by Giles Blunt
Cardinal made a right turn toward Lake Nipissing. He parked on the shoulder of the road near the wharf, switched off the car and got out. The thin layer of snow had mostly either blown away or melted on the wooden dock. Cardinal stood for a moment and sniffed. Even in the minus-ten air the oily smell of creosote was strong.
He wasn’t sure what he expected to find. Even in winter the dock attracted a lot of people: joggers, dog walkers, people taking in the sunset. There wouldn’t have been any sunset last night. A layer of cloud had formed over the lake and the islands and the town. The only light on the dock came from the high lamps set every twenty yards or so.
He passed the old Chippewa Princess cruise ship that was now a restaurant in permanent dry dock. Farther up, there was a bait and souvenir shop that cast a shadow three times longer than the shop itself.
Cardinal moved slowly, keeping his eyes on the wood just in front of his feet. The dock was old, and there were soft splinters on many of the thick slats. If the Trout Lake murderer had been here, Cardinal was not likely to find the exact spot. And there was a marina out at Trout Lake he planned to check out as well.
The wharf was L-shaped. Cardinal didn’t even glance up as he made the turn. Beneath his feet the sound of ice grinding against the dock. The smell of old fish, mixing with the creosote. Light glinted on the stems of old fish hooks embedded in the wooden safety wall. It felt five degrees colder out here.
A third of the way along the foot of the L, he still hadn’t seen any damaged patches of wood that might have been more likely than others to yield splinters. He glanced up and saw people at the end of the dock. It took a second for him to realize they weren’t people.
The heads were on the wooden wall of the dock, which ran about chest high. Cardinal approached the female first. Long blond hair hung down over the wall. On the side nearest Cardinal, it was matted with congealed blood. On the left, a small-calibre bullet hole. She was facing the wide, dark expanse of the lake, as if waiting for a lover, long absent, to return across infinities of wind and night and snow.
The male was a few yards farther on, at the end of the dock wall, facing east. The back of the skull was bloody and misshapen from an exit wound. A breeze ruffled the grey hair.
“Jesus,” Cardinal breathed.
He had his hands in his pockets and kept them there as he leaned over the end of the dock to get a look at the face. The closed eyes, the meditative stillness, might have lent the features an air of repose, were it not for the bullet hole over the right eyebrow.
Cardinal walked back the way he had come, undoing his parka to dig out his phone from his inside pocket-keep it anywhere else and the cold would kill the battery. He dialed Delorme. He walked slowly as he talked, trying to calm down. Then he called Chouinard and the staff sergeant. When Delorme arrived a few minutes later, Cardinal was waiting for her by his car.
“Get ready,” he told her. “It’s even worse than the other night.”
After they got there and Delorme looked at the dead faces, she said, “What made you come out here in the middle of the night?”
“Arsenault found a sliver of wood that smelled like oil or gas. I didn’t realize till just now it was creosote. These people are likely from out of town-I thought, what do visitors do when they come here? They see the cathedral, the railway museum, the government dock. That’s about it.”
“Well, obviously the heads had to be brought here in the dark, but that splinter of wood-that was in the killer’s footprint?”
“Right.”
“Which means he went sightseeing on this dock before the murders?”
“I don’t know about sightseeing, but I’m guessing he was here, yeah. Somebody might have seen him, even if there was no one here when he came back to hang up his trophies.”
Delorme gestured toward the end of the dock. “He must have kept those things somewhere between the murders and now-they can’t have been here more than a few hours.”
“And why bring them here anyway? Why take the chance of being seen? Why set them up in those weird positions?”
“Once you start cutting people’s heads off, probably a lot of other stuff isn’t going to seem that weird,” Delorme said. “But the bullet wounds-they fit with the scene at the cottage, right? The male was sitting to the left of the killer, the female to the right. The killer pulls out his gun, shoots the male before he can even react, pow. Then he shoots the woman in the side of the head. Makes sense, no?”
