Ripper

by Michael Slade

  “With only one murder, why think serial killers?” asked Nick.

  “Because of this,” DeClercq said, holding up Jolly Roger. “Marsh’s killing mimics the first murder in this novel. Four women are killed in the book, plus the investigating officer. The novel ends by hinting there will be a fifth.”

  “Apart from that,” Chan said, “I feel it in my gut. Profiling is half science, half art. Crime scenes talk in riddles which you must figure out. This one was left by a stalking team of two organized killers, acting out a disorganized ritual written into that book. The question is which came first? The chicken or the egg?”

  “Your copy,” said DeClercq, passing Nick Jolly Roger.

  “So,” Chan said, moving to a list on the wall, “what do we know about serial killers? Since 1979, the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit has interviewed multivictim murderers in U.S. prisons to compare their backgrounds and determine why they killed. They spoke to the biggies—Bundy, Manson, Gacy, Speck, Gein, Williams, Berkowitz—and the lesser-knowns, then computerized the results. Serial sex killers have common characteristics.”

  In big black letters, the list was headed PROFILE.

  1/ almost always male

  2/ predominantly white

  3/ good intelligence but poor academic performance

  4/ unsteady employment

  5/ cold relationship with father or father figure

  6/ father abandoned the family home by age 12

  7/ mother the dominant parent

  8/ instability of family residence

  9/ preadult criminal or psychiatric history

  10/ sexually, physically, or psychologically abused as a child

  11/ early sexual interest in voyeurism, fetishism, and pornography

  “That’s the general background of the pair we’re hunting. Profiling isn’t mathematics so the list won’t fit exactly. There may be wild cards, like Hindley, one of the Moors Murderers, was a woman. But that’s the basic skeleton.”

  “Age?” said DeClercq.

  “The urge to commit this type of crime tends to surface early. Fantasy-driven killers are usually in jail by their late thirties or forties. Impulsive teenagers and young adults aren’t this methodical. Mid-twenties to early thirties fits the scene.”

  “Why assume they’re white?”

  “Mutilation murder is usually intraracial. Whites stalk whites, blacks stalk blacks, Asians stalk Asians. There are exceptions like Ng and Lake, suspected in twenty-five California sex-torture killings in the mid-Eighties. But the likelihood is since Marsh’s white so are her killers.”

  Nick copied the profile list on the wall into his notebook. “If our stalking team fits the mold, what made these monsters?”

  “Aggressive sexual fantasies evolve from child abuse. Serial killers emerge from dysfunctional families where bonding fails. Fantasy is how they obtain control over traumatic situations. Fantasies born of anger and hate are usually sadistic, and often involve getting even by reversing roles. A boy abused by his mother or female guardian recalls the trauma every time a woman’s around. The ultimate form of male control is sex-degrading death, so imagining that gives him the greatest release from internal stress. In later life, the trauma warps into an adult psychosexual disorder. Fantasy may substitute for, or prepare for action. If arousal builds to the point where the need to act out becomes unbearable …” Chan swept his hand over the morgue photos to finish the sentence.

  “Acting out a fantasy requires a symbolic victim to assume the place of the woman responsible for the abuse. The symbol that links the two in his mind can be anything, from a fetish like high-heeled shoes to how the stand-in laughs. Killing follows killing for the relief each murder brings from the stress bottled up since the child abuse.

  “If our stalkers fit the mold, lying, stealing, vandalism, firesetting, and cruelty to animals and kids will haunt their youth. During adolescence and early adulthood, they’ll graduate to burglary, arson, assault, or rape. As they near murder, the violence will escalate. David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, went from wounding teenage girls to the ,44-caliber killings.”

  “Abused women don’t become serial killers?” said Nick.

  “Different evolution. Different sex impulse. A few like Aileen Wuornos do, but their motive’s unique. In men, sex and aggression are biologically linked.”

  “It’s the Frankenstein conundrum,” said DeClercq, glancing at the protesters lining the street. “Men are sexist by nature. History proves that. So the feminist movement is war between biological determinism and what is socially fair. But in the end it’s a Catch-22.”

