Chapter Twenty-Seven

Garcia paused at Hunter's words, frowned, then walked back to his desk to search for Terry Wilford's LAPD suicide incident report.

‘It's not in there,' Hunter said.

‘What?' Captain Blake's attention went from Hunter to Garcia, her palms facing up. ‘How is it that an eyewitness's testimony saying that he'd just seen someone being thrown from a bridge isn't in the incident report?'

Garcia quickly skimmed through the file before handing it to his captain. There really was no mention of any of it.

‘Because Randy Douglas never told the officer who questioned him that night,' Hunter replied, matter-of-factly, rounding his desk and taking a seat behind his computer. In his captain's eyes, he saw doubt and concern collide with each other.

‘Luis Toledo convinced him not to,' Hunter explained. ‘And it's easy to see why.'

‘Oh, is it?' the captain asked. ‘So please, help a blind woman here, because I can't see why at all.'

Hunter sat back on his chair. ‘All you have to do is picture the scene – Luis Toledo and Randy Douglas are working away, mopping the concrete channel, chatting about last night's game or whatever, when one of them spots something up on the 7th Street Bridge, just ahead of them. Now let me point out that they are about seventy yards out, it's dark, and what they're witnessing is conveniently happening under the only lamppost up on the bridge that seems to be busted. It takes them a second to realize that what they are actually looking at is a jumper. Panic mode sort of kicks in and Mr. Toledo does what most of us would've done – he takes off toward the bridge to try to stop what's about to happen. Mr. Douglas is just about to do the same when something else up on the bridge catches his eye, just as Terry Wilford is "allegedly" leaping off the edge. So he pauses.'

‘He sees someone else up on the bridge,' Garcia deducts. ‘Just behind the jumper.'

Hunter points at his partner. ‘That's what it looks like, but he can't be sure. So he stands still for an extra couple of seconds or so, trying…' Hunter lifted his index finger to highlight his point ‘…through the darkness, and somewhere in between shock and panic, to make out something that is seventy yards ahead of him. Meanwhile, Terry hits the ground… hard.' He clapped to emphasize the sound of the impact. ‘Mr. Douglas hesitates for an extra second or two before he too does the inevitable and rushes toward the bridge. When he gets there, panic hits full-advance mode because they are both now staring at a total mess of broken bones and torn flesh, not to mention the blood.'

‘So one of them calls the cops,' Garcia said, nodding at the report in the captain's hands.

‘Luis Toledo,' she said, reading from the file.

Hunter got back on his feet and re-approached the board. ‘While they're waiting for the ambulance and the LAPD – both of them in a pretty freaked-out state because you don't see something like that every day – Randy Douglas tries to tell Luis Toledo what he thinks he saw up on the bridge. Not just someone else with Terry Wilford – someone else pushing or throwing him off the bridge.'

Captain Blake breathed out in frustration. The rest was pretty self-explanatory.

‘Even if Randy Douglas had told the attending officer what he saw that night,' Hunter continued, ‘his partner, Luis Toledo, wouldn't be able to confirm it because he didn't see it. That would've immediately caused the officer to doubt Randy Douglas's testimony. It was dark, he was about seventy yards away, and he would've had about three to four seconds, tops, before Terry Wilford's body hit the concrete and desperation mode took hold. Even if he did see someone else up on the bridge with Mr. Wilford, the darkness, the distance, the panic… all of it would've contributed to a very unclear picture. Who could really say that that second person wasn't trying to stop Terry Wilford from jumping? That person could've been moving toward Mr. Wilford to try to save him… grab hold of him or something… when Mr. Wilford stepped off the edge.' Hunter shrugged. ‘From a distance and in the dark, it could've looked like that second person had pushed Terry Wilford, instead.' He paused to allow all that to sink in for a second. ‘These are all facts that Luis Toledo pointed out when Randy Douglas told him what he saw.'

‘The attending officer would've done the same,' Captain Blake agreed, now fully onboard with Hunter. ‘It was a clear suicide scenario. Escalating it to a homicide would've meant at least double the work for everyone and, apart from Mr. Douglas's very skittish testimony, that officer would've had no real reason to suspect foul play and get homicide involved.' She shook her head. ‘There's reasonable doubt all over that story.'

‘And that's why there's no mention of any of it in the incident report,' Hunter confirmed.

‘OK,' Captain Blake agreed, once again pinning Hunter down with magnified eyes. ‘But if his partner dissuaded him from telling the attending officer that night his version of events, how come he decided to tell you today? He surely knew that you could've discredited his story in twenty seconds flat.'

‘Repressed guilt,' Hunter explained. ‘Randy Douglas told me that he just couldn't get the images from that night out of his head.'

‘Understandable,' Garcia commented.

‘And the more he thought about it,' Hunter carried on, ‘the more certain he was of what he saw – Terry Wilford being pushed, or thrown, from the 7th Street Bridge.' He took a breathing pause. ‘Randy Douglas didn't care if I believed his story or not, Captain. He just needed to tell someone, and by someone, I mean "the authorities". He needed to get it off his chest, do the right thing… clear his conscience. Whether we believe him or not isn't his problem. For him, the important thing is that the suffocating guilty feeling is gone – the information has been passed on.'

