(2011) The Gift of Death (11 page)

He cut a thick slice of butter and dropped it into a wide casserole pot set on the hob. As the butter started to bubble and melt he dropped the onion into the dish and gave it a good stir. He peeled three cloves garlic, chopped them into small pieces and added them to the pot. A heady aroma filled the room as he continued to stir the mixture.

When he finished his scotch he opened the icebox and took out a chilled bottle of Chablis, some of which he would add to the dish. He poured himself a glass. With a slotted spoon he scooped out the browned onion and garlic from the pot and set them aside in a white china bowl. He added more butter to the pot, but the heat was still a little high and the fat began to burn a little. He would need to stir it constantly to prevent it from blackening and so, with his left hand, he reached into the icebox for the veal. He felt for the waxy paper and brought the package out. It was generously plump, he thought; perhaps the deli had given Nic slightly larger pieces than they needed. It wouldn’t be a problem, as he could always mince anything that was left over and make them into veal burgers for lunch the next day.

With his left hand he undid the package, enjoying the feel of the smooth waxed paper on his skin. The veal looked thick, plump, and of good quality. He picked up one of the pieces of shin and added it to the sizzling pan. There was room for one more; he could fry them in two batches. But as he picked up the second shin of veal he noticed something underneath the third piece that seemed out of place, a slither of red meat amongst the white. He nudged the veal away, reeling back as he did so. Sitting on top of the last piece of meat was a tongue, its stump bloody and raw. For a moment he thought the deli must have given Nic a different piece by mistake; perhaps one of the counter staff had thrown it in for free with her order. He took a step nearer and looked closer, fear rising up inside him.

The tongue was not from a cow, pig or any other animal. It was unmistakably human.

12

Kate looked around her mother’s garden, at the jagged line of wire that ran along the top of the wall like a sinister garland. The house was protected by one of the best security companies in the city, and outside the gates Josh had stationed an unmarked police car. Yet still Kate did not feel safe.

‘
You can stay here as long as you like, you know that,’ said Kate, catching her mother’s eye in the distance, as she looked up from one of her rose beds. Hope waved across the garden at the two women. ‘In fact, I think my mother has fallen in love with you already.’

‘
Thank you, that’s so kind,’ said Cassie. ‘But there’s only a limited amount of time I can leave Moisie. Ron loves cats, but I miss him, you know?’

‘
Like I said, he’s welcome here too.’

‘
He’s so used to being a house cat that I think this -,’ she said, gesturing at the expanse of lawn and gardens, ‘would freak him out. Although I can’t see it I can tell it’s beautiful by the birdsong. That and the way your mother talks about it.’

‘
To be honest I think it’s the only thing that has kept her going since my father died.’

‘
I’m sorry. When did he – pass away?’

‘
Two years ago now.’

‘
That must have been hard.’

‘
Yes, it was,’ said Kate, running her hand through her hair. ‘But it helped in other ways too. Made me do some serious thinking and helped me make some changes to my life.’

‘
Such as what?’ asked Cassie gently.

Cassie felt Kate’s hesitation and immediately hoped she hadn’t offended her.

‘
Kate, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to pry. Really you don’t need to –‘

‘
No, no. It’s fine, honestly.’ She took a deep breath. ‘After dad died I suppose I felt I had to take stock of my life. I wanted a child, desperately, and at the same time felt like I couldn’t carry on as a forensic artist. Putting face to death was just too much for me. I know it sounds silly, but sometimes when I sat there in my lab, late at night, moulding the face of a killer out of a piece of clay, I felt like I was giving birth to evil.’

She took a sip of her mint tea, suddenly self-conscious of the sound of her swallow.

‘
Was it like that with Gleason?’

Kate nodded. ‘I’ll never forget the moment he came to me. I suppose it helped because you gave me such a detailed description, ten times more accurate than I would have got from a sighted person. The fact you felt the contours of his face meant that my job was so much easier.’

Kate watched as tears slid down Cassie’s pale cheeks.

‘
You had only just woken up after surgery and you were still a bit groggy. The medics were set against it, they said you were too weak, but you were insistent, remember? And over the course of those two hours you managed to give me a perfect description. You were so determined, so brave. I brought a couple of lumps of clay and a bowl of water with me and you helped me sculpt his face. I had to lift your fingers you were so weak, but your mind was strong, so strong.

‘
I went away and worked through the night. It was five or six in the morning when I suddenly got the sensation that I was looking into the face of a monster. I felt physically sick. In fact, I think I was, in the basin of the lab. It was as if I had created something unspeakable. I had to shower, get that feeling that I had been polluted off my skin. But no matter how hard I scrubbed that sense was still there, underneath me, inside me. Soon after, the nightmares started. I saw Gleason’s face staring out of the darkness at me. Felt the stickiness on my skin. Dreamt that he was pushing a tongue made of clay into my mouth. Night after night I woke up screaming. God knows it must have been hard for Josh. And it carried on like that until Gleason was sentenced and imprisoned.’

She suddenly became aware of herself. ‘Sorry, listen to me babbling on about myself. God, Cassie. I know it’s nothing compared to what you went through. I must sound so pathetic.’

‘
There’s no need to apologise. It must have been hard for you. I never realised.’

‘
And why should you have done? You were going through so much yourself. That was the last thing I wanted to burden you with.’

‘
And what does Josh – sorry, Detective Harper – think? About what is happening now, I mean.’

