Gallery of the Dead Read online

  Across the bed from White, a CSI photographer was clicking away at the body, trying to capture it from all possible angles. With every two or three clicks, before resuming his job, he would stop, shake his head, then look away for an instant, squinting, clearly fighting the urge to be sick.

  Hunter and Garcia finally stepped into the room and, being careful to avoid the scattered pools of dried-up blood on the floorboards, approached the bed.

  White gave them a few more seconds to fully take in the scene before he spoke again.

  ‘We’ve been here for just a little over half an hour,’ he explained. ‘And as you can clearly see, this crime scene will take a while to process in full, but I’ll give you the little we’ve come up with so far.’ He nodded at the AC unit on the wall across the room from him. ‘The aircon was on full blast when we got here. That’s why the room feels like a fridge.’

  ‘The killer wanted to preserve the body?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘Possibly,’ White agreed. ‘But if that was the killer’s intention or not, the low temperature has done just that.’

  Intrigue danced across both detectives’ faces.

  ‘You’ll have to wait for the official autopsy result for a more precise estimate of the time of death,’ White continued. ‘But at this temperature, the normal decomposition process would be delayed by about thirty to forty hours. Given the fact that her body is just entering full rigor mortis, I’d say that she was murdered somewhere between forty to fifty-two hours ago.’

  ‘That would take us back to Monday evening,’ Garcia said, looking at Hunter. ‘Lieutenant Jarvis told us outside that her mother last spoke to her on Monday afternoon.’ He turned and addressed White again. ‘It sounds like your estimate is pretty much on the money, Kevin.’

  Pride lit up in White’s eyes. ‘The temperature, together with the shut windows all around the house, would also explain the lack of blowflies buzzing away in here.’ He paused and looked back at the body on the bed. ‘Her body should’ve been much smaller by now.’

  In normal circumstances, even at nighttime, if a body were left at the mercy of the elements either outside or inside, blowflies could settle on it in a matter of minutes. They would’ve concentrated their efforts in the mouth, the nose, the eyes and any open wounds. In the case of a skinned body, the entire body became an open wound and therefore a breeding ground for blowflies. In just a few hours, there would have been as many as half a million eggs laid all over the corpse. Those eggs would have hatched within twenty-four hours and in a single day, the maggots that those eggs produced would have reduced a full-grown human body to half size. Hunter and Garcia knew that well enough.

  ‘Unfortunately,’ White carried on, ‘for the cause of death you’ll have to wait for the autopsy report. What I can tell you is that there are no visible stabbing or bullet wounds. No apparent blunt trauma to the head, either. No bones seem to be broken, with the obvious exception of the severed hands and feet. Her ribcage looks intact and her neck hasn’t been snapped.’

  ‘Bled out?’ Garcia ventured.

  ‘There’s a high possibility that that was how she died,’ White accepted. ‘But as I’ve said, the autopsy report will clear it up.’

  Both detectives went silent for a moment.

  ‘We haven’t found any of the missing body parts,’ White added. ‘No hands, feet, or skin, but we haven’t had time to check the whole house yet.’

  ‘Any way of telling if any of this savagery was done while she was still alive?’ Garcia asked.

  ‘Not with any certainty,’ White replied. ‘I hate to sound repetitive here, Carlos, but you’ll have to wait for the autopsy report for a more accurate answer.’

  Garcia’s eyes circled the room one more time. Judging by the amount of blood everywhere, he wouldn’t be surprised if the post-mortem revealed that the victim was indeed alive when she was skinned. But even if that had been the case, something still made no sense to him.

  ‘I don’t get this,’ he said. ‘What the hell is all this blood everywhere?’ His stare moved to Hunter, but the question was thrown at anyone who cared to answer it. ‘And all the way across the room, too. This isn’t arterial spray. We can all see that.’ He stepped closer to the east wall, studying a long blood mark against it. ‘All these marks look like smudges. As if they were done on purpose.’

  ‘They could very possibly have been,’ White agreed.

