Three men exit to hunt for the first. Single file, they cross the porch and descend the steps. The man in front rounds the corner as the others follow, but stops abruptly when he spots Lumberjack. The man behind bumps into him like a train shunting cars, while the man last in line turns the corner. The bolt shhhhewwws from the maples and whissstles through the air. One, two, three, it drills each neck in line, severing the rear spine, fracturing the one in the middle, before it zips from the mouth of the sandwiched man to clip the man who leads.
Clip, but not kill.
The front man stumbles back to the porch over his fallen comrades. One hand bangs the wall to summon help from inside. Punctured voice box mewling like a goat, he staggers up the steps and weaves toward the door. As yet another bolt shhhhewwws from the maple leaves, the man's head jerks this way in spasm, so the flying spike jabs him dead in the eye.
The kidnapper buckles as a pitiful scream shatters the autumn air, lancing out the door ajar from within the cabin.
"Daddyyyyyyy!"
"Jane!" he cries, and tries to run to her from the maple trees, but his legs feel heavy, so very heavy, as if forged from lead, while he must run fast, very fast, if he's to get from here to there in time to wrench his terrified daughter from impending death. With mounting anxiety he stares down to see what's holding him back, and discovers both feet are planted in the ground. He drops the crossbow and grabs one leg with both hands to tear it free. Unable to budge it, he switches legs and tugs with all his strength, straining until his rooted flesh begins to upheave, clods of earth clinging to the filamented ankle he weeds from soil groaning under the maple leaves, a tug-of-war waged with Mother Nature for his daughter's life.
"Let go of me!" he orders.
"DADDYYYYYYY!" screams Jane.
Now his legs are free and he is lurching forward, dragging half the forest floor toward the cabin. Chunks of sod weigh down his botanic feet, which rustle like snakes through the fiery leaves. Pains of overexertion shoot up and down his arm.
"Daddy's coming! Don't leave me, Jane!"
He lumbers up the steps and across the porch.
He stumbles over the body with a bolt in its eye.
He shoves open the door as a knife is shoved into his gut.
He bleeds freely down his abdomen and legs.
His hands close around the throat of the thug in his way, crushing vessels that feed life to the kidnapper's brain.
Eyes pop out of their sockets to bounce like balls on the floor.
The strangled man's tongue slithers away like an eel. He squeezes until the kidnapper has a toothpick neck.
The face before him turns livid, then drops from sight. His eyes dart frantically about within the cabin, searching the gloom until they pick out the small body on a corner cot, curled up in a fetal ball and sobbing, sobbing, sobbing. . . .
"Jane!" he cries, and struggles across to the cot. His rooted feet drag in maple leaves to scatter about the floor. But when he scoops his beloved child up in his arms and bends to rain paternal kisses onto her angelic head, he finds himself face to flesh with a freshly severed neck. The sobbing issues from a tube in the stump.
Never before has a wail of anguish like his been heard. All the guilt of his damned soul is packed into the shriek.
"Don't cry, Daddy. I'm over here."
Unable to believe his ears, he turns and falls and claws and crawls toward another corner, where a pair of innocent eyes shine brightly in the dark, the groaning roots behind trying to pull him back, as one by one his nails break to inch him forward.
"Thank God," he moans, reaching into the shadows to caress her feet, which sets the eyes above swaying when his hand hits a pole.
Vision adjusting to the dark, he gazes up to find the source of his daughter's voice, and sees a severed head mounted on the pole.
"I knew you'd come, Daddy. I knew you wouldn't fail me," says the hacked-off head.
The head isn't Jane's.
The head is Katt's. . . .
He awoke with a start. Drenched in sweat.
A primal shudder shook him to the depths of his being.
"I knew you wouldn't fail me," he repeated to himself, while rubbing the corners of his eyes to reap the sandman's gift.
He wasn't drenched in sweat.
His cheeks were wet with tears.
For the first time in a long time he'd been crying in his sleep.
