"In character disorder, rather than a break with reality, there is more what I would call a compromise with reality. Over the course of his or her life a person affected by this disease, instead of developing some symptom such as an hallucination or obsession, develops a change in character structure that systematically alters his or her way of interacting with reality.
"Often this is the failure to develop a normal moral sense, an inability to distinguish between right and wrong. The person affected is still in touch with reality, it's just that he or she does whatever he or she wishes for whatever reason with no concern whatsoever for anyone else's feelings. Sadists often fit this mold—and that's why begging, beseeching and imploring have no effect upon them."
"Will you expand on psychopathy?" Robert DeClercq asked.
"Certainly," Ruryk said. "For this is the area in which we find the vast majority of mass murderers.
"Psychopaths may be divided into two important subcategories.
"The first of these is the under-controlled aggressive psychopath. This is the type of individual who does not have the constraints on behavior necessary in society. Such a person will frequently be involved in acts of aggression and will be well-known to the police because of a number of previous charges or convictions for violence. I put Clifford Olson in this category.
"Far more dangerous and elusive,.however, is the second sub-category—the over-controlled aggressive psychopath. For this type of man has many constraints issuing that govern his behavior. He is often a rather meticulous, rigid, obsessional individual. At times of stress, however, this man is unable to control the aggressive urges that lie buried deep within his personality, and at such times violent behavior can occur. It is as though a safety valve has blown or a volcano erupted. Then once the pressure has been released this type of psychopath immediately returns to his normal self.
"You can see why this type of killer is extremely difficult to locate, for the factors which cause such outbursts will vary with each individual: what will upset one man will not perturb another. I put Bundy in this category.
"The most important point, however, is this: both the deeply repressed psychotic and the over-controlled aggressive psychopath may appear perfectly normal on the surface as they go about their daily lives.
"Hunting either one is like searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack."
There was a lull for a moment in the conversation and then Robert DeClercq said: "Doctor, in the readings that you have provided me there is mention of 'the Imposter.' I wonder if you would expand on that term within the present context?"
" 'The Imposter' as we call him is a relatively rare but dramatic form of psychopathic personality. He is relatively common in cases of psychosis. The Imposter is one who is bound neither by society's sanctions, nor by a sense of his own identity. The Imposter assumes the role and status of any part that he might wish to play. In many respects his entire life is the wearing of a mask.
"The danger of the Imposter is that people around him relate to the mask and not to his psychopathic personality which is doubly removed—removed once because he is over-controlled and twice because even his over-controlled identity is hidden behind the mask. As the Chinese say in a proverb: 'Fish see the worm, not the hook.' "
"That means, does it not," DeClercq said slowly, "that the person responsible for the Headhunter killings may for all intents and purposes be as indistinguishable as the man who lives next door?"
"It means," said Dr. Ruryk, "that the Headhunter might very well be the man next door. In fact, the man next door may be the Headhunter and not even know it himself. You see, this is the sort of situation that occurs in documented cases of split personality. It would be possible for our killer to have created 'an Imposter' within his mind and then to have psychologically assumed the role of 'the Imposter' and subconsciously buried and forgotten the personality that created him. This is precisely the situation that Stevenson was writing about in The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except that in that story the process was externalized, whereas we are talking about transactions totally contained within the human mind. In such a case should the killer want out he merely assumes the body of the Imposter but shuts down the Imposter's artificial awareness until he—the unrecognized psychopathic personality—slips back into hiding once again. At that point the awareness of the Imposter will reactivate and know nothing about what has happened. He—the Imposter— then walks outside and you and I spend a few boring minutes watching him water his lawn."
DeClercq asked: "Is mental abnormality genetically inherited?"
"We don't know," Ruryk replied cautiously. "It is definitely passed on from one generation to the next. But that could be by genetics or by socialization."
DeClercq: "Now might I ask you, doctor, for your general impression of the killer whom we seek?"
"To answer that," Ruryk said, "I'll ask another question: 'Why have the heads gone missing?' That to me is the mystery. And I can think of four possible answers:
"Each head is removed to impede identification of the victim.
"Each head is removed to satisfy cannibalistic desires on the part of the killer toward that section of the female body.
"Each head is collected for some reason as a trophy of the killing.
"Each head is removed because the killer has a fetish for female hair.
"Let's take them one by one.
"Does the Headhunter take the head to prevent victim identification? This I doubt. Though it is not without precedent—indeed Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, contemplated this very act concerning his sixth victim, Jean Jordan—I would expect the killer to have cut off the fingers too. In a frenzy of murder he might forget this second act concerning the first body, but not the subsequent ones. So that to my mind leaves us with one of the three perversions.
"Does the Headhunter take the head in a cannibalistic craving? Very possibly so.
"I note, Superintendent, in one of your reports the possible theory that the killer or killers may be members of a cannibalistic cult. You refer to the Zebra killings and you mention the local Kwakiutl Indians and their history in that direction. I can think of a few even more blatant examples.
