Headhunter (17 page)

Sergeant Barthelme listened to what Downtown had to say, then he hung up the phone and groaned.

Sergeant Barthelme did not in the least like what he had been told. For the Sergeant had been around long enough to remember only too well the public drubbing that the VPD had taken over their actions against certain pot-smoking hippies who had crowded Maple Tree Square in 1971.

Sergeant Barthelme remembered only too well the day of the Gastown Riot.

3:46 p.m.

The demonstration had started out disorganized but peaceful. It was disorganized largely because the crowd that slowly congealed in Robson Square was assembling spontaneously. It was true that in the earlier hours of the morning a loose coalition of feminist groups had met and by early afternoon were well on their way to setting up audio equipment on the back steps of the old courthouse, but the audience that finally collected was really nothing more than passersby through the square, most of them working women returning from lunch who began to realize that this issue was a little more important to them than punctuality at the office. By 3:09 there were more than 7,000 people in the square.

Several women carried printed posters that read
Women Unite Against Violence Against Women. Every Man Is a Potential Rapist
or, no beating around the bush.
You Can't Rape a .38.

At 3:11 p.m. two women in their forties, both wearing tight blue jeans with knee-high leather boots, one sporting blue-dyed hair, hung a mural painted on cloth between two columns of Francis Rattenbury's old courthouse. The mural depicted a man with a physique like Arnold Schwartzenegger's, all rippling muscles, rock-hard torso, but without a head. Down in the lower left-hand corner of the mural was a reproduction of the Queen of Hearts from Disney's animated version of
Alice In Wonderland.
From the mouth of the Queen, in scarlet letters two feet high and enclosed in a dialogue bubble, were the words:
off with his head!

By 3:15 p.m. the women collected in the square had started to chant the phrase.

Now if only this were a perfect world that's how matters would have remained. A ragged but peaceful citizen's group exercising its legal right of assembly.

But this is not a perfect world.

And perhaps that's why fate intervened and allowed two things to happen. Both coincidence.

The first coincidence lay in the fact that at this very same moment, some ten miles away in a suburban sports stadium, a group of 10,000 unemployed men, 99 percent of them drunk, had gathered to watch the Annual Blue Collar Soccer Convention. By now the playoffs were over and this was the final game. At this precise moment it was half time, and for some reason some wag who had read the morning papers began to yell his own chant that went something like this:
"Headhunter four. Women zero! Headhunter four. Women zero!''

Within minutes the bleachers were filled with men who were filled with booze who then filled their lungs with air and picked up the chant:

“
Headhunter four! Women zero! Headhunter four! Women zero!"

The media on this day just happened to be broadcasting live from the game to those fans who got drunk too early and never got out the door. In the background of the broadcast a listener could hear the chant. And such a listener was a woman named Joan Thistlethwaite who at that moment was caught in the massive traffic jam to the right of Robson Square and who happened to tell one of the feminist organizers of the rally who passed by her driver's window about the content of the broadcast and what its message was.

Within one minute the woman had returned to the steps of the old courthouse, had seized the microphone from an octogenarian who had been part of the original Suffragette Movement, and had told the crowd. The crowd was not pleased. And to show its displeasure the group began to shout out a chant of retort.
"Kill the Pigs.' Kill the Pigs! Kill the Pigs!"

It is likely, however, that even at 3:46 that afternoon disaster might have been averted. For the group in Robson Square, despite all the animosity now finding verbal vent, was still under control. And it very well might have stayed that way if only by a second coincidence Fernand Zirpoli had not decided to work the crowd.

Zirpoli was a small greasy man with crooked teeth and a fringe of straggly Einstein hair surrounding his balding pate. As a young man Zirpoli had misspent his youth in Rome by watching the gigolos cruise around those tourist spots most adored by North American women who had come to the Eternal City with stars in their eyes, softly sighing as the Latin lovers pinched their bottoms and any other soft parts of their bodies. Often Zirpoli looked back on those days with fond memory, wishing to God that he had never emigrated to Canada. Women here just did not seem to crave the same hot-blooded male attention. Zirpoli already had seven Criminal Code convictions for indecent assault on a female.