  Hunter stepped closer to the bed and began studying what once had been Linda Parker’s face. In the absence of skin, what was left behind was horrifying and hypnotic in equal measures.

  As a consequence of over forty hours of exposure, even at low temperatures, the thin muscle layer that sat between her facial bone structure and her skin had darkened into an odd shade of brown, as if it had been lightly scorched by fire. Her nose cartilage was still in place, but the eyelids and lips were gone, completely exposing her gums, teeth, jawbone, skullcap and ocular cavity. Her eyes hadn’t been removed by her killer, but they weren’t there anymore either. Most of the vitreous humor – the transparent jelly-like tissue filling the eyeball behind the lens – had dried up. As a result, Linda Parker’s eyes had deflated and practically disappeared into their sockets.

  ‘Have you moved her yet?’ Hunter asked.

  ‘No, not yet,’ White replied. ‘I was waiting for you guys to get here so you could see the body in situ, because here’s the catch – if you look closely, it doesn’t look like the killer skinned her completely.’

  Hunter took a step back, tilting his head to one side.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘It seems like there’s still a patch of skin left on her back.’

  Garcia joined Hunter. ‘That’s odd. Why would the killer skin most of her body, but leave a patch on her back?’

  ‘Let’s have a look, shall we?’ White said, walking around to the other side of the bed. ‘You guys want to give me a hand?’ White asked Hunter and Garcia.

  ‘Sure.’

  The photographer got out of the way, moving over to the other end of the room.

  ‘Let’s just bring her up into a sitting position as much as we can,’ White said, nodding at Hunter and Garcia, who nodded back. ‘On three . . . one, two, three.’

  As they brought the body up from the bed, Hunter, Garcia and White all angled their heads to one side to have a look at the victim’s back.

  As the patch of skin finally came into view, they all froze.

  ‘Jesus!’ White said. ‘What the hell is this?’

  Seven

  Still bare of clothes, the man took a seat at his dressing table and studied his reflection in the three-way vanity mirror for a moment, checking his profile from both angles.

  He loved the strange sensation he got every time he was about to start his transformation. It was a complicated feeling that not even he could properly explain, but it bizarrely filled him with a sense of accomplishment merged with something he could only describe as mind-numbing ecstasy.

  The man savored that sensation for an extra full minute, allowing it to run through his body like blood running through his veins.

  Elated, the man smiled at himself.

  He knew that he could make himself look however he pleased. He could change the shape of his nose, the color of his eyes, the fullness of his cheekbones, the angle of his chin, the thickness of his lips, the contour of his ears, the quality of his teeth . . . it didn’t matter. The man’s knowledge of how to mold foam prosthetics coupled with his makeup expertise was second to none. Better yet, if he combined all that with just a few electronic gadgets, he could even change the sound and the strength of his voice, like he’d done before.

  The man sat back on his chair and regarded the photo he had pinned to the top right-hand corner of his mirror. He had absolutely no idea who the man on it was. The picture had come from a random stock-photos website, but the person on it had a very interesting look about him – round nose, low cheekbones, full lips, blue eyes, and angled eyebrows that gav
e his whole face a somewhat sad look. For some reason the man liked that. The person’s skin color was also a shade darker than the man’s own.

  The man had already molded several pieces of foam prosthetics to match the person’s nose, lips and cheekbones, and as he applied a thin layer of special adhesive to one of the pieces, he began to imagine what that person would be like in real life – how he would talk, walk, smile, laugh . . . Would his voice be soft and subdued, strong and authoritative, or a combination of both?

  How about his personality? the man wondered. Would he be outgoing, talkative, shy, introvert, funny, serious, intellectual? The possibilities were endless, and that thoroughly excited him. He loved the creation process of every new person he became. He loved it because there was no one better at it than he was. But the physical transformation, together with the personality conception, was only part of the fun. The real excitement, the real creative process would come later, for the man was undoubtedly an artist.

