“Here,” the voice repeated, off to Nick’s left.
Caribou and mountain goat heads mounted above, anteater and platypus skeletons shelved beside, another door led from the museum to a cramped and cluttered office. Here there were skulls, books, bones, photos, skulls, bird wings, books, and a pileated woodpecker dangling from the ceiling.
“In here,” the voice called through yet another door facing this one.
At last, the inner sanctum.
With one live specimen.
The taxidermy workroom behind the disheveled office tripled as a museum annex, lab, and lecture hall. To the left beyond a counter, sink, empty cages on the floor, hooked apron, and goat’s head with paper buckteeth, a globe, screen, and blackboard ranged along the wall. Chalked on the blackboard were Latin species names. A pair of benches spanned the room from the blackboard to an ornothology map. The far bench and the shelf behind displayed stuffed exhibits: snowy, barn, great gray, great horned, and short-eared owls; a kiwi, African crowned crane, pelican, and gibbon; and several hands-on specimens stuck on sticks like furred and feathered lollipops.
Working seated on a stool at the end of the near bench, almost finished skinning a barred owl, Marty Fink was a specimen indeed. Far from the laid-back ecotype zoology often attracts, moon face capped by corkscrew curls as bouffant as Louis XIV’s powdered wig, Fink was Pear Shape in Dick Tracy, Cousin Elmo in Harold Hedd, Fat Freddie in The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Mark Volman of Flo & Eddie. No way in God’s green acre was he Ronald Colman. One thing about a past of drugs, Nick thought, is it tunes you to the subtle nuances of people.
Then he noticed the stitches.
“Nick Craven,” Craven said. “Don’t think I’ll shake your hand.”
“Marty Fink,” Fink said grinning, and wiggling his gut-stained fingers.
Nick pulled up a stool as Fink went back to stitching the owl. Around the taxidermy board was an array of tools: a pointed #11 scalpel, curved forceps, scissors, bone shears, a blow dryer, needle and thread. A box of Borax (Twenty Mule Train, since 1891) was on the floor.
“Always wondered how you stuff a bird,” said Craven. “To get it so lifelike without any rot.”
“Most people frown on taxidermy. See us as the undertakers of the animal world.”
“I’m all ears.”
“Und vhat nisse eerss they are,” hissed Fink, rolling his eyes and flicking his tongue in a mimic of Peter Lorre.
“The Ears of Orlac,” said Nick, deadpan.
“I’ll be. Mad Love. A retro man?”
“Isn’t everybody? The shit in theaters these days?”
The bird on its back, Fink explained, you slit the chest with a scalpel, working under the skin to separate it from the guts. Cut the tail, legs, wings, ears, and eye rings free from inside, then pull the skin up over the head like turning a sock inside out. After you snap the back of the skull with bone shears, yank away the guts and spine. Next, squeegee out the brain with forceps and cotton, then extract the muscles from the legs, wings, and jaw. You end up with a feather-covered skin retaining the pope’s nose, leg bones, wing bones, and skull. Salt the gut-side with Borax to dry it and kill bacteria. Then clothe a new body fashioned from Styrofoam with the skin, using wires to stiffen the head, wings, legs, and tail. Fill the eye sockets with Plasticine so glass eyes can be inserted, and close the skin incision by stitching it with needle and thread. “Like I’m doing now,” Fink said.
“What kind of stitches are those?”
“Suture knots. Same as a surgeon uses to stitch you up. First bend won’t slip before the knot is completed.”
In his mind’s eye, Nick saw the ligature around Marsh’s neck and the zigzag down Zoe’s chest. Taxidermy knots, he thought. Fink stitched them right-handed, not left like Jolly Roger.
“So,” the ornithologist said, crossing to the sink, where he washed his hands with Hibitane. “Let’s see this owl pellet you called about.”
Opening the plastic evidence pouch he withdrew from his pocket, Nick dumped the furry oval onto the work bench.
“Found where?” Fink asked, rejoining him.
“Here. UBC. Behind the Museum of Anthropology. Under the feet of the woman hung from the totem pole.”
“I didn’t do it, officer.” Fink threw his hands in the air. “My owl pellets are all over there.” He indicated a cigar box heaped with similar ovals.
