‘That wouldn’t be hard,’ Hunter joked. ‘So, are you finally gonna end this goddamn mystery about who the new captain is?’

‘They don’t know it yet?’ Doctor Winston asked, biting his bottom lip.

‘Do you?’ Hunter asked, surprised.

‘Uh-huh.’

Hunter pinned Captain Bolter with a hawk-sharp gaze.

‘Don’t gimme that pissed-off housewife look,’ Captain Bolter said derisively. ‘I get enough of that at home, plus I wanted it to be a surprise.’ His grin made Hunter squint with a new worry.

‘Oh, she’ll surprise them alright,’ Doctor Winston laughed.

‘She?’ Hunter looked from one man to the other.

Captain Bolter held the suspense before conceding. ‘Her name’s Barbara Blake.’

‘You are kidding me, right?’ Hunter leaned back against the beechwood table.

‘Why? Because she’s a woman?’ the captain asked with a frown.

‘No, because her name’s Barbara. Are you telling me that the RHD will have Captain Barbie from now on?’

‘Ooh, don’t ever call her Barbie.’ Doctor Winston shook his head.

‘Definitely not,’ Captain Bolter added. ‘Unless you’ve grown tired of your balls. Don’t let the fact that she’s a woman fool you, Robert. She’s a great captain and a vicious bitch when she needs to be. She’s proven it many times. We were partners for two years before she asked to be transferred to Sacramento.’

Hunter detected sadness in the captain’s voice. ‘Just work partners?’ he asked as he finished the last of his single malt.

‘Don’t even think about psychoanalyzing me, Robert. Not anymore.’ Captain Bolter shook his head and pointed his cigar at Hunter.

‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’

‘There you are, captain.’ Lieutenant Sheldon appeared at the door. ‘They’re calling for you. It’s speech time. And we all wanna know who’s taking over. No more suspense.’

‘I guess not.’

Hunter didn’t follow them in.

Fifteen

The main facility of the Los Angeles County Department of Coroner is located on North Mission Road, number 1104. The building is an outstanding piece of architecture with hints of Renaissance. Old-fashioned lampposts flank the extravagant entrance stairway. Terracotta bricks and light gray lintels fronted the large hospital-turned-morgue. The whole building looked like it should be part of a prestigious Oxford college.

Criminalistics students Nelson Fenton and Jamaal Jackson still had another hour to go before the end of their night shift. Despite their job being part time and relatively simple, it required a very strong stomach. As forensic technicians for the LACDC, they were expected to transport, undress, photograph, clean and prepare bodies for autopsies.

‘How many more bodies do we have on the list?’ Jamaal asked, pulling his surgical mask down from his mouth and letting it hang loosely around his neck. They’d just finished preparing the body of a sixty-five-year-old man who’d been stabbed fifty-two times by his own son.

‘Two.’ Nelson pointed to the two black polyethylene body bags on the steel tables at the far end of the room.

‘Let’s just get on with it, then.’

First they needed to undress the bodies before thoroughly hosing them down in preparation for the post-mortem. While Jamaal was adjusting the strap on his surgical mask, Nelson approached the larger of the two body bags and unzipped it.

‘Oh shit!’ Nelson said, lifting both hands to his mouth and taking a step back.

‘What’s the matter?’

‘Have a look.’

Jamaal checked the unzipped body bag. ‘Oh crap.’ He made a face as if he’d just tasted something bitter. ‘Headless.’

Nelson nodded. ‘But have a look at what he’s wearing.’

Only then Jamaal noticed the priest’s cassock. ‘Oh man, that’s bad. Who the hell would do this to a priest?’

‘Someone with a lot of anger,’ Nelson said, stepping forward again.

‘I’m not Catholic or nothing, but this is just . . .’ Jamaal shook his head without finishing the sentence. ‘This city’s messed up, man. Violence everywhere.’

‘The whole world’s messed up, dude. Let’s just finish this and get the hell out of here. I’ve had enough for today.’

‘You can say that again.’

They unbuttoned the cassock, pulled it open and froze.

‘Holy shit,’ Nelson whispered.

‘I think we better get Doctor Winston on the phone. Right now.’

Sixteen

Insomnia is a very unpredictable condition and it affects people in different ways. It can kick in before you go to bed or it can torture you, allowing you to fall asleep for an hour or so before creeping in and keeping you awake for the rest of the night. In the United States, one in five people suffer from it.

After spending most of the night researching on the internet, Hunter managed only a couple of hours’ sleep before his brain was wide awake again. The images of the church and Father Fabian’s murder played at the back of his mind like a film stuck on an agonizing loop. To disconnect, Hunter hit the gym at 4:00 a.m.

At 6:00 a.m., after a heavy workout and a hot shower, Hunter was staring out of the window of his small one-bedroom apartment in south Los Angeles. He was trying to organize his thoughts when his cell phone rang.

‘Detective Hunter speaking.’

‘Robert, it’s Jonathan Winston here.’

Hunter checked his watch. ‘What’s the matter, doc? Can’t sleep?’

‘At my age I rarely sleep past five in the morning anyway, but I ain’t calling to discuss my sleeping habits.’

The ominous tone in Doctor Winston’s voice cleared the grin from Hunter’s face. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Well, you’d better get your partner and get here. I need you to see something before I start the autopsy on the decapitated priest.’

‘Before you start the examination?’ Hunter enquired skeptically.

‘That’s right.’

‘Are you at the County Coroner’s?’

‘Yep.’

‘I’ll call Carlos. We’ll be there in half an hour, doc.’

Seventeen

‘So what’s this all about?’ Garcia asked as he met Hunter in the parking lot to the County Department of Coroner at 6:35 a.m. ‘This place ain’t even open yet.’

Hunter shrugged. ‘The doctor didn’t say, but I guess we’ll find out soon enough.’

Doctor Winston greeted both detectives with a firm handshake by the entrance door.

‘So what happened, doc?’ Hunter asked as they entered the building.

‘Well, last night when I got to the Redwood Bar & Grill for William’s leaving do, I turned my cell phone off. After all, I’m a pathologist not a surgeon. I don’t get called for emergencies in the middle of the night.’

‘OK.’ Hunter said the word slowly.

‘When I turned my cell phone back on this morning I had a rather peculiar message from one of my forensic technicians.’

They walked through an empty front lobby, past the reception desk and into a long and well-lit corridor.

‘As you might expect, we’re one of the busiest coroners’ departments in the entire United States. Most of the gritty, autopsy-preparatory jobs are delegated to forensic technicians, who are usually university students.’

They reached the stairwell at the end of the corridor and went up to the first floor.

‘The corpses arrive here in a regular polyethylene body bag. In the specific case of your priest’s body, the coroner’s investigator at the scene was kind enough to remove the dog’s head from the body before sealing the bag.’