NIGHT MOVES: The Stroll Murders

by Gar Mallinson

  Harry kept looking, comparing, but there was little else. The killer’s motivation was something they didn’t understand yet. If Roberta was right, there was something twisted in his childhood, a repression, something to do with ritual and control, and some kind of affinity to the forest. Did they know anything about that, the cops, the profiler? Something to ask about. They were supposed to find a guy who knew about stuff like that. Didn’t they have someone on tap?

  “Hey Sweets, what about this myth and ritual guy from Simon Fraser?”

  “Ask Alan if the budget’s been approved for him.”

  Harry called Alan and filled him in on Spencer. “Ask Roberta how she thinks our perp gets the girls to go with him. No defensive marks, so how? Okay, later.”

  Harry went back to his files.

  He reviewed everything they knew, but none of it gave Harry a clearer picture. Mostly, he thought, because they didn’t understand him and his needs. This guy just wasn’t in the human spectrum they knew. So they didn’t even know where to look, and wouldn’t know until they could see where he belonged.

  Maybe this Spencer guy could give them a hint.

  ◆◆◆

  The older brother parked the grey SUV near the log cabin. He unloaded the groceries and set them down on the narrow verandah. He listened for sounds, picked up the bags, and went in. The cabin was what it was, not much, but it suited them and allowed them the freedom to practise the rituals that sustained them.

  As young boys, they had often left their community to spend time in the neighbouring forests, to enjoy the freedom of what they had become. And what they had become was as perverse as the community from which they had escaped. Their periods of freedom were shot through with rituals of their own making that bound them to each other as surely as their union in the confines of the root cellar in which they were often kept.

  They became hunters in the forests around them. The animals they caught provided the ritual ground of their bond, the blood, warm, rich, and liberating, both for them and for the poor creatures that suffered at their hands. All of it was a satisfying parody of the actions of their father. He had purged his flock in the round chapel, the sacrificial blood dripping onto the altar, allowing the transformations that followed. The low moaning chant began then, and built and built, until the frenzy took them all.

  There was no chanting in the forests now, only the exacting rituals and the blood. Once the sacred ground had been chosen, the site prepared, and the sacrificial acts performed, the two brothers retreated to the dark chamber they had prepared for themselves, and their coupling began. The hole they carved out of the forest was dark and deep, a tiny replica of the root cellar to which they had often been banished and in which they had discovered and consoled each other.

  For them, life split into two halves. The first, governed by their father and the rituals of the chapel, the second, a free expression of their bloodlust.

  Once their escape from the community was permanent, the older one kept his brother nameless. He needed him that way, controlled and subservient.

  As time passed, the rituals became stronger, more intricate, more demanding. As they grew in power, their hunger grew as well, and their needs were no longer met by forest creatures. They turned to their own kind, hunting now at the edges of the forest, in the parks, and eventually on the streets.

  Their prey in the human world was more difficult to find, their need more pronounced. The older brother began to leave the forest for longer and longer periods. He learned to integrate with the outside world. He chose a name for himself and found he could not only survive there, but also hunt.

  For both brothers, the focus remained the forest. That’s where the rituals of transformation had to be performed. Only their hunting ground and their prey had changed. Prey was scarcer, found only at times, only in certain areas, only in the dark. Thus, the two hunted more often.

  Their own room lay beneath the floor of the cabin itself. Hewn out of dirt, it was dark and filled with a fecund scent they associated with those early formative couplings in the root cellar. Once the sacrifice had been made, that room became their place of transformation.

  ◆◆◆

  Inside the cottage, he put the groceries away and listened for his companion. It was almost time. Everything laid out, especially the inks and the brushes, the girl sedated for the final time. This one moved like forest creatures. She had grace and an abundance of magnetism. She would give them a rebirth that would last a longer time.

  He checked the single room carefully, then he moved outside into the trees to the sand-bottomed pit. He found the corner where she had dug herself out, traced the path she had taken with his eyes, and turned abruptly toward the cabin.

  Where was he? Where had he gone?

  He retraced his steps and lifted the cheap carpet, pulled up the hinged section of floor, and peered into the darkness beneath. There in the corner he saw the whiter shape of his brother and called to him gently. He must have had another episode, he thought. They were rare, but they happened. When they did, his brother retreated into darkness, curled up, and stayed there.

  He knew these episodes dated back to his childhood and the early punishments in the commune. Now, in the root cellar, he whispered soothingly in his brother’s ear, his hands caressing his naked back.

  He helped his brother out of the cellar and waited while he gathered the colours and brushes. In a short time, the inky patterns ran down their arms and across their chests.

  They wore little hide britches and soft leather shoes. The younger brother had the buckskin case around his waist secured by a rawhide thong. All they needed to subdue their prey was inside.

  They left the cabin and slid into the trees, little more than flickering, swirling patterns of blue-green.

  XX

  Spence, Alan, and Roberta stood in the staff room talking about the two privates.

