Chapter Forty-Three

Despite Garcia having heard what Hunter had just asked, he angled his body around his computer screen to look back at his partner. ‘What?'

‘Do you think that our killer could—' Hunter began, but Garcia cut him short.

‘I heard what you said, Robert. My "what" was purely meant as an expression of surprise.'

Hunter nodded, but still repeated the question. ‘So do you think that our killer could be a woman?'

‘No, I don't think so. This killer is definitely physically too strong, plus, according to Randy Douglas, the person he saw on the 7th Street Bridge, as Terry Wilford dropped to the ground, was male, driving a RAM truck, remember?'

Hunter nodded.

‘Why?' Garcia asked. ‘Do you think the killer could be a woman?'

Instead of replying, Hunter lifted a hand at Garcia and followed it up with a second question. He sounded angry with himself. ‘How about revisiting a possibility that we've mentioned before, but for some stupid reason never went back to?'

‘Which possibility are you talking about, Robert?'

‘The possibility that this killer is working with someone else.'

Garcia hesitated for a heartbeat. ‘And that someone else is a woman?'

Hunter nodded.

Garcia paused for an extra moment and his eyes skipped to the photos on the board.

Hunter waited.

Garcia caught up with the thought. ‘Are you thinking something like brother and sister, maybe?'

Hunter's eyebrows arched at his partner. ‘What if our killer wasn't an only child? Or what if we're talking about a foster kid, or something similar here? What if our killer didn't grow up alone in an abusive household?'

Garcia puffed out a shallow breath. ‘You mean – he wasn't the only one suffering at the hands of his parents, or foster parents, or step-parents… or whatever.'

‘Not impossible,' Hunter commented.

‘Then, together,' Garcia continued, ‘brother and sister decided that they'd had enough and they finally hit back. Like the Menéndez brothers. Two minds fracture at the same time.'

Hunter nodded slowly.

‘Fuck,' Garcia said, his attention moving back to the board. ‘Give me a moment to try to process all this.'

‘The reason I asked,' Hunter offered, ‘is because out of the twenty-five support groups targeting domestic violence exclusively, sixteen of them are run by female therapists, or leaders… and so are a large number of all the other ones.'

Garcia's eyes snapped back to the list on his computer screen.

‘I did notice that,' Garcia replied. ‘But I hadn't factored in the possibility of a second person, which now, thinking about it, is a very real one.'

Hunter checked his notes again.

‘It would be an almost perfect way to divert suspicion, don't you think?' Garcia asked. ‘The female partner of the "duo" runs the group, listening to their stories and collecting all the info on the members. When they've decided who to take… who the new victim will be… the male partner takes center stage.' He shrugged. ‘If they're smart, all she has to do is be seen at some very public place on the night that the victim is abducted and job done – no way anyone can point a finger at her because she'll have a buffet of alibis.'

‘Or…' Hunter began, approaching the only window in their office. The sun was just starting to dip behind the horizon. ‘Another way to minimize the risk of being noticed by other group members is – they could simply alternate attending the group sessions.'

‘They could,' Garcia agreed.

‘It's a good plan,' Hunter admitted.

‘No, it's a great plan,' Garcia corrected him. ‘But it's also very Hollywood blockbuster-like, isn't it?' He used his thumbs and index fingers on both hands to create two L-shapes in front of him, mimicking a movie screen. ‘Brother and sister abused for years when kids until one day they finally crack and lash out, murdering their own parents in some grotesque way, thus starting their own revenge crusade on other abusive parents.' He put his hands down. ‘It would make a great movie, Robert, but do you think something like that could be real?'

‘Real life is much weirder than fiction, Carlos, you know that. But I don't know, I guess I was just…'

‘Apophenia?' Garcia said with a smile.

Hunter smiled back, surprised that Garcia had remembered the word. ‘Always.'

Garcia exhaled as if they'd just come across another dead end. ‘Single or double killer, Robert, sister or brother… our problem is still the same. Without being able to ask anyone, how do we find out if Shaun Daniels and Terry Wilford did indeed take part in a support group, and if so, which ones?' He sat back on his chair. ‘I understand that the idea here would be for the two of us to join a support group, or groups, pretending that we're abusive fathers ourselves, who are seeking help. Then we observe, right? We sit in on the sessions and we listen to the stories from other members, just like the killer must be doing, but how do we pick him out? That's problem one. Problem two is – without being able to ask anyone… and with the groups meeting only once a week, we could be doing this for months, Robert, years even, before we get any sort of breakthrough… if we do.'

Outside their office window, down on the street below, Hunter watched a young mother cross the road pushing a two-baby stroller. His eyes stayed on the two babies for a quick moment before he turned and looked back at Garcia.

‘Maybe there's a way,' he said, quickly walking back to his desk.

‘Maybe there's a way for what?'