Throwing back the covers, he swung out of bed. The deep freeze of winter besieging the house chilled him to his bones. Stepping into his slippers, Robert pulled on a robe and, when that didn't stop his shivering, put on a sweater, too. The clock on the bedside table said the time was five a.m. Because it was his habit to rise at the break of dawn, curtainless windows faced English Bay with Point Grey beyond. Come spring, he'd carry a cup of coffee down to his seaside knoll crowned with an antique sundial and a driftwood chair. There he'd sit alone with his thoughts to greet the new day—"Getting your head in shape," was how Katt put it—as the teen slept the sleep of a princess above. Around the face of the sundial, which predated the Age of Reason, was the prophetic warning THE TIME IS LATER THAN YOU THINK. The warning was now buried beneath the shroud of overnight snow, but as he gazed out the bedroom window across the black bay at the red and blue wigwags flashing on the far Pacific Spirit Park shore, the sundial's prophesy preoccupied his mind.
Though he was a rational man who eschewed New Age superstition, irrationality had taken Kate, Jane, and Genevieve from him, so it seemed rationally prudent to check on Katt.
Agnostics are wiser than true believers.
His bedroom, her bedroom, and the living room ran east to west across the southern waterfront face of the house. Katt's room had been his library before she moved hi, so it opened off the living room at the L-join of the central hall. The effect of the nightmare was so strong that he didn't pause at the bathroom sink to wash away his tears, but almost ran directly to the L-join, where he switched on the nearest living room lamp and turned about-face to open and peek in what should have been a closed door.
The door was ajar three inches.
His muscles tensed.
Theirs was a constant war of divergent opinions. Do you crack your egg at the big or little end? Do you eat the tenderloin or other meat first? Is it best to sleep in a cold or warm room? Cold, he said, to snuggle in with fresh air to breathe. Warm, she said, to sleep like a babe in the womb, and not freeze your bum off in the dead of night. This battle ended with a compromise. The thermostat was turned down on going to bed, while Katt turned up a space heater and closed her bedroom door. In this bitter cold, no way would she have broken the seal. Not when giving a single inch would offer him the opening to lord partial victory over her in their never-ending war.
Katt was stubborn.
So was he.
Robert's hand was sweating as he pushed open the door. He couldn't shake the premonition a kidnapper had Katt. The lamp cast a widening yellow oblong in through the door. Spine to spine, the light of knowledge spread across the books, until illumination crept over a lump in bed.
"I'm awake," Katt said. "What a night! Every hour; on the hour, this thing"—she plucked Catnip off her pillow by the scruff of the neck—"had to lick my face in a show of love. I cracked the door so he could get to his litter box, and consequently froze my bum off to boot."
"I assume the blighter's going back?"
"No way!" protested Katt. "You could turn a cutie-pie like this"—she kissed the kitten—"out to die in a frozen waste?"
He was so thankful to find her there, she could keep a thousand cats. He left the tormented thespian "to get her head in shape," and shuffled off to the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth. As he reached down to lift the toilet seat to urinate, he noted a scratch across the plastic on one side of the ring. Darn cat, he thought. The damage begins. He angled along the hall to the kitchen to brew a pot of coffee, then carried a cup to the living room to restoke the fire between the Holmes and Watson
chairs from still glowing embers. The Headhunter file from last evening was scattered about the hearth, so he tiptoed over photographs like using stepping stones.
Her picture was on the mantel.
Maple leaves, he thought.
And wondered if this was the connection which had prompted the dream.
The photo of Jane was flanked by those of Kate and Genevieve. The shutter had caught her mid-laugh, head thrown back, so sunlight glistened on her blond curls. The little girl was four years old and happy as could be, playing hi a pile of red, orange, yellow, and brown maple leaves.
"Is she why you're such a good 'dad' to me?"
The question from behind his back took Robert by surprise. He turned to find Katt framed by her bedroom door, ash-blond hair rumpled from restless sleep, one arm cinched around Pinky and the other around Scratch Bear. If Jane had lived longer than her picture on the mantel, Katt could be her in her teens.
"No," he replied. "It's because you're such a good 'daughter' to me."
A streak from the bedroom.
Catnip was underway.
