The Crucifix Killer Part 32

'This is sick, boss. Somebody's playing a practical joke on you,' Jerome said, turning his face away from the screen and getting ready to leave the luxurious car.

'Wait a second.' D-King stopped his bodyguard before he had a chance to open the door. Something wasn't right, D-King could feel it. He reached for the fast-forward b.u.t.ton once again allowing the disk to skip ahead several minutes. When he resumed play the movie carried on showing more violence and abuse.

'Ah d.a.m.n. Turn it off, boss, it's making me feel ill,' Jerome pleaded.

D-King raised his hand signaling Jerome to be quiet for a second. He advanced the film one more time stopping it just short of the last scene.

As the two other mysterious characters in the film positioned themselves for the film's climax, D-King realized what was about to happen. Jerome still looked clueless to what was really going on, but his attention was still on the screen. They both watched as her blindfold was torn away from her face.

'What the f.u.c.k!' Jerome yelled, jerking backwards. The camera focused on the girl's face. 'That's Jenny.' His voice half stating the obvious, half asking a question.

D-King had realized who the girl was a full minute before Jerome did. His anger oozed through every pore in his body. They observed in morbid silence as the knife sliced through her neck like a Bus.h.i.+do sword through rice paper. The camera zoomed in on her helpless and dying eyes and then on the blood spilling from the fatal wound on her neck.

'What the h.e.l.l is going on, boss?' Jerome's voice was an excited shout.

D-King remained silent until the DVD reached its end. When he spoke, his voice was ice cold. 'What do you think is going on, Jerome? We just saw how they tortured and killed Jenny.'

'But that's wrong. The detectives said that she had no bullet or knife wounds, that she'd been skinned alive. We just saw someone slice her neck open.'

'The detectives said the girl on the picture they showed us had been skinned alive. We thought that girl was Jenny. We were wrong.'

Jerome brought both hands to his face. 'This is f.u.c.ked up, boss.'

'Listen to me.' D-King snapped his fingers twice to get Jerome's attention back to him. 'The f.u.c.king gloves are off. I want those two in the video,' he said with so much rage it made Jerome s.h.i.+ver. 'I want the sonofab.i.t.c.h behind the camera, I want whoever owns that s.h.i.+thole of a place and I want the person responsible for that whole motherf.u.c.king operation, do you hear me?'

'I hear you, boss,' Jerome said regaining his composure.

'Don't get the word out on the streets. I don't want to scare these f.u.c.ks away. Use only reliable people. I want them fast and I want them alive if possible. It doesn't matter who you pay. It doesn't matter how much you pay. It doesn't matter what it takes.'

'How about the cops?' Jerome asked. 'I think we should tell them that the girl on the photo is not Jenny.'

D-King pondered the idea for an instant. 'You're right, but I wanna get these guys first. After that, I'll get in touch with them.'

Forty-Seven.

It'd been several days and their bar and club search hadn't produced any results yet. They'd covered Santa Monica in its entirety and had moved to the bars and clubs in Long Beach, but the response had been the same everywhere. The rest of their investigation was also moving at no pace. Just like the original Crucifix killings they were yet to establish any definite links between the victims. There was the possibility Jenny and George knew each other from one of the s.e.x parties they'd attended, but they still hadn't managed to positively identify their first victim. No one could confirm the faceless woman's body was indeed Jenny Farnborough's. Carlos was yet to find her family in Idaho or Utah. a.s.sumption was the only thing they had to go on and Captain Bolter hated a.s.sumptions. He wanted facts.

With every resultless day that went by they knew they were a day closer to receiving another phone call another victim. Everybody's patience was wearing thin, including the Chief of Police. He demanded results from Captain Bolter who, in turn, demanded results from his two detectives.

The investigation was slowly consuming everyone. Garcia had barely seen Anna in the past few days. Hunter had spoken to Isabella over the phone a couple of times, but he had no time for romantic meetings. Time was wearing thin and they knew it.

Hunter arrived early at the RHD to once again find Garcia already at his desk.

'We've got some news,' Garcia said the instant Hunter walked through the door.

'Make me smile, tell me that someone has recognized our sketched suspect.'

'Well, it's good news, but not that good,' Garcia said a little less excited.

'OK then, tell me?'

'Doctor Winston just sent me the result of the DNA test from the hair strand found in George Slater's car.'

'Finally, and?'

'No DNA could be obtained from the hair as it had no skin follicles.'

'So the hair didn't fall naturally. It's been cut instead of being pulled out.'

'That's correct.'

'So we've got nothing?' Hunter's asked, unimpressed.

'No, no, there were chemicals on the hair and that allowed the lab to find out where it came from.'

'And?'

'It's European hair.'

'From a wig?' Hunter's eyes widened in surprise.

'How do you know European hair is wig hair?'

'I read a lot.'

'Oh that's right. I forgot about that,' Garcia said with a cynical nod. 'So disregarding synthetic hair wigs, the three best types of wigs you can buy are: real hair, human hair and European hair. In the wig-making industry, real hair and human hair refer to Asian hair which has been processed, bleached from its original color and then dyed to match European hair colors. This process damages the hair, but it's very readily available and inexpensive. But European hair . . .' Garcia shook his head ' . . . is almost unprocessed hair. It comes mainly from Eastern Europe. No hair dyeing is used although it's coated with a high-grade conditioner for longevity. It's the closest to naturally grown hair you can get.'

'But that comes at a price,' Hunter concluded.

'Get a load of this prices start at a mere four thousand dollars.'

'Phew,' Hunter whistled as he sat down.

