Again, no reply.

The tingling sensation at the back of her neck quickly ran down her spine, spreading through her whole body.

‘Wow, that really was some good shit,’ she whispered to herself.

Regina twisted the handle and pushed the door open.

Paradise became hell.

Sixty-Eight

By the time Hunter and Garcia got to apartment 311 in Bell Gardens, the forensic team’s investigation was in full swing. Four people dressed in hooded white coveralls were stepping over each other inside the tiny flat, doing their jobs. In the living room, a young forensic agent was dusting a wooden sideboard for prints. A woman armed with a handheld vacuum was collecting fibers and hairs from the floor. An older agent with a spray bottle and a portable ultraviolet light was looking for blood droplets on a silver box that was sitting on the dining table. All the while, the official crime-scene photographer was snapping away at everything.

Detective Ricky Corbí and his partner, Detective Cathy Ellison, were standing in the corridor just outside the apartment. Another three uniformed police officers were busy conducting the standard door-to-door.

‘Are you Detective Corbí?’ Hunter asked, coming from the badly lit stairwell.

The tall black man turned around and faced Hunter. He was around fifty years old, with a scowling face topped with tight-cropped hair sprinkled with just a little gray. He wore horn-rimmed glasses, a brown suit, and, judging by his physique, he’d probably played football when younger, and was still very physically active.

‘That’d be me,’ he said in a baritone voice. ‘And by the looks of you two, you’re Homicide Special.’ He offered his hand. ‘Detective Hunter, I presume.’

Hunter nodded. ‘Call me Robert.’ Corbí’s handshake was firm and strong. His palm was slightly tilted downwards, which Hunter knew from experience was usually a sign of an authoritative person or a controlling personality. From the word ‘go’ Corbí was indicating that he was the one in charge there. Hunter had no intention of opposing that authority.

‘Call me Ricky. This is my partner, Detective Cathy Ellison.’

Ellison stepped forward and shook Hunter and Garcia’s hand with almost the same firmness as Corbí. She was about five feet six in height, trim but slightly stoop-shouldered, with short dark hair, cut in a textured, graduated style. Her eyes carried the intensity of someone who took her job very seriously. ‘Call me Cathy,’ she said, quickly studying both detectives.

‘As I told you over the phone, the reason why I called you is that we found this in the victim’s living room,’ Corbí said, making a slight head movement towards the apartment, and handing Hunter a business card. ‘It’s one of yours, right?’

Hunter nodded.

Corbí reached inside his breast pocket for his notebook. ‘Thomas Lynch, better known as Tito. He was out on parole from Lancaster. Been out for eleven months. According to his record,’ Corbí faced Garcia, ‘you were the arresting officer seven years ago, and the one who got a confession out of him.’ He paused and reassessed his words. ‘Or should I say, you convinced him to cut a deal. If I had to venture a guess, I’d say that since he was released he became some sort of informer for you guys.’

‘Not really,’ Garcia said.

Corbí looked at him with a penetrating stare. ‘Friend?’

‘Not really.’

Corbí nodded, taking off his glasses, breathing on both lenses and using the tip of his blue tie to polish them. ‘Care to shed some light on how he came by one of your business cards? A very-crisp-and-new business card.’

The last sentence was delivered with a slight lilt in his tone.

Garcia held Corbí’s gaze. ‘We contacted him recently, looking for some information – but he wasn’t an informer,’ he added, before Corbí had a chance to retort. ‘He was just someone who showed up in a list of names.’

Ricky Corbí was experienced enough to know that Garcia wasn’t being stubborn. He was simply giving him all the information he was prepared to give at that time. Pursuing it further was pointless. He gave Garcia a barely noticeable nod.

‘Could you tell us when you saw him last?’ Ellison asked.

‘Yesterday afternoon,’ Hunter said.

Corbí and Ellison exchanged a quick look.

‘According to the ME, your boy was murdered sometime last night,’ Corbí took over again, returning his glasses to his face. ‘Or most probably in the very early hours of the morning. They are just getting ready to take the body away, if you guys would like to have a look first . . .’

Hunter and Garcia nodded.

‘I have no idea who he pissed off last night,’ Corbí added, handing the detectives a pair of latex gloves each, together with shoe covers. ‘But whoever it was, he did a job on this Tito character. We have a real work of art in there.’

Sixty-Nine

Corbí and Ellison stepped into apartment 311, followed by Hunter and Garcia. Together with the four forensic agents, the already-crowded living room became a sardine can.

‘What’s in the box?’ Hunter asked, nodding at the silver box on the dining table.

‘Now, nothing,’ Corbí said. ‘But it did contain drugs – cocaine, to be more precise. A very fine cut. Probably very high-quality stuff. The lab will confirm it. Initial signs indicate that whoever whacked him took the drugs.’

‘You think this was a drugs hit?’ Garcia asked.

‘Who knows at this stage?’ Ellison replied.

‘Who called it in?’

‘Some terrified girl. Didn’t leave a name. She sounded very young.’

‘When was this? When was the call made?’

‘This morning. We checked the recording. The girl said that she came to visit a friend. Most probably she came here to score some drugs. From the door-to-door so far, no one knows who this young friend could be.’ Ellison’s eyebrows arched. ‘Actually, people barely knew the tenant in this apartment. No one is talking. And in a project like this, I’d be more surprised if they ever did. But forensics has already retrieved several sets of prints. Who knows, we might get lucky.’

Hunter’s eyes swept the room in a matter of seconds; no blood anywhere. The living room looked a mess, but no different than it had the day before, when they’d paid Tito a visit. No visible disturbance. The chain lock and the inside doorframe were also intact. Nothing indicated a forced entry.

‘Are you guys through in there?’ Corbí asked the lead forensic agent, indicating the tiny corridor that led to the bathroom and bedroom.

‘Yeah, we’ve got everything. You’re clear.’

They crossed the living room.

‘There’s no way all of us will fit in there,’ Corbí said as they got to the bathroom door. ‘I thought there couldn’t be a smaller bathroom than the one in my house. I was wrong. You guys go ahead. We’ve seen it.’ Corbí and Ellison stepped back, allowing Hunter and Garcia to take lead.

Hunter slowly pushed the door open.

‘Oh crap.’ The words dribbled out of Garcia’s lips.

Hunter said nothing, his gaze taking everything in.

The floor, the walls and the sink in the tiny bathroom were splattered with blood. Arterial spray from a knife being swung across someone’s throat or body. Tito was naked, sitting on the floor inside the blood-soaked shower cubicle. His back was against the tiled wall, his legs stretched out in front of him, his arms loosely slumped by his side. His head was tilted back, as if he was looking at something on the ceiling. The problem was, he had no eyes. They both had been pressed back into his skull until they sunk in. One of them seemed to have busted in its socket. What looked like blood tears had run down the corners of the sockets, past his ears, and down the side of his shaved head. His mouth was opened, and half filled with thick, clotted blood. His tongue had been ripped from his mouth.