Primal Scream (22 page)

Chandler returned to the relief map.

"One tip is skyjackers will try to use a plane to drop arms to the camp. The no-fly zone and security at bush-plane stops meets that. But how do we contain the vast terrain up here"—he swept his arm in a west-east arc north of Totem Lake—"against skilled bush-men with toboggans who want to slip in? The racket of snowmobile patrols would give us away, and it would take an army to cordon it off.

"An army we can't call in."

A voice in the crowd. The Mad Dog.

"I have an idea."

University Endowment Lands

Not for nothing did they call it Lotusland. You'd think, to hear Vancouverites, that they were the chosen people, blessed with the best climate on Earth, not too hot in the summer, thanks to the cooling sea, not too cold in the winter, thanks to tropical currents, so eat your hearts out, Easterners, and smog-shrouded Death Valley southern neighbors. Every time the East—which to British Columbians was the damned wasteland beyond the Rockies, including the prairie provinces, whatever they might say—battened down the hatches to stave off another blizzard, the national news had some Vancouver yahoo waving at the camera in a polo shirt and Bermuda shorts. But the truth was Vancouverites, whatever they might say, lived in a boring mediocre climate, too cool in the summer to qualify as "lazy, hazy days," too warm in the winter to snap their minds alert, with basically one continuous season dampened from any dramatic change by rain, rain, rain.

This morning was an exception.

The Arctic in Lotusland.

And hopefully tonight the national news would show some Vancouver yahoo turning blue in hibiscus-flowered shorts.

The Mounties had barricaded both ends of Northwest Marine Drive along Point Grey Beach. As the morning sun crept over the horizon, blaze from the heavenly furnace reddened the overnight snow.

Inspector Katherine Spann, driving west from the city, parked her four-wheel-drive in the seaside lot near the roadblock, then got out and crunched across to the Member stamping his feet to keep warm. Spann wore the same clothes she'd worn up north: navy parka, sealskin mukluks, beaver-skin cap. Flashing her regimental badge for access to the crime scene, she asked the guard to point out the path of contamination to the kill site.

"Along the water," the constable said with a nod at the sea lapping the shore to their right. Across the bay, also bloodied by the sun, Point Atkinson lighthouse winked beside DeClercq's home.

Cop shows on TV make cops look stupid.
NYPD Blue
is a prime offender. Do New York cops actually traipse through a murder scene
before
the techs complete their forensic work, shuffling shoes to deposit foreign dirt on the floor, scratching heads to flip wayward hairs about, leaving enough of
themselves
behind to provide sufficient evidence to convict them of the crime?
If so
, thought Spann,
it's time Big Apple cops come north to watch it done right.

The first cop on the scene had sealed it tight. He was the patrol cop who had responded to a call about a tree down across Marine Drive. The call was made by students who'd trudged back to UBC after their car became stuck in the snow. Avoiding the suicide run down the point's bluff, the cop had U'd around from Chancellor Boulevard to approach from the east as Spann did now. When he saw the tree was cut to fell it at an angle, and not a crash from the weight of snow, he investigated further and spotted the outline of a car buried upside down in the ditch. While checking the car to see if the driver was trapped inside, he stumbled over a corpse hidden by the snow.

A corpse without a head.

Which meant a murder scene.

The Mounted has a protocol for homicides, drilled into recruits trained for six months at Depot Division barracks in Regina, Saskatchewan. First, make sure the victim is dead. If CPR is required, perform it without disturbing evidence. The headless corpse was definitely dead, so the cop moved on to step two: sealing off the scene. This the snow cover helped him do by preserving all forensic traces under a deep-freeze. There being no suspects or witnesses about, he skipped that step, too, and followed the path he'd contaminated back to set up a roadblock on Marine Drive. Step four: he notified his detachment.

The senior Member on night-shift duty was Corporal Rick Scarlett, Spann's flying-patrol partner during the Headhunter case.

The UBC Endowment Lands are policed by University Detachment. Forming a forest buffer between the campus tipping Point Grey and Vancouver's sprawl encroaching from the east, Pacific Spirit Park was carved from the Endowment to straddle the tongue from Spanish Banks a
nd English Bay south to the Fra
ser River. Five roads cut through to the campus, so Scarlett's first call as O.I.C. of the small detachment was to Headquarters for backup to block the other four routes and barricade the top of Marine Drive where it descended the bluff to the crime scene. Next he called the VPD to seal the city flank, then satisfied the "clamp-down" would corral the killer if he was still on the Point, the Horseman called for the Eggheads.

Then he drove to the scene.

Nothing destroys a murder case like too many boys with big guns caught up in the thrill of the chase, and not enough nerds with big brains looking for specks and traces. The most important decision at any murder scene is how those who make murder their business approach the corpse. Once anything at the site is disturbed, it's not the work of the killer, so
how
involves who goes when and the path they take.

The paths most likely to have forensic clues (like hairs, fibers, footprints, weapons, or clothes) are the ones most likely used by killer or victim, so Mounties choose the
least
likely path to the corpse and mark it with tape. Here the "path of contamination" used by investigators to reach the scene ran along the shore exposed by the outgoing tide, then angled back to the upside-down car by the felled tree. Only a fool would have launched a boat in last night's storm, and this killer was anything but a fool.

