Garcia’s eyes widened a touch.
‘I have no doubt the victim was already dead by then,’ Doctor Hove added.
Hunter’s gaze refocused on the floor and the several footprints. They were mainly by the door. ‘Has anything been touched?’
Doctor Hove gave him a timid shrug. ‘LAPD has tried to track down every curious office worker in this building who decided to have a peek at this. So far, they’ve all said they haven’t touched anything, and neither have the detectives and officers who have been in here; but it’s hard to tell.’ She faced the sculpture again. ‘We don’t really know what this is supposed to be, or look like. We can’t tell if anything has been moved out of place since it was constructed.’ The expectancy in her tone didn’t go unnoticed by Hunter. ‘I haven’t used a flashlight,’ she continued. ‘That’s your show.’
Garcia looked at Hunter as if to ask, How do you want to play it?
Hunter knew they couldn’t move the sculpture from that desk without disturbing it. As he had told Alice, the killer had been very meticulous about the first sculpture, but less so about the second one. He had no idea what the killer was aiming for with this third one, and something was telling him they were running out of time – fast. They couldn’t wait for the forensics lab to create another replica. ‘Do we have a flashlight?’ he asked.
‘Right here,’ Brindle said, handing him a medium-sized Maglite.
‘Let’s have a look,’ Hunter replied, taking the flashlight. He looked back at what remained of Littlewood’s body on the chair. In the second crime scene, the victim’s decapitated head had been placed in the exact location where the killer wanted the beam of light to be shone from, so that his work could be seen as he intended. One of Littlewood’s eyes was missing, but the remaining one was looking straight at the sculpture. That had to be a hint. Hunter checked the floor again.
‘Has all this been photographed, Doc?’ There was no way he could assume the same position as Littlewood’s one-eyed gaze without stepping on some blood, and maybe rolling the chair with the body a little out of the way.
Doctor Hove didn’t have to ask. She had followed Hunter’s stare and knew what was on his mind. ‘Yes, it’s all OK,’ she replied.
The window shades were already drawn shut. Brindle killed the strong forensic power lights while Hunter positioned himself directly in front of the body, being careful to level the flashlight with Littlewood’s line of sight.
Everyone seemed to take in a deep breath at the same time.
Hunter steadied himself and turned the flashlight on.
Seventy-Eight
Everyone had moved over to where Hunter was standing. Garcia was to his right, Doctor Hove and Brindle to his left. All eyes were on the images projected onto the wall behind the sculpture. Brindle shifted nervously on his feet.
‘This is freaky,’ he whispered weakly. When Doctor Hove had told him about the shadow images cast by the sculptures, he’d imagined something very creepy; but being there and seeing it with his own eyes was a whole new ball game. It had been a long time since he’d felt that uncomfortable at a crime scene.
Instinctively everyone squinted at the images, but no one had to ask. These were the clearest images so far – no animals, no horned creatures.
Littlewood’s ‘walking fingers’ of the left hand projected an image that looked just like a person standing up. The thumb that had been pushed a little forward created an arm. The dislocated knuckle at the top created a head shape. The combined image was that of a person either walking or standing still and pointing at something in front of him or her. The opened book-box projected a shadow that looked like some sort of large container with its lid open.
Depth is imperceptible in shadow images, so the open book-box, three feet away from the hand, seemed to be directly leveled with it. The composition looked like someone standing in front of a large container, pointing at it.
The twist came with the fingers that had been carved and placed inside the book-box. Their shadows created a new image that, in a strange way, resembled someone else lying inside the container. The shadow of one of the fingers created a head, resting against one end. The other two fingers, sticking out to the side of the box, created what looked like an arm and a leg. The rest of the body couldn’t be seen, as if it were submerged inside the box. The image reminded Hunter of someone leisurely lying inside a bathtub, one arm hanging out to one side, one foot up on the edge, head resting against one end.
Garcia was the first to utter a comment. ‘It looks like someone pointing at someone else sleeping inside a box, or . . . having a bath or something.’
Brindle nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, I can go with that. But why is he pointing at it?’
‘That’s part of the jigsaw,’ Garcia said. ‘We not only have to find the right angle to see the image, but we have to interpret it as well.’
‘Does it mean anything to you?’ Doctor Hove asked Hunter. ‘Does it tie in, in any way, with what you already have?’
Hunter kept his eyes on the shadow image. ‘I’m not sure, and I wouldn’t like to speculate until I’ve studied this image further.’
‘It’s quite hypnotic,’ Brindle added, tilting his head to one side and then the other, as if trying to look at the image from different angles.
‘And I’m sure that was exactly the killer’s intention,’ Garcia said. ‘OK, we’ve got to do the same thing we did inside Nashorn’s boat and photograph the shadow. We’ll need to reposition the forensics lights to where the flashlight is, that way we won’t need to use the camera flash.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Brindle replied and started moving towards the forensics pedestal light in the corner.
‘Wait,’ Hunter said, frowning. Something wasn’t right. He turned off the flashlight and turned around, his eyes roaming the room from floor to ceiling.
‘What’s up?’ Garcia asked.
‘It doesn’t seem right.’
‘What doesn’t?’
‘The image, it’s incomplete.’
Garcia, Doctor Hove and Brindle exchanged intrigued looks. No one seemed to know what Hunter was referring to.
‘Incomplete, how?’ Doctor Hove asked.
Hunter switched the Maglite on again. The shadow image resurfaced on the wall behind the sculpture. ‘What do you see?’
‘The same as I saw just a moment ago,’ she replied. ‘Just what Carlos suggested. It looks like someone standing in front of a container that seems to be occupied by someone else. Maybe a bathtub. Why, what do you see?’
‘The same.’
Surprised looks all round.
‘So why did you say there’s something missing?’ Garcia asked. He was used to Hunter seeing things that no one else did – questioning things that no one else questioned. It was like his mind was never satisfied. He just had to keep on digging, even when the images were clear in front of his eyes.
‘The image of the container is obviously created by the fake book on the desk, and the image of the person inside it, by the torn fingers.’
‘That’s right,’ Garcia agreed. ‘And the image of the person standing in front of it is being created by the hand.’
‘OK,’ Hunter said. ‘But from this angle, we’ve got nothing from the second hand.’
Everyone looked at the victim’s right arm at the opposite end of the large desk. The one with the shorter ‘walking fingers’. In front of it the killer had laid several carved out pieces of Littlewood’s thigh.
‘The two arms are too far apart,’ Hunter continued. ‘The light beam isn’t wide enough.’