  Eight

  Hunter, Garcia and White were all surprised to see that a perfectly shaped, straight-edged patch of skin still remained attached to Linda Parker’s back. In fact, the patch covered the whole of her back, from left to right side and from a couple of centimeters below her shoulders all the way down to the top of her buttocks, but the surprises didn’t end there. Despite all the dried blood that covered most of that skin patch, all three of them could clearly see that something had been hastily carved into it, rupturing the skin and cutting into her flesh.

  ‘What the actual fuck?’ Garcia whispered as he squinted at the marks.

  ‘Tommy,’ White called, gesturing for the forensics photographer to join them. ‘You need to come get this.’

  Tommy looked back at White as if saying, There’s more to this freakshow?

  ‘Now,’ White urged him.

  Adjusting his glasses, Tommy walked around to the left side of the bed.

  ‘Oh, man!’ he said, shaking his head one more time. ‘This just ain’t right.’

  The carvings to the victim’s back looked like an odd combination of symbols and letters, forming four distinct horizontal lines. Those symbols and letters had been crudely carved using only straight lines, no curves.

  It took the photographer a couple of seconds to recompose himself before he began clicking away. Despite the blinding brightness of his camera flash exploding from behind them, Hunter’s attention never faltered.

  As his gaze moved from letter to symbol and from straight line to straight line, a new shiver began at the core of Hunter’s soul, gaining momentum like a rocket.

  ‘Is this some sort of Devil-worship language or some bullshit like that?’ Garcia again.

  Hunter slowly shook his head at his partner.

  ‘Well, it’s definitely not English,’ White replied.

  ‘Maybe it’s alien,’ the photographer offered. ‘It would be easier to believe that than that another human being was capable of doing all this.’

  ‘No.’ Hunter finally broke his silence, his voice plain. ‘It’s Latin.’

  ‘Latin?’

  Both Garcia and the photographer frowned at Hunter before their attention returned to the markings on the victim’s back. They re-studied them for another long moment.

  White also didn’t look so sure.

  ‘I don’t see it, Robert,’ he said, tilting his head from one side to the other. ‘And my Latin isn’t bad at all.’

  ‘If this is Latin,’ Garcia asked, ‘what do these symbols mean?’

  ‘They aren’t symbols,’ Hunter replied, but he could easily see how his partner, or anyone else, would’ve mistaken some of the carved letters for symbols. ‘It’s just the careless way in which the letters were drawn.’

  Neither Garcia nor White seemed to follow.

  ‘Do you guys have her?’ Hunter asked. ‘Can I free my hands?’

  ‘Yeah, we’ve got her,’ White replied.

  Hunter let go of the body.

  Garcia and White kept her in place.

  ‘These cuts to her skin,’ Hunter began, indicating as he clarified. ‘These lines used to form the letters, were made by what look like quick slashes from some sort of blade.’ He reenacted the movement with his hand, his index finger sticking out.

  ‘Yeah, OK,’ Garcia agreed.

  White also nodded.

  ‘And as you can see,’ Hunter continued, still indicating as he spoke, ‘whoever did this used only straight lines, no curves, which gives us two options. One – he drew some of the letters this way on purpose, or two – he wasn’t paying that much attention to precision as he drew them. Nevertheless, what we are left with here are several lines that fail to connect where they were supposed to, either by falling short or missing the target altogether. That’s why some of these look more like symbols than letters.’

  Garcia, White and Tommy, who had stopped taking pictures to concentrate on Hunter’s explanation, still looked very confused.

  Hunter tried to clarify.

  ‘Like here, for example. This is supposed to be a “P”.’ Hunter used his finger to redraw the letter over the existing carved one without touching the victim, but this time he used a curved line. ‘And this is a “D”.’ He repeated the process. ‘Some are also very skewed and out of line, which makes it a lot harder to see it, like here – this is supposed to be an “H”, this is an “M”, this is an “S”, and this is a “C”.’

