The Crucifix Killer (44 page)

Jerome stood his ground like a fearless soldier ready to face death. He squeezed the trigger on his machinegun and the wave of bullets found its target with military precision. The intruder’s body shook violently with every blow and he tumbled back. The total impact was so powerful it almost separated his legs from his torso. His limp body fell to the floor. The entire gun-fight lasted less than ten seconds.

As the shots died down, their echoes were replaced by the terrified screams of the three helpless naked men. Miraculously they were still alive.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Jerome blasted in a heated voice, turning his Uzi towards them.

‘Chill, nigga!’ D-King shouted, aiming his shotgun at the newly revealed door. ‘They’re no threat to us. Check him,’ he gestured towards the semi-mutilated intruder.

Warren was still on the floor, his hands and shirt covered in blood.

Hunter was also up on his feet with his gun in hand. ‘OK everyone, put your guns down.’

D-King’s aim moved from the door to Hunter as did Jerome’s. ‘This ain’t the time for this kind of crap, Detective, there could still be more people hiding in that room. I ain’t got no beef with you, not yet, but if I have to I will gun you down like a dirty dawg. Remember, you’re still outnumbered and outgunned.’

Hunter’s aim stayed on D-King. The trigger mechanism on Hunter’s Wildey Survivor pistol had been modified to lighter than normal. That, coupled with the knowledge that the average trigger resistance on a double-barreled shotgun is about half a pound heavier than most pistols, meant Hunter knew he could squeeze a shot out at least a second faster than D-King could. On the other hand, Jerome with his Uzi would pose a bigger problem. But they weren’t the enemy. Hunter wasn’t about to start another gunfight. And he sure wasn’t about to risk getting shot on behalf of the three naked scumbags in the room. He moved his aim away from D-King.

‘OK, let’s secure this place.’

‘Warren, talk to me, how’re you doing, buddy? Are you hit?’ D-King called out without diverting his attention from his primary target.

Like a wounded animal Warren emitted a loud growl indicating he was still alive.

‘This one is dead,’ Jerome announced, standing over the lifeless body by the new door.

D-King turned his attention back to the three tied-up men. ‘Anyone else where that motherfucker came from?’

No reply.

‘Anyone else in that room?’ he asked, pressing the barrels of his shotgun against the tattooed man’s head.

‘No.’ The answer finally came from the shortest of the three.

D-King nodded at Jerome who slotted a new clip onto his Uzi and very cautiously stepped into the new room. ‘We’re clear here,’ he called out after a few seconds.

‘I’ve gotta check on Warren. Jerome, keep your gun on Hunter.’

Jerome turned and aimed the Uzi at Hunter who returned the favor.

D-King placed his shotgun on the floor and rushed to Warren’s side.

‘OK, let me take a look. Move your hands.’

Warily Warren removed his bloody hands from his face. D-King wiped some of the blood away with his shirt in an attempt to get a better look. He saw two large cuts – one on Warren’s forehead and the other on his left cheek.

‘No bullets,’ D-King said after a quick examination. ‘You weren’t hit by bullets. It looks like shrapnel from the walls. You’ll live.’ He took off his shirt and placed it in Warren’s hands. ‘Here, just keep pressure over the wounds.’

‘Boss, you gotta come and have a look at this.’

Something in Jerome’s voice worried D-King.

‘What is it?’

‘You have to see it for yourself.’

D-King picked up his shotgun and approached Jerome by the open door. He stood rigid. His eyes carefully scanning the new room. ‘What the fuck?’ he whispered,. ‘Hunter, come and have a look at this.’

Hunter cautiously joined them.

The new room was in much better shape than the one they were in. The ceiling had been painted blue and decorated with what looked like a million fluorescent stars. The walls were even more colorful, displaying a tremendous variety of drawings – dragons, wizards, horses, leprechauns . . . On the far wall a series of wooden shelves held an impressive collection of toys – dolls, cars, action figures with even more toys scattered all over the floor. A large rocking horse sat to the left of the door. Against the west wall a video camera had been placed on a tripod.

