One by One (41 page)

‘Hello,’ Hunter said. His voice was calm and warm, but loud enough.

No reply.

Hunter gave it a moment. ‘Do you mind if I step a little closer? It makes it easier to talk.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t.’ The left side of the kid’s mouth barely moved. Hunter guessed that the cut that had produced the large scar he could see traversing the kid’s lips had cut through nerves and muscles, paralyzing part of his mouth, maybe even part of his face. The kid’s voice was in contrast strong, determined.

‘That’s fine,’ Hunter said, lifting both hands in a ‘no problem’ gesture. ‘I’ll stay right here.’ A very short pause. ‘My name is Robert.’

Nothing.

‘Could I ask yours?’

A few silent seconds went by before the kid replied. ‘Brandon.’ He hesitated for a quick moment. ‘Or you can call me
freakshow, slashface, scars-r-us,
or make up one of your own. Everyone does.’

Hunter felt a disconcerting sadness drown his heart. He slightly tilted his head to one side and tried to sound upbeat. ‘Well, a lot of people call me idiot, imbecile, or my personal favorite – dumbass. You can use any of those if you like.’

Brandon didn’t reply. Didn’t smile. He simply looked back into the distant darkness.

Hunter took a step closer. ‘Brandon,’ he called. ‘Look, I was just going to get some pizza. What do you say you come with me? I’m buying. We can talk if you want, and you can tell me what’s going through your head right now. I’m a
great
listener. Actually, if there were a world listening championship, I’d walk it.’

Brandon looked back at him, and for the first time Hunter could clearly see his eyes.

Hunter knew that about seventy-five percent of all suicide attempts in the USA were preventable by the most simple of actions – listening and being a friend. One argued that most attempts are, in fact, a cry for help. In truth, those people didn’t really want to commit suicide any more than the next person along, but at that particular moment in their lives they are experiencing a great deal of emotional and psychological pain. They might be feeling rejected, misunderstood, neglected, depressed, alone, abused, forgotten, scared or any combination of very strong sentiments, none of them good. The emptiness they felt inside grew to such an extent that they reached a point where they believed that they had no other alternative, no other way out. Unfortunately that usually happened because they were left alone with their dark thoughts for too long. They had no one to talk to, and no one was prepared to listen when they did. That made them feel unimportant, uncared for, unappreciated and insignificant to everyone. Most of the time they genuinely wanted someone to help them, but they just didn’t really know how to ask for it. Nevertheless, if help were offered, they’d grab at it with both hands. They just needed someone to be there, someone who could show them that they mattered.

As Hunter locked eyes with Brandon, his heart seemed to stutter. Hunter saw none of that inside the kid’s eyes. What he saw was extreme sadness, and total and utter determination. Brandon wasn’t looking for help anymore. He was way beyond that. His decision had been made, and nothing and no one would change his mind. He had only one thing burning inside his eyes, and Hunter felt at that moment that not even God would be able to dissuade him.

No more sugar coating.

‘Brandon, listen to me.’ Hunter took another tentative step toward him. ‘You don’t want to do this. I promise you there’s a better solution for whatever it is that made you believe that this is the only way out. Trust me, I’ve been there. I’ve been as close as you are right now . . . more than once. Give me a chance to talk to you. Give me a chance to show you that there are better choices than this.’

‘Choices?’

If Brandon’s eyes were laser beams, Hunter would’ve been dead.

Hunter nodded, and then said the words he would regret forever.

‘We always have a choice, and right now you don’t want to make the wrong one. Trust me on this.’

Brandon peeked at the distant darkness again. Only this time it wasn’t darkness. Two headlights had appeared, coming fast toward them. Brandon’s demeanor changed slightly – relieved of something that had been worrying him.

Hunter’s eyes checked the headlights for a fraction of a second, and then he understood what Brandon had been waiting for. The oncoming train should’ve been passing under the viaduct at around 01:21 a.m. But a short delay caused by a late driver meant that it would now be at the bridge at 01:23 a.m. –
0123
.

Hunter tensed.