“Except I wouldn’t vouch for the order they were shot in. That’s just not knowable. Not yet, anyway.”
Cardinal took a few steps back the way they had come, toward the long part of the dock. He stopped and stood with his hands in his pockets. He turned and looked out over the lake in the same direction as the dead woman. He thought about who these people might be and who their killer was. He stared across the frozen lake, beyond the patches of black ice and the dry granules of snow that skittered across them. His eyes watered from the cold. The cloud cover had shifted and the moon was out, lighting the vast bleak plain of the lake. In the distance, black on black, the silhouettes of the Manitou Islands, and above the Manitous, an even blacker sky where cold stars winked and throbbed.
–
Later, when there was nothing more for Cardinal to do at the scene, he walked back along the dock. It was blocked off with crime scene tape now, and even though it was Sunday morning, a crowd of reporters pressed up against it. The beheadings had made the news services across the country, and there were journalists from Ottawa and Toronto in town, as well as locals from Algonquin Bay and Sudbury.
Cardinal had been preparing a statement in his head.
“All I can tell you right now is we have found some body parts that may belong to the victims who were discovered out at Trout Lake. We don’t have any identities, and because of that, we don’t know who might have wanted to kill them. Even when we do identify them, you know the drill-you’ll have to wait until we’ve notified next of kin.”
A barrage of questions. Were the victims really American? What was the crime scene like? Had they found the heads?
“We have just as many questions as you do at this point.”
“Will you be bringing in the OPP?” They always asked this, every time there was a high-profile case, as if only a police force of province-wide heft could handle it. They always asked and it always irritated him.
“I don’t see any need for the OPP.”
They shouted more questions.
Cardinal held up his hands as if pressing back a billowing sail. “That’s all for now. When I know more, you’ll know more.”
He pushed his way past them and hurried toward his car. A woman came up behind him. She was small, her blond head just level with Cardinal’s shoulder.
“Detective, could I just talk to you for a minute?”
“Talk all you want.” He kept moving toward his car, the woman following.
“I want to ask about the other scene, not this one. It’s extremely interesting that the victims were beheaded-and the knife still in the man’s back. It’s all so theatrical, so high-profile. Aren’t you worried about copycats or false confessions?”
“I appreciate your concern,” Cardinal said. “We’ll still be able to eliminate false confessions. I can’t say any more just now.”
“And suppose, God forbid, you should get a copycat?”
Cardinal stopped and turned to face her. “Are you hard of hearing? I said I can’t talk to you. What is it with reporters?”
Her response was a single, slow blink. She had grey eyes, very wide set, that gave her a look of imperturbability. A quick smile, then: “Now that you have heads, are you able to make an ID?”
“I didn’t say heads.”
“I can do the math, Detective.”
“What paper are you with, anyway?”
She took off a leather glove, reached into her pocket and pulled out a business card and handed it to Cardinal. Donna Vaughan. New York
Post. “The card’s out of date. I’m not actually with the paper anymore. I’m freelance.”
“Why is a reporter from New York interested in a murder in Algonquin Bay?”
“I think you’ll figure that out pretty quick. I’m working on a story-not for the Post, for someplace national, hopefully-a story that’s taking me all over. And I think maybe we could help each other. Did you get anywhere with the tire tracks at the Trout Lake scene?”
“We’re running down a lot of leads. It takes time.”
“And the footprints?”
“Like I say, we’re following up a lot of threads.”
She looked him up and down. “Maybe I was wrong. It doesn’t look like you can help me at all. Thanks for your time.”
Cardinal got into his car and switched on the ignition to warm it up. He pulled out his notebook and started jotting down a list of calls he had to make. Ms. Vaughan pulled up beside him in a tan Focus and rolled down her window.
Cardinal pressed the button on the armrest.
“You know, Detective, I bet I know more than you do at this point.”
“For instance?”
