Hunter massaged the back of his neck, feeling the rough, lumpy scar on his nape. His eyes scanned the crowd already gathered behind the yellow tape. ‘Do you have a camera with you?’ he asked the officer, who shook his head, frowning.
‘How about a phone cam?’
‘Yeah, my personal cell phone’s got a cam. Why?’
‘I want you to take a few pictures of the crowd for me.’
‘The crowd?’ the officer asked, confused.
‘Yeah, but do it discreetly. Pretend you’re taking crime-scene pictures of the outside of the church or something. Try to get the whole crowd. And from different angles. You think you can do that?’
‘Yeah, but…’
‘Trust me,’ Hunter said calmly. ‘I’ll explain later.’
The officer nodded eagerly before reaching inside the police vehicle for his cell phone.
Three
‘The vultures are already here,’ Garcia observed as they approached the yellow tape. Behind them, reporters were pushing their way to the front of the crowd, their camera flashes exploding every few seconds. ‘I think they get the call before we do.’
‘They do,’ Hunter confirmed, ‘and they pay very well for the information too.’
The policeman standing behind the tape nodded as Hunter and Garcia stooped under.
‘Detective Hunter,’ a short, round and bald reporter called out. ‘Do you think this is a religious kill?’
Hunter turned to face the squad of reporters. He understood their apprehension. Inside that small church someone had been robbed of his or her life, and they all knew that if Robert Hunter had been assigned to the case, the murderer had used overwhelming violence to do it.
‘We just got here, Tom,’ Hunter answered evenly. ‘We haven’t even been inside yet. At this point you probably know more than we do.’
‘Could this be the work of a serial killer?’ A tall, attractive brunette asked. She was wearing a thick winter coat and holding a small tape recorder. Hunter had never seen her before.
‘Did I stutter?’ he murmured, looking at Garcia. ‘I’m gonna say it slower this time for those of you who have trouble keeping up.’ He stared straight at the brunette. ‘We-just-got-here. We-haven’t-been-inside-yet. And you guys know the drill. If you want any information, you’ll have to wait for the official police press conference. If there is one.’
The brunette met Hunter’s stare before disappearing towards the back of the crowd.
A crime-lab agent waited on the worn stone steps of the church’s entrance, ready to hand Hunter and Garcia white Tyvek coveralls.
As they stepped inside, they were hit by the smell. A combination of perspiration, old wood and the sharp, metallic odor of blood.
Two long rows of red oak pews were separated by a narrow aisle that ran from the entrance to the steps at the altar. On a busy day, the Seven Saints Catholic Church could receive close to two hundred worshippers.
Its small interior was brightly lit by two large forensic powerlights mounted on separate metal pedestals. In their unnatural brilliance everything was harsh and clinical. At the end of the aisle three crime-lab agents were photographing and dusting every inch of the altar and the confessional on the right-hand side.
The door closed behind them. Hunter felt the anxiety that came with the first steps into every new murder scene.
Hearing their approach, the crime-lab agents paused and looked up uneasily. The two detectives walked towards them, stopping at the altar steps.
Blood was everywhere.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Garcia murmured, covering his mouth and nose with both hands. ‘What the hell is that?’
Four
Winter in the City of Angels is mild compared with most of the USA. Temperatures rarely go below fifty degrees Fahrenheit, but for Los Angeles residents that’s certainly cold enough. By 5:45 a.m. a cold drizzle had started. Police officer Ian Hopkins wiped his cell phone on the sleeve of his uniform jacket before snapping another picture of the observers outside the church.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ asked Justin Norton, one of the two officers first at the scene.
‘Taking pictures,’ Hopkins replied facetiously.
‘Why? Do you have a morbid fetish for crime scenes or something?’
‘Homicide Special asked me to do it.’
Officer Norton looked at Hopkins sarcastically. ‘Well, I’m not sure if you’ve noticed, but the crime scene is that way.’ He used his thumb over his shoulder to point to the church behind him.
‘The detective doesn’t want pictures of the church. He wants pictures of the crowd.’
A worried frown this time. ‘Did he tell you why?’
Hopkins shook his head.
‘And why are you holding the camera around chest height instead of bringing it to your eye?’
‘He doesn’t want the crowd to know I’m taking pictures of them. I’m just trying to be discreet.’
‘These Homicide Special detectives…’ Norton tapped his left index finger against the side of his head. ‘They’re really fucked up in the head, d’you know what I mean?’
Hopkins shrugged the comment away. ‘I think I’ve got enough now anyway. Plus this rain will screw up my phone if I’m not careful. Hey…’ he called as Norton started to walk away. ‘What happened in there?’
Norton turned around slowly and locked eyes with Hopkins. ‘You’re new to the force, right?’
‘It’ll be three months this week.’
Norton gave him a cheesy smile. ‘Well, I’ve been a cop for over seven years,’ he said calmly, pulling his cap lower over his eyes. ‘Believe me, this city has thrown some messed-up shit my way, but nothing like what’s in there. There are some evil people in this city. For your sake, just take your pictures and move onto the next job. You don’t want the image of what’s in there burned into your memory right at the beginning of your career. Trust me.’
Five
Hunter stood perfectly still. His eyes absorbing the scene as the adrenalin flooded his senses. On the stone floor just outside the confessional, surrounded by a pool of blood, the decapitated body of a slim and average-height man dressed in a priest’s cassock lay on its back. It’d been purposely positioned. Its legs were stretched out. Its arms crossed over its chest. But Hunter’s main focus was on the head.
A dog’s head.
It’d been attached to a wooden spike and then rammed down the neck’s stump, making the body on the floor look like a grotesque, human/dog mutation.
The dog’s lips were dark purple. Its thin, long tongue had stained black with blood and was hanging to the left of its deformed mouth. The eyes were wide open and a dull milky white. Its short fur was caked a dark red. Hunter took a step forward and crouched down next to the body. He wasn’t an expert in dog breeding, but he could tell that the head used was that of a street mutt.
‘A shocking sight, isn’t it?’ Mike Brindle, the lead forensic agent at the scene asked as he approached both detectives.
Hunter stood up to face him. Garcia kept his eyes on the body.
‘Hi, Mike,’ Hunter replied.
Brindle was in his late forties, stick thin and doorframe tall. Certainly one of the best forensic agents Los Angeles had to offer.
‘How’s the insomnia going?’ Brindle asked.
‘Same as always,’ Hunter answered with a shrug.
Hunter’s chronic insomnia was no secret. It’d started mildly after his mother’s death when he was seven. As the years went by it intensified. Hunter knew it was nothing more than his brain’s defense mechanism so he didn’t have to deal with the ghastly nightmares. Instead of fighting it, he simply learned to live with it. He could survive on three, if needed two, hours of sleep a night.