Unfortunately for him, he'd never make number eight.

His usual technique, the one with both the best results
and
the best defense if needed, was to find a tightly packed group of women and then to slowly move among them toward some imaginary destination, rubbing this breast or that buttock. Most of all, Zirpoli liked redheads. Particularly redheads in sweaters, just like that redhead standing over there.

Zirpoli was smitten.

He stepped back a pace or two—a very difficult maneuver given the number of people now cramming Robson Square— and approached her from behind. With force he bumped into her back, a squeaky-voiced "oops, sorry," escaping from his lips as both his hands circled her front to close on the mounds of her breasts. The woman lost her balance and pitched forward, her buttocks rubbing the man's groin as she went down on one knee.

' 'Kill the pigs! Kill the pigs!''
The crowd took up the chant again.

Zirpoli didn't notice. He was in ecstasy, his penis hard in his pants, his hands refusing to let go of the redhead in his grasp—refusing, that is, until the woman next to the two of them, who had had too much to drink at lunch and was caught up in the mood of the moment, bent down and removed her high-heeled shoe, also a difficult maneuver given the pack of the crowd, and screaming out "Kill the pigs!" herself, drove the spiked heel full force into Zirpoli's left eye.

His scream literally seemed to shatter the brittle autumn air.

As blood in a spurt mixed with ocular fluid fountained out from his mangled face, the Italian was mobbed and clawed and kicked even after he was dead.

An impact seemed to radiate out from the point of violence to the very edge of the crowd. Push turned to shove as people craned to see what was going on.

Then all hell appeared to break loose as order disintegrated.

And that was the moment that Sergeant Scott Barthelme ordered his Vancouver Police Mounted Squad in full riot gear to charge the crowd.

The squad hit the square at a gallop.

Within seconds the center and heart of the city was filled with cries of agony, the clatter of horse-hooves on stone, shouts and obscene hollers and the sound of wood on bone.

One woman, screaming, "No more violence!," pulled a policeman from his horse and kicked him in the groin. Four seconds later a riot club took out all her front teeth.

It was not until 4:30 p.m. that the Battle of Robson Square ended. And even then the police were kept busy galloping up and down the stairs of the open concourse, flushing out the remnants of those women not in the hospital, in jail or dispersed and fleeing throughout the city.

5:20 p.m.

They say that a man with virility problems will often reach for a gun.

If this is true then recent statistics tell us quite a lot. For in 1980 the comparative figures for handgun deaths within a number of countries were as follows: Japan, 48; Great Britain, 8; Canada, 52; Israel, 58; Sweden, 21; West Germany, 42; United States, 10,728.

Even taking account of population differences the conclusion is quite obvious: either the American male is in desperate need of psychosexual therapy. Or something is very, very wrong with US laws on gun control.

The two women who left Vancouver for Seattle late that morning were counting on the latter conclusion as being the correct answer. At 5:20 that same afternoon they stopped at the Douglas Border Crossing to reenter Canada. As a matter of routine Canada Customs searches every fiftieth car. Theirs was number fifty. So that was how, both in the trunk and under the back seat, a rather surprised Customs Officer found fifty-two loaded Smith and Wesson .38s purchased that day in Seattle.

As the slogan goes:
You can't rape a .38.

Hoodoo

5:46 p.m.

It was Corporal William Tipple of Commercial Crime who first made the connection: in fact were it not for Tipple the left hand might never have known what the right hand was doing.