"Take for example the crimes of the man upon whose murders are loosely based two motion pictures—Hitchcock's Psycho and the cult film The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
"Ed Gein was a farmer in Plainfield, Wisconsin. According to psychiatric reports his mother had been a religious fanatic who exerted a strong overbearing influence on her son.
"After her death it is believed that Gein had read of the sex change undertaken by Christine Jorgensen and wished himself to become a woman—to become his mother.
"At first a grave robber, he later took to murdering women.
"In a shed next to his large farmhouse Gein would skin each corpse and then study his dissected trophies. He began to don the skins that he removed and wear them for hours draped over his own body so as to experience a bizarre thrill in thinking himself a woman.
"Psycho is based on this premise. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,however, is concerned with another aspect.
"After Gein was arrested the local Sheriff went to the farmhouse. There he found a woman's body with its head cut off. hanging upside down from the ceiling of the shed. Scattered around the main house, the Sheriff located a number of Ed Gein's trophies: there were bracelets made of human skin, four female noses in a cup on the kitchen table, a pair of human lips on a string dangling from a windowsill, two human shin bones, strips of human skin used to brace four chairs, a tomtom made from a coffee can with human skin stretched over both the top and bottom, a pair of leggings made from the skin of several women, the skin from a female torso converted into a vest, nine death masks made from skinned female faces mounted on the walls, ten heads belonging to women sawed off above the eyebrows to open up their brain vaults, another head converted into a soup bowl, and a purse that Gein had made with handles of human skin.
"A further search revealed that the refrigerator was stocked with frozen human organs and that a human heart was in a frying pan on the stove. By the Sheriff s estimate, the various body pieces discovered would add up to fifteen women. Of course no one knows how many more Gein had consumed over the years.
"In December of 1957—after admitting to graverobbing, intercourse with the bodies and cannibalizing the remains— Gein was committed for life to an - institution for the criminally insane where, I believe, he resides today.
"I could go on and on with the cases of modern cannibals," the psychiatrist said. "The public is either not aware—or soon forgets—-just how common a practice it is.
"The point is," Ruryk said, "that every jurisdiction has similar cannibal cases. That's why I say that this very well might be the reason why the Headhunter cuts off heads. And if it is the reason, I'll venture he's eating the brains."
At this juncture they took a break while DeClercq turned over the tape. Ruryk packed and poked his pipe and then he continued.
"Does the Headhunter take the head to collect it as a trophy? Well this I think is also a distinct possibility.
"Again we have the case of Ed Gein: nine skinned female faces were found mounted like masks on the walls of his farmhouse. Though the animal is human, the psychology at work here is that of the big game hunter. The trophy above the mantel.
"And finally: Does the Headhunter take the head because he has a fetish for female hair? Again very likely.
"In one of your reports, Superintendent, you have noted that the first three victims all had long black hair. To my mind the killing of the nun might also fit this pattern, for in that case her black cowl is a symbolic representation. What one must realize is that a fetishist is a person preoccupied with symbol. ,
"The psychological link between sex and hair goes back a very long way.
"Prostitutes, of course, have used this knowledge for centuries; a large percentage of them keep a selection of wigs to meet the psychological needs of their various clients.
"A problem arises, however, when a mania develops.
"In a case of mania we find that the affected person's mind has upset or lost its natural connection with reality. An obsession has taken over resulting in the collecting of or concentration upon some concrete object which the mind links to sex.
"Hair is a prime example. Take the case of John Reginald Halliday Christie, a sexual psychopath who committed eight murders of women between 1940 and 1953.
"Before disposing of the bodies he would shave off the pubic hair and store it in a tobacco tin. Later when his fetish overtook him, he would gloat over the tin of hair, masturbating as he did so."
At this point Dr. Ruryk glanced around for an ashtray. DeClercq handed him an empty flower pot.
"So," Ruryk began again, "where does all this leave us?
"I believe back at the question which to my way of thinking is at the center of this case: 'Why have the heads gone missing?' That is our real mystery—and the key to the Head-hunter's illness. Answer that question and you will be well along the road to revealing his identity. For you see everything else in this case revolves around those heads. Not only the fact that the heads have gone missing, but also the fact that in the later crimes the killer has gone to great risk to leave a head-substitute.
"This attention seeking is typical for a psychopath. Such a person believes himself superior to and better than everybody else. He doesn't make mistakes, and if he does he blames it on another. In effect this killer is saying: 'I can do no wrong. You have not caught me on four occasions. See what you can do now.'
"So believe me. Superintendent, center on the heads."
For a moment Ruryk turned away from the microphone and looked out over the ocean beyond the glass of the greenhouse. With a swoop a cormorant took a dive at the water. Ruryk watched the bird a while, then brought his attention back.
"I believe," the psychiatrist said, "that we are now able to return to your original question. You asked me for my general impression of the killer whom you seek.
"Most likely he is a sexual psychopath with one of those three perversions concerning his victims' heads—cannibalism, trophy hunting or hair fetishism.
