wasn’t your fault
. ‘How could she know?’ he said out loud. ‘No one does.’
He felt the same old destructive guilt creep up on him, and he finished the rest of his Scotch in one large swig. It burned the back of his throat, and that’s when he remembered the last thing she’d said to him.
‘
He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her
.’
Hunter was leaning against his car in the empty LACDC parking lot. His hands deep inside his jacket pockets. It was a clear day, but cold according to LA standards. A cup of flavorless machine coffee purchased from a gas station rested on the hood of his old Buick. It was 7:10 a.m. Doctor Winston had called him about half an hour ago saying he’d already concluded the autopsy on the new body.
Hunter had been waiting less than five minutes when Garcia pulled up and parked next to him. As he stepped out of his Honda Civic, Hunter noticed his reddish eyes and pale complexion.
‘I guess I wasn’t the only one who got no sleep last night,’ Hunter said, reaching for his coffee.
Garcia shook his head slowly. ‘I freaked Anna out last night.’
‘What do you mean?’ A slight head shake.
‘I called Anna to let her know I’d be home late yesterday, but she decided to wait for me so we could have dinner together.’
‘That’s nice.’ Hunter sipped his coffee and pulled a bitter face.
‘When I got home, Anna was in the kitchen.’ Garcia buttoned up his coat. ‘As soon as she heard me walk in, she threw two steaks onto the grilling pan. The sizzling noise, together with the smell of cooking meat, hit me like a ton of bricks. I puked right there on the kitchen floor.’
‘Oh shit! That can’t be good.’ They started walking towards the LACDC building.
‘Obviously, I didn’t tell her about the investigation and the real reason why, all of a sudden, a sizzling steak was making me throw up.’ He paused and pulled his longish hair away from his eyes. ‘I was born in Brazil, Robert. I was practically brought up on steak. It’s my favorite food.’
‘What did you tell her?’
Garcia laughed tensely. ‘I came up with some bullshit about a stomach bug going around at the station.’
‘Did she buy that?’ Hunter’s eyebrows arched.
‘Hell no. Anna’s too smart for that kind of crap. But she pretended she did.’
Hunter gave Garcia an understanding smile.
‘That’s not all. I needed to have a shower. That godforsaken smell was all over me like zits on a teenager, and I was sure Anna could smell it too. I passed on dinner and locked myself in the bathroom for about an hour. My skin was red-raw from all the scrubbing, but the smell just won’t go away.’ He brought his right wrist to his nose.
‘It’s not on you, Carlos,’ Hunter said without going into details.
‘And then came the tossing and turning in bed,’ Garcia continued. ‘It was like her melted face and burned body were hiding behind my eyelids. I couldn’t close them. Not only did I get no sleep, but I kept Anna up all night. I know I’m starting to scare her again, Robert. She ain’t exactly over what happened during the Crucifix Killer’s case, you know.’
They reached the main building and were allowed in by the security guard, who told them Doctor Winston was waiting for them in autopsy room 2A. They suited up and Garcia popped two anti-acid tablets in his mouth before making his way to the room on the far end of the corridor. The doctor was sitting at the microscope counter, flipping through some result sheets. His shoulders were hunched forward, his hair in a mess.
‘Did you pull an “all-nighter”, doc?’ Hunter asked, closing the door behind them.
Doctor Winston looked up slowly. ‘Almost.’ He gave them a faint smile before approaching the stainless-steel table where the woman’s body lay. Hunter and Garcia pulled their surgical masks over their noses and mouths and followed.
‘What we have here is—’ Doctor Winston paused and shook his head, as if words weren’t enough to explain ‘—a masterpiece of evil. Whoever this killer is, he must’ve hated this woman with every fiber in his body.’
With the woman’s body stretched over the autopsy table, Hunter could see the extent of her injuries more clearly. The blisters on her torso had all burst open, and the edges of the scabs were black and curled up. The exposed flesh had dehydrated from the intense heat, but some of it still kept a deep pink, sunburned-type color. Her lower legs and hands were crusty and charcoaled. Some bone parts were now visible. But still, the injuries to her face mesmerized Hunter. Mike Brindle was right. It looked like the skin had melted into clumps, just like a candle.
‘My guess is that she was probably unconscious when she was tied to the armchair,’ Doctor Winston explained. ‘But there are no bumps on her head.’
‘Drugged?’
‘That’s the logical conclusion. I’m still waiting for the results from the lab, but I’m certain the killer didn’t use a hard intravenous drug.’
‘Why not?’ Garcia questioned.
‘It’d be overkill. The killer needed only to knock her out for a few minutes so he could undress her and tie her down. Any longer than that and he’d be losing precious time.’
‘The killer wanted her to be conscious so she could suffer,’ Hunter concluded, walking around to her left side.
‘It all points that way,’ the doctor agreed. ‘The killer knew that by Monday he had to be out of that house. He knew exactly how long he had to torture her, and I bet he used every second of it.’
‘Drugged cloth over the nose and mouth?’ Hunter asked.
‘Most probably.’ The answer came with a sequence of quick nods. ‘A common volatile agent, almost certainly ether based.’
‘Any names?’
‘Huh,’ Doctor Winston chuckled. ‘Anything like Enflurane, Desflurane, Sevoflurane, Insoflurane. I can get you a list if you like.’
‘That easy to come by?’ Garcia this time.
‘Easy enough. And those are the most common, non-irritant when inhaled ones. I don’t think the killer was really concerned if the skin around her mouth got little acid burns from the wet cloth. He could’ve used almost anything.’
‘Great!’
‘Due to the state her body’s in, we won’t be able to tell if she was sexually assaulted, but I don’t believe she was.’
‘Neither do I,’ Hunter agreed. ‘Whatever satisfaction this killer is after, it isn’t sexual.’
‘The main torture here is unseen, Robert,’ the doctor said, lifting his eyebrows.
‘What do you mean?’ Garcia looked intrigued.
‘She suffered a lot from the skin and subsequent flesh burns, but what the killer was really doing was roasting her alive.’ Doctor Winston paused, allowing the full extent of what he was saying to be absorbed. ‘If you put someone in front of an intense fire for long enough without allowing them to move, without giving them water, consequently their internal organs will start to cook.’
‘Oh Jesus Christ.’ Garcia ran both hands through his hair and interlaced his fingers at the back of his head.
‘That’s right. Liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, lungs, heart, every organ in her body would’ve responded to dehydration and the constant increase in temperature.’ The doctor bit his lip and shook his head in disgust. ‘Her blood literally boiled.’