‘But that comes at a price,’ Hunter concluded.

‘Get a load of this – prices start at a mere four thousand dollars.’

‘Phew,’ Hunter whistled as he sat down.

‘Exactly. These wigs are made to order. It can take anywhere between one to two months for them to be ready and that means that whoever ordered it has to leave an address or a contact number.’ Garcia smiled enthusiastically. ‘There can’t be that many places in Los Angeles that sell European hair wigs.’

‘Catherine?’

‘What?’

‘Have you checked with Catherine Slater? Maybe she wears wigs. A lot of women do these days. She could definitely afford them.’

‘No, not yet.’ Garcia’s enthusiasm was half damped. ‘I’ll get on it straight away, but if she doesn’t wear wigs, don’t you think it’s worth getting in touch with all wigmakers in LA that sell European hair wigs?’

Hunter scratched his chin. ‘Yeah, we can give it a try. I just think our killer is too smart for that.’

‘Too smart for what?’

‘You said these wigs are made to order?’

‘Correct.’

‘But I bet if you walk into a wigmaker they would have one or two on display, like a showcase. Our killer wouldn’t be stupid enough to order a wig and leave behind a paper trail. He would simply take whatever the wigmaker had on display, pay cash for it and that would be that. Remember, the killer isn’t buying the wig for its looks, so any one would do.’ Hunter got up and walked over to the coffee machine. ‘There’s one more thing.’

‘What’s that?’

‘The internet,’ Hunter said.

Garcia frowned.

‘The internet can help us and hinder us at the same time,’ Hunter explained. ‘Maybe a few years ago it would’ve been a case of us checking the wigmakers and with just a little luck we would’ve come across something that could lead us to our killer, but today…’ He poured himself a cup of coffee. ‘Today the killer could order it over the internet from any country in the world and the wig would be with him in less than a week. He could’ve bought it from Japan or Australia or directly from Eastern Europe.’ He paused, another thought entering his mind. ‘And then we have eBay, where the killer could’ve bought it from a private owner and no one would ever know. This guy is too smart to leave a paper trail behind.’

Garcia had to admit Hunter had a point. Any half-clever person could buy almost anything over the internet these days and leave such a minuscule trail it would be almost impossible to trace it. It’s just a case of knowing where to shop.

‘We might get lucky, he might’ve taken us for granted and ordered a wig from a shop,’ Garcia said positively.

‘Maybe. I’m not discarding any possibilities. We’ll check with all wigmakers just in case.’

‘I just wanted to get at least one step closer to him before he adds another photograph to that damn board,’ Garcia said, pointing to the corkboard and drawing Hunter’s attention to it.

Hunter stood motionless for a while, his eyes fixed on the photographs.

‘Are you OK?’ Garcia asked after a minute of silence. ‘You’re not blinking.’

Hunter lifted his hand asking Garcia to wait a second. ‘We’re missing something there,’ he finally said.

Garcia turned and faced the board. All the pictures were there. Nothing had been moved, he was sure of it.

‘What are we missing?’

‘Another victim.’

Forty-Eight

‘What the hell are you talking about? What do you mean, we’re missing a victim? They are all there, seven from the first killing spree and two since he started killing again.’ Garcia’s eyes moved from the photograph board to Hunter.

‘We have a victim he didn’t mark, no double-crucifix on the back of the neck, no phone call to me. We have a victim he didn’t kill.’

‘A victim he didn’t kill? Are you high? That doesn’t even make sense.’

‘Of course it does. He didn’t kill him as he’s done with all his other victims… he got him killed.’

‘Are you listening to yourself, crazy man? Who didn’t he kill?’

Hunter’s gaze fell on Garcia. ‘Mike Farloe.’

‘Mike Farloe?’ Garcia looked mystified.

‘The real killer framed him as the Crucifix Killer, remember? I’ve even mentioned it before, over the phone when the killer called me right after we found the faceless woman, but for some reason it didn’t click.’

‘I remember you saying it, yes. I was standing right next to you.’

‘Framing him makes Mike Farloe a victim.’

‘By default,’ Garcia accepted it.

‘That doesn’t matter, he’s still a victim.’ Hunter walked back to his desk and started shuffling through pieces of paper. ‘OK, what do we know about our killer?’

‘Nothing,’ Garcia replied with a half chuckle.

‘That’s not true. We know he’s very methodical, intelligent, pragmatic and he chooses his victims very, very carefully.’

‘OK,’ Garcia said still unsure.

‘The killer didn’t just pick Mike Farloe out of the blue. Just like his victims, the subject had to fit a specific profile. The difference here is that the subject had to fit the profile of a killer. To be precise, the profile of a sadistic, religious serial killer.’

Garcia started to pick up on Hunter’s theory. ‘Meaning that if you had arrested someone who didn’t fit that profile you would’ve discarded him as the killer?’

‘Correct. The killer is smart but he also knows we’re not stupid. We wouldn’t just fall for the first person he decided to frame. It had to be the right person. Someone believable. Someone that we’d buy. Mike Farloe was the perfect choice.’

Garcia ran both of his hands through his hair pulling it back and making a small ponytail. ‘Did Mike have a criminal record?’

‘Fuck yeah. In and out of Juvi halls… Three county convictions for public nudity. He loved exposing himself to schoolkids.’

‘Pedophile?’ Garcia asked with a twist of his mouth.

‘With a capital P. He did twenty-eight months for fondling a twelve-year-old boy in a lavatory downtown.’

Garcia shook his head.

‘And where do you find a person like Mike Farloe?’ Hunter proceeded.

‘Maybe the killer knew him from before,’ Garcia offered.

‘Possible, but I doubt it. Mike was a loner, lived alone, no wife, no girlfriend, no kids. He worked as a garbage collector and spent most of his free time locked inside his little dirty apartment reading the Bible. The guy didn’t have much of a life.’

‘How about a medical record? Our killer could have access to medical records. One thing we do know is that he has medical knowledge, even Doctor Winston said he wouldn’t be surprised if the killer turned out to be a surgeon.’

Hunter nodded. ‘I was thinking exactly that.’

‘Religious cults, churches? If Mike attended any, the killer could’ve singled him out there.’

‘We’ll check that out too.’

‘What else do we know about Mike Farloe?’ Garcia asked.

‘Not much. There was no reason to investigate him any further, he confessed remember.’

‘Yes I do, and that brings me to my first why. Why the hell did he confess? Why would he confess to such heinous crimes if he didn’t commit them and he knew he’d get death?’

‘To end his life with something,’ Hunter said decisively.

‘Excuse me?’

‘You’ve heard about people that don’t have the guts to commit suicide, so instead they buy a gun and walk down the street waving it about. The police arrive, tell the person to put the gun down, the person waves it about a little more and the police shoot him dead.’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of suicide by cop.’

‘Correct. This follows the same theory. As I’ve said Mike was a loner, no friends, not much of a life and no prospect of getting a better one either. He obviously knew about the Crucifix Killer.’

‘Everyone knew about the Crucifix Killer, the press made sure of it.’

‘Right, so you won’t be surprised to know that there were some religiously fanatical people out there that actually thought the Crucifix Killer was doing the right thing. Killing sinners.’