Hunter felt his chest knot around his heart. His eyes left the room and rested on D-King’s baffled face.

‘Kids,’ Hunter whispered. The anger in his voice as clear as a loud shout.

D-King’s eyes seemed glued to the room’s decoration. It took him another thirty seconds to face Hunter. ‘Kids?’ D-King’s voice trailed off. ‘Kids?’ This time a powerful cry as he stormed back into the first room. The sadness inside him had been replaced by pure rage.

‘This is fucked up, man,’ Jerome said, shaking his head.

‘You do this to kids? What kind of sick fucks are you?’ D-King demanded standing before the three bound men. His bravado met with silence, his eyes met by no one.

Hunter’s stare rested on the three naked men. He simply didn’t care anymore.

‘Let me tell you something, Detective Hunter.’ D-King’s voice quivered with anger. ‘I grew up on the streets. I’ve dealt with scum my whole life. If there’s one thing I’ve learnt is that out here we have our own way of dealing with things. Most motherfuckers aren’t scared of getting caught. Prison is like holiday camp. It’s their home away from home. In there they’ve got their gangs, their drugs and their bitches. It ain’t much different from outside. But they’d shit a brick if they thought street-law was knocking on their fucking door. Out here we’re the jury, the judge and the executioner. This doesn’t concern you or your law. They’ll pay for what they’ve done to Jenny and you ain’t coming between me and them.’

There was more to it than rage. Hunter knew he’d been right. To D-King Jenny had been a lot more than just one of the girls.

Hunter turned to face the three men tied to the metal chairs. They stared back at him with insolent smiles, like they knew he had to take them in, it was protocol, it was what cops had to do.

Hunter felt tired. He’d had enough. He wasn’t even supposed to be there. This had nothing to do with the Crucifix Killer. This was D-King’s problem.

‘Fuck protocol,’ Hunter whispered. ‘I was never here.’

D-King gave him a quick nod and watched as Hunter holstered his weapon and silently made for the door.

‘Wait!’ the tattooed man shouted. ‘You can’t just walk away. You’re a fucking cop. How about our human rights?’

Hunter didn’t stop. He didn’t even look back as he closed the door behind him.

‘Rights?’ D-King asked with an animated laugh. ‘We’ll give you your rights . . . your last rites.’

‘What do we do about this place . . . and them,’ Jerome tilted his head towards the men in the first room.

‘Torch the place, but we’ll take them with us. We still gotta get the name of their ringleader out of them.’

‘Do you think they’ll talk?’

‘Oh they’ll talk, I promise you. If it’s sodomizing pain they’re into, we’ll give it to them . . . over a ten-day period.’ The evil smile on D-King’s lips made even Jerome shudder.

Back in his car Hunter stared at his shaking hands, struggling with an agonizing and uneasy feeling. He was a detective. He was supposed to uphold the law and he’d just disregarded it. His heart told him he’d done the right thing, but his conscience didn’t agree. D-King’s words still echoed in his ears.
Out here we’re the jury, the judge and the executioner.
Suddenly Hunter stopped breathing.

‘That’s it,’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘That’s where I know him from.’

With his heart thumping violently against his chest, Hunter made his way back to the RHD as fast as he could. He needed to check some old records.

As he entered his office he was glad it was on a separate floor to all the other detectives. He needed to do this alone, no disturbances. He locked the door behind him and fired up his computer.

‘Be right . . . be right . . .’ he said to himself as he accessed the California Department of Justice databank. Hunter quickly typed in the name he wanted to search for, selected the criteria and hit the ‘search’ button. As the Department of Justice data server went to work, he sat still staring anxiously at the little dot moving back and forth on the screen. The seconds seemed like minutes.

‘C’mon . . .’ he urged the computer to work faster as he paced nervously in front of his desk. Two minutes later the dot stopped moving and the message
No Results Found
appeared on the screen.

