Garcia felt his stomach play up again as they stepped closer to the body.
The skin on her face had been burned so badly that it seemed to have melted into crumpled and clustered lumps, like hot wax. Her exposed flesh and muscle tissue had severely wrinkled and hardened, as if her face had been deep-fried. Her eyeballs had exploded inside their sockets from the intense heat.
‘From what I’ve gathered so far,’ Brindle said, carefully sidestepping the small pool of blood, urine and feces that surrounded the armchair. ‘She was brought here on Saturday evening, tied to this chair and left in front of a blazing fire. She died long ago, but the fire was never turned off.’ He pointed to the fireplace. Heat still emanated from it.
Hunter’s stare quickly moved from the dead woman to Brindle. ‘The killer… cooked her?’
Brindle’s lips thinned as his head bobbed down. ‘Given her proximity to the fire, more like roasted her alive.’
‘This is fucking sick,’ Garcia commented, turning his head away.
‘This is a gas fire,’ Brindle continued. ‘Which means its intensity is controlled. Worst of all, it’s constant. It won’t die down unless somebody turns it off.’
‘Was it on when the body was found?’ Hunter asked, kneeling in front of the fireplace.
‘Yes.’ Brindle nodded. ‘But on a very low setting. Just enough to-’ he bit his lip ‘-simmer her. But look at the size of this fireplace, Robert. On its higher setting, it would feel like a proper bonfire.’
Hunter cleared his eyes, took a deep breath and forced himself to study the body for a moment. Garcia stayed a few steps behind. His right hand cupped over his nose. His face screwed up as if he’d tasted something sour.
The smell of burned human flesh is quite different from that of other animals because of our diet. Humans are the only animals who eat such diverse foods as meat, vegetables, sweets and chemically altered products. The combination of their smells gets embedded in the human flesh and then released, together with several toxins when the flesh burns.
Garcia felt something start to rise in his throat again.
‘We cut her loose,’ Brindle said, noticing Hunter’s look as he studied her severed restraints. ‘And that’s the reason why the two of you are here.’
Hunter’s brow creased in anticipation.
‘We’ve been here for a while. Her body and the scene have already been photographed. The two local detectives we thought would be taking the case had seen enough. The body was ready to be taken to the morgue.’
Brindle gestured for one of the crime-lab agents to come and give him a hand. Very carefully, they moved the dead woman’s back away from the armchair’s backrest.
‘And then we saw this.’
Hunter and Garcia repositioned themselves so they could have a better look.
‘Oh fuck,’ Garcia murmured through gritted teeth, pinching the bridge of his nose.
Forty-Four
Hunter massaged his temples with the tips of his fingers, trying to rub away the headache he knew was on its way.
‘Shit,’ he said softly.
His eyes were focused on the victim’s back and neck. They had been badly scorched. But these were old burn marks. The skin had already healed, showing lumpy, leathery and irregular patches. But the surprise in both detectives’ faces wasn’t caused by the disfigurement. Halfway down her back, painted in red and about six inches long, was the number four.
‘There’s more.’ Brindle lowered her body back to the original sitting position before asking one of his agents to bring him the large evidence bag they’d collected earlier. He lifted the clear plastic bag in the air so Hunter and Garcia could have a look at its contents. Inside lay a badly burned skull.
‘This was found in the fire, after it was turned off.’
Garcia looked confused for a moment.
Hunter let out a deep sigh. ‘Father Fabian’s head?’ he asked, already knowing the answer.
‘You’ve gotta be kidding.’ Garcia’s eyes widened. Then he remembered what he’d read in the priest’s journal – My head is taken away to be burned.
‘We’ll have to wait for the test results, but I’d put money on it,’ Brindle replied.
Garcia turned his attention back to the burned woman. ‘What I don’t get about this is – how come it looks like she’s got different degrees of burns all around her body?’ He cautiously moved a step closer. ‘The skin on her torso, arms and thighs has blistered and ruptured open. You can tell that the exposed flesh has simply cooked, as you’ve put it.’ He nodded at Hunter. ‘But her lower legs, feet and hands have burned to a fucking crisp. Most of it has carbonized for chrissakes. And what in God’s name has happened to her face? It’s like different parts of her body have been exposed to different intensities of heat.’
‘And they have,’ Brindle admitted. ‘As I’ve said before, this thing at full tilt would feel like a forest fire.’ He pointed to the fireplace. ‘She was just about a foot away from it. I’m sure the killer was controlling the heat, torturing her, but because of her armchair sitting position, her lower legs and hands are about a foot closer to the fireplace than the rest of her body. That extra proximity could mean a rise of two, maybe three degrees Celsius. Given the probable amount of time she was exposed to such intense heat, the body parts closer to the fire would’ve sustained considerably more damage, as you can clearly see. Now, when it comes to her face-’ he shook his head with uncertainty ‘-I’ve seen enough burn victims, but I’ve never seen anything quite like this before. The skin on her face has crumpled into melted-looking lumps, like a dinner candle.’
‘Could the killer have used an accelerant?’ Hunter asked.
‘In my view, that’s the only explanation,’ Brindle admitted.
‘Something like cooking oil?’
‘Cooking oil?’ Garcia repeated in a disbelieving tone. ‘You think the killer smothered her face with cooking oil, placed her in front of a fire and watched it sizzle?’
Brindle tilted his head and shrugged in a ‘who knows?’ gesture. ‘You’ll have to wait for the autopsy and the lab results to be certain, but something had to have helped the skin on her face burn the way it did, causing it to look like it’s melted away. Fire and heat alone wouldn’t have done it.’
‘Why not?’ Garcia asked.
‘Skin can’t melt,’ Hunter said, bending down and having a closer look at her face.
‘That’s right,’ Brindle confirmed. ‘I’m not gonna get scientific on you, but it’s a biological and physical impossibility. It’ll burn and carbonize, but it won’t melt.’ He paused for a second and rubbed his left eye with the heel of his hand. ‘We checked the whole house, Robert. That’s all the blood we found.’ He pointed to the small pool under the armchair. ‘If this is the same killer who got to the priest a few days ago, there was no ritual this time. If there was, it certainly didn’t involve blood. It’s like this is an entirely different killer. His MO has changed completely.’
Hunter nodded, but saw no point in revealing to Brindle what they’d found out earlier in Father Fabian’s journal.
‘Anything from dusting?’
‘No prints yet, just a few fibers, but they could’ve come from anywhere in this house.’ Brindle shrugged. ‘There’re rugs, carpets, curtains and fabrics just about everywhere in this place.’
Hunter walked around the room, checking the furniture for anything out of the ordinary. He found nothing. ‘Who else has seen the number on her back?’
‘Only the people in this room,’ Brindle replied confidently. ‘The two Malibu detectives decided to wait outside while we cut her loose. They didn’t look too well.’
‘And you haven’t told them that’s the reason why we’re here.’
‘Nope. I told them the skull found in the fire was the reason I wanted you two to have a look at this case.’