  “I don’t know where she gets her stuff, but she’s got more than we have,” Spence said. “I know she’s got someone in Chinatown, but other than the Chinese girl, I don’t see how that helps us. This IT stuff bothers me. She seems to have sources we can’t find, and I still say there’s somethin’ not quite kosher about her.”

  Roberta smiled. “She’s just an overachiever, that’s all, and all of it’s in the clouds. She lives there rather than here, at least during her working day. Maybe that’s what gets to you. If you notice, other than Harry, who seems disinterested in that part of her life, her friends all come from the same place, the IT end of things. Her sources are probably hackers, and she’ll be good at that.”

  Alan’s phone rang and he walked away from the two women.

  “Harry wants to know if we’re ready for this guy Spencer at SFU. I’ll go check with Josie. She’s got to okay to pay him.”

  He glanced at her office door, saw the blinds were down, and knocked twice. He heard a grunted “Come” and walked in. Josie Atardo was sitting quietly at her desk looking out the window and rocking back and forth in her swivel chair. Alan knew the signs and waited a moment.

  “We’ve got a guy in Vancouver at SFU who’s an expert on myth and ritual. We need him over here. Has his fee been authorized yet? We can get him here tomorrow. We really do need him.”

  She sighed. “This fuckin’ case gets any more expensive, the budget’s gonna drain away to nothin’. I’ve looked at the request. He’s bloody expensive for somebody who can’t do anything but talk. But I got a pile of people breathin’ down my neck, and a swarm of bloody reporters, so yeah, get him, I’ll pay. And get this damn case solved before we’re all lookin’ for jobs. Go!”

  Alan walked back to the women, nodded, and picked up the phone to call Harry.

  “You could do a lot worse,” Roberta said. “I’ve heard of him. He helped in a couple of cases in Ontario, and he’s good. We should learn enough to understand this sicko better, and if we can understand the rituals, we can probably find the source, where he came from. If we can do that, we’v
e got him. We just don’t know where to look yet. I’ve seen the crime scene stuff, but what I haven’t seen are the sites. Can you show me?”

  “We can’t do anything here, and until tonight, we can’t get anything from the street. Besides, we need to get out of here before the boss sees us standing around. You coming, Spence?”

  “What the hell, beats repeating the useless. Sure, let’s go. We can stop in the south end and get a sandwich or something. Do Mary first, there’s nothin’ out where Kylie was found, and I’m hungry.”

  They signed out a department off-road, and Spence drove. They grabbed some sandwiches and more coffee at the Tim Hortons in the plaza by the Rona store. They ate in the car and were back on the highway ten minutes later. Just clear of Cedar Road and the bypass junction, Spence threw on the light bar and they ran down past Ladysmith and the Chemainus junction. She slowed for the turn onto the one-lane paved that ran off into the bush on the right. The road led to gravel, then became a track that wandered through the bush.

  She dropped into four-wheel drive to plow through the muck and the small stream that acted as a block to anything but high riding four-wheel drive off-road vehicles. Three hundred meters past that stream, Spence stopped.

  Roberta looked around before she got out and then waited for Alan to lead. They followed the marker tapes still in place through the waist-high salal, up the ridge, and into the open area at the top, a kind of salal field. Across it, they could see the police yellow crime scene tape.

  Roberta studied the field before they crossed, said nothing, and motioned Alan on. At the dump site, she knelt and studied the ground for a time. “Explain the positioning to me and exactly where she was.”

  Alan went over the site with her for over an hour. Roberta stayed quiet. Then they made their way back up island, Spence driving once again with the grill lights on, the red and blue rippling in the trees. The big, red, timber company gate on River Road was closed at the second site, so they walked in.

  “Kylie was found a long way down, almost to the river. We have a good walk ahead of us, but there’s a trail almost to the site.”

  Again, Alan led, and again Roberta said little. When they stopped at the tiny clearing next to the gorge wall, she stood on the edge and watched the angry tumbling water for a few moments before turning to follow Spence and Alan.

  “I suspect he didn’t want these victims found given the locations,” Alan said. “If it weren’t for salal pickers and hikers, we wouldn’t have found them so quickly, and the decomposition would have made IDs even more difficult. Kylie’s dump site is up that ridge behind us.”

  Roberta nodded and motioned Alan ahead. Part way up the ridge, they squeezed through the narrow opening and again Roberta knelt and studied the site.

  “This one looks more like the photos and sketches, I guess because it’s so protected. Maybe that’s part of it, part of the ritual. Both these sites have a kind of isolate protective surround as if he wants them to feel secure somehow, or he wants to protect the rituals themselves. Hard to say which. Okay, I’m done. Let’s go back.”

  By the time they reached the station and returned the SUV, it was late afternoon. They began to discuss the case and how they’d set up the next release. Then they’d present the plan to Josie. If she approved, she’d send it on to the media liaison people, and their spokesman would call a press conference and deliver the prepared statement. That was all they were giving the press, prepared statements delivered by either their own guy, or one of the politicians who wanted a sound bite.

