‘That wasn’t the end of it,’ Emiliano continued, crossing his arms in front of his chest – another telltale reflex. ‘I had no idea how long I’d been in the back of the van for – forty minutes, an hour… I don’t know – but I was fucking freezing. The van finally came to a stop and I thought that that was it. We were back home – punishment over, you know? But I should’ve known better.’ He took a breathing pause. The focus in his eyes stayed exactly where it was. ‘The back door to the van swung open and there he was – asshole Shaun – with a fucking water hose.’
This time, even Hunter cringed.
Emiliano shook his head. ‘I got drenched from head to toe. Shaun slammed the door shut and we took off again. By the time we got back home, I could barely move. I couldn’t feel my fingers. I couldn’t feel my toes. My body was just beginning to show signs of hypothermia. I was ill for over a month after that – pneumonia.’ He shrugged and the focus finally vanished from his eyes. ‘How I didn’t die that night, or in the days that followed, I have no idea. He told me that if I ever told my mother about that night, the consequences would be severe… for both of us.’
‘Did you ever tell anyone?’ Garcia asked.
Emiliano’s headshake was almost imperceptible. ‘No one. Not even Lexy.’
‘Lexy?’
‘My friend who was drinking beer with me in the living roomwhen Shaun got home.’ Emiliano shook the memory away with a head movement. ‘So yes, Detectives, like I’ve said, that asshole deserved whatever he got. And I really hope that it was something nasty.’
Thirty-Nine
Once they left Watts, Hunter and Garcia dropped Craig off at the My Club Youth Center in Vermont – a charity shelter that offered help to abandoned children and runaway kids from abusive homes. The shelter was run by people who had suffered abuse themselves when young… people who truly understood what Craig was going through.
Back in the car, Garcia sat still for a moment.
‘I really hope that kid manages to make a life for himself in this city. He seems like a good kid.’
‘He does,’ Hunter agreed, his eyes back on the large, rectangular white building that was the youth center.
He hoped for the same, but he and Garcia both knew the harsh reality of Los Angeles – to a few, that city would truly become paradise on earth, but to so many who descended on the City of Light, full of hopes and dreams, searching for a new start, the City of Angels would turn out to be the exact opposite – the City of Broken Dreams, full of lost and desperate souls… the place where innocence came to die and demons were born.
‘So what’s our next step?’ Garcia asked, switching on the engine. ‘Because the theory has definitely proved right, Robert – our killerishunting down parents who were violent toward their kids and paying them back in kind and with dividends, like the captain put it, which can only mean that the killer himselfsuffered abuse in the form of excessive violence at the hands of his own parents, right?’
Hunter agreed with a nod. ‘Enough to completely fracture his mind and transform him from an abused kid to a murderer, waging his own crusade on other parents.’
‘So if his parents’ violence is what broke him,’ Garcia speculated. ‘If that is really what put him on this crazy revenge path, then chances are that they were also his very first victims, right? This guy has probably murdered his own mother and father.’
Another firm nod from Hunter. ‘He probably has. And that was the start of it all. That was the day that his mind fractured for good.’ He lifted two fingers at Garcia. ‘In theory, we get two kinds of homicidal fractured minds derived from abuse – explosive and composed. Explosive would be identical to what “temporary insanity” is, except it’s not temporary.’
‘So the person loses it and lashes out in a fit of rage,’ Garcia said.
‘In a fit of uncontrollable rage,’ Hunter corrected him. ‘The lashing out is usually exceptionally violent and very messy, and it happens suddenly – hence the term “explosive”. The subject hits back and he won’t stop hitting until all the bottled-up rage inside him has eased up. That’s the fracture, right there, and it has the potential to completely erase the line between right and wrong from the subject’s conscious mind.’
‘So I’m assuming that what you called a composed, homicidal, fractured mind is the “hit back”, but served cold.’
‘Exactly,’ Hunter confirmed. ‘The mind fractures in the same way, the line between right and wrong is also blurred, but there’s no explosion of rage. Instead, the revenge attack is planned out and the risks are calculated. These tend to be just as violent, but a lot tidier. And it usually involves torture. They are just as dangerous as the explosive types, but a hell of a lot harder to catch.’
‘And of course,’ Garcia nodded, ‘that’s the type that we’re after. Why wouldn’t it be?’
Forty
In Watts, before Hunter and Garcia parted ways with Officer Emiliano Esqueda, Hunter had asked him one last question, just to tie up a possible loose end. He asked him if he knew if Shaun Daniels had sought help for his drinking and/or anger problems when he was still together with Emiliano’s mother. The officer’s reply had been a resounding ‘no chance’. He was very sure of it.
‘So what’s our next move, Robert?’ Garcia asked, as they finally drove away from the youth center. ‘Because I’m a little stuck. Our best theory here… actually, our only theory here, is that our victims have sought help in the form of therapy, right? That’s how the details of the physical violence they inflicted on their kids got revealed.’
Hunter looked to be in full thinking mode.
‘The problem is,’ Garcia continued, ‘even if our theory is correct, it’s not like we can just go and have a chat with every therapist and anger-management specialist in this city.’ He laughed as he veered left to take South Alameda Street. ‘We’re talking about LA here, arguably the most neurotic city on the planet, where having therapy is as common as having a cup of coffee. The number of therapists, counselors, anger-management specialists, voodoo doctors… whatever, in LA, must be in the hundreds, if not thousands.’
‘The exercise would be pointless, anyway,’ Hunter said. ‘Allof those professions have a code of conduct. None of them would disclose the names of their clients without a warrant, which we wouldn’t be able to get. Plus, the killer could be the therapist, the psychologist, the counselor… whoever. In that case, if we turn up at their offices asking questions, all we’ll do is warn the killer that we’re on his trail.’
All Garcia could do was laugh. ‘So basically, we’re cooked, right? Case over.’ He shrugged. ‘We have no way of knowing if either of our victims did, in fact, talk to somebody about the violence they inflicted upon their kids. And even if we knew for sure that they had talked to someone, we then have no way of finding out who they actually talked to because there are no records.’
‘Maybe there are,’ Hunter came back.