‘Well,' Garcia said, walking back to his desk and grabbing his jacket from the back of his chair. ‘Great story, Robert, but none of that really matters because we already knew that there had to be a second person up on that bridge. We already knew that Terry Wilford was dead before he "jumped". And we already knew that part of this killer's MO is to fake his victims' deaths.'

Hunter halted his partner with a subtle headshake. ‘Well, not exactly, Carlos.'

Despite Garcia looking back at Hunter a little confused, it was Captain Blake who asked the question.

‘Not exactly what, Robert? Not exactly that part of this killer's MO is to fake his victims' deaths?'

‘No,' Hunter replied. ‘Not exactly – none of that really matters – because that's not all I got from Randy Douglas.'

The room seemed to hold its breath in anticipation.

Garcia returned his jacket to his chair.

‘What else did he give you?'

‘It turns out,' Hunter began, ‘that Mr. Douglas is sort of a pickup truck aficionado. He not only drives one, but he reads specialized mags, watches documentaries, goes to shows… the whole nine yards.'

‘He saw the killer's pickup truck?' Garcia's mouth dropped half-open.

‘Not exactly,' Hunter replied.

‘Robert,' Captain Blake called, her tone half an octave lower, her voice forcibly steady. ‘If you say "not exactly" one more time, I swear to God that tomorrow morning you'll be handing out parking tickets in Compton.'

‘I was born in Compton, Captain.'

‘Nuh-uh.' The captain shook her head in a way that Hunter and Garcia both knew meant she wasn't joking. ‘Thin ice all around you, Robert. You better think hard about your next step.'

‘Randy Douglas couldn't exactly see the pickup truck up on the bridge because it was too dark.' There was no play in Hunter's voice anymore. ‘All he saw was a silhouette.'

Garcia's shoulders dropped.

‘And that's where being an aficionado pays off,' Hunter said, reaching for his phone. ‘He didn't have to see the truck. He recognized its shape, even just as a silhouette.' He tapped the screen on his phone a couple of times to call up a photograph. ‘Our guy drives a twin-cab Dodge RAM, and it's either the 2500 or 3500 – one of the newer models.'

Garcia and Captain Blake stepped closer to have a look at Hunter's cellphone screen. The pickup truck shown in the photo was a large, twin-cabin model, with a spacious cargo bed. The truck also appeared to be a little higher off the ground than the average street truck.

‘What do you mean by "one of the newer models"?' Garcia asked.

Hunter handed him the phone and reached for his notepad. ‘Randy Douglas told me that the RAM 2500 and the 3500 got a small facelift in 2019. Nothing major, but the headlights and the front grill are different than earlier models. The grill is wider and a little higher, which forced a small modification to the edge of the hood. The truck looks meaner, according to Mr. Douglas. The problem is – the main differences between the 2500 and the 3500 models are all under the hood – the engines are different when talking horsepower, fuel consumption and so on, but look-wise, they're both basically identical. And Mr. Douglas was absolutely certain that the truck he saw up on the bridge that night was either the 2500 or the 3500, new model, Dodge RAM.'

Garcia's eyes stayed on the photo for a few seconds longer.

‘The 3500,' Hunter continued, ‘is Dodge's largest and most expensive RAM model to date. The 2500 is a little cheaper, but not by much, which indicates that our killer isn't a street bum. He is either employed, with a good, steady job, or he runs his own business, which is doing comfortably well.' He returned his notepad to his pocket. ‘I'd say that he's probably somewhere in his mid-thirties to mid-forties. He is strong and well built. Terry Wilford weighed about two hundred pounds, and our killer managed to lift him over the bridge's guardrail. Fine,' Hunter accepted it. ‘The 7th Street Bridge guardrail isn't that high, but still, our killer did it alone. Also, whatever job he does, it probably allows him plenty of free time.'

‘Why do you say that?' Captain Blake asked, finally handing Hunter's cellphone back to him.

‘We've already figured out that his victims are carefully chosen, right?' Hunter said. ‘They're all essentially loners, but how does he know that?'

‘Because he either knows his victims well enough,' Garcia replied. ‘Or he studies them. He follows them around.'

‘Exactly,' Hunter agreed. ‘If instead of previously knowing his victim, he follows them around, then he does it for weeks… months, maybe. It's the only way to make sure that his next victim is essentially a loner. You don't figure that out by following someone for just a few days.'

‘And you need a lot of free time to be able to do that,' Garcia commented.

Hunter nodded. ‘But there's something else. Something that we don't yet know.'

‘What something else?' the captain asked, once again checking her watch.

‘His victim selection criteria,' Hunter explained. ‘It cannot only be the fact that they are loners. If that was the case, in a city like LA…' He pointed at the window. ‘He just needed to hit Skid Row and he'd be like a kid in a candy shop. Homeless and lonely people of all ages. People with no one in their lives who would miss them. No one who would've reported them missing either. That wasn't the case with either of the two victims we have here.' Hunter indicated the board. ‘So yes, being a loner is probably part of this killer's victim selection criteria, but that's not why he chooses them. There's got to be something else. We just need to find out what that is.'