The Executioner (24 page)

Garcia frowned as he took his seat. ‘What, you don’t think it’s cold?’ The question was directed at Monica.

‘Good God, don’t ever go to Pennsylvania if you think this is cold.’ As soon as those words left her lips, her face tightened and she looked away nervously.

‘It’s OK,’ Garcia said in a comforting tone. ‘If it’s any consolation, Robert already knew where you were from, from your accent.’

She threw Hunter a questioning look. ‘Really?’

‘Pennsylvania Dutch, right?’ he said matter-of-factly.

‘He’s full of those little tricks,’ Garcia noted. ‘That’s why he’s not invited to many parties.’

She smiled. The double icebreaker was working. Hunter saw her shoulders relax and she let go of the breath she’d been holding since they arrived.

‘You’re right. I’m from Pennsylvania.’ She looked from Hunter to Garcia and paused for a moment. Without being asked to, she decided to start at the beginning.

Mollie Woods was born on Christmas Day in Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania. Though she was born a healthy baby, her lengthy and complicated labor had put too much strain on her mother’s womb, and Mollie was to be her first and only child.

Mollie’s birth brought changes to her deeply religious family. Her father, John, found it hard to come to terms with the fact that he would never have the son he always wanted. In his eyes, God had punished him and his wife with a daughter. And that punishment had to be passed on.

As soon as she was able to speak, Mollie was taught to pray. And pray she did. Three times a day, naked in the corner, kneeling on dried corn kernels.

As time went by, John Woods’s bitterness grew. He used his faith as a hiding place for his anger and little Mollie was always at the receiving end of it all. During her childhood, her skin was mostly black and blue.

When it came to looks, Mollie took after her mother, with a delicate heart-shaped face, plush pink lips, big hypnotic brown eyes and long, wavy brown hair. At thirteen, she was taller than most girls her age and her womanly body was developing fast.

John Woods saw Mollie’s beauty as a new test from God. She was already attracting the attention of older boys, and John knew it was only a matter of time before she gave in to temptation and sin. He had to teach her right from wrong.

The teachings started just after her thirteenth birthday. Twice a week her mother worked the night shift at a twenty-four-hour supermarket in the city center. Mollie dreaded those nights. In the darkness of her room, she’d curl up in bed and pray, but no God would listen. Time and time again she had to endure her father hammering his body against hers, showing her what boys wanted to do to her.

The nightmares began around the same time her father started invading her room. And with them came the nosebleeds. At first Mollie could make no sense of the violent images she saw, but they felt real. Falling asleep was so frightening she’d do anything to stay awake. But soon her troubling visions expanded. They weren’t confined to her nightmares anymore. She started having them in broad daylight – kids being beaten and abused by their parents, wives by their husbands – the images just kept on coming, until the day one petrified her soul.

She had a vision of her mother being run over by a drunk driver. That night, in vain, she begged her mother not to go to work. Her father had slapped her across the face and sent her to her room. He’d had enough of her crazy dreams. He smiled the secret smile and told her that once her mother had gone to work, he would go to her room and pray with her.

The knock on the door from the police came an hour after Mollie’s mother had left. She’d been involved in a hit-and-run accident and died instantly.

That was the night Mollie ran away. The night something snapped inside her father’s head.

Both detectives listened to Mollie’s story in silence, but she didn’t tell them everything. She was careful not to mention her real name, anything about the beatings she received or any of the abuse and humiliation she was subjected to at the hands of her father. She was ashamed.

Hunter had been right. Having run away at the age of fourteen, Mollie had to mature faster than most.

She told them how the nightmares and visions had stopped once she’d left Pennsylvania, and how she thought she’d finally got rid of them. But a few days ago, inside Los Angeles Union Station, the visions came back.

‘What exactly did you see?’ Hunter kept his voice low and even.

She tensed and cupped her hands around her hot chocolate mug. ‘Unfortunately, I can’t control anything about these visions. The images are hazy and not always clear. Most of the time I see them as if I was watching a movie on a screen.’

‘Like a spectator?’ Hunter suggested.

‘Yes.’ A quick nod. ‘But that day inside Union Station was different.’

‘Different how?’

She breathed deeply and her gaze lowered. ‘I was part of it. I was the one attacking him.’ Her voice weakened.

‘You saw it in the first person?’ Garcia asked.

A subtle nod. ‘I was the killer.’

Garcia looked uneasy for a second.

‘Wait,’ Hunter interrupted. ‘Attacking him – who?’

Another deep breath. ‘A priest.’

Hunter kept a steady face, knowing that sudden emotional reactions, even facial expressions, could make this even harder for her.

‘We were inside some dark church, I don’t know where. The priest was just kneeling in front of me, crying.’ She had a sip of her hot drink and Hunter noticed her shaky hands. ‘I showed him something . . . a piece of paper, I think.’

‘A piece of paper?’ Garcia queried.

She nodded.

‘Could it have been a picture or maybe a drawing?’ Hunter asked.

‘It could have. I can’t be sure.’

Traffic was heating up. A car stalled on East First Street and a barrage of horns came alive. She waited for them to die down.

‘I never got to see it. I just showed it to the priest.’

Hunter noted something down in his black notebook. ‘What did you see next?’

She hesitated for a second, as if what she was about to say made no sense. ‘A dog’s head. I showed the priest a dog’s head, and it terrified him.’

‘Where did the head come from?’ Garcia this time.

‘I don’t know.’ She shook her head. ‘I just had it with me.’ Another quick hesitation. ‘Together with the sword I used to . . .’ Her voice trailed off.