Brandon chuckled. ‘People always try to feed others this bullshit about everyone always having a choice.’ He put on a silly, childlike voice. ‘
We are in control of our lives, because no matter what, we always have a choice.
’

‘Well,’ Hunter said. ‘You have that choice right now.’ He checked the headlights again. They were almost at the bridge. ‘Please, Brandon, don’t make the wrong one. Come down from there and let’s talk about this. I promise you there’s a better solution.’

‘Really?’ Brandon was sounding angry now. ‘We always have a choice, do we? What about the choices that other people make that end up completely changing your life, not theirs. Where is our choice there, then?’ Brandon paused and swallowed hard as tears came to his eyes. ‘He chose to run that red light, not me. He chose to be drunk and high that night, not me. He chose to not give a shit about what could happen, not me. He chose to be speeding like a maniac, not me.’ Brandon wiped the tears from his face. ‘His choices changed my entire life. They changed my entire future. They changed who I was. Things I knew I could accomplish, I physically can’t anymore. Because of his choices, I have to face the world looking like this . . . for the rest of my life.’ He punctuated the last four words with hand stabs toward his face.

The train was upon the bridge.

‘His choices . . .’ Brandon said, this time with no emotion in his voice whatsoever, ‘led me to mine.’

Time was over.

Hunter saw Brandon’s feet leave the concrete ledge and step onto nothing at all.

‘NO,’ Hunter yelled, taking a step forward and throwing himself at the kid, stretching his body, reaching with everything he had. His fingers brushed against Brandon’s left shoulder as gravity did its job, dragging the kid’s body faster and faster toward the train tracks tens of feet beneath them. Hunter closed his fingers fast and with all the strength he could muster, but all he managed was to pinch a tiny portion of the fabric on Brandon’s shirt.

Hunter almost had him, but he didn’t get there fast enough.

Brandon’s body escaped Hunter’s grasp and plunged downward like a rock.

The next sound Hunter heard was that of Brandon’s body being disintegrated as it met the oncoming train.

The train number shown at the front of the engine car was 678.

Ninety-Eight

The briefing room had been absolutely quiet throughout Hunter’s accounts, and the stunned silence persisted for a few seconds afterward. Everything now starting to slot into place – SSV, 678, 0123.

‘I remember you telling me about it,’ Garcia eventually said, surprise still showing on his face.

Captain Blake nodded. So did she.

‘So the phone call to you at the beginning of all this,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t by chance or because of your reputation, as we once thought.’

‘No,’ Hunter agreed. ‘It was because I was the one on the bridge. Because I wasn’t fast enough. And because I was the one who failed to dissuade Brandon from jumping.’

‘But how do our three victims fit into this?’ Garcia asked.

Hunter nodded, pressing the button on the clicker again. The image on the projection screen was substituted by three low-quality photographs. There was no doubt that the pictures showed the Sixth Street Viaduct on that fateful night. They were slightly out of focus and a little grainy, but on all three of them, though his face was obscured by shadows, everyone could clearly see Brandon Fisher standing on the concrete ledge at the west end of the bridge. In the second and third photographs, Hunter was easy to identify. He was also on the bridge, standing just a few feet away from Brandon, bathed by the yellowish light that came from a bridge lamppost. His demeanor showed signs of tension.

‘These pictures were taken by the passerby who called 911 that night, using a cellphone camera,’ Hunter clarified. ‘As we all know, central dispatch general police radio calls are usually scanned by crime reporters looking for a scoop. The crime desk at the
LA Times
was scanning that night. I’m not sure if the passerby was persuaded to, or if he sold them of his own accord, but the pictures he captured on the bridge ended up with the
LA Times
crime reporter who came to the scene.’

Hunter paused and pressed the clicker button again. A new portrait photograph took over the screen. One that was now very familiar to Hunter, Garcia, Captain Blake and Michelle Kelly.

‘The name of the passerby who made the call and took the pictures,’ Hunter said, looking at the portrait. ‘Kevin Lee Parker. Our first victim.’

Garcia filled his cheeks with air and blew it out slowly. ‘Let me guess. Christina Stevenson, the killer’s second victim, was the
LA Times
reporter who showed up to cover the story.’

‘The one and the same,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘She was with the crime desk back then. She not only used the three photographs taken by Kevin Lee Parker that night but she also added this picture to her article, obviously looking for the “shocking” factor.’

Another click.

