"Not only did you pull her strings, but you pulled mine. You brought me the tape you said Ruryk recorded with Spann, as—how'd you put it?—the final piece of the puzzle.
"The only loose end was to shut down my interest in you, so here we are on our first and last date, with me the puppet you plan to put on the shelf, while you secretly wear rings through your sex to experience the triumph of Nietzschean will to power, not a victim anymore, but master of existence, which no 'inferior' man can stop.
"Sorry, Anda, but I'm not fooled by the empress's new clothes.
"You have the arrogance of a psychopath. You feel nothing for anyone but yourself. As members of society, we return to it what it gave us in childhood. A scourge of our time is serial killers spawned by child abuse. Anda Carlisle, you're under arrest for the murders of Bron Wren, four students at UBC, and George Ruryk. It's my duty to inform you: you need not say anything, but anything you do say—"
"Where's the proof?"
"You're in Bron Wren's book of victims. Spann's on tape Unking rings like yours to the shrunken heads. By now I suspect you've dismantled the dungeon stage set in your cellar, but no way will you have destroyed the videotape. In the bomb shelter was a videocamera, used to record the rape and beheading of Wren. The tape was missing. It's in your possession. And a thorough search will turn it up. We'll have enough evidence to put to a jury."
Her lip curled.
"Sexist!" she hissed.
Her teeth bared.
"Misogynist!" she spat.
Her eyes narrowed.
"Pig!" she snarled with contempt. "Now do you have enough to believe Kipling got it right? 'The female of the species is more deadly than the male'?"
"If feminism is about equality," he said, "females have the right to be as evil as males. Occam's razor: It is never useful to propound more theories than are necessary to explain a thing. The female of the species is as deadly as the male. I know a lot of very deadly men."
Author's Note
This is a work of fiction. The plot and characters are a product of the author's imagination. Where real persons, places, or institutions are incorporated to create the illusion of authenticity, they are used fictitiously. Inspiration was drawn from the following nonfiction sources:
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My thanks to the Mounted Police for answering all my questions, and especially to ViCLAS Section: twenty-first century policing.
—Slade
Vancouver, B.C.
Table of Contents
PART ONE
Headhunter
Ghost Patrol
Shrunken Head
The Mad Charcutier
Doomsday
Suzannah
Winterman Snow
Tzantza
Headhunter
Fetish
Sweat Lodge
Short Eyes
Carnival
War Zone
<
br /> The Album
Powwow
Primal Scream
Closed File
In The Name Of God
Female of the Species
Tip of the Iceberg
Road Kill
Cabin in the Woods
Realm of Madness
Rings
Wounded Knee
Red Snow
Killing Team
Kink
Where, Not Why
On the Hunt
Maple Leaves
Headshrinker
Bomb Shelter
Bushwhacked
Hellhole
Razor-head
Horns of Venus
PART TWO
Decapitator
Homophobe
Sacred Land
Potlatch
Gunamoot
Bush Drifter
Lost Patrol
Loot
Pack of Wolves
Deja Vu
Grizzly
White Man
Sundown
Buzz Buzz Buzz
PART THREE
Shrink
Puppet Master
Author's Note
Primal Scream Page 36