The Death Sculptor (7 page)

Hunter rang the doorbell. They waited almost a minute before Olivia herself opened the door. She was wearing a black sleeveless knee-length dress and black shoes. Her hair was tied back into a neat and conservative ponytail. Her face was hidden behind heavy makeup, but even so, the signs of a sleepless night spent crying were clear.

At the sight of Hunter and Garcia, her eyes filled with tears again, but with some effort she held them there.

‘Thank you for agreeing to see us so soon, Ms. Nicholson,’ Hunter said.

‘I told you,’ she replied, putting on a brave smile. ‘Call me Olivia. Please come in.’

They followed her into an anteroom decorated with a lot of taste and elegance. Vases, flowers and furniture came together to create a comfortable greeting space. Olivia guided them into the first room on the right – her study. The room was spacious, with the entire south wall taken by a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. The decoration was just as elegant as the anteroom, but unlike outside, where the clear skies and the sun drew a smile on everyone’s faces, the mood inside was solemn. The place was dark and suffocating, helped by the shut windows and drawn curtains. The only light came from a pedestal lamp in one of the corners.

Standing by an imposing partner’s desk was a woman in her late twenties. She was also dressed all in black. As both detectives entered the room, she turned and faced them.

Allison Nicholson was striking, though skinny. She had straight black hair that came down to the top of her shoulders and very dark, soulful eyes that were far more knowing then they ought to have been at her age. Hers, too, were red from crying.

‘This is my sister, Allison,’ Olivia said.

Allison’s eyes moved from Hunter to Garcia, but she stood still. No offer of a handshake.

‘These are Detectives Hunter and Garcia, Ally,’ Olivia said, moving closer to her sister.

‘We’re very sorry for your loss,’ Hunter said. ‘We know how difficult this is for both of you and we appreciate your time. We won’t take much of it.’ He reached inside his pocket for his black notebook. ‘If we could ask you just a few quick questions?’

Their silence prompted Hunter to continue.

‘You both visited your father on Saturday last, is that correct?’

‘Yes,’ Olivia answered.

‘Can you remember what time you got there and what time you left?’

‘I got there before Ally,’ Olivia said. ‘I had a few things to do in the afternoon. We’re opening a new store.’

Hunter knew Olivia owned Healthy Eats, a chain of healthy-food stores with several shops downtown and around greater Los Angeles. Allison on the other hand had followed in her father’s footsteps. She was a prosecutor.

‘I got there at around four-thirty or five o’clock,’ Olivia continued. ‘Ally . . .’

‘I got there at around five-fifteen,’ Allison took over.

Hunter waited.

‘We sat around with Dad as we usually do, chatting, or trying to,’ Allison continued. ‘On the weekends Levy usually cooks.’ She nodded at her sister. ‘I sometimes help.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m not very good in the kitchen.’

‘Did you cook on Saturday?’ Hunter asked Olivia.

‘Yes. Then we all ate together.’

‘How about Melinda Wallis, the nurse?’ Garcia asked.

‘Mel always ate with us. She’s a lovely person, very caring.’

‘What time did you leave?’

‘Levy left a couple of minutes before me,’ Allison said. ‘I left around nine o’clock.’

Olivia nodded.

‘Do any of you remember seeing anyone in the street, around your father’s house? Anyone or anything that caught your attention?’

‘I don’t remember seeing anything,’ Allison replied first.

‘Neither do I,’ Olivia agreed.

‘We talked to Amy Dawson this afternoon. She mentioned something about your father having two visitors about three-and-a-half months back. Did your father mention anything about that? Do you know who they were?’

Olivia and Allison looked at each other for a moment.

‘I know that DA Bradley visited Dad at the house when he first fell ill,’ Allison said.

‘Yes, we figured that,’ Garcia commented. ‘But apparently there was someone else.’ He quickly checked his notes. ‘Slim, about six foot tall, same age as your father, brown eyes, does it ring any bells?’

Olivia shook her head.

‘Half of the male prosecutors in the DA’s office could fit that description,’ Allison noted.

‘Your father didn’t mention anything about having someone visit him a few weeks ago?’

‘Not to me,’ Allison said.

‘Me neither,’ Olivia tagged. ‘And that’s strange, because Dad did mention when DA Bradley went over to visit him.’

