‘No.’ Garcia, this time. ‘We’ve checked it. No MPR.’
‘Mr. Daniels lived alone in a one-bedroom apartment in Lomita,’ Hunter explained. ‘No indications of a partner. Once he was gone, the apartment was left completely empty.’ He indicated the same photo that Captain Blake had been looking at just moments earlier. ‘No one to attend to anything.’
‘Fuck!’ the captain breathed out the word. Her attention returned to the board and to the photo that Hunter had indicated. It showed three dead birds inside a large birdcage. Their bodies were already in the very late stages of decomposition, with maggots about halfway through their morbid feasting.
‘The poor things had no food or water for a month?’ she asked.
‘No, not exactly,’ Hunter explained. ‘They probably only ran out of food and water just about a week ago. Give or take a day.’
The captain’s eyes narrowed.
‘Birds have a very fast metabolism,’ Hunter clarified. ‘Especially small birds. They store almost no fat. That’s why they’re constantly feeding and hydrating. If they completely run out of food and water, due to their low fat reserves, they won’t last more than four or five days, if they’re lucky. Once they’re dead, the process is pretty identical to that of a human body – blowflies… eggs… maggots… the body gets eaten. Tiny little bodies like those,’ he said, indicating the photo once again, ‘would be devoured in less than twenty-four hours. If those birds had died just after Mr. Daniels went missing, about a month ago, there’d be nothing but bones left.’
‘We were very unlucky.’ Garcia took over. ‘Those birds only died about a day or two ago.’
‘So are you saying that you think somebody fed them after the victim went missing?’ Captain Blake pushed.
‘There is that possibility,’ Garcia replied. ‘But we found noevidence inside his apartment that anyone else had been there other than us. The most probable explanation is that Mr. Daniels left enough seeds and water to last his birds quite a few days.’
The captain thought about it for a millisecond. ‘So you think he knew that he’d be taken?’
‘I don’t think he did.’ The answer came from Hunter. ‘If he suspected that he was in danger, especially mortal danger, why didn’t he run? You know… disappear. Birds do have a very fast metabolism, Captain, but they also don’t exactly overeat or drink. Many bird owners overfill their feeders out of convenience. Mr. Daniels lived alone and ran his own one-man plumbing business, which clearly meant irregular hours. Overfilling his bird feeders might be something that he’d always done.’
‘Poor little things,’ the captain commented, as her stare moved on to the next few photographs. ‘So, you were saying?’ she addressed Garcia, who once again started from the beginning, explaining what they had found out from Dr. Hove. Just like both detectives had been, Captain Blake was very surprised when Garcia told her that the victim seemed to have been tortured for days.
‘Days?’ she questioned, her gaze bouncing from Hunter to Garcia, then back to Hunter.
‘Dr. Hove explained that due to him being run over by a truck,’ Hunter said, ‘an exact timeframe for his injuries is practically impossible, but she was positive that all of the hidden injuries she found were sustained over a period of time that spanned days, not hours.’
‘Which kind of explains why he was only found twenty-nine days after he went missing,’ Garcia added. ‘The bogus hit-and-run accident was used to mask the torture injuries.’
Captain Blake spent a moment studying the injury photos on the board. ‘So whoisthis guy? And why would anyone want to torture him like this?’
‘That’s what we’ve been asking ourselves since we got his file from Research earlier today,’ Garcia replied, reaching for a printout on his desk. ‘Full name – Shaun Frederic Daniels, forty-six years old. Like Robert said, Mr. Daniels was a plumber, who ran his own small business out of his apartment in Lomita – Daniels Plumbing Ltd. He was born in Seattle, but moved to LA with his mother when he was nine years old, after his parents divorced. Mr. Daniels and his mother lived in El Segundo, where Mr. Daniels went to school, both primary and high school. He never went to university. After graduating from high school he began working construction, which he did for several years, before specializing in plumbing. He started his own business about nine years ago.’
‘Parents?’ Captain Blake asked.
‘Both deceased.’
‘Was he married?’
‘Nope,’ Garcia replied. ‘Never been married… no kids, either.’
Captain Blake faced Hunter. ‘And you said that he had no girlfriend… boyfriend… nothing?’
Hunter’s head tilted sideways as he shrugged. ‘In his apartment we found no indications that he was dating anyone. Everyone we asked said that they’d never seen him with anyone.’
‘Everyone like who?’
‘The neighbors.’
‘OK.’ Captain Blake nodded at Garcia. ‘Let’s skip the yadda, yadda for now. Any known connections to anything that could’ve earned him weeks of torture? Drugs, gangs, crime… anything?’
‘Not exactly,’ Garcia replied. ‘He did have a record. Been arrested three times for disorderly conduct and twice for DUI.’
‘Did he do any time?’
Garcia searched the printout. ‘No. Just a couple of fines and six months of community service.’