The same close-up photograph of Brandon Fisher’s scarred face Hunter had shown them just minutes before, taken about twelve months after his accident, returned to the screen.

‘Shit!’ Michelle said. ‘She exposed the kid’s face and with it his entire internal struggle to
everyone.
’

Hunter nodded. ‘Christina’s article made sure that Brandon’s injuries became public domain. Now anyone could pull pitiful, shocked or disgusted faces. Anyone could make comments, jokes or whatever about the “disfigured” kid who jumped from the bridge.’ Hunter took a moment and had a sip of water. ‘Maybe because Christina was in a hurry to finish the article, which came out a day after Brandon’s suicide, it would be fair to say that her efforts into researching the story properly weren’t her best.’

A new picture took over the projection screen – Christina Stevenson’s article.

‘I got this from her editor at the
LA Times
late last night,’ Hunter said.

‘I’ll be damned,’ Captain Blake exclaimed, before reading the title of the article out loud.
‘The Devil Inside.’

‘What the killer left us on the glass door inside Christina Stevenson’s bedroom,’ Hunter reminded everyone, ‘was the title of the article she wrote. The piece goes on to suggest that a bullied, rejected, cast-aside and troubled Brandon Fisher was unable to cope with
the devil inside
him. The devil of his injuries. A devil that had slowly but surely worked its way through Brandon’s sanity, finally driving him to suicide.’ Hunter paused for a beat. ‘Christina also used words such as—’ he pointed them out as he spoke ‘—“
another
teenager’s suicide”, which implies triviality, something unimportant, something that happens too often for anyone to really care. And “
disturbing
the quiet night”, which suggests Brandon’s death was nothing more than a simple burden that the city of Los Angeles could do without, like pickpockets or muggers.

‘Unfortunately,’ Hunter added, ‘Christina’s poor choice of words trivialized what happened that night. Just another sad story to be forgotten seconds after it’s been read.’

No comment was made, so Hunter proceeded.

‘And then we have this.’

One more click and once again the images on the screen changed, but this time they weren’t static. They weren’t pictures. They had a video.

The surprised expression was uniform across everyone’s face.

The video showed the final fifteen seconds of Brandon’s life. He was standing on the ledge facing south. Hunter was standing a few feet from him, his back to the camera. Brandon was saying something to Hunter the camera’s microphone wasn’t able to pick up. All they could hear was the loud sound of a train approaching. Then it all happened very fast. Brandon turned around quickly, but didn’t jump as such. He simply stepped away from the ledge and onto thin air, as if stepping into a room, or out of a house. Gravity did the rest. At that exact moment, Hunter sprang to life, taking a step forward and launching himself in Brandon’s direction, stretching his body like Superman in mid-flight. Then the camera panned fast downward, just quick enough to catch the moment of impact as the train rushed past beneath the bridge and struck the kid’s small body with all its force.

The room was filled with curse words and anxious murmurs. Hunter saw everyone in the room cringe, including the SWAT captain.

Hunter paused the footage.

‘This was captured by the driver of the next vehicle that came along onto the bridge, several seconds after I blocked the traffic. He so happened to have a camcorder with him. His name . . .’

Click.

A new portrait photograph appeared on the screen. The same one Hunter and Garcia had on the pictures board inside their office.

‘Ethan Walsh,’ Hunter said. ‘The killer’s third victim.’

A few seconds of stunned silence.

‘So that explains why the killer left us a camcorder in the park’s trashcan right after Ethan Walsh’s death,’ Garcia said. ‘Because he used one to capture Brandon’s suicide that night.’

‘Precisely,’ Hunter agreed. ‘Mr. Walsh was already facing serious financial problems then. He had put everything he had into his company, and had nothing left. I guess that Ethan Walsh saw an opportunity to maybe make some cash, because he sold his footage to Christina Stevenson at the
LA Times
, and that’s why he had her number in his phone book. But she wasn’t the only one. Mr. Walsh also sold his footage to a cable TV show called
A Mystery in 60 Minutes.
He probably tried others, but no major network would buy it because they just wouldn’t show a teenager’s suicide video on national television. The cable TV station, on the other hand, couldn’t care less and used the footage a few days later as part of a special
Teenage Suicide
program. That particular cable TV station is only available in
California.
So no one else outside this state was able to watch it.’