The Corporal was not the sort of man that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police would portray on a recruiting poster. He was five foot ten with a slight build, a pockmarked complexion and an ever present dusting of dandruff on the padded shoulders of his checkered sports jacket. Though the collar of the shirt he wore was a little frayed and dirty, and though there was also grime under his fingernails, the man made up for his shortcomings by his boundless energy and an effervescent disposition. Tipple had spent the past five years as an electronic surveillance specialist in Commercial Crime Section, but he missed being in harness. Tipple was the sort of member who enjoyed wearing a uniform,
passe
though that may be.

Late that Monday afternoon the Corporal had come to Headhunter Headquarters to get a feel of the action. He had no other reason to be there. It was just that Tipple was proud to be a Member of the Royal Mounted and liked to feel that he was a part of all that was going on. So late that Monday afternoon Tipple walked into the library.

The library was jammed.

There were men and women everywhere, members in and out of uniform sitting at tables, leaning on walls, some even squatting on the floor reading. Tipple was elated. He was thriving on the activity. Wishing to feel a part of it, he moved about from table to table.

At the photograph table the Corporal paused and gave it a little attention. There were prints coming and going and moving about the surface, photos being passed from hand to hand with the occasional comment, pictures of bodies and pictures of heads and pictures of murder locations, snapshots of women, a shot of a nurse decked out in her graduation garb, mug shots in full-face and profile of hundreds of men, most with dark hints of fetishism and obsession in their eyes.

The man beside him was holding a photo in each of his large hands. In his left was a picture of a woman's head stuck on the end of a pole; and in his right the same face staring out from a mug shot. The man was staring as if in a trance at the snap of the severed head. The Corporal thought that odd.

"It's like a jigsaw puzzle, eh?" William Tipple said.

His eyes dazed, the man turned to look at him without a smile on his face.

"I'm Bill Tipple," the Corporal said, introducing himself. "Commercial Crime Section."

"Al Flood," the man replied, "VPD Major Crimes."

Ah,
Tipple thought to himself,
so they're working this one too.
He was a wee bit hurt. For here was a Vancouver City bull as an outsider on the inside, while he—Bill Tipple of the RCMP—was an insider out in the cold. That wasn't right.

"Looks like a bargain basement sale at the Hudson's Bay Company, eh?" the Corporal said jovially, nodding at all the others.

Flood merely shook his head and turned back to his pictures.

Yeah, well same to you, buddy.
Bill Tipple thought. Then he too began to rummage about the table. It seemed to him that pictures of heads and bodies were now at a premium. Someone threw down a photo of a black man and reached for something else. Tipple picked it up. Someone grabbed for an Ident. enlargement of marks on a neck vertebra and revealed underneath a second photo of the woman in Flood's right hand. It was also a mug shot, but a different type of one. Tipple picked that up also.

"Here," he said turning to Flood and handing him the picture. "Another piece for your puzzle."

"Thanks," the Vancouver Detective said, reaching out with nicotine-stained fingers. There was a puffiness under his eyes.

Looks like a cynic.
Tipple thought.

Rood added: "This one's from our own VPD mugbooks downtown." He wagged the photograph which he held in his right hand. "The woman's name is Grabowski, she's up for heroin possession. The shot that you just gave me is from the files of the New Orleans PD. I believe the black dude in that surveillance photo in your hand is also linked to her. And to New Orleans."

At the words "New Orleans" Tipple almost jumped as if he'd been jabbed in the ribs. "Can I see that again?" he asked, indicating Grabowski's NOPD picture. Flood gave it to him.

For a minute or two the RCMP Corporal examined the two American photographs, front and back. The names of the persons depicted were printed on the reverse side of the shots. Then Tipple put both pictures in his left hand and dug his notebook out of his jacket pocket with his right. Flipping over several pages, he stopped and nodded. "Well I'll be damned," he said. "Will you take a look at this."

Flood looked at the notebook and at a name written on the page. Tipple held out the photograph of the black man and indicated the name printed on the back. Both names were the same.

John Lincoln Hardy.

9:45 p.m.