Hunter returned his notebook to his pocket. ‘Mrs. Dawson also told us that your father said something about making peace with someone, telling someone the truth about something.’

Both women frowned.

‘Do you know anything about that?’

‘Truth about what?’ Allison asked.

Garcia shrugged. ‘That’s what we’d like to find out.’

‘About a case he prosecuted?’

‘We don’t know. That’s all the information we have.’

Silence took over for several seconds.

‘I don’t remember Father saying anything about making peace with anyone,’ Olivia said. ‘Is Amy sure that’s what he said?’

Hunter and Garcia nodded.

Olivia looked at Allison.

‘Dad never said anything to me either.’

There was one more question Hunter wanted to ask them, but he needed to choose his words carefully. He tried to sound casual. ‘Was your father into modern art?’

By the look on their faces, Hunter couldn’t have asked a more surprising question.

‘Like sculptures, for example,’ he added.

Their confused looks intensified.

‘No,’ Olivia said before looking at Allison. Then they both said in unison.

‘Mom was.’

If Hunter’s question had surprised Allison and Olivia, their answer had certainly had the same effect on him.

‘Why do you ask?’ Olivia enquired, her eyes squinting a fraction.

Hunter held her gaze. He had to come up with something good. Neither of Mr. Nicholson’s daughters knew about the sculpture left behind by the killer, and the psychological trauma that that knowledge would bring would haunt them forever.

‘Something we found in your father’s room,’ he replied matter-of-factly. ‘We think it might be a piece of a broken sculpture or something like that.’

‘In my father’s room?’

Hunter nodded. ‘It might’ve been left there on purpose.’

Those words seemed to suck the oxygen out of the room. Both women tensed.

‘Left there by the killer?’ Allison asked.

‘Yes.’

Olivia’s eyes filled up with tears once again.

‘What is it?’ Allison pushed. ‘Can we see it?’

‘The forensics lab has it. They’re running it through a few tests,’ Hunter replied calmly and with conviction. ‘But you said your mother liked sculptures. Modern art sculptures?’ He swiftly steered the subject back to where he wanted it.

‘Yes,’ Olivia replied, wiping a tear from her cheek. ‘I guess you can say that. Mom loved pottery. A hobby she picked up in her later years.’ She indicated a medium-sized vase on the coffee table, holding a bouquet of yellow-and-white flowers. ‘That’s one of hers, and so are the ones in my entrance room.’

Both detectives acknowledged it.

‘But Mom also liked creating sculptures.’ Allison this time. She turned and pointed to a piece sitting on one of the bookshelves. It was about ten inches high and it portrayed two androgynous-looking figures. The first was standing with its legs apart. Both of its arms were stretched out in front of its body pointing down. The second figure, identical in shape to the first one, was directly in front of it, but it looked as if it was falling backward. Its stiff body reclined at forty-five degrees. Its arms also stretched out in front of its body, holding on to the arms of the first figure.

‘Do you mind if we have a look at it?’ Hunter asked.

‘Please do.’

Hunter picked it up and studied the piece for a moment. It was made out of clay, with a wooden base.

‘Trust,’ he whispered.

‘What?’ Garcia’s eyes moved from the piece to Hunter.

‘Trust,’ he said again. ‘I’ll catch you if you fall.’

Olivia and Allison looked at him surprised. ‘That’s exactly right,’ Allison said. ‘Mom made me one just like it. Dad has one too. It means that we could always trust each other. That we’d always be there for each other, no matter what.’

‘It’s a very nice sculpture.’ Hunter placed it back on the shelf.

‘This piece you found in Dad’s room,’ Olivia said. ‘What was it made of?’

‘Some kind of thin metal alloy,’ Hunter lied again. ‘Could be mainly bronze.’

Garcia bit his lip.

‘So it wasn’t from one of Mom’s sculptures. She only used clay.’

‘Did she create many pieces?’

‘Vases – a few. Sculptures – only six, I think.’ Olivia looked at Allison for confirmation. She nodded. ‘As Ally said, she’s got one the same as mine in her apartment. The other four are in Dad’s study.’

Hunter saw no use in taking up any more of Olivia and Allison’s grieving time. But their revelation aroused his curiosity, and before the day was over, he wanted to go back to Derek Nicholson’s house and have a look in the study and at the four other sculptures by Lindsay Nicholson, Derek’s deceased wife.

