‘And if the killer took the time to put it together,’ Garcia added, moving closer, ‘it’s gotta mean something.’
Hunter took a few steps back and stared at the macabre piece from a distance. It meant nothing to him.
‘Do you think your lab could create a life-size replica of this?’ he asked Doctor Hove.
Under her surgical mask, she twisted her mouth from side to side. ‘I don’t see why not. It’s already been photographed, but I’ll call the photographer back in and ask him to get a snapshot from all angles. I’m sure the lab can get it done.’
‘Let’s do it,’ Hunter said. ‘We’re not gonna figure this out here and now.’ He turned towards the far wall and froze. It was so covered in blood that he almost didn’t notice it. ‘What in the world is that?’
Garcia’s stare moved to Hunter and then back to the wall. He breathed out a heavy sigh.
‘That . . . is everybody’s worst nightmare.’
Five
Doctor Hove pulled down her surgical mask and faced Garcia. ‘He doesn’t know?’
Hunter’s eyebrows arched.
Garcia unzipped his coverall and reached inside his pocket for his notebook once again. ‘Let me talk you through what we know, but for you to fully understand it, I have to take you back to yesterday afternoon.’
‘OK.’ Hunter was intrigued.
Garcia read on. ‘Mr. Nicholson’s oldest daughter, Olivia, came by at around 5:00 p.m. Her younger sister, Allison, arrived half an hour after her. They had dinner with their father and kept him company until about 9:00 p.m., when they both left. After that, Melinda, the nurse, helped Mr. Nicholson into the bathroom, and then tucked him into bed, as she had done every weekend night. It took him about thirty minutes to fall asleep. She never left his side.’ Garcia indicated the chair on the other side of the bed. ‘She sat over there. She had some of her study books with her.’ He flipped a page on his notebook. ‘Melinda then turned off the lights, emptied the dishwasher downstairs, and at around 11:00 p.m. retired to her room in the guesthouse.’
Hunter nodded and his attention reverted back to the wall.
‘I’m getting there,’ Garcia said. ‘Melinda remembers locking all the doors, including the backdoor in the kitchen, but she can’t say the same about the windows. When I got here earlier this morning, two of the ones downstairs were unlocked, the one in the study and the one in the kitchen. LAPD First Response said they didn’t touch anything.’
‘So chances are they were open all night,’ Hunter said.
‘Most probably, yes.’
Hunter glanced over at the sliding glass balcony doors.
‘Those were left ajar,’ Garcia explained. ‘Apparently this room can get a little stuffy, especially during summer. Mr. Nicholson didn’t like air conditioning. The balcony overlooks the backyard and the swimming pool. The problem is, the entire wall outside is covered in Morning Glories – as you probably know, the most-common climbing plant in California. The wooden trellis that supports it is strong enough for a person to climb it. Gaining access into this room from the backyard wouldn’t be difficult.’
‘Forensics will be going over the backyard and balcony as soon as they are done with the house’s interior,’ Doctor Hove added.
‘At around midnight,’ Garcia continued, still reading from his notebook, ‘Melinda realized she’d forgotten one of her study books here in the room. She came back to the house, opened the front door and made her way up the stairs.’ Garcia guessed Hunter’s next couple of questions and offered an answer before he spoke. ‘Yes, the front door was locked. She remembers using the key to unlock it. And no, she didn’t notice anything strange when she came back into the house. No noises either.’
Hunter nodded.
‘Melinda came upstairs again,’ Garcia moved on, ‘and because she didn’t want to disturb Mr. Nicholson, and she knew exactly where she’d left her study book . . .’ He pointed to the mahogany writing desk pushed up against the wall . . . ‘on that desk, she never turned on the lights. She just tiptoed into the room, grabbed her book, and tiptoed back out again.’
Hunter’s stare moved back to the bloody wall next to the bed and his heart skipped a beat as Garcia’s account of what had happened finally started to make sense.
‘Melinda slept through her alarm this morning,’ Garcia carried on. ‘She got up, got ready as fast as she could, and rushed back in here. She said she opened the front door at 8:43 a.m. She checked her watch.’ Garcia closed his notebook and returned it to his pocket. ‘She came straight upstairs, and as she entered the room she was greeted not only by what you see here, but also by that message from whoever was in the room.’ He indicated the wall again.
Among all the splatters, written in large blood letters were the words ‘GOOD JOB YOU DIDN’T TURN ON THE LIGHTS’.
Six
An awkward silence took hold of the room. Hunter took a couple of steps towards the wall and studied the words and the lettering for a long moment.
‘What did the killer use to write this with, a piece of cloth soaked in blood?’ he asked.
‘That would be my guess as well,’ Doctor Hove agreed. ‘But the forensic lab will have a better idea in a day or two.’ She turned away from the wall and faced the bed once again. Her voice trembled with distress. ‘This defies belief, Robert. It’s beyond any case I’ve ever worked on. The killer spent hours in here, first torturing, then dismembering the victim. Not only that, but he then went on to create that thing.’ She pointed to the bloody sculpture. ‘And still found time to leave a message like this behind.’ She looked at Garcia. ‘How old is that girl again? The student nurse?’
‘Twenty-three.’
‘You, better than anyone, know that she’ll need months, maybe years of psychological treatment to get over this, Robert, if she ever does. The killer was in here when she came back for her book. If she had reached for that light switch, we’d have two bodies, and she’d probably be part of that grotesque thing.’ She indicated the sculpture again. ‘Her nursing career is over before it had begun, her psychological stability shaken forever. And the nightmares and the sleepless nights haven’t even started yet. And you know first hand how destructive that could be.’
Hunter’s insomnia was no big secret. He had started experiencing it at the age of seven, just after cancer robbed him of his mother.
Hunter was born an only child to very poor working-class parents in Compton, an underprivileged neighborhood of South Los Angeles. With no family other than his father, coping with his mother’s death proved to be a very difficult and lonely task. He missed her so much it was physically painful.
After the funeral he started fearing his dreams. Every time he closed his eyes he saw his mother’s face. He saw her crying, contorted with pain, begging for help, praying for death. He saw her once fit-and-healthy body so drained of life, so fragile and weak, she couldn’t sit up on her own strength. He saw a face that once had been beautiful, with the brightest smile he’d ever seen, transformed during those last few months into something unrecognizable. But it was still a face he never stopped loving.
