Headhunter

by Michael Slade

  12:37 p.m.

  Monica Macdonald and Rusty Lewis came into the White Spot just as Spann and Scarlett were leaving. They took the same table. Both ordered the weight-watchers' platter.

  "So where do we start?" Lewis asked, sipping a cup of

  coffee.

  "The way I see it, we haven't many options." Macdonald thought a moment. "The Central Corps will start with local info. I say you and I abandon our country. Let's go south." "And do what?" Lewis asked. "Tap the FBI?" "Remember that baby kidnapping case several years ago? The infant out of White Rock found in Oregon? Well I was on the Force team that worked with the FBI. I even went out a few times with this Bureau guy from Seattle. He'll remember me."

  "You still keep in touch?"

  "No, but he'll remember me. So I say we leave this afternoon and make for Washington State. Let's get a look at the skin list they'll have there. We'll get a jump on the other flying patrols and Central Corps and maybe we'll get lucky. Maybe we'll find an American skinner poaching in Her Majesty's far western forest."

  "Sounds good," Lewis said. "Do you want to drive or shall I?"

  "I'll drive," Macdonald said. "You look far too tired."

  2:45 p.m.

  Commercial Crime Section (Special "I") Target: Steve Rackstraw (aka "The Fox") Tape installed: October 31st 0900 hours. (Tipple) Tape removed: October 31st 1130 hours. (Tipple) u/m "The Weasel" now known as John Lincoln Hardy, u/m only known as "The Wolf."

  Outgoing local call.

  Weasel: Hello. Fox: Hey. Weasel: Hoodoo. Fox: Hoodoo yourself.

  Weasel: (Chuckling) Hey nigger. . . Hey nigger . . . what's happening?

  Fox: Be ready . . . you know . . . It's on. Weasel: That's cold, man.

  Fox: I was wondering about that house youse knows. Burnaby?

  Weasel: It's cool. Everythin' all moved in. Fox: Ah . . . that's good. Weasel: There were so many ladies out last night. Fox: Uh huh.

  Weasel: They shoot at you, no need to shoot at them . . .you know, drive them white boys wild.

  Fox: Yeah I know. Play the sucker man . . . Hey nigger, are you ready? You be gettin' your hoodoo soon.

  Weasel: That's good . . . cause I's hurtin'.

  Fox: Okay. Bye. Weasel: Bye . . . Hey. Fox: (Laughing) Hey hey.

  3:57 p.m.

  Incoming call. Long distance.

  Fox: Hey hey.

  Operator: I have a collect call from Mr. Wolf. Will you accept the charge?

  Fox: Yes I will.

  Wolf: It's cooking on the 6th .. . The pot boils over at midnight.

  Fox: I'm ready . . . The cous will be down there to see all you.

  Wolf: Ah . . . right ... be seein' the man then.

  Fox: Okay, bye for now.

  Wolf: Au revoir.

  4:01 p.m.

  Outgoing local call.

  Weasel: Yeah?

  Fox: Time for a nigger hoodoo man to catch his ride an' be gone. It's on for the 6th.

  Weasel: All right . . . let's go.

  Fox: Say hello to our Momma for me . . . you hear?

  Weasel: I hear. Bye for now.

  Fox: Bye. Hey hey.

  Halloween

  6:15 p.m.

  Tonight the moon was almost full. And tonight was also Halloween.

  There are those who say they don't need to look at the sky or consult an almanac to know when a full moon lurks behind the rain clouds. For they are policemen and firemen and hospital workers and bartenders and ambulance drivers. From years of experience they have learned that the nights just before full moon will bring out more violence, more uncontrolled emotion, more just plain weirdness than any other time.

  It has long been known that in mental hospitals the most bizarre behavior occurs in the twenty-four to forty-eight hours preceding the full moon. Now there is scientific theory to back this up: it is accepted as fact that the moon's weak magnetism affects the earth's metal-induced magnetic field. This is primarily true of iron. Based on this fact, a Chicago study concentrated on a single element in biological tissue. It concluded that magnetic and gravitational interaction between the earth and the moon may very well be involved in certain human physiological and psychological changes.

