‘The one and the same. And guess what? They just had a result come back on a DNA test performed on an eyelash they found in the bathroom. Matches Ken Sands’s DNA.’
Hunter placed the box of photographs on his desk. ‘An eyelash?’
‘That’s right. And I know that kind of blemishes the theory that Ken Sands could be both Tito’s killer and the Sculptor. The Sculptor has given us three messy crime scenes, blood and guts everywhere, but he didn’t leave anything behind he didn’t want to leave behind. Not even a spec of dust. So how come, if Ken Sands really is both, he acted so carelessly in Tito’s apartment?’ Garcia didn’t wait for Hunter to reply. ‘The problem is, he might not have been careless at all. He might have made a genuine mistake.’
Hunter’s interest grew.
‘Eyelashes don’t shed as easily as regular hairs. I checked it,’ Garcia explained. ‘Humans lose between forty and 120 strands of hair a day, while eyelashes will live on average 150 days before falling out. It’s not a contingency most criminals worry about. No matter how careful they are. So unless Tito’s killer was wearing goggles, it was a genuine mistake.’
‘What did you say to Corbí?’
‘Nothing. Still kept him in the dark about the fact that Sands is a person of interest in the Sculptor case. I did ask him to keep me posted about any new developments. But there’s no escaping it now. They’ll be looking for Sands as well.’
Hunter nodded his understanding. ‘Yes, but you remember Tito’s apartment, right? It was filthy. It hadn’t been cleaned in months. So an eyelash may be good enough to place Sands inside the apartment, but without an eyewitness to testify that he was there on the night of the murder, without a confession, no one will ever get a conviction. All Sands has to say is that he visited Tito any time before the night of the murder.’
Garcia knew Hunter was right.
‘Did you get anything from Littlewood’s office building?’
Garcia used both hands to pull his hair back from his forehead. ‘Not a thing.’ He looked at his watch and irritably pinched his nose a couple of times.
Hunter understood Garcia’s frustration well. ‘Where’s Alice?’
‘No idea. She wasn’t here when I got back. What’s that?’ Garcia nodded at the cardboard box Hunter had placed on his desk.
‘Something I got from Littlewood’s apartment. Old photographs.’
Garcia cocked an eyebrow.
Hunter left the box and moved towards the pictures board. His attention this time locked solely on the human-sculpture and severed-limbs photographs. For a moment he studied them as if that was the first time he was seeing any of it.
‘Anything interesting?’
No answer.
‘Robert,’ Garcia called again. ‘Did you find anything in Littlewood’s apartment? Anything in that box?’
Hunter reached for one of the photographs and unpinned it from the board. ‘We need to go down to the captain’s office before she leaves.’
Ninety
Captain Blake was just finishing a phone call when Hunter and Garcia knocked on her door.
‘Come in,’ she called, after placing a hand over the mouthpiece. As both detectives stepped into her office, she gestured for them to take a seat.
Neither did.
‘Well, I don’t care how you deal with it, Wilks, just deal with it. You’ve got lead on this, so lead, goddammit.’ Captain Blake slammed the phone down and pinched the bridge of her nose while shutting her eyes for just a moment.
Hunter and Garcia waited in silence.
‘OK.’ The captain looked up at them and exhaled a weighted breath. ‘Tell me we’ve got at least a sniff of something new.’
He reached inside his breast pocket and retrieved an old six-by-four-inch photograph, placing it on the captain’s desk.
‘What is this?’ she asked.
‘A sniff of something new,’ Hunter replied with no sarcasm in his voice. ‘I found it in Nathan Littlewood’s apartment.’
Garcia stepped forward, craning his neck.
Captain Blake picked up the photo and stared at it for several seconds. ‘What the hell am I looking at here, Robert?’
‘Could I have a look, Captain?’ Garcia asked, extending his hand.
She handed him the photo and sat back on her swivel chair.
The picture wasn’t of fantastic quality, but it clearly showed a skinny man barely in his twenties, standing outside by a tree, holding a bottle of beer. It was a bright sunny day and he had no shirt on. His hair was dark and curly. He was smiling. The beer bottle in his right hand was angled towards the camera, as if he was toasting something. It didn’t take Garcia long to place him.
‘A very young Nathan Littlewood,’ he said.
Captain Blake look at Hunter, unimpressed. ‘Hardly surprising since you found that picture in his apartment.’
‘Not him,’ Hunter replied. ‘The other person in the picture.’
Captain Blake stole another peek at the photograph in Garcia’s hands, and then looked back at Hunter as if he’d lost his mind. ‘Are we talking about this picture? ’Cos if we are, you might need to see an eye doctor, Robert. There’s only one person in it.’
Garcia was already searching the picture’s background for any secondary characters. He knew Hunter well enough to know that he’d seen something that most people would’ve missed. But there was no one. Littlewood was standing by that tree alone. There was nothing in the background but empty space.
‘Look closely,’ Hunter said.
That was when Garcia noticed part of someone’s left arm at the right-hand edge of the picture. Due to its proximity to the camera, it was out-of-focus, but it was easy to tell that the arm was bent at the elbow. Most of the forearm was out of shot.
‘The arm?’ Garcia asked.
Hunter nodded. ‘Stay with it.’ He watched as Garcia concentrated on the picture again. His stare went from confusion, to doubt, to surprise, and then finally it clicked.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Garcia said, his eyes darting towards Hunter.
‘No, I’ll be damned,’ the captain said, zapping both detectives with a laser stare. Her voice pitch went up a notch. ‘Do you see me sitting here? What about the arm?’
Garcia stood directly in front of her desk and showed her the picture. ‘This isn’t just somebody’s arm.’ He addressed Hunter. ‘That’s why you were checking the photos upstairs again.’
Hunter agreed and placed the picture he took from the pictures board on the captain’s desk. The picture showed a few body parts lying side by side on a stainless steel table. He pointed to one of the two arms in the photograph. Specifically, to a point high up on the triceps.
‘See those?’ he asked.
The captain cocked her head forward and squinted at it. ‘I see them all right; what are they?’
‘Moles,’ Garcia replied, placing the picture he was holding next to the one the captain was looking at. ‘Birthmarks.’ He indicated the same cluster of six small, oddly-shaped dark-red moles on the triceps of the person who had inadvertently got in front of the camera. Despite the arm being out-of-focus, there was no mistaking it. They were exactly the same.
Ninety-One
Captain Blake sat still for a while longer, her gaze fixed on the photographs on her desk. She knew that birthmarks were as unique as fingerprints. The odds of two people having the same exact birthmark were about one in sixty-four million. Not even identical twins share them. Two individuals having the exact same six birthmarks, in a small cluster like the one she was looking at, was virtually impossible.