Ripper (9 page)

Checking the brother-in-law's report, British police searched the couple's home. There they found Evans's corpse, wrapped in plastic and not yet dumped. The spine of Myra's prayer book,
The Garden of the Soul,
contained a pair of left-luggage tickets. Police retrieved two suitcases stored at Manchester Central station, among the contents of which were photographs and tapes.

Though Brady and Hindley lived together, they rarely had sex. He obtained erotic "kicks" by torturing children. Stripped and forced into porno poses, a ten-year-old girl was sexually abused in some of the suitcase photos. She was Leslie Ann Downey, a local missing child. In addition, there was a picture of Hindley standing on Saddleworth Moor. When police searched the spot they found two shallow graves. The bodies of Downey and John Kilbride, eleven, were disinterred.

The trial of the "Moors Murderers" opened in 1966. Brady and Hindley were sentenced to life imprisonment that May. As evidence, the Crown prosecutor played a tape. Brady had used it to masturbate while gloating over his crimes. The recording, backed by Christmas music, was of a tortured child screaming for her mom.

Tonight, a dub of that tape played in Lou Bolt's apartment.

Beyond the penthouse windows overlooking Stanley Park, the rain gave way to fog rolling in from the Pacific. A chart—
The Raptors of Western Canada—
hung near sliding glass doors that opened on a deck, night-vision binoculars hooked beneath. Bolt's home was a black museum cluttered with crime exhibits, for he was a cop-groupie of the obsessive kind. In his wallet, he carried a fake badge. A pair of handcuffs dangled from his belt. His bookcase was crammed with
Police Gazette, The CIS Bulletin,
and
Law And Order.
Were it not for a rape conviction ten years back, he'd be wearing a uniform today.

Cuffs turned back from hairy wrists and street-fighter's hands, shirt open to the navel flaunting his hairy chest, jeans bulging a basket that stopped locker-room chatter dead at the gym, Bolt sat surrounded by notes, plotting his next novel. Raw sexuality lurked in his hooded eyes. And in the Presley sneer that curled his upper lip. And in the way his tongue flicked when he groped his balls. For Bolt was a man who liked to rip the clothes off women.

Listening to the tape of Leslie Ann Downey's screams, he imagined the Moors Murderers loose in California. Bolt's formula was based on two biased assumptions. First, that Brits were the kinkiest people on Earth, a trait he attributed to overmothering, which made them the prime source for his bizarre plots. Second, that Yanks were narcissistic navel-gazers, uncomfortable with stories set outside their narrow realm, which gave him the setting for his hybrid novels. True or not, the formula had sold three million books.

The screams gave way to tape hiss as Bolt checked his watch.

Five to eight.

Almost time.

Swiveling away from the partners' desk—the other half was where he edited his porno tapes—Bolt caught sight of the invitation stuck to his PC.

Shivers, Shudders, and Shakes,
it read.
A Franklen Mystery Weekend. Friday, December 4th to Sunday, the 6th. Fly to an Unknown Location for this Seance with a Killer. $50,000 Prize. RSVP.

The bedroom he entered faced English Bay. The lights of the freighters anchored below were snuffed by fog. Bolt reset the tape speed on both hidden cameras, then looped cords around the bed's four posts. Flopping down on the pentagram-patterned bedspread, he winked at himself in the overhead mirror. The walls had mirrors, too.

A soft knock rapped at the door.

Leaving the bedroom for the hall, Bolt used the peephole to spy outside.

He glimpsed the Erotic Witch.

With tonight's playmate.

The Frankenstein Conundrum

8:03
P.M.

"Okay," DeClercq said. "Let's put it together." He, Chan, and Craven stood by the corkboard wall, now covered with pictures and papers linked by multicolored threads. The overview reflected dragnet footwork on the streets, scientific tests in the Forensic Lab, and software connections from the data banks. The first forty-eight hours after a murder are critical, so eighty-three cops and civilians had worked the Lynn Canyon crime.