It was while Robert DeClercq was pinning the wiretap transcripts from Commercial Crime up on the corkboard beside the photo of John Lincoln Hardy that he noticed his hands were shaking.
Lack of sleep,
he thought. It had been an exhausting day.

After leaving the scene of the nun's murder he had gone directly home and tried to get some sleep. But sleep wouldn't come. For no matter how hard he had tried to clear his mind of all its nagging thoughts, he could not shake off the sense of tension and urgency that the latest murder had caused. The killings were coming so quickly that the city was bound to explode. And now explode it had.

After obtaining the body release order early in the afternoon, the Superintendent had spent half an hour arranging to have the CPR train with Joanna Portman's body intercepted along the line and her remains rerouted. Then he had left the courthouse and driven out to UBC. Next to the University Hospital, in the Department of Psychiatry building, he had found the office of Dr. George Ruryk where a secretary was waiting.

DeClercq had reached the point in the investigation where he thought it advisable to obtain a psychological profile based on the information that they now had on the Headhunter. He knew as well as anyone that this was a very long bow to draw, that there are as many psychological profiles as there are people on this earth. Being married to a psychologist, however, he had also learned that a disease of the mind might strike any one of those individuals at any time, and that if it did, depending upon the mental illness, that person would show certain recognizable symptoms. There was always the chance that observed symptoms might lead them to the killer.

It was a weak straw to clutch at, sure.

But a straw nonetheless.

"I hope your back is strong," Ruryk's secretary had said. She had pointed to a box filled with books off to the right of the office door. "George marked the relevant parts with bookmarks but said you might want the rest of the volume in order to get your bearings. Otherwise we would have Xeroxed. I understand you're to leave him a synopsis of the investigation."

DeClercq walked over and placed it on her desk.

"He'll pick it up after his evening lecture," the secretary said.

"Would you tell him that I'll expect him tomorrow any time after nine?"

"Right. Does he know how to get there?"

"Genevieve's my wife. I believe he's been over before."

"Oh, right," the woman repeated, and then DeClercq had left.

Once back at Headhunter Headquarters, the Superintendent had asked Inspector MacDougall if he could round him up a sandwich and following that had sat down and unpacked the box of books.

By the time that MacDougall had entered the office later that night with the wiretap transcripts just sent over by Tipple of Commercial Crime, Robert DeClercq was struggling just to keep his eyes focused. He welcomed the break.

"We might have some good news," the Inspector said. He handed the wiretaps to the Superintendent. "We just got a printout from Headquarters in Ottawa. Interpol might have traced the identity of the bones. A German national named Liese Greiner left Switzerland eight months ago for a camping trip in North America. She never returned, and hasn't been heard from since early August. She was by herself. Six years ago she was badly injured in a car accident and suffered a number of bone fractures. Interpol sent the X-rays. Joseph is going over to the morgue to compare them with the North Van skeleton."

"Good," DeClercq said. "Anything else come up?"

"The autopsy on the nun proved negative for sperm. Perhaps our man was interrupted by the Sister going up the path to close the gate."

"Probably not. She'd have seen him lighting the pumpkin."

"A Corporal named Tipple at Commercial Crime thinks he's got Grabowski's pimp on some of his wiretaps. The target is a guy named Steve Rackstraw who calls himself the 'Fox.' Land fraud. Corporate rip-offs. That sort of thing. Evidently an unknown male known as the 'Weasel' started turning up on the tapes. Tipple later pegged him as John Lincoln Hardy. He's a cousin of Rackstraw. There's also another guy known as the 'Wolf floating around on the taps. He's Rackstraw's brother. Tipple culled out some of the calls and sent them over. You've got them in your hand."

"How's Chan coming along with the computer enhancement?"

"One or two more days and he'll have the sweep sheet ready. He wants the psych profile in order to feed it in."

"He'll have it tomorrow. I'm reading up on it now."

"Right," MacDougall said. "I'll leave you to what you're doing." He left the room.