Robert's eyes were fixated on the teddy bears. Katt must have noticed, for she said, "Did I do wrong? They were in the closet, and I was cold last night. I took them to bed to warm me up. I know they're hers." A nod at the mantel. "Do you mind?"
"No," he said, and sat in the Watson chair.
Padding from the doorway to the burnishing blaze, Katt stepped over the Headhunter mess and curled up in the Holmes chair. Pinky and Scratch Bear straddled the overstuffed arms. "Why's this one so beat up? And this one brand-new?"
"When Kate was pregnant with Jane—"
Katt's eyes flicked to Kate's photo on the mantel. It caught Robert's first wife center stage on Broadway, playing Rebecca in Ibsen's Rosmersholm on the night the two met.
"—I went to London," he said.
Catnip shot into the greenhouse, which opened off the living room. It was heated at night for the sake of the plants, so there Napoleon lay on the rug beside the La-Z-Boy. A lazy boy no more once the kitten burst in to play.
"The finest toy store in the world is Hamleys of Regent Street. Six floors, one of which has hundreds of teddy bears. Determined my kid would have the best bear in the store, I spent hours culling them until I found him."
"This one?" Katt said, rocking Pinky.
"No, Kate's Aunt Paula sent that godawful thing. Synthetic pink fur. Beady little eyes. When Jane came home from the hospital, Kate held a battle of the bears. Into the crib went my candidate, and Jane scrunched her face. 'Stiff fur and baby skin. Daddy's Scratch Bear,' dubbed Kate. Into the crib went the pretender to the throne. Jane cooed a drooly smile of soft-caress contentment. 'Pinky wins,' Kate declared, and Scratch Bear was banished."
Katt nuzzled the outcast. "He feels soft to me. I guess we toughen with age."
Catnip shot from the greenhouse with Napoleon on his tail. The kitten scampered toward the kitchen and disappeared. The dog picked his way through the spread-out file to settle by the hearth.
"Every kid should have a teddy bear from birth. I view providing one as a father's duty. A mother fosters security by nursing at her breast. A father instills it by securing the crib. Without a bear the child is left to face the dark alone. With a bear it has a talisman for life. A teddy offers comfort and companionship when we're young and, as we grow, provides an anchor down to our deepest roots. You'll find centered adults often still have their bear. It focuses them on who they are and where they come from. The bear provides a compass when they're lost."
"Do you still have your bear?" Katt asked, poking Pinky.
"No, I lost it somewhere along the way."
"How did Jane die?"
Katt's question burst in like an anarchist with a bomb. In all the time she'd lived with him, she'd never broached the topic. Perhaps because she, too, had been kidnapped as a child. Perhaps because she sensed the past hurt him deep inside. Whatever the reason, this morning curiosity "killed" Katt.
He took a deep breath and exorcised slowly.
"You've studied the Quebec independence movement in school. Its violent zenith was the October Crisis of 1970. The FLQ—the Front de Liberation du Quebec—was a terrorist group composed of cells. One cell kidnapped British diplomat James Cross, and another cell murdered Labor Minister Pierre Laporte. I was the Mountie who located both cells."
"How?" said Katt.
"Informants," he replied. "The independence issue splits family ties. I took down the Liberation cell for executing Laporte. The Chenier cell released Cross and fled to Cuba. Two weeks after the crisis, while I was in Ottawa, a gang of punks launched a vendetta against my Montreal home. Kate was gunned down at the door, and Jane was abducted from bed. Someone wrenched Pinky from her and tossed the bear aside."
A crash from the kitchen.
Catnip was cooking breakfast?
"I was banned from the manhunt because of personal involvement. One of my informants tipped me to a cabin in the woods. I took the crossbow now on the wall of my bedroom and drove north to the Laurentians to get Jane back."
"By yourself?"
"I didn't trust anyone else. Independence emotions split cops, too."
"You found her?"
"Yes, in the cabin. The punks had argued over what to do with Jane, and the faction that won had broken her neck before I arrived."
"What became of them?"
"They paid," he said bluntly. "My one regret is I didn't bury Pinky with Jane. He was my closest link to her, so I kept him for myself. The irony is, I left her alone in the dark."