  As he listened, Nick absorbed the protest signs: Patriarchal power is the root of the problem. Being a woman means being afraid. The bogeyMAN is a reality. Remember the Montreal Massacre …

  “Thwart what’s programmed in and it warps,” said DeClercq. “There are thousands of monsters in the making like this pair, demons stitched together in the labs of child abuse. Women have been subjugated and oppressed by men. It’s their destiny to fight back through feminism. But every advance the movement makes has a side effect, for it unwittingly add« a stitch to the creatures in the labs. Year after year, the news reports more have broken out, running amok like the Frankenstein Monster hunting its creator. Male sexuality is nitroglycerin, and too many vials are held in very shaky hands. Women are damned if they do or they don’t: that’s the conundrum. Which is the other horror story of our times.”

  “Why Marsh?” Nick asked.

  “The simple answer is she fit the fantasy,” said Chan. “Something symbolic tied her to the killing ritual. With only her corpse, we’ve no indication what that something was, because we can’t compare victim similarities. The other problem is we’re dealing with a stalking team, so which fantasy did she fit symbolically?”

  Chan touched the morgue close-up of Marsh’s skull. “What nags me is the skinned face,” he said. “How a victim’s treated tells a lot about her killer. The general rule is a facial attack means they knew each other. The more brutal the attack, the closer they’re related. Here one killer is dominant, the other is submissive. Logically, the dominant killer controls the ritual, which, based on Jolly Roger, has occult themes. Maybe all he wanted from Marsh was her bare skull, in which case any woman on the street would do. She was a random victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. It’s no more than coincidence her skull was spiked on the hook.

  “But what about the submissive killer?” asked Chan, playing devil’s advocate with himself. “He must get a thrill from the murder, too. If his fantasy is hidden in the dominant one, does that mean he’s responsible for stabbing the womb? If so, the implication is he killed symbolic Mom, and maybe skinned Marsh’s face if she resembled her.”

  “And kept it as a fetish?”

  “As a Mother Mask.”

  “What nags me” DeClercq said, “is Jolly Roger. How does the book mesh with Marsh’s murder? She was dumped before it went on sale in Vancouver, yet her killing, skinning, and hanging fits the plot exactly. How and why?”

  “The killers bought the book back East, then came here,” said Chan. “The book was published in New York by Fly-By-Night Press. It was shipped around the States and up to Toronto, finally reaching us at the end of the distribution line.”

  “Perhaps Marsh was stalked for who she was,” said Craven, “and mimicking the book’s a blind to throw us off? Say a pair of feminist-haters tracked her from New York? A copycat psycho makes her look like a random victim. What if a team of feminists at the conference wanted her dead? Using a male sex crime’s the perfect cover. Or could be it’s some sort of weird lesbian thing? Like that “Lesbian Vampire Trial” in Australia last year.”

  DeClercq punched the speaker-phone on his desk, feeding eleven numbers into the pad. The call was answered by a machine: “I’m out of town till Friday. Leave a message at the tone.”

  “That,” he said, “was Fly-By-Night Press. The call was placed to their listing in New York. Not
what you’d expect from Knopf or Penguin Books. If you were going to mimic a book for whatever reason, would you choose one as low-profile as Jolly Roger? Why not American Psycho or The Silence of the Lambs? Unless, of course, you’re tied to that particular book. Pen name: Skull & Crossbones. Title: Jolly Roger. Copyright held by Death’s-Head Incorporated. What if our killers wrote the book, and are now acting out the ritual it contains?”

  “Both Jack the Ripper and Zodiac sent taunts foreshadowing their upcoming crimes,” said Chan. “Same with the Headhunter’s photos, and possibly this book. Almost without exception, serial killers are arrogant police buffs.”

  A sharp rap on the door interrupted them. A street cop entered with a stack of books. As he piled them on the desk, Nick read their spines: Aleister Crowley, Jack the Ripper, and the Tarot.

  “Back to school, Chief?”

  “We never leave, Corporal. A book that doesn’t teach you something is a waste of time.”

  “He thinks novels should have bibliographies,” said Chan, “so you know the author’s done his homework.”

  “Speaking of homework,” said DeClercq, “what about New York?”

  “Not much in it,” Chan said, handing him the NYPD fax. “Marsh lived alone on the Upper East Side. Her friends were all women. She avoided men. Her editor and biographer are both out of town. One’s in Florida, at a sales conference. The other’s off somewhere unknown. Both are expected back tomorrow or Friday.”

