‘It doesn’t seem like any vital organs have been affected.’ Garcia addressed Doctor Snyder. ‘Any guesses as to the cause of death? Did she bleed out from her facial wounds?’

The doctor’s gaze moved around the room, pausing for an instant on the largest pool of blood directly underneath the victim’s chair, before meeting Garcia’s questioning look.

‘Without a proper post mortem I can’t be one hundred percent sure, Detective, but it’s likely to have been a combination of the amount of blood she lost and the tremendous pain she was put through. Her heart would’ve been working three times as fast as normal to try to replace the lost blood. As you can see, all the nerves around her face were completely exposed, which means that her brain would have been receiving pain signals by the truckload every second. That would’ve stressed out her heart and her brain even more. In situations like these, it’s not uncommon for the heart to just give up, or for the brain to signal respiration to cease, and the lungs to simply stop taking in oxygen.’

‘And how long would that have taken?’ Garcia spoke again.

‘That’s impossible to tell,’ Doctor Snyder replied. ‘It depends on two main factors – the victim’s physical and mental strength. First impression is that physically she was strong enough, as you can see for yourself. Young. Good muscle tone. Not overweight. How strong her heart was is also a key factor, but mental strength is pretty much what dictates your fate in circumstances like these. How badly did she want to live after having her face ripped from her? Your brain can keep on willing your body to fight, or simply tell it to give up. For her, death could’ve come within five minutes or after several hours.’

Hunter approached the kitchen counter and the evidence bag containing the circular sander. It wasn’t a brand new model, but it also wasn’t a dated one, which made identifying the store in which it had been bought a lot harder. Hunter checked the underside of the handle. The serial number had been filed off.

‘The killer left it on the floor,’ Doctor Snyder offered. ‘By the victim’s chair. No attempt to hide it whatsoever.’

Next to the sanding machine were two smaller evidence bags. They each contained a single 125mm sanding disk. Both had been used and were blood-soaked.

‘The disks were found in the trashcan,’ the doctor said, joining Hunter by the kitchen counter and indicating the plastic trashcan on the opposite corner from where the refrigerator was. Several bloody footprints revealed the killer’s path as he crossed the kitchen floor in the direction of the trashcan, and then came back out to where he had tied up his victim.

Garcia returned to the living room. He was intrigued by the footprint pattern.

Hunter took a minute to study the used disks. His next few words confused everyone.

‘She lasted way over five minutes.’

Thirty-Four

‘I’m sorry?’ Doctor Snyder queried.

‘You said that death could’ve come within five minutes, or after several hours,’ Hunter clarified. ‘I can’t tell you for sure how long she lasted, but it was way over five minutes.’

Hunter’s confidence puzzled the doctor.

‘Could I ask what makes you so sure?’

Hunter moved to the other side of the kitchen counter, being careful to avoid the footprints on the tiled floor.

‘Because the killer paused not only once, but twice, and calmly walked over to that trashcan to discard the used sand disks.’ Hunter gave the doctor a chance to absorb the weight of his words.

‘If the victim was already dead,’ Doctor Snyder said, realizing what he’d missed, ‘what was the point in changing the disks and carrying on with the torture?’

Hunter stayed silent.

‘But that still could’ve happened under, or just over, five minutes?’ Snyder insisted. ‘Five minutes would feel like an eternity of pain when you have a high-power sander pressed against your face, don’t you think?’

Hunter, who had been checking the trashcan, returned to the kitchen counter and grabbed hold of one of the evidence bags containing a discarded sanding disk. ‘Are you familiar with sanding machines at all?’ he asked. ‘Do you do a lot of DIY?’

‘Not particularly, no. Why?’

‘These disks are fiber based, not aluminum oxide, or ceramic,’ Hunter explained. ‘That makes them a little lighter than most. The grit size is CAMI one thousand, which means it’s a microgrit. In this case – ultra fine. The higher the grit size, the less abrasive the sanding action. In the US, CAMI one thousand is the finest sand disk grit you can get. These are only good for the final sanding and polishing of thick finishes, not for stripping wood, metal, plastic, or anything else, really.’

Again, Hunter allowed his words to sink in for a couple of seconds.

‘If the killer had used a lower grit disk,’ Hunter continued, ‘the damage to her skin, muscle and bones would’ve happened to a much higher extent, and a lot faster.’

Doctor Snyder breathed out slowly while looking back at the victim. ‘So, by picking the right type of disk, he would’ve kept her alive for longer and, by doing so, prolonged her suffering.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Theoretically, yes.’

‘Like I said,’ Garcia commented after a silent pause. ‘Welcome to Los Angeles, Doctor, where the “freaks” come out to play.’

‘So are you a DIY kind of guy then?’ the doctor asked Hunter.

‘No, not really.’

‘So how come you know so much about handheld sanders?’

‘He reads a lot,’ Garcia offered, anticipating his partner’s usual answer.

Hunter shrugged. ‘I do, but that’s not the reason.’

Garcia paused and looked at him, intrigued.

‘About a year ago,’ Hunter explained, ‘I helped a friend of mine redecorate her living room. I had to use a machine very similar to that one.’

Garcia went back to studying the footprint pattern on the carpet. A couple of minutes later, something caught his eye. He squatted down to get a better look at it.

‘Robert,’ he called out moments later. ‘Come have a look at this.’

Hunter and the doctor joined him.

Garcia drew their attention to a spot on the carpet about five feet slightly to the left of the victim’s chair, just by a cluster of footprints.

Hunter and Doctor Snyder squatted down next to Garcia, and he indicated a specific blood splatter among the hundreds on that side. Not the smallest, but not the largest one of them either.

Hunter and the doctor looked at it, frowned, then bent down further, bringing their faces just inches from the carpet.

‘Wait a second,’ Doctor Snyder said, getting up, walking over to his forensics bag in the corner and retrieving a large magnifying lens. ‘This might help.’ He handed it to Hunter.

With the help of the lens, Hunter considered the bloodstain for a long moment. From a few feet up, looking down, it looked just like all the other splatters, but once he and Doctor Snyder got closer, they noticed its odd shape.

A splatter is a drop of liquid that travels through the air and splashes against a surface or object, creating an irregular shape as it does. And that was the problem. The shape of this specific splatter wasn’t irregular. It looked almost like a perfect half moon.

Hunter’s gaze alternated between the splatter and the victim a couple of times, and he was obviously weighing up something in his mind. Then, just as Garcia had done a couple of minutes earlier, he placed his pinky finger at the center of the splatter and pressed down on the carpet. A few seconds later, his attention moved to the hundreds of other splatters that surrounded the half-moon one.