by Giles Blunt
Delorme had googled Izzard on the Internet before calling him. Izzard was a cop with an advanced degree in psychology and a particular interest in Satanism and other esoteric practices that have attracted serial killers over the past few decades. His papers on the subject had appeared in the Annals of Forensic Psychology and he had written a widely respected book-length study of Richard Ramirez, the so-called Night Stalker who had terrorized Los Angeles twenty years previously. Just from her reading on the Internet, Delorme had discovered that Satanism was far more widespread among serial killers than she had supposed.
“Most of them don’t get into it in any organized way,” Izzard told her on the phone. “They dabble. They go into it with about as much devotion as the average housewife gives her yoga philosophy.”
“I guess it makes sense they’d be interested in anything that appears to condone the evil things they do.”
“Oh, their interest isn’t ethical. Even with Ramirez. They’re not looking for permission from a supernatural being. When a person seething with rage and lust starts playing with Satanic rituals—that is to say, rituals designed to bring Satan or his helpers into your apartment—what happens is they invoke not some supernatural being but an embodiment of their own blackest desires. Imagine a being composed of pure lust and rage—no conscience, no morals, no restraints …”
“Pretty hideous,” Delorme said.
“And it’s going to be powerful. For a loser who is otherwise close to nonfunctioning, it’s going to be the most powerful experience of his life. With Ramirez—and maybe with your guy, too—what can happen is a borderline personality topples over the edge and becomes an outright psychopath.”
“Which brings us to our hieroglyphics.”
“You said you may be looking for an Indian? A Native?”
“It’s possible. A couple of witnesses have mentioned an Indian named Red Bear.”
“Well, these markings have nothing to do with Native Canadians or Americans. Unless you happen to have an Indian who’s interested in Voodoo.”
“Voodoo? In Canada?”
“Oh, sure. You get all kinds of it in Toronto. Even more in Montreal. Comes up by way of the Caribbean countries, and it’s completely harmless in most cases. But these markings you faxed to me, I’ve never seen anything like them. All those arrows bundled together, and so many repetitions, each one slightly different. I frankly don’t know what to make of them.”
“But you’re sure they’re not Indian.”
“Let me put it this way. If they are Indian, it’s a completely new type of glyph. There’s been nothing like it in North America as far as I’m aware. No, I’m thinking maybe some personal variation on Voodoo or Santeria. But that’s all I know.”
“So what are we going to do? Can you point me in some likely direction?”
“You have to talk to Helen Wasserstein.”
“Who’s she? RCMP?”
“Try ROM.”
The Royal Ontario Museum is perhaps the closest Canada gets to the Smithsonian or the British Museum. It is on a much smaller scale than either of those two august institutions, but what it does, it tends to do excellently. Virtually every high-school student in Ontario will at some point or other be bused to Toronto to view the museum’s dinosaurs, its Roman collection or its totem poles.
Helen Wasserstein was the ROM’s curator of Native Canadian artifacts, but luckily Delorme did not have to travel to Toronto in order to talk to her. As it turned out, Dr. Wasserstein was on a dig in the northern end of Algonquin Park, which put her a little more than an hour south of Algonquin Bay.
Delorme liked to drive, and she particularly liked driving into the forest. But the last part of the trip was over a dirt road that could hardly be called a road at all. More than once her head made contact with the roof of the car, and she wished for the first time in her life that she drove a Jeep or an SUV. She came, finally, to a barrier constructed of several strips of red tape.
A sign proclaimed the archaeological dig, and invited those not connected with the project to turn back. There were two Jeeps and a pickup truck parked among the trees. Delorme left her unmarked Caprice facing the tape and headed down the slope.
Smells of pine and loam were thick in the air. So were blackflies. Delorme swatted the air before her face like a neurotic fighting off intrusive thoughts. At the bottom of the hill lay a wide clearing, almost perfectly circular, from which the top layer of pine needles and soil had been scraped away. Three figures on hands and knees probed and sifted the dirt. All three, Delorme noted with envy, were wearing bug shirts.
One of the figures stood upright and stared at her. It was like being observed by an astronaut; Delorme wasn’t sure if the figure was male or female.
“I’m looking for Dr. Wasserstein,” Delorme said. “I understand she’s—”
The hooded figure raised a little spade and pointed to the other side of the dig. Dr. Wasserstein was crouched over a sieve that she was shirring back and forth as if she were a prospector.
“Dr. Wasserstein?”
The hood of netting turned to face her.
“My name is Lise Delorme. I’m a detective with the Algonquin Bay police. I wonder if you could spare me a few minutes of your time.”
“Police? I’m very busy just now. But as you’ve come all this way, I assume it’s something that can’t wait?”
“I’m afraid not.”
“All right. Let’s go in the trailer. You’re getting eaten alive.”
The trailer was an office on wheels. The table inside was covered with maps, notebooks, cameras and survey equipment. A large Thermos sat beside a super-sized can of bug spray.
“Coffee?”
“Sure. That would be nice.”
Dr. Wasserstein removed her bug protection and shook out her bobbed dark hair. Delorme had been expecting grey hair and spectacles, but the curator was no older than Delorme, possibly a year or two younger, with dark eyes and perfect skin. Underneath the bug shirt she wore a striped T-shirt of the type favoured by French fishermen.
