They returned to the living room and Hunter poured himself a new measure of Scotch.

‘You said you think you know what the shadow puppets mean. I’m listening.’

Alice had a sip of her beer. ‘OK, after you and Carlos left the office, I couldn’t stop thinking about the sculpture and the shadow puppets. What you said made sense, that understanding the meaning behind those images had to be directly related to which type of bird and canine they were supposed to represent.’

Hunter nodded and offered her a seat by indicating the sofa. She took it and reached for her briefcase.

Hunter pulled one of the pine chairs by the breakfast table, turned it around and sat down with the backrest between his legs.

‘OK, so while you guys were out I went to work,’ Alice continued. ‘I searched the net for all different types of canines and medium-sized “chunky” birds. Like you suggested – crow, raven, jackdaw, whatever. I compared their images . . .’ She paused and corrected herself, ‘Actually, their silhouettes, to what we had.’

‘And what did you get?’

‘A whole bunch of stuff.’ She opened her briefcase and retrieved a few sheets of paper. ‘Well, individually, each one of the animals I checked has several metaphoric meanings. The more I looked, the more complicated it got. When I started looking at different cultures and different time periods, I was simply overrun with symbolisms.’

Hunter’s eyebrow arched inquisitively.

‘For example,’ Alice placed a sheet of paper down on the coffee table between them, ‘to several Native American Indian tribes, coyotes and wolves could mean anything from a god, to an evil being, or even the devil himself. It’s no coincidence that from cartoons to serious works of art, most drawings of demons – Satan, Beelzebub, Azazel, or any devilish creature you care to name – resemble canine figures.’

Hunter reached for the sheet and skimmed through the information on it.

‘In Egyptian mythology, Anubis is a jackal-headed god associated with mummification and the afterlife.’

Hunter nodded. ‘In the Old Kingdom pyramid texts, Anubis was the most important god of the dead. Later substituted by Osiris.’

It was Alice’s turn to look at him inquisitively.

Hunter shrugged. ‘I read a lot.’

Alice carried on. ‘Several cultures around the globe believe the raven to be a creature that comes from darkness, just like the bat. As such, it symbolizes mystery, confusion, anger, hate, aggression or anything that’s usually associated with the dark side.’ She placed a second sheet of paper on the coffee table.

Hunter reached for it.

‘A common meaning associated with the raven or the crow is . . .’ she paused like a schoolteacher to raise her students’ curiosity, ‘. . . death. Some cultures used to send a crow or a raven to an enemy to indicate that they had been marked for death. Sometimes the entire bird, sometimes just their heads.’ She took a deep breath. ‘In South and Central America some still do.’ She indicated the passages on the sheet in Hunter’s hands.

Hunter acknowledged it and had another sip of his Scotch. He finished reading the rest of the document in silence.

‘Before I move on I need to ask you something,’ Alice said.

‘Shoot.’

‘Why in the world would the killer create that sculpture and the shadow puppets? I mean, if he’s trying to communicate, why not just leave a message written on the wall as he did for that poor nurse? Why go to all that trouble, risk the amount of time it takes to create something like that, just to leave us a clue?’

Hunter slowly rotated his neck from left to right. Even after the shower and a couple of drinks, his trapezius muscle still felt stiff.

‘Usually, when criminals deliberately leave a clue behind, it is for one of two main reasons,’ he said. ‘One: to taunt and challenge the police. They believe they are too smart. They believe they can’t be caught. To them, it’s like a game. The clues up the stakes, make it more challenging.’

‘They believe they are God?’ she asked, remembering what her arts expert friend had told them.

‘Sometimes, yes.’

She chewed on those words for a moment. ‘What’s the second main reason?’

‘To confuse, to throw the police off the scent, so to speak. The clues will have nothing to do with anything, but we don’t know that, and they know that if they leave something apparently significant behind, the police will have to investigate. It’s protocol. Valuable time will be spent trying to decipher whatever bogus cryptic clue they left behind.’

‘And the more cryptic, the more time is lost by the police.’

‘Yes.’

Alice read Hunter’s expression. ‘But you don’t believe that theory applies here, do you?’

‘Not the second one, but there’s a chance that this killer is delusional enough to think he’s invincible, to think he can’t be caught. To think he’s God.’

‘But you’re not convinced.’

‘No,’ Hunter said without hesitation.

‘So what’s on your mind?’

Hunter looked down at his glass, and then back at Alice. ‘I think this killer is leaving clues behind because it’s important to him. Because the sculpture and the shadow puppets have a specific and very important meaning in all this. We don’t know what it is yet, but I just know they do. Something directly related to the killer, the victim, the act itself, or all of it. The sculpture and the shadow puppets weren’t created just for fun, just to challenge the police or to throw us off course. They weren’t created just to show us how clever the killer is. They were created because without them the act wouldn’t be complete. Not to the killer.’

Alice shifted on her seat. Something about that statement made her really uneasy.

‘So what else have you found out?’

Alice placed a third and final sheet of paper on the coffee table. ‘Something very interesting. And I think it might be the answer we’re looking for.’

Hunter leaned forward, his eyes scanning the sheet.

‘I remembered that Derek was into mythology. He was always reading about it. And he never missed an opportunity to make an analogy, or quote a mythological passage, be it in a regular conversation, or during a statement in a court of law. So I took a shot in the dark.’

‘And . . . ?’

‘I found out that the coyote shares many traits with the mythological figure of the raven,’ Alice said, ‘speed, cleverness, stealth . . . but when both figures are combined, that most commonly means . . .’ She indicated on the sheet.

Hunter read the line.

‘The figure of the coyote, when paired with that of the raven, mainly symbolizes a trickster, a liar, a deceiver . . . a creature or person who betrays.’

Thirty-Two

A police siren wailing in the distance disrupted the eerie silence that had taken over Hunter’s living room. Alice tried her best to read Hunter’s face, but failed.

‘The killer has got to be telling us about his feelings for Derek,’ Alice said. ‘He has to be telling us that he considered Derek to be a liar, a deceiver, a betrayer.’ She lifted a hand before Hunter could respond. ‘I know what you’re going to say. Derek was a lawyer, and many people consider lawyers to be deceivers and liars by trade.’

Hunter said nothing.

‘But Derek Nicholson wasn’t your regular, everyday liability or personal-injury lawyer. He was a state prosecutor. He had one client, and one client only – the State of California. His job was to prosecute criminals who’d been apprehended by the LAPD or the California State Police. And his fee didn’t depend on a win or a loss, or on how much he could bleed out of the counterpart.’

Hunter still said nothing.