Headhunter (21 page)

The appeal of voodoo was basic and it spread very fast: for only by voodoo practice could the African slaves strike back at the hated white man.

After the slave uprisings in Haiti and the formation of an independent black republic in 1804, thousands of French fled the island, taking with them as many of their African slaves as possible. Ten thousand of these refugees ended up in New Orleans. With them came the practice of voodoo.

Soon there were wild group dances in that city's Congo Square. Both serpent worship and the drinking of blood were a common phenomenon. Rituals were performed around trees in St. Tammany Parish. When the backlash came in the form of waves of anti-voodoo sentiment, this practice of the black arts merely went underground. As before it was disguised as the Roman Catholic religion.

What is not common knowledge, however, is that from the very beginning of the organized use of voodoo in New Orleans, whites could be found among the secret cultists.

In August of 1850 several white women were among those arrested for dancing nude in a bloody voodoo ritual.

12:45 a.m.

Every great city, no matter what size, has by definition at least one major park. For there must be some place where its citizens can escape from the hustle. London has Hyde Park. New York has Central Park. Paris has the Bois de Boulogne. Vancouver has Stanley Park.

Scarlett was beginning to open up for the final stretch. He was running the Seawall clockwise around the perimeter of the park, with seven miles behind him and less than a mile to go. Pumping his arms and breathing hard he came around Hallelujah Point, passing the Brockton Point totem poles on the right and closing the distance between him and Dead-man's Island ahead.

The moon was now at Scarlett's back and as he jogged, his moonshadow stretched out longer and longer on the ground in front of him. Suddenly a second shadow split off from it like some weak Gemini twin, this sub-shadow caused by the moon's reflection off the waters of the harbor. To his right the Douglas firs were swaying. Leaves the color of dried blood were slipping their hold on the maple branches and tumbling like falling acrobats to be crushed under his feet. The tide was out and the mud at the base of the Seawall was glistening like a quicksilver flow. Then, without warning, a veil of cloud slipped across the face of the moon. The wind turned cold. All light was gone. And the rain came once more.

By the time Rick Scarlett returned to his apartment in the West End he was soaked to the skin.

Shucking his clothes off on the bathroom floor he turned on the shower. Once under the piping hot spray he let himself relax. He found that the run had cleared his mind and he brought his thoughts once more around to the investigation in progress. Theories came into focus.

The way Scarlett saw things at the moment there were mainly three active and pregnant possibilities.

The first of these was the theory that the Headhunter was a psychopathic killer acting on his own. The strength of this theory was in the fact that it was the simplest explanation. It gained credence from the number of similar cases that had surfaced in so many other cities over recent years, Clifford Olson's rampage being merely a local example. Also, Vancouver is one weird town. Most seaports are: ask any cop or criminal lawyer. Here, however, there were not only the usual drifters and perverts who float in each day with the tide, but this town is also the foremost North American gateway for the import and traffic of heroin. And that means a lot of burnt-out freakos come here to tap the source.

The second theory—more subtle-—arose out of Superintendent DeClercq's tape on psychology. For it had struck Scarlett while listening to Dr. Ruryk's examples, that if these crimes arose from psychosis, from some madman with a hole in his brain, then the Headhunter quite literally could be any man in this city. He could be a homicidal rapist, living a life of surface normalcy, going about his legitimate daily business and all the while keeping a watch for his next female victim. In fact if you accept what Ruryk said about the Imposter, the killer might not even know that he himself was the Head-hunter. Taken to its extreme that could even mean that one of the other guys on the Headhunter Squad could be the killer for whom all of them were searching. A madman hunting himself and not even knowing it.

The final theory was the one that he and Kathy now seemed to be onto. This theory was that the Headhunter was actually a cult. A voodoo cult? A cannibal cult? A cult of North American Indians? Perhaps it was an active form of mass psychosis. For Scarlett had read earlier today about a psychiatric concept known as
folie a deux.
That was where insanity starts with one person and then by close association passes from that individual to another. The "Reverend" Jim Jones' Guyana cult might be explained in this way. Perhaps there was a voodoo cult active in Vancouver, with Hardy a lone psychopath using it as a blind. Anything was possible. The history of murder showed that.