Coffee was poured, and Delorme explained why she was there.
“You have two murders? And you think they are connected to Native Canadians in some way?”
“There’s some possible involvement of a First Nations person. But Frank Izzard at OPP thinks these symbols are connected to Voodoo.”
“I know Frank. That’s all he told you?”
“He said you’d be the one to narrow it down.”
Dr. Wasserstein looked out the trailer window. Outside, her colleagues went about their work, still figures in the tranquil light. Delorme envied them, and felt a twinge of sadness at bringing thoughts of murder into this place of quiet study. Dr. Wasserstein turned back to face her, dark eyes intense.
“You know, people are always labouring under the misconception that Voodoo is a violent religion. It isn’t. I mean, yes, they kill goats and chickens and so on, and use the blood in their rituals, but the animals are not treated any worse than the ones we eat every day. Probably a good deal better. Did you find animal bones near the bodies?”
“I’d rather not tell you anything about the bodies until you look at something else. I don’t want to prejudice your opinion.” Delorme pulled out the photographs of the hieroglyphics. “Can you tell me anything about these?”
Dr. Wasserstein took the photos and examined them in the window light.
“Oh, these are interesting. I haven’t seen any of these, except in the journals. You found these in Algonquin Bay?”
“In the woods just outside town. We know they’re not old.”
“No, they wouldn’t be. Not in this hemisphere.”
“What can you tell us about them?”
“Well, they’re not Native, I can tell you that right off. I’m sure Frank Izzard told you the same thing.”
“He did.”
“Did you find any shells near these markings? Tiny shells? Multicoloured?”
“Yes, we did. What mak
es you say that?”
“They’re not hieroglyphics at all, these markings. What they are is a record of divining the future. Fortune-telling. A witch or priest or shaman—whatever term you prefer—tells the future by tossing cowrie shells and reading their patterns. These marks, the arrows pointing in different directions and so on, are a recording of particular throws of the shells. Different coloured shells get different representations—the hammer for the green ones, for example, the hatchet for the red. They look a little sinister, especially if they’re connected to a crime, but in themselves they’re actually quite harmless. They answer all the usual questions, you know—is there money coming? Romance? A promotion? They’re no worse than astrology. But tell me something else: Did you find any longish sticks nearby? Sticks that look like they had been cut to one length?”
“Yes, we found a few. They were all discoloured at one end. We’re still waiting to hear back from forensics on what they were discoloured with.”
“Probably blood. Palos, they’re called.”
“Are you telling me it’s Voodoo, after all?”
“It’s Palo Mayombe.”
“What did you call it?”
“Palo Mayombe.” Dr. Wasserstein spelled it for her. “It’s a relative of Santeria and Voodoo. Much more mysterious, maybe more frightening. We don’t actually know too much about it. Like Voodoo, it is used primarily to read the future, and then to adjust the future by invoking the help of particular orishas—these are conflations of African spirits with Christian saints. They have different spheres of influence. Ellegua for crossroads, Oggun for iron or metal, that sort of thing.”
“How do you invoke them?”
“You make offerings. Offerings related to their jurisdiction. Ellegua likes sweet things, for example. Oggun wants iron, metal.”
“Would a railway spike fit the bill?”
“Definitely. Railway spike, horseshoe … anything like that.”
“Who practises this stuff?”
“In Canada? No one. This is the first I’ve heard of it here. It comes originally from the Ibo, the Bantu and the Kikongo, tribes primarily found in Nigeria and Congo. We know that it was widely practised in the nineteenth century. Many members of those tribes were brought over to the western hemisphere as slaves, and they brought their religion with them.”
“Where in the western hemisphere?”
“Cuba, almost entirely. So, if I were looking for someone deep into Palo Mayombe, I’d be looking for someone from Cuba—or maybe Miami, for obvious reasons. You might find traces of it in Mexico, but really Cuba’s the current cauldron for this stuff.”
“Cuba. And you’re certain this has nothing to do with Native Canadians.”
“Nothing whatsoever.”
There was a silence. Dr. Wasserstein said, “What? You’re looking perplexed.”
“You said this Palo Mayombe is more mysterious than Voodoo. Maybe more frightening. Why did you say that?”
“Well, like Voodoo, it involves the usual animal sacrifices. But when it comes to Palo Mayombe, there are many references to human sacrifice. Tales of people mutilated before they were killed.”
“One of our murder victims had his hands and feet cut off. And we haven’t found his head, either.”
“Oh, dear God.” Dr. Wasserstein placed a palm on her chest. “How terrifying.”
“Yeah. We want to stop him before he does this to anyone else.”
“Well, for the sake of accuracy, I should tell you that these days, when it comes to Palo Mayombe, there is a lot of discussion about what is the truth. Defenders of Mayombe make a number of points: First, all of the references to human sacrifice come from missionaries. People whose sole motivation for being in Africa was to convert the populace to Christianity. Historically, the method of choice was to frighten people—thus, you get the pagan gods of old being transformed into devils, figures of pure evil.
