"No, you're wrong. He's not dead. He's hiding here inside."
"He's dead, fool. We killed him. You saw him die out in the Arctic snow."
"I didn't kill him! You did. God, I was only two years old!"
"You were there, Sparky. You're a witness and a party. You saw him puke his guts out when the poison got him. You saw me chop a hole in the ice and push his body through. You saw it all and you didn't stop it. That makes you guilty too.''
"But I was only two!"
""SHUT UP, you sniveling piece of shit! You sound more like your father every frigging day. Is that what you want? To be just like him?"
Sparky began to cry, great body-racking sobs and tears that fell like West Coast rain. "You can't talk like that! My Daddy's still alive!"
"Look at you. You're just like him. Quivering mush inside. He was hung up on his old man, just the way that you are. Wanted to he just like him and carry on tradition. Thin red line and 'get your man' and all that Mountie crap. Do you think his father, if alive, would have given a fuck? The old man cared so much for him he refused to pass on his name. Is your last name Blake? So don't make me laugh. Your father was a bastard in every sense of the word.''
"Mommy, why do you hate me? I was only two."
"Look at yourself in the mirror, Sparky. Can't you see the reason? How much you look like him? I never wanted you, you were his idea. All you mean to me is a link to get back at him!
"Do you know what he made me do? Each night up in the Arctic? He made me dress up like a whore and traipse around before him. I'd stand there in the freezing cold while he looked me over like some piece of meat. I like to sec you cold,' he'd say. It makes your nipples hard. Now turn around Bend over. And roll your panties down That's the way Suzannah, get your husband hard. The bigger and harder Alfred gets, the more you're going to like it.'
"God, I hated him. He was like my father. 'Shhh, Suzannah Come in here, cherie. Don't let your mother know. That's my girl. Now take off your pants. Let Pappa see what you've got.' "
"Ah, go away. Mother! Leave me alone!"
"You'll never get rid of me, Sparky. I'm inside your head. You think that rag of a uniform gives you some protection. You think you want to be Alfred's child? You want to worship him? Go fuck yourself, Sparky. You know I always win. You were trained forever down in that dungeon in New Orleans. And you'll pay for what your father did anytime I want."
Suddenly Sparky's lips wrenched back in a grimace of teeth-clenching agony. Pain like splintering shards of shrapnel ripped through Sparky's head. Sparky's mind screamed but not an utterance came out.
Sparky leaped up off the floor and with stunning force heaved the candlestick at the image in the mirror. The glass shattered and a shower of fragments rained down. The room went dark as Sparky fell among the pieces.
Pain settled in. Then after a moment's silence Susnnah's voice came again."Stand up, Sparky. You're going to do as I say?"
"Yes."
''I killed your father, but you have harbored his murderess for all these years in your mind?"
"Yes."
"So you are as guilty as I?"
"Yes."
"And you're going to follow orders?"
"Yes."
"Like all the other times?"
"Yes."
"I want our cop to find that prick and get back my heads."
"Yes."
' 'Find that city bull.''
"Yes."
"Kill, Sparky, kill."
7:19 p.m.
It had all been rather easy, really.
Sparky had gone upstairs to the Quonset hut, unlocking the door at the top of the steps that led up from the bomb shelter. Removing the tattered uniform with its streaks of dried blood, its tarnished buttons, its torn red fabric now more than fifty years old, the killer had quickly redressed in modem red serge. An odor of rotten fish and cooked meat from the upper room clung to the material, but once outside, the wind blowing in from the mouth of the river would soon dissipate any lingering smell. It was the second time within an hour that Sparky had put on the uniform. The uniform was The Royal Canadian Mounted Police Full Review Order of Dress. Now to go find Flood.
The cocaine was only an afterthought.
There were two plastic bags, a half pound each, still sitting up on the highest shelf in the boathouse. The bags were buried back behind several cans of CIL Paint where they had been hidden the night that John Lincoln Hardy had died. The coke had gone missing when Sparky had B & E'd that shack on the mountainside in order to make the plant. That was half an hour before the flying patrol had gone in.
