Chapter Seventy

Two days later

Police Administration Building – 4:00 p.m.

‘Sixty-three victims?' Captain Blake asked, as she entered Hunter and Garcia's office, carrying the report that she'd just read. ‘Twelve years and sixty-three victims?' Her gaze bounced between her detectives. ‘Do we have any proof of this?'

‘Not yet,' Garcia replied, with a shake of the head. He was sitting at his desk, his shirt unbuttoned halfway, staring down at the huge bandage job on his chest. ‘Forensics is still at the house, Captain,' he explained. ‘And with that cellar, they'll probably still be there a week from now – probably longer – but so far they've come across no records: no box full of drivers' licenses, no photographs of bodies or victims captive in those cells, no video recordings, no schematics or drawn-out plans on how to take any of his victims, no list of names, no victim trophy chest… nothing. If James Richard Whitely has a list of all the victims he took over the past twelve years, we haven't found it yet.'

‘They won't find anything like that,' Hunter informed them.

‘How can you be so sure?' the captain asked.

Hunter shrugged before clarifying. ‘Because James Whitely is a made psychopath, Captain – not a born one. His desire to torture and kill didn't come from some inexplicable urge deep within him. It came from a sense of duty. He believed that he was doing the right thing, and that was – punishing parents who had been violent toward their kids. He had no desire to keep records of his victims. He's not the type of killer who, after the murder act, would keep going back to images or mementos so that he could relive the whole act again. On the contrary, what he wanted to do was get rid of them. There was no narcissistic side to his murders… no posing of the bodies to show them off… no attention-calling to any aspect of what he did. He didn't even have a "signature" per se, except for the fact that he disguised his murders as accidents, and that was done to protect himself. He had no preferred way of killing either. He simply did to them what they did to others.' Hunter shook his head confidently. ‘He won't have a list of names, or a treasure chest, or mementos, or anything. His victims weren't trophies… they were his job.'

‘So that number,' Captain Blake said, putting the report down on Hunter's desk, ‘is purely based on his mother's account. A woman who was kept locked down in a cellar, chained to the walls, for seventeen years. A woman whose brain was probably already mush before her husband blew it off her skull.'

‘That's right,' Garcia agreed, finally lifting his eyes to look back at his captain. ‘But I don't think that she got that number wrong, Captain.'

‘She probably didn't,' Hunter agreed, indicating the file on his desk. ‘You read the report, Captain. From his first ever victim, James made his parents watch, and he tortured each victim for days… weeks… months, even. They couldn't look away… they couldn't close their eyes.' He lifted his hands at her. ‘It's true that memories can't exactly be trusted – they warp, they shatter… and they're put back together in ways that look nothing like the original – but in this case, James's mother had nothing to warp and shatter her memories with. They were locked in that cellar in an endless loop of nothingness and darkness. All she ever saw, for the past twelve years, was her son torturing others. Just think about that for a minute. Those kinds of memories are hard to forget, Captain. They're hard to warp… and they don't shatter.'

‘Well, whatever happens from now on,' Garcia said, jumping in, ‘it's got nothing to do with us anymore. We've done our job. The ball is now totally in the DA's court.'

Captain Blake chuckled. ‘Yeah, like they'll convince him to talk, right?' She shook her head. ‘This is going to be another war fought inside a courtroom.'

‘He's not walking away from this, Captain,' Hunter told her. ‘But he's just as much a victim in this as anyone else. His parents ended his life even before it began – all that violence and abuse… never loved – he had nothing to grow into, except for a monster. He needs help, not incarceration. Even the DA understands that. James Whitely will serve a prison sentence for the rest of his life, I have no doubt of that, but it won't be in a regular prison. The district attorney will probably recommend that he be sent to DSH Patton – the most secure psychiatric hospital in California, and one of the best in the land. He'll have a better chance of getting help there than anywhere else.'

‘Talking about victims,' Captain Blake asked, ‘how is Miss Mendoza doing?'

‘Very weak,' Hunter replied. ‘But she's fighting. The doctors said that she was entering the last stages of starvation. That's when the body starts consuming its own muscles for protein – including the heart. As a result of lacking every nutrient possible, she has developed anemia and is showing the initial symptoms of beriberi.' Hunter nodded. ‘But she's a fighter, even her doctors are saying so. All we can do is wait and hope for the best.'

Captain Blake's gaze settled on the report on Hunter's desk one last time.

‘You know,' she said, her voice a little quieter than normal. ‘There's no doubt that James Whitely was a monster. But he was a monster who was going after worse monsters. Some of the people he took, probably deserved what they got.'

‘Well, I didn't,' Garcia said, indicating the bandaging on his chest.

‘How is that going, by the way?' Blake asked.

‘Like a Texan ribeye steak that's been left on the grill for too long. That's how it's going. And get this, right? These were my wife's exact words, as she changed my bandages this morning.' Garcia put on a silly voice. ‘?"About time you got a few manly scars, isn't it?"?' Garcia shook his head at the room. ‘I mean – what the hell?' He lifted his hands, showing Hunter and Captain Blake the deep scars in his palms from his very first investigation with the UVC Unit. ‘What does she think these are? Birth marks?'

They all broke out laughing.

Hunter got up and reached for his jacket.

Garcia did the same.

‘We were just about to go get some lunch, Captain,' Hunter said. ‘Want to come along?'

‘Where are you guys going?'

Hunter glanced at his partner. ‘I'm thinking somewhere where we can get a nice Texan ribeye steak… medium rare.'

‘Oh, you've got jokes now, do you?' Garcia said.

Captain Blake smiled. ‘How about we go to a Brazilian barbecue house, instead? I know a great one called "Down in the Basement".'

Garcia threw his hands up in the air as they all walked out of the UVC Unit's office. ‘Great, everyone is a comedian today.' He pushed ahead. ‘And wherever we're going… we're all just having salad.'