Thirty-One

‘Something changed him?’ Captain Blake asked with a frown. She was sitting behind her desk, nursing a fresh cup of coffee. ‘How so, Robert?’ Her hair was loose, tucked behind her ears, and she wore a black pencil skirt with a tight-fitting plum cotton blouse. She had asked Hunter and Garcia to come to her office as soon as she arrived at the PAB.

‘I’m not really sure how, Captain,’ Hunter replied. ‘But what I’m very certain of is that he chose the words he used on his note very carefully, doing his best to avoid doubt. He ends his third paragraph by writing: “Would they see what I have become, or would they falter?” He could very easily have written “see what I am?” Or “who I am?” Or “the monster in me?” Or something along those lines.’

‘But he didn’t,’ she said, leaning back in her chair.

‘No, he didn’t. I’m sure that he picked the word “become” for a specific reason.’

‘And you think that is because he wants us to understand he wasn’t always a psychopath. That something in the course of his life changed him. And whatever it was that happened to him, it made him decide to start killing people.’

Hunter nodded.

‘Like what, for example?’

Hunter shrugged. ‘He doesn’t allude to anything in his note, so right now that’s impossible to tell. Every individual reacts differently to different situations, Captain, you know that. Everybody’s got a different breaking point. For some people, it takes a lot for that switch to flick inside their heads, if it ever does. For others, not so much. Even a physical disease can potentially turn someone into a murderer.’

‘Wait a second,’ the captain said. ‘Physical disease?’

Garcia also looked at Hunter sceptically.

‘Yes,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘History is littered with different cases. In America, Charles Whitman is probably the most famous example.’

Captain Blake paused for a moment, searching her memory. The name finally came back to her. ‘Charles Whitman? Wasn’t he the Texas Bell Tower sniper?’

‘That’s right,’ Garcia said, now remembering it as well.

Charles Whitman was a former US Marine who became one of the most famous mass murderers in US history. On 1 August 1966, he started his killing spree by murdering his wife and then his mother. Once they were dead, he drove up to the University of Texas in Austin, where he was studying for a degree in engineering, and, armed with numerous firearms and several hundred rounds of ammunition, got up on to the highest point on campus, the main building’s clock tower. From there, he indiscriminately shot random passersby for almost two hours until he was finally shot dead by Austin police officer Houston McCoy. In those two horrible hours, Charles Whitman managed to kill fourteen people and injure thirty-two.

Understandably so, the press quickly branded Whitman a monster – but that was until the police discovered the note Whitman had left behind. A suicide note, or what essentially became a suicide note because Whitman was certain that he would die that day.

The note shocked everyone. In it, Whitman confessed that he himself found his behavior completely inexplicable. He began his note by stating that he adored his wife and mother, and that he had no idea why he was doing what he was doing. He went on to explain that in the past few months he had simply been consumed by excruciating headaches, like nothing he had ever experienced before, and those headaches brought with them overwhelming feelings of rage and destructive impulses which he found harder and harder to resist.

Because he was certain that he would be killed that day, Whitman ended his note by begging the authorities for his brain to be autopsied for signs of physical disease. The authorities complied, and it was discovered that Charles Whitman had a brain tumor that seemed to be just a few months old. The tumor was located in the hypothalamus, and it was pressing on to his amygdala. The coroner confirmed that Whitman’s terrible headaches were certainly caused by the tumor. In the USA, Whitman’s case opened a whole new door to the way psychologists and psychiatrists approached the mental state of a supposedly sociopathic murderer.

‘So you’re saying that our killer could have a brain tumor now?’ Captain Blake asked in a semi-sarcastic tone.

‘He could,’ Hunter admitted. ‘But that’s not what I’m saying, Captain. I’m just trying to reinforce the fact that, with the little we have, it’s impossible to do anything else other than speculate at this time, and that will lead us nowhere. We all know this.’

‘And you don’t think that you’re reading too much into every word this nut case has written?’ the captain shot back. ‘You don’t think that he could’ve sent us that note just to fuck with us? As Carlos has suggested – to throw us down the wrong path? We all know that it has happened plenty of times before. After all, the note promised that we’d have another victim before sunrise today.’ The captain turned toward the large panoramic window and pointed at the sky. ‘Well, the sun has certainly risen, and we’ve got nothing yet. He could be bluffing for all we know, Robert. That note could be nothing but a gimmick.’

‘That’s not what the note says, Captain,’ Hunter came back.

Captain Blake glared at him. ‘Is it not?’

‘No. The note says that before the sun rises tomorrow, which is today, someone else will see it and feel it too. He’s talking about the monster that he has become. He’s telling us that before the sun came up today, someone else would have suffered and died by his hands. The note says nothing about the victim being delivered to us. If he decides to do the same thing he did with Nicole Wilson and call it in via the switchboard, that call could come in this afternoon, tomorrow, next week, or any time after that. We’re dancing to his tune here, Captain, and he can change the beat any time he likes.’

Mulling those words, Captain Blake reached for her cup of coffee and had a sip.

‘And no,’ Hunter added, ‘I don’t believe that he sent the mayor that note with the intention of fucking with us. The Polaroid and the victim’s mutilated body are proof that he’s more than serious.’

Captain Blake was about to say something else when the phone on her desk rang.

‘Give me a sec,’ she said as she took the call.

No words were needed. The look in her eyes as she stared back at her detectives told them all they needed to know.

The killer wasn’t bluffing.

Thirty-Two

The house was in a pleasant-looking cul de sac down a small private road in Venice, just a couple of blocks away from Venice Beach. It was painted white, with blue-framed windows, a hipped roof, and a small front yard that seemed to be in urgent need of some attention. A knee-high, white wooden fence surrounded the property, which was set back from the road, isolating it even more from its neighbors. But the fence was there simply for decoration, not security. It wouldn’t stop anyone from getting to the house, or moving around toward its backyard. Access to every door and window was kid’s play.

There was a single garage to the right of the house, but the only cars on the driveway were a police vehicle and a forensics van. Despite the house being tucked away at the end of a private and very quiet road, the crowd of curious onlookers that had gathered outside the police perimeter was already substantial and seemed to be growing fast.