As Rick Scarlett stepped out of the shower he put these thoughts aside. He wiped off the steamed-up mirror and stood examining his body. This was one of his favorite pastimes. He was proud of the fact that he could not find the slightest sign of fat, just a firm sheath of tight muscles, his shoulders strong, his stomach and pectorals flat, his thighs well-developed. And he was well-hung.

Yep,
Scarlett thought smiling.
If I were a woman I'd cream myself over a man like that.

He did a few muscle flexes, watching himself in the mirror, and then an image of Kathy without her clothes intruded into his mind.

Damn her,
Scarlett thought.
I must take back control.

And with that concern in his mind, he dismissed his several theories about the Headhunter investigation.

And that was too bad.

If only he'd taken them further.

He would never know just how close he had come to touching on the truth.

And yet how very far away.

It was as Rick Scarlett walked out of the bathroom that a light came on in the windows of the apartment across the street. His heart jumped. Swiftly he killed his own lights. Then he went into the bedroom to retrieve his binoculars.

A few years ago when Scarlett had first rented this apartment he had a view of Stanley Park. But that view had not lasted long. Within the year a developer had built on the land next door and this new structure contained residences stacked up as tall as his own building. Scarlett had been thoroughly pissed off until Miss Torso moved in.

Scarlett had never met her. But he had called her Miss Torso since last seeing Jimmy Stewart in Hitchcock's movie
Rear Window.
Miss Torso was a dancer who practiced regularly late at night. She was blond. She was young. She had a stunning figure. And lately she had taken to dancing in the nude.

It had not always been that way. When she first moved in, the lady used to pirouette about in a rainbow of different-colored Danskins. During that first summer she had switched to a bikini. And then one very hot August night she had shed that too. The next day Scarlett had gone out and bought his binoculars.

Of late it had occurred to him that perhaps Miss Torso knew that he was watching.
Perhaps she's a show-off,
he thought.
Aren't we all.
Scarlett was not a modest individual within his own home: and if he could see her, surely she could see him. Why else would she dance naked within the full view of all those other apartments? Mind you, it was true that she danced very late at night.

Scarlett wanted to wander over and ask her the reason why. But that might kill the golden goose and make her pull the curtains.

So, as always, tonight he sat down behind his darkened window and peered across the road. He adjusted the binoculars to get the proper focus. Then he held them in his left hand, keeping his other hand free.

If you want to show it, woman,
he thought,
I'll oblige you and look.

Miss Torso appeared on stage.

Looking for Jack the Lad

12:55 a.m.

Monica Macdonald had seen more than enough.

For the past two days she and Rusty Lewis had been moving from one strip club to another across the map of the city. She found the trip a bore. There had once been a time when Macdonald had seriously considered a career in art, and to that end she had studied Fine Arts in college. Even today she was still proficient at the charcoal sketching of nudes. But that was the human body in its classic form. This was something different.

It was almost 1:00 a.m. but Phantoms was going strong.

Macdonald and Lewis were both dressed in civilian clothes and they were sitting at a small table ten feet from the raised dance floor. Both were sipping beers. The woman up on the stage in front of them was not wearing civilian clothes. She was maybe eighteen years of age and had long black hair. All she had on were satin-covered, high-heeled, ankle-strapped pumps and a sequined G-string. Her breasts were bare.

There were several speakers situated about the club and two above the stage, all of them playing canned soft rock— Olivia Newton-John growling about wanting to get physical.

While Macdonald and Lewis scanned the customers' faces looking for Matthew Paul Pitt or any of the other illustrious members in their memorized Rogues' Gallery, the stripper danced to the edge of the stage and squatted down in front of a solitary British sailor dressed in Navy blues. Spreading her legs wide, she pulled aside the G-string to expose herself completely. There were catcalls around the room. As the sailor stared at her genitals with his Adam's apple bobbing, the woman licked her lips. The sailor reached for a pair of glasses to get a better look, but the moment he put them on the stripper removed them from his nose. She began to wipe them slowly across her exposed crotch, pursing her lips and pouting an expression of innocence. Then she replaced the spectacles on the sailor's face and arched her back like a gymnast. Supporting her weight with her arms and her feet, she began thrusting her pelvis toward the man's face, pumping and rocking her hips as he continued to stare wide-eyed.