Spann approached the corpse.

Corpses, actually.

Sprawled about a site resembling an archeological dig.

Cop shows on TV make techs look stupid. There they are sporting
civvy
clothes
among
the cops, like stylin' dudes in a Gap commercial, scattering hairs from their pets and dandruff about, also messing up the site, but don't they look cool? If shows have cop consultants to make them real, where do they get these guys and how in hell were they trained?

Not in barracks
, thought Spann.

The techs working this scene were all in "monkey suits": white coveralls with attached hoods and boots, wearing double gloves so they didn't leave
their
prints through thin latex. Mounties doing forensics look about as sterile as heart surgeons, and that, to do the job right, is how it should be.

Perhaps—as with Hollywood—she was too hard on cop shows on TV. Judging from the recent O.J. fiasco, which had cops around the world rolling in the aisles, howling as techs and bulls tried to outdo each other in fucking up the scene, those
were
real-life forensics in some jurisdictions. Let Keystone Kops set the standards and you get the results you deserve. Perhaps the LAPD should join the NYPD for a trip north to see it done right?

But enough of the soapbox
, Spann thought.
Down to work.

By the time Kathy arrived at the scene, a pecking order of Eggheads had searched, swept, vacuumed, cast, excavated, and printed the site, clearing the way for flat feet to tromp in. The path of contamination snaked around the felled tree to vanish into the woods, from which a cop emerged to intercept her by the overturned car.

The cop was Scarlett.

"Kathy."

"Rick."

"How ya been?"

"You know. Here and there. How 'bout you?"

"Still a corporal. But what can you do? Women and ethnics got it made. White boy's nigger of the Force. Congrats on inspector."

"Thanks for the call."

"I'd have called sooner"—his eyes dropped to her breasts—"but why lose beauty sleep while techs fart around?"

"What went down, Rick?"

His gaze returned to her face. "Like old times, eh?" Scarlett said. "If a chick got boned here instead of some fellow, I'd swear the Hunter was back from the grave."

Again the corporal's eyes copped a feel.

Pig
, thought Spann.

In a recent Regular Member Survey of the Mounted, aimed at learning why more women and ethnics leave than Caucasian males, six out of ten females claimed sexual harassment. "I'd hate to think I was recru
ited because I'm a woman . . ."
"The Force has ruined tradition to suit outside groups. Ignoring white males inflame
s hostility and dissention ..."
"For decades white males were the only recruits. Now they have to adjust and feel that's
un
just . . ."
"Females are loa
th to stop cars at night . . ."
"I'll be candid to the point of being a bigoted Archie Bunker ..."

Spann, too, had endured sexual harassment.

She had also been the object of a sex assault when Scarlett forced himself on her after both were promoted to corporal.

An assault rooted in the Headhunter case.

An assault she hadn't reported.

Law enforcement anywhere attracts sexist males. It comes with the yearning for power and authority, which are emasculated when women hold them, too. Athletic and lean, with short brown hair, a clipped brown mustache, and muddy brown eyes, Scarlett knew he had the biggest balls around, the size of which was threatened in every way by Spann. Not only was she physically a match for him, tall enough to stare him straight in the eye, and muscular enough to judo-flip him around, but Spann had mentally outshone him in the Headhunter case, and now, having both begun as constables, she had made inspector at Special X, while he wallowed as corporal in a campus detachment.

Around Kathy, Rick was a wuss.

"The dead guys were frat boys out for puss. Drunk, the fools came down the bluff from UBC"—he pointed up Marine Drive to the west—"and hit this tree chopped across the road."

"Ambush?" Spann said.

"Seems to me. But why would the killer set a trap here? Chance of a car chuting the cliff last night was slim. And who'd drive the other way knowing the bluff was ahead?"

"Maybe the tree was cut to lure a victim on foot? Like the kids with the stranded car you said called in the report?"

"If you were hunting heads, would you set your trap here?"

"No," said Spann.

"Then why did this killer?"

Beyond the tape marking the path of contamination, techs were inside the overturned car and excavating the ground around three headless corpses zipped into bags for the body-removal service. The snow rounding was blood red.

"First Member on the scene stumbled over a body. A body without a head, so he called me. Searching for the head we thought was buried under snow, archeologist found two more stiffs. No sign of the noggins either, just a concave in the drift like something was dragged away."

Spann caught movement in the woods.

Where the path of contamination cleaved into the trees.

"The way I see it," Scarlett said, "the car rammed the snag and overturned in the ditch. The killer waited for them to crawl out, or reached in and hauled them out, then, one by one, hacked off their heads. Except the last guy was dragged away, who's the reason I called you."

The Mounties crunched on.

Continuing along the path toward the bush reminded Spann of a journey through Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, one gruesome tableau leading to the next. Snow crashed down from the forest trees in clumps, lobbing bursts of crystal-white shrapnel at them like exploding mortar shells.

The body in the bush was cuffed around a tree, the neck a circle of raw flesh filled with tubes and bone. The upper back was clothed but the buttocks were bare, pants and underwear slashed about the ankles. The drift for yards around was sprayed blood red, sheltered from later snowfall by branches overhead.

