The Crucifix Killer - Chris Carter [6]
She studied him for a long moment.
‘You’re thinking I won’t bother to call right?’ Hunter said sensing her reluctance.
‘Oh, you read minds as well? That’s a neat party trick.’
‘You should see what I can do with a deck of cards.’
They both smiled.
‘Plus, there’s nothing I like more than proving people wrong.’
She reached for the notepad on her bedside table with a smirk on her face.
Hunter took the piece of paper from her hand and kissed her right cheek. ‘I gotta go.’
‘That will be one thousand dollars, babe!’ she said gently running her fingers over his lips.
‘What?’ he asked with a shocked look. ‘But . . .’
She was already smiling back at him. ‘Sorry. I couldn’t resist after you called me a hooker.’
Outside her apartment Hunter unfolded the piece of paper in his hand. Isabella! Sexy name, he thought. He searched the street for his old Buick Lesabre. The car was nowhere to be seen.
‘Shit! I was too drunk to drive,’ he cursed himself before flagging down the first cab he saw.
*
The directions Garcia had given him took Hunter to the middle of nowhere. Little Tujunga Canyon Road, in Santa Clarita, is eighteen miles long running from Bear Divide to Foothill Boulevard in Lakeview Terrace. Almost all of it is within the Angeles National Forest. At times the woodland and mountain views are simply breathtaking. Garcia’s directions were precise and soon the taxi was driving down a tiny, bumpy, dirt road surrounded by hills, bushes and rough terrain. The darkness and nothingness was overwhelming. Twenty minutes later they finally came to an uneven lane that led up to an old wooden house.
‘I guess this is it,’ Hunter said handing the driver all the money in his pocket.
The lane was long and narrow, just wide enough to fit a standard-size car. Surrounding it were dense, impassable shrubs. Police and official vehicles were crammed everywhere making it look like a traffic jam in a desert.
Garcia was standing in front of the wooden shack talking to an agent from the crime lab, both of them holding flashlights. Hunter had to negotiate his way through the carnival of cars before joining them.
‘Jesus, talk about a place out of the way – any further and we’d be in Mexico . . . Hi there, Peter,’ Hunter said, nodding at the crime lab agent.
‘Rough night, Robert? You look just like I feel,’ Peter said with a sarcastic smirk.
‘Yeah, thanks, you look great too. When is the baby due?’ Hunter asked tapping his hand over Peter’s beer gut. ‘So what have we got here?’ He turned to face Garcia.
‘I think you better see it for yourself. It’s hard to describe what’s in there. The captain’s inside, he said he wanted to talk to you first before letting the boys tag and bag the place,’ Garcia said looking unsettled.
‘What the hell is the captain doing here? He never comes out to crime scenes. Does he know the victim?’
‘I’m as much in the dark as you are, but I don’t think so. She’s not exactly recognizable.’ Garcia’s statement made Hunter’s eyes squint with a new worry.
‘So it’s a female body?’
‘Oh, she’s female alright.’
‘Are you OK, rookie? You look a little shook up.’
‘I’m fine,’ Garcia reassured him.
‘He’s been sick a couple of times,’ Peter commented with a new sneer.
Hunter studied Garcia for a moment. He knew this wasn’t his first murder scene. ‘Who found the body? Who called it in?’
‘Apparently it was an anonymous call to 911,’ Garcia answered.
‘Oh great, one of those.’
‘Here, take this,’ Garcia said handing Robert his flashlight.
‘Would you like a barf bag as well?’ Peter joked.
Hunter paid no attention to the comment and took a moment to study the house from the outside. There was no front door. Most of the wooden planks from the front wall were missing and grass had grown through the remaining floorboards, making the front room look like a private forest. He could tell the house had once been white from flecks of peeled paint on the remains of windowsills. It was obvious that no one had lived there for a long time and that bothered