“For instance, the identities of the victims.” She flicked a strand of hair out of her eyes. Her brows were dark, and the contrast gave her eyes an added intensity. “Their names are Lev and Irena Bastov. Russian extraction, but they’re both U.S. nationals.”
“Uh-huh. And how would you know that?”
“The story I’m working on? It’s about the Russian mafia-and please don’t spread that around, because I’d kind of like to stay alive.” She drove away before her window was finished closing.
7
“We know who they are,” Delorme said when Cardinal arrived in the squad room. “We’ve got IDs!”
“Let me guess,” Cardinal said. “Lev and Irena Bastov.”
Delorme looked deflated. “How’d you find out?”
“Doesn’t matter. How’d you find out?”
“Woman up at the fur auction called in a missing person. They were staying at the Highlands Lodge. We should head up there right now.”
“Let Ident get started on their own. We’ve got the autopsy this morning. Just give me a minute and we can catch the next plane-I’m not driving on the 400 again.”
Cardinal sat at his desk without removing his coat, pulled out the business card Donna Vaughan had given him and dialed the New York Post. It being Sunday, there was no upper management available, but Cardinal finally got connected to an editor.
“Donna Vaughan? Yes, she used to be on staff here.”
“Why did she leave?”
“I can’t discuss anybody’s work history, Detective-too likely to end up on the wrong side of a lawsuit. I can confirm that she was on staff and that she left about a year ago, and that’s it.”
Cardinal had googled Donna Vaughan as they spoke. Several stories popped up with her byline, mostly about fashion.
“You coming or what?” Delorme was standing beside his desk, looking annoyed.
–
They caught an Air Canada flight to Toronto and arrived at the morgue a little early. Cardinal made a few calls, but Delorme just sat staring at the row of wellington boots lined up on a high shelf. A list of funeral homes and phone numbers was tacked up next to the door, and a hand-lettered sign above the sinks said Caution: Chlorine + Ammonia = Poison!
Eventually the door opened and Dr. Elmer Spork was saying hello and introducing his assistant, a petite, intense woman named Tranh, who was about half his height. He took off his sports coat and threw on surgical scrubs and a plastic apron. He didn’t look anything like you might imagine a pathologist would look. Although he must have been fifty, he had curly blond hair and the youthful, robust air of someone who has just won a game of tennis. A memory stick dangled from a cord around his neck.
The two bodies were already laid out in the autopsy room, with the heads, which had been flown down earlier. “We put them through the X-ray this morning,” Dr. Spork said. He snapped on the light boxes, and ribcages, femurs and arm bones lit up. “As you can see, we didn’t pick up anything unusual. No blade or bullet fragments.” He snapped off the light again and went over to the male body.
“I have a dumb question,” Delorme said. “How do you know a particular head belongs to a particular body? How do you know there isn’t some other corpse somewhere minus a head?”
Dr. Spork pointed to the neck area. “Skin tone is the first thing we go by. As you see, we have a perfect match here. Also, the width of the neck. Again a perfect match. Plus, we already took blood samples from each part and we have a match in blood types. That’s not definitive, but we’ve sent the samples to the lab for DNA analysis. But the crucial thing, at least with well-preserved bone and tissue, is the matching trauma.”
He tipped the head neck-up, and Delorme’s stomach did a half turn. One minute the body looks like a young woman, then he’s turning the head upside down without moving the trunk.
“We can pair up the damage on both sections of cervical spine,” Dr. Spork continued, “same as a broken chair leg. Severed between C5 and C6, in this case, with matching damage to 5. Obviously with decayed remains it’d be a different story.”
Dr. Spork switched on his overhead mike. He announced the date and time, case name and number, and the names of those present. “I’m sure your coroner already noted that the severing of the heads took place post mortem. There’s no bleeding into the bone.”
He examined the female first, from head to toe. He raised his voice to say, “Lividity indicates she was killed where she sat.” Then he made the Y incision and removed the organs. By the time the chest was turned inside out, the body ceased to look human and Delorme’s stomach settled down. Dr. Spork didn’t address them directly again until he had finished with the torso and extremities.