‘Shit!’

He tried again. This time going back a few more years. He knew he was right, he knew this had to be it.

The familiar dot started moving on the screen again and Hunter went back to pacing the room. His anxiety at boiling point. He stopped in front of the picture-covered corkboard and stared at all the photographs. He knew it was there, the answer was there.

The searching dot stopped moving and this time the screen filled up with data.

‘Yes . . .’ he said triumphantly, moving back to his desk and quickly scanning the information on the screen. As he found what he was looking for he frowned.

‘You gotta be shitting me!’

Hunter sat in silence thinking about what to do next. ‘The family trees,’ he said. ‘The victims’ family trees.’

On the initial investigation Hunter and Scott had tried everything they could think of to establish a link between the victims. They’d even traced the family trees for some of them. Hunter knew he had it somewhere. He started flipping through the mountain of paper on his desk that constituted the old case files.

‘Here it is,’ he said, as he finally came across the lists. He analyzed them for a few moments. ‘This is it.’ Hunter moved back to his computer and typed in a new name. The result came back almost instantly now that the search criteria had been narrowed down to exactly what he wanted.

Another match . . . and then another.

Hunter massaged his tired eyes. His whole body ached, but his new discovery had injected new life into his veins. He wasn’t able to establish links between all the victims, but he already knew why.

‘How could I’ve missed this before?’ he asked himself, as he knocked on his forehead with his clenched fist. But he knew exactly how. This was an old case, going back several years. A case where he’d been the arresting officer. The obscured victims’ links sometimes spanned three generations according to the family trees. Some of them not family at all. Without a hint he would’ve never found it. Without D-King he would’ve never thought of it.

Robert started pacing the room once again and stopped in front of Garcia’s desk. A sudden overwhelming sadness brought a tight knot to his throat. His partner was lying in hospital in a semi-coma and there was nothing he could do. He remembered Anna’s sad eyes. How she sat next to her husband’s bed waiting for a sign of life. She loved him more than anything. There’s no love stronger than family love, Hunter thought and then stopped dead. The hair on the back of his neck standing on end.

‘Holy shit!’

He rushed back to his computer and for the next hour he devoured every result page he came across with astounding eagerness and surprise. Slowly, everything was falling into place.

The arrest files
. . .
the tattoos
, he remembered. A few minutes later, after searching the RHD’s own database, he was staring at the arrest records from the old case.

‘This can’t be . . .’ he stuttered the words catatonically. A mixture of excitement and fear sucked the heat out of his body. Suddenly, he remembered what he’d seen just a few weeks ago and his stomach knotted. ‘How blind have I been?’ he murmured before turning to his computer for one last search. A name that could bring everything together. It took him less than a minute to find it.

‘I had it right in front of me,’ he whispered, staring blankly at his computer screen. ‘I had the answer right in front of me.’

He needed one final confirmation and it had to come from the San Francisco Police Department. After speaking to Lieutenant Morris from the SFPD over the phone he waited impatiently for Morris to fax him an arrest file. When the file came through half an hour later Hunter stared at it soundless. His mind battling reality. It was an old photograph, but there was no doubt in his mind – he knew who that person was.

Proof. That’s what every investigation comes down to and Hunter had none. There was no way he could link the person on that photograph to any of the Crucifix Killings and he knew it. No matter how sure he was, without proof he had nothing. He checked his watch one more time before reaching for the phone and placing one last call.

Hunter drove slowly, taking no notice as the other drivers sped past him shouting profanities out of their windows.

He parked in front of his apartment building and rested his head on the steering wheel for a moment. His headache, if anything, had worsened and he knew tablets would have no effect. Before leaving the car he checked his cell phone for missed calls or messages. A futile exercise as he was sure he didn’t have any. He’d left instructions with everyone at the hospital that he should be informed the second Garcia regained consciousness, but something told him that wouldn’t happen tonight.