One by One (Роберт Хантер 5 Поодиночке) - Carter Chris (2) (читать книги бесплатно полные версии txt) 📗

That was exactly what both detectives were expecting.

‘So nothing can be retrieved from this camera?’ Garcia asked.

‘Image-wise, no,’ Baxter replied. ‘As I’ve said, the camera has no hard drive that can be explored. Without a memory stick, it’s just like an old photographic camera without the film. It becomes nothing more than a box with a lens.’

‘Let’s do it anyway,’ Hunter said after a short, uncomfortable silence. Right now he wasn’t prepared to put anything past this killer.

‘Give me a sec,’ Baxter replied and disappeared into a back room. Moments later he came back carrying a power supply that was slightly larger than a regular cellphone charger. He plugged it in and switched the camcorder on.

There was nothing there.

The camera worked just as it should, but it recognized that it was missing the memory stick, disabling the ‘view and playback’ menu.

‘As I’ve said,’ Baxter commented, ‘no memory stick, no images or stills for us to see here.’

No one said anything for a long moment. Hunter had to admit that he was expecting the camera to contain some sort of footage. What exactly, he wasn’t sure – maybe a short clip of one of the victims prior to being abducted, or pleading for mercy or something. Some new twist just to further torment their thoughts and their investigation.

Why leave us an ‘empty’ video camera?

If all the killer wanted to do was to prove that he had really been standing outside when making the call, he could’ve written his little dig at the police on absolutely anything – a piece of paper, a burger box, a sandwich wrapper, a paper cup . . . anything. He no doubt had anticipated that once the call had been traced, the LAPD would be emptying and bagging the contents of every trashcan in the park and around the PAB in a hurry. They would’ve eventually found his message, no matter what it had been written on.

No, Hunter thought. Even a compact camcorder is way too big and clunky for such a simple task. There has to be another reason.

His next consideration was that the camera could’ve belonged to the victim. Maybe he had it on him when he was first abducted. Maybe that was why the memory stick was missing. Maybe the victim had filmed the killer by accident – strolling down the street, buying a hot dog, at a gas station, or worse . . . something incriminating. Something that could’ve given away the killer’s identity. Maybe that was why he had become the latest victim. They would have to wait for forensics to examine the camera, and hope that they could get something out of it.

Hunter couldn’t remember an investigation where he felt more defeated or powerless. All he had was a long list of maybes, ifs and buts, and none of it made any real sense. Three victims tortured and murdered in the most brutal ways while he watched, unable to help. And that helpless feeling was spreading through him like strong poison. Even his thoughts were starting to fail him.

He was right. This game of cat and mouse excited the killer like a brand-new drug, but right now Hunter couldn’t tell who was the cat and who was the mouse.

Eighty-Three

For Hunter, falling asleep that night was an almost impossible task. There were way too many thoughts and questions bouncing around inside his head for his brain to disconnect, and one thing he’d learned over the years was that battling insomnia with pills and stubbornness only made things worse. The best remedy was just to roll along with it. And rolling along was exactly what he intended to do, but he couldn’t face doing it alone inside his claustrophobic one-bedroom apartment.

Hunter sat at a small table toward the back of the bar, staring at the glass tumbler in front of him. Inside it, a single dose of twelve-year-old Cardhu single-malt whisky with just a little water. Single malts were Hunter’s biggest passion. Back in his apartment he had a small but impressive collection that would probably satisfy the palate of most connoisseurs. Hunter would never consider himself an expert, but he knew how to appreciate the flavor and robustness of single malts, instead of simply getting hammered on them. Though, sometimes, getting hammered worked just fine.

He brought the glass to his lips and had a small sip, letting the clean, crisp oak and sweet malt infuse his whole mouth for a moment before allowing the smooth liquid to travel down his throat.

Soothing, no question about it. A few more and he would probably start to relax. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath through his nose. Rock music blasted through the tiny speakers strategically positioned on the ceiling throughout the bar area, but the music didn’t bother him. It actually helped him think.

‘This killer has been playing you from the start.’

Harry Mills’ words from yesterday still echoed in his ears like a loud scream. And Harry was right. Hunter remembered how, with his first victim, the killer had tricked him to pick water instead of fire, only to add a sadistic, chemical twist to it. With the second victim, the killer had used a small level of psychology to trick his viewers into picking eaten alive, a much more intriguing and painful death method than the alternative – buried alive.

Now with the third victim, it appeared that no trick had been used to influence the voting. It had been too close to call – CRUSH: 9997, STRETCH: 10,000. Instead, the killer had seemingly allowed the voting to play out unaided, not knowing himself the final outcome. Hunter was sure that that had excited him like a young child with a new toy.

What the killer had decided to do this time in order to demonstrate his cleverness over the police was to control everything remotely, but not just from anywhere – from literally outside the LAPD headquarters’ front door. He had allowed the LAPD to trace his call and even waited until the voting was finally over before writing his message onto a camcorder’s view screen and stashing it inside a trashcan in City Hall Park. And just to add insult to injury, the killer had timed everything perfectly to coincide with the rush hour. That way, he could stay within eyesight distance, but still remain anonymous among the high flux of people. So close, yet they couldn’t touch him.

‘This killer has been playing you from the start.’ The words rang out in his head again.

What else had the killer thrown at them just for fun? The abbreviation – SSV? The two different number sequences – 678 and 0123? The words – The Devil Inside? The camcorder? Did any of it mean anything at all, or was it all just to keep the police guessing and running around in circles?

Well, if that was the intention, it sure was working.

Maybe even the IV stand reflected onto the glass coffin lid hadn’t been a mistake. Maybe the killer did it on purpose. One more twist added to the tale.

Hunter brought both hands to his face and massaged his exhausted eyes with his palms. The more he thought about it, the more it made his head hurt. How could he come up with answers when he didn’t even know what questions to ask anymore?

‘Did you see that thing on the Internet today?’ Hunter overheard the barman ask a brunette and a redheaded woman at the bar, while he poured them a couple of cocktails.

Hunter’s gaze subtly moved to them.

‘I did,’ the redhead replied. ‘Absolutely awful. And everyone is saying that was no hoax.’

‘It isn’t,’ the brunette one agreed. ‘It was in the papers. He broadcast the murder of an LA Times reporter just a few days ago.’

‘Did you watch it today?’ the redhead asked.