Chan referred to the clipboard list in his hand, pointing to the wall where appropriate.

"The crime scene was stingy with physical evidence. No hairs and fibers, fingerprints, or foot and tire marks. Interviewing the locals turned up nothing, followed by zilch from the frogmen and dogs. Two on the bridge, the vagrant said, but no sex or age. Only using the flashlight briefly could mean they'd cased the scene, but nothing untoward was noted over the past week. Transporting and hanging the body suggests a car and perp with strength. So all we got from the canyon was profile patterns."

Chalking the words on a blackboard slanted on an easel, DeClercq wrote
1. Profiles of the killers.

"The autopsy this morning yielded more," said Chan. "Your theory, Nick. You tell the Chief."

Craven opened his notebook to his own checklist. Special X was
the
elite unit in the Force. Having had a taste of it, he yearned to stay.
Dot the i's. Cross the t's. Miss nothing,
he thought.

"Marsh left the hotel Sunday night
before
she had dinner. No one there saw her eat and room service wasn't ordered. The autopsy revealed her stomach was full, with several
grasses
mixed in with the food. The food's in California being analyzed, and we should have the results by Friday. What if Marsh met someone at a restaurant? The meal may tell us where she dined, and those who served her might recall who she ate with. The guest or guests may be, or lead to her killers."

DeClercq wrote 2.
Stomach contents
on the blackboard.

"I'm not waiting for that report," said Nick. "I've had Marsh's author photo reproduced so a team can canvass the city's restaurants. The picture and a help request will hit tomorrow's papers."

"Good," said DeClercq, chalking
3. Restaurant.

"While one or both killers strangled Marsh, the other or one of them used the knife. Whoever tied the ligature in a suture knot is left-handed. The one who skinned the face knows anatomy, so maybe a doctor, vet, or med student is involved. Nonhuman lice in the wounds indicates a vet. The lice are only found on some species of birds, so I asked an entomologist to narrow it down. What if the knife was on a table with the bird in the room where Marsh was killed? One of the pair picked it up and stabbed her repeatedly. Find the bird, find the place, find the killers?"

DeClercq chalked
4. Vet
and
5. Bird lice
on the board.

"Toxicology found chloroform in Marsh's blood." Nick plucked the report from the wall and passed it to DeClercq. "Marsh had dinner with someone or ate alone," he suggested. "Later she was chloroformed and shoved into a car which conveyed her to the murder site. There she was tied spread-eagled, strangled, and stabbed on Sunday night, which fits both time of death and level of chloroform remaining in her blood. Skin wasn't found under her nails because there was no struggle. This wasn't a sex crime in the
physical
sense, so no foreign pubic hairs were mixed with hers, and oral, anal, and vaginal swabs were negative for sperm."

Nick closed his book and added, "Chloroform's a poison. Druggists make you sign the poison register to buy it."

"True," said DeClercq. "But not chemical outlets. Chloroform sold as a solvent has no controls. Thorough work, Corporal. Check it anyway."

"What interests me," Chan said, "is the bird lice. An FBI study of serial killers found those who suffered sexual abuse as children often developed a weird affinity for animals. The clinical term is "paraphilia of zoophilia." Paraphilia is a mental disorder characterized by obsession with bizarre sexual acts. Zoophilia is an abnormal fondness or preference for animals."

"With only one murder, why think serial killers?" asked Nick.

"Because of this," DeClercq said, holding up
Jolly Roger.
"Marsh's killing mimics the first murder in this novel. Four women are killed in the book, plus the investigating officer. The novel ends by hinting there will be a fifth."

"Apart from that," Chan said, "I feel it in my gut. Profiling is half science, half art. Crime scenes talk in riddles which you must figure out. This one was left by a stalking team of two
organized
killers, acting out a
disorganized
ritual written into that book. The question is which came first? The chicken or the egg?"

"Your copy," said DeClercq, passing Nick
Jolly Roger.