  Halloween, of course, takes no account of science.

  Halloween concerns itself with only evil forces.

  And so it would this year.

  At 6:15 p.m. a nun came out through the front door of the convent, past the shaded alcoves in the wood designed for contemplation, along one side of the shallow pond with its celestial reflections, and up the path to the main road where the North Vancouver bus was waiting.

  Before this Halloween was over there would be another victim.

  7:05 p.m.

  The library was a dingy room on the main floor of the command building. Over the years it must have been used for some sort of storage, for all four walls were lined with shelves from the ground up to the ceiling. Several very large tables were scattered about the room and covering these were photostats of every available document on all three of the killings. Copies of the various photographs were in the process of reproduction, while every half hour additional material came in that had not been there before.

  Scarlett and Spann sat at one of the tables working on all three files.

  "When you get right down to it," the woman whispered, "there's really not much here."

  "I was just thinking the same."

  "This haystack will have to get bigger before we'll find the needle."

  "Yeah."

  "Want to get some supper?"

  The man looked at his watch. "Actually I was thinking that it's time for me to leave."

  "Oh, so you still go out Trick-or-Treating."

  "No, it's my mother. She hasn't been very well. She lives in the East End and the street punks scare her. My sister and I go over every Halloween."

  "Sorry. I shouldn't have been so flippant."

  Rick Scarlett shrugged as if to say, It's what I expected. Out loud he said: "Where shall we go from here? We're going to have to come up with a line of investigation. This got us nowhere."

  "Let's wait for a look at the pictures. Maybe there's something in them."

  "I got a minute," Scarlett said. "Let's look at them now."

  "Well, we can't do that, my good man, until they arrive, now can we?"

  "Let's go up and take a look at the Superintendent's wall. He said his door was open. He's not going to object."

  Three minutes later the two of them knocked on DeClercq's office door. When no one answered, Scarlett tried the handle. The door was unlocked. They entered the room and Spann switched on the lights.

  As a result of the Superintendent's work during the day, the overview had exploded. Two whole walls were now covered with pinned-up pictures and reports and pages of notes. It was only a minute before Katherine Spann locked on one of the photos. She let out a low whistle then began reading the notes and reports and telexes tacked around the picture. Finally she turned to her partner and said: "Tomorrow we go downtown early and quaff a couple of beers."

  "Great. We kick off by drinking on duty. Tell me lady, where'd you have in mind for this professional suicide?"

  "Let's start with the Moonlight Arms."

  "The heart of junk city. You got class. I like your debonair style."

  "That, my good man, is where I once saw this dude. And perhaps we'll find him again."

  Rick Scarlett followed her pointing finger to one of the photographs—the picture of John Lincoln Hardy, suspected pimp of Helen Grabowski.

  8:17 p.m.

  The black man stormed into the apartment with his face contorted by rage. He slammed the door behind him, the wood crashing against the jamb. She heard him wrench the lock viciously and the tumblers fall into place.

  "Johnnie?" she asked vaguely, getting up off the couch.

  He grabbed her by the hair. He was a strong man and it took but a single jerk to throw her across the room. Colliding with a table, she knocked a lamp to t
he floor. The bulb shattered, spewing glass shards everywhere. Then before she could try to gain her feet, the man pounced across the space between them and with one hand seized her face. He yanked her up toward him, and suddenly she was frightened. Very frightened indeed.

  "Where is it?" the man hissed, spittle hitting her skin.

  "I ... I don't know what you mean."

  "Don't you get smart with me, bitch!" It was almost a scream. "You know exactly what I mean!"

  "Please Johnnie. Let go," she pleaded. "You're hurting . . ."

  "Shut it, or I'll cut your throat! Do you hear me?"

  Her eyes opened wide in terror, her mouth opened wide to scream. But she couldn't get the sound out because he tightened his grip on her cheeks.

  "Now you listen to me!" His eyelids were practically squinted shut. "That ain't just any object. That ain't a piece of junk. It's my religion, woman. Now where the fuck is it?"