‘
He thinks it could be some psycho Gleason met in prison. Perhaps someone he helped. And in exchange his friend would act out some sort of sick plan at a later date.’

‘
Jesus.’

‘
But don’t worry. If that’s the case it’s only a matter of time before he’s caught. Harper and his staff will be working through a list of the inmates at the prison who were inside at the same time as Gleason and who have subsequently been released. There can’t be that many of them and all of them should be easily tracked down.’

The two women didn’t speak for a few moments. Cassie cleared her throat and shifted slightly in her seat, moving towards Kate.

‘
You know you said you were pregnant. When did you find out?’

‘
That’s the frightening thing. Whoever took and killed that baby knew about it before I did.’

‘
What?’

‘
I only did a test after I had found the child in the sea.’

‘
And nobody else knew you were trying for a child?’

‘
Well, only the people at the fertility clinic, and, of course, the father – Detective Harper. Josh. But by the way we’re no longer together.’

‘
I see.’

Just then Kate’s cell rang. She looked at the caller I.D.

‘
Sorry, Cassie. I better take this.’

She stood up and walked away from the table. Her mother looked up from her garden and smiled.

‘
Hi, Kate. It’s Josh.’

‘
Hello, Detective Harper.’

‘
Look, we haven’t the luxury of playing that silly fucking game, Kate.’

‘
What’s happened?’

‘
Jordan Weislander – in the district attorney’s office -‘

‘
I know who he is, Josh. I was there remember.’

‘
Last night Weislander was at home cooking dinner for his wife and two friends when he opened his icebox and found a human tongue sandwiched between his choice cuts of veal.’

‘
So it is to do with Gleason.’

‘
Yep, sure looks like it. More or less at the same time a homeless guy was admitted to California Hospital Medical on Hope Street. He woke up after taking god knows what – booze, drugs or both – to find himself without a tongue. Apparently it had been cut out when he was unconscious.’

Kate was too shocked to speak.

‘
Look, I know we’re going through our own problems now –‘

‘
You could say that.’

‘
But, Kate. Don’t take any risks. I know you – I’ve seen the way you work in the past. This is serious, dangerous. Whoever we’re dealing with here is clearly a psychopath with no regard for anyone.’

‘
Do you have any leads yet?’

‘
We should have some names soon. I’ve got the whole team working on it. I’ll let you know what happens.’

‘
Okay.’

‘
Also, I’ve just heard that the
Times
is leading on the story tomorrow – you and the kid, Cassie and the fingertips, Weislander and the tongue. God only knows how it got out – but if the journalist Cynthia Ross –‘

‘
Not her again.’

‘
Yeah. Anyway, if she calls you, do me a favour and say no comment, will you?’

‘
Yes, of course.’

‘
Sorry, I’ve got to go.’

‘
Bye.’

Kate returned to the table. She told Cassie what Josh had said. The news left the two women even more fearful than before.

13

‘
Fuck,’ said Josh as he picked up the newspaper. The Sunday edition of
Times
featured the story as an exclusive on the front page, along with the headline, ‘GROTESQUE GIFTS LINKED TO GLEASON, DEAD SERIAL KILLER’. The story was bylined Cynthia Ross and was illustrated with photographs of Kate, Cassie, Weislander and a large image of Gleason himself staring out of the page.

Two nights ago, February 9, Jordan Weislander, prosecutor in the office of the state’s district attorney, opened the icebox in his Pasadena home to discover a human tongue. Investigations by the
Times
have revealed that he is the third person to receive a grotesque present of human body parts since the beginning of the new year.

Over the past two weeks, three people closely connected with the notorious Bobby Gleason serial killer case have received similarly chilling gifts. On January 25, Kate Cramer, the forensic artist who created an accurate likeness of Gleason – an image that led to his arrest - was taking photographs at her beach house in Malibu when she spotted a baby in the water. Despite trying to revive the 15-month old – identified as Sara-Jane Gable, daughter of a Los Feliz couple – the baby was pronounced dead at the scene.

On February 2, Cassie Veringer received a package of human fingertips at her apartment in Venice Beach. Ms Verginer would have been the last murder victim of Gleason – the notorious serial killer whose reign of killings lasted from 1992 until 1997 – had she not escaped from his vehicle and fled to safety. Before her daring escape Cassie, blind as a result of juvenile glaucoma, managed to feel the face of her attacker and it was with her help that Kate Cramer successfully created such a detailed portrait of the serial killer. Gleason’s other victims were Teresa Collins, 17, Frances Silla, 19, Elizabeth Ventura, 18, Tracey Newton, 18, and Jane Gardener, 20.

Despite repeated requests neither the LAPD nor any of the three persons directly involved – Jordan Weislander, Kate Cramer or Cassie Veringer – would comment on this story.

As this newspaper reported only a few weeks ago, it is ten years since Gleason was arrested. Police sources would not comment on whether the publication of this recent article has any bearing on the new developments.

Bobby Gleason was arrested in January 1997 and he was sentenced to death a year later. However, in July 2000, Gleason, 49 – who was on Death Row in San Quentin State Prison - was discovered dead in his cell He had committed suicide.

He threw the paper across his desk. That’s all he needed, some kind of fucking media circus. And true enough, two minutes later Karen Cain – the media spokeswoman for his division – was on the phone relating the dozens of requests from journalists asking for more information. He told her he would draft a brief statement.