“Educate me,” Nick said. “Why owl pellets?”
Owls are raptors, Fink explained, which means they prey on other animals. “Raptor” is Latin for “plundering by force.” Owls occupy a position near the top of the food chain. Evolution tipped their large powerful feet with talons to grip flesh, and hooked their beaks for death-biting a victim’s neck or skull. Unlike other birds, owls do not have crops in which to store their food. Instead, they swallow prey whole and digest it immediately. Mammals are gulped headfirst, the next often swallowed as soon as the tail of the first disappears. Sometimes they eat just the head and hang the rest in a tree to finish later. Since owls have weak stomach acids, bones, beaks, fur, feathers, and claws aren’t digested. These hard items accumulate in the gizzard and are regurgitated as an “owl pellet” eight to ten hours later. Most owls cast a pellet as their nightly hunt draws to a close, and another after they’ve gone to roost.
“See?” Fink said, shredding the totem pellet to fully expose the tiny skulls and bones inside.
Within the owl’s digestive tract, he continued, fur and feathers are compressed around the bony core. The pellet is coughed up as a felt-covered oval mass which varies in size and content depending upon the species of owl and its diet. All but the freshest casts are firm, odorless, and dry. Pellet size alone won’t isolate the species. For that you need dietary clues from the remains inside. The skulls of eaten warblers, woodpeckers, finches, etc, are identified by the shape of the beak. Mammal skulls are categorized by their teeth.
“And this meal?” Nick said, touching the totem pellet.
Fink plucked the pair of tiny skulls from the remains, then led the Mountie through the office to the main museum, turning right down the aisle to reach the middle row of wooden cabinets.
“The museum has fifteen thousand birds and fifteen thousand mammals. Assembled by Cowan in the Forties, others have added to it through the years.”
Fink opened the nearest cabinet and pulled out one of the drawers. “Rodents,” he said, sweeping a hand over the mass grave. Each trayed species was represented by a stuffed specimen and jarred example of its skull. “Phenacomys inlermedius. The heather vole,” said Fink, handing Nick a rodent and skull from the drawer. Then he held up the matching skull from the totem pellet. “Mice and voles have wide skulls with chisel-shaped incisor teeth and rear molars. Heather voles like this meal live in mountain meadows, not by the coast.”
Craven replaced the rodent faceup in the drawer. Fink turned it facedown before he closed the cabinet. “We store mammals on their stomachs,” he said.
Another cabinet, another rodent drawer. “Glaucomys sabrinus. The flying squirrel,” said Fink. The skull in the jar matched the other skull from the pellet.
Fink arched his arm in a come-on sign. “Follow me, and let’s unmask this heartless killer.” Up the aisle, they turned right, and passed the emperor penguin.
“Who’s Bob?” Nick asked, spotting the name in its beak.
“No idea,” Fink said, opening a cabinet near the great blue heron. “Came in one day and the slip was there. Someday I expect it’ll disappear.”
“Hi, Bob,” Nick said, nodding at the penguin.
The specimen Fink handed Nick was eighteen inches tall. Its wing span, now folded, was two to three feet. Its head was round in silhouette without ear tufts, its dark brown eyes centered in two large concentric circles. Its chocolate brown plummage was dappled with white spots.
“The skulls in your pellet fit the diet and habitat of the northern spotted owl.”
“The bird that’s causing such a ru
ckus in the States?”
Fink nodded. “They’re doing their best to drive it extinct. Us, too.”
Fifteen species of owl are native to British Columbia, he explained, but only the northern spotted owl—Strix occidentalis caurina—is endangered. The threat lies in the fact its habitat is restricted to old-growth coniferous forests. Complications always arise when industry competes with wildlife for the same land. Pacific old-growth forests are disappearing at the rate of 1.5 square miles a week. Only 2 percent of this wilderness remains, while each breeding pair of spotted owls hunts over a huge territory of as much as 2,000 acres. Their diet is confined to the flying squirrels and voles in their habitat. Inability to adapt to other food is what threatens them. When food is scarce, they abandon reproductive attempts. As the woods diminish, so does the species.