The hooting and laughing and whistling rose as the crowd in the room went wild. Then one drunk shouted above the din: "Hey, lady, I'll sniff your bicycle seat anytime!"

Monica Macdonald sighed.
How does any woman end up in a place like this?
she thought.

"Seen enough?" Macdonald asked, leaning over to Lewis. Rusty Lewis nodded. He knocked back the rest of his beer, then the two of them left the table just as the woman on the stage ripped off the G-string.

Monica Macdonald liked to think that hers was an open mind. So she had started out on this strip-club crawl with a clinical attitude. Not once in her life had she had a Lesbian experience, unless of course you counted the time that her Uncle Harold while babysitting had tried to get both her and her fourteen-year-old sister into bed at once. At the age of eleven (even then destined to be a cop) Monica had turned Uncle Harold in to her mother. After that Uncle Harold stopped coming for Christmas dinner.

After watching thirty-two strippers expose themselves, Monica Macdonald was now convinced irrevocably that her DC had no AC to trot along beside it. So to keep from getting bored on this trip she had turned her attention to Lewis.

The man was entertaining.

For to start with, it was hard to believe that any man in his late twenties could possibly be this shy. When the first stripper had exposed her crotch Rusty Lewis had blushed as scarlet as his red serge dress uniform.

"Is that why they call you Rusty?" Monica had chided.

Lewis had turned a deeper scarlet and averted his eyes from the woman.

To be honest, Rusty Lewis was a rather pleasant change. Most of the men within the Force were closer in their attitude towards women to the views of Rabidowski and Scarlett. Most males liked both the authority and the power that came with the uniform. In the RCMP a shy man was a bit of a rarity.

"Let's check the barman," Macdonald said, "then let's get out of here."

The liquor supply in Phantoms English Pub was thirty feet

from the dance floor. The barman was out of Yorkshire by way of London, large and beefy with a bulbous, red-veined nose. As they approached the counter he looked them up and down and said: "I'm betting you two are fuzz."

Lewis flashed the Regimental Shield.

Fishing out the picture of Matthew Paul Pitt, Macdonald placed it on the counter. "Seen this one?" she asked.

The Englishman glanced at the photograph, then looked up. "You looking for Jack the Lad?" he inquired.

"Just routine."

"Coppers don't do nothing that's just routine, my lass."

"Have you seen him?"

"Nope," the barman said. "But I seen a lot just like him."

Macdonald looked at Lewis, and then back at the giant.

"You're looking for Jack, right? Jackie, our Headhunter?"

"You're correct," Monica said. "We're looking for him."

"And you're checking out the dirty-raincoat brigade, eh? The lads who come into the pub just for the show. Cause if there's an orifice up there, these fellers'll be hanging on to the rail looking up into it. Well, there's lots of them here tonight but I ain't seen this bloke."

The Yorkshireman tapped the picture then gave it back to Macdonald.

"If I was you, lass," the barman said, "I think I'd keep right on looking. Don't stop here. And don't stop with that picture."

"Why's that?" Macdonald asked.

"Coz there's three dozen lads what come into this pub alone have the eyes or the mouth to do what this Jack's done."

The Enfield

7:45 a.m.

"Robert, what in the world are you doing?"

Genevieve DeClercq stood in the doorway to the greenhouse and stared at the revolver in her husband's hand. The Superintendent looked up, then held up the Enfield.

"You mean this?" he asked. "I was just taking a breather and reading about Wilfred Blake. This gun was his service revolver. It was found in the snow of the Rockies after he disappeared."

Genevieve understood. She glanced at the library table and the open volume upon it. The book was
Men Who Wore the Tunic.
She knew then that her husband was searching for anything that would give him the strength to go on.
Did he sleep at all?
she wondered.

