‘Yes,’ Garcia nodded. ‘Robert Hunter, this is Detective Jack Winstanley from the Central Bureau’s northeast division.’
They shook hands.
‘Hunter . . .’ Winstanley said, while his brow creased for an instant. ‘You’re the guys who are investigating that cop’s murder, aren’t you? The one at the marina a few days ago. He used to be with the South Bureau, right?’
‘Andrew Nashorn,’ Hunter replied. ‘Yes.’
Winstanley rubbed the point between his caterpillar eyebrows with his index finger. Hunter and Garcia knew exactly what was coming.
‘Are we talking about the same killer here? Was he chopped up like the guy in there?’
‘I haven’t seen the scene yet,’ Hunter replied.
‘Don’t give me that horseshit. If you’re here to take over
Hunter and Garcia exchanged a quick look. There was no point denying it.
‘Yes,’ Hunter said. ‘It probably is the same perpetrator.’
‘Mother of God.’
Seventy-Six
Though the first room was, in essence, a waiting room, it’d been done up to look like a residential living area – a comfortable sofa, two comfortable armchairs, a low, glass-and-chrome coffee table, a fluffy oval rug, and framed paintings on the walls. A receptionist’s desk sat half-hidden in the corner, expertly positioned so as not to intrude. Two forensics agents were silently working the room. Hunter noticed that the door wasn’t alarmed and it didn’t look to have been forced; no CCTV cameras were visible. There were no footprints on the rug or carpet. He and Garcia crossed to the door on the other side, to the right of the desk.
As with the previous two crime scenes, the first thing Hunter noticed once he pushed the door open was the blood – large, thick pools of it that had stained most of the carpet, and thin, arterial sprays that crisscrossed each other on the walls and furniture. Hunter and Garcia paused by the door for an instant, as if the horror of what was before them had produced a force field, keeping them from stepping into the room.
What was left of Littlewood’s dismembered body was resting on a blood-soaked, wheeled office chair that had been positioned about five feet in front of a large, rosewood executive desk. No arms, no legs. Just a disfigured torso and head, covered in sticky, crimson blood. His mouth was open, frozen in a scream that no one heard. By the amount of dried-up dark blood that had spilled from his mouth and now caked his chin and chest, Hunter knew his tongue had been taken from him. There were deep cuts all over his torso – clear evidence of torture. His left nipple had been cut off. Through all the blood, Hunter couldn’t really tell, but there seemed to be something different about the skin around his right nipple. Both eyelids were open. His right eye looked straight ahead in horror, but there was no left eye, just a mutilated, empty dark hole. Despite the heat in the room, Hunter’s blood ran cold.
His eyes slowly traveled the five feet between the body and the executive desk. The computer monitor, the books, and everything else that once occupied it were now on a messy pile on the floor. The desk had become the stage for the killer’s new repulsive sculpture.
Both of Littlewood’s arms had been severed at the elbow joints and placed at opposite ends on the stage, one facing north, the other facing south. The wrists had been clearly broken, but they hadn’t been severed from the arms. The index and middle fingers on both hands had been pulled apart from each other to form a common V-sign. The other fingers, with the exception of the thumbs, had been severed from both hands.
Both index fingers’ knuckles had been dislocated, creating a horrible lump, which protruded outward from the hands like a tumor. The wrists were twisted forward, as if the palms were trying to touch the inside of the forearms. On the left hand, the fingers in a V-shape were fully extended, their tips touching the stage. From a distance, it looked just like what kids do when they play ‘walking fingers’. The fingers in a V-shape looked like legs, the hand like a body. The left thumb had been dislocated and pushed slightly forward.
On the right hand, the ‘walking fingers’ were also touching the stage, but their tips had been cut off at the first phalange, making them look like shorter legs. As with the left hand, the thumb looked dislocated and it had been pushed forward, but its tip was obviously broken, as it was awkwardly pointing up towards the ceiling.
Hunter looked up, checking if the disjointed tip was pointing at anything specific. Nothing. There were a few blood splatters on the ceiling, but that was all.