  “I’m curious about the protective nature of the two sites,” Roberta said. “Let’s consider that. Either he’s concerned for the girls or he’s concerned for his rituals. Given how isolated the sites are, I’m inclined to think it’s the sites themselves and the rituals associated with them that gain precedence for him. If you think about roadside shrines to victims, you’ll see what I mean. The shrines are a way of keeping the location of death in the foreground, removing it from its natural conditions. It gives them meaning.”

  “If that’s the case,” said Spence, “then maybe he does what mourners do. Maybe he goes back occasionally to re-experience the rituals, or to see that the site itself remains sacrosanct, somethin’ like that. And if that’s what he does, why can’t we set up surveillance and catch the bugger? We could wire the scenes, transmit live feed, and send in the troops.”

  Alan shook his head. “You’re forgetting how careful this guy is. He sees anything out of the ordinary, he’s gone. He probably observed the activity once the bodies were discovered. He may have gone back after we’d left and corrected any damage to the sites. Given that idea, did you notice anything at all that had been changed or straightened, anything like that?”

  Spence looked at Alan and shook her head. “I wasn’t thinkin’ that way when we were there. Maybe we should go back with the crime scene photos and sketches and see. Still, it wouldn’t be conclusive. Anyone could have visited the sites; salal pickers, hikers, who knows?”

  Alan sighed. “We could get someone from forensics to go back with the photos. Those guys are better at stuff like that than we are. I’ll call Georgie and see about cost.”

  Alan stepped away to make the call, leaving Roberta and Spence alone.

  “What did you think of the two privates?” asked Spence.

  “Well, they seem like you said, a bit flighty. But I have a feeling they’re solid, especially the girl, Sabina, at least in the IT department.”

  “She’s good and so’s he, even if they do seem like flakes. But that girl bugs me something fierce.”

  “I noticed,” Roberta said. “You don’t suppose it’s just a sort of personality thing? Frankly, other than your obvious uncertainty and her equally obvious recognition of it, I didn’t see anything amiss.”

  “I guess you’d know, but she still bugs me.”

  Roberta’s explanation didn’t satisfy Spence, especially given what she’d seen at the sanctuary that morning. Something else is going on there, she thought, “something else for sure.”

  Alan came back and nodded. “Done. Georgie’ll send out his guy and just stick it under daily expenses. He’ll let us know later today if they think anything has been altered.”

  “When the cult guy arrives, we could run the idea by him. See what he thinks.” Roberta sat at the table and began to pull out photos and reports.

  “Alan, get the murder book out and see if we can fine-tune anything.”

  ◆◆◆

  Doctor John Spencer was in his office at Simon Fraser looking at the emails he’d received from Sabina at SHH Investigations. She’d sent him the crime scene photos and the request from the RCMP. He’d found both a lot more interesting than the papers he’d attended over the past week at the conference in Savannah.

  He thought about the bodies on the island. A serial killer like this one was rare enough, and one who seemed to be able to control himself over a long time was even rarer. The info and the profile seemed to indicate that he wasn’t escalating at all. And now a third girl.

  He was a small man, given to suits, usually brown, and fedoras, so he stood out a bit at the university where no one wore a hat or, for that matter, a suit. He also wore highly polished brogues, another affectation that made him visible in spite of his stature. And no briefcase, just the occasional book under his arm.

  SFU was on a high hill in Burnaby. His office was on one of the higher floors of the arts building, looking out over Burrard Inlet. He could see across the water to the headlands on the other side and beyond those, to the mountains. He’d been at SFU for three years now after leaving the University of Toronto. Before that, he’d been at Princeton. Neither had this magnificent view, and he never tired of looking at it. On sunny days when the wind kept the pollution away, he could see details as clearly as if the whole thing were a photograph. Today, clouds obscured the mountain peaks, and the water looked steely grey and cold.

  He considered what material to take to H
arbour City and the various detectives. It would have to be useful and understandable. Not too theoretical.

  ◆◆◆

  John Spencer’s drive to Horseshoe Bay the next morning was difficult. It was raining hard, but it was much worse as the highway passed North Vancouver and took the long grade up the ridge. There, it was a deluge, so heavy the wipers on full couldn’t handle it. Traffic slowed and bunched up, cars and trucks creeping along, rain dancing off the pavement. Soon the highway was covered in runoff. Traffic slowed even more. The rain stayed heavy all the way to Horseshoe Bay, then turned to a drizzle.

  With at least an hour to spare before the ten-thirty sailing, he walked into town to the Starbucks down a couple of blocks on the corner. It was crowded, so he turned around and went to another coffee shop to sit at the counter.

  A few minutes later, with his coffee in hand, he wandered down to the park beside the road and watched the gulls floating on the still water of the harbour and perched on the pylons of the ferry docks. Crows followed him around, waiting for something to drop. Two of them hopped up on the lid of the waste bin he was passing and watched him, their black eyes intent on the cup in his hand.