'Exactly. These wigs are made to order. It can take anywhere between one to two months for them to be ready and that means that whoever ordered it has to leave an address or a contact number.' Garcia smiled enthusiastically. 'There can't be that many places in Los Angeles that sell European hair wigs.'

'Catherine?'

'What?'

'Have you checked with Catherine Slater? Maybe she wears wigs. A lot of women do these days. She could definitely afford them.'

'No, not yet.' Garcia's enthusiasm was half damped. 'I'll get on it straight away, but if she doesn't wear wigs, don't you think it's worth getting in touch with all wigmakers in LA that sell European hair wigs?'

Hunter scratched his chin. 'Yeah, we can give it a try. I just think our killer is too smart for that.'

'Too smart for what?'

'You said these wigs are made to order?'

'Correct.'

'But I bet if you walk into a wigmaker they would have one or two on display, like a showcase. Our killer wouldn't be stupid enough to order a wig and leave behind a paper trail. He would simply take whatever the wigmaker had on display, pay cash for it and that would be that. Remember, the killer isn't buying the wig for its looks, so any one would do.' Hunter got up and walked over to the coffee machine. 'There's one more thing.'

'What's that?'

'The internet,' Hunter said.

Garcia frowned.

'The internet can help us and hinder us at the same time,' Hunter explained. 'Maybe a few years ago it would've been a case of us checking the wigmakers and with just a little luck we would've come across something that could lead us to our killer, but today . . .' He poured himself a cup of coffee. 'Today the killer could order it over the internet from any country in the world and the wig would be with him in less than a week. He could've bought it from j.a.pan or Australia or directly from Eastern Europe.' He paused, another thought entering his mind. 'And then we have eBay, where the killer could've bought it from a private owner and no one would ever know. This guy is too smart to leave a paper trail behind.'

Garcia had to admit Hunter had a point. Any half-clever person could buy almost anything over the internet these days and leave such a minuscule trail it would be almost impossible to trace it. It's just a case of knowing where to shop.

'We might get lucky, he might've taken us for granted and ordered a wig from a shop,' Garcia said positively.

'Maybe. I'm not discarding any possibilities. We'll check with all wigmakers just in case.'

'I just wanted to get at least one step closer to him before he adds another photograph to that d.a.m.n board,' Garcia said, pointing to the corkboard and drawing Hunter's attention to it.

Hunter stood motionless for a while, his eyes fixed on the photographs.

'Are you OK?' Garcia asked after a minute of silence. 'You're not blinking.'

Hunter lifted his hand asking Garcia to wait a second. 'We're missing something there,' he finally said.

Garcia turned and faced the board. All the pictures were there. Nothing had been moved, he was sure of it.

'What are we missing?'

'Another victim.'

Forty-Eight.

'What the h.e.l.l are you talking about? What do you mean, we're missing a victim? They are all there, seven from the first killing spree and two since he started killing again.' Garcia's eyes moved from the photograph board to Hunter.

'We have a victim he didn't mark, no double-crucifix on the back of the neck, no phone call to me. We have a victim he didn't kill.'

'A victim he didn't kill? Are you high? That doesn't even make sense.'

'Of course it does. He didn't kill him as he's done with all his other victims . . . he got him killed.'

'Are you listening to yourself, crazy man? Who didn't he kill?'

Hunter's gaze fell on Garcia. 'Mike Farloe.'

'Mike Farloe?' Garcia looked mystified.

'The real killer framed him as the Crucifix Killer, remember? I've even mentioned it before, over the phone when the killer called me right after we found the faceless woman, but for some reason it didn't click.'

'I remember you saying it, yes. I was standing right next to you.'

'Framing him makes Mike Farloe a victim.'

'By default,' Garcia accepted it.

'That doesn't matter, he's still a victim.' Hunter walked back to his desk and started shuffling through pieces of paper. 'OK, what do we know about our killer?'

'Nothing,' Garcia replied with a half chuckle.

'That's not true. We know he's very methodical, intelligent, pragmatic and he chooses his victims very, very carefully.'

'OK,' Garcia said still unsure.

'The killer didn't just pick Mike Farloe out of the blue. Just like his victims, the subject had to fit a specific profile. The difference here is that the subject had to fit the profile of a killer. To be precise, the profile of a s.a.d.i.s.tic, religious serial killer.'

Garcia started to pick up on Hunter's theory. 'Meaning that if you had arrested someone who didn't fit that profile you would've discarded him as the killer?'

'Correct. The killer is smart but he also knows we're not stupid. We wouldn't just fall for the first person he decided to frame. It had to be the right person. Someone believable. Someone that we'd buy. Mike Farloe was the perfect choice.'

Garcia ran both of his hands through his hair pulling it back and making a small ponytail. 'Did Mike have a criminal record?'

'f.u.c.k yeah. In and out of Juvi halls . . . Three county convictions for public nudity. He loved exposing himself to schoolkids.'

'Pedophile?' Garcia asked with a twist of his mouth.

'With a capital P. He did twenty-eight months for fondling a twelve-year-old boy in a lavatory downtown.'

Garcia shook his head.

'And where do you find a person like Mike Farloe?' Hunter proceeded.

'Maybe the killer knew him from before,' Garcia offered.

'Possible, but I doubt it. Mike was a loner, lived alone, no wife, no girlfriend, no kids. He worked as a garbage collector and spent most of his free time locked inside his little dirty apartment reading the Bible. The guy didn't have much of a life.'

'How about a medical record? Our killer could have access to medical records. One thing we do know is that he has medical knowledge, even Doctor Winston said he wouldn't be surprised if the killer turned out to be a surgeon.'