Catnip shot up the hall from the kitchen and took the corner too fast. The kitten pinwheeled and bounced off the waterfront wall. Gunning the engine spun its claws.
Katt cuddled Scratch Bear and murmured in its ear, "She was lucky to have you. I never had a father. And I don't have a bear."
"Jane chose Pinky," Robert said. "That's why that bear looks brand-new. If you want him, Scratch Bear is yours."
The Cheshire Katt grin.
"I'll love him to death," she said.
A shiver shook Robert.
The premonition dream?
Catnip shot toward them with leaps and bounds. The Headhunter file scattered farther in the rambunctious kitten's wake. Screeching to a halt, the terror let out a meow, decided he was tuckered, and crashed beside the dog.
Dog, kid, and grown-up breathed a collective sigh of relief.
"Prozac might work," said Katt.
While she banged pots and pans in the kitchen to rustle up breakfast, he got down on his hands and knees to gather up the far-flung contents of the file. A case as complex as this one drew reams of paper, especially if different police jurisdictions were involved. Since the voice in his mind insisted a detail from back then had new meaning now, last night De-Clercq had reread the once active part of the file, ignoring those documents entered after John Lincoln Hardy had been shot. Truth was, given the booze, pills, and gun he had put in his mouth, he had not read the postoperative stuff which closed out the file. How could what he hadn't read then vex his mind now?
The rambunctious cat had uncovered an envelope in the postoperative pile.
The return address in the upper corner caught the Mountie's eye:
Detective Al Flood
Major Crimes Squad
Vancouver Police Department
123 Main Street
Vancouver, British Columbia
The Vancouver Police Department policed the heart of the city.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police policed most of the province.
Flood was the VPD liaison who had worked with the Mounties' Headhunter Squad.
Flood was also the cop who was shot to death with Robert's second wife.
Robert opened the envelope and dumped its contents out on the floor.
Inside was a memo handwritten by Flood:
On Saturday, November 13, 1982, at 9:41 p.m., this was hand-delivered to the VPD. A cab driver (report on file) went
into McDonald's for a cup of coffee and came out to find it left on his car seat. No ID on who put it there. The roll of film and originals are still with the lab.
November 13 was the night John Lincoln Hardy was shot.
November 13 was the night Robert attempted his suicide. November 13 was the night the Headhunter dragnet ended.
Everything filed after that was postoperative and new to DeClercq. While he was recuperating from mental breakdown, others had closed the file.
Clipped to Flood's memo was a copy of the envelope left in the cab. FOR THE POLICE, it read. Under that was the Headhunter's taunt pasted together from newspaper cuttings. As with the Polaroids, the taunt was aimed at DeClercq. SAY UNCLE, ROBERT. HAVEN'T YOU HAD ENOUGH! PS YOU DEVELOP THIS ONE.Under that was a print developed from a negative.
The heads in the Polaroids had been those of Liese Greiner, the skeleton on the hill; Helen Grabowski, the floater in the river; Joanna Portman, the nursel nailed to the totem pole; and Anna Rose, the nun. The head in this print was that of Natasha Wilkes, the; waylaid skier. Each Polaroid had shown the woman's head stuck on a stake against a white backdrop. Each Polaroid had cropped the stake halfway down the pole, which hid the base.
This print was different.
Shot from farther back.
It showed the head.
It showed the stake.
And it showed the pail of sand in which the stake was mounted.
The Headhunter returned with his trophy, thought DeClercq. He shoveled a pail full of sand, then carried it and the head inside. There he placed the bucket front of a pinned-up sheet, stuck a pole into the and rammed the head down on top. Then he snapped this photo as a taunt.
Why did he switch from Polaroid to regular film? Did he know we were tracking those who bought Polaroid supplies?
The Mountie studied the print.
The face of Natasha Wilkes was frozen in a rictus of terror. Her skin was stretched tight, and her rolled-up eyes bulged. Her black hair was matted in hanks and strands. Her swollen tongue stuck from her mouth open in a scream. Her nostrils flared to let out trickles : of blood. Shreds of skin from her neck curled around the pole like worms.
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