One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке)

‘Without the color and contrast saturation trick,’ Michelle explained, ‘I would’ve never seen it. Look at this.’ She clicked and dragged her mouse over a portion of the image – somewhere just above where Christina’s belly button would’ve been, creating a small, dotted-lined square over it. She typed a command and the dotted-lined square zoomed in to fill the entire screen.
Hunter and Garcia scooted to the edge of their seats.
‘As you know,’ Michelle continued. ‘The killer was using a night-vision camera, so lighting was almost none. The camera was static, positioned above the coffin at an angle. We calculated it to be somewhere between thirty-eight to forty degrees.’
Hunter and Garcia nodded.
‘Remember when I told you that this killer seemed to have everything covered,’ Michelle said, moving on. ‘Well, I think there was one thing he forgot to bring into his equation.’
Hunter and Garcia were still staring at the image on the screen. There was nothing there but a bunch of zoomed-into wasps.
‘Those wasps are alive and moving all the time,’ Michelle clarified. ‘At this particular spot, by pure chance, a small group of them moved at the same time, in exactly the same direction, and over another bunch of wasps. The camera was just panning right toward the woman’s face. The combination of all that movement, for a fraction of a second, produced a different light angle. Are you still with me?’
Both detectives nodded again.
‘Now, the wasps’ bodies are black, and any dark background behind plain glass can create a mirror effect if the light angle is right.’
Michelle typed another command and the image sharpened considerably, before advancing a single second and pausing.
Silence.
Squinting.
Head tilting.
And then Hunter and Garcia finally saw it.
Fifty-Two
Due to the new light angle created by the position the tarantula hawks had moved into, in combination with the camera just starting to pan right, something was suddenly reflected on the coffin’s glass lid.
‘It’s only there for 0.2 seconds,’ Harry said. ‘But when we break it down into frames, we’ve got eight frames of it.’
Hunter and Garcia were still squinting at the screen and tilting their heads from side to side, trying to better understand what they were looking at. Whatever it was, it was only being partially reflected. An object high off the ground, maybe five or six feet, set back from the coffin, and placed against what looked like a nondescript brick wall. They could only see what they guessed was the top quarter of the object, and not very well. It was a thin structure that looked like a T. Probably made out of metal. The ends of the horizontal bar at the top of the T curved around themselves, creating two small loops, one at each end, like two hooks. Something looked to be hanging from the loop on the right-hand side, but the reflection showed only a tiny sliver of it.
‘What the hell is that?’ Garcia spoke first. ‘Some sort of coat hanger?’
Hunter stared at it for a couple more seconds, and then shook his head. ‘No. It’s an IV drip stand.’
Garcia frowned. ‘What?’
‘That’s exactly what we think it is,’ Harry agreed. ‘We’ve been comparing images on the internet for a while now.’
Michelle handed Hunter and Garcia two large color printouts.
Hunter didn’t need to look at them. He knew he was right. He’d lived with one of those inside his house for several months when he was seven, while cancer ate away at his mother. He helped his father change her IV drip every day. When her pain convulsions caused her to violently jerk her arms in the air, tugging at the drip and throwing the whole stand to the ground, Hunter was always the one who picked it up. When he was twenty-three, after his father was shot in the chest, Hunter spent twelve weeks sitting in a hospital room with him while he lay in a coma before dying. For twelve weeks he stared at the IV stands, the drips and all the machinery inside that hospital room. No, he certainly didn’t need to look at the printouts. Some memories and images would never leave his mind, no matter how much time had elapsed.
‘An IV drip stand?’ Garcia asked, his eyes moving back and forth between the printouts and the computer screen.
Hunter nodded.
‘And as you can see—’ Michelle took over again, pointing back at the screen and at the right loop ‘—something is definitely hanging from it.’ She clicked her mouse and the picture magnified thirty times, but even then no one could be one hundred percent sure of what they were looking at. ‘This is the best we could do,’ she continued, shrugging. ‘Our best guess . . . that’s some sort of an IV bag.’
Hunter and Garcia kept their eyes on the image.
‘If it is,’ Harry said, ‘then you’re mainly looking at two possible scenarios. One: that stand and drip are there for the killer.’
Neither detective commented back, but they both knew that it was possible.
In truth, they knew nothing concrete about this killer. All they had were assumptions based on the killer’s actions so far. Even Mike Brindle from forensics believed that they were after someone big and strong. Strong enough to carry a 216-pound person over his left shoulder. But that assumption was based on the shoeprints retrieved from the alleyway in Mission Hills, where the first victim’s body had been found. The prints they believed had been left by the killer. Brindle had told them that the left shoeprint seemed to be more prominent than the right one. He said that that could indicate that the killer walked with a slight abnormality, like a limp, depositing more of his weight onto his left leg. They assumed the abnormality was caused because the person was carrying a heavy load over his left shoulder – the victim’s body. But what if they’d assumed wrong? What if this killer had some sort of physical impairment? What if this killer was in some sort of constant pain and in need of daily medication?
‘Scenario two,’ Harry said, moving on, ‘and the most probable, is that the IV is meant for the victims. Maybe the killer sedates his victims for some reason.’
Again, no comment from Hunter or Garcia, but neither of them believed that the killer had sedated his victims.
IV sedation, also known as Twilight Sleep, worked on the brain like amnesia, producing either partial or full memory loss. The person went in and out of slumber, totally relaxed, and could still hear what goes on around him or her, but nothing really registered. IV sedation usually didn’t work as an anesthetic, so the person would still feel pain, but that would depend entirely on the type of drip used.
Christina Stevenson was alert and totally terrified while locked inside that glass coffin. Not relaxed. And in no way drifting in and out of slumber. The same could be said for Kevin Lee Parker. No, if the IV drip stand was there for the victims, Hunter was sure its purpose was not sedation, and that thought was what filled him with dread. The killer could’ve used some sort of feeling-enhancing drug. Something not so easily picked up by a blood toxicology test. Something that boosted their nervous system and ultra-sensitized it. To this killer, the violence had a purpose. He wanted his victims as sober as possible. He wanted them to feel every bit of pain, but he also wanted their fear. He wanted them to know that death was coming to them. And there was nothing anyone could do to save them.
Fifty-Three