‘Your poker face in there was impressive,’ Garcia said as they got back into his car. ‘A piece of thin metal left behind by the killer that could’ve come from some sort of sculpture? Inventive.
I
was starting to believe it. But tell me something, what if their mother had created metal sculptures as well?’

‘Chances were that she wouldn’t have,’ Hunter replied, buckling up.

‘How do you know?’

‘Most sculptors, especially amateur ones, like to stick to the same material for their pieces. Something that they’re comfortable with. The few who move from one substance to another very rarely go from a malleable one like clay to something as hard as metal. It requires a different sculpturing technique.’

Garcia looked at his partner and pulled a surprised face. ‘I never took you for an art buff.’

‘I’m not. I just read a lot.’

Hunter had only gone into Derek Nicholson’s study very briefly. That was the room Melinda Wallis was sitting in when he got to the house for the first time yesterday morning. In the evening, when he revisited the crime scene, he would focus all his attention on the room upstairs.

It took them only ten minutes to drive to Cheviot Hills from Olivia’s place in Westwood. They unlocked the door and stepped into a house that Hunter was sure one day had been home to a happy family. Now, that building was forever tainted with the stains of a brutal homicide. Every single happy memory that those walls once held completely erased by one act of unthinkable evil.

The air inside the house was warm and stale, and it carried a distinct mixture of unpleasant smells. Garcia rubbed his nose, cleared his throat a couple of times and allowed his partner to lead the way.

Hunter opened the door to a long, wood-paneled room where bookshelves lined two of the walls. The space was reminiscent of a court-of-law judge’s chambers, with a large twin desk, comfortable armchairs and the musty odor of old, leather-bound books. They spotted the four sculptures Olivia had mentioned straight away. Two were on the bookshelves, one was on Derek Nicholson’s desk, and one was on a side table next to a whisky-colored leather armchair. Unconventional-looking as they were, however, none of them even remotely resembled the grotesque piece left behind by the killer.

‘Well, at least we know that the killer wasn’t trying to mimic any of these,’ Garcia said, placing the sculpture he was holding back down on the side table. ‘God knows
what
he was trying to do or mimic.’

Hunter had looked at all the sculptures and was now studying some of the books on the shelves. Almost all of them were criminal-law related, but a handful were about pottery and ceramics. Two of them were about modern sculpture. Hunter pulled one out of the shelf and flipped through its first few pages.

‘Do you think his murder could really be related to what he said to his nurse?’ Garcia asked. ‘Something about making his peace with someone and telling them the truth about something?’

‘I’m not sure. But I know we all have secrets, some more important than others. One of Derek Nicholson’s secrets was so important to him . . . it bothered him so much, that he didn’t want to leave this life without clearing things up, without “making his peace”.’ Hunter used his fingers to draw quotation marks in the air.

‘And that’s gotta mean something, right?’ Garcia said.

‘It’s gotta mean something,’ Hunter agreed. ‘But we don’t know if he did or not. Make his peace, that is.’

‘According to his nurse, he told her about this
making his peace
business sometime between her first and second week here. Since then, other than the weekend nurse and his two daughters, it looks like he’d only talked to two other people.’

Hunter nodded. ‘DA Bradley and our mysterious, six foot tall, brown-eyed visitor.’ He replaced the book on the shelf and reached for the second volume on sculpture. ‘Maybe the DA knows who he is. I’ll try to talk to him tomorrow.’

‘The weekdays nurse used the room upstairs,’ Garcia commented. ‘But Melinda had the one above the garage outside. It’s no coincidence the killer picked a weekend night for the murder, is it?’

‘No.’ For no reason Hunter’s eyes darted towards the ceiling and then the walls. ‘Somehow the killer knew the habits of this house. He knew when people came and went. He knew Derek Nicholson’s daughters would visit him for a few hours every day and then leave. He knew when he would be alone and the best time to strike. He might’ve even known that the burglar alarm wasn’t usually engaged, or that Derek Nicholson didn’t like air conditioning and the balcony door that led into his room would probably have been unlocked at this time of year.’

‘So that means that the killer staked out the house,’ Garcia said. ‘And not for just a day.’