Overneck, actually.

"You gotta wanna blow a load bad," Scarlett said, "to fuck a guy outside last night."

"No one 'blew a load' here," said Macbeth, easing out an anal probe and sealing it in a bag. "Unless a condom was carried off."

"DNA," said Scarlett. "I'd take the rubber, too."

"Would you?" Macbeth said archly, with a glance at Spann.

"He
was
raped?" confirmed the inspector.

"Brutally. Before death. The anus and rectum are bruised and lacerated."

"Cock ring?" Scarlett asked.

"Possibly. Or a piercing like an ampallang through the glans."

"Wow," said the corporal. "You been around. I hope your source of knowledge is professional, Doc?" A wink at Spann.

"The cuffs?" Spann asked, the question directed at him.

"Not police issue. These are sold in any bondage shop. And you can bet your ass they don't keep client lists, Kath."

"How'd he escape?"

Scarlett shrugged. "The killer's scent was erased by the storm."

"Footmarks?"

"Yeah. But all accounted for. Any footprints are just holes in the snow."

"Tire marks?"

"Nothing wild. Just snowed-over ruts from the dead guys' car and tracks beyond the barricade imprinted by us."

"That leaves snowshoes or cross-country skis. Any shallow tracks from them are filled with snow. No luck with dogs?"

"Zero," he said. "Applied around the stiffs, they sniffed no scent. We circled them in from the perimeter without success. Techs just gave the okay to cast them large here."

"Then do it, Rick."

"Yes,
ma'am
," he said, snapping her a sharp salute and clicking his heels. He used his portable to summon a handler with a dog.

Spann ignored the taunt and said, "What about the heads?"

"No sign of them we can find. You want my opinion, he's probably fucking the mouths at home to relive the thrill of the kill. Gives new meaning to getting head, eh?"

Scarlett snickered at his own pun. Gallows humor keeps cops sane. He was having fun yanking the women's chains to see if they would laugh like the boys or were humorless bitches.

Macbeth grimaced at Spann, who rolled her eyes in reply.

Humorless bitches
, said the corporal's smirk.

They left the pathologist to her anal fixation and walked to the end of the marked path to wait for the dog. Sunbeams stabbed into the bush like bloody swords, drawing vapor off the drifts like last breaths from the fallen.

"Sean O'Connor's the name of the guy cuffed to the tree, then buggered. He's the son of a big-gun engineer at Hydro. Those who kept their virginity but lost their heads are the sons of a judge, surgeon, and Reform M.P. Christ, Kath, these guys were the Great White Hope of the future, and topping them's the biggest squeal I'll ever catch."

"A
huge
crime, eh, Rick? Not like women raped and killed every day?"

"Every day, Kath. That's the point. The public is accustomed to women snatched off the streets to ravage and destroy. But these were men ambushed to cornhole and cut in the bushes."

"I thought you said they were
'boys
out for puss’
. Perhaps it's time you
boys
knew the fear you induce in us?"

"Cut the feminist crap with me, Kath. This case is; my ticket up the ranks. You and I both know you're an inspector because you got a cunt, and I'm a corporal because I don't. Filling the brass with women oh so P.C., and we know exactly what'll happen here. You got a murder up north with a raped and topped guy spiked to a tree. I got a murder here with a raped and topped guy cuffed to a tree. Special X has a shrunken head. You're Special X and I'm dinky detachment, so how long till
my
case is yours, and I'm back giving tickets to chinks in BMWs rushing to class?"

Blood pressure rising, his face turned pink.

"I was your
partner
once upon a time. Watch
Lethal Weapon
and see what a
partner
is. Watch
The X Files
and see it, too.
Partners
look out for each other.
Partners
don't let
partners
drown. Gimme a break, Kath. Keep me in the case."

Spann grabbed him by one well-developed pec. The corporal flinched with surprise. He had never been manhandled by a woman.

"Remember Seattle, Rick? Did I squeal on you? Your nuts are still in uniform thanks to me. A quiet word to DeClercq and you'd have been tubed. I owe you nothing. You owe me."

Snow crunched behind them.

"You called for a dog? Where do you want him applied, Rick?"

"Ask her," Scarlett said with venom in his glare. "She's the boss."

A Mountie and his dog. The essential stereotype of the Force. Sergeant Preston of the Yukon with his dog King. All of the crooks ran for cover 'cause he always got his man. He say, "On, King, on you great husky," and the great husky say, "Bow-wow, Bow-wow," Ray Stevens sang . . .

Well, Dirty Dan, a sneaky villain

Robbed the trading post one day

Killed off four or five Eskimos

And made his get-away

"He won't get far," say Sergeant Preston

"I've got my trusty dog

"I'll track him down and bring him back

"He'll have to pay the cost. ..."

Well, they brought that villain to justice He didn't even put up a fight

When he saw that big dog charging at him

He almost died of fright

And Sergeant Preston of the Yukon

Was proud 'cause he had done it again

He'd got his man and you could hear him say,

"Who needs Rin Tin Tin?"

He say, "King, this case is closed"