“Negative for disease or trauma,” he said. “The head, obviously, is going to be another matter. We have two bullet wounds-entry wound in the left parietal region nine millimetres in diameter, ragged exit through the right parietal approximately fifteen centimetres in diameter.”
His assistant started up the Stryker saw. Dr. Spork removed the cap of the skull with its beautiful hair. Smell of burnt bone. Dr. Spork placed the brain in a pan and dissected it with a few swift strokes. “Bullet ricocheted around in there, crossing both hemispheres and ripping a hole in the brain stem. That would have shut down pretty much all the vital organs, so that’s our cause of death.”
He turned his attention to the male, muttering into the mike, raising his voice when he had any finding of interest. Lividity again indicated death in the seated position. “Liver’s enlarged. This guy liked a drink.” A little later he held up a cross-section of heart. “Left ventricle’s virtually closed. Short of a transplant, he didn’t have a lot of time left.”
Once again the finding was death by gunshot wound to the head.
“Not much so far,” Delorme said as they got into the elevator. “Hardly worth coming down here.”
“Ah, but now we get to see Cornelius Venn,” Cardinal said. “The wizard of firearms and toolmarks. I think I’ll let you handle Mr. Venn.”
“I can’t believe we’ve got that guy for both ballistics and toolmarks. He’s such a dork. And you always make me deal with him.”
“Because you look so cute when you’re upset.”
“That’s inappropriate in so many ways I’m not even going to count them.”
“I know. I’ve been studying under McLeod.”
Outside, they breathed in deep lungfuls of cold air-even Toronto’s atmosphere could be refreshing after the morgue-and headed around the corner to the Forensic Centre.
“I don’t have anything for you.” This from Cornelius Venn, a bony little stork of a man who always spoke in a strange sub-glottal whine, as if there were a small bottle lodged in his throat. “If I did have anything for you, I would have called. That would have been the proper protocol.”
What was it with Ven
n? He always came on as if you had committed against him some well-known outrage, unaddressed by the proper authorities. Delorme made an effort at Buddhist serenity-otherwise she might have smacked him. “Could you just tell us what you have so far?”
“All I can say is that the heads were severed by a weighted blade. An axe or an axe-like object.”
Cardinal laughed. Venn beamed a level-four scowl at him.
“You must be able to tell more than that,” Delorme said. “You have photographs of the wounds. What do you see under the microscope?”
“Detective, are you aware of Crown versus Toft in New Brunswick?”
“No, Mr. Venn, I am not up to date on New Brunswick case law.”
“You should be. Rudiger Toft was convicted of stabbing a man to death five years ago, largely on toolmarks evidence. The superior court overturned the conviction, because the so-called expert had testified that the wound in question had been caused by a certain knife-i.e., a particular knife to the exclusion of all others, as the law books have it. Which was far beyond his actual expertise. And if you think I’m going to join him in the thin-ice club, you are grossly mistaken.”
“I’m not asking you to swear to anything. I’m just asking for what you’ve got.”
“I won’t have anything useful until you have an actual weapon for me to compare with the wounds. I can tell you that both decapitations were performed using the same blade. And it was obviously not the knife in the male victim’s back.”
“There you go, Cornelius. See, you do have something after all. Don’t sell yourself so short. And you know this how?”
“There are crush marks in the damaged tissue, which you’d only get with the weight of an axe or something similar. Striations in the neck cartilage are identical in both cases, but totally dissimilar to test markings with the knife.”
“And what about that knife?”
“It’s a Bark River Upland hunting knife. Barely used, I’d say. Fixed blade, not folding, in the so-called skinner style.”
“So the sort of thing a trapper would use?”
“Let’s not go leaping to conclusions. Yes, it is designed to field dress and skin large game. But point two, it’s also expensive, and point three, it’s a popular item with survivalists. Most trappers these days would be more likely to go for the newer drop-point style of blade.”