"So," Chan said, moving to a list on the wall, "what do we know about serial killers? Since 1979, the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit has interviewed multivictim murderers in U.S. prisons to compare their backgrounds and determine why they killed. They spoke to the biggies—Bundy, Man-son, Gacy, Speck, Gein, Williams, Berkowitz—and the lesser-knowns, then computerized the results. Serial sex killers have common characteristics."

In big black letters, the list was headed
PROFILE.

1/ almost always male
     2/ predominantly white
     3/ good intelligence but poor academic performance
     4/ unsteady employment
     5/ cold relationship with father or father figure
     6/ father abandoned the family home by age 12
     7/ mother the dominant parent
     8/ instability of family residence
     9/ preadult criminal or psychiatric history
     10/ sexually, physically, or psychologically abused as a child
     11/ early sexual interest in voyeurism, fetishism, and pornography

"That's the general background of the pair we're hunting. Profiling isn't mathematics so the list won't fit exactly. There may be wild cards, like Hindley, one of the Moors Murderers, was a woman. But that's the basic skeleton."

"Age?" said DeClercq.

"The urge to commit this type of crime tends to surface early. Fantasy-driven killers are usually in jail by their late thirties or forties. Impulsive teenagers and young adults aren't this methodical. Mid-twenties to early thirties fits the scene."

"Why assume they're white?"

"Mutilation murder is usually intraracial. Whites stalk whites, blacks stalk blacks, Asians stalk Asians. There are exceptions like Ng and Lake, suspected in twenty-five California sex-torture killings in the mid-Eighties. But the likelihood is since Marsh's white so are her killers."

Nick copied the profile list on the wall into his notebook. "If our stalking team fits the mold, what made these monsters?"

"Aggressive sexual fantasies evolve from child abuse. Serial killers emerge from dysfunctional families where bonding fails. Fantasy is how they obtain control over traumatic situations. Fantasies born of anger and hate are usually sadistic, and often involve getting even by reversing roles. A boy abused by his mother or female guardian recalls the trauma every time a woman's around. The ultimate form of male control is sex-degrading death, so imagining that gives him the greatest release from internal stress. In later life, the trauma warps into an adult psychosexual disorder. Fantasy may substitute for, or prepare for action. If arousal builds to the point where the need to act out becomes unbearable . . ." Chan swept his hand over the morgue photos to finish the sentence.

"Acting out a fantasy requires a
symbolic
victim to assume the place of the woman responsible for the abuse. The symbol that links the two in his mind can be anything, from a fetish like high-heeled shoes to how the stand-in laughs. Killing follows killing for the relief each murder brings from the stress bottled up since the child abuse.

"If our stalkers fit the mold, lying, stealing, vandalism, firesetting, and cruelty to animals and kids will haunt their youth. During adolescence and early adulthood, they'll graduate to burglary, arson, assault, or rape. As they near murder, the violence will escalate. David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam, went from wounding teenage girls to the ,44-caliber killings."

"Abused women don't become serial killers?" said Nick.

"Different evolution. Different sex impulse. A few like Aileen Wuornos do, but their motive's unique. In men, sex and aggression are biologically linked."

"It's the Frankenstein conundrum," said DeClercq, glancing at the protesters lining the street. "Men are sexist by nature. History proves that. So the feminist movement is war between biological determinism and what is socially fair. But in the end it's a Catch-22."

As he listened, Nick absorbed the protest signs:
Patriarchal power is the root of the problem. Being a woman means being afraid. The bogeyMAN is a reality. Remember the Montreal Massacre . . .

"Thwart what's programmed in and it warps," said DeClercq. "There are thousands of monsters in the making like this pair, demons stitched together in the labs of child abuse. Women have been subjugated and oppressed by men. It's their destiny to fight back through feminism. But every advance the movement makes has a side effect, for it unwittingly add« a stitch to the creatures in the labs. Year after year, the news reports more have broken out, running amok like the Frankenstein Monster hunting its creator. Male sexuality is nitroglycerin, and too many vials are held in very shaky hands. Women are damned if they do or they don't: that's the conundrum. Which is the
other
horror story of our times."