Ten minutes later the Superintendent had just completed pinning the wiretap transcripts from Commercial Crime up on the corkboard wall when MacDougall once more knocked at the open door. DeClercq turned around and saw the envelope that the Inspector held in his hand. His heart lurched. In his other hand MacDougall was carrying a portable tape recorder.

"Another one?" DeClercq asked, a flatness to his voice.

"The nun," MacDougall answered. He held out the manila folder.

Inside the Superintendent found a Memorex tape and a Polaroid photograph. The picture was of another head slammed on the end of a pole, same white background, nothing more, the head of the nun still wearing a black, white-banded cowl. A wave of nausea spread through DeClercq's stomach at the sight of the rolled-back eyes. A thin trickle of blood seeped from the corner of one of them.

"It was left in Christ Church Cathedral under one of the pews. No one saw it placed there," Jack MacDougall said. "I've had it dusted. No prints, except the Father here."

Beyond the door DeClercq could see a Roman Catholic

priest, his face etched with a troubled look of deep concern. "Play it, Jack," he said.

The Inspector set the recorder up on the Superintendent's desk. Both men listened.

They heard a guitar, party chatter, whistling in the background, and then words:

The police walked in for Jimmy Jazz

I said, he ain't here, but he sure went past

Oh you're looking for Jimmy Jazz

"Good God," MacDougall whispered.

Sattamassagana for Jimmy Dread

Cut off his ears and chop off head

Police come looking for Jimmy Jazz Jazz Jazz Jazz

"Who the hell is that?" DeClercq asked in astonishment. The Inspector shrugged. "Damned if I know," he said.
        "Well let's find out fast."

So go look all around, you can try your luck brother

And see what you found

But I guarantee you that it ain't your day

Chop! Chop!

Tuesday, November 2nd, 1:12 a.m.

"Rock music!" Scarlett exclaimed. "Headquarters!" Spann replied.

The two of them looked at each other in total disbelief. It was now after 1:00 a.m. on a weekday morning, the empty hours of the day, a time when a cop might expect to find the squad room proceeding at half-speed, perhaps the occasional sound of a typewriter pounding or small talk among the members on night patrol, but certainly not the time or place for rock and roll to assail his or her astonished ears. This was just too much.

They had spent the afternoon and the entire evening on a pub-crawl of Vancouver's skid road beer parlors hoping to find John Lincoln Hardy or the Indian who might have contact with him. They were both dressed in grubby clothes, jeans and soiled T-shirts, Scarlett with the stubble of one day's beard shadowing his face. Over the past thirteen hours they had watched more scores of junk and grass and speed and acid and coke and angel dust go down than went through the courts in a year. They had seen the gypsy switch pulled more times than they could count. And they had overheard more blow jobs and around the worlds and just plain straight lays negotiated than went on at an accountants' convention— and that was saying a lot. They had felt the insidious sleaze of each successive hangout soil their expectations, but by the end of the day they had not seen hide nor hair of either hunted man.

Now they had called it a night.

They had driven back to Headhunter Headquarters, had parked the unmarked squad car outside the building, and had hauled their tired behinds up the front walk, through the doors, and come upon a rock and roll party in progress. Punk rock blared from the speakers:

Don't you bother me, not any more

I can't take this tale, oh no more

It's all around, Jimmy Jazz

J—A—Zee Zee J—A—Zed Zed Zee Zee . . .

The youth who sat directly in front of the speakers was maybe eighteen years old and a throwback to the fifties. He was dressed in black jeans, black winklepicker shoes, and a black leather jacket with several silver chains adorning it. His hair was greased and swept up in a ducktail. Scarlett looked for the rattail comb sticking out of his back pocket. Sure enough, it was there.

Around him, the other listeners were not quite so cool. Several of them were wearing the RCMP uniform, DeClercq and MacDougall excluded, and all had a short military cut to their hair. They all looked straight, while the bopper looked stoned. The bopper had the floor.