“Second point. There’s nothing wrong with human sacrifice per se. Jesus Christ was a human sacrifice, sanctioned by God himself. Also, we honour soldiers who give their lives in the cause of defending their country. What are they, if not human sacrifices?
“Three. They say if there was human sacrifice, it was—as in the cases I’ve just cited—completely voluntary.”
Delorme regarded the curator. Despite the bobbed hair and the hip T-shirt, the discussion of violence seemed to have aged her.
“You’re very pale,” Delorme said. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. Just a bit—well, what you told me …” Dr. Wasserstein shook her head as if she could fling the brutal images away.
“What I was saying—it’s all very well for defenders of Mayombe to say the witnesses of such things were prejudiced, or had something to gain by making it up. That’s true, as far as it goes. But these were Jesuits, most of them, and their references are not in tracts or the texts of sermons. They occur in their relations of events they sent back to their superiors in the order—in other words, there was no need to frighten anyone. They were just reporting to head office what they were up against.
“Also, they made similar reports about North America. We know that the Iroquois tortured Father Brébeuf horribly and cut his heart out. The Hurons performed similar atrocities on their enemies. And we know these accounts are true.”
“And the mutilation?”
“Oh, it’s ghastly. There are two elements involved. First, there is the desire to inflict as much pain as possible. The reason being, that if you have your victim screaming and begging for his life, then you can control his spirit in the afterworld. You can command him to go here and there for you, learn things for you, do things for you. It’s a belief common to many pagan religions.
“The mutilation follows from this. In order for the spirit to get around and do these things for you, he needs feet to travel, fingers to feel or grasp, perhaps even a brain to understand. So the shaman cuts these off and tosses them into a cauldron. In the case of Palo Mayombe, the cauldron is stirred with a number of sticks or palos in order to keep control of the spirit. After you have created it, it then needs fresh blood to keep working for you.”
“That’s not good news,” Delorme said. “You’re telling me there’ll likely be more sacrifices.”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“And yet a lot of people don’t see it as anything other than a harmless variant of Voodoo?”
“That’s right. Personally, I happen to think they are wrong. I believe the Jesuits on this one. And anyway, you have a mutilated body on your hands, you have the palos and you have the cowrie shells. So either you are dealing with a priest of Palo Mayombe who is following the ancient beliefs, or you’re dealing with someone who has hideously perverted those beliefs. Either way, you’ve got a monster on your hands.”
42
THE OFFICE WAS GETTING to Cardinal. McLeod was yelling at some lawyer on the phone. Across the room, Szelagy was whistling again, although he had been told twice already to can it. And someone else was pounding a fist on the photocopy machine as if that would encourage it to perform.
No wonder I like working with Delorme, Cardinal thought. She’s the only person in this room who is actually pleasant to be around. Except that Delorme wasn’t in the room just then; her desk was empty. She was chasing the hieroglyphics.
Cardinal had signed out a large crate of material from the evidence room, and was going through it piece by piece, pulling things out and setting them on his desk. Some were items found at the scene of Wombat Guthrie’s murder, which was also, he was beginning to suspect, the place where Terri Tait had been shot. There was the odd collection of straight sticks, now returned from the forensic centre, which had confirmed that the discoloured ends had been dipped in blood, both animal and human. DNA results were still incomplete. Then there was the plaster cast of the tire track from the Tilley scene. Collingwood had determined that it was from a Bridgestone RE 71, the kind of tire you’d put on a muscle car, possibly a Tra
ns Am.
He reached into the box and pulled out the silver locket. He sprung the clasp and looked at the tiny photo inside. Handsome couple in their mid-forties, the man in uniform. Definitely military, but it was impossible to tell in this miniature black and white whether he was air force or not. Cardinal found a magnifying glass and held the photo under his desk lamp. He was pretty sure he could see a resemblance between the woman and Terri Tait.
“Cardinal!”
It was Detective Sergeant Chouinard at the door in his fedora.
“Someone out front to see you! Tell the duty sergeant when he gets back I’m not the damn doorman around here.”
Cardinal went out to the front desk, where the pale, boneless features of Dr. Filbert broke into a smile.
“I took a chance coming over without phoning. I figured homicide, someone has to be working late. I tried Detective Arsenault but he’s not around.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I have some DNA results for you.” He held up a sheaf of papers; they looked like a computer printout.
“DNA results? We didn’t leave you any DNA.”
“If you have a minute, I’ll explain.”
Cardinal led him into the squad room. He pulled over Delorme’s chair for Dr. Filbert to sit in.
Dr. Filbert perched on the edge of it, hands clasped on his lap.
“I believe I can now definitely link your second body to your first body.”
“With the maggot casing we left you? But it could have been tracked there from the site of a dead fox, a dead dog. A dead anything.”
“That is no longer true, Detective.” Filbert waved the printout. “We’ve now got the same DNA at both sites.”
“I don’t understand. Whose DNA?”
“The fly’s.”
Cardinal knew he was tired, but could he really be missing some obvious logic here? He restrained himself from banging on his temples. Instead, he just said, “You did a DNA analysis on the maggot casing we gave you? You can get DNA just from the casing?”