"Why Marsh?" Nick asked.

"The simple answer is she fit the fantasy," said Chan. "Something symbolic tied her to the killing ritual. With only her corpse, we've no indication what that something was, because we can't compare victim similarities. The other problem is we're dealing with a stalking team, so
which
fantasy did she fit symbolically?"

Chan touched the morgue close-up of Marsh's skull. "What nags me is the skinned face," he said. "How a victim's treated tells a lot about her killer. The general rule is a facial attack means they knew each other. The more brutal the attack, the closer they're related. Here one killer is dominant, the other is submissive. Logically, the dominant killer controls the ritual, which, based on
Jolly Roger,
has occult themes. Maybe all he wanted from Marsh was her bare skull, in which case any woman on the street would do. She was a random victim in the wrong place at the wrong time. It's no more than coincidence
her
skull was spiked on the hook.

"But what about the submissive killer?" asked Chan, playing devil's advocate with himself. "He must get a thrill from the murder, too. If his fantasy is hidden in the dominant one, does that mean he's responsible for stabbing the womb? If so, the implication is he killed symbolic Mom, and maybe skinned Marsh's face if she resembled her."

"And kept it as a fetish?"

"As a Mother Mask."

"What nags
me"
DeClercq said, "is
Jolly Roger.
How does the book mesh with Marsh's murder? She was dumped
before
it went on sale in Vancouver, yet her killing, skinning, and hanging fits the plot exactly. How and why?"

"The killers bought the book back East, then came here," said Chan. "The book was published in New York by Fly-By-Night Press. It was shipped around the States and up to Toronto, finally reaching us at the end of the distribution line."

"Perhaps Marsh was stalked for who she was," said Craven, "and mimicking the book's a blind to throw us off? Say a pair of feminist-haters tracked her from New York? A copycat psycho makes her look like a random victim. What if a team of feminists at the conference wanted her dead? Using a male sex crime's the perfect cover. Or could be it's some sort of weird lesbian thing? Like that "Lesbian Vampire Trial" in Australia last year."

DeClercq punched the speaker-phone on his desk, feeding eleven numbers into the pad. The call was answered by a machine: "I'm out of town till Friday. Leave a message at the tone."

"That," he said, "was Fly-By-Night Press. The call was placed to their listing in New York. Not what you'd expect from Knopf or Penguin Books. If you were going to mimic a book for whatever reason, would you choose one as low-profile as
Jolly Roger
? Why not
American Psycho
or
The Silence of the Lambs?"
Unless, of course, you're tied to that particular book. Pen name: Skull & Crossbones. Title:
Jolly Roger.
Copyright held by Death's-Head Incorporated. What if our killers
wrote
the book, and are now acting out the ritual it contains?"

"Both Jack the Ripper and Zodiac sent taunts foreshadowing their upcoming crimes," said Chan. "Same with the Headhunter's photos, and possibly this book. Almost without exception, serial killers are arrogant police buffs."

A sharp rap on the door interrupted them. A street cop entered with a stack of books. As he piled them on the desk, Nick read their spines: Aleister Crowley, Jack the Ripper, and the Tarot.

"Back to school, Chief?"

"We never leave, Corporal. A book that doesn't teach you something is a waste of time."

"He thinks
novels
should have bibliographies," said Chan, "so you know the author's done his homework."

"Speaking of homework," said DeClercq, "what about New York?"

"Not much in it," Chan said, handing him the NYPD fax. "Marsh lived alone on the Upper East Side. Her friends were all women. She avoided men. Her editor and biographer are both out of town. One's in Florida, at a sales conference. The other's off somewhere unknown. Both are expected back tomorrow or Friday."

DeClercq said, "The key to this case is in New York. It's in Marsh's background, or masked by
Jolly Roger."