  "Johnnie, pleeease," she gasped through the vice-tight grip of his fingers. "I was so sick. I tried but I, I couldn't take it. You just disappeared. You were gone so long. I thought I was gonna go era . . ."

  "Where is it?" he spat out through his clenched teeth, and then he slapped her suddenly. "Where?" he repeated, and he hit her again. "Where?" This time the blow with his closed fist. "Where?" "Where?" "Where?"

  "Oh God, I sold it! Please, not again!"

  He let her go abruptly and she crumpled to the floor. For several long moments she lay there, sobbing to catch her breath. Then she heard a dull click that brought a knot to her stomach, and she jerked her head up sharply to find that he had switched a blade on her. She could see the light from the ceiling fixture dancing along its steel edge.

  "Okay, baby." His eyes were tense, as though his head were hurting. "It's time for you and me to have a little talk. I really hate to do this."

  8:21 p.m.

  "Sparky."

  "Shut up! Go away! Fuckin' leave me alone!"

  "Sparky, now really, is that the way you talk to your mother?"

  "You're dead and buried! Get lost! You can't be here!"

  "Oh, but I am. I'm down here waiting. Come and stroke my hair.'' '"No!"

  "Soft, soft, so soft—and how long and black it is. Black, black, black, child. Black as your heart."

  "No! I'm not bad. It's you who torments me and makes me do awful things. Oh God, Mommy, why did you make me look?"

  "Because I love you, Sparky. And because you needed the lesson. How can you have pleasure—unless you have pain?"

  "But what you did to that man, and to Crystal. It was so mean. So very cruel."

  "Oh, come now. And what about the hippie? What about what you did to that girl in Ecuador?"

  "That wasn't me! That was you!"

  "Sparky, please. I wasn't even there."

  "Yes you were."

  "No, not really. Only in your head."

  "Well you can just fuck off! I won't do what you say!"

  "Yes, you will. You'll do anything I ask."

  "No!"

  "Yes."

  "No!"

  "Yes."

  "No! No! N . . . AUUGGHHHH!"

  Silence.

  "Yes."

  "Oh, please, Mommy, don't do that again! Please! Please! Please!"

  "Come, come, Sparky. Dry those tears. Now let's hear your footsteps on the stairs. Come to me, child. Come and stroke my hair."

  "I'm coming. I'm coming, Mommy. Oh God! Why'd you make me look!"

  10:19 p.m.

  The rain had begun at last.

  Since morning dark clouds had hovered all along the western horizon far out at sea, kept at bay by a high pressure ridge along the spine of the mountains. But now the battle had been lost. First a light drizzle, then a shower, then a full downpour had taken over. The nun was soaked to the skin before she was ten feet from the bus stop.

  It didn't bother her, this rain—to her it was Heaven's touch.

  She came slowly down the slope of the path that wound through the convent gardens, past the reflecting pool now pockmarked by the raindrops, past the alcoves in the Garden of Christ where she often sat in thought. She was deep in thought now. Above her the moon, one day from full, was hidden behind the storm clouds.

  The nun had spent the evening with an old woman who was living out her final days in a decaying house in the East End of Vancouver. Her hands gnarled with arthritis and her eyes clouded by cataracts, she could barely take care of herself yet she steadfastly refused to be warehoused in a hospital or a rest home. That tenacity had reminded the nun of when she herself was a child, when this strong woman, her surrogate mother, had helped convince her to take the Holy

  Vows. It had hurt her tonight to sit in that room in that house in East Vancouver, and listen to the one whom she loved so now shake her fist at God.

  So tonight especially the nun was looking forward to Mass.

  It was with utter surprise that she felt the arm circle around her throat. Suddenly her breath was cut off and so was any scream. A hand seized her roughly, throwing her to the ground. The motions were swift; the person was strong; the force applied was brutal. The attacker abruptly let her go, then fell down upon her. Now a gloved hand was instantly clamped over her mouth.

  The eyes of the nun opened wide when she heard the material ripping. Above her she saw a flash of blood-red color at the neck of the nylon jacket worn by her violator. The face was hidden behind a black nylon mask, the eyes leered out of two small incisions, and a third hole revealed lips pulled back in a snarl over bared white teeth. Then in utter horror she felt the hardness stab between her legs. The pressure. The entry. And realized. Oh My Lord, this is rape!

