The Death Sculptor

As she got to the last one, she paused and held her breath.

‘What in God’s earth is this?’

‘A . . . sculpture of some sort,’ Garcia answered.

‘Made of . . . the victim’s body parts?’

‘That’s right.’

Silence ruled the room for the next few seconds.

‘Is it supposed to mean anything?’ Captain Blake asked.

‘Yes, it means something,’ Hunter said. ‘We just don’t know what yet.’

‘How can you be so sure it means something?’

‘Because if you want someone dead, you walk up to them and shoot them. You don’t risk the time it takes to do something like this unless the whole act has a meaning. And usually, when a perpetrator leaves something that significant behind, it’s because he’s trying to communicate.’

‘With us?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘With somebody. We’ll need to figure out its meaning first before we know.’

Captain Blake’s attention returned to the picture. ‘So that would mean that this wasn’t random. The killer didn’t just put this thing together in a burst of sadistic inspiration right there and then?’

Hunter shook his head. ‘Very unlikely. I’d say the killer knew exactly what he would do with Derek Nicholson’s body parts before he killed him. He knew exactly which body parts he needed. And he knew exactly what his horror piece would look like when finished.’

‘Great.’ She paused. ‘And what does this mean?’ The captain showed them a picture of the bloody message left on the wall.

Garcia ran her through the whole story. When he was done, Captain Blake was uncharacteristically lost for words.

‘What the hell are we dealing with here, Robert?’ she finally said, handing the pile of photographs back to Garcia.

‘I’m not sure, Captain.’ Hunter leaned against his desk. ‘Derek Nicholson was a prosecutor for the State of California for twenty-six years. He put a lot of people behind bars.’

‘You think this could be retaliation? Who the hell did he send to prison, Lucifer and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre gang?’

‘I don’t know, but that’ll have to be our starting point.’ Hunter looked at Garcia. ‘We need a list of everyone Nicholson has put behind bars – murderers, attempted murderers, rapists, whoever. Let’s prioritize by anyone who has been released, paroled, or made bail in the past . . .’ he thought about it for a moment, ‘fifteen years . . . and also by severity of crime. Anyone he put away for any type of sadistic crime comes first.’

‘I’ll get the research team on it,’ Garcia confirmed, ‘but it’s Sunday. We won’t get anything until maybe tomorrow evening.’

‘That’s fine. We’ll also need to crosscheck whatever names we get with a list of their immediate family members, relatives, gang members, or whatever; anybody who could be capable of going after Derek Nicholson for revenge on someone else’s behalf. There’s a chance this could’ve been indirect retaliation. Maybe the person Nicholson sent to prison is still there . . . maybe he died in prison, and somebody on the outside is after payback.’

Garcia nodded.

Hunter reached for the pile of photographs and spread them out on his desk. His stare settled on the one with the sculpture.

‘How did the perpetrator put that thing together?’ the captain asked, joining Hunter by his desk.

‘He used wire to hold the pieces in place.’

‘Wire?’

‘That’s right.’

She bent over and studied the photograph again. A sudden chill ran the length of her body. ‘And how do you suppose we’ll figure out what this thing means? The more I look at it, the more freaky and incomprehensible it seems.’

‘The forensics lab will create an exact replica for us. We might bring in one or two art experts and see if they can make anything of it.’

In all her years in the force, Captain Blake had seen the most unimaginable things when it came to killers, but nothing like this. ‘Have you ever seen or heard of a crime scene like this one?’ she asked.

‘I know of a case where the killer used the victim’s blood as paint to create a canvas,’ Garcia offered, ‘but this is in a league of its own.’

‘I’ve never heard or read about anything like this,’ Hunter admitted.

‘Could the victim have been random?’ Captain Blake asked, glancing through the notes Garcia had jotted down. ‘I mean, it looks to me that the sadism of the act, and the creation of that grotesque thing, is what was most important to the killer, not the victim himself. The killer could’ve picked Nicholson because he was an easy target.’ She flipped a page on Garcia’s notebook. ‘Derek Nicholson had terminal cancer. He was weak and practically bedbound. Totally defenseless. He couldn’t have screamed for help if the killer had given him a megaphone. And he was alone in the house.’

‘The captain has a point,’ Garcia agreed, tilting his head from side to side.

‘I don’t buy that,’ Hunter said, moving away from his desk and approaching the open window. ‘Derek Nicholson was an easy target, I agree, but there are plenty of easier targets in a city like Los Angeles – tramps, homeless people, drug addicts, prostitutes . . . If the victim made no difference to the killer, why risk breaking into an LA prosecutor’s home and spend hours doing what he did. Also, he wasn’t that alone in the house. His nurse was in the guesthouse above the garage, remember? And as we know . . .’ he tapped the photograph that showed the message on the wall, ‘. . . she walked in on the killer. Thankfully she didn’t turn on the lights.’ Hunter turned and faced the room. ‘Believe me, Captain, this killer wanted this victim. He wanted Derek Nicholson dead. And he wanted him to suffer before he died.’

Eight

Instead of playing volleyball in Venice Beach or catching a Lakers game, Hunter spent the rest of his day carefully studying all the crime-scene photographs, with one question coming up all the time.

What in the world did that sculpture mean?

He decided to go back to Derek Nicholson’s house.

The body, together with the morbid sculpture, had been taken to the coroner’s office. All that was left behind was a sad and lifeless house full of grief, sorrow and fear. Derek Nicholson’s last few hours alive were splattered all over his room, and it all spelled only one thing – terrifying pain.

Hunter stared at the message the killer left on the wall and felt an empty hole grow inside him. The killer took Derek Nicholson’s life, and in the process devastated three others – both of Nicholson’s daughters’ and the young nurse’s.

The forensic team had lifted at least four different sets of fingerprints from the house, but analysis would take a day or two. They’d also collected several hair and fiber samples from the room upstairs. Hours of sieving through it, the backyard and trellis on the outside wall of Derek Nicholson’s room gave them nothing. There were no signs of forced entry. No windows had been broken, no latches damaged, no doors or locks tampered with, but then again, Melinda Wallis, the weekend nurse, couldn’t remember if she’d locked the backdoor. Two of the windows downstairs had been left unlocked overnight, and the balcony door that led into Mr. Nicholson’s room was left ajar.

Hunter had tried talking to Melinda Wallis, but Garcia had been right, she was psychologically shutting down. Her brain was struggling to cope with the shock of discovering Derek Nicholson’s body inside a room bathed in