Hunter allowed a few silent moments to go by before asking her if she remembered which hand held the sword.

‘The right one,’ she said with conviction.

‘Can you remember anything specific about the hand? Skin color? Were there any rings on the fingers? A watch?’

She thought about it for a second. ‘Black gloves.’

The wind had picked up as more dark clouds gathered in the sky. It was getting colder, but the girl didn’t seem to notice it.

‘Anything else you remember from your vision?’

She nodded as she stared straight into Hunter’s eyes. ‘The number three. I drew it onto the priest’s chest after I killed him.’

This time it wasn’t the cold wind that made Garcia shiver.

Hunter held her gaze. Up to now, all the information Mollie had given them could’ve been obtained from the papers. The story that the killer had showed his victim a piece of paper could’ve been made up. They had no way of confirming it. But not the numbering. There was no way she could’ve known about the numbering.

‘When you came to see us.’ Hunter broke the uncomfortable silence. ‘Just before I left the room, you said something to me, do you remember?’

He got no response.

‘You said, “He knew about the fire. He knew what scared her.” Do you remember saying that?’

‘Yes.’

‘What did you mean by that?’ Hunter pushed his empty coffee cup to one side and leaned forward.

‘At first I didn’t know. It was like I had no control. Those words simply shot out of my lips. But just a minute after you left I saw it. And this time it was even stronger than the previous one.’ Her voice wavered for a second.

‘What did you see?’

‘A woman tied to an armchair. She was as scared as the priest was, but she couldn’t scream.’

Garcia ran his hand over his mouth and chin as if stroking a goatee. ‘Was she gagged?’

‘No. Her lips had been—’ the girl shook her head, hardly believing her own words ‘—glued shut.’

‘Glued?’ Hunter asked surprised. ‘Like with crazy glue?’

She nodded. ‘Her face was also covered in something sticky, like some weird type of gel.’

She couldn’t have known that either
. Hunter pulled the collar of his leather jacket tighter against his neck.

‘Did you see this as a first person again?’ Garcia pressed.

‘Yes.’ She looked away as if it were her fault.

Hunter wanted to explore the picture story further. ‘Did you show the woman a picture, like you did with the priest?’

‘Yes, but again I didn’t see what it was.’

‘You said this vision was stronger than the previous one, stronger how?’ Garcia asked.

Mollie took a moment and Hunter understood her hesitation. She hadn’t had a vision in almost four years. Now they’d come back. And in the form of the most hideous murders Hunter had ever seen.

She squeezed her eyes tightly shut. ‘The visions I have are usually silent – images only, but not this one.’ She paused. ‘I said something to the woman.’

Hunter kept silent, allowing her to continue in her own time.

‘I said,
Welcome to your fear, Mandy
. . .’

Hunter’s heart raced.

‘. . .
I know what scares you to death
.’

The statement was so surprising that it took several seconds for it to register with both detectives.

‘Was it your voice?’ Hunter queried, still a little stunned by how much she knew. ‘When you said those words to the woman. Was it your voice or somebody else’s?’

‘My own,’ she whispered.

Garcia rubbed his face vigorously, lost for words.

‘Somehow I knew the woman in the chair was scared of fires,’ the girl continued. ‘That’s why I said those words to you.’

Hunter leaned back in his chair and thought about it for a moment.

‘These visions last only about thirty seconds, maybe a minute. I don’t know why I see them. I don’t know why they feel so real. I don’t know why I wasn’t a spectator like all the previous ones. I wish I did, but I don’t have all the answers.’ She paused and looked away from Hunter. ‘What I’m trying to tell you is: whoever this killer is, he knows about their fears.’

Click, click, click
. The person holding the camera on the other side of East First Street quickly snapped three consecutive pictures without anyone noticing.

‘Is there anything else you remember about these visions, Mollie?’ Garcia asked and saw the girl’s eyes widen in shock. She looked uncertain for a split second before reaching for her bag.

Hunter reached for her hand. ‘Wait.’

Mollie looked at him, then jerked his hand away angrily and stood up.

‘Please listen to me.’ Hunter and Garcia shot to their feet at the same time.

‘This has all been a mistake.’

‘No, it hasn’t.’ Hunter’s tone was firm but unthreatening. ‘Just give me one minute to explain. Then, if you still wanna go, no one will stop you.’

She paused just long enough for Hunter not to allow her uncertainty to settle. ‘I didn’t know if you’d ever call again. You left before an officer had a chance to write down your details. You left us nothing, so I had to go with the only thing we had – your Pennsylvanian accent. We did a quick search. Your name came up as a missing person.’

She went rigid.

‘We didn’t tell your father.’

Earlier on, when she told them about her obsessively religious parents, she kept the story centered around her mother, rarely mentioning her father. When she did, her body tensed, her posture shifted and her movements were nervy. Hunter saw how scared she was of him.

‘And we won’t tell him,’ Hunter said positively.

Her eyes held Hunter’s gaze for a while longer before shifting towards Garcia. He nodded and gave her a confident wink as if saying ‘we won’t tell if you don’t’.

Her body relaxed slightly.

‘I promise you, Mollie, we weren’t intruding.’ Hunter paused. ‘And we could really use your help.’

There was something calming, something trustworthy about the man standing in front of her. The tense moment evaporated and she sat back down. ‘The reason why I called you today . . .’

‘You had another vision?’ Garcia guessed.

‘No. Not a vision, a flash.’

Click, click, click
. Three more pictures.

‘What do you mean a flash?’