The Death Sculptor (8 page)

Hunter moved his head as if pondering Garcia’s words.

‘You think it’s more than that, don’t you?’ Garcia asked.

Hunter nodded. ‘I think the killer has been in here before. I think the killer knew the family.’

‘So, do you know what the problem is?’ Andrew Nashorn asked the mechanic, who was hunched over the inboard engine pit inside the cabin of his midsized sailboat.

Nashorn was fifty-one years old with a full head of light brown hair, a thick chest and arms, and a swagger that told everybody that he still knew how to handle himself in a fistfight. The scar above his left eyebrow and the crooked nose came from his early boxing days.

Nashorn spent the entire year waiting for the official start of the summer. It’s true that in Los Angeles, and most of southern California, summer is an almost endless season, but those first few official weeks were considered by many boat owners as the best for sailing. The winds were kinder and practically unceasing. The ocean calmer than ever. The water was clearer, and clouds seemed to go paint the sky somewhere else for a couple of weeks.

Nashorn always filed for his two-week holiday at the beginning of every year. The period was always the same – the first few weeks of summer. He’d been doing so for the last twenty years. And for the last twenty years his vacation had been exactly the same, he’d pack a few clothes, some supplies, his fishing gear, and disappear into the Pacific for fourteen days.

Nashorn didn’t eat fish; he didn’t like the taste of it. He fished simply for sport, and because it relaxed him. He’d always throw his catch back into the water as soon as he unhooked it from his line. He used only circle hooks, because they were kinder to the fish.

Despite having many friends, Nashorn always sailed alone. He’d been married once, over twenty years ago. His wife, Jane, suffered a heart attack in their kitchen one afternoon while he was out working. It happened so quickly she never managed to get to the phone. They’d only been married for about three years. Nashorn never even knew she had a heart condition.

Jane’s death devastated him. To Nashorn, she simply was the one. From the first day they met, he knew he wanted to grow old with her, or so he hoped. The first two years after her death were torturous. More than once Nashorn thought about ending his life so he could be with Jane again. He even had a special bullet set aside for the occasion – a .38 hollow point – but that day never came. Little by little, Nashorn managed to step out of his dark depression. But he never remarried, and since then, not a day went by that he didn’t think of her.

Officially, summer had started yesterday, and Nashorn had planned to set sail this afternoon, but when he tried engaging his 29 h.p. diesel engine, the motor coughed and rattled a few times before stalling. He tried it again, but the engine just wouldn’t start. Some sailors might’ve considered taking off with a dead engine – after all, it was a sailboat – but that would’ve been careless, and careless was something Nashorn was not.

He was lucky, though. He was about to call Warren Donnelly, his usual mechanic, when another mechanic, who had just finished servicing the boat right next to his, heard the engine coughing like a dying dog and asked if Nashorn needed any help. That saved Nashorn at least a couple of hours, maybe more.

The mechanic had been looking over the small engine for just over five minutes now.

‘So,’ Nashorn said again, ‘how bad is it? Can it be fixed today?’

Without looking up, the mechanic lifted a finger, asking for one more minute.

Nashorn moved closer, trying to look over the mechanic’s shoulder.

‘There’s a crack in your lube-oil pump,’ the mechanic finally said, in the calmest of voices. ‘You’ve been leaking oil for a day, maybe two. Some of it has dripped onto the fuel-injection nozzle and clogged it.’

Nashorn looked at the mechanic with a blank stare. He knew very little about engines. ‘Can you fix it?’

‘The oil pump can’t be mended, the crack is too big. You need a new one.’

‘Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding.’

The mechanic smiled. ‘Fortunately, that’s one of the most common oil pumps around. They don’t crack that easy, but it happens. I think I might have a spare one somewhere in my bag.’

‘Oh, that’d be awesome.’ Nashorn lips broke into a half smile. ‘Could you check?’

‘Not a problem.’ The mechanic moved back from the engine pit and checked the large toolbox by the steps. ‘I guess it’s your lucky day. I’ve got one. It’s not brand new, but it’s in good condition and it will certainly do the trick.’

Nashorn’s half smile turned into a full one.

‘But before changing the pump, I need to clean the oil mess and unblock the fuel-injection nozzle. It shouldn’t take more than ten minutes, fifteen tops.’

Nashorn checked his watch. ‘That’d be just awesome. I can set off before sundown.’

The mechanic returned to the engine pit, and using an already-stained cloth, started cleaning away some of the oil that had dripped onto the fuel line.