‘Maybe there's a way that we can ask the people who are running the groups if Shaun Daniels and/or Terry Wilford have ever taken part in a session.'

‘Umm…' Garcia shook his head, as if waking up from a dream. ‘How? We've already been through this. Bad idea, in case the killer, or an accomplice, is running the group.'

Hunter couldn't believe he hadn't thought of this earlier. ‘Our Research team are experts in backtracking a person's life, remember?' he reminded Garcia, nodding at the list on his computer screen. ‘And we have the names of every group leader – therapist or not.'

Garcia's gaze skirted to Hunter, darted away, darted back. ‘We can ask them to backtrack all group leaders – male and female – starting with the domestic violence groups.'

Hunter nodded. ‘In theory, Research should be able to backtrack them all the way to their childhood, right? They should be able to find out who their parents were, where they went to school, where they obtained their certificates and so on. A whole personal history.'

‘They should, yeah,' Garcia confirmed.

‘But if we're right about the fact that our killer's first ever victims were probably his own parents,' Hunter continued, ‘then chances are that after they were murdered, the killer, or killers, have had a name-change before starting their killing crusade.'

Garcia thought about it for a moment. ‘That's what I would've done, but if they didn't, it's probably because they also disguised their own parents' deaths as accidental. Maybe that's what gave them the idea in the first place.'

Another nod from Hunter. ‘Either way – if our killer, or an accomplice, is running any of these support groups, Research's backtrack should do one of two things.' He lifted a finger at Garcia. ‘If they had a name-change and created a name out of thin air, the backtracking will halt all of a sudden – no history past a certain point because the name is false.'

‘Which would be a big red flag,' Garcia jumped in. ‘If the name isn't false, if they stole the name from someone else, then the backtracking will come up against a very odd jump – from one life to a completely different one. Another big red flag.'

‘Correct,' Hunter agreed, before raising finger number two. ‘If our killer decided not to have a name-change because his parents' murder was well hidden as accidental, then Research's backtrack will find two deceased parents, where both of them died in the same event.'

‘And we're back to a red flag,' Garcia said.

‘So no red flags against a support-group leader,' Hunter concluded, ‘means that we'll be OK to approach him/her and ask about Shaun Daniels and Terry Wilford.'

Garcia smiled. ‘That should work… and save us a hell of a lot of time.'

Hunter reached for the phone on his desk once again, but before he could connect to Research, a knock came on their office door.

‘Come in,' Garcia called.

The door was pushed open by Detective Brighton from Homicide. ‘Hey, guys, are you coming now, or later?'

Both Hunter and Garcia just looked back at him with blank stares.

‘You guys forgot, didn't you?' The question was clearly a rhetorical one. ‘Detective Jenkins's surprise birthday party? We're all gathering at the Library Bar just around the corner?'

‘Of course,' Garcia said, jumping to his feet and stealing a peek at Hunter. ‘What time is she getting there again?'

Detective Loretta Jenkins had been with the LAPD Robbery Homicide Division for just over four years, after working her ass off as an officer for nearly ten. She was smart, fearless, friendly and vicious when she needed to be. Inside the RH Division, Loretta Jenkins was well liked and very well respected. She could also drink most of the division under the table.

Brighton checked his watch. ‘In about an hour.'

Hunter gave him a firm nod. ‘Sure, we'll be…' Instead of finishing his sentence, his gaze moved to a floating spot in the air and it simply stayed there. He said nothing else.

Garcia also stayed quiet.

‘Are you OK there?' Brighton asked Hunter, but got no reply.

‘Is he OK?' he directed the question at Garcia.

‘Yeah, yeah,' Garcia came back. ‘We're fine.'

Brighton's stare returned to Hunter before he gave the room a subtle headshake. ‘You two are a fucking weird unit, you know that? You guys need a vacation, or something.'

‘We'll be there,' Garcia reassured him.

As Brighton closed the door behind him, Garcia's attention turned to Hunter, who had put down the phone without making the call to Research.

‘I know that look, Robert. What did you just think of now?'

Hunter didn't reply. Instead he went back to his computer.

‘Robert, what are you looking for?'

‘The Missing Persons Report for Terry Wilford that we got from Detective Cohen.'

Garcia frowned. ‘I've got it here.' He checked the pile of files on his desk. ‘I printed it out earlier. I find it easier that way. Why? What do you need?'

‘When I read through the file,' Hunter replied. ‘I remember it mentioning that Terry worked almost every night at The Varnish, with the exception of one night – a night that he had off every week for years. What night was that?'

Garcia's eyes lit up. ‘Holy shit! The support-group sessions, they're all in the evenings.'

Hunter nodded.

Garcia flipped through the report until he found what he was looking for. ‘Here we go – Tuesdays. Terry Wilford always had Tuesdays off.

Hunter reached for the phone on his desk once again. This time, he did talk to Shannon in Research.