  As Hunter redrew the letters with his fingers, his argument began to make a lot more sense.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ White said, his eyes widening at the markings. The puzzle was beginning to come together for him, but it still wasn’t quite there yet.

  ‘The next problem we have –’ Hunter wasn’t done yet, ‘– is that as everyone can see, we have four distinct horizontal lines here, which would suggest that we also have four different words, but we don’t.’

  Garcia was still staring at the carvings, but the look in his eyes was a very lost one.

  ‘How many words do we have?’ White asked.

  ‘Three,’ Hunter replied. ‘But they’ve been split at completely random places to form four lines. If you give me a piece of paper and a pen I’ll show you.’

  ‘I can get you one,’ Tommy said, walking over to his camera case, which he had left by the bedroom door. A couple of seconds later he handed Hunter a notepad and a pencil.

  ‘So this is the first line.’

  Hunter said each letter out loud as he first indicated it on the victim’s back, before writing it on the notepad.

  Finally Hunter showed them what he had written.

  PULCHR.

  ITUDOCI.

  RCUMD.

  ATEIUS.

  ‘What the fuck?’ Garcia said, as he and White placed the body back onto a lying position.

  He knew that Hunter saw things differently than most people did. His brain worked differently too, especially when it came to putting puzzles together, but sometimes Hunter did more than surprise him, he scared him.

  ‘How the hell did you manage to see all that from these crazy cuts to her back, and so fast, too?’

  ‘I was just about to ask you the same thing,’ White said. ‘Have you seen something like this before?’

  Hunter shook his head before playing it down. ‘No, never. Maybe it was the angle I was looking at them.’

  White’s attention returned to the piece of paper Hunter had shown them. ‘Pulchritudocircumdateius.’ He first read it at an overly slow pace and as a single word before finally splitting the three words correctly. ‘Pulchritudo Circumdat Eius.’ His pronunciation was spot on.

  Garcia’s eyebrows arched, as his stare ping-ponged between Hunter and White. ‘Unfortunately the last time I spoke Latin was – never. What the hell does it mean? Does anyone know? Is it supposed to be some sort of Devil incantation or something?’

  ‘No.’ This time it was White who shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘So what is it?’

  ‘If I
’m not mistaken,’ White replied, ‘it means – Beauty is all around her.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘Beauty is all around her . . . beauty surrounds her. The words in English may vary, but the meaning is the same.’

  For a moment Garcia paused and looked around the room again in astonished disbelief, his gaze moving from blood smudge to blood smudge. ‘Beauty is all around her? What beauty?’

  White’s stare followed Garcia’s. It was then that a thought came to him. ‘You wanted to know what all this was?’ He addressed the detective. ‘All this blood everywhere for no apparent reason? Maybe you’re right. Maybe all these smudges were done on purpose. Maybe this killer believes he’s . . .’ White cringed at his own suggestion, ‘. . . an artist or something. Maybe to him . . .’ He nodded at the skinned and mutilated body. ‘All this – the victim, the room, the blood, the position he left her, all of it – is nothing more than a . . . morbid art piece.’

  Hunter could feel goose bumps kiss the back of his neck. He took a step back and tried to take in the whole scene one more time.

  ‘The carvings to the victim’s back . . .’ White said in conclusion, ‘they could be just how the killer chose to sign his work.’

  Before anyone could reply, the female forensics agent who had been dusting the surfaces in the living room for latent prints appeared at the door to the bedroom.

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ she said, her expression one of sheer disgust. ‘Whoever this killer is, he’s one sick sonofabitch.’

  Everyone frowned at her.

  ‘You guys better come and have a look at this.’

  Nine

  Hunter, Garcia and White followed the agent out of the bedroom and through the short hallway that led back into the living room, but contrary to what they were expecting, the agent didn’t direct them to any of the surfaces she’d been dusting for prints, nor did she lead them to the front door or the outside of the house. Instead, she took a right as they entered the living room and guided everyone into a sharp-lined, modern-looking kitchen.