Fink showed Nick three loggers’ caps. The first was labeled I like spotted owls—FRIED. The second Save a logger, kill a spotted owl. The third Wipe yer ass with a spotted owl. Nick was careful to place the bird facedown in the drawer. Fink turned it over before he closed the cabinet. “We store birds on their backs,” he said.
“The estimate is only three thousand breeding pairs survive. Of those, just fifty birds live in B.C. The three or four near Vancouver all roost in the North Shore watersheds.”
“So what you’re saying is the pellet wasn’t cast here?”
“The heather vole’s unique to high elevations,” said Fink. “And the spotted owl doesn’t stray from its hunting ground. Your pellet was carried, not flown here.”
“Someone brought it to the site? I don’t see why.”
“How does an ornithologist locate a bird that looks like a tree stump during the day and hunts under cover of night? The best way is to find its roost by searching the forest floor for recently cast owl pellets. Spot a fresh one under a tree and chances are the owl is overhead. Habitually I pick up such clues and stuff them in my pocket. That’s the collection I keep in the cigar box. Every ornithologist I know does the same.”
“And sometimes you forget about them?” Nick said.
“The absent-minded professor,” the curator agreed. “Who then drops his car keys into the same pocket.”
“The keys snag a pellet the next time he takes them out?”
“Especially if he’s in a hurry to leave somewhere fast.”
“I thought I recognized that voice booming down the hall.”
“Sandra,” Nick said. “What brings you here?”
“Working on your lice problem,” the SFU prof said. “The Spenser Entomological Museum has the finest collection of lice in the province. Lice were Spenser’s specialty.”
“UBC doesn’t mind the invasion?”
“We’re not that competitive.”
“The hell we aren’t!” Fink growled. “Get your ass outta here!”
The zoologists circled each other throwing playful jabs in a mock boxers’ stance. “And in the white trunks weighing just thirty pounds …” Nick announced. “Actually, Sandra, luck has it you’re here. Twenty bucks says our elusive host is the northern spotted owl.”
“Easy to check,” Wong said, “if you join me next door.”
They walked past the elevator to the Spenser Museum. Nets and waders were stored just inside the door. Green metal cabinets ranked in rows contained the museum’s main collection. The 600,000 local insects in these drawers were thought to represent 30 percent to 40 percent of all species in B.C. Spenser’s lice collection was down the third row, which had an ugly wasps’ nest stored on top. Moving beneath fluorescent lights across a linoleum floor, they passed the visitor’s logbook, an antique microscope, some old photos, and a chart of biogeoclimatic zones. Nick paused for a gander at one of the photos. Wearing fedoras and pencil-thin mustaches, every man in the group looked like Ronald Colman.
The lice were arranged by order/family/genus/species on flat trays in wooden cabinets. Each tray was read top to bottom, left to right. Lice—due to their size—are mounted on microscope slides. Unlike other insects, they’re categorized by host. Those infesting birds bear an AOU—American Ornithologists’ Union—classification number. Owl lice occupied four full trays.
Wong ran through the slides until she found one with this label stuck left of the lice:
ENTOMOLOGY No AOU 369
HOST Strix occidentalis caurina (Merriam)
LOCALITY Vancouver, B.C.
DATE 10 XI 1948
COLL. BY G. J. Spenser
UNIV. BRIT. COLUMBIA
VANCOUVER, CANADA
Spotted Owl
The label stuck right of the lice read:
ENTOMOLOGY No
NAME Strigiphilus cursor (Burm)
DET BY G.J. Spenser per T. Clay
DATE 19 X 1961
DEPT. OF ZOOLOGY
UNIV. BRIT. COLUMBIA
With Nick following, Sandra Wong moved to the work bench beneath the windows. There, between two sinks and beside a computer, sat a comparison microscope. On one plate she put the slide of the Strigiphilus cursor lice collected by Spenser from the northern spotted owl. On the other she put Nick’s slide of the lice recovered from Marsh’s abdomen wounds during the autopsy. Nick held his breath. “They match,” Wong said.
What interests me, Chan had said the other night, is the bird lice. An FBI study of serial killers found those who suffered sexual abuse as children often developed a weird affinity for animals. The clinical term is “paraphilia of zoophilia.” Paraphilia is a mental disorder characterized by obsession with bizarre sexual acts. Zoophilia is an abnormal fondness or preference for animals. For owls, Nick thought.