"Reinforcements?" she asked.

"I guess," he said, and he gave her the weakest of smiles. His face looked drawn and tired.

"I'm afraid I've got a faculty conference this morning. The Deanship is coming open and the infighting is fierce. Will you be here for dinner? It's my turn to cook."

"I don't think so, Genny. Tomorrow is the sweep. I'll be down at Headquarters until everything is ready. You'll see me when I get here."

Tomorrow is your birthday, too,
DeClercq's wife thought. She turned to go, then stopped in mid-stride and glanced back at the policeman. "Do me a favor? Please," she said. "Take it easy on yourself."

"I will," he assured her. But his voice lacked conviction. Genevieve paused in the doorway as if she had something else to say, but in the end she said nothing and simply left the room. Several minutes later he heard her car drive away.

Alone in the greenhouse once again, Robert DeClercq stood listening to the rain on the glass roof.
Thump . . . thump . . .thump.
It sounded to him like the formal drum tattoo one hears at an RCMP funeral. He put Blake's Enfield down on the table and walked over to the greenhouse door to stare out at the angry sea. All the world before him stretched out dull and gray.

He thought about the Inspector. What sort of man had Blake really been? What had driven him on? No other member in the Force had left behind him such a strange, strange legacy. For within the formal version of history, the one which the RCMP records revealed, the Inspector was simply the finest detective that the Mounted Police had ever produced. His quota for stunning arrests had never been duplicated. It was said that his style of fighting in the British Army before joining the Force was awe-inspiring. The man literally knew no fear. His Victoria Cross had been recommended by the Queen herself.

Still, there had been rumors.

When DeClercq was doing research for
Men Who Wore the Tunic,
he had taken it upon himself to interview all the old-timers yet living from those early days of the Force. A number of them went back as far as the Royal Northwest Mounted Police.

Officially, within a few short years of joining the Force, Wilfred Blake had set himself up above all others as a first-class troubleshooter. The man's tracking ability was legendary, supposedly learned both in the Far East and from the North American Indians. If a task seemed impossible, it was assigned to Blake. For somehow he always came back with his man.

The rumors were born out of the fact that so many came back dead.

According to some. Commissioner Herchmer thought the Inspector's methods excessive. That was the reason that Wilfred Blake never rose in rank. Others, however, said that was because the Inspector enjoyed his position. Blake was just not the sort of man to ever abandon the hunt. He turned down promotion in order to stay exclusively in the field.

Whatever the rumors, DeClercq soon learned that they died with the mess hall chatter. For the Inspector's official service record had not one black mark upon it. Citation of Merit upon Citation of Merit continued in an unbroken succession. Most surprising, perhaps, was the recorded fact that in any given year toward the end of his service, Wilfred

Blake spent eleven months out on the trail by himself. He never took a partner.

The brass of the Force at that time put it down to dedication.

Dedication,
DeClercq now thought.
What would Wilfred Blake do if he were here to take on the Headhunter?

He'd do whatever was necessary. Just like you're going to do.

DeClercq turned away from the door and once again picked up the Enfield. He could still see the flecks of rust caused by the time it had spent in the snow.

Yes, you do what you have to do,
he thought, then he sat down at the table.

Inspector Chan had completed his computer-enhanced list of sex offenders, feeding in the psychological profile obtained from Dr. Ruryk. The list presently contained every pervert within the province over the past thirty years. A second list of names covered those from across the rest of the country.

Tomorrow the Headhunter Squad would go out to sweep the streets of those offenders. Each one who could be found would either be questioned then and there or arrested for interrogation. The old British Columbia Penitentiary in New Westminster was now vacant and slated for eventual demolition. By Order-In-Council the federal government in Ottawa had placed the building at DeClercq's disposal.

Canada had a brand-new Constitution and a brand-new Charter of Rights. The Superintendent did not like the idea of abrogating such freedoms. But if that's what it took to catch the killer, that's what he would do.

Tomorrow, the Superintendent knew, his investigation would step over the line of the law.

But he also knew with the mood in this town, politically no one could stop him.