  In that instant she thought of the Sister who had been attacked in New York City. The other Sisters raped and killed in El Salvador. How in the name of Mercy,she thought, can God let this happen!

  Then there was a glint of light on steel.

  And the knife slammed through her throat.

  The Jack-o'-Lantern

  Monday, November 1st, 1:03 a.m.

  Robert DeClercq had seen more of death than was healthy for any man—no matter how professionally anesthetized his human sensibilities.

  As with all men and women who deal daily with homicide, the Superintendent had been forced to take it in his stride and discover his own way to objectify this most subjective of human fears—the knowledge you're going to die. DeClercq had found it impossible to eschew all emotion. Nor was he able to develop a sense of gallows humor. In the end his mind reached a compromise with itself: reason was left to do its job hindered only by an accumulating overtone of sadness. Sadness about the loss.

  For thirty years that technique had worked.

  But it didn't work tonight.

  It was the total outrage of what DeClercq saw that made the anger well up inside him.

  The body of the nun lay on the ground bathed in arc light about thirty feet from the garden path. Around her the men who made murder their business went about their work, the Ident. crew flashing their photographs and sweeping the ground with humming metal detectors, the dog masters leading the German shepherds out from where the nun lay sprawled in the mud. Joseph Avacomovitch was crouched on his heels about a foot and a half from the victim, flanked on his left by Inspector MacDougall and on his right by the Superintendent. It was what had been done to the Sister that enraged Robert DeClercq.

  "Same MO," Avacomovitch said, "in the pattern of the killing." He pointed toward the flesh of the neck where the head had been severed. "You can see the perpendicular stab just below the horizontal cut of decapitation. I'll want the top vertebra, Jack, once the autopsy's over."

  Inspector MacDougall nodded. He too was angry for this was the second body found within North Van jurisdiction— and North Vancouver Detachment was MacDougall's home turf. He looked away to size up the progress of the ongoing search.

  "She's been raped," the Russian said, "and slashed across the breasts." He looked up for a second, his forehead frowned with d
istaste. "The intercourse was brutal."

  "You mean with her a virgin?"

  "Virgin or not, it wouldn't matter. This guy's a savage."

  "Were the clothes ripped or cut?" the Superintendent asked.

  "Both. The one from the crotch to the feet is a knife slash. It was torn from the neck to her waist."

  "Was she killed here?" asked Inspector MacDougall.

  "Yes. Too much blood for it to be otherwise. The rain's done damage to any footprints or ground marks but it looks like she was walking down the path and dragged into the bushes. There's the sign of a struggle over near the walk."

  "Who found her?" DeClercq asked.

  "Another Sister," MacDougall answered. "She came out to close and lock the gate. She saw the candle burning."

  "I'd like to know what a shrink would make of all this."

  Just then the almost full moon emerged through a break in the rain clouds. The crime scene turned a metallic silver as the three men stood in silence around the corpse of the nun. Each had his own thoughts about what had happened. Not one of them would pretend to even begin to comprehend the mind of the Headhunter. That they were dealing with a maniac was all that was certain. It appeared to DeClercq that the killer had either been waiting to ambush his victim or else had followed her. He had raped her and stabbed her and cut up her clothes and then had cut off her head. What nagged at his mind once again was the vertical cut to the throat. He knew that in order to catch the contractions of the body in its death throes, such a wound was common to homicidal rapists. But this was something different. This one was a monster. For not only had he cut off the nun's head and also carried off her cowl, but in its place at the top of her neck he had left a jack-o'-lantern. The face of the pumpkin had two triangles for eyes, another triangle for a nose, and a mouth which was fang-filled and shaped into a malevolent grin. A candle had been burning inside. It was the light of the candle the Sister had seen when she came out to close the gate, and though the wax had now melted away the grinning pumpkin still looked blankly down at the butchered body.

  One of the corporals involved in the search came over to speak to MacDougall. His hands and uniform were covered with mud, his clothes soaked. He had just climbed out of the reflecting pool.