Originally Sparky had taken the coke as a source of ready cash. In Vancouver, should things ever get too hot, the wheels of the underground railway out are best greased with drugs. In Vancouver, if you have contacts and coke, you can get to Timbuktu with no questions asked. The drugs had seemed like a good idea—insurance, so to speak. But depending how things turned out tonight, there might be another use.
Sparky had taken down one of the bags and then had left the Quonset hut, locking it up tight.
Outside the wind had been freezing and it felt like it would snow. Winter had come at last.
The patrol car had been parked several blocks away, secreted in an old abandoned rundown garage used for camouflage. It was dangerous to bring the car out here in the first place, dangerous to walk the roads dressed up for the Red Serge Ball, but Mother had wanted her hair stroked so there was nothing else to do. Besides, it would be two hours before the Ball was well under way.
Sparky had found the Headhunter Squad list in the glove compartment of the car. On that list were Al Flood's name, address and phone number. That's how easy it was.
Thirty minutes later, it had started to snow. The wind was roaring through the apartment canyons of the city's West End, freezing the marrow and freezing the heart of anyone out on the street. White spilled from the sky. The faces of the buildings glowed with wary wakeful eyes. Sparky checked the apartment block numbers against the address on the list.
Al Flood's apartment was only a block away.
7:23 p.m.
"How do they do it?" Genevieve asked. "Shrink down a head like this?" She was holding one of the tzantzas in her hand.
"You mean, 'What do I know about death?' " Flood said, putting down his drink.
"Sort of," the woman replied, and she looked once more at the tzantza.
"The technique of shrinking heads was developed in Ecuador by the Jivaro Indians. Though it's now against the law, the practice still continues."
Genevieve DeClercq said: "There's a shrunken head in the Vancouver City Museum. I remember seeing it once."
Flood replied: "As a psychologist, don't you deal with 'headshrinkers' every day at work?" He cast her a watered-down smile.
"You mean: When you've got a problem with your head it's best to see a shrink! That's just gallows humor. I'm not always this macabre."
"Lucky you," Flood said. "I am. All the time. Anyway, once a Jivaro cuts off a head he puts it in a wicker basket and allows the blood to drain. The Indian then spreads banana leaves out in a small clearing and builds a fire over which a large clay pot is suspended. The pot is filled with water. Once the head is white from loss of blood it is removed from the basket and, held by the hair, immersed in the bubbling liquid for from fifteen to thirty minutes. When it's finally taken out, the skin is white as paper and it smells like cooked human flesh. The pot is then filled with sand and cooked up once more.
"Next a machete is used to make an incision from the top of the head vertically down to the base of the skull, ending at the neck. The skin and hair are carefully peeled back to expose the skull, which is skillfully removed.
"First the opening in the back of the head and both eyelids are sewn shut. Using an instrument shaped like a trowel, the shrinker begins to fill the hollow skin with hot sand from the pot. feeding it in through the open neck. After three or four minutes the skin is emptied and the process is repeated. Eve
ntually the head is reduced to the size of an orange— except for the hair which doesn't shrink. The process therefore seems to accentuate its length."
Genevieve DeClercq slowly turned the miniature head around in her hand. "It's horrible, isn't it," she said, "to imagine who this woman was, and who she might have been? She could have been any woman in this city setting out on a normal day, going about her business just as she always had before. Then she gets picked at random—to end up like this!"
Al Flood walked over to stand at her side. "If you want to free her spirit, you unlace the mouth." He placed his left index finger on the tzantza's lips.
"By Jivaro tradition that's the last act they perform. Sewing the mouth shut brings the shrinking process to a close. The Indian takes a needle made from bone and stitches the lips together with a leather thong. He leaves several strips of fine cord dangling from the mouth. The Jivaro say this last act traps the victim's spirit. If the mouth were to remain open, the soul could slip away. It would then be free and would have a choice to make. Either haunt the shrinker. Or dissolve and rest in peace."