"Less likely he is a psychotic with one of the same three perversions.
"And then there is one more very rare possibility."
"What's that?" DeClercq asked with a bare trace of a frown.
Ruryk met his eyes and said: "There's the off-chance, Superintendent, that what we have here is the most dangerous of men. For it is possible that the Headhunter is a psychiatric crossover. He may just be a psychopathic sadist with psychotic overtones."
That afternoon when Genevieve DeClercq arrived home she found her husband sitting by himself down by the edge of the sea. Across the water clouds were boiling above the city of Vancouver.
"A penny for your thoughts," she said, crouching down beside him.
For several long seconds Robert DeClercq was silent. Then he said: "I was just thinking how life affects the very young. And how those young grow up to become an effect on life."
Out on the water a cormorant was swimming with a fish clamped in its bill.
The Price of Your Skull
11:50 a.m.
That morning as Dr. George Ruryk was driving out Chancellor Boulevard from the University of British Columbia on his way to meet Robert DeClercq, Spann and Scarlett were driving in. Earlier they had tried to contact Corporal William Tipple at Commercial Crime in order to get a lead on John Lincoln Hardy but it was Tipple's day off. The member who answered the phone told Spann that the Corporal had gone hiking in the North Shore mountains and wouldn't be back till tomorrow.
They had decided late last night to follow the trail of DeClercq. What was the use of a manhunt if you didn't know your quarry? Therefore, they had spent the morning reading psychology texts.
"Okay," Katherine Spann said. "I've read enough. I think I'll recognize this guy if we bump into him in the dark. Let's sweep the pubs again."
"Why not wait for Tipple? It'll save us some time."
"Why give the collar away? Besides what else do we have to do?"
"All right," Scarlett said, "but give me another minute. I'm at a juicy part." The book he was reading was Wilson: The Origins of the Sexual Impulse.
"I'll meet you upstairs by the card catalogue. I need some air."
Spann left Scarlett buried several stories underground. Climbing the stairs to the stacks she passed row upon row of old texts housed in sunken levels; the only sound was that of the compressors and convectors pumping oxygen into the subterranean space.
Ten minutes later when Scarlett emerged he found Spann standing at the catalogue studying a card. "You'd better look at this," she said as he came up beside her. She pointed to the card. It read: HOODOO. See VOODOO.
Two minutes later they were back in the stacks searching out a volume called Voodoo and Hoodoo: Their Practice Today. Scatlett only had to scan a few paragraphs before he began to feel like a fool:
Detectives smashed a grave-robbing ring early today as they rounded up the last of five suspects accused of stealing the skulls of long-dead women. The macabre loot was worth an estimated $1000 on the occult market, and was headed for voodoo rites, detectives said. There was no connection made between the grave robbery and a grisly discovery in a Bronx apartment yesterday. Maintenance men who entered an empty apartment found an altar, a human skull, a goat's skull, dried blood and feathers apparently used in voodoo rites. An investigation was ordered.
New York Post, November 18, 1977.
Spann looked up and said: "I think we now know 'what's happenin' with that 'nigger hoodoo man.' "
"Yeah," Scarlett said sheepishly. "And it sure the hell isn't limestone pillars between the Rocky Mountains and the prairies."
9:00 p.m.
That night they sat together at the water's edge, huddled against the chill of the dark, combining the heat of their bodies as the world slowly t
urned toward winter. Waves lapped against the shore and to the east a Hunter's Moon hung in the sky like a moist overripe piece of fruit, half its surface shining in purple twilight, the other half obscured by clouds. Occasionally a dead leaf would flutter down to the ground.
Later they built a fire in the living room and both took off their clothes, but when they tried to make love DeClercq couldn't get an erection. When they finally gave up he noticed once again that both his hands were shaking. Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and whispered, "Oh my God."
Genevieve sat up. "Roll over on your stomach," she softly said to him. She began to deep rub his back. As her fingers moved she could sense the stress built up in him. "Relax, just relax," she said.
She moved down to massage his feet, the most important part of the human structure when it comes to relaxation.
"Will you listen to me, Robert, or have you shut me out? I won't let you close up on me, not without a fight. Hey, relax, relax, I can feel that foot tensing up. Can you hear me, Robert? Is anyone home in there?"
"I hear you, Genny," he said, his voice buried in a sigh.
"Good, then let's talk it out." She began to work on his legs. "Robert DeClercq, I've told you before—you hold yourself too tight. You cling to the values of a time that has gone forever. Then you wonder why life never seems to work. The value of a man's word as the currency of friendship: help your neighbor; the compact of love. I think at long last you're beginning to doubt that your values have any place. You're a throwback to another time and you're beginning to feel very old."
"And it's starting to show, isn't it Genny?"
"Starting to ... ? Oh, you mean our missing erection, and you'll note I said 'our.' So what am I to do? Is this such a major problem that I should run naked from the house to find some young buck stud who'll do sexual service? You're only fifty-five, man. Believe me, I'll squeeze a lot more fun out of you yet."
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