  DeClercq said, “The key to this case is in New York. It’s in Marsh’s background, or masked by Jolly Roger.”

  “Who do we send?” Chan asked.

  “Me,” DeClercq replied.

  BEAST 666

  10:45 P.M.

  The city resembled London in 1888. Fog crept along the streets, snuffing hazy lights, while behind the veil lurked a crazed stalking team. Lugging a briefcase filled with books on Aleister Crowley, Jack the Ripper, and the Tarot, DeClercq left Special X for his West Vancouver home. Driving through Stanley Park and over Lions Gate Bridge, he sensed something evil brewing tonight. At twenty miles an hour it took forever to inch home, but finally he parked the Peugeot off Marine Drive near Lighthouse Park. Here beside the Pacific the fog was pea soup.

  Tendrils of mist choked the firs lining the path to his house. The sloping asphalt beneath his shoes was slick with soggy leaves. No light followed him from the street and none beckoned ahead. Napoleon’s disembodied bark reminded him of Baskerville’s hound haunting that far-off moor. The bay beyond the hulk of his house was invisible, deep-throated foghorns the only clue it was there. DeClercq unlocked and opened the front door.

  The German shepherd greeted him in the dark entrance hall. Robert took a moment crouched on his heels to nuzzle the brindled face of his canine friend. The dog had been with him since the day he buried Genevieve, a gift from Commissioner Francois Chartrand. The pup was left on his doorstep in a kennel with a note: I won’t say “Happy New Year,” just “Life Goes On.” His name Is Napoleon. He’ll see you through.

  That the dog had done.

  DeClercq entered the kitchen off the hall to his right. He searched the fridge for a snack to share with the dog, tossing Napoleon the bone after he prepared a roast beef dunker for himself. Boiling the kettle, he filled a bowl with Oxo French Dip, then carried a meal tray down the hall to the living room.

  The living room was dead.

  Colder than a tomb.

  Causing the loneliness of the house to wash over him.

  The windows facing English Bay were milky cataract eyes. To the left was a dining nook set for one; to the right a large greenhouse jutting toward a shrouded beach. Within were the roses Robert hybridized, and his favorite reading chair. Right of the greenhouse was a massive stone hearth, spanning that entire side of the room. Near the fireplace ticked a grandfather clock engraved with the proverb Time Is a Thief. Pictures of Kate, Jane, and Genevieve lined the mantel, confirming the wisdom etched around the clock. The hardwood floor creaked as if from the tread of too many ghosts.

  While DeClercq ate, Napoleon stripped the bone of meat, then began to gnaw it to get at the marrow.

  “Sorry, boy,” the Mountie said, taking it from him. “We don’t want splinters inside you.”

  Returning to the kitchen to wash the dishes, DeClercq re-boiled the kettle to steep a pot of Earl Grey tea. He carried the tea tray along the hall and set it down by the stereo. Rummaging through the CDs, he found his favorite piece of music, the second movement of Beethoven’s “Emperor Concerto.” As Wilhelm Kempff’s piano filled the empty gloom, he and Napoleon entered the library left of the fog-shuttered windows.

  A few years back, this was the spare bedroom of the house. Here he’d opened Blake’s trunk to begin the Cutthroat case. Now all four walls were shelved floor to ceiling with books. Every volume he had purchased since he learned to read was either displayed here or stored downstairs. The only furniture was an Edwardian table and Marlborough chair, the surface spread with Morris’s Pax Britannica trilogy.

  Robert reshelved the volumes, then poured a cup of tea.

  He fetched his briefcase and fanned the books on Aleister Crowley, Jack the Ripper, and the Tarot around the table. ‘

  Cracking Wilson’s The Occult, he flipped to the chapter “The Beast Himself.”

  He read till the grandfather clock struck the witching hour.

  November of 1947, a bewildered old man lay on his deathbed in Hastings, England. Reputed to be a cannibal and sacrificer of children, he’d lived a life of sex orgies, drugs, and Satanism. Known as Frater Perdurabo, Beast 666, and “the wickedest man in the world,” he’d published texts designed to invoke demons and had practiced rituals that drove those around him to madness and suicide. The Beast’s unholy mission was to replace the worship of God with worship of the Devil. Now his bald cranium glistened with sweat, his eyes full of tears as his face twitched spasmodically. “After all I’ve done!” he cried. “Is this the end?” It was (at least as far as we know) and soon the Beast was dead.