Genevieve looked once more at the head held in her palm. The Headhunter had pierced the lips with several small gold rings, and used a leather thong to connect the rings together. "I wonder why the killer went to all the extra trouble to do that with the mouth?" she asked. "That head I saw in the City Museum was finished just like you say, with the lips stitched together."
"Good question," Flood said. "I have no idea."
7:24 p.m.
Shrouded by the falling snow and keeping close to the building so as not to be seen. Sparky reached the front door of Al Flood's apartment. The patrol car was parked half a block away at the end of Lagoon Drive. It couldn't be seen from Flood's apartment. The front door was locked. An A. Flood was listed in Suite 404 on the face of the intercom.
Furtively,' Sparky ran around to the alley behind.
Al Flood's apartment block was divided into eight suites, two on each of four floors, each apartment fronting on Lagoon Drive with a view of Lost Lagoon and Stanley Park beyond. On a clear day, beyond that you could see the North Shore Mountains. Right now, with the snow, you couldn't see the park.
The building was much older than most of the high-rises that now cramp the West End of Vancouver. A zigzag iron lire escape snaked up the rear of Flood's apartment block connecting all four floors. Off the alley beneath the building was an underground parking lot. A concrete ramp sloped down to several parking stalls, each one lettered in white. A blue 1971 Volvo sedan with a dent in its right front fender stood in space number 404.
Sparky recorded the license number, then returned to the patrol car parked down the street.
Some 2,500 police units are linked to the Force computer system. Each police unit has a computer terminal attached to the dashboard of the car. The central computer holds every query for up to seventy-two hours.
Tonight it took the cruiser computer less than two minutes to check the vehicle registration for the license plate number, on the blue Volvo car. Sparky used the time to flip open the chamber of the RCMP standard issue Smith and Wesson .38 Social and check the mechanism. All six chambers were loaded. The gun was ready to fire
In answer to the query the screen above the computer terminal keyboard lit up with green letters:Query vehicle registered MVB Victoria: Almore Flood, 307 Lagoon Drive, Apt. 404, Vancouver.
Below this there was a postscript note: A. Flood is detective. Vancouver Police Department. Major Crimes squad.
You're kidding! Sparky's fingers typed into the computer.
Then snapping the .38 cylinder shut. Sparky removed the half pound bag of cocaine and a screwdriver from under the passenger's seat and climbed out of the car.
7:31 p.m.
"Where do we go from here?"
"I think you should phone your husband and tell him we're on our way. He can take it from there," Al Flood said.
"Have you told anyone else about all this?"
"No. You're the only one. It's a tricky situation. A Vancouver Police Detective can't just march into the RCMP Red Serge Ball and arrest one of the dancers. Not for a crime which is closed and already filed away. Besides, your husband was head of the Headhunter Squad and I was working under him. He should know first."
"God, there's going to be hell to pay somewhere down the line. Not only does the Force have a multiple killer in its midst, but it also shot down the wrong man."
Al Flood nodded. "The shooting of Hardy itself won't hurt. He was going for a knife and had lit a cop on fire. He was also involved in cocaine trafficking. But as for the Head-hunter case, the shit will hit the fan."
Genevieve sighed heavily. "Poor Robert," she said.
Al Flood reached out and put his arm around her. "Let's make the best," he said, "of a dirty situation. The killer will be there tonight at the Red Serge Ball. Am I correct that this particular celebration is to honor the members of the Head-hunter Squad?"
"Yes. In fact both the Commissioner and the Governor General of Canada will be attending. Robert is to receive the Commissioner's Commendation. That's the highest honor that the Force can bestow."
"Then let's you and I go to the Ball and take the evidence with us. We'll get your husband aside and tell him what I found. I'll keep out of sight just to stay on the safe side, and you bring him to me.All three of us can then decide what to do and how best to protect the Superintendent. If he makes the arrest personally it might help salvage something from the wreckage. The phone's in the kitchen."