DIANICS
Manhattan
1:00 P.M.
It’s an old joke. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” the tourist asks the street musician busking in Central Park. “Practice! Practice! Practice!” the musician replies. DeClercq got there by walking south on Central Park West from the Dakota to Columbus Circle, then angling down Broadway to 57th Street, before turning left to Seventh Avenue. Carnegie Hall on the corner, though recently renovated, had kept its evocative old color scheme of red brick, white, and gold. Tchaikovsky—Craven’s nemesis— conducted the opening concert last century, followed by Mahler, Toscanini, Stokowski, and Bernstein over the years. The price of the hall’s survival in this age of phallic towers was the ignominy of being sandwiched, along with the Russian Tea Room next door, between a pair of looming hulks, one in sympathetic red brick, the other in garish black glass. Some say the Russian Tea Room is the happiest place in New York. DeClercq pushed its revolving door set with frosted glass to enter a green, gold, and red turn-of-the-century decor. Decorated year-round with Christmas wreaths, tinsel, baubles, and bows, this being December, the place was back in style. DeClercq checked his coat opposite the bar, watching the woman hang it next to a rack of bankrupting furs. The maître d’ ushered him past dark paintings on the walls and gold samovars on brass-trimmed shelves— Was that De Niro to his left? Mike Nichols behind?— weaving among the waiters in red and busboys in green belted Cossack garb. The serving staff looked like they should be doing squat-kicks, arms folded, on the rose-colored tablecloths. Jacket and tie required, the crowd was highbrow. Caviar was the rule, not the exception. As the maître d’ stopped to offer DeClercq a chair between two women at the far corner table, someone popped a champagne cork nearby.
One woman stood up and offered her hand.
The other didn’t.
Davida Hirsch, Marsh’s editor, was a bright-eyed ex-journalist of fiftysomething who had turned to publishing after years of covering Israeli politics for Time. Women’s nonaction was her specialty. Hirsch wore a tailored blue suit, rich silk blouse, and chic Fifth Avenue scarf, but DeClercq got the distinct impression that wasn’t her. The editor’s frank leatherlike face was weathered from weekends outdoors, so he pictured her windblown in rolled-up jeans and a knotted shirt, beachcombing Cape Cod in the shank of a blustery afternoon. Her smile was cordial; her manner open; her h
andshake firm, rough, and dry.
Jocelyn Kripp was something else.
Marsh’s biographer looked like a man-hater trapped in a masculine body. Thick-wristed, barrel-waisted, plump, and plough-person faced, she wore an ill-defined gray sweater over Queen Victoria’s bust, and a gray flannel tent-skirt almost to her ankles. Kripp’s frizzy smoke-gray hair had light-gray tufts in front, and heavy four-inch earrings with enough metal to build a battleship weighed down her lobes. Her guttural voice sounded as if her throat was full of phlegm, and when she spoke one hand pummeled the air like Khrushchev’s shoe, while her jaw shot forward as if to say I-dare-you-to-knock-the-chip-off. Her glare told DeClercq he was personally responsible for all the misery in her life.
Kripp’s favorite term, he would learn, was “women’s reality.”
He sensed she’d try to make it an Alka-Seltzer lunch.
Restaurants this good are few and far between in Vancouver, so he ordered hot borscht with sour cream and pirojok to start, followed by beef à la stroganoff: seared filet mignon in mushroom sour cream sauce. Quiet, he told his horrified heart.
“I have a plane to catch,” Robert said, “so time constraints require I get right to the point. Brigid Marsh was the first of three serial killings. The last two victims had nothing to do with her or the feminist movement. Therefore, the likelihood is she was a random victim chosen because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. The killers—we think it’s a stalking team—appear to be acting out an occult ritual In a novel titled Jolly Roger. If so, chances are they’re fantasy-driven psychopaths.
“To be thorough, however, we can’t discount the possibility Marsh was chosen for a specific reason, and the other murders are a blind to hide a motive connected personally to her. That line of inquiry is why I’m here. As the two who knew her public and private life best, is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted her dead? Perhaps a relationship with a lover went sour? Perhaps a feminist-hater has been stalking her? Perhaps she had a child few people know about? Perhaps someone in the feminist movement—”
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