  Aleister Crowley was born in 1875. His wealthy parents— Crowley’s Ales—belonged to the Plymouth Brethren, one of the most repressive Calvinist sects. Rebelling against their beliefs, Crowley attacked what they worshiped and elevated what they hated. His mother thought him possessed by a monster in the Bible: the hellish Beast 666 from the Book of Revelations. “I am,” he replied.

  Crowley went to Oxford, where he flirted with witches’ covens, and there, between episodes of chasing women and boys, immersed himself in the realm of black magic. In 1898—through alchemist George Jones—he joined MacGregor Mather’s Order of the Golden Dawn, the foremost occult group in Britain. Crowley rose rapidly through its secret degrees, and when the Dawn split in 1900, sided with the more extreme Paris Lodge.

  Crowley’s flat in Chancery Lane had two occult rooms. The White Temple contained an altar surrounded by mirrors. One evening in 1899, Crowley and Jones returned from dinner to find its door unlocked. The altar within was overthrown and Crowley’s magic symbols were strewn about the floor. Both men claimed they saw half-materialized demons marching around the room. The Black Temple was more bizarre. Its altar was supported by a handstanding negro carved from wood and a skeleton anointed with sparrows’ blood. There Crowley and Jones swore they conjured Buer, a demon who commanded fifty of Hell’s Legions.

  Crowley traveled extensively. In Mexico, he sought to make his reflection vanish from a mirror. In Ceylon, he studied Eastern mysticism. In Egypt, using the alias Prince Chioa Khan, he undertook an invocation that changed his life. Seeking direct contact with Horus, the power behind the Dawn’s Tarot ritual, Crowley mixed drugs and incantations until he summoned Aiwass, henceforth his guardian demon. Aiwass dictated the Liber Legis, which became the foundation of Crowley’s Magick. Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. In China, Crowley smoked opium and became addicted.

  Crowley was obsessed with the Tarot. He designed his own deck, which he interpreted in The Book
of Thoth.

  By 1908 he had his own cult: the Argentinum Astrum, A:A, or Silver Star. Like the Golden Dawn, it developed rituals to gain Magick powers. Crowley shaved his head and lived on mescaline. He dressed in robes akin to those of the Ku Klux Klan. While entertaining mistresses in their home, he hung his wife upside down in the closet, driving her insane. Crowley stressed the sacramental use of sex. During a Paris ritual, he publicly sodomized disciple Victor Neuberg. To “serpent’s kiss” lovers, he filed his canine teeth to points. His current Scarlet Woman he branded on the breast. Claiming his shit was sacred, he defecated on carpets.

  In 1909 Crowley experienced possession. He and Victor Neuberg performed the ritual in the North African desert. Crowley wanted Choronzon, a demon mentioned in sorcerers’ grimoires, to occupy his body temporarily. While Neuberg sat protected by a circle, Crowley sacrificed three pigeons in a triangle. As the invocation to Choronzon was recited, Neuberg swore he saw phantoms swirling about his master.

  Denounced in Britain, Crowley sought Utopia in Sicily. Accompanied by his disciples and current Scarlet Woman, he founded the Abbey of Thelema in a decrepit villa in 1924. As Crowley slipped deeper into drug addiction— chronicled in his novel Diary of a Drug Fiend—foreign Satanists flocked to the Abbey. There they found Crowley staging nightly orgies in his Chamber of Nightmares decorated with demons. Women coupled with animals as the Beast slit each rutting beast’s throat.

  One of those lured to Thelema was an Oxford graduate named Raoul Loveday. Loveday dragged his wife Betty May along, where, under the influence of heroin and cocaine, Crowley told her, “I knew Jack the Ripper. He was a magician, one of the cleverest ever, and his crimes were the outcome of his Magick studies. The Ripper was a well-known surgeon of his day. Whenever he was going to commit a new crime he put on a new tie.” Crowley showed Betty May a trunk containing bloody neckwear.