They were still standing in the bedroom at the rear of the apartment. For a moment Genevieve DeClercq glanced out through the window that faced on the alley and noticed for the first time that it had begun to snow. Then she turned from the window, from the heads on the bed, and went out to the kitchen in order to make the call.
Not until the ninth ring was the phone at the Seaforth Armouries answered. Whoever it was who picked it up, he was very, very excited.
"Armouries," the man said. "Daykin speaking."
"Hello. My name is Genevieve. Superintendent Robert DeClercq is my husband. May I please speak to him?"
"Sorry, Ma'am. Don't know him. I'm just a caterer. If you'll hold on a second I'll get a Mountie for you."
"Thanks," Genevieve said.
As she waited the woman could hear pandemonium in the background. It seemed to her as if a hundred voices were all talking at once. There was no music. Her eyebrows knitted in wonder.
"Mrs. DeClercq?" a voice asked through the telephone receiver.
"Yes."
"Jim Rodale here."
"Sergeant, I've got to talk to Robert. It's imperative."
"He's not here yet. We expect the G-G, the Commissioner and the Superintendent any moment. They went for a drink at the Governor General's club."
"What's going on in the background? It sounds like a drunk."
"Do you know Bill Tipple?"
"Yes, I've heard of him."
"We think he just got killed. Not minutes ago a bomb blew one of the cars in his garage apart. We fear he was in it."
"Good God!" Genevieve exclaimed.
"I just sent Rabidowski out to join the VPD who are already at the scene. Jack MacDougall is also on the way. I'm waiting for Robert, to tell him, then I'm going too."
"How, Jim? Why? What could be the reason?"
"Bill had just started an investigation into West Coast organized crime. He might be on to something. It might be a hit. We think he was leaving his home for the Ball and had just got into his car. Bomb probably worked off the ignition. We'll know more shortly."
"My God!" Genevieve said. "Will the horror ever stop?"
"The party here is over. That's one thing for sure."
"Jim, if you're waiting for Robert, you must give him a message. Tell him that I'm on my way and to please wait for me. Tell him that it's urgent. I'm with one of my students and he has a very serious problem. Tell Robert that he's a policeman, that it's a matter of life a
nd death."
"I'll make sure he gets it," Rodale said.
"Good, I'm on my way."
They both hung up.
By the time Genevieve returned to the bedroom Al Flood was packing up. He had wrapped each one of the shrunken heads in a piece of tissue paper, and after placing his diary in the bottom of an Adidas athletic bag, had packed them in on top. As she came into the room he was placing the dull black object into the towel pouch at the side.
"There's a modern theory," the woman said, "that the strong compulsions of many sex offenders have more of a biological origin than previously believed."
"Why's that?" Flood asked, zipping up the bag and crossing to his dresser where he pulled out a drawer. He removed a holstered gun from inside and clipped the Smith and Wesson .38 snubnose to his belt.
"At Johns Hopkins Medical Institute in Baltimore they've been studying sex hormone levels, brain metabolism and brain structure in deviant offenders. The results indicate that psychological problems may not be the dominant cause of perversion. They've also found that a chromosomal abnormality called Klinefelter's syndrome offers a clue linking deviant behavior and gender identity. Children born with the disorder have an unusual arrangement of chromosomes in their cells. This syndrome appears a lot among sex offenders."
"Do you think the same sort of thing is going on here? I think this one's psychological." Flood picked up the Adidas bag and moved toward the door. "My Volvo's parked down stairs. We'll take it and talk on the way."
He reached for the light switch. The last thing that Genevieve saw in the room were all the magnificent photographs of planets, of stars, of asteroids and nebulae tacked up on the walls.
This time she did not look out the window at the snow falling in the alley beyond the zigzag fire escape attached to the rear of the building. Nor did she see the pair of eyes peering in at them.
7:42 p.m.
So, Sparky thought, descending the fire-escape steps three at a time, no one else knows. Unless she yakked on the phone. The parking lot was deserted.
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