‘So, are you sailing far?’

Nashorn walked over to the fridge and grabbed two beers. ‘I don’t know yet. I don’t really plan anything. I just try to go with the wind. Beer?’

‘No thanks. I had too many of those over the weekend.’

Nashorn twisted the cap off one of the bottles, had a sip and returned the other one to the fridge. ‘This is the only vacation I take in the year. Two weeks away from everything.’

‘And you can’t wait to get started, right? I know exactly what you mean. Me, I can say that I haven’t had a vacation for . . .’ The mechanic paused for a second and then laughed, sadly. ‘Wow, I can’t even remember the last time I had a vacation.’

‘You see, I couldn’t do that. It would drive me nuts. I need these two weeks to myself.’

‘Oh shit!’ the mechanic interrupted, jerking backwards. Liquid squirted up from the engine and onto the floor.

‘What happened?’ Nashorn moved forward, looking worried.

‘One of the high-pressure fuel-injection lines disconnected.’

‘That doesn’t sound good.’

The mechanic looked around quickly as if searching for something. ‘I need to get a clamp to fix it back in place. Can you do me a favor and hold this hose just like this while I grab a pressure clamp.’

‘Sure.’ Nashorn put his beer down and held the hose in place as the mechanic showed him.

‘Don’t let go of that, I’ll be right back.’

Nashorn kept his finger and his attention firmly on the thin dark rubber pipe. He could hear the mechanic rummaging through the toolbox behind him. ‘This isn’t gonna delay you fixing the engine is it?’

No reply.

‘I’d really love to set sail before nightfall.’

Silence. The rummaging had stopped.

‘Hello . . . ?’ Nashorn twisted his body awkwardly to look back.

At that exact moment the mechanic swung a metal wrench around as if it were a baseball bat. Time went into slow motion for Nashorn. The wrench collided with his face with a chilling cracking sound. His jaw fractured in one, two, three places. The skin started to rupture at the base of the jaw, and did so all the way to his chin, exposing flesh and bone. Blood splattered high into the air in all directions. Three of Nashorn’s teeth shattered and were violently projected against the wall. A large bone splinter broke loose from his fractured jaw and perforated his gum, just under the now-missing first molar, its tip touching the exposed nerve left there by the missing tooth. Pain darkened his eyes. The hit was so powerful and well placed that Nashorn’s body was catapulted backwards; his back slammed against the engine, his head against the wooden panel above it.

Nashorn’s vision blurred instantly. Blood flooded his mouth and trickled down into his throat, blocking his airways and making him gasp for air. He tried to speak but the only sound he could muster was a pitiful, gurgling noise. Just before he lost consciousness, he saw the mechanic standing high above him, still holding the wrench.

‘You . . .’ the mechanic said with an evil smile. ‘I’ll take my time with.’

Hunter got to the PAB at 8:33 a.m., just minutes after Garcia.

‘Goddamn, did they get you too?’ Garcia asked.

‘The reporters outside, you mean?’

Garcia nodded. ‘Are they camping outside or what? I got out of my car and instantly had three of them shouting questions at me.’

‘Our victim was a prosecutor, who was dismembered in his own house, on his deathbed three days ago. That’s the stuff TV series are made of, Carlos. They could kill each other to be the first to get an insight from someone working the case. It will only get worse.’

‘Yeah, I know.’ Garcia poured Hunter and himself a large cup of coffee each from the machine on the corner. ‘Any luck with those?’ he asked, handing his partner a cup and nodding at the books under Hunter’s arm.

Hunter had taken all the modern art and sculpture books he could find in Derek Nicholson’s study home with him last night.

‘Nothing.’ Hunter put the books down on his desk and took the cup. ‘Thanks. I also spent half of the night searching the net, reading about any and every Los Angeles sculptor I could find. Nothing there either. I don’t think our killer is trying to reproduce an already-existing piece.’

Garcia returned to his desk. ‘Me neither.’

‘I’ll drop by DA Bradley’s office today,’ Hunter continued. ‘I want to ask him if he knows anything about Nicholson wanting to make his peace with someone before dying, and if he has any idea who the other man who visited him was.’

‘Isn’t it easier to call?’

Hunter made a ‘maybe’ face, but he hated having to ask questions over the phone, regardless of who was on the other end. Face-to-face meetings allowed him to observe the movements, reactions and facial expressions of the person he was talking to, and to a homicide detective, that was invaluable.

The phone on Hunter’s desk rang. He checked his watch before picking up the receiver.

‘Detective Hunter.’

‘Robert, I just got the first batch of results back from the lab,’ Doctor Hove said. Her voice sounded a little heavier than usual.

Hunter fired up his computer. ‘I’m listening, doc.’

‘First let me tell you that the lab has done a great job with the replica you asked for.’

‘Is it ready?’

‘Yep, they worked overnight. It’s on its way to you now.’

‘That’s great.’

‘OK,’ Doctor Hove proceeded. ‘Forensics lifted five sets of fingerprints from the crime scene and other locations throughout the house – kitchen, bathroom, staircase handrail . . . you know the drill. As expected, no joy there. The fingerprints are confirmed to have come from the two nurses, both of the victim’s daughters and the victim himself.’

Hunter said nothing. He wasn’t really expecting anything to come from those.

‘The hairs retrieved from most of the same locations as the fingerprints were also matched to the same five people,’ Doctor Hove continued. ‘I don’t think we’ll need to DNA-test them. Analysis on some of the fibers found is still going on. The ones they’ve already analyzed came back as cotton, polyester, acrylic . . . the most common fibers found in everyday clothes. Nothing that will lead you anywhere.’

Hunter rested an elbow on his desk. ‘Any toxicology results yet, doc?’

‘Yes, I had to push for them, though. The lab is overworked.’ She paused for just a split second. ‘And here is where it gets interesting. And positively more evil.’

Hunter grabbed Garcia’s attention with a quick hand wave and motioned him to listen in on his extension.

‘What does the test say, doc?’ Hunter asked.

‘OK, we know that to prolong the victim’s suffering the perp clamped the brachial artery of the amputated right arm using medical forceps, keeping the victim from bleeding out. But even so, something was baffling me from the start.’

Hunter pulled out his desk chair and had a seat. ‘The victim’s fragile condition.’ He didn’t phrase it as a question.

‘That’s right. The victim was already in the very late stages of terminal pulmonary cancer. His body was as weak as a 90-year-old man’s. His resistance to pain, his stamina, had all been reduced to a fraction of what it should’ve been. A person in those conditions should’ve died of shock after losing a finger. He lost five of them, all ten toes, his tongue and an arm before dying.’

Hunter and Garcia exchanged a long worried look.

‘As I expected,’ the doctor continued, ‘he wasn’t sedated, but he was drugged to his eyeballs. Toxicology found high levels of a few drugs, but that was expected due to the victim’s ill health. But some of the high-level drugs are just plain wrong.’

‘Like what?’

‘OK, we found high levels of propafenone, felodipine and carvedilol.’

Garcia looked at Hunter and shook his head. ‘Hold on, doc. Easy with the chemical jargon. Chemistry wasn’t my strongest subject in school, and school was years ago. What are those?’

‘Propafenone is a sodium-channel blocker. It works by slowing the influx of sodium ions into the cardiac muscle. Felodipine is a calcium-channel blocker, and very big on controlling high blood pressure. Carvedilol is a beta-blocker. It blocks the binding of norepinephrine and epinephrine to beta-adrenoceptors. The combination of those three drugs will also, most certainly, inhibit the body’s production of adrenaline.’

Garcia’s frown was so intense his forehead looked like a prune. ‘You did hear when I said that chemistry wasn’t my strongest subject in school, right, doc? OK, neither was biology. Pretend I’m a seven-year-old kid and tell me all that again.’

‘In a nutshell, that’s a very strong cocktail of drugs to slow anyone’s heart rate down, control blood pressure and inhibit the production of adrenaline by the adrenal glands. As you know, adrenaline is released whenever a person senses danger. It’s the fear and pain hormone. It increases heart rate and dilates air passages, getting the subject ready to fight or flee.’

Garcia still looked a little puzzled.

‘So the killer reduced the victim’s blood flow,’ Hunter said, ‘and sedated his production of adrenaline.’

‘That’s exactly right,’ Doctor Hove said. ‘When the body senses danger or feels pain, like when having a finger, toe or tongue cut off, adrenaline is released and the heart speeds up, pumping more blood to the affected area, brain and muscles. Those drugs wouldn’t allow that to happen. They’d keep the heart in rest pace, if not even slower. That way, smaller amounts of blood were distributed throughout the victim’s body. He would’